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Thank you, dear readers, for “going along with us” on our travel adventures. It has been a joy for us to share them with you. It is fun to read your comments, texts, and emails.

If your heart is aching from missing a loved one due to distance, death, or estrangement, we hope you can take a few minutes away from other activities and just sit, breathe, remember, and love those special ones who are always in your heart.

Today is Thanksgiving Day in some parts of the world. Whether today is your day of celebration or just another day there is always something to be thankful for.

Thank you! Kevin and Charla

20th trip – days 90-93, June 18-20, 2021 Mountain Valley RV Resort, Heber, UT

Wow-eee! This place is amazing! And we almost didn’t come here. A long while back, Kevin and I booked a campsite at Diamond Fork up Spanish Fork Canyon. We drove there one day to see what it is like. What is there? Beauty and a paved camp site. But no power, water, or dump. Sunday, coming back from Jordanelle, he said he was a bit nervous about two things: 1. Cell service and 2. We have been having record breaking heat. In fact, last week was the hottest ever on record here. We knew it would be hot and without shore power, we can’t run our A/C. We can use our generator but we don’t want it to be on too long. So, Sunday when we got home, we canceled Diamond Fork and looked for another place to stay. Because of higher elevation, Jordanelle State Park was a good 10 degrees cooler last week than in the valley so it seemed a good area to come back to. Unfortunately, Jordanelle is full this week. I didn’t look at campgrounds too far off the beaten path because Kevin needs good cell service. I looked online at Mountain Valley RV Resort. I had tried several times in the past and it is always full. Well, wouldn’t ya know, there was 1 campsite available. We booked it. This place is voted one of the most luxurious resorts the 1/2 of the US. Updated note: Mountain Valley RV Resort is now rated #1 in the whole US by voters and readers of US Today. And yes, we can see why.

We have stayed at other places with “resort” in the name but they don’t compare to this. Our site is 80 feet long, grass the entire sides of us, concrete underneath us and a great picnic table. This is listed as a “deluxe” but it was all that was available.  HAHA They have two sections, one with kids and one adults-only. We are in the area with kids but the few we have seen are well behaved. This place has an adult-only club house, pool, and hot tub. Knowing this, I went shopping today and ended up with two swimming suits. 🙂 When we started setting up our site, Kevin was pressing the button for the slide to extend, he didn’t realize a 12-can box of Diet Coke had gotten wedged along the side. As it went out, it exploded some of the cans. What a mess…all over the floor and counters. Plus it popped off the framing trim. Thankfully it popped back on.I was able to get the pop cleaned up but I got extremely hot. I don’t normally sweat but I was and I knew I was way too hot.

Hum, looks like Kevin only has a head! HAHAHA

As soon as we got set up, we changed and went to the pool. It felt wonderful and cooled us both down to perfect temperatures. There were only a few other people in the pool. We were in there for about an hour. Then we went to the hot tub and oh, it was like a hot bath. 🙂 After we relaxed there, we were the only ones in the whole area now, we got out and air dried on the pool chairs. Soon I was getting hungry so we headed back to HOWE (our travel trailer name: Home On WhEels). I had made bbq beef in the crockpot yesterday and then put some in a food saver bag. We had that on buns, some potato salad and macaroni salad. We ate outside; the weather was absolutely perfect. After that, it was time for our walk-about. This place is huge!  Kevin was able to chat with quite a few people and that made me glad. (I am deaf.) Back to HOWE and Kevin wanted to swim again. We went but I just sat in a pool chair and read a book. So relaxing. Kevin was able to visit with 4 people while swimming and relaxing. Back to HOWE. Kevin “ordered” his dream truck for full time RV and it isn’t a bad price at all. Hum….

We didn’t do much the next day. We hung around the campground reading, napping and of course lots of time in the adults-only pool and hot tub.

