Goodbye Wyoming

After six years of work camping at Luton’s Teton Cabins, we left for the final time on October 10th. Our goal was to stay ahead of the snow as we made our way back to Wisconsin, where we hoped to stay until the first week of December. We are the little blue dot on the lower right of the weather radar image below. We did manage to stay ahead of the snow, but eventually the cold weather caught up with us in Wisconsin, so we left earlier than we wanted. We are currently in Arizona, and should arrive in Yuma on Sunday December 5th, the day we were hoping to leave Wisconsin.

Minnesota

We stopped for a few days in Minnesota to visit Dan’s brother, Gary and his wife Julia. They had a few trees come down in their driveway this past year, so we were actually able to park in their driveway, which worked out quite well for us. We had a nice time visiting with them, as well as seeing their daughter Carmen, Luke and kids. And we had a surprise visit from Aunt Sue. It’s nice to be able to start seeing people again.

One highlight of our visit was attending the University of Minnesota men’s hockey game against St. Cloud State. It was my very first college hockey game, and despite the Gophers losing, a good time was had by all.

It was also the first time I had seen cheerleaders on skates!

Prior to the game, we walked around the arena where Dan and Gary found several team photos from when their dad played hockey at the University.

Stu is #10 in the back row on the right.

Wisconsin

We headed on over to Dan’s sisters house (Linda and Doug’s “Camp Meyer”) and spent a few weeks there, as our main base. From there we were able to see Kami and Kyle’s families and make a few short trips to Dan’s parents in Oconto Falls. We did make a few quick trips down to the Milwaukee area to visit with some friends and family, but simply did not have enough time to see everyone that we wanted, as the weather quickly turned unseasonably cold, with lows in the 20’s.

I did manage to have some puppy time with my sister’s new German Shorthair Pointer, Winnie! She’s been busy tormenting her “big sister” Reagan.

For many years, my sister Margie and I did a Christmas cookie “Bake-a-thon,” where we spent an entire weekend making over a dozen different varieties of cookies (usually double and triple batches), to be given out as gifts. It was always a fun, but exhausting weekend. Since Dan and I have been on the road since 2013, we have not been able to get together to do this.

This year we did manage to do a scaled down version of our cookie baking. It was much easier just making single batches of a few cookies! Reagan decided to play the role of the chief cookie inspector (she has a bit of a guilty look, not sure if she snuck a cookie off the table!)

TEXAS

Our plans to stick around for Thanksgiving did not work, so we headed South to Texas to have Thanksgiving with my sister LuAnn. She was very excited to receive a box of freshly baked cookies! (it’s the state of Wisconsin – she has it sideways!)

After a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at friends of LuAnn’s, we did manage to do some hiking to work off all the turkey! Makena did go along on the hike – she’s just hiding behind all the big dogs (she plans on blogging soon!)

ARIZONA

As stated above, we should arrive in Yuma on Sunday, where we plan on staying for the next four months. We are currently in Tucson, to give Makena a break from all the travel in the past two weeks. Being in her kennel several hours a day, day after day, seemed to bother her this time. So we decided to just stay home for a few days, and she is already feeling better. The sunshine and warm temperatures have helped us all.

Quote for the day: “It’s all about the quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.” – Philip Green