Back online at last!

Posted on July 25, 2016 by landyachty

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Many of you have wondered if something happened to us, well it did to Jim. I had a minor accident in Dawson City, Yukon while panning for gold. I was helping some folks learn how to pan while Miss Peggy was in the stream with a sluice working the ground! I turned to answer a question and ran smack into a picnic table with my thigh. I swear it moved 2 feet, but alas it was solid concrete. After a few days it looked pretty bad and we went to the hospital/clinic in town.

The nice doc there assured us nothing was broken just very black and blue. He gave me some HD pain meds, and started me on 3 antibiotic pills 4 times a day!

Went back a couple of days later and the calf of my leg was swollen and getting a few blisters. We back the third and fourth time, he lanced the blisters and felt this was the infection leaving my body. He requested we get medical attention in Fairbanks.

We took off for the Top of The World Highway via Chicken AK, and I was running a 103 degree fever during those 2 day. Arrived at Tok AK on Friday to pickup some refrigerated medication which had been overnighted to me. It finally got there on Monday at noon. Thank God it was still cold enough.

First day in Fairbanks I had to go to a dentist for emergency glueing of a cap!

Second day I went to the clinic first thing, by now my leg looked like a bear had mauled me (should have taken pics – the docs and hospital took enough!) They put IV’s in both arms to flush out my system as I was have a bad reaction to the antibiotics. At 7 PM they announced they were sending me home at 8 PM but were going to give me a mild antibiotic via the IV as I had a true surface infection. By 8 PM I was covered in hives due to that antibiotic.

Long story short I was admitted to the hospital for a few days were they totally cleaned me out, took my blood every 4 hours, gave me shots in the belly for blood clots (I never had any) and started me on a starvation diet. They treated us great there, letting Miss Peggy stay, and even feeding her. All in all it was on my back and out of it for about 3 weeks!

Good news was that my Doc in Fairbanks was an internal medicine person, she redid all my meds and supplements, put me on a very strict low carb diet. (135 a day – that used to be a meal). I have lost a few pants sizes, no longer take my insulin or metforin, and have done away with 2 of my 3 blood pressure meds. I feel good, but we are now starting a slow trip back to the midwest for further medical review.

We arrived in Anchorage to report to the clinic first thing and blood work is great. We current are in Terrace, BC awaiting parts to repair our RV. During this entire ordeal God has placed good people in our path to care for us.

Tomorrow we will further update the blog as we will be in Terrace a couple of more days, and have found internet at the library and Tim Horton’s!

Thank you all for your prayers.

Click on the RV Budget link at the top of the blog

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. – Psalms 37:7

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Yukon is on the horizon

Posted on May 27, 2016 by landyachty

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Just a couple of quick thoughts as we have very little internet service until this week-end.

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We are currently parked next the world-famous sign forest in Watson Lake, YT. The first sign was placed here by Carl Lindley from Danville, IL in 1942, now there are over 77,000 signs from around the world including ours. Danville was supposed to have started a sign forest of their own a few years ago and the locals here are not happy they have heard nothing about it. Maybe our Danville readers can check this out!

We have seen a lot of animals along the road bear, bison, sheep – pictures to follow this weekend. While camped at the Liard Hot Springs a buffalo came in the middle of the night and left a present behind our RV!

What we have liked about Canada so far:

No Pennies

Friendly folks (not those at the border)

Good fishing

Views to die for

Animals

Poutine – French fries with cheese curds and gravy

What keeps us on our toes:

Loonies & Toonies

Every thing in different weights, speeds, and volumes

Black Out Curtians – only dark from 11 PM to 3:30 AM

High taxes

Constant watch for animals and road hazzards while driving.

Signs and labels in French

Large mixtures of immigrants

No TV, radio, cell service, or internet

More on all of this in two days when we are in Whitehorse, YT and have better internet and cell service.

Click on the RV Budget link at the top of the blog

When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.– Proverbs 3:24

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British Columbia – We have Arrived!!

