Machac Manor in Colorado

     Our next stop after Washington was Boise again to drop off  Staci's brother Justin and our nephew Kai at home.   We spent the night alongside his shop, Combat Sport Supply  

    Then we booked it on down to Colorado, as we were late for an important date!  We worked on cleaning up Machac Manor and making it presentable for the pending wedding of Crystal and Johnny there September 7th, 2024.  Crystal and Johnny and the grandkids came and helped a ton on projects.   Projects included metal skirting the North side of the cabin, and enclosing the entire porch with metal skirting, wrapping the front and replacing the cedar siding on the West side of the Manor.  Also, Owen and Johnny helped dig out the outhouse so it is refreshed for another 13 years or so!

Wow, what perfect weather we enjoyed while in Colorado at Machac Manor!  Well, most of the time anyway...we got some hail:

 It was about 70 degrees and clear most of the time we spent there, which was about a month.

Courtney and Elisheva were with us during this Manor time, and helped us with many projects, including painting the refurbished outhouse, and camouflaging our well cover/trashcan to look like a tree trunk.

After all this fun, we experienced a temporary lack of sanity and drove to Texas to deliver our daughter Courtney and Elisheva back home to Quitman where it was 95 plus degrees and HUMID every day!  

Washington state by way of Boise

Whoa, time flies and I have fallen behind on updates for you guys!   My apologies, please bear with me as I get in the habit of updating this thing....

Okay, so where did we go after Nevada? Well, we had to go to Washington to meet up with Staci's family and attend a memorial for her grandmother Lela Brown, who had passed away. 

We slowly worked our way north through Nevada toward Boise with Rose and Kameron in tow, and managed to find a really neat old farmer's hot springs on the way called the Bartine Hot Springs. According to the internet lore, an old rancher build the heart-shaped springs for his wife to take advantage of the spring on his ranch. It is long since abandoned and now is BLM land, but maintained by the BLM:

We made it to Boise just in time for our niece Ella’s graduation from Boise High School.

We then headed towards Washington for the very sad occasion of Lela’s memorial. Of course, it is always great to see family and catch up, regardless of the reason. We camped (moochdocked) in Lance’s driveway in Kent, Washington:

A good time ensued, and many great memories of Lela were revisited. Our daughter Crystal was able to come and attend as well.

The Summit Lake Crew was back together again!

Staci and I even managed to sneak away and have a nice 30th anniversary dinner together in Seattle!  I love you Staci, and sure am glad you have stuck it out with me through everything!   The seafood in Seattle was amazing, and the views from the ferry were pretty great also, especially of this lovely lady.

After a couple of weeks, it was time to head towards Colorado, but we always enjoy our time in Washington State.