All posts by Terry Harrison

Happy New Year 2023

The changing seasons and years are just flying by us. We are making the effort to slow down, put the brakes on this forward momentum to take a breath and be present for the joy and beauty that surrounds us.  We look at each other and it is hard to believe we are in our seventies….a good friend said age is a state of mind and she believes the seventies are the new fifties!!!   I’ll raise a glass to that.

This past year changed all our lives in many ways.  As we look forward into 2023, we are putting our energies into our expectations, hopes and prayers this year will provide a measure of peace and goodwill for all.   We are finding ways to gather with friends and family to reinforce our love and respect for each other.

Both of us believe the best reward for posting our travel blog is hearing from our family and friends.  Each time we post a new blog, many of you write to say hello.  Your emails are full of news of what is going on in your lives and keep us from feeling homesick when we are on the road.   Keep your newsy emails coming; we enjoy your sharing your lives with us.

We became “off rode adventurers” last summer when we got our second home in Grand Junction, Colorado.  We will be returning in May or June and will expand our off road explorations.  We found our stock Jeep lacking.  It wasn’t as safe or sturdy as we would have liked for several of the remote trails.

We joined a Jeep Club, looked at some other rigs and got advice from long-time off roading experts and ordered a Jeep Rubicon outfitted with the extreme package.  The new Jeep will be much safer with higher ground clearance, bigger tires, lockers and sway bar disconnect to give more stability on rough trails.  Now we will have the peace of mind we will be able to conquer anything the trail throws at us when we travel into the wilderness.

We found breathtaking landscapes at 11,500 feet.  We continue to enjoy photography and developing some of those photographs into fine art which you will find below.

Until next time,

2023 Gallery
Imogene Pass
2023 New Year
View from Grand Mesa
Serpents Trail No. 2
Crested Butte Roadside No. 2
Crystal Mine in Marble
Kebler Pass No. 2
Divde Road
Kebler Pass No. 1
Farmers Market Palisades No. 1
Farmers Market Palisades No. 2
Grand Junction Jeep Club Climb
Crested Butte Roadside No. 1
Kebler Pass No. 3
Downtown Crested Butte
Kebler Pass No. 5
Kebler Pass No. 7
Kebler Pass No. 4
Kebler Pass
Kebler Pass No. 8
Kebler Pass No. 6
Trail to Telluride No. 1
Road to Rico
Outside Ouray
Shaded Porch
Northern View Imogene Pass
Plien Air Painting at the Monument
Grand Mesa Lakeside
Palisades Sunday
Palisades Coffee
Granite Face
Roadside Photographers
Red Mountain
Plein Air Painting No. 2
Setting Up Shop
Trail through the Aspens
View from Serpents Trail of Grand Junction Valley
Pardise Valley
Autumn Trail
Yankee Girl Mine

 

Summer of 2022

Hello and Happy Autumn!  This has been the summer we did something we thought we would never do to beat the heat of Arizona.  Over the past 10 years we traveled internationally staying in VRBO homes, hotels and with friends.  Last summer we tried camping in an RV around the USA.

Our New Colorado Home

As of this writing, many of the countries we would like to visit have closed borders because of COVID.  So we did it… something we thought we would never do again…..we bought a second home.

Colorado National Monument

 

 

Last summer we visited Grand Junction Colorado to see where our friends were building a home in the neighboring city of Fruita. We really liked what the area had to offer and we found ourselves talking about finding a second home.  We contacted a realtor and returned in November of 2021 to look at homes. We fell in love all over again with the area, but none of the homes were quite right.  We came home and watched the market for the next few months.  We made offers on a couple of the homes without success. The market was crazy with most homes being sold in multiple offers.

On a Friday morning in early March, Terry got a computer notification of a new listing.  The realtor called about 5 minutes later to tell us about the home.  She had good news/bad news….the house had almost everything on our list, but there were already several offers.  If we wrote an offer, it would be a “best and final”, so we would only have one shot to secure the home.

