Will spring ever come?

Well, we thought spring had arrived in Kettle Falls-

The big project on this home stay was to remove the wall between the kitchen and the old bathroom-


Then on Wednesday we woke up to more snow!!! Yuck!

Big Red has a cracked head!

We were in Los Angeles on March 17th- getting the truck worked on AGAIN for a leaky coolant system but thought we should be all mended and on the road by mid day- probably headed back to Puget Sound.

WRONG!!!!!

Update on March 19th. Turns out the problem with the leaky coolant was more than just a hole in the resevoir. The truck motor was forcing the coolant through the overflow valve everytime we climbed a grade. Here is our "farmerized" repair in order to get back to Tacoma. The jug caught the overflow coolant and we poured it back into the resevoir. It worked fine as long as we stopped before the resevoir got too low. Because, if it got too low- the motor shut off- as we were driving along- and then it was manual steering and brakes to bring the truck to a stop!

The mechanic finally determined that there was a crack in the head that was causing all these problems. So the Big Red Truck is headed in for a major repair job- and we are headed to Kettle Falls!

Last winter gasps- and signs of spring!

It is still winter in many parts of the country in March.....
Kurt was driving through Iowa last week on the morning after an ice storm- he counted 82 cars and trucks slid off the road- here is a sampling........

And on March 15th we encountered a sudden snow squall in the Siskiyous in southern Oregon. Luckily everyone slowed down enough to prevent any fender benders!

And later that same day we hit ANOTHER snow squal need Mt Shasta in California. The snow covered our windshield in no time...

And the road turned white.....

But later, the SAME day, we saw wild flowers blooming along the interstate. Maybe spring is truly just around the corner!

Working home stay- as usual

While Joanie was in Oklahoma Kurt moved the fixtures into the new bathroom.

Take a look- pretty cool :)

We reconnected at Spokane on Friday night and we are already back in the truck and headed to Los Angeles. We will be on the west coast for two weeks.

San Francisco stopover

As usual- our plans changed. Kurt did reload with yogurt on Wednesday but he is headed for Sacramento- not LA. And then Joanie's flight to Denver was cancelled and the airlines couldn't get me to Denver in time to meet the truck- but they were willing to fly me the additional distance to San Francisco at no charge.
The upside of it all is that Joanie gets the weekend to visit her brother, Nat and he took me to the San Francisco Symphony on Saturday night.

Here we are at the entrance to the Civic Center:

And here is the view from our seats (on the top most row) during intermission


And here is my view as I sit in bed at Nat's house on Sunday morning....