Posted on May 21, 2016 by landyachty

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We didn’t have the border crossing into Canada that we were looking for. We got into the wrong lane at the Canadian Border. We got into the “commercial lane” come on we are almost 60 feet long. Then we were told it was shift change time – we had to wait. Then we had to go inside, lots of questions about the fact we have concealed carry permits and where are our handguns? (In Florida of course) After another 45 minutes of questions and sit and wait they finally let us into Canada and they never inspected the inside of our rig!!

We then spent the night at an abandoned Target store and went shopping at the Costco (you can’t take produce, eggs, fruit, or fresh meat across the border). We felt like we were in a foreign country and we didn’t mean Canada. Half the folks shopping didn’t speak english, the money was different, the weight systems were different and we were tired. Welcome to Canada!!!!

The next day we spent the night next to the roadway (dry camping) and this was our view. The lady at the welcome center in the very tiny town we were close to was very friendly and kind and told us some of the best places to get pictures.

The following day this was the sunset by the lake we camped close to.

Peggy navigates using 3 atlas’ and a guidebook called Mile Post.

We stopped at Lac La Hache (roughly means hatchet by the lake). We tried to troll but the boat ride was more fun.

We saw this bald eagle two different days. We listened to the loons call to each other at night. It was nice.

Yes that is a seaplane on the lake – it is 11 miles long.

The white dot to the left of the two buildings is our RV.

What a nice setting and great owners of the park.

Don’t I look like I haven’t fished in fresh water for over 20 years? My gear is as rusty and I am. I am sure the fish are laughing.

We stopped at Hell’s Gate where the Fraser river narrows to its tightest point.

Miss Peggy had to sit down.

We had to take a tram across the river – this is the view down.

During the building of the railroad a rock slide fell into the river making the area where the salmon move upstream to span very narrow and over the next few years millions of salmon died here. They built these special fish water ways so that the salmon can move through the narrows.

We moved on to the town of Chetwynd BC where every year they have a world-class chainsaw carving – they have over 100 of these huge carving.

The next day we left only to run into this – snow. 150 miles north it was in the 60’s and 100 miles to the south it was also in the 60’s.

We holed up at Camp Wal-Mart for 2 nights waiting the freak storm to move past.

We installed this wall heater last year and we had even taken it off the wall and into storage! We broke it back out and remounted it. Most RV furnaces are about 45% efficient this unit is 98%, and we choose a model that has the nice blue flame look. It sure has kept us toasty.

While in Dawson City holing up from the storm we did the tourist things. Here is our picture at mile 0 on the Alaska Highway during snow.

Tomorrow we move north into warmer weather!!

Click on the RV Budget link at the top of the blog

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. – Psalms 37:7

Save money by shopping at our favorite place for RV supplies and electronics. Just click on the logo and save.

Oregon – The Land of Friendly Folks!

Posted on May 12, 2016 by landyachty

(Just so you know, you can click on any picture to make it larger, you can post comments or questions at the bottom of each post, you can click on any links (in blue & underlined) to learn more, you can click on our “Travel Map” to see our journey, and you can click on “Contact Landyachty” for a direct email to us.)

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Leaving San Francisco in our rear view mirror we head north into Oregon and have to say everyone we met was glad to see us.

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Can you say really big, these are the redwood trees, they are some of the largest trees in the world!

Most of the big ones were cut down years ago for lumber – such a shame.

Yes, this is US HWY 101 and we are pulling the fifth wheel through this 3 mile stretch; praying all the way to not meet a semi!

This is at a beach area in South Oregon, the long pipe comes from a fish cleaning station and the parts slide into the Pacific Ocean to the waiting seals.

We camped along the Umpqua River in Central Oregon. This river is feed by Crater Lake and goes to the ocean.

We were told about a wonderful cascading hot springs a few miles from our camp that emptied into the Umpqua River.

We found out this was “Clothing Optional” – but not for the old man and Miss Peggy.

They didn’t tell us it was a 600′ straight up climb to the hot springs, and me without my hiking stick or cane.

Forgot to mention we bought a new camera for the trip, do you like this panoramic shot of the ocean?

After the fun at the hot springs we drove over to Crater Lake the next day. It is the deepest and most pure lake in the USA.

