Easter, Haircut & The Mining Trail

Change is always terrifying but great, and we've had quite a bit of it in the past month.

We celebrated Dad's birthday at BJ's Brewery, and had a delicious as usual meal there.
Here I am, post-chop.  I've wanted to cut my hair for a while, but I have that horrible trust issue and the timing just became perfect.  I didn't want long hair for the trail, and I've always wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love.  They only ask for 10 inches, but got a full 11 from me. 

Mom made a huge and wonderful Easter brunch, followed by an even bigger Easter dinner. Both so good!  I enjoyed making the Easter eggs and then eating almost all of them.


We had Grandma & Grandpa over the next day for dinner and had a great time with them.

Spring is quite gorgeous here in NV, with all the fruit trees in bloom.  Below is a gorgeous grass that we discovered near the American River near Auburn, California.

We went on a scenic hike along the river and stopped for Gracie to have a dip.

It's the highest bridge in California!

The California poppies were everywhere.
We stopped in a historic gold mining town called Coloma to catch up on some mining history and a pretty walk.  Learned a ton about the California gold rush with Coloma being in the heart of it.


We took the longer, scenic route home from Auburn on 50 by Tahoe and pictured above is the Strawberry Lodge and Lovers' Leap.  Tibor and I used to go climbing there a lot back when.  Do you remember the collect calls we made from here about why we got held up and why we were climbing in the dark?  :)

More mining fun in Virginia City (very close to Reno), the heart of the silver mining rush.  It's a historic town that is about the size of McCall, with quite a bit of tourism.  We shopped, visited historic sites and even took a mine tour.  It was a great day, and finally a place that Dave hasn't been; we enjoyed it very much.  The old saloons and Mark Twain memorabilia (he started his writing career here) were awesome!  

Right now were still working on physically qualifying for work in Antarctica. Dave is at the doc. right now, and after going to doctors and the dentist daily I just have one visit left.  It's a bit troublesome because it's the blood exam, which also has the cholesterol test.  And as you can imagine, after a month of traveling and visiting family and eating way too much wonderful food, I'm worried.  So we've been eating healthy the past week trying to fix whatever we did to ourselves.  Wish us luck!  Aren't the camel pictures the best?

Fort Wayne & Chicago

We had a great time in the midwest visiting family, and were glad that Mike & Jen drove up to meet us in Fort Wayne.  We really enjoyed our uncle and aunt time playing with Isaac, especially on the trampoline!  It's amazing how much he grows and changes each time we see him.  We played lots of cards, had plenty of great meals and even got to visit with Grandma Koehlinger!


We drove up to Chicago to spend friday with Mike & Jen before flying out on Saturday.  What a blast!  We went to the planetarium and the best Irish pub ever!
It was very cold and windy, as you can see by the choppy waters on Lake Michigan (Sears Tower is the tall one in this pic).
It's a Guinness tan :)
Best bangers and mash!  Awesome day!  Coming soon, Easter & Reno fun...

The Koehlingers in Idaho, Hells Canyon & More Packing

The elk feeding sleigh ride tour was wonderful as usual, and one of our first fun-tivities with Dave's parents in Idaho.  We followed it with a soak in the hot springs, which was necessary since it was pretty much snowing or blizzarding daily in McCall since Tamarack Closed (March 3rd).    Below is the Gold Fork river, which cuts through the elk feeding grounds and is also next to the Gold Fork Hot Springs.


We took a road trip to Hells Canyon to get some sunshine and snow free ground, and really enjoyed seeing the hundreds of fishermen, the sweeping vistas and the cacti everywhere.
Hells Canyon in Idaho (2 hours from McCall) is not only stunning but also the deepest canyon in North America (deeper than the Grand Canyon).  We even played some euchre (awesome card game for you non midwesterners) by the river.


This is me digging a hole for the studded snow tires to store on our property.  There was a bloody mouse :( and chewed up van seat incident.  
Signing the papers to sell our share of the business to Polly and Artie at the bank.
We went for an awesome snowshoe in Ponderosa State Park, and saw sunset on McCall before heading to the Bistro 45 for supper.  It really looks like February in town!


Long, long days of packing, cleaning absolutely every square inch including the walls, cabinets and even floorboards.  Shampooing the carpets, touch up painting and final packing took quite a while, but we're hoping for our full deposit back and it looks great doesn't it?  The picture below was right before we pulled out to head to Reno.  I actually spun out right here with the van.  It was a 10 hour drive to Reno.  We arrived at almost 9pm, and flew out for Chicago the next morning, and still had time to unpack and store our boxes in Mom & Dad's garage and closet.  They're way too nice for storing our crap!  :)  Coming up is pictures with Isaac in Fort Wayne, fun times in Chicago, Easter and springtime with our family in Reno.  And some gorgeous Easter eggs. :):)