It's that time again! Time to Celebrate!!

Been "home" a week already. Now the celebration starts here.

July is our month; to celebrate, have fun, really let loose, get jiggy with it, love each other, laugh together to relive moments and make new ones...it's a great month for us!

Birthdays galore & a couple of Anniversaries.

We start out with our "1st date anniversary" on the 4th, this year we celebrate 9 years! The dogs birthdays are on the 7th (easier to celebrate on one day for them!) Jamies' birthday is on the 11th, our wedding anniversary on the 14th, my birthday is the 25th and lil hoot is the 28th!

Lots of celebrations! I call it Christmas in July (especially my birthday)!

Take a walk through some old memories and new moments with us...

Happy 5th birthday to our Naner Nut

Happy 5th, 6th or 7th Birthday to Chili Moon...??

And a Happy Birthday to yours truly!

 With our numbers in alignment with this year of 7, we believe we are already off to a great start of OUR new year.

We wish we could be with our lil hoot as she starts to celebrate her 22nd year on this Earth, but we know she knows we love her and are always with her in spirit. Hoooooot!

Here's to a great year not just to us but to all of you. Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy....whatever!

Make it great and memorable. Here's to many more years of having an awesome life together and on this Earth.

Much love to all of you, from us to you!

PEACE

Joon van Spirit to Creek Chalet

Let's see, where do I begin?

Being back in Georgia has been a whirlwind of...well, everything! We found a place to live, while we're here for the Summer and maybe into Winter (fingers crossed we won't have to endure a Winter here).

[caption id="attachment_5501" align="aligncenter" width="569"] Summer Cottage[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5502" align="aligncenter" width="579"] Inside[/caption]

When we first arrived our friends were welcoming with more than open arms, offering us the upstairs part of their house to stay in while we got settled. We accepted the offer but it only lasted for about 15 minutes the first night we went to sleep. They have many cats, which I'm allergic to, and the cats use the upstairs as their play/sleeping lair...as soon as I laid down I couldn't breathe, was itching & scratching and my eyes started swelling up. I was going to try to get through it (didn't want to be a bad house guest the first night) and at that point Tiger, their biggest and most awesome cat, jumped from the floor onto my chest, I jumped up and said, "I'll be in the van!" Jamie followed! haha Hey, I tried!

They have a lot of land so we tucked in behind one of their barns and slept in the van for the remainder of our stay, a few weeks, even getting to finally 'endure' a huge thunder and lightning storm in the van! They were so funny, always asking if we were okay out there, the wife/mom Karen, was soooo worried about us. I kept trying to explain that we like it in the van, this has been our home for 2 years and we're absolutely perfect out there! Plus, it was almost like we were still out "in the wild" due to the land around them and all the animals they have; 6 dogs, several cats, 5 birds, 2 Roosters, 12 Hens/Chickens, 3 horses and 2 donkeys! Our girls were right at home with friends to chase and play with, I started calling their house the Park! haha

[caption id="attachment_5506" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Their front "yard"[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5507" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Handsome Major[/caption]

Playing with dogs - Video Dailymotion.

Being back in a house full-time has been a HUGE change and there's a lot to get used to again. The things I'm diggin' the most right now is hot running water for dishes and showers, although I still can't (or don't want to) shower every single day. My skin and hair just can't take it, the water here is soft and for the first few weeks I couldn't get my shower routine right! haha Sounds a little weird, but with the water (in this house) being soft it makes you feel like you haven't cleaned anything after the shower is over, feeling like you need another shower, almost like you just showered in oil. So, I started experimenting with every other day, barely any conditioner, no conditioner, this shampoo or that shampoo. I think I finally have it down!

Let's see, what other things are different....we can stand up and stretch in the morning, instead of having to wait to get out of the van to do it. We have a place for everything, the silverware is ALWAYS in the drawer! This was one of our obstacles in the van..."Where's the silverware...grrrrr", haha A flushing toilet that doesn't stink up the whole house has been nice and not having to find a place to dump the toilet is also nice. We have "unlimited" internet, which is totally fun because we can watch all the Youtube videos & Netflix we want as well as Pandora or IHeartradio and I can finally download all my pictures and videos to the sites I use for back-up. I think once we get back "into the wild" that will, again, be the biggest thing we'll have to get used to...only 20g of data instead of 250, haha Oh well, a little give and take I guess, can't be data whores forever! And we have an oven and stove, no more teetering our cooker on the floor of the van! Cooking is not a strong suit of mine and every time I attempted to cook inside the van our meal ended up on the floor...yuck and no fun to clean up!

I guess there are a lot of differences from sticks 'n' bricks to the van life. There are a ton of things we do miss about living in the van and a ton of things we will miss about living in a house. For instance, right now we have 4 bird feeders hanging; 2 Hummingbird feeders and 2 seed feeders with 2 Impatiens flower plants hanging and with all the windows we have, it feels like we are living inside of a botanical garden. The birds are always flitting about, playing and fighting over the food and always always singing...I LOVE that and it's so fun to watch them.

