Buses By the Bridge -- pt. 4

Bright and way too early (yes, I have pictures of the sunrise to prove it), we packed up, hit Starbucks on our way out of town and headed down to Tucson.

Our good friend Hobie has a little "casita" on the west side of Tucson where he spends his winters far, far away from Washington's wet, rainy weather. Here's a picture of his labyrinth which you can even see on satellite pics of his place. Pretty darn cool! 

   

Saguaro National Park (west) is pretty much right next door. What an interesting drive that was. The Bearded One and Spotted One weren't too crazy about the endless miles of washboard road but the scenery was so worth it. 

 After the saguaros the destination was Pima Air Museum. The Bearded One spent three hours checking out the aircraft (yawn). The Spotted One & I made ourselves comfortable in the bus and tried to do some reading. 

 Next up was Mission San Xavier del Bac. This is a beautiful mission. I wish we had been able to spend more time but, at this point the sun had decided to stay out and we didn't want the Spotted One to get overheated in the bus. 

 There were lots of photographic opportunities. 

 I was fascinated with this cactus that looks like an artichoke.

 And, there was Indian fry bread! Yum!

 Driving in and out of Tucson were fields and fields with these huge tarp covered bales. They were cotton. But not just any type of cotton, these were Pima cotton fields. If you look closely you can see some little tufts of white left on the plants here and there.

After 12 days in the bus, the dog that absolutely refuses to put his head down and sleep while we are driving finally relented. It was about this time that we were also able to pull into a gas station without him barking like crazy at everybody. There is hope......

Would you believe -- 7 miles from home we get hit with a golf ball size rock, smack dab in the middle of the windshield? Oh that hurt. But, I guess when you consider everything, completing 3922 miles with just a broken windshield that's not so bad, right? We didn't spend any time in a repair shop like some people did, or sick for the entire trip like somebody else......

We came home to the aftermath of a huge snow and ice storm. The Seattle area doesn't get snow very often and even less rarely do we get ice storms. Especially storms of this magnitude. Our neighbor said everything was coated in 3/4" of ice. It is now a week later and we still have two huge piles of branches to deal with. We will have to have a tree expert look at this poor tree. There are so few branches left now....

Buses By the Bridge Road Trip - pt. 3

(Forgive the delay in getting this posted -- the Blogger app on my iPad decided to stop working......)

What can you say about a four day VW gathering that draws 313 buses to the shores of Lake Havasu in the middle of January? 

 That's us, the brown one right next to Bev. to the left and out of the picture is the sidewalk and then the sand and beach. 

How many VW guys does it take to fix Bev's antenna so she can listen to her beloved NPR again?

If you thought a real VW is slow....

Some people had primo spots right on the beach.....

  The kids got to paint this bus. Apparently it's become a tradition. (Yes, it's all washable paint.) 

  

 Walter from Burning Man was there. At nite he was quite a sight, all different colors of neon lights.

Down the canal was the bridge -- London Bridge. 

 And, at the end of the canal was the little lighthouse. The last night the sunset was beyond spectacular. 

 

Buses By The Bridge Road Trip - pt. 1

Whew! We've had an exhausting few weeks. I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing? Back on the afternoon of Jan. 6th we packed up the bus, hitched up Woodstock, our teardrop cargo trailer and left the Seattle area for a two week road trip in our VW bus.

The eventual destination was to be Lake Havasu City for a very large annual VW bus gathering. But, we did some sightseeing along the way. First stop was just south of Portland. From there we headed south to Grants Pass where we took the scenic route over to Crescent City, California -- right along the coast. Our timing was perfect -- sunset. We decided to push on a little farther and stayed in Eureka. The next day we took the incredibly scenic Avenue of the Giants which parallels Hwy. 101. Since it was fairly early on a Sunday morning in January, we basically had the road to ourselves.





They really were giants. I loved how the road was literally right next to the trees. If you've never seen the redwoods you really must put this on your bucket list.




We stopped at the obligatory Chandelier tree but sadly we were too tall to drive through it. What an impressive tree it is.




From here we took the scenic route around Clear Lake and on to Sacramento to spend the night with the Bearded One's brother. Along the way I spotted this lovely "Christmas Cactus".








The following morning saw us heading east towards Tahoe. The weather was a beautiful 53. Sadly, up until just last week they had not seen any snow and golfing was the hot sport instead of the usual skiing at this time of year. This is about as close to Tahoe as we got. We then took yet another scenic route that is usually closed this time of year.




Yet even at this altitude we didn't see any snow. The creeks were iced over but that's about it. Somewhere on the descent from 8200+ feet we heard a loud pop. Nothing seemed amiss with the bus but we were concerned nonetheless. It wasn't until the next morning that we discovered the source of the noise. When we opened up the cupboard to get out the coffee supplies we discovered the previously unopened bag of potato chips had exploded inside the cupboard. While relating this story sitting around the campfire several days later we found we were not alone in having had this somewhat scary occurrence.




The east side of Mt. Whitney taken from Lone Pine, California.

Next stop -- Death Valley.

LizA.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

VW Wanderings

We spent 8 lovely days wandering eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and the western edge of Idaho. We saw some amazing scenery, visited with good friends and celebrated our 20th anniversary. All in all, an absolutely wonderful week.

Our week started out in Shelton at a farewell party for Peter, our nephew who is off to spend a year studying in Japan. From there we made it to the last nite of the Star Gazing Party outside of Goldendale. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been SO COLD. The stars were absolutely amazing and the members of the Seattle Astronomical society were so eager to share their knowledge. The good  news, all the hard work on installing the new furnace in the bus paid off. Not only did it work, it cooked me out! I have never asked The Bearded One if I could turn DOWN the heat before. Only the Spotted One didn't think it was too warm.

