As most of you regular blog readers know, we have upgraded to Starlink for when we travel. But it is also our main source of internet for at home. So that means we have to take the dish back and forth between the house and the motorhome.
Our dish is not permanently mounted on the roof of our motorhome, like some people do.
Starlink recently made some changes to its methods of receiving signal on the Generation 3 dish. We were always the "Roam" plan so we can use it anywhere we go. But the big change is that now our Generation 3 dish is capable of receiving signals while IN MOTION!!!
What does this mean for us? It means while going through the long sections of Canada and Alaska or remote areas here in the lower 48, we can still have internet access while driving down the road. This means things like Google maps will work, or we can look ahead for information on something coming up, or we can look ahead for vacant campsites on reservation maps. It means I can work on you tube videos and blogs while travelling. And best of all, it means we can make VOIP calls over the internet with Wi-Fi calling enabled on our cell phones.
Game changer!
So now we need to find a good spot to put our dish when we are moving down the road. Fortunately, some folks on our Winnebago list have already tested this out. By placing the dish flat facing upwards in the skylight, it is able to very effectively maintain a signal while driving down the road.
Of course, when parked somewhere in the shade with trees overhead, that can be an issue. So we need to be able to put it up there but only in a temporary situation that we can remove it and set it out within the campsite when we are stopped. Also so we can remove it bring it back into the house when we are home.
We tried it out on our last camping trip by just setting it in the skylight and pulling the two sliders for the screen or shade covers towards the middle a little bit just to hold it there. Yep, it works!
In this photo above we just have it set into place and we have the modem just setting on the ledge to the left of the bunk. The cord is just dangling down and looped over one of the bunk lights. None of this is suitable for when we are driving down the road of course. So we have to make a few changes...
The first change is holding it up into place in the skylight firmly. We bought four RV stretcher tension bars that are normally used for holding items in the refrigerator or the cabinets. We bought the correct size for 2 to go crossways and 2 to go lengthways up in the skylight. So it will be double secured in both directions. We also bought long thin strips of felted pads that are used for underneath furniture on hardwood flooring. We are going to put the strips of felt pads on inner surface of the tension bars so it won't rattle against the plastic of the Starlink dish housing. The Starlink dish itself is very light, under 5 pounds.
Next problem to overcome is the power. The Starlink runs on household current AC 120 volt. You know, regular three-prong plug-in household current.
But we know that the power block itself is technically DC that can run off 12 volt. It's just the Starlink comes with a box that automatically converts it from DC over to AC for most people's needs.
But if we are driving down the road, we're not hooked up to household current AC. Nor is our factory installed inverter on our motorhome pure sine wave to operate the system either.
So what we really need is either do an expensive pure sine wave inverter upgrade, or create a workaround to hook it up directly to 12 volts. You know, DC to DC. Why convert it from DC over to AC and back to DC again???
There are a few people on Amazon or wherever that sell some homemade DC power setups for Starlink. They are kind of scabbed together, look ugly and I'm not so sure of their reliability.
Just last month Starlink has actually come out with a DC to DC power source! They first made one available for their new little mini star link (which is only limited to a 50 GB plan) but now they came out with a DC power source for the Generation 3 dish! It's so people can do exactly what we are doing --- running Starlink as they drive down the road.
We bit the bullet and ordered one, a little costly at $110. But still cheaper than a pure sine wave inverter upgrade on our entire motorhome.
(Incidentally, we would not want to run an inverter all of the time in our motorhome because there are always phantom draws and it draws power itself. We rarely use our inverter on the motorhome, especially when boondocking)
The new DC to DC power block came from Starlink in a matter of a week. Now we just had to hook it up! It comes with XT60 connectors which are commonly used on remote control cars and planes and devices. The cord is heavy duty 12 AWG, 12 gauge. You can't just plug this thing into a cigarette lighter. It's going to pop the fuses and it's a much larger draw of higher amperage. The cord that comes with the DC to DC power source is an XT60 connector on both ends. They expect you to figure out how to get power through it from whatever source you have.
We did a little research, as we usually do. We figured out what type of wiring we need and what connectors we wanted, but now we had to figure out where to put them so we don't just have cords hanging and dangling around the cab area of the motorhome.
So step one, before we ordered anything, was to go to the motorhome and figure out where we could run these cords from up by the skylight in the ceiling over the bunk, and how to get the cords down to the coach batteries in a compartment underneath our stairs.
