Where in the world are the Grabers?

"motorhome with a view"   Ventura Sunset

Please join us  for our Great American RV adventure as we travel across the United States, Canada and picturesque back streets along the way.  There will be hills and thrills and probably a lot of silliness along the way... as long as we remember to put the slide outs back in and the antennas back down before we hit the road,  we should be okay... right?
                   


       MotorhomeTrip #1                                   
     Our first adventure with the motorhome was no doubt a test.  Timmy and  I  decided "why not just take the grandkids?... what's the worst that can happen?... now keep in mind this was our first motorhome trip EVER !  We decided to take a short 2 hour jaunt north on Pacific Coast Highway and stay at Ventura State Beach.  All the sites are a stones throw away from the beach  and with Timmys skills at driving a hook and ladder truck for 30 years, he parked it in minutes.  (I did enjoy telling all our new neighbors that this was our first time parking,  knowing this might cause everyone to  anticipate us either crashing into them or backing in too far we might hit the water, and of course with ease Timmy parked our rig on a dime. )  I calmly looked around, like it was  no biggie and sauntered off to  set up our new picnic table.  
As the grandkids and I were getting settled, I found out  that Megan, our oldest granddaughter (with my son Matthew and Erin) had the flu a few days earlier... and being the caring and sharing child that she is.... decided to share it with her little sister Molly. Well, you guessed it,.. miss Molly was up all night bent over in the bathroom.... poor thing... every 1/2 hour or so,..I would get up... and help her to the bathroom... and after about the first 3 hours, Timmy and I just took shifts...   are we  having fun yet????  The sun did come up the next day  and Molly felt great and ready to rock and roll. (Timmy and I on the other hand looked like we were drug through the mill.) 
 Tim and I  prepared a wonderful breakfast of eggs, bacon, and french toast on our new Weber grill, and we all enjoyed a lovely breakfast on the beach... until the kids wanted to go in and watch TV.  We explained to our grandkids how important it is to appreciate and enjoy the experience of camping... ( I know,.. a motorhome is not camping,.. but it is to me!!)  After about 10 minutes of somber faces, I couldn't  handle it anymore, so I stood up and said  "okay,. I love you all dearly, but  I think this might have been a mistake,.. if you guys are not wanting to be here, or at least even try to do this with us... then we  can  take you back home, and if we leave  now  Grandpa and I can still get back up  here later today to enjoy what we had planned"..... and there was a long exaggerated  pause.... as I eagerly waited to hear their response, that they would never want to leave here, and to have them practically beg me to stay..... and still no answer.... and all of a sudden... Wyatt (my 5 year old grandson) puts both his hands in the air and says....
"I'm good with that!!!  "  ...  talk about bursting  my bubble...... reverse psychology doesn't work,... I don't care what anyone says.    About that time Grandpa Tim chimed in and said we weren't going anywhere and that an attitude adjustment needed to take place.  
After the attitude was adjusted, we were running and skipping on the beach,.. just like in the movies.

 We flew kites, collected shells and played hide and seek with the new foam dart guns that I got for everyone. That all lasted about 30 minutes so now it was time for me to bring out the big guns...(Timmy and I had checked out the campsite the week earlier and we discovered that the Amtrack railroad ran right along the coast highway... and it too, was a stone throw away from the  motorhome.) So I conveniently brought up a bag of coin for each of the kids to put them on the railroad tracks to SMASH THE HECK OUT OF THEM. (don't worry, I had safety rules in place ) It didn't take long for the kids to figure out that maybe they should keep the quarters and only let the train smash nickels and dimes, (smart kids) so after  they methodically divided the remaining saved quarters  amongst themselves, they all went home with about $40.00 each in quarters....(I had no idea I was giving them this much money)

Six hours, and  20 trains later and whole bunch of cool, odd shaped smashed coin and I felt peace and contentment. It was fun to see the kids get so excited and find the fun in the simple things.  As I watched my grandkids, I realized I was reliving my younger days, growing up in a small little farm town called Webster City Iowa,...only we were lucky to have more than 4 coins,... and none of them were quarters!!