At almost 8,000 feet it is feed only by snow and clear rain.

We had a grilled cheese at the lodge on the left, the building is three stories high with kids sliding on the snow off the roof. They get 14 to 40 feet of snow a year!

To get into the buildings they erect these steel tunnels in the fall, not only is the tunnel covered by the snow but as you saw it can go up 3 stories. Their goal is to have all the snow cleared off the roads by July 4th.

This rare redhead hottie made a appearance. We estimated that she is standing on top of a 18 foot high snow build up, the green next to her is the top of a tree!

A view of the Crater Lake area from Diamond Lake about 20 miles away.

We went to the beautiful seaside village called Bandon by The Sea.

Miss Peggy’s cousin Kendall lives here and we haven’t seen her in years, we were so glad we spent a few days here!

Miss Peggy forgot how mowing felt so she tried out Kendall’s electric mower.

We unloaded the ATV and went on the dunes and ocean beach in North Bend OR.

Leaving the Coos Bay area we went to Brighton for some R and R.

Kelly’s has got to be one of the best places we stayed, not only for the beautiful views but the fine people who own this.

We’re rig in the middle with flag a-flying, by Monday morning we were the only rig.

Site right on the bay!

The sunsets every night.

Oh yeah – catching your own crabs!

Nothing like eating dungeness crabs pulled out of the bay just minutes before – oh yeah garlic butter up to my elbows!

We also visited Tillamook Cheese (twice) they make 167,000 pounds of cheese a day!

Someone from Yellow Mountain NC needs to zoom in on the semi truck delivering milk and see who the drive is. This a a totally co-op owned plant.

While in Tillamook we visited the Tillamook Air Museum which is an aviation museum within a museum. The museum is housed in a former military blimp hangar, called “Hangar B”, which is the largest clear-span wooden structure in the world

This WWII picture shows both blimp hangers.

Another picture from WWII showing 8 blimps in the hanger. There were 17 blimps housed at this navy base. Yes these were ships of the air not classified as planes. They had a ships wheel and carried a crew of 12-14. They are so big that some of them held a plane inside the bay that was dropped out to later land back at the base. They carried bombs, depth charges, and machine guns but usually radioed the subs location to chaser boats. They could do 50 knots a hour with a 40 hour range. They patrolled the west coast for Japanese submarines.

The item on the tracks is a train engine, to its right is a blimp!! Right now a collection of planes is housed in the hanger.

Look at the size of these sliding doors which still have to work to let the planes in and out.

Click on the RV Budget link at the top of the blog

The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.

– Proverbs 10:9

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San Francisco or Bust!

Posted on April 29, 2016 by landyachty

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After we took off ten days to go visit family we finally got on the road for our Alaska trip!

Our first stop was Gila Bend, AZ where we left out RV while we flew back to the midwest. Happy to see the AZ sunrises!

The flowers of the desert are just now starting to pop out of the cactus.

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CR sunset AZ

We are happy to be able to attract the hummers back to us.

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Of course we went ATVing, here to visit a gold mine.

Gila Bend has one of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs in the world. There are thousands of them in the middle of nowhere covering the size of a football field.

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Here is actual graffiti from 1908, the Indian petroglyphs are thousands of years old.

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On the way to the site we saw many dust devils.

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We stayed across the bridge, north of SF in the town of Novato at Novato RV Park. They are a little pricey for our budget at 80 bucks a day but we are in the SF area. The first day we were to start our SF visit we woke up to start Big Red and the alternator had bitten the dust. We found a shop that could fix it that day and also give us a loaner.

It was a rainy afternoon once we got into the loaner – so we went a visited 3 cheese factories in the area. We ate out very good lunch from the Marin French Cheese Co. at the pond at their creamery. Thanks to CA laws we couldn’t tour any of the factories, guess they think we are germ bags! We did buy cheese at three locations, at Cowgirl Creamery (goat cheese) we not only bought some of their stock but also goat cheese from Greenfield IN Miss Peggy’s home town!