By removing a long section of plastic trim, we were very happy to discover a hollow wall leading from the edge of the bunk all the way down to the floor. Inside that chamber is an opening leading to the battery area that had been closed off with spray foam insulation around some other wires. Happily, Steve was able to drill through the insulation and get access to the lower compartment. So he didn't even have to drill through any structure other than spray foam!!!
So now that we had the routing of the wires solved, now we had to figure out the wires and connectors themselves. What did we need? Of course, all 12 AWG thickness.
First of all, we wanted an mountable outlet to plug that XT60 cord into. We found one with a 12-gauge lead in wire, along with ordering an on/off toggle switch to be next in the chain. The switch would enable us to turn it on and off instead of just unplugging the wire. That way we can turn off the dish when not in use, especially when boondocking! The Starlink draws about 60 watts in normal use and closer to 90 or 100 watts while it's first tracking around and locating the satellites.
We also found 12 gauge wires for leading down to the battery box as well as a fused wire before hooking it to the positive power source and the ground source.
We made a little preliminary video here of how we are hooking up these wires and just test fitting them all together. Steve added the heavy ring terminals to the end of the wires. This will connect to a big block fuse by our batteries for the positive feed and the other to a ground post. We will later do a complete video of the entire installation once we get out in the motorhome itself. Here is the start of the video in temporary unedited format:
I hope that explained what we are trying to do.
We will get more done when it warms up after this cold snap.
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While we were out in the motorhome, we did one other little upgrade. Someone on our Winnebago list showed that they cut these carpet tiles to the exact size of the stairs and stuck them down with double stick carpet tape. It's a much nicer surface than the ridged metal that was there that caught all of the gravel and dirt and was really tough to clean out even with a whisk broom or vacuum cleaner. These carpet tiles are easily removed if they get too dirty and put some new ones down with more double stick carpet tape. I think they look nice and neat and should be an improvement.
Yesterday was a fun day for us. We got to go pick up these two shaggy little grubby grand puppies and bring them to the groomer. Our kids work during the day and don't get back into town until after 5:00 p.m. So getting sassy little puppies to the groomer doesn't happen unless they use up vacation time.
Grandma and Grandpa to the rescue!
It was almost unrecognizable to pick up little Biscuit and Ewok after their grooming session! Now they have to get put in their little jackets every time they go in and out for potty because it's very cold out. They don't have any fluffiness left to keep them warm. They look bare naked...
So that's about it for yesterday. Today has dawned very cold and icy with wind chills below zero. But the sun is out.
It's going to be a very big exciting day for us. Our Christmas present to the grandkids is to take everybody out to a Mexican meal at their favorite restaurant here in town. After that, we all go to the bowling alley. We reserve two lanes all afternoon, and we let them bowl as long as they want. Complete with drinks and snacks at the bowling alley, all the little cousins can have a blast. The grown-ups take one alley, and the kids take the other.
Now that the holidays are over, our serious planning for our summer trip to Alaska can begin. Not that we plan with any reservations and timetables and schedules. No no no!
But we are planning routes:
---adding what we would like to see
---which way to go up
---which way to go back
---which loops to make
----which way to go so we don't repeat ourselves!
What we really find most helpful is watching YouTubes of other RV people traveling up to Alaska. We are taking notes and marking maps of places they stayed, boondocking spots, campground rates, and interesting things to see along the way.
So if you have a favorite or an unusual thing that isn't just a normal "tourist trap", please post it in the comments below??
We like the natural things, we like the beautiful things, we like the out of the way things. No crowds, no tourist stuff, no high fees to do crazy things like ride a zip line or fly up to the top of Denali in a plane. Lol!
We are working on a project later today that I will take the time to photograph. We have to wait for our Amazon delivery for the parts and the pieces. More on that later.
One of the other things that we did this month in the motorhome was to reorganize some of our storage. Aldi, in our favorite "Aldi Finds" aisle, had something new two weeks ago.
They are very sturdy baskets, I will call them totes. Actually the tag said laundry basket. But they're not like any laundry basket we've ever seen before. These are very sturdy and solid. The upper rim is actually reinforced with the secondary piece of plastic snapped into place. They are a little larger than the fabric totes I already had up on the top bunk. The best part about these is that they have a sturdy bottom and we can use them to haul items in and out of the house when we load and unload. Especially things like groceries, canned goods, dog supplies, or my sewing stuff. We bought five of them, but only four seem to fit very well across our top bunk. The extra one off to the right might be used for our next project... Stay tuned for that.