  As we braved the rest of the weekend the kids helped set the tables,  dump the trash, helped with the cooking, made their beds and did just about everything we asked them to do. 
We spent 4 days without a T.V and lived to tell about it...
We played games, we sang, we danced, we walked, we ran, we lived.. 

So I close my first ever blog and will borrow the famous words my grandson Wyatt once said............ "I'm good with that!!!"  

It's all about Zion and I ain't " lying".....

                                          Zion National Park  
It seemed like months of planning for this little adventure of ours. For some reason I thought it wouldn't be that difficult to plan a 3 month excursion across the country and back through Canada, get the motorhome road ready, clean and pack the motorhome, get our house ready to rent out all summer, manage all the paperwork, and for the both of us to continue doing our work all at the same time... oh, and I forgot to mention the small little bon voyage party we decided to throw the week before we shoved off.....
needless to say,.. the day after the party.... I got sick ...(no it wasn't the Irish flu....) but the good ole fashioned influenza.  Four days to countdown and I am exhausted before we have even left!!  I prayed for a small miracle and a few days later I was up and running again.

We headed to Vegas for the first night and had plans to park the "Jetson" mobile in front of our good friend Bob Clifts house. I honestly don't think we drove more than 20 miles and  there was a strange thug sound that came from the motorhome...I hear Timmy say...  "We've  got a problem"... I earnestly ask... " a problem like, we  need to stop and get ice for the beer.... or Houston, we have a problem.....?"   Three hours later, after Timmy fixed the air brake hole.... or something like that... we were back on the road.   God Bless him.... and John, his good friend who drove over immediately with parts to help.
I was amazingly calm and actually grateful that it happened in Irvine  and not in the middle of a 4 hour stretch of desert toward Vegas...  at 100 degrees outside.

We arrived in Vegas 4 hours late, but Bob and Sherri were there to meet and greet us. We briefly partied in the "Jetson" mobile for one margarita and it was lights out for George and Jane Jetson.

On to Zion National Park the next day which was only a 4 hour drive north from Vegas.  For those of you who have never been to Zion, trust me when I say, it is one of the most beautiful and scenic routes you could lay your eyes on. 

Zion

 I am learning very quickly that  once your arrive to your designated campground, landing in your RV "space" is more than just the physical side of parking, it is also very mental!

Is there a particular reason why everyone has to stare while newcomers are arriving and parking?  I guess it really isn't even the parking, because Timmy nails it within minutes, it is more of setting up our little camp.

So while all our neighbors are drinking their beers and enjoying the show, we begin the process, and Timmy starts pulling everything

out from under the motorhome.  

Timmy gets his cool step ladder out and pulls the awning out manually, and then we adjusted the height to the proper position... this usually takes

about 10 minutes....

 which at this time, one of our persistent onlookers yells over to us...."I am so glad we just get to push a button and our awning goes out automatically...." I was smart enough to not respond immediately and replied...."Well good for you!"  (although that was not really what I was thinking)... and I walked over and introduced myself and said, "This is our first trip in a motorhome,  so we just decided to buy a used motorhome, in case we don't like it".

We then laid out our  huge black mat, put up our new little table with benches and I laid out my beautiful red and  white flowered tablecloth, which by the way was linen and not plastic.  I then proceeded to set up our cool new rocking chairs with decorative pillows, set up the wrought-iron side-table between the 2 chairs (which has cool drawers in it and houses everything from bottle openers, coasters, candles, Sudoku books, pencils, and last but not least, our traveling Trivial Pursuit game...)  now let's see who's looking!!

But my ace in the pocket was yet to come... as I ventured back into the motorhome, I grabbed one of my 4 vases of fresh flowers that are located throughout the motorhome and took my biggest vase and skipped out of the motorhome and nonchalantly placed it in the middle of the table.

I could feel the eyes but I was on a mission!

I was just about to hang my small wrought iron chandelier from the awning over the table but quickly changed my mind when one of the gals came over and gave me a nice compliment on my flowers.

The chandelier will hang some other time, but not today.

I knew my work was done.