[caption id="attachment_5509" align="aligncenter" width="580"] My Sanctuary[/caption]

We even have a Cardinal, we named Louie, that sits on the side mirror of the van all day looking at his reflection. You can hear him at all times of the day flying into the side of the van!!?? I don't know what he thinks he's going to accomplish by doing that but he does it every single day! When I hung the feeders he wouldn't come to them, it took him about a full month to notice they were up. Once he found the feeders, he would feed then he'd fly into the window pane! I guess he really likes his reflection! He's a very 'special' bird, haha So we rigged up a space for him to look at himself all day, without hurting himself!

[caption id="attachment_5511" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Louie's Mirror[/caption]

This way he can sit on the feeder and see himself, as well as fly to the shelf, eat and reflect...literally! Even though I clean the mirror every couple of days, you can see where he pecks at it.

[caption id="attachment_5510" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Silly Louie![/caption]

He is a very silly bird and keeps us amused while sitting at the computer. So far, the birds that visit the most often are; Of course the Cardinal (that's Louie), Tufted Titmouse (yes it's a bird and yes I said Tit! When I see them I say, "Hello my lil titties!) White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Chickadees and I believe our Hummers are either Calliope or Rufous Hummingbirds, they're harder to specify because they're so freakin' fast!

We will enjoy the time that is spent here, in this cute little cottage with our own private creek and all 'our' birds but we do talk about "the road" almost every single day. It is something that is within us, in our blood, in our spirit. The road, the wild, the life makes us feel alive and free and like we have a life worth living. Hopefully my medical stuff won't keep us here any longer than needed and we can get on with it sooner rather than later but we will just have to see which way the wind will blow us when that time comes.

I wish you all a peaceful, fulfilling weekend with maybe a little bit of travel and adventure!

[caption id="attachment_5516" align="aligncenter" width="400"] PEACE[/caption]

Georgia on our Minds

Hello, hello, hello everybody!!

Well, as you could imagine a lot has happened since the last time I posted...right when I think I'm going to get all over this blog, it seems our whole lives change.

And change is probably the most common thing happening these days!

We have moved from our lovely spot in Sedona, AZ to an even lovelier spot in the Northeast Georgia Mountains. It took us 4 full days of driving to get here. Most of the drive was the same, lots of open barren land with big rock formations on the sides of the road, then we'd drive through a major city with the scenery changing back into vast openness. The majority of our trip was on I-40 so we drove through some cities and even states we had both never been through before.

[caption id="attachment_5488" align="aligncenter" width="480"] New Mexico[/caption]

My favorite part of the trip was right at Amarillo, Texas where we saw a bunch of people (off to the side of the interstate) walking through a big field of nothing, except for some things sticking up out of the ground. We turned around and went back to see what was going on and discovered Cadillac Ranch. How cool is this!?

[caption id="attachment_5464" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Art from 1947[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5461" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Leaving our mark[/caption]

We drove on through Texas into Oklahoma and it wasn't until we woke up in Shawnee, where we stopped the night before, that we noticed a huge difference in our scenery...green green green everywhere. Trees, shrubs, grass...everything around us was green, lush, so beautiful and so very different than what we've been used to seeing over the last two years! The more miles we drove across Oklahoma, Arkansas & Tennessee, the greener it became and that's where all of the rivers and creeks came in as well.

[caption id="attachment_5468" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Arkansas[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5470" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Georgia Roads[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5469" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Oconee River[/caption]

All in all we spent 4 full days driving and covered 1,900 miles and at one point we got 18 miles per gallon!! We decided to pack the van differently for the drive so we threw some things away, gave some weights and jack stands to Goodwill (getting rid of about 90 lbs.) and gifted some things to a nice homeless lady that needed them more than we did. We averaged about 13-15 miles per gallon, but that one day we got 18! woo hoo. We kept the bed down, the dogs totally digging that and packed the underneath side of the bed with most of the stuff we keep on the top. It worked out better than we had planned and gave us the mileage we were hoping to get!

[caption id="attachment_5494" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Where's all our stuff!!??[/caption]

Being back in Georgia after being gone for two full years is very, very different. We aren't just in Georgia, we are in one of the most beautiful places in this state, I believe they call our county the hidden gem of the Northeastern Georgia Mountains and also considered one of the greatest vacation meccas in Georgia. Pretty cool, huh!

[caption id="attachment_5477" align="aligncenter" width="485"] Welcome[/caption]

We are surrounded by cascading waterfalls, lakes, mountain vistas and fish filled creeks & streams. It's humid here, but with all of the water and canopies of trees around us, it seems to stay cool most of the day.

[caption id="attachment_5481" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Stonewall Creek Falls[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5482" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5483" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Abundance is flowing[/caption]

This part of Georgia is also considered a rain forest due to the amount of rain we get per year: over 55 inches (140 cm) a year and I tell ya, we had forgotten how much it rains here! The second night we were here, we were staying on our friends' property in the van and it stormed like crazy, at that moment we had realized we hadn't seen an actual storm in two years, it was thundering, lightning with heavy rain and a little hail, the van was even swaying! Our friends wanted us to come sleep in the house but to us, it was very exciting!