We put down a rubber non-skit mat that is the thicker type used for under throw rugs, rather than the thinner shelf liner. Nothing moves around and we haven't had a problem. It's a great storage solution for us.
Incidentally, we removed the mattress for the top bunk and only put it in if the grandkids are coming along. We hang it along on the garage wall sideways in a sling made from a new plastic tarp so it stays clean.
At the same time, Aldi had matching hampers for the bathroom. This hamper seem to be sturdier and has a smaller footprint than the one we had before. The only problem was the matching top did not match. Shoppers before us had taken all of the dark tops and last one was the lighter gray top matching the rest of the hampers on the shelf. Oh well, I guess that we have a contrasting top in the bathroom but it really doesn't matter.
We are still debating on whether or not we will take along our small portable washing machine to Alaska. It is very, very handy, especially for people who hate laundromats like we do. It only weighs 28 lb. We lift it out to take a shower and set it in the aisleway by the kitchen. Otherwise it just rides in the shower stall out of the way.
The only thing is that we have to plan accordingly with our limited freshwater tank capacity when using it. We have to know when we will be able to refill our fresh water supply right afterwards. It uses about six to eight gallons of water to wash and approximately the same amount again to rinse. I can do about six to eight shirts and a pile of underwear and socks per load. Towels or jeans take more water and longer wash times.
It normally rides right in the shower stall. I'm hoping that both the washing machine and the new hamper will fit in the same spot. I haven't carried out the washing machine to try the new arrangement out yet. The washing machine is winterized and stored in our garage for now.
Here is a pic I took last summer of the washing machine in the shower stall.
Remember in yesterday's blog where I talked about actually baking the wooden artwork that we found in the woods? I couldn't find the photos yesterday but I found them now today.
Youngest granddaughter Claire helped me on this project. We decided to bake it on a long low temperature to make sure there were no bugs or eggs hidden in the wood. Claire helped wrap it up in tin foil.
We set it on a baking sheet in the oven for an hour on 150°. We didn't see any bugs in the tin foil.
After it had cooled off I gave it three coats of polyurethane. I think it's absolutely amazing as a piece of natural artwork!!
Speaking about artwork---
Now that the beautiful quilt is finished for the bed in the motorhome, I am also working on finishing up these blocks of maple leaves. I was inspired on a trip out to New England last year. I saw a beautiful quilt like this hanging in a Vermont Visitor Center. I changed it up a little bit and now I've been working on it one block at a time while we travel this summer. Because it's in small pieces, I can work on a little bit at a time. Soon it will be put together into a larger queen sized quilt. I think I will either sell it or I could keep this one on the love seat in the motorhome for cuddling up during movie time.
It's so easy to piece together and just using three or four different prints per block, it makes a nice variety. There is a balance and theme to each piece with a certain placement of each color. But really, each leaf will be slightly different.
I'm debating about arranging it in patterns this way with every four leaves going out in opposite directions, or putting a brown strip in between each block called "sashing".
And since we are on the topic of quilts, my sister always gives me quilting magazines. She works at a library and gives me the outdated ones. Then I can page through and look for interesting patterns that appeal to me. I actually rip the pages right out and save them in my files. It's a lot easier than saving a whole magazine when there's just one quilt that I like.
I happened to see this one last spring. Again, it's one of those quilts I can work on in small spaces with small pieces until I assemble all the blocks. As opposed to a large quilt that needs big areas for sewing. Perfect for traveling.
In the magazine, they only showed four blocks for a small wall hanging. Instead, I will make it as a large queen size quilt.
When we stopped last spring at Missouri Star Quilt Company, I invested in a big hunk of 34 pieces of this beautiful Chickadee Landing fabric by Moda. The tiny prints will work out very well for small 2-inch squares in these blocks.
One other thing we need to prep before going traveling is to make sure our little Nicholas is updated on all of his shots and gets another year of flea and tick and heartworm medicine. Going over the border now has new rules with a form printed out regarding the dogs health certificate, micro chipping and proof of rabies vaccine. It was time for his yearly checkup. We have now had him for 1 year!
