Solar Panels and Fun with Emily

Terry has been busy creating a contraption that will raise the solar panels on our RV roof and put them down by pushing a toggle switch. The problem has been that it has rained and we have had some strong winds. Several times he found that he needed another bolt or part and had to drive 100 miles round trip to Des Moines to get them.

My eleven-year-old granddaughter, Emily spent a couple of days with me. We went to the Tulip Tea Room in Pella where she got to look at a whole box of tea bags to choose her tea. She says she is a tomboy but she liked the girly luncheon too.

My daughter, Karol, decided to give her niece the flute she played in high school band. Emily practiced on it most of the two days she was with me.

Mom fell on Thursday so Dad asked me to stay with mom while he went fishing with Terry on Friday, May 29. Emily won most of the games of Skipbo that we played with Mom.

Yes, the fishing was successful. Terry caught bass while dad caught blue gills.

Hoven Work Day

The sky was dark and the forecast was rain on Tuesday, May 26, when we went to my Mom and Dad Hoven's house for a workday. They had a roof over a porch or patio area that leaked. My husband, brothers, brothers-in-law, a nephew and my niece climbed the roof to tear it up and rebuild it with 2 x 4's, OSB board, and rolled roofing. My sisters and I cleaned indoors and prepared sloppy joes, baked beans, potato salad and fruit salad for lunch. Clara also brought a rhubarb cake and I brought my leftover Birthday Cake. The repair work was finished five minutes before a cloudburst of rain fell on us.

Family Celebrations

Nathan stayed overnight at grandpa and grandma’s RV on Sunday. I took him the next day to Hoven’s Haven where my brother Jim raises elk. Nathan got to sit on the tractor, went on a 4-wheel drive ride with my brother, and even got into the bullpen with Jim.

On Tuesday, May 12, my granddaughter Kari and I gave a surprise party for my daughter Karol’s fortieth birthday. Karol is holding a friend’s baby. Her son, Ryan and daughter Kari are in this picture with Karol’s friend Jessie in the background. Kari made the cake and set it ablaze with more than forty candles.

Mother's Day

It was a beautiful day on Mother’s Day. My daughter Karol grilled hamburgers for the children we have in Iowa. Pictured are Karol, me, Mark and Richard.

Nathan and Mercedes colored in the Canyonlands book that I bought while Emily looked on. Grandson’s Matt and Joshua are taller than grandma.

On the evening of Mother’s Day, I went to see my mother in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Pictured are myself, my mother Agnes Hoven and my grandson, Nathan.

Pella Tulip Time- part three

I was putting up my blog when a storm hit Iowa yesterday. The internet was slow and interrupted often. I erased part of the writing and sent it out without finishing it. Here is the last part of the Tulip Time blog.

Dutch food is for sale including chocolates, sausages, cheese and vegetables.

The youngest child dressed in a Dutch costume, who is three weeks old, was carried by her father. Even Sinter Klaus came to see the children. Dutch shoes called “klompen” come in all sizes and some even hold small children.

There are thousands of tulips in bloom in Pella. When I looked at my pictures, I found that I had not taken a single picture of the flowers.

Pella Tulip Parade

I have been asked to make the photos smaller so when the reader double clicks on the lower left corner of the photos to enlarge them, they aren’t so big that you can’t see the whole picture. Please tell me how you like this method.

The parade in Pella on May 9 included the usual bands and floats. Hundreds of Pella people dressed in the styles of the 12 provinces as of the 1850’s. (The Dutch settled in Pella in 1847.) Dutch children marched down the street.

Pellas Tulip Time

I sat on bleachers in front of the Tulip Torem, which is a replica of the wooden torem or tower that was made for Queen Julianna when she came to Pella during the WWII time period. This year, Tulip Time in Pella, Iowa was Thursday thru Saturday, May 7-9,2009.

Pre-parade activities included the introduction of the Pella’s new Tulip Queen and her court, and a style show of different Dutch costumes.

The Dutch are the only people that I know who scrub the streets before the parade starts.
Hundreds of Pellans participate in this exercise. All you need is a Dutch costume. The city has huge tubs of water (that look like horse troughs). I don’t know who provides the brooms and pails for them to use. It’s a hoot. Small boys love to splash water on other boys. The Pella people like to teach their children that the Dutch are very clean and how to do it but some little cleaners just sit down on the job.

Visit with Friends in Cotopaxi

Terry disconnected the car from the RV to travel Hwy. 50 before we crossed Monument Pass. The altitude is almost 12,000 feet. I didn’t think that I would ever drive in a snowstorm in May but the date was May 4.

Four years ago, we went to church in Cotopaxi, Colorado and were invited to the annual picnic lunch afterwards. At the picnic, we met Richard and Kathleen. Since we are interested in solar and energy saving living, they invited us to their house in the mountains at just under 9,000 feet in altitude where there are no electric lines.

Terry said that he’d like to see the place again. I have emailed Kathleen several times and feel that we are friends. I emailed again and asked if it would be convenient to visit. Richard and Kathleen said they would be delighted to see us.

The second mountain scene is from their window. The huge item in the photo with Terry is their water tank. You can see their solar panels and wood storage. They use the stove and fireplace for heat.

