House progress and new phone number

...thought you'd like to see our house construction progress....

Here's the initial site with only the land.

then with walls and dormers

This one was taken 11/23 with most of the front siding on.

...and this morning we took this one that shows the front siding and the scallops.

The scallops are the decorative siding above. We'll be painting the green siding with our own colors.

The electrical. HVAC, and plumbing rough are all done inside as is the insulation. The septic and leech fields are done and covered up. Back deck is almost done.

We'll be starting the exterior painting next week and drywall as well. And the well is being dug. It will probably go down 500 feet to get to good water!


Oh....we'll be changing our phone number to a local 208 area code soon so our 916 phone number will be inactivated. As soon as we get the new number, we'll send out an email.

...and no blog entry is complete without some Katie photos...she's up to 10 lbs. now.

Waiting on Thanksgiving turkey..."can't you hurry Dad"?

Katie's new winter coat...had to be pnk.

Out for a walk to show off her new coat

Katie, the goat and the horses....WOOF WOOF !

She LOVES my shoes.

steve/kim/katie

Peek-A-Boo, Idaho

Actually, the town is called Picabo, but pronounced Peek-A-Boo. The population is 128 souls in the surrounding 40 square miles consisting mostly of large ranches and irrigated fields. We stayed two nights and today I took a walk down the dirt road to the fly fishing river, Silver Creek, a mile each way.

Location of Picabo in relation to Yellowstone to the east and Boise to the west.

The nearest flowing stream is Silver Creek, a scenic spring-fed tributary of the Little Wood River, a key source of irrigation water for eastern Blaine County. The pristine Silver Creek is renowned among fly fisherman and was a favorite of Ernest Hemingway, who enjoyed hunting and fishing along the stream with local rancher Bud Purdy. The name "Picabo" supposedly derives from a Native American term translated as "silver water".

Looking west across the valley 

Looking back towards our RV park

The Silver Creek, upriver

The Silver Creek, upriver

Towards the southern hills

Heading home

Upriver

Everyone wanted to watch... 

....as I walked by....

....and on the way back too

Two magnificent horses

One decided to look at me.

Our spot with the southern hills in the distance

Our spot

Katie wanted to "talk" to the sheep in the field in front of our coach but they were too shy.

We've been discovering that Idaho is gorgeous ! Scenic ! Way better than we expected ! ...can't wait to explore more of it in the years to come.

thanks for viewing....

steve/kim/katie

Time to Settle Down....

You probably have noticed our blog entries have slowed down considerably. Well, after six wonderful, exciting, adventurous years of travelling around the country, we've decided to settle down here in Nampa, Idaho and build a house.

We've visited every state in the country...many states multiple times and had a blast...never regretted a moment.

We had a few cities on our list to investigate on this trip. They were: Grand Junction, Colorado, Flagstaff, Arizona, Minden/Garnerville, Nevada, Nampa, Idaho, Kennewick, Washington, Fort Collins, Colorado. Nampa is our choice.
Here's where Idaho is located and Nampa (the blue circle) in the SW part of the state.

Some overall statistics from our travels:

We started out in California September 23rd, 2011 and are ending it August 1st, 2016

1808 days...as of August 1st

247 RV Parks

Average price per night: $27.94

Average nightly stay: 5.96....this includes wintering over in Nokomis for 150 days three years in row.


Average daily mileage: 195 miles

47,436 miles total

First three year's travels

2015 trip

Our current trip west

We looked around this area, west of Boise, three years ago and really liked it. It has agriculture, low crime, conservative, good demographics, great weather (no tornados, hurricanes or thunder and lightning storms), easy winters, not-that-hot summers, lots to do, gorgeous country.



We went and bought a 2-acre piece of land in a nice neighborhood outside of town where we're in the process of planning and building our home.

The star south of the lake is our land.

Neighborhood...all 2-3 acre lots

Kim has been designing our home for years now in anticipation of building it. She's been planning for a 1,200 square foot house but the CCRs of this development said 1,800 square feet. We thought that was fine but.....then we read the amendments that now said 2,400 square feet is the minimum ! That's a lot of house for 2 people. However, we went ahead and made ourselves a new floor plan that we're very happy with.

We always liked an open floor plan.

Here are some photos of our land, starting from the left side (the west side) and moving to the right. Notice the great east-facing view of the mountains behind Boise. That'll be our morning view and, in the winter, they are covered with snow!

far left....west is to the left

turning right

more right turn....check out the moutains

far right....at the road

We're staying in our coach at a great RV park while the house is being built. Right now, we're looking at breaking ground in about 2-3 weeks (hopefully) and then 3 months construction, which ought to get us into the house in December. Wouldn't that be a great Christmas present?!!!


We'll be posting photos as the construction proceeds and photos of what we're planning for the inside rooms. So we hope you all will be interested to follow the progress.

...and our latest Katie photos....

all fluffy

Horsies !

...with her favorite toy

Cooling off on the car's AC after a run

After a grooming

How can you not love this lady?

Love to you all,


Steve and Kim and Katie

LONG trip to Mono Lake

Once we were done spending the night in Mina, we asked the manager at the RV park if the road over to Mono Lake along highway 360 then 6 then 120 over to 395 going north to the Mono Lake Visitor's Center. She said, "It's a nice drive through forests and valley".  But....she said nothing about 11% up and down grade. Ye gad....what a road! Up....at 15mph, then dowwwwwwwwwnnnnn!!!! It took us over 3 hours to go the 100+ miles....

But...some very nice scenery as we travelled, including some terrific vistas of the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains

This is what happens when the camera focuses in on the bugs instead of the meadow!

When we finally got to Mono Lake, we stopped at the Visitor's Center to see what the big deal was. It's a great birding location.

Getting close to Mono Lake

Mono Lake in the distance

Gotta take a photo of the coach

California Gull...Katie chased it for a while

Years ago, the lake was much higher, but LA came and grabbed a couple of the input streams and diverted those waters down to their city for the water supply and Mono Lake levels dropped. Since then, they've recovered somewhat due to a new agreement between LA and Mono Lake. I'm over simplifying what is a BIG history lesson.

Looking east

Looking west

Call them weird, call them bizarre, call them what you will, but the unusual rock formations that grace Mono Lake's shores are known to geologists as tufa (too'-fah).
Tufa forms in a variety of ways at Mono Lake, but the most visible and remarkable formations are the towers that grace Mono's shoreline.
The greatest concentration of these towers is located at the South Tufa grove just off of Hwy 120 East, at the south end of Mono Lake.

We only stayed long enough to view the lake and walk through the center....we still had a few hours left to travel ahead of us.

http://www.monolake.org/about/


As we climbed out of the valley, we tried to get some photos...but...did not happen.

Lean forward so I can take the photo!

Aaacckkk...where did that come from ?

Nice journey and a nice stop.



...and our Katie photo...on top of a huge log

Steve/Kim/Katie