I can't believe how much time has passed since the last entry. If your still reading, sorry for the delay.

Our time on the east coast was not long enough and harried as usual. John's oldest son graduated from the University of West Virginia with his PHD in Sports Psychology. It was a great weekend for him, and we were honored to share it with him! And very proud parents!

 On the way back from West Virginia we stopped in DC to see my new great nephew. He is so cute and the happiest baby I've met in a long time!

While on the east coast we had some time with my two sisters, brother, and my Aunt Sally. I do miss having my family close by. We had several days with my older sister exploring some of the White Mountains. It was so wonderful having a tree canopy overhead again, hiking in the woods! But I do not miss the mosquito's and black flies...

And many thanks to Robert and Liz!
After we got back to Phoenix it took us several days to load up the bus, and shut Dave's house down for the summer. We also finally got a kitchen sink installed!! Running water!!! A dream kitchen at last!
After many hugs and see you agains we headed out one morning. At nine am it was already 90 degrees so we were looking forward to heading north for cooler temps. I don't know how people live in Phoenix year round in temps of 100 - 115 on a daily basis.  It was slow going, even for the bus, since everything north of Phoenix is gaining in altitude. But we did make Flagstaff by early afternoon. Picked up supplies and continued on to Bonita, a campground we stayed in before, not far north of Flag. And it is 5-6000 ft in altitude! For us, it was the first time in weeks it was cool in the evening. Dropped to 47 degrees actually. We fell asleep to the breeze in the pines [ponderosa pines], the "who, who" of an owl and the quiet of a deep forest under a bazillion stars.  NO traffic noise! We could see the stars again! No hum of air conditioning. Wild animal noises. It was a glorious night!
At this point we knew we would head to Boise, Idaho. We had an offer for some work. But we had to stop over in Lava. First was Salt Lake though. Some time there with John's nephew. And Dyl [John's youngest, the rock climber] came to spend time with us. His van broke down in Salt Lake, so he has been working for a few months. We spent one day with him up in Alta [the ski mountain] hiking with him. A warm and beautiful day, with snow still on the mountains.

We had the bus that day, and it was very slow going. We had to get to the trailhead at 8000 feet. No problem. The bus engine is not fast but a real workhorse. The problem was coming down. Even though we were going real slow, I could smell the brakes overheating badly. We pulled off right away and got out. There were flames coming out of the front wheels from the brakes! They were easily put out and we had to wait on the side of the road for an hour til they were cool enough to make it the rest of the way down.
As I said earlier, from there we headed of to Lava. Somehow people knew we were coming and a short while later we were sitting down to dinner with 10 or so friends. Word got out and they just kept coming in. It was really great to see everyone again! As one thing lead to another we ended up staying for almost a week instead of a few days. After all, we couldn't miss Milan's birthday party!

After a week of festivities we headed of to Boise. We had a house to paint, with some stone work, and a fence to put in. The owner was getting anxious to get started! So back to work we went. Long days and achy backs but it is now finished - 4 weeks later. In the meantime Sue, John's sister, the owner of said house, has been telling her friends about the work on her house. We now have more work than we can handle! No complaints there! We are in the middle of our last house paint in Boise for this year as we need to be in Lava on September 3rd for a construction project there. Then it's off to Salt Lake to house sit for John's nephew in October. 3 dogs and a cat...

So the question is: where do we spend the winter???
We miss you all,
    John and Scott