Jackville

We made it to Jackville, as we call it, in honor of Larry's customer Jack who so kindly let us hang out in his horse pasture until we are ready to head for Washington at the end of March, when Larry will retire. It's pretty bare here, and as we will quickly learn, will become quite muddy, but it is preferable to the Wal-Mart parking lot. What we won't do to save money, which is absolutely necessary since the cost of gas alone on our journey to Washington will be staggering!

The view is spectacular - and we have prairie dogs and coyotes for neighbors. Needless to say, Duchess  usually has to be on a leash when she goes outside.

Down the Driveway for the Last Time...

Larry was anxious to be on our way, so he climbed aboard Jumbo and I followed along in my car.

Down the driveway for the last time...

Ready to Hit the Road

Everything was secure in Jumbo and we were almost ready to head down the road to our temporary home in the horse pasture in Parker.

 Time to bid farewell to this very special little house. I hope the next tenants love it as much as we did.

Time to Leave...

December 31st had finally arrived - our last day on Ridge Rd. I walked around and took some pictures before we left. My Garden Angel has journeyed with me from Everett to Elizabeth to Ridge Rd., and will travel with us on Jumbo back to Everett again!

We had spent many wonderful evenings on our patio watching the birds at the many feeders on this side of the house...

More Christmas Eve...

The Stockings were hung and overstuffed!

We enjoyed our tomato soup along with the grilled cheese sandwiches. We couldn't have asked for a more delicious Christmas Eve meal!

Christmas Eve in Jumbo

Things had been pretty hectic on Ridge Road for a couple of weeks prior to Christmas, what with us trying to get rid of the last of our possessions - our sofa, bed, & TV - plus making many trips to the Douglas County Task Force and Goodwill with bags and boxes full of donations. On top of all that, the property management company was showing the house and people were traipsing in and out every other day or so. We still had the last-minute cleaning to do, but the house was looking pretty empty by Christmas Eve.

We spent a very peaceful Christmas Eve night  in Jumbo, still parked behind the house.Larry watched the Big Bang Theory while I prepared dinner.

 Our gourmet Christmas Eve dinner...grilled cheese sandwiches!

We turned on the Christmas tree lights and lit the candles...

A Little Bit of Christmas Spirit

For the first time in many years, I found myself totally devoid of Christmas Spirit. Usually by now I would have the house decorated, the tree up, the nativity scene on top of the piano, the garland hung on the mantel, and the juniper bushes outside would be glowing with white lights. But this year is different. The piano is gone and there is no tree to decorate in the house. I gave away most of my ornaments, saving only a couple of special ones.  We have been so focused on moving everything out of the house, selling and giving away so many of our things, and moving what we will be needing for our new life into Jumbo, that Christmas just didn't seem important this year. And  then I found this little artificial tree at King Soopers, bought some battery-operated LED lights, found a tiny tree-topper at Target, and hung it with the small ornaments we had kept. Suddenly we had Christmas Spirit! It looks pretty cute in Jumbo's conservatory. We plan on being totally moved out of the house by Christmas Eve, so our stockings will need to be hung somewhere in Jumbo as well.

I painted the gold stars and pine cones years ago, and since the pine cones and some of the stars were too big for this little tree, they found a home in a basket.

I gave our big nativity scene to Rachel, and Bailey fell in love with it and set it up under their tree. Larry gave me this little one on our first Christmas together, and it's just the right size for us now!

Pandora playing on our new little TV - an early Christmas gift to us!

Larry enjoying a well-deserved beer before dinner. We did a lot of re-arranging and organizing in the closet storage area, and were pretty worn out! Not only was he celebrating the fact that we made some progress, but we were both quite pleased that Jumbo passed his emissions test that morning! Now I have to register him on Monday. A good sign that all will be well on our upcoming journey.

Even Duchess was worn out and curled up in her favorite spot... Actually, she's quite happy wherever we are.

We heated up some leftover veggie chili and cornbread for dinner, and were happy that the furnace kept us toasty warm. And when we walked outside to go back into the house for the night, I saw that Larry had lit the lights on the Juniper bushes. I was thrilled. Quite an enjoyable evening!

