2001 to 2005: 2003 – 04 . . . First 2003 Entry

Well, my proposed two year sabbatical has come to an end. A lot of my anxiety about "being bored" has subsided and the yearly summer projects have helped me remember why I wanted to take the time in the first place. Certainly my attitude has changed for this, our third year out. Our travels ARE our chosen lifestyle. The fifth wheel feels like HOME and when we are not home, we stay in the Condo.

Our Summer 2003 was a rather not travelling summer. Again, we went to the RV Lifestyle Seminar in Kelowna but this time we were able to present a session (Relationships on the Road) following some interesting research over last winter. We always gain useful information there and manage to reconnect, as well as, meet new friends.

Our plan was to spend time up in the mountains . . . BUT . . . with all the fires, we got "invited out" the last week in July and the only other trip we took was to revisit Writing-on-Stone with Lifestyle Seminar friends to collect more petroglyph information and check out the old grain elevators that are quickly vanishing.

I did work on my "Manoeuvring the Career Lattice" E-manual and thought it was ready to go, only to realise (with help from my friends) that it really was just a hard copy version that could be downloaded and worked on the computer . . . so . . . scrap that . . . the next challenge is to make it a REAL interactive e-manual. There goes that learning curve again . . . JavaScript, Compiling an e-Book . . . and on it goes!! Fred spent most of the summer collecting all kinds of information for our next travel adventures.

firstep Human Resource Services officially suspended operations on July 31, 2003 and the work I've done has been on my own. My CPP kicked in August and we will continue this life as long as we can . . . as long as health and money permits.

We left later this year (and later than we should have) with the thought that we could extend our time in the spring . . . the weather was not co-operative!! Storms and cold before we left . . . cold travelling . . . all kinds of cold records set . . . COLDEST NIGHT IN HISTORY for that date in Dillon, Montana on November 6th.

Learned things:
1. Never wait til November to leave
2. Never pay attention to past weather statistics
3. Check the batteries in the camera before we leave.

Revisiting Zion

Somehow, Zion keeps calling us back. It is so spectacular and looks entirely different this time of year. Some of the leaves were just turning . . . yellows and reds against all the colour in the rocks . . . the shapes and the textures! WOW! There is no shuttle this time of year, so we were able to wander around on our own through the Canyon and over into the Kolob area (north west corner of Zion National Park).

Virgin River

We moved onto Virgin River Recreation area which is actually in Arizona (Arizona juts out in between Utah and Nevada for about 30 miles) and stayed there for a couple of days. We set up overlooking the Virgin River and our view was an incredible red streaked rock formation interspersed with cactus and desert brush - some that were still hanging onto their flowers. We made friends with this tiny, little chipmunk with a short fluffy tail (he loved the corn flakes we fed him and he was quite brazen about coming back for more) and the resident Road Runner who didn't seem to mind us invading his space and loved little bits of hamburger.

Into Nevada

And then there is Mesquite, NV. We stayed on the dry camping area at the Virgin River Casino and met some neat folks, as well as, a couple who actually live there. What, this is the third year I have tried to understand why we prefer the dry camping areas as opposed to the RV Parks and here we go again. Theres no questions "it's mainly because of the people"! It seems the people who stay on the dry camping areas enjoy socializing, helping and getting to know each other while the folks in the RV Parks tend to keep to themselves and stay inside their RV . . . I do enjoy the spirit!! Anyway, the food is good and cheap ($4.95 for Prime Rib) but it is loud, bright and noisy, so it was nice to leave, besides which we were starting to lose. We did manage to get out of there (three days including food) for about $3.00.

A couple of decades ago, Mesquite was nothing but a quiet little town just into Nevada. It had maybe one small casino. Today it's busy and bustling with four large casinos & hotels and more on the way. It seems to be a good stopping off place for folks coming from the north - the weather is usually very agreeable and a good place to warm up.

We missed the Valley of Fire again because the truck developed quite a vibration and we wanted to get to a place where we could get service, if we had to . . . so . . . onto visit with friends in Las Vegas. You know . . . it is almost impossible to NOT visit Casinos in Las Vegas. We stayed over the American Thanksgiving week-end and I absolutely shutter at the extreme commercialization - after Thanksgiving Day shopping push to start buying presents for Xmas. I get the image of the "hawkers" we have encountered in Central America and Indonesia. Here we have hawking, American-style . . . bombardment via radio, television, billboards, people handing things out on the streets, and on and on and on. Mind you, there are also some wonderful decorations like at the Bellagio.