Tag Archives: Monday Memories

Mondays are for memories – Finding an old hard drive

January 6, 2025 steph Leave a comment

One thing about transitioning from full-time RVing into a house is you get the opportunity to sort through all of those drawers and baskets that you’ve been stashing random things in for the last 20 years. One of the items that turned up is my original back-up portable hard drive. And I found some treasures there!
This first set must’ve been the Thanksgiving of 2003. We (Gary, Josiah & I) drove the Lizzie (our new RV) to Ohio, Lara flew in from California (I think that’s where she was!) and we celebrated the holiday with Toby, Tammy and little Ellie (all of 9 months old). Some of the pictures were taken in T&T’s apartment and some in our new RV, The one of the seven of us standing in front of the blank wall was in their still-being-built home!

This set is from our last Christmas at our home in Jamison, PA – not too many pictures, and none are very good – but they are oh so sweet to me!

Oh my – the memories!

And this final picture is our family in March of 2004.

It might be the last time we were all together before we “ran away from home” August 1st of that year. I honestly can’t remember why we were all together. But I do know our family has grown in so many beautiful ways between then and now –

(And we’re missing DIL Abigail in this picture! Oh, and that’s Ellie on the end holding her little sister Everly!)

In the middle of sorting and deciding what to keep (and where to put it!) and what to donate, it was a very sweet walk down memory lane for which I am very grateful!

Have a great week, friends! Stay safe – I hear there’s lots of snow going on around the country!

Family and Friends, Mondays are for Memories

Mondays are for Memories – A String of Pearls

November 28, 2022 steph Leave a comment

Since we’re still in November – the Thankful Month – I was reminded of a blog post I did many years ago about the blessings of dear friends from our “previous lifetime” blending with some of the precious friends we’ve made since we’ve been on the road. So I tracked it down, and here you go – from August 15, 2013

A String of Pearls –
We’ve returned from our weekend (+) excursion to see friends and family in Lancaster and Doylestown and I don’t think we could have had a better weekend. Each day seemed to represent a perfect slice of the different stages in our lives. Friday we were hanging out with some of our most precious SOWER friends. We did “Lancaster things” – a farmers’ market, a quilt shop, an Amish hardware store, and the like, and then a traditional potluck rounded out the day. A good day with good friends – what a great start to the weekend!

But then –
Saturday we spent with our sweet grandson, Weston (age 2), and his mom and dad (also some of our favorite people!). Abigail and I did some girl things while the guys ran some errands, we ate out and took naps and delighted in watching Weston watching the trains at the Choo-Choo Barn.
A beautiful day with our beautiful family – who could ask for anything more?
But then –
Sunday we drove to Willow Grove to worship at our old church. The church we were married in and the church where we found Jesus (or rather, He found us!). We expected that many faces would be different (we left that church when we moved to Jamison in 1981, so aside from some occasional visits over the years, it HAD been a while), and they were. But many were the same too. Oh, the sweet hugs from that morning! To worship with folks who had come to our daughter’s 1st birthday party and then to enjoy an impromptu lunch with those dear friends.

Oh, does it get any better than this?
But then –
Sunday afternoon we dropped in on some other friends and before we knew it we were enjoying another unexpected gathering. Sweet corn and sweet conversation and a bottle of red wine shared among friends.
Oh, the delight of it all.
But then –
on Monday I started the day with a coffee date with a dear friend, followed by lunch with my work buddies, and an afternoon hanging around with my BFF from our Doylestown days. BLTs made with thick slices of fresh from the garden tomatoes – Oh, now that was a great day.
But then –
catching up with my quilting buddies Monday night. Oh, my. Our days of quilting for the kids’ school are long over, but still, we start up right where we left off those many years ago. Oh, these days we might talk a bit more about our grandchildren than our children (to their great relief)and we might not spend quite so much time solving the problems of the world, but those precious friends will always be a safe place for me. Being the last ones out of Panera (almost an hour after they officially closed) and then still talking in the parking lot for another 30 minutes (honest, it wasn’t really that late! Panera closed at 9 PM – who knew?)came as no surprise. Regardless of our different places in life, we are truly kindred spirits. It was crazy wonderful!
But then –
just to add a bit of icing on the wonderful weekend cake, before we headed back to Montrose on Tuesday, we managed to squeeze in a quick visit with friends we don’t usually get to see. As we sat and enjoyed a cup of coffee (and were thankful for the rain that freed up her morning schedule) it was so wonderful to hear about their lives over the last two years. Sweet times, indeed.

So as I was trying to somehow quantify this weekend I was having trouble finding just the right metaphor. Was it worlds colliding? Not really. Though we saw folks from many different stages in our lives, there certainly wasn’t any colliding going on. Â Was it picture-perfect? Actually, yes. Though I failed to take many pictures (you know I must have been distracted, right?). A medley of friends? A potpourri of relationships? Â As I thought about how those five days strung together just perfectly, I remembered the lovely string of pearls I have in my cupboard. And I thought, yes. This weekend was like a string of pearls – each one smooth and delightful, strung together to make a thing of beauty. Â And that’s how our weekend was – beautiful days strung together and filled with people we love and who love us back.

