Spring is Van Fun Time

Ben has been very busy adding features to the van!

First, he is working on adding a hot shower.  This is an on-demand propane hot water heater.  We will be able to shower out the back of the van!














Here is a cabinet extension we can use while cooking or cleaning up afterwards.  It will be nice to have a place to put dishes.  It can also be used for your drink when the weather is awful and we have to eat inside the van.

It's January and we are beginning to plan for the year ahead. This means it's time to work on the van! To begin with the van is getting a new paint job. The paint they used just isn't lasting. We saw a van in Minnesota that was the same vintage as ours and it had a terrible rust problem. We have put so much work into it that we don't want ours to end up the same way. Next, we are adding a toilet and a shower. The porta potti showed up in the mail today! Now we can stealth camp if we need to. Ben found a fantastic shower setup with a 12volt pump and on demand water heater. More about that will be up coming in the future.

Spring Break - The Van goes to Moab and meets its cousin!

Ben's sister has a Sprinter van too. That makes our vans cousins. Here are the vans together at the Klondike Bluffs trailhead.

We were there to ride bikes! I'm not the biggest fan of mountain biking, so I brought my road bike along to ride while the others were riding technical trails. The first day I rode from Moab to the end of Arches National Park and back. Though I didn't do any hiking in the park, I got my exercise through 3000 feet of climbing in a 50 mile ride. The others rode Porcupine Rim from the campsite in Moab. This is a long trail, even if you start by driving to the trailhead. Everyone was tired and ready for snacks and dinner when we returned.

Sunday started out cold and rainy. We were having a hard time deciding whether to ride or not. We finally decided to take a drive through Arches National Park and forget about riding. While we were driving, the sun came out! We headed to Klondike Bluffs, my favorite trail! It's got dinosaur footprints.

At the top of Klondike Bluffs there is a bike rack and you can take a short hike into Arches National Park. It's worth the view!

The last day I rode up to Canyonlands National Park. The scenery was amazing! The view of the La Sal Mountain Range was clearer than I can ever remember it. Who wouldn't enjoy riding while looking at National Park quality views?

The last night we were treated to a beautiful sunset! Ahh.... Maybe I'll never go home.

Drawers in the Van!

Ben's been working some on the van again! On the St. George trip we had an issue with duffel bags rolling around because the drawers weren't finished yet. This gave Ben the energy to add the drawers to the van for our trip to Moab on Spring Break. We are also now able to fit two single bikes where the tandem goes for different riding applications.

The Van in St. George

We went to St. George last weekend to do a bike ride. The weather forecast was not good, but we went anyway. The weather when we awoke was absolutely horrible. It was in the 30's and raining. We were so happy to be warm and dry in the van! We kicked on the furnace and enjoyed a breakfast of eggs, sausage and english muffins while watching the weather deteriorate. We decided 40 was too old to ride in those conditions. In the end, it rained all day, with snow at higher elevations. We went to the Parade of Homes instead.

Here's the van at Sand Hollow State Park the night before the ride

Sunday night it rained all night long, and snow flakes were falling when we got up in the morning. Once again we were so happy to be warm and dry in the van!

It's only February

Yes, it's only the first full week of February and it's snowing outside, but we've got our plans down for almost every weekend in the entire summer vacation. We are riding across Nebraska and Iowa this year. In addition, we plan to try to get in Lotoja as well. This means we need to ride a century (hundred miles) every weekend. Truthfully, we would have ridden those centuries anyway, so it's not like much will change.

Sunday we rode 20 miles. It was 35 degrees, so my feet were pretty cold by the time we finished. 20 miles is a long ways from the 206 miles we plan to ride the weekend after Labor Day. We've got some work to do.

January Calendar

I've put this calendar up every year I've been a teacher... 16 different times now. It never stops being funny. Do you see the joke? Kids always guess there is some mistake in the calendar. There's not a mistake. That wouldn't be funny. This is truly laugh out loud funny, especially if you are 10 or 11.

Baby Booties for pregnant people at work.

Work

Here I am at work. I love my job, but I really want to be home today. Why? I've got a project that I'm knitting. In fact, I've got FIVE knitting projects going at home, plus one in my school bag for boring meetings. Well, for any meetings really, but especially the boring ones. Two sweaters, two shawls, one pair of socks and the eternal baby booties project. I knit the baby booties in meetings to give to pregnant teachers. I live in Utah, so there are always pregnant teachers. It's also supposed to snow today. Wouldn't it be great to be home, knitting a sweater, with a loaf of bread in the oven?