He wasn't too happy about being at the veterinarian, but he did well and let her examine him and he got three new shots in his butt!
It's amazing that he was only 12 lb when we were able to trap him out in the woods 1 year ago. He was skin and bones and severely dehydrated, malnourished and on his very last legs. If we hadn't been able to trap him when we did, he surely would have died within another day or two, according to the vet.
Now he is up to 23 lb and is full of muscle and flesh and a good full coat.
If you are interested in reading his story, here is a link to the blog post from last year:
Although New Year's Day was cloudy, it was somewhat warm at about 30°. We decided to take Nick for a walk in the backyard and let him run around in circles, just like a horse on a lounge line. It really wears off his puppy energy. He is now about 1 years and 10 months, so he has a lot of puppiness yet in him.
From there we wandered into the nature preserve that abuts back to our property. We're very lucky to have such a natural environment right behind our house that will never be developed into homes. We wandered on through the paths and the "two-track" trails in the woods.
Although you really can't see it, Nick is on a very long flexy leash. He is never to be trusted off leash.
It's nice to walk back there this time of the year. The ground is frozen enough to not be a muddy mess, and the leaves are down so we can see further and not get lost!
It was cold and we bundled up, but at least it wasn't windy. That makes it tolerable to go for a walk through the woods.
Nick says with his fur coat, he doesn't even notice the cold. He's just prancing and dancing his way all around in the woods. He looks at birds and squirrels and thinks he's on the lookout for the great big scary deer who chased him when he was on the run. We actually have a video of him being stalked by a big buck through the fog! It was a year ago when we were attempting to catch him with live traps and wifi cameras. The big deer scared him. A lot. We didn't see any deer today, though.
This land is part of the NorthEast Wisconsin Land Trust. Beyond that is state DNR land of protected marshland for migratory birds. Many many years ago there was a big barn back here on this land. It was later torn down, along with a big 2 story brick home. All that's left is the foundation with the empty spacing from the windows of the dairy barn. Our grandkids call this a "castle" because these sections appear to look like a ramparts of a huge castle to their imaginations.
With the little bit of snow on top of each flat section, it makes kind of an interesting detail through the woods.
We walked along, enjoying the ambling path through the woods around the nature preserve. Here and there are little bits of remainders of the fall. We don't have tons of snow yet to cover this all up.
Imagine our surprise to run into our neighbors, who were walking their female dog Maple. They usually go away for the winter months, finding places down south to escape the Wisconsin cold. This year they stayed home as they are helping with elderly parent care. Nick and Maple sniffed nose to nose a couple of times on other walks. This time they had a chance to be a little more investigative and decided they were going to become friends.
We chatted for a while out in the woods, and then invited them back to our house so we could let both dogs off leash within Nick's fenced in potty yard.
Nick was rapidly becoming enamored with his new girly-friend. He was so interested in her and wanted her to play with him! (p.s. he is neutered)
We set them both free of their leashes, contained within the fence. Now we figured they could play and play and play!
Nope.
All Maple wanted to do was smell the remnants of last night's dinner on our barbecue grill! Nick couldn't convince her to run around and play with the balls with him. He tried. We then went into the house and they nicely shared his toys and she explored our home. He was so excited to have a playmate over, but she just decided to settle down at her owner's feet and relax and wait until it was time to go.
After she left, Nick looked around for a little bit. Unrequited love. Where did she go? Broken heart?
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Okay, on to the next part of my blog post title. I decided to do one more campground review on our very last place we went camping in November. We happened to look at the weather report and it was going to be some pretty nice weather and we didn't have snow on the ground yet. We looked online and saw that our favorite campsite at one of the campgrounds to the north of us was available. So we booked it online and tossed a few things into the motorhome. Away we go!
Here's the website with the information for Morgan Campground located on Timm's Lake. This is a Marinette County Park, in the Northeast corner of Wisconsin:
I did a really nice campground review last year on this same place, so if you want more details and more photos of the bath house, the lots, the fees, etc here is the link to that one:
One of our favorite sites is number 44. It's way back down in the corner of the newest section of the park. It's down in a little dip, and it's a pull through campsite. It includes electric and there is water and dump station available nearby. It's also very close to a small pit toilet. We really, really like this campsite because it's so private and you don't really see anybody else around you. The only drawback is it doesn't get any decent cell reception nor TV broadcast over the antenna. We don't care because we have Starlink. But that may be a factor for some people. It seems you have to walk up the roadways and stand on the hill to get a halfway decent cell phone reception of one or two bars.