Mondays are for Memories

Mondays are for Memories…12 years ago!

August 3, 2020 steph Leave a comment

Since we just ‘celebrated’ our 16th anniversary of Life on the Road, I thought it would be interesting to look back on some other early August posts to see where we were, and what was going on! So here is a post from August 1, 2008 as I reflect on the beginning of Year Five for us! (And as an editorial note, Gary still does his daily journal, and that spreadsheet is still going strong (though Gary manages that now!)! Oh – and the plant lives on too!)

First Day of Year Five – August 1, 2008
Can that really be true? Today begins day ONE of our fifth year on the road. And it is only fitting that we spent part of the day actually ON the road! 🙂 We made our short trip from Green Forest, AR to Springdale, AR without event – but I did manage to take a good “on the road” shot of our faithful traveling companion – our jade plant –

See how she’s grown?

For virtually every day since we have been on the road Gary has kept a journal. He records what he read for devotions, where we stayed, and what he did (or we did if we did something together). Sometimes he notes where we ate, and he always notes where we stayed (or at least where the RV was parked).
It looks like this –
God’s truths are eternal and unchanging
Devotions – Millers (the Sower couple that led our group devotions)
-closed up fence near barns
-worked on horse feed troughs
-covered A/C cond. fan
-checked on equipment shipments (A/C)
Played cards
Lunch & Dinner at TC
Sower (that’s where we were parked).

He has done this every day since we left on August 1, 2004. And since he has kept such good records, I can tell you that we have been parked at Sower projects for 984 nights, campgrounds -82, Flying J – 7, Wal-marts – 70, at friends and family – 191, Rest Areas – 16, Home – 36, miscellaneous – 26. When Iâ€™m trying to figure out just when we were at such and such a place, he says â€“ â€œwait, let me look it upâ€. And he does. Amazing.
On the other hand, I have been the keeper of the spreadsheet. We have tried diligently to record all of our expenses, from the diet cokes we buy when we travel to the insurance we carry to the money we spend in tolls. Itâ€™s not nearly as interesting as what we did when, but we do try to be careful with what we spend – after all, weâ€™re spending the kidsâ€™ inheritance! 🙂
And hasnâ€™t it been fun!

More reflections laterâ€¦â€¦.

Mondays are for Memories, Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

Mondays are for Memories – Death Valley – Second Day

April 20, 2020 steph 1 Comment

We’ve been to a lot of National Parks in our travels. And I can’t think of one that I wouldn’t go back to again. But I’ll confess that when Gary suggested we go (for several days, even!) to Death Valley National Park I wasn’t that excited. Death Valley? Didn’t sound like a place I needed to go and see. Well, I was wrong – big time wrong! Here’s a memory from our visit there 10 years ago!

3/31/2010 – Death Valley – Second Day
OK, dinner’s over – back to the memories.
I forgot to mention one other stop that we made on our first day –
The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

We didn’t actually get out and climb those big ol’ dunes, but there were others who did –

They were pretty amazing!
But, back to Day Two –
Remember how this is the largest park in the lower 48? Well, we were camped close to the middle of the park, and we still had a forty mile drive to our first stop –
Scotty’s Castle

We splurged and did a “combo tour”, so we got to enjoy both an Inside Tour (along with lots of stories about the castle and its builders), and the Underground Tour, which included details on the mechanics of the castle, which was quite an engineering feat.

As you can see, it is pretty remote and in the desert after all, but it did have access to an underground spring that produced 300 gallons of water per minute, so they had that going for them. Can you see the big hole in the ground in the front of castle?
Here are some close-ups –

That was going to be the swimming pool!!!! Check out the viewing windows in the deep end – how crazy was that?

I was standing on that center bridge when I took the pictures of the deep and shallow ends. I can’t imagine how over-the-top this pool would have been (not to mention how quickly the water would have been evaporating there in the desert) had not the owner run out of money. It was a fascinating tour – and I took lots of pictures. Here are just a couple –

and plenty more HERE!
Next Stop -(down a 20 mile dirt road) – The Racetrack, home of the mysterious moving rocks.

The Racetrack is a large dry lake bed called a playa. It was pretty fascinating just to look at-
from a distance

and close up –

and very close up –

But what really draws people to this remote spot are these rocks

that move across the lake bed

leaving trails behind them.

I haven’t a clue how this actually happens, but I’m glad we got to see them. Quite an interesting phenomenon, don’t you think?
After the Racetrack (and back that 20 miles of dirt road), we took a quick stop at the Ubehebe Crater –

and then we were on our way back to Lizzie,

and a beautiful sunset.

Another good day in the valley!