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Friday we drove a few miles down the road from Novato RV with a new ($500) alternator to the ferry terminal at Larkspur and took the 30 minute ride to SF. Tens of thousand of people use the Golden Gate Ferry System daily to commute to work in SF. Once there we rode on one of the old trolley cars the F Line to Fisherman’s Wharf. Ferry cost (for old folks) was $5.25 and the F Line was one buck. We had a bunch of points left from Hotels.com so we added a few bucks and stayed at the Holiday Inn at Fisherman’ s Wharf.

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We ate lunch at the Pier Market Restaurant at pier 39. It was so good we went back for supper! We had crab, shrimp, cod, etc. Boy were we pigs.

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You can’t go to SF with out riding the cable car, we went from one end to the other and back $28 each – what happened to the good prices on the F Line?

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A lot of people forked out the $28 for the ride and some of them are commuters!

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Check out the Sea Lions. Man I was ready for a nap too!

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Gotta see the Golden Gate Bridge (color – international orange).

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We took a day tour with Dylan Tours and we can’t recommend them enough. Our guide as born in SF and we (14 people max) on the tour were treated like family. We did stop a Muir Woods, and Miss Peggy & I did a 1 hour hike in the woods. DSCF0245

Check out the size of these trees! DSCF0228

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In Sausalito we ate at a hamburger joint that was right out of Soup Kitchen Nazi. People were yelled at for not calling out their orders, and it was only “what do you want on your burger & what to drink, next!” They were lined up in the street. No seating, just pay, take your bag, and get out.This is the view at the dock we sit and ate our very good burger and fries. DSCF0261

Being tourists we went to Alcatraz for a visit! DSCF0289

I had forgotten that for a number of months Native Americans took over Alcatraz.

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Another shot of us & the Golden Gate from the north side after the ferry ride back.

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We now are on our way up to Oregon and Crater Lake.

Click on the RV Budget link at the top of the blog,

The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.

– Proverbs 10:9

Save money by shopping at our favorite place for RV supplies and electronics. Just click on the logo and save.

We are back!!!

Posted on April 13, 2016 by landyachty

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After a number of months of no posting we are back to at least a weekly posting. We are preparing to leave for our Alaska summer trip in 10 days, for the next few days we will give a short recap of our mission work the first quarter of the year.

We spent January in Moreno Valley CA (see the previous post) Here are some of the pictures from our work:

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This is where the Indian women ground corn thousands of years ago!

While in the big Q we had the living/dining room windows removed, taken apart (double pane), cleaned and reinstalled. This is about 1/3 the price of new glass.

Arrival at Victory Ranch our first mission assignment.

We arrived in style with an accident – more on this later.

This is our team of four couples at Victory Ranch.

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Miss Peggy trying her hand at spray painting steel chairs.

Our humming buddies at Victory Ranch.

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We complete tore out a boys shower room (including the cement floor) to modernize everything.

One day we visited a large dairy farm.

Right after this was taken the cow in the right background gave Miss Diane a big kiss on the ear.

Miss Peggy and I visited the Palm Springs Aerial Tram for the two and one-half mile trip to the 8,000 peak. We have dinner up there and watched the sunset.

Miss Peggy and I visited the Palm Springs Aerial Tram for the two and one-half mile trip to the 8,516 peak. We have dinner up there and watched the sunset. This is the world’s largest rotating aerial tram.

There was snow at the top of the tramway! This is the highest elevation we have been at..

After leaving California we returned to Quartzsite for 2 days of R & R before moving to Glendale, AZ. nothing like exploring the desert.

After leaving California we returned to Quartzsite for 2 days of R & R before moving to Glendale, AZ. You never know what you will find while exploring the desert.

Click on the RV Budget link at the top of the blog,

The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.

– Proverbs 10:9

Save money by shopping at our favorite place for RV supplies and electronics. Just click on the logo and save.

Landyachty – The Frugal RVers

Sitting on the side waiting for the next big adventure

Tag Archives: RV Missions

Back online at last!

Yukon is on the horizon

British Columbia – We have Arrived!!

Oregon – The Land of Friendly Folks!

San Francisco or Bust!

We are back!!!