We pulled in, set up, put down our levelers and made ourselves at home.
In no time Steve had the lawn chairs out by the campfire. It sure doesn't take us long to set up.
I whipped up a pot of creamy potato soup with bits of ham. I had a few extra vegetables on hand to dump in, but the base was one of those Bear Creek soup mixes. It makes a pretty big pot of 8 cups of soup. We throw the rest in little containers and freeze it in portions enough for a couple more lunches.
The sun was setting and the temperature was going to get cold overnight. I think it was getting into the low twenties or high teens. We had the furnace going as well as a little electric heater. Our holding tanks also have factory installed electric heating pads that run off electricity. If we weren't plugged in, we wouldn't be able to use them because they would quickly diminish our battery capacity of the Bluetti power station. They are like little heating blankets attached to the holding tanks.
We had discovered also the helpful hint of clipping one of my quilts up across the ceiling to the original strip of the bunk curtain rod. We removed the curtains long ago. We used little black clamps from the hardware store. It added an extra layer of insulation between us and the front cockpit and windshield.
We also unrolled all of our reflectix insulation panels for each window. We have pieces cut exactly the size of each window and tuck them into place. I made a video on it that I will soon have put together ... along with a bunch of other hints in tricks of things we use in our motorhome. Stay tuned for that.
The next morning, we had beautiful bright sunshine and blue sky. Boy oh boy, were we ever glad that we had decided to go camping. Here it is the middle of November in Wisconsin. We normally should be sitting at home with about a foot of snow with winter well underway. But nope, it felt like fall camping in early October. I am so glad we took advantage of it.
While we were in the woods, we came across this piece of artwork created completely by Mother Nature. Absolutely gorgeous!!!! This hunk of wood looks like it was pulled out of a sawn off tree stump. The shape and twist of the grain was so unusual.
I kept looking and looking at it and couldn't put it down. I don't even know what type of wood it is.
The bottom edge was already flat from where somebody must have cut that log off with a chainsaw. It's been sitting for quite a while in the woods and was very weathered so it wasn't a fresh cut on the bottom edge.
Here are photos of it from all four sides...
Of course, there's no way we could have just toss this into a campfire! To me it was a piece of art.
So I had to take it home. First I wrapped it in a plastic bag and sprayed in some bug killer. Then a few days later we wrapped it in tin foil and baked it in the oven for about an hour on low.
Here's a photo later in the week after I gave it three or four coats of a clear polyurethane. Now it sets on the mantle in our living room!!!
Back to camping...
We made the most of a couple days at the campground. We took walks and got out the e-bikes. We knew we only had about 3 days to enjoy it before things were going to get cold and wet and snowy.
On our last day, we really didn't make a breakfast. So instead Steve fried up some of the bacon for a delicious lunch of BLTs.
Just look at that! Yummmmm
We eventually had to pack up and head home. But that was okay too. It was good to get out for one last time and I feel it was an extra bonus because it was the middle of November. I don't often expect to go camping in November. But when I looked back at last year's blog, that's exactly where we were camping, same place--- exactly in the middle of November!!
Today is pretty sunny with some scattered clouds and blue sky. It's quite chilly at 24° but with such a wind that the wind chill is closer to 12° to 14°. We just got back from another walk with the dog (only in the backyard this time). We didn't make it much past the two acre mark before we had to come back in the house. Brrrrrr!
After a warm lunch, I think it's time to take a nap with all this beautiful sunshine streaming and across the bed.
It's a new year and time to look forward. I know that I've been slack on the blog ever since we kind of wound up our fall camping in November. We've kinda been thru "some stuff" and it's time to get back on track.
We spent New Years Eve sitting by our fireplace and watching some traveling YouTubes. Sipping on mugs of Tom and Jerry's is a peaceful way to pass the evening. For those who don't know, Tom and Jerry is a eggnog type batter hot drink that you top off with a sprinkling of nutmeg and add a shot of brandy if you wish!
We kind of dozed off before midnight, but I woke up again about 10 minutes to midnight. I was able to roll over a snoozing Steve during the countdown of the last few seconds. One good "smack" at midnight and it was time to go back to sleep.