After Goldendale our wanderings took us to Pendleton to visit with an old friend who was not able to attend the Catherine Creek ReUnion campout. It was a good visit -- amazing to see how quickly Margaret's kids are growing up.

The following morning after a few detours to a quilt shop and the Pendleton store, we were on our way again.

A slight detour on our way to Lewiston took us to Palouse Falls.

After spending our Anniversary at Hells Gate State Park, we took a scenic route south through Idaho. Our original intention had been to do Hell's Canyon Scenic Bypass. Unfortunately, due to some serious washouts, the road is closed in a couple places. So, we did 95 south, through some of the most scenic country I've ever seen. The route had everything from recently cut wheat fields, to beautiful, rolling "hills", farm land and beautiful canyons following the Salmon River. Despite the rain, it was a beautiful drive, accompanied by a captivating audio book.

Our journey ended at Catherine Creek State Park in Union, Oregon. After setting up camp in the rain, well, showers, we settled in for 3+ days of relaxation and visiting. By Saturday we had about 34 VW buses.

Between the friends, food and wonderful bluegrass music, it was another successful gathering. The folks at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Blue Mountain District go out of their way to help us make this such a great event. Hats off to them!

Here's what a certain Spotted One spent most of his time doing:

Hoping and wishing that he had thumbs so that he could open the magic cupboard in which the cookies were imprisoned.

Not Much To Show

Well, after almost 1-1/2 months, I have FINALLY managed to finish the curtains for the bus! Had to, we're going camping next weekend!

I think they look pretty darn cute. And, there's enough fabric leftover for me to make yet another quilt for the bus. Here's a closeup of the fabric -- note the yellow bus AND the teardrop trailer.

Other than the curtains, the only thing I've been working on is the trailer. It's coming along, slowly. We seem to take two steps forward and one backward. After getting the main portion of the trailer skinned with the masonite and everything worked just perfectly, we thought we were on a role. Skinned the hatch, using about a bazillion clamps. Let it dry for about 22 hours, like the trailer, then unclamped everything. We even took all the clamps back across the street to the neighbor! Came back to find that half the hatch had sprung!

We're hoping that because the weather was cooler and damp, it didn't let the glue dry completely. We will see when we unclamp it again later today.

Meanwhile, we discovered that the trailer will have to be inspected by the Washington State Patrol prior to being able to license it. We've also been told that it could take up to 6 weeks for an appointment. Grrrrrrrr! That is NOT GOOD. We've been working all summer to get this trailer done so we can take it on our 4 day campout to eastern Oregon, the biggest WetWestie campout of the year! I'll know more on Monday when I can actually talk to an inspection officer. They only work Mon-Thurs.

If you are really interested in viewing more pictures of the teardrop build, they can be found here: Teardrop Build Pictures.

Too Many Projects

First off, the trailer....final varnish coats have been put on hold the past few days due to weather. It's tough to varnish when it's rainy or windy. We're hoping to finish up the varnish this weekend and move on to the floor construction.

Meanwhile, another bus project is the curtains. Here's what I'm doing to the curtains. You can see the old, loose weave curtains on the right. I'm using those as a base and covering the inside bus portion with this cute Happy Camper fabric from Clothworks. Look, it has a VW bus AND a teardrop trailer! How cute is that. My neighbor says I need to make yet another quilt for the bus with this fabric.....hhhmmmmm.

Also in the works is Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery, Christmas Lights. This is a 3-part mystery being published in Quiltmaker magazine. Most of the QB's are joining in on this mystery. Here is the first part, all complete. I had the paisley in my stash so that will be my border. I then pulled a brown from it to use instead of Bonnie's suggested black print.

See the brown in this closeup. I'm sticking with Bonnie's scrappiness, but not using strictly all Christmas fabrics. At least that's the plan right now. Naturally that is subject to change if I decide the quilt is calling to me to use more Christmas fabrics. They do that you know, call to you as you're working on them, or when you've put them aside for awhile. Only a quilter can hear the call of fabrics though. Ain't that right Quilters?

Also in the ongoing projects pile are these polka dot 9-patches. Crazy Mom Quilts has a One a Day quilt-along. I joined figuring it would give me the motivation to move these little guys along. Yes, they are little -- they will finish at 3".

I'm using setting blocks instead of sashing. As you can see, even the setting blocks are polka dot! Unfortunately this project is stalled until I get more of my polka dot fabric cut. I have quite a stack still waiting to be cut for this other polka dot project that's been lingering for quite awhile.

And then there are the couple Christmas gifts I thought I would get an early start on. But, I can't show them here. There is also the request from a fellow Dalmatian owner to make her some more doggie panties, a.k.a. Bitches Britches. Years ago, when we had a female show dog I made panties for her to wear when she was in season. They became quite a hit among the Dalmatain crowd and I made countless pairs to sell to help support rescue.

So many projects, so little time.....Have a great weekend, and for those of you in the hot parts of the country, stay cool.

That Plaid

Remember how I mentioned that The Bearded One actually liked Hip 2B Green? Remember how I mentioned he said it would look really good in a green VW bay window bus? Remember how I said "no way". Well, just in case you were thnking I was being mean or something, I'll let you see why I feel that way.

See this plaid upholstery? This is just one of the reasons why you will never see one of these buses in my driveway. What are the other reasons, hhhmmm, let me count the why nots. Comfort, lack of heat, tacky, tacky upholstery, comfort -- I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. Besides, he's about to spend lots of $$$ to give his current bus a transplant.

Enough ranting, I think it's time to go do some quilting.