2017 in review...Part Three....The rest of the story

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I left off installment 2 of our 2017 in review series with us preparing to fly to SoCal for our son's wedding........on October 5th we flew to SoCal to attend the wedding of our youngest child, Tim, to his fiance, The Beautiful Laila (TBL)......we left the Newell in Livingston, MT and drove into the International Airport in Billings, MT for our flight.  By that evening we were sitting in the family room of Tim and Laila's home in Ontario, CA!

Daddy Nick with Jolene, Sharon with Brayden James (grand kiddies), and Cynthia (grand daughter) with our great grandson Daniel.

The wedding entourage

Laila and Tim reciting their vows

TLE with my sister Hilary, and her daughter Stepanie

.....we were in SoCal from October 5th until the 9th, had a wonderful time spending time with our kids, and grandkids, staying at the Historic Mission Inn, and, of course the wedding was wonderful!

 Lunch before boarding our return flight

....we arrived back at our Newell around 2 am on October 10th, and by the 12th we were on our way southward to warmer climates.....

.....our first day on the road in quite sometime saw us drive all the way from Livingston, MT to Dillon, MT where we overnighted at a local RV park, then the next day found us on the shores of Ririe Reservoir outside of Idaho Falls, ID.....we planned to stay until Sunday, but Saturday morning we woke up to 5" of unexpected snow.....

 Got 5" of unexpected snow at Ririe Reservoir

....for a number of reasons you can read about here, we left Ririe Reservoir a day early and proceeded further south to Downata Hot Springs where we spent three days....

 Got out the snow and headed south to Downata Hot Springs in Southern Idaho

.....we luxuriated in the Hot Springs several times, and I took some time to diagnose an air leak in my air system, as well as clean up the Newell for the first time in months.  Our next stop was near Salt Lake City where we spent 2 nights, and parts of three days courtesy parked at the home of my brother Dwyer......we shopped a lot (COSTCO, Trader Joe's, thrift stores, State Liquor store, etc.) in preparation for the next two weeks as we worked our way down to the Grand Canyon......

 Courtesy parked near Salt Lake City at the home of my brother Dwyer

.....we took two more days to get to Bryce Canyon, overnighting in Panguitch, UT where we were treated to an amazing sunset.....

....then it was on to Bryce Canyon National Park where we arrived on October 20th to spend a few days site seeing, and hiking......I'll let the pictures tell most of that story....

.....in all we hiked close to 20 miles during our Bryce Canyon sojourn.......what an amazing place!  We left Bryce Canyon wanting more, and we will be back for another dose in the near future!

From Bryce we traveled further south to the shores of Lake Powell, to a place called Lone Rock, where we spent a week relaxing in the warm, balmy temperatures....

......we arrived at Lone Rock on October 25th knowing we could stay about a week before we moved south about 10 miles to Page, AZ where we would park our Newell at the local Elks Lodge for 4 days whilst we drove into SoCal once again to attend the wedding of good family friend Amanda to her fiance Michael.  We have been to Lone Rock a couple of times before, but it is always great to spend time there......there were numerous happy hour sunset fires, hiking and site seeing.....

Amanda and Michael reciting their vows, and then "The Kiss"

......our trip to SoCal for Amanda's wedding was a whirlwind one, and we were back in Page, AZ by November 5th to pick up the Newell and drive the final 140 miles to Desert View Watchtower where we arrived on November 6th, went to our Delaware North check in meeting November 7th, and began working on November 8th, and that is where we have been since that date.  We closed out the year with a blood pressure scare for me, and a day in the hospital due to a very minor stroke....I was lucky....no residual effects.

In retrospect 2017 was an amazing year....a year of new beginnings, a re-dedication to exploring places new to us.  There was disappointment and elation.....we ended the year on our terms, and are looking forward to new adventures in 2018, so hang on tight, here we go!

Thanks for stopping by!

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