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It's VERY cold outside...and not too toasty inside, either. The furnace decided to stop blowing hot air sometime during the night, and Larry got it to work when he got up at 5:30, but it's still only 63 in here. This little house doesn't seem to have much insulation. Brrrr!!!! The property manager is bringing some prospective renters over this afternoon. If it hasn't warmed up significantly by then, they'll get a feel for what it's like to live here during the bitter cold days of winter. I'm thinking that it might be warmer in Jumbo if I go out and crank up the furnace, but don't want to waste the propane!

Here's the view from the back porch. I was hoping to get a shot of Duchess playing in the snow, but it was so cold that she scurried in as quickly as possible after going potty.

Here's the view from the front porch. It looks pretty, but I didn't want to venture out in it!

Jumbo dusted with snow...

I ordered some thermal leggings for Larry & myself which arrived a couple of days ago. It's definitely time to put them on and hunker up under a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate!

Our Thanksgiving Feast

Yesterday we celebrated our last Thanksgiving in this little house before moving into Jumbo and beginning a whole set of new traditions. I thoroughly enjoyed creating our feast, since I was able to stretch the preparations out during the entire day. I actually made the cranberry sauce with serrano peppers and orange juice on Wednesday so that the flavors would have plenty of time to meld. Usually I come up with some kind of new and unusual dessert for Thanksgiving, but this year went with the traditional pumpkin pie, simply following the recipe on the back of the pumpkin can. It turned out perfect!

Larry had found some vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes on Huffington Post, and we decided on a vegetable pot pie with sweet potato biscuit topping for our entree. I actually combined two different pot-pie recipes for the filling and added some touches of my own. It was so pretty that I wished we had company so that I could show it off!

Ready to go into the oven...

Fresh out of the oven, all bubbly with puffed up crust.

I decided that it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes and mushroom-miso gravy. I came upon the gravy recipe in one of Crescent Dragonwagon's cookbooks a few years ago - she's a fascinating person, as well as an inspiring cook - and it's been a part of our holiday dinner ever since, as well as any time during the year that we feel in need of some real comfort food. Nothing is a soothing as a big bowl of mashed potatoes! I simmered the gravy for a LONG time so that it had a chance to thicken up...

The baby red potatoes boiling away.

We also had sauteed brussels sprouts with toasted pecans, but I forgot to snap a photo!

So now it's the morning after, and I'm enjoying a slice of pumpkin pie for breakfast! Yummm....

Oh, The Places We'll Go!

I've been spending every spare moment the past week or so working on the itinerary for our trip to Washington. Larry plotted out the route and I then created the trip on the Roadtrippers website, which showed me a lot of the attractions along the way. I then checked out a LOT of books from the library and proceeded to read up on as much as I could find about the many places I've never been before. Yesterday I  discovered a website called Allstays that lists all of the highway exits along the way and all that can be found at them, including rest stops and gas stations. Very important!  I'm enjoying the planning  almost as much as the actual trip. It will be an amazing experience, for sure!

Aunt Ruby, Cold Refrigerator & More!

It's been awhile since my last blog post, but we've made a lot of new improvements to Jumbo. First of all, we hung Aunt Ruby - actually "A Young Girl Leaning on the Windowsill" by Rembrandt. We found her at a garage sale about nine years ago, and Larry thought she looked like his aunt Ruby, so we took her home. She hung in our dining room in Elizabeth and watched over our dining room table here in Castle Rock, so we thought it appropriate that she join us in the "dining room" of the motor home. Larry mounted the frame on a background of red canvas to cover the mirror that was there originally. We didn't want to try to pry it off, but we didn't enjoy looking at ourselves as we moved about the area. Looking at Aunt Ruby is much more enjoyable!

Larry put the sealant on the tile work in the "conservatory" and we carried some plants out to Jumbo to see how they will look. We also added a few books & CDs  to the "library". We can't leave the plants out there all night, since we're not living there yet, and they may get a bit chilly without the heat turned on, so after enjoying them awhile, we hauled them back into the "real" house.

I was excited to find that my magnetic spice jars will fit along the side of the kitchen stove hood. I'm going to print some clear labels so that the colors of the spices will show through. Larry hung one of his beautiful glass pieces this weekend. It's one of my favorites, and had a special place next to the piano in our house.

We're parked in our backyard, but we have a view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains! Larry printed one of our photos and mounted it on foam core to fit in the windows. It will act as a bit of added insulation during the cold winter days when we are living in Jumbo.

 

I still need to finish the curtains, and we have so much more to do inside the "real" house before we are ready to leave, but every day we make a little more progress!

Goodbye, Piano...

