Packing For Travel

We'll be leaving on another trip to Pioche in 9 days and let me tell you, I'm pretty stoked.

We'll first drive to Dugway Geode Beds in Utah, where we will dig for geodes and I thing we're guaranteed to find some. I'll be taking a shovel, bucket to carry them, spray water bottle, all sorts of things. 

They are in Simpson Springs, Utah

This is one area

This is what the area looks like. 

I've read that the BLM goes out & digs up more areas once in a while.

I hope to find a couple cool ones, I hope to find enough that I can share and give a few to Jeremy so he can cut me one.

Then we'll continue on to Pioche. There are several ways to go between the two places but the dark purple line is one we haven't taken before.

I've been planning the things I'll be doing when I'm there, one of which is painting the basement walls. Currently they are gray concrete and purple paint. I've read that you're supposed to use a certain kind of paint on concrete but I'm sure they didn't use that special stuff before so I'm going to paint over it with the paint I have, a light gray. It might brighten it up a little bit.

I'll be pulling weeds again, tumbleweeds. 

Lan will be working on the sewer lines and a bajillion things inside the house. We're ramping up for when we take down the bathroom, utility room and kitchen but there's so much to do before then; basement, clearing out the interior of the rooms, 

We also need to pay a few bills while there too, the garbage bills is $150 for the year, too bad we can't just pay for the time we're there, and the truck tabs are $741 (yikes) but I have called our local DMV and its half as much to get license and tabs in Washington than it is in Nevada.

We will utilize the town pool, its ALWAYS nice to go for a dip when its blasting hot.

We're leaving home on May 21 and heading to Utah but we'll need to sleep somewhere along the way so we got ourselves a free truck canopy and we'll build a bed in the back. The bed will need to be big enough for Lan to sleep on it, so at least 6'3" and that only gives him a couple inches leeway. 

Lan wanted to paint it but that's just one more thing to do and he's already too busy doing shit here and he did point out that it matches the SXS.

Yeah, we'll be taking the Can Am too, its why we bought the house down there in the first place.

Oh yeah, we've got the shed frame up, now just needs the roofing put back on and I'm hoping to find Costco garage sides for free that I can put on it. It has seven 12' corrugated green fiberglass panels for the roof but one is broken so I want a clear or opaque panel, for additional light.  We're going to store the new cart and Kenny inside this.

 

Winter Blues

I miss my brother, I miss my best friend and I miss the summer sunshine. 

I've been feeling rather emotional and depressed this last week and even though I just had a vacation, I know I need to get away again. I'm going to start planning my next vacation & the fun part is that I have two options, either go to Pioche with the sxs and do some work on the house 

OR 

do the BUCKET LIST  thing I've been planning for a long, long time.

Riding Amble across the state. 

I had originally planned on doing that with Joey but, life. Now I have the means to do it, I've got the time scheduled off and another horse that can go with me.

I've been working on Ambles cart; Meghan had taken it apart to 'refurbish' but she lost all the parts and did none of the furbishing. SOOOoooooo... I paid $200 for parts two days ago and I know I'll need to spend a lot more, I still need trace holders & they're $22.99 before tax and shipping plus I need two bigger wheels and tires since the cart is a good 8" too low to the ground for her. The shafts need to be level and that isn't negotiable. The harness needs a couple parts, not sure if I've ordered those or not... 

I also need to get her saddle fitted to her correctly or get another saddle and I just simply do not have the funds for that. I also need a 6" ported curb bit and good luck finding one thats not $200.

Next Trip

 We've got 3 weeks of vacation next May-June and we have several choices of what we'll do:

1. Ride Amble on the John Wayne train cross state BUCKET LIST ITEM

2. Go work on Pioche house

3. Travel anywhere and do whatever happens

4. Stay home & save money

5. 

1. I've been wanting to ride Amble (had planned on Joey but that didn't happen) cross the state for eons and now I actually have the means to do it. I've got the horse, she's trained and will get more training before then, I have a job that pays me well enough to afford it, we have the truck and horse trailer and there are the John Wayne Trail folks who put this event on every year. I have two choices, ride or drive her since I've got the covered wagon.

2. If we choose working on the Pioche house it will be that much closer to being livable. We could rent the excavator and get the bathroom, utility room and kitchen removed and a new exterior wall put up. We'd need (guessing) the excavator for 3-4 days at about $300 daily, new exterior siding and the wood to make the walls, building plans, patience and so much more. I don't even know all the stuff needed for this job. You don't just go knocking down sections of a house and not foresee issues. What if we accidently knock down the entire house? 

3. If we choose to travel, I'd like to go see parts of North America that we haven't seen before. Driving along the Trans Canadian Highway might be fun, or all along I-90 from beginning in Seattle to the end in Boston, or travel more of the mid west. The options are endless.

4. Staying home... hhhmmm... We could still go do daily trips, go to Mt Rainier or the Olympics, go on some trail rides. There are so many things we haven't done in our own state. Staying home allows us to repair fences, work on cars, house repairs, visiting family.

5. I could simply leave it up to Lan and see what happens. 

Another visit to our Pioche House

Here is our 'lovely' house in Pioche as we pulled up to it at almost midnight. 