Kathleen has a wonderful kitchen. I envy her dishwasher. She even has a custom-made spice cabinet. She not only has an island that is 4 feet by 8 feet for storage but also has 6 feet by 7 feet walk-in pantry. At lunch we learned that she is also a good cook.

If you are interested in living in a place like this, it's for sale. Kathleen and Richard want to move closer to their grandchildren.

Wild Animals in Colorado

I love to take photos of animals in the wild. Terry took the picture of the four baby coyotes but I took the rest during the last few days of April when we were in Colorado. We saw elk, deer, a marmot and these baby coyotes.

I was especially pleased to get the picture of the two baby coyotes looking at one another. Can’t you just imagine these two little ones saying, “I dare you to ______?”

Colorful Colorado

The welcome sign that we saw on the 28th of April stated that Colorado is colorful but we saw mostly brown and white. The leaves had not budded and snow was on the mountain. On the 30th of April we rode on 550, south of Montrose. (The town in the picture is Silverton, Colorado. If you want to see a picture more clearly, double click on the lower left of the picture with the left side of the mouse.)

We did think that the mighty rush of water from the melting snow on the mountains created beautiful waterfalls.

Museum of the Mountain West

Terry and I met Richard Fike, the founder of the Museum of the Mountain West on April 29,2009. (Yes, I’m way behind in writing blogs but we are spending so much time having fun and adventures that we haven’t caught up to making them blogs.)

Mr. Fike gave us a personal tour of the museum, which holds the memorabilia that he has collected for over 60 years. We walked down the street in the large building with storefronts, entered the shops and wished we could buy the items at the old prices. Mr. Fike played several old instruments with recorded music that played through paper or metal holes in his machines. I was most delighted by the violin, but the piano and bells sounds were melodious too. I could smell the dentist materials in the dentist office. The buildings, in the photo, were log cabins, a school, and what Mr. Fike called a teacherage. (It was a two- room brick building that housed the teacher when he or she was the teacher of the one room school.) Terry is seen here walking up to the church, which had painted windows. Buildings not pictured include 1882 Railroad buildings, the 1895 Carriage Works, a 1909 home, a 1933 log barn and a Chinese laundry with vintage washing machines. We were allowed in all the buildings during the two-hour tour.

You may not get a tour by Mr. Fike himself but you will be delighted by the displays as shown by his docents in this non-profit museum. We felt like we were experiencing life at the turn of the 19th century in the Montrose, Colorado area.

Arches National Park and Moab

We thought that we had seen the best red rock parks until we came to Arches National Park. We were oohing and aahing all over again. We seldom saw people but one couple asked us to take their picture because it was their 55th wedding anniversary. We took their photo and they took ours at the “Park Avenue” rocks. Park Avenue is named because someone thought the rocks look like tall buildings.


The rocks were named in English according to the imagination of the first white people who saw them. Terry thought that this rock looked like a space ship. We laughed when we thought of someone from outer space looking for intelligent life and finding only the cows. Just outside the Park, you will find open range.

We were in Moab for the yearly vintage car show. Terry took hundreds of pictures. My favorite was this little RV sleeper. Yes, the trailer had room to crawl in and sleep.

We camped at this campground with the Colorado River running through two canyon walls. It was a great place until a sand storm knocked our satellite dish down. The windows were open. The smallest grains of sand that I have ever seen covered everything with grit.

Navaho Hogan

When I was in elementary school, I was a pen pal to a Navaho girl who lived in a hogan during the summer with her family and in a dormitory while she was in school. I have never been in a hogan so I am interested in Navaho ruins and hogans. Here are some pictures of ruins and a reconstructed hogan where I met this Navaho woman docent who invited me inside the hogan.

I was surprised to see that the inside was made of Juniper logs that were woven like an upside-down basket. She carded and spun the wool and was making this blanket. She doesn’t live here. She lives in a mobile home in town.

The scenery outside her door was spectacular.

Utah's Beautiful Scenery

We traveled to the little town of Mexican Hat, which was named for this stone formation. Terry found the perfect place to camp in Gooseneck State Park. We had plenty of space to park on level ground without the concern of dodging tree branches. There were picnic tables. It was quiet and the scenery was spectacular. Best of all, it was free.

Our RV was boondocked here for a couple of days while we explored the Valley of the Gods one day and Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon, and Capitol Reef National Park the next day. We took hundreds of pictures and walked miles to and from the parking sites. It wasn’t the distance that tired us but changing altitude up to 600 feet as we walked.

Terry drove up this canyon. What did we see at the top? Cows! It was open range country. The old cows just moseyed along but the calves ran in front of us.

Grand Canyon

We traveled northwest of Lake Havasu to I-40. At Flagstaff, we went on State Hwy 89 to 64. We unhooked the car at a tourist area and got permission to leave the RV to travel on 64 to enter the Grand Canyon from the east. We have seen the Grand Canyon from the other three directions but the east side quickly became our favorite. These pictures will tell you why. It is easier to see the Colorado River as it cuts through the rock to create the canyons. We were fortunate enough to see the first elk that we have seen in Arizona.