Tiny Home in the Summer – II

How’s this for the view??

This is the view a few steps from one of our summer home-sites.

..We are in the trees …

We are set back under the trees to get a little shade from the sun. This location is a little above 9,500 feet, and the warm days are offset by cool breezes in the evening.

… and the screen porch is ready for a late cup of tea!

The aspen groves are thick … and older sentinels watch over us. You can hear the breeze coming … the rustling of the leaves lets you know how much breeze and the direction long before you feel it. Nice in the warm evening!

Soaring high.

Well, what does one eat in a small home out in the woods? Today, I see we’ve some ribs in the fridge …

… and we’ll steam them up …

… along with a few veggies and some bbq sauce.

… voila!

Sometimes readers think that we’re just camping … no, this is our home. We just move around from time to time.

Care for a stroll in the woods?

There’s no work in the queue this evening … so we can walk and talk until the sun drifts down …

… and the leaves take on a translucent shimmer …

At the time of this post, winter is setting in, and we are far from this site. We enjoy looking back over our summer locations and hope that you do too.

Tiny Home in the Summer – I

There it is … Tortuga’s home … in the desert.

Take a little walk in the desert, before it gets too hot. Tortuga’s home is out in the summer sun!

Sketchy road though!

Living in a tiny home sometimes means crawling over imperfect roads to the perfect site for solitude!

While away the days under the late summer skies …

… and enjoy the sunsets over the vast desert.

After enjoying days of relaxation and evenings of simple beauty, every morning starts afresh just by flinging open the door!

Good morning …

Breakfast is served … piping hot!

We’ve enjoyed some amazing settings this summer. Living and working with the mobility of a “small living unit” is an experience we would highly recommend!

Tiny Home in Spring Setting

Hear the rustling … wakey wakey!

After the winter, comes Spring!

Time for a morning walk

While it’s now summer, these pics reflect our first “getaway” since the rebuild of our vehicle and tiny home. It’s refreshing to return to our old haunts and resume the simple life!

A morning stroll through the open field …

Time for a leisurely trek around the fields and trees … with a cuppa warm tea … around by the lake (Lake Roosevelt, Washington). Robert Frost says it best:

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

(A Prayer in the Spring – Robert Frost)

… new growth …

… around our tiny home.

It’s a time to reflect and enjoy

The lake water is very low … the engineers will fill ‘er up in the summer

An evening to enjoy some tomato-beef … a great old Chinese recipe!

Yes, it’s a dinner with a view!

And a time to just be … watching the evening progress …

Yes, we love the west.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

(A Prayer in the Spring – Robert Frost)

Visiting Friends

Mt. Rainier in the center … click to expand

A traveling Tortuga gets to visit friends. In this case, we traveled to Naches Washington (that’s na-cheese, not nat-chez)… then up to the Wenatchee National Forest. This is part of a 4 million acre reserve that is available for outdoor enthusiasts of every stripe, and is an amazingly diverse area. On this day, our routes went through deep forests to rocky escarpments.

Hey Waddles …

Here’s my friend Waddles … his driver is a member of NAXJA (North American XJ Association). An “XJ”, for those not in the loop, is a Jeep Cherokee. These Jeeps were made from 1987 to 2001, and are prized by those who get off-road. Sturdy, adaptable, this has been called “one of the 20 greatest cars of all time — for its design, and possibly the best SUV shape of all time” by Robert Cumberford writing for Automobile Magazine.

XJ’s galore …

The NorthWest Chapter of NAXJA holds their annual “NW Fest” here … and it’s a well attended and fun time!

Let’s go …

The trail views are stunning!

Just drive straight up …

Oops … tipping over is not good.

That’s when you need a friend!

Gotta climb over the rocks …

… to get a view from the top.

It was a tad warm … getting up to 100 degrees F. We still found some mud though …

I thought those rims were bright blue???

Oh, there was lots more … moonscapes, winding through woods, ascending and descending steeeep and winding (and wet) climbs, bouncing off rocks … the list goes on and on. Fun indeed!

At the end of the second day …

And of course, lots and lots of great food. Great hospitality. Family fun. And prizes too!

A “family gathering”

But when I lay me down to sleep … this is an image I will keep …

… indeed!

… the Road to Restoration

… the road to restoration …

Traveling Tortuga is road-ready again … and though we’ve been remiss in posting, we’ll be catching up on our living and travelling in the Pacific Northwest.

As repaired on a wintry day …

We towed and trailered everything back from the frozen north and our US insurance did a superb job of restoration. We got our tiny home back on a wintry day! Back in our tiny home, we stayed put while making inside repairs and improvements … keeping the furnace on through the winter season.

We added some beef to the front …

When the sun reappeared, it was time to consider traveling again. The restoration was indeed excellent. RedGoatFab did a beautiful job of a sturdy front bumper! Geico did a fantastic job of shepherding the repairs. Jaremko, in Spokane, finished everything in a first class manner!

Let’s go!

A tale of woe …

Not a tale of great woe … but a tale of annoyances for sure. Our truck no longer looks like the above (and you might note, nor is the season like the picture above). A miscreant ignored a stop sign and barreled out into traffic not long ago, where our truck and camper met him. Seems he was enjoying some substances that caused him to ignore traffic, stop signs, and big vehicles. Pity.

The front end of the truck is now gone. The camper suffered from a sudden change in inertia … and that’s not good either. I (and my driver) are wintering in a 5er (that is, a fifth wheel) for now. And to add insult to injury, the tow yard that took the vehicle off the road was burglarized … our camera and many other items are gone. So, the next few posts will be from archives while everything is sorted out.

But we are healthy … Christmas was joyous … the winter snows are beautiful. God is good indeed!

Bob’s Texas T-Bone

My driver is looking for a steak …

On the trip down, we stopped in Rufus to camp out among a bunch of big trucks. It was next to Bob’s Texas T-bone … and the place was hoppin’ … but we were not hungry. We vowed to give it a try … and here we are. Of course, we ordered up the Texas T-bone, medium, and headed out to the salad bar.

A trip to the ‘ole salad bar …

Lots of variation … pasta salads, potato salads, good lookin’ greens, pickles, mushrooms, you know. Good pickings and tasty stuff!

… somewhere between 14-24 oz!

Yup … we finished the whole thing, the garlic toast (on Texas toast, of course), and the baker too! It was too early to sleep, so we continued down (up?) the road … and slept well!