Last week at our home, Kevin smoked a brisket. He didn’t use anything on it except for some salt and pepper. It tasted divine! I have a Food Saver that takes most of the air out of the bag and then seals it. This device makes food last a lot longer. I highly recommend it to everyone. With the leftover brisket, I put it in several Food Saver bags and sealed it up. The nice thing is, you can plop the sealed bag in boiling water and heat up the food. I did this with the brisket and it held the moisture, flavor and deliciousness.

On our evening walk-about, we saw this and doubled over laughing. A guy was in his golf cart and was “walking” his dog around the park. What a clever idea. 🙂

Another great weekend. It was nice to be 1500 ft higher in elevation as that made being higher in the mountains made it much cooler.

So, a hobby of mine is watching entirely too much YouTube. I watch things that pique my interest. I grew up on a small farm, so I watch The Millennial Farmer. His 10 year old son was driving a tractor and grain cart that was worth more than the entire farm that I grew up on! Farming is a different world now. I also watch several travel videos as well as several RV YouTubers.

But the one channel I watch most faithfully is Matt’s Off-road Recovery. He has a cobbled together Jeep Cherokee that he uses to pull stuck vehicles out of sand mainly. They also pull people out of everything – snow, mud and loose rocks. He uses a kinetic rope, kind of like a huge bungee cord, and “yanks” them out. I am really not sure why I like it, but I do.

They are in Hurricane – the area that we store HOWE and camp close by. I heard they were going to be in the Hurricane car show the weekend we would be in the area, thus, Charla and I HAD to go!

It was in a park in downtown Hurricane. There were a TON of cars there! We got there early, and went straight to where Matt had the Yellow Bannana (the jeep cherokee) and their new vehicle, the Morevare (a Corvair body on a custom frame, engine, etc.).

I always wondered why people wanted to see movie stars. Now I know the feeling. I didn’t have anything original or smart to say, so I just gawked. Another person that is in the videos, Jefe, showed me around the Morevair. It was a TON of fun! I bought a couple of hats and a T-shirt from Lizzie and got to see the whole crew.

We looked around the rest of the show. There were a lot of interesting cars and trucks there. For example, there was an old Kenworth truck, and a “mob” car. It is amazing how much work people put into their restorations!

Catchy title, huh? It is not what you think! Propane keeps your RV warm, gives you hot water, stove and oven, and in some cases your refrigerator. It is a big challenge in winter is to make sure you have enough propane. You need it to keep yourself warm, but also to keep the pipes from freezing and breaking. We have had several different friends that woke up cold in the middle of the night! It is pretty hard to find a place that refills propane at 3 AM!

I have been afraid of this, so erred on the side of caution, and filled my tanks frequently. I knew there had to be a better way. There are guages that you can attach to your tank, but reviews were terrible! They were not accurate at all, and left several people with that 3 AM cold feeling……

There are also stickers that you can put on the side of the propane tank, but they only work well when the temperature is just right. Also, we have a plastic tank cover that would make reading these stickers pretty hard.

After digging around some more I found a better solution. It is the LP Tank Check with monitor. It has sensors that fit by magnet on the bottom of the tanks. Then there is a monitor that you can mount near your switches inside your RV. The best thing is an app on your phone that you can check the level of your tanks with amazing accuracy. It connects to the monitor or to your phone via bluetooth – so you have to be within 50 feet of your tanks.

Installation went very well. I went to Tractor Supply, and had my tanks filled. Then, before putting them back on HOWE (home on wheels) I turned the tank over, and cleaned the bottom. I put a bit of the dielectric grease on the bottom and stuck the sensor on. It has a strong magnet that holds the sensor on.

The only challenge is with the install of the standoffs, or risers to lift the tanks up for a bit. The sensor is thick enough that the bottom flange of the tank needs to be a little taller. They include aluminum standoffs that increase the height of the tank. They press on, and don’t stay on as well as I would have liked.

Pairing them was so easy that I forgot how it went. There were great instructions, and it was super fast.

After installing these devices, I do not have to worry any more if I have gas or not.