"That's when I came to love the Badger."

I doubt that when Presidents Day was established, it was established so that we could gather together, eat, drink and talk about how our President is not very bright. Well that is what we did up a Hills Resort on Priest Lake. Saturday morning Linda and I loaded up the truck and drove up to Hills. We arrived at about noon and had a fire going, warming the cabin, in about fifteen minutes. I filled the wood bin and by the time we had settled in, Rania and Terry arrived. Shortly there after their phone rang and Bridget checked in, followed by a call from Julia and Rob. It looks like everyone is going to make it for the weekend.

The first order of business was booze. Linda tossed together Margaritas using tequila, beer, lime aid and a dash of Grand Marnier. So let the party begin! Rob and Julia arrived just a bit after Bridget and things started to roll. Raina placed the dinner in the oven and we whipped up another batch of blender magic. There is warmth a log fire provides, our new cabin was set up differently from the past cabins and we all agreed that it was more comfortable.

The enchilada dinner was fantastic and when we pushed away from the table everyone was full. We cleared the table and got ready for a hard fought game of liars dice. Bridget brought the dice and taught everyone the rules of play. I had an advantage over everyone due to my nightly games that were played on a trip down the Grand Canyon. As we shook and played, we all found out who the liars were. It came down to WSU vs. Idaho, one on one. Julia and I shook our final die. It couldn’t have worked out better for me, I rolled the wild card single. Julia had to make the call and when she did it left me with the win. It was a lot of fun. A late desert of cheese cake was served. We dribbled chocolate and berry juice over the top and gobbled it down. We were all tired and everyone started turning in just after 9:00 PM.

One by one we started getting up; the smell of coffee filled the cabin. Bridget started making breakfast. Canadian bacon, pancakes, and eggs were on the menu and no one hesitated to partake. As soon as we finished eating and cleaned up everyone started getting ready to go snowshoeing. We loaded up the truck and Bridget’s car and drove out to the road leading to the Beaver Creek campground. It was quiet when we arrived and we put on our gear. As soon as we were ready to leave about fourteen snowmobiles pulled up and filled the air with exhaust and broke the quiet of the morning with the screams engines.

The machines left the area and we snow shoed for about an hour. The path we took lead off the road and we ran across some deer. I had forgotten the camera on the fender of the truck and had to split from the group to pick it up

before some one came along and took it. The rest of the group kept hiking and circled around through the trees and back to the road. We met up and continued for another half hour and then returned to the vehicles and drove back to Nordmen where we bought some ice cream.

Back at the cabin Julia started making her chili and we all settled in for some nice well deserved naps.

Camper Update!

This weekend I spent sunday changing out the the lower charger/converter section of our Parallax/Magnetek 7345 system and replaced it with a 3-stage Progressive Dynamics Model PD9160A Charger/Converter along with the Charge Wizard option. I followed the instructions on a site created by William R. Hemme. This is the first step in my project of upgrading our power system to solar. I would like to add a Blue Sky Solar Boost 2512i controller, IPN-Remote Display and two Kyocera KC130 solar panel. This should make it so we can boondock, that's RV speak for camping out where there are no amenities, for long periods of time. So setp one is complete and now we move on.

Epilogue: Mexico

Just had a chance to edit some of the blog, I had made a mess of it when I spell checked the document prior to uploading it at Roosters. Hope you enjoyed some of the mistakes.

Yesterday Linda received an email from Marthe, the owner of the house we stayed in the past few years. We thought that she had sold it and this would be our last year to visit. Marthe said that the sale is taking longer then expected and it would not be sold by the next holiday season in December. So we decided to go back to Melaque one last time next year. We considered other options, but this will make things very easy for the upcoming year. After that who knows where we will go.

Invitations are being sent to fill the two week slot in the spare bed room. Once again Linda has something to help her through the fall semester and I can plan on fishing for the big ones off the coast of Mexico.