Yesterday morning we had to say goodbye to our beloved piano, since it just won't fit in Jumbo. The movers came and took it off to its new home in Elizabeth. It was sad to let it go, but necessary in order to make room in our lives for new adventures. We have enjoyed it for three years, and now Dana and her girls will hopefully enjoy it just as much.

Larry playing a final improvisational piece...


It's beginning to look pretty bare in our house. I often used the piano bench as my computer table while sitting in the rocker, but now I have to use the little folding table, which I actually bought for the laptop, but had been using as an end table, since those were sold in the garage sale. That means that I had to pull a kitchen chair into the living room last night to use as an end table! That didn't work too well, so I'll need to come up with something else. We have two months before the final move into the motor home, so we will need to be creative in our decorating in the "real" house until then.

I spent a few hours yesterday sorting through the many boxes of photos and just plain stuff that I have accumulated over the years. How all of this stuff found its way to Colorado from my old life in Washington, I can't figure out, but here it is! And I can't seem to be able to part with all of those old birthday cards, report cards, old school papers - not only my kids', but my own! Not to mention the huge amount of pictures! I painfully threw away two big garbage bags full of stuff, filled up a large plastic container that will go in the "basement" of Jumbo, and still have quite a few more boxes to pick my way through. Larry assures me that there will be room to store it all in the motor home, but do I really need to keep it all? That's a hard question.

While I was working on the accumulation in the basement, Larry changed the motor home's oil, added brake fluid, and checked the propane level. Plus, he installed this cute little bookcase I found at Target. It's just the right size for the "conservatory", and perfect for displaying the African baskets I got at the Denver Gorilla Run last year. They can't stay there while we're on the road, of course, but since the bookcase is now secured with liquid nails, it should be quite secure. We'll put some small books in the larger cubicles and some of our favorite CDs in the smaller ones. I love it!

Oh yes, this morning a nice young man came and took away the futon, coffee table, some dishes, an area rug, and a toaster, thanks to Craigslist, so the garage is becoming a bit more bare as well. There's still a lot out there, though, but things are looking up!

That's all for now...time to head back down to the basement and continue with my sorting!

A Sunday in Jumbo

We're trying to get used to living in Jumbo, so decided to eat breakfast there Sunday morning, rather than in the "real" house. The more time we spend in the motor home, the more we realize that we will be fine living in that much (or little) space. We began the day with waffles and Morning Star Farm "sausages". Amazingly enough, they taste very close to the real thing, and especially good when smothered with syrup. I, of course, forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but here they are in the making...

And the sausages...

After such a hearty breakfast, we were ready to tackle the day. First on the agenda was a trip to Wal-Mart, not one of our favorite activities, but when one needs toilet paper, dish washing soap, and bath salts, it's the logical choice. We also wanted to look at plastic storage containers for Jumbo's basement. We found everything we needed, and were soon back home. Larry began grouting the tile in the "conservatory". I suppose I should explain why we named that corner of the motor home the conservatory. When we lived in our house in Elizabeth, Larry build a lovely little greenhouse, attached to our kitchen, and tiled the floor with an assortment of tiles, rocks, and pieces of glass. It was so beautiful, and he wanted to create something in a smaller scale for Jumbo. And since we didn't want to give up all of our plants, some of them will be able to live in this lovely spot. Thus, the conservatory...

Larry is such a creative person. He has no problem "thinking outside the box" and creating something not quite the norm for this space that we want to be entirely our own...

Some people may think it strange that we took out the passenger seat in order to create this place for our plants, but since I'll be following along in my own little car when we eventually head down the road for Washington, I won't be sitting in it. And, if I ever do want to ride along in Jumbo, I'll sit on the sofa, which is equipped with seat belts.

Lots of sponging...

Our high-tech music system!

More sponging...

I especially like the squiggly shaped pieces of colored glass. I found them one day at Hobby Lobby and knew that Larry would eventually put them to good use.

Larry included some pieces of rock that he found in our driveway, so that we'll be taking a little bit of this very special house with us when we leave.

Rachel gave me this box for Christmas. It fits perfectly in the space beneath the glove box...


It just needs some sealant to be perfectly finished!

We finished our morning with a trip to the library, had some delicious soup for dinner, and ended the evening with discussing our route to Washington, via Santa Fe, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, and up the northern California and Oregon coast. We're both anxious for April to arrive so that we can begin our adventure!