The future is wide open at this point, we will be here for the Summer due to being able to work for the season and get my medical stuff handled and then we hope to head back West, but we all know how plans go...believe us, two months ago we were going to Utah's Great 5 for the Summer...now we're in Georgia!

Dang making plans! haha

Wishing everyone the absolute best~

[caption id="attachment_5486" align="aligncenter" width="336"] PEACE[/caption]

 

Your body is a temple, not a tent!

We all need exercise, right! We have been able to get in some walks at a nearby park. It's a super nice park and totally huge. You could probably walk a new part of this park every single time you come here and never reach the spot you started in...well at least for a while! It's pretty big. It's called Tribble Mill Park. They have walking & biking trails and even an Equestrian area and trails for the horses as well. One big question we have is, why do people have to pick up dog poo, but other people don't have to pick up their step-in-up-to-your-ankle horse crap!??? Just wondering. Anyway, we have tried to pick a different trail every time we go but the other day Liz asked us if we had been to the rocks.... nope. So where do you think we went? NO, not bowling, what is it with you? haha Yes, we went to the rocks. I was expecting rocks that you climb on. This was pretty cool. They are actually the same rock as Stone Mountain. There were even points where water was coming out of the rock. Here are pics so I don't have to try to describe it ...

[caption id="attachment_1636" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The water flows down into a waterfall[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1637" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Water coming out of the rock[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1639" align="aligncenter" width="300"] My babies (on the right)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1640" align="aligncenter" width="300"] My Tribe (& my fro)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1641" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Are those Casper's legs? haha[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1642" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A 360* Panaromic View[/caption]

 If you're ever around the area, stop by the rocks. It's a very majestic place tucked away in the woods where you can do yoga, meditate, get a little sunshine or just slide down the rocks and go for a swim. Cute little place and be careful those rocks are slippery!!

PEACE

A birthday extravaganza!

We celebrated Liz's birthday today. The day was all for her. I first started the day making her a cake, Strawberry on Strawberry...yum! That's what she wanted, so that's what she got.

[caption id="attachment_1661" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Suzy Homemaker[/caption]

After chit-chatting for a while, we headed out for a lunch fiesta at Poblano's Mexican Restaurant, where we had yummy food, good service & a Mexican serenade for the senorita along with a free dessert!

[caption id="attachment_1663" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Feliz Cumpleanos Liza![/caption]

Keeping on with the birthday festivities she has wanted to see The Chernobyl Prophecies, so guess what we did..... no, we did not go bowling...we went to the movies!! Movies in the big city, yee-haw!

This is all I have to say of that "movie"...

[caption id="attachment_1664" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Suspiciously Stressed[/caption]

After a good laugh about the inept movie we just saw, it was still early in the day so we took a jaunt over to Stone Mountain. Liz has a state park pass so we drove right in (usually $10 for the day for parking). I have not been here since the late 1980's, Dad & Syd used to bring us here when we were little girls. We drove around the whole park then veered off to a parking lot right at the mouth of the mountain, where you can start climbing up. They have a Skyride, kind of like a Gondola, that can take you all the way to the top or you can hoof it on foot. Beware the Gondola's are NOT air conditioned so if you go up with hot, stinky people...you're in for a loooong ride! Inside (of where we parked) is a museum. It's FREE! It kind of felt like we were at the Science Center, it was very educational & we even had a little bit of fun!

[caption id="attachment_1666" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Bigger than a Woodpecker smaller than the Great Blue Heron[/caption]

We got back in the car, stopped off at one of the two hotels they have on site, picture crashed a wedding and gravitated toward the pool...just to have a look-sy. From what we saw, it was pretty nice and if we were ever back in the area would definitely stop in...at least for the pool! Again, we are off in the car. We drove around the enormous lake, which also has camping sites at some places. Since we were there over a holiday weekend the entire park was filled with campers of all breeds; tents, pop-ups, pull-behinds, 5th wheels & full-sized RV's. It  was a huge party and everyone was invited!! Woo-hoo! We arrived at Crossroads, which is the heart of Stone Mountain. This is where you can pick up the Skyride, they sell all tickets here for all of the different things to do, also dining and shopping here. It is a little pricey (depending on your budget)...I passed on the $10 salad in a small plastic bowl, but that's just me.

[caption id="attachment_1667" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Skyride up Stone Mountain[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1668" align="aligncenter" width="300"] I swear the last time we came here, the parking lot is where that train is![/caption]

Happy Memorial Day!

PEACE

Happy Birthday to Lizaby Kyryjo

On the "first leg" of our trip!

We have started our journey.... well kind of. Our first stop is going to be Hot-diggity dog-lanta! J's seester, Liz, lives there and we have not gotten to see very much of her & her son so we are going to get our time in! I think it will be a nice change of pace. J' will be out of his demanding job, we will get to spend more time together and we will be out of this slow-paced town. I do love the slow pace of this town but it's definitely time to venture into new territories throughout the United States. Keep tuning in for our adventure is just about to get drop-kicked into gear!!!

[caption id="attachment_1670" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Hot in the City![/caption]

PEACE