We woke up to some beautiful snowflakes floating down. It was absolutely gorgeous. I'm going to try to insert a little video clip here :
We had some unusually warm weather last week which melted all the snow that we had on the ground. It's nice to see things covered again with fresh white new snow. Covers up all the dreary browns and grays.
I left off on my last blog with a couple links of our fall camping. We had finished our big US2 trip by heading east across the rest of the Upper Peninsula and then looping down around Lake Michigan. We added some leveling jacks down in White Pigeon Michigan at Bigfoot.
After we arrived home, there was still some nice weather to continue some camping in and around the North woods of Wisconsin. Here is one of our last trips out:
And the very last camping trip of the season was in mid November!
It was at Morgan Park on Timm's Lake in Marinette County. I'm still working on the YouTube for that....
If you are interested in any of my YouTubes, I had started a new channel this year that's dedicated just to our traveling. It's called RVing: What-A-View on YouTube and here is the link if you care to like and subscribe:
Don't worry, it's non monetized and non-sponsored. Just like my regular old YouTube channel of KarenInTheWoods where I put everything else for the last 17 years:
I did add a video on that older channel recently of the two of us decorating the exterior of the house. It's in fast forward motion and kind of funny....
But we got it done and it lit up that night. I think it's just beautiful.
Perfect to get in the mood for the holiday season.
Inside of the house, we had some grandkids come over on Black Friday while their parents were busy doing other Christmasy things. They took care of hauling in all of our boxes and totes from the garage and decorating our home. Full of squeals of delight and of course extra sugar and pizza, they put out all of the decorations. It's cute to hear them remember and reminisce over each one. Building their memories to carry on to their families someday. I cherish these times when they come over to visit with us. It's great to have them at this age where they still want to do stuff with Grandma and Grandpa. Awwwww.
As we got closer to Christmas, we had our traditional "Cookie Day" together with the grandkids. It's such a special day to me because I get all of the grandkids to myself, without any other outside distractions like presents, other parents, traveling from place to place, and big family celebrations. The cookie day event is just for me and only me. I feel kind of selfish, but I also get all of these cookies decorated and they all go home with a big tote full of their creations. To me, it's more special than Christmas itself. I get a lot of one-on-one with them, plus I also get to hear them interact with each other and joke around and build more memories.
Ahead of time, I baked 18 dozen plus sugar cutout cookies. I get the baking done ahead of time because it takes quite a while. And that way when the kids come it's only the fun stuff of spreading on all the decorations and having a giggling good time during the entire process. We fill them full of pizza for supper and then get to doing all of the cookies....
It is such a special day for me and I'm glad that they still will pose all together for a photo. Missing are two grandchildren of the bunch, but as many come as they can. Even the oldest, Jameson, who is now 16.
They are all wearing handknit hats that I made for them.
Afterwards, we drive them all through the Winter Wonderland that is set up at our local campground in our city. It's all lit up at night sponsored by various businesses and organizations and private displays. It's quite an event to drive through ---- and we lay down the back seats of our SUV so the kids can roll around and romp in the back end. Its just like we did when we were kids in the back of a station wagon in the 1960's! Once we are done driving through the display, we stop under a street light and put all the seats back in the upright positions. Then everybody is seat belted back in correctly. But it's just kind of fun to break the rules for a few minutes while we drive slowly through the park.
Our little town also has two roundabouts. I always make sure that we drive around them in a complete circle loop-de-loop every time on the way there and the way back. It creates a lot of giggles and I hope it's also creating memories.
As for Christmas Eve, we don't like to make demands on the family members to all gather on the exact holiday. Instead we set aside the following Saturday for everyone to meet up at our oldest daughter Erin and husband Waylen's cabin in the woods.
That means Steve and I have a peaceful quiet Christmas Eve alone at home. We put on some soft music and Steve fires up the outdoor propane burner set up with the big kettle and a huge steaming basket. We steamed up snow crab legs for our special Christmas Eve dinner.
Snuggling up by our fireplace, next to the lit up tree, with Christmas carols playing... This is peaceful. We are thankful for everything that we have gone through this year and we are reflecting on our memories. We are also making plans for the future year and what we would like to accomplish.
By the weekend, it was time to load up the SUV and head on up to the kids' cabin. Because the roads are covered with salt and snow and slush we do not drive the motorhome up there. It's best to keep it clean and dry and in the yard waiting for an escape in the future. The cabin is only 45 miles away, so it's a short jaunt over the river and through the woods...
