And the rest of the road trip ...

We drove from OKC to Norfolk, Nebraska - spent the night (2) ... on to Spearfish, South Dakota (3) ... then to Butte, Montana (4) ... made it to Gresham, Oregon for night 5 ... wow!!! It was a Long trip - but a good one. 
The Honda Element did GREAT!!! 
Cheri` is officially a ROAD DOG :-) ... She did great riding in the car. 
We had some rain along the way - but no "wintry precipitation"  ... saw some snow and ice, but didn't get snowed or iced on. Which was a blessing!!! 

Rick and I had some long conversations - good times :-) ... 
We saw some country!!! Some of it (no offense) was not much to look at - unless you like farming country in the winter time. But some of it was absolutely beautiful - any time of the year!!! 
I have Lots of pictures that I am working on getting uploaded - will make a gallery on here as soon as I get them ready :-) ... 
We were blessed with good motel rooms - Rick requested a handicap room each night. Which made it easier to unload the cycler and supplies (and then re-load them the next morning). He did not miss one dialysis cycle on the whole trip - on the way, while in Oregon & Idaho, or on the way back. He did very well. 

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We stayed with Craig and Colleen several nights. They opened their home and their hearts to us - made us feel more like family than "long-lost friends" :) ... 
The Wednesday night we were there, we went over to Brian and Vanessa's for supper - or dinner as they call it. LOL ... What a beautiful home for a beautiful family!!!!! Precious little girls - full of life and energy!!!!! I need to get Brian & Vanessa's recipe for the BBQ chicken pizza - wow!

While we were in Oregon, we also visited with Ray. Tuesday night Ray took us out to eat - the fellowship was so much fun!!! We have truly missed him -- he is an awesome friend and a treasure as a brother!!! We were blessed to spend most of Thursday with him at his house. I fixed a King Ranch chicken casserole for lunch that day. It was so good to just sit and visit :-) ... 

We played Mexican Train (dominoes) with Craig and Colleen a couple of nights. What fun!!! The laughter ... the viciousness of the game!!! LOL 

Too soon it was time to leave Oregon ... Saturday we drove over to Idaho. 

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Sunday morning ... we had been invited to brunch with Casey and Lisa's family. They have a beautiful home as well. And 4 precious kids - more for Grannee to love :-) ... 
Rick spent most of the time there talking with Casey & Lisa -- I, however, was taken by the kids to their rooms and shown all their treasures :-) ... 
I was told that I sounded like the "Old West" - LOL ... and i was told that i was "crazy"!!! LOL 
Their oldest son (around 7 years old) told me that he wished i was his daddy's daughter - LOL ... I asked him why? He said, "Because you are fun to have!" LOL I told him that it would be hard for me to be his daddy's daughter because i am 52 and his daddy is in his 30's!!! The precious boy just looked at me and said, "No it wouldn't! And that way, you could be here all the time!" Oh ... boy does he know how to melt this Grannee's heart!!! 

Monday morning we visited a few minutes with Rick's boss from several years ago - Dave. :-) 

Then, it was time to pick up the rental truck and begin the process of loading it from the storage building ... 

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We had contracted with Simple Movers for 2 helpers to come over to the storage building around 1-2 p.m. for 2 hours to help with moving the heavier things into the truck. $200 to have these 2 guys help. It was going to be worth it - cause Rick and i cannot handle the heavier things any more. 
By 2 p.m. we still did not have helpers. A couple of phone calls back and forth with the company later ... and the guys had gotten the wrong zip code, and due to using GPS - went to the wrong place. They went to Banks, Idaho, not Caldwell. Sigh. And we were told that since they were "tired from driving" that it would be tomorrow before they could be there to load us. Uh ... not acceptable!!! 
Rick and I had been at the storage building since 12:30 p.m. - and we had a parking lot full of stuff!!! We had pulled out all the lighter and smaller things that we could handle - trying to make it easier and quicker for the helpers to get to and load the heavy things. We were exhausted!!! No way did we have it left in us to put all that stuff back!!! Besides, we had already checked out of our hotel room, and had the truck rented for a certain number of days. 

Rick called the guy who rented us the Penske truck there in Caldwell, and asked him if there was anyway he could bring someone to help him and they could load us that evening. (The guy had told us that morning when we picked the truck up that he did this on the side - usually only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.) 
Graciously, he and a friend came over and took a quick look at the building. He told us that he thought he could get it loaded in under 2 hours. He asked if we would be willing to pay him the same amount - $200? He was going to have to cancel plans for the evening to do this. We said - YES!!! 

6:03 p.m. they pull in ... 7:55 p.m. they are finished!!! Truck is loaded, storage building is empty. It was even a good evening of fellowship and conversation :-) ... 

Due to the late day, we got another hotel room, spent another night in Caldwell, ID. 
Started back to Texas the next morning. 

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We didn't do any side trips on the way back to Texas. We were tired and weary ... blessed with good hotel rooms at good prices :-) ... blessed with some good meals in the evenings ... blessed with good weather and no troubles all the way back :-) ... 

Made it in late Friday night (a week ago now) ... Mandy and the kids were here waiting ... so was Charlie :-) ... Joshua, Dessie, and the kids got here about an hour after we did ... 

And so the road trip was over and the weekend began ... 

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