It was not the best timing to be writing an offer.  We were focused on Bernye’s (Terry’s Mom) care.   She turned 100 in February and had just been put on a morphine drip on Thursday afternoon.

We went ahead and wrote our offer on Saturday morning; the sellers accepted our offer on Sunday morning and Bernye died within hours of the acceptance.  On Monday morning, we made arrangements for Bernye and drove to Grand Junction with fingers crossed the home would live up to its photos on the internet.

After 9 hours we exited the freeway into an area we had not explored before.   We followed the GPS down a country road through farmland.  We turned a corner and there is was, just like the photograph in the middle of a pleasant neighborhood of about 100 homes at the base of the Colorado National Monument.

Tiara Rado Golf Course

And, it was perfect!  Much to our surprise, there was a golf course right across the street.  Last April we moved into our home for the summer.

We chose Grand Junction for many reasons:  the city is in a wide valley surrounded by the Colorado National Monument, the Book Cliffs/Mt. Garfield and The Grand Mesa.  Grand Junction is where the Gunnison and Colorado Rivers meet.  It is a city with a small town atmosphere; mild seasonal changes throughout the year; hundreds of bike trails from Loma to Palisades; hiking literally out our back door to the National Monument; a vibrant art scene; fresh from the fields farmer’s markets; the wine trail – think Sonoma of 40 years ago; thousands of miles of off road trails which we won’t live long enough to travel; the pines and over 300 lakes of the Grand Mesa; and all the Rockies have to offer with Telluride, Aspen, Vail, Ouray, Silverton, Glenwood Springs, Crested Butte, Breckenridge and more within a few hours drive.

Colorado Back Roads

We kept our Jeep and joined the local Jeep Club to explore and take photographs of the beauty in the landscape around every steep corner.

 

We are off this weekend to “leave peep”…..until next time.

Summer 2022
Bookcliffs
Colorado National Monument
Grand Mesa Off Road
Kebler Pass
Colorado National Monument View
Colorado National Monument
Kebler Pass Muddy Road
Kindred Walking Path
Our Colorado Home
Tiara Rado Golf Course
Walking Path

Minnesota and the Shores of Lake Superior

Minnesota opened her arms and welcomed us with a tornado warning.

Our history of natural disasters included our stay in Lockport, Nova Scotia while Hurricane Dorian churned the ocean and his winds tore down trees and buildings along the shore; being swallowed and blinded in a violent dust storm known as a “Haboob” on a drive home through Yuma, Arizona; and watching a curtain of rain from a monsoon erase homes across the fairway from view and flood the golf course.  We did not want to add surviving a tornado to our list. Continue reading Minnesota and the Shores of Lake Superior

Little Switzerland – Iowa’s Best Kept Secret

For the next six weeks we will be traveling by the seat of our pants.  That’s the way Terry likes to travel…no reservations and decisions made on the fly.  I’m just the opposite.  I’ll research something to death, agonize over my decisions and then make reservations.  Well, judging by our experiences In Little Switzerland, Terry may have a good point. Continue reading Little Switzerland – Iowa’s Best Kept Secret

Calamities and Silver Linings

When we began to camp our friends gave us helpful advise.  They talked about two important things to remember.  The first being to walk around your coach before leaving a campsite.  Be sure the connections for the water and electrical are disconnected to avoid the major calamity of pulling them out of the ground. The second was if towing a vehicle be sure the connections are tight to avoid the “toad” disconnecting to race down the highway without you.  After several weeks on the road, we discovered a third. Continue reading Calamities and Silver Linings

Corvette Museum

We visited the Corvette Museum late in the afternoon and had the 115,000 square feet to ourselves.  The museum opened in 1994 and sits on a 60-acre campus, complete with race track.  Our self-guided tour began with a walk down vignettes depicting Main Street in an American small town.  Early model Corvettes are cleverly displayed against the backdrops of a Photo Shop, Al’s Barber Shop, an assembly line, a Mobil gas station, a car dealership and a repair shop. Continue reading Corvette Museum