Shrieks of delight
and laughter
and fun
and gifts
and wrapping paper
and food
and presents
and decorations
etc etc etc
This is what a Family Christmas is all about.
Poor Jameson was feeling ill and opted to not spread his germs among the rest of us. We kept in contact with him through the miracle of the internet, and sent him photos and texts throughout the evening so he would feel included.
Grandma got regalated over to the kids table... And I sure didn't mind because they were full of silliness and jokes and memories and talking about fun stuff. They were also sneaking treats to all three of the dogs!
The grownups sat at the bar, and we had a feast of all the wonderful food that everybody brought. Topped off with a homemade cheesecake by granddaughter Whitney.
Here is Chef Whitney, my mini mini me, along with our youngest daughter Heather who is my mini me. Lol!
The kids decorate up their cute little cabin in the woods, and host all of us now every year. It's becoming quite a tradition. They have a lot more room than we have in our little house. It's great to gather up there in the northwoods and build more family memories.
We headed on home with smiles on our faces, and love in our hearts.
Christmas was good this year. At home, my special present was a three-piece camera case. I have gotten a new Panasonic Lumix digital SLR camera for my birthday, and this case will allow me to carry that along with our two GoPros and all the gear and even the laptop for processing as well as the tripod. It can come apart into three pieces and be used separately or put it all together and use it as a backpack. For our upcoming travels this summer, it's going to be very handy!
The other big thing that I've been working on this year has been a special quilt to put in our motorhome. I collected the fabrics to make this quilt last year from a tiny little quilt shop in Canada called The Buttons Quality Fabric and Yarn Shop just east of Sault ste Marie Canada:
The woodsy themes and natural prints of these fabrics are carefully picked out from the Stonehenge line by Northcott. The name of the quilt pattern is called Winter Solstice.
Ironically, I finished sewing the quilt on December 21st which WAS the Winter Solstice! That was not planned at all--- here it is out on the bed in the motorhome along with the two little throw pillows that I made to go with it.
The most important part was the tag! My friend Connie has an embroidery machine and made this tag for me. If you read closely, you will see what our upcoming summer travel plans are:
YUP!
WE ARE PLANNING
A 3 TO 4 MONTH LONG TRIP TO
ALASKA!!!
We are still in the planning stages, but we figure it's on our bucket list and we better get it done before it's too late. I did have a bit of a cancer scare this last few months but things are looking good and all contained within the margins from surgical removal. I don't go back for six more months so that should give me the clearance to go and leave for Alaska by May.
If we don't take the time to do this for ourselves now, when will we ever do it?
We are watching a lot of YouTubes of different RVers who are traveling throughout Canada and into Alaska. We are taking copious notes and adding a lot of interesting boondocking spots to our maps. We have The Milepost book for planning from 2024. We will buy the newest version in 2025 as soon as it's available in print.
We hope you all follow along and I want to try to blog every night while we are traveling. Because we have the Starlink, we should have internet access wherever we go. They may be short blogs, they may be long blogs. Who knows? But I will also follow up with videos on the YouTube channel that I made specifically for traveling.
Please join us for this upcoming adventure??
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the meantime, while we are still at home, we are getting a few things done around the house. We spend the majority of our time down here in this addition room called The She Shed. It really was an attached garage and mud room to our old farmhouse. Steve and I made it this way to contain all of my weaving, quilting, sewing and knitting stuff.
I have about 10 of these handwoven sample panels of shaft switching and twill weaving from classes that I took from Jason Collingwood over the years. Steve asked what was I going to do with them? I used to have them hanging on the walls in our last few homes, but never got around to hanging any in this one.
Out came the ladder and the laser level. In no time at all, he had four of them hung up on the wall in my She Shed.
What a guy. He sure makes me smile.
We are not sure about taking any trips this winter. We still have doctor appointments and a dentist appointment to finish up during the month of January. Then of course, the dreaded property taxes are due. Once these things are all taken care of, maybe we can see our way clear to taking off in February and March to go south somewhere warmer.
But we are not sure, maybe we will just save our pennies and stay home.
Nicholas thinks staying home on the couch in the She Shed is not such a bad idea either...
Stay tuned, and maybe you will see what we figure out what to do next???
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