I was posting every day on my blog in December, due to the Photo Project. Now, things are getting back into the every day routine and there seems to be nothing to post. Actually, a lot of days in December had nothing to post, but I made stuff up anyway. Ben's been sick, so we haven't worked much on the van. We don't have any trips planned until Spring Break, so that makes us feel like we've got all the time in the world to finish things up. Really, all it needs are drawers in the cabinets and we'll be pretty much done. Of course, there will be little projects along the way... Fix the broken dashboard pieces, new side mirror, bulkhead cabinets, add infinitum... But those are small and don't affect the ability to camp.

Moral Quandary

Today I went to get the one Peppermint Mocha I was allowing myself this season. It's one of my very favorite things about Christmas, but I fear it is also one of the things that puts on extra pounds. At the drive through, I ordered a tall (small), non-fat peppermint mocha with no whip cream. I pulled around and there was one car in front of me. I waited FOREVER to pull up for my mocha. I wondered what these people must be ordering! However, after about five minutes they were handed a single drink and drove away! I pulled up to the window and paid for my drink. I don't ever get a receipt and I know that it was $4 something. It's always $4 something for me at Starbucks. I had to wait another five minutes for my drink. While waiting I can see them making the drinks. The barista makes an iced drink - not mine. She makes something she puts whip cream upon - not mine. Then the window guy brings me the whip cream drink. After ten minutes, I'm not going to argue about a little whip cream. Really, I don't care that much. As I drive away, I notice that I don't have a tall(small) drink, I've got a grande(medium) drink. Should I have taken it back? A grande drink is also $4 something, so maybe I paid for the larger drink. I just wasn't paying that much attention. Maybe I ordered that grande drink? I think that I wanted a grande drink, but I was going with a tall drink because of the diet. They wouldn't have been able to sell the drink they gave me and would just have lost out making me a new drink. Plus, I'm not really truly sure I didn't pay for the grande drink. I drank it. It was delicious and I would do it over again, even with the extra calories.

DPP - Day 25 - Shots from the Plane Window

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day travelling to my home. We left Ben's Dad's house at 8:00am CST and arrived at our home at 7:00pm MST (This converts to 8:00pm CST). 12 hours on Christmas Day in cars, airplanes and aiports. It really didn't feel like Christmas this year. Of course the tickets were significantly cheaper flying on Christmas. I could tell that a lot of families had snapped up the cheap tickets too. Lots of crying babies on the planes. However, we made it home safe and sound another year. Ben's Dad has a freezer full of food and I can feel good about that. Right now I'm tired and cranky and wish I had just stayed home, but I'm sure that when I'm well rested and full of a delicious peppermint mocha (the only one this year) I will feel much better about everything.

DPP - Day 24 - Snow

Snow, snow and more snow! It snowed almost all day today here in Minnesota. The weather is supposed to be nice, although in the teens tomorrow, so there should be no problem with the flight. We have a layover in Denver where the temp is supposed to be in the FIFTIES! That's more than double! SLC is supposed to be in the forties.... also more than double. It will feel like the tropics!

DPP - Day 23 - Herman the German

Nothing says New Ulm like Herman the German... Unless it's a bottle of Schell's Beer.

DPP - Day 22 - The Great White North

It's like a Norman Rockwell painting here in Minnesota. Today I mostly filled a deep freeze. Two pans of lasagna, tuna casserole, goulash and two pots of lasagna soup. Tomorrow I make a turkey. Friday I make chili, turkey tetrazzini and beef stroganoff... That's new - Ben's Dad is going to attempt cooking pasta and adding sour cream to the heated up beef stroganoff out of the freezer. I think it will work well and it's something different

DPP - Day 21 - COLD!

Here we are in Minnesota. This seems like a crazy thing to do... Head somewhere colder than home for Christmas. The bed has tons of blankets and at least we will sleep warm!

DPP - Day 20 - Note from the cat

This is for our cat sitter. I really need to work on teaching the cat to spell.

DPP - Day 19 - Best Christmas Present Ever!

I'm having a tough time thinking of new things to take pictures of, so today is an old picture again. Here I am using the best present I ever got. It's my telescope. It was the biggest surprise. I had no idea that I was getting it. In fact, it was so amazing of a present I wouldn't have even put it on my list to Santa. I really enjoy finding Messier Objects and double stars. It's a great challenge to find things in the sky. This picture was taken at the Wyoming Star Party - Weekend Under the Stars. It's very fun. We look at the stars all night and ride bikes during the day! It's in the summer, but it gets SO cold! You can see I'm all bundled up.

DPP - Day 18 - Christmas Present

This is my Christmas Present from Ben. He built the plant stand himself. That's why I got it early... Hard to hide something that is being constructed in the garage. It's exactly like a plant stand we saw at the Stickley Furniture Store, at a fraction of the price! :) It's oak and the top is the same quartz as our kitchen counter top. He also gave me the radio to fit inside it to replace the giant one we had before. What a wonderful present!