We're both surprised that solar light is holding up. It's always on at night on a dim setting but as soon as it sees movement, it gets brighter.

Heres the front yard, growing a good bunch of tumbleweeds, there were about 50 bajillion of the dang things around the house. Lan said he's just spray them, but I wanted them gone as they are a terrible fire hazard. 

So, I pulled them by hand. 

We took at least 4 truckloads of them to the dump and that wasn't even all of them. I pulled them for a couple hours at least every other day, my hands were so sore.

Lan did work on the basement, installed LED lights, we got it cleaned up, he moved the freshwater line from the right side of this area to the left, attached some of the new PEX lines to it and has a distribution board set up and attached to the wall. We'll need a new water heater soon, even if we can't use it yet.

This is the old water heater and the pipes under the kitchen area of the house. This stuff is all going to be removed eventually.

This is going from the 'finished' part of the basement to the stairs that go to the house. The bright spots and open to the outside, so vermints can get in.

Since we're now making a truck payment, we don't have tons of cash to throw at this house, so we had plenty of time to explore. This was Condo or Condor Valley and it did not disappoint!

Brian Head in Utah was gorgeous with the fall colors.

I love Aspen trees

Another day we were trying to get back home before the storm came in but got a flat. Rain ended up getting us pretty wet.

This is inside the Jackrabbit Tunnel, last time we were there we only went to this deck area, we didn't go down the ladder. Down here there are SO MANY cool places to go.

Next time we plan on going much, much farther down that ladder, it goes about 50 feet farther before we couldn't see it anymore.

This isn't the best photo but here is a male tarantula I almost stepped on when I was entering a mine. I ended up screaming like a little girl and didn't go into that mine.

As we were getting packed up to come home, this happened. To the brand new truck, didn't even have 7600 miles on it yet. It was an accident.

Before we were 100 miles away from Pioche, Mora had found another tailgate for sale in Portland, Oregon so we went there on the way home & bought it for $300.  It's also from a brand new 2025 truck so matched perfectly.

Heres the leaving Pioche photo. I hope someday I'll have the opportunity to stay longer & not have a set date to leave.

 

Another Vacation Just Around The Corner

 We'll be heading to Pioche again in just a few weeks, leaving here as early as September 18th and not having to be back before October 4th. Between then and now I'll be working full time and I'm sure OT as well, and I'll be forced to work other docks. I greatly dislike working the other docks, I don't know those jobs as well. The 'Triangle" of Southworth, Fauntleroy and Vashon Island are all confusing on the best days and when you throw someone like me in the mix there is a good chance of fucking shit up. Stupidvisor Phil made sure to fuck with Tim and I by making me go to Fauntleroy yesterday and Tim is at Southworth today. There is NO reason to do that besides their POWER. Irene told me it's because those docks had a lot of over time this summer, so I told her so have we, shit Tim and I had over 24 hours in the last 2 weeks, 15 by me. 

I simply do not want the stress of working other docks. Night before last I didn't sleep well, was awake every hour fretting if I had missed the alarm and was late catching the fucking boat; Thats not healthy. Then when I did get to Fauntleroy it wasn't warm at all, the predicted 80* was a FUCKING LIE and I froze my ass off because I'd taken just my vest, not a coat. 

So I need this vacation.

Between now and then, I'll have a lot going on. Tomorrow I'm working the Bremerton morning sellers shift 4:15-2:15 and after that I have to start getting ready for my medical procedure Friday morning. Getting ready will consist of a shower in medicated soap tomorrow night and no eating after 11pm. I can have water to drink up until 4am or so. I'll have another medicated shower in the morning, then have to arrive at the hospital by 8am.

What is an ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography)?

• This exam involves the use of a slim, flexible lighted instrument called an endoscope is passed through the mouth and through the stomach into the duodenum (the part of the small intestine that is closest to the stomach) to examine the opening of the bile duct (the tube that carries bile from the liver and gallbladder into the small intestine). A thin tube (catheter) is passed through the endoscope and inserted into the tubes (ducts) that lead to the pancreas and gallbladder. A special dye is injected into these ducts, and x-rays are taken. This helps the doctor see stones, tumors, and any areas that have become narrowed.
• The exam is performed under sedation to minimize gagging and discomfort during the procedure.

 

This is my second ERCP, to remove the stent they installed 2 months ago. I was asleep for that and will be asleep again. I'm sure I'll feel just fine afterward. 

I'm sure the stupidvisors will find work at the other docks for us to do in the next week and I'll do it but only to bring in a paycheck. I will not go above and beyond for anyone. 

Next weekend Lan and I will have to go pick up Amble from the trainers in Granger and I am looking forward to that. Mostly I'm looking forward to having her here so I can ride her.  When we do go to pick her up I hope to get a couple whings done, 1 is another lesson for me and another is to get her harness fitted to her. Shit, I don't even know if it will work with the cart I have for her.

Then 1 week after that is VACATION. I barely have enough time to make plans!! We aren't going to have loads of cash for doing all the work we'd like to do so we'll do a little work and spend a lot of time on the sxs. We haven't done that a lot lately and that's important to us, its WHY we bought a house in Pioche.  I want to some day take it to the Arizona Strip 

and ride all over Utah and much, much more of Nevada.