Steve and Judy's Travels!

Not even Annie’s Elway jersey has been able to help the Broncos the last
couple weeks.

I’ve mentioned we moved here in a storm. Judy decided Annie needed
protection from the snow while she walked outside. Annie was okay with the jacket, but I’m attaching a picture of her,
paralyzed by her new Mutt-luks. Annie didn’t immediately think it was quite as good an idea as Judy did.
Ultimately, she did discover she could still walk and bounded off through
the snow, returning with considerably fewer ice clumps than she had on
previous ventures. The Mutt-luks worked.

Wow! That was a treat! A pack of howling coyotes on the ridge right
outside our window last night. Very close. We’ll be very careful with
Annie. Last trip, we met up with Tom and Kathy in Utah. While we were each
barbecuing dinner, Tom pulls out the thermo-fork. “Is the chicken done?”
“I don’t know. Stick the thermo-fork in it!” It reads out the temperature
of whatever you stick the fork in. Digital. How cool. I love the
thermo-fork. You can tell when the meat on the grill is just like you want
it. I had to get one. We only had to buy one. We only have one house now. And you know what else? It can tell you the bath temperature before you get
in the water too. Course that doesn’t matter anymore since we only have one
house now, and it doesn’t have a bathtub.

There were some sad moments leaving the house. Before we left, we finally put Buck out. We’ve had him in a can for about
four years now. We just weren’t ready to let him go. We sprinkled his
ashes along the fence around the yard where he used to run. In fact, we
gave him one last lap all the way around the house. We had to say goodbye to neighbors we’ve visited with every day for years.
Judy had to tell the folks at Balfour we’re leaving. It was tough when
Becky and Matt came by for a last visit, all of us together. This is the
only family home either kid remembers. But altogether, we’re delighted to move on to the next part of our lives.
Thirty years in the house, but we had to leave sometime. One way or
another. We stayed through Halloween to give out candy to the neighborhood. It
snowed. We stayed in the driveway overnight and took down the Halloween
decorations the next morning. Now we’re here. Rags has made his escape already. Judy was working around the house. It
was warm, so she had the door and windows open. Of course she was careful
to keep the screen door closed so Rags wouldn’t get out. She heard him
crying but couldn’t locate him. He was crying from the outside. The screen
door was closed. He couldn’t get back in. He was through with his
adventure and was asking to come back inside so he could go to the bathroom
in the cat box.

Star Date 110104 Remember how I said we weren’t going on any more trips this year? Things
change. Got a job in Trinidad, Colorado, right on the southern border.
Last trip we finished with a Habitat for Humanity. This trip we get to do a
YMCA. A small one. Oops. Things change. The Trinidad job didn’t happen.
Remember how I said the guy next door wanted to rent our house? Road
Trip!!! We rented the house to Dan next door. We moved into the motorhome. For
years we’ve been talking about living and traveling in the motorhome. We’re
really going to do it. We’ve committed to a year. One year, nonstop, in
the motorhome. We’ve traded in our real-estate for wheel-estate. We are
now officially Full-Timers. Can you believe that? Full-Timers. We don’t have any rural Colorado jobs going on right now, so we’re plugged
in to Dakota Ridge RV Park in Golden. No changes otherwise. Same work.
Same play. We can go to Texas in January. We’ll go anywhere in Colorado to
do Mobile Office jobs. Maybe we can expand outside Colorado too. Pursuing
that. New phone number, Judy’s cell: 303-726-5551.
New address: PO Box 156, Lafayette, CO 80026-8016. It was a cold snowy day today but we moved anyway. No problem. We’re set
up safe and warm.