Mostly Boring 
We've been in Montana for a while now. We pretty much just work. We did join a gym, so we head to the gym three days a week before lunch. It's definitely not always fun, but a great way to get exercise since we normally just sit around.
A couple weeks ago, the weather was perfect, so Pat and Tom took Joe and I downhill skiing. Neither one of us had been skiing in many many years. It was really fun. We mostly stayed on a pretty easy hill. Pat and Tom wanted to try taking us on a more difficult hill to see how it went. Joe ended up missing the turn so Pat went with him and Tom stayed with me. My hill was hard. I didn't fall at all, but I went as slowly as I could and was stressing myself out the whole time. Joe said his hill was really hard (steep) and he fell at least 8 times. We both went back to the easy hill. :) There was another one that was slightly harder at the bottom of the hill we had been going down. We tried that one and loved it. Just a little more challenging, but still possible. Of course they closed it by the time we got back to the top since it was an hour from closing time.
Around that same time, it was warm and there was fresh snow, so Pat and Joe made a snow bunny. It was sort of creepy.... While I was out taking pictures of it, Curly decided to climb up one of the posts that holds the roof over the porch area. Joe had to help him down. He probably would have figured it out eventually, but might as well be nice. :)
Other than that, it's just been work and more work. The cats are doing great. They can be pretty annoying, but, for the most part, they behave.

-Miranda

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Sorry for the out of focus photo, but that's the best one I had of him up on the post.

Joe helping Curly down.

The creepy bunny.

How I found Pickles sleeping one day on the bed.

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The RV 
Pat has a gigantic shop. He has his RV and boat in there and there is plenty of room for our RV. So, when Pat got home from work, we went to move it in there, however, it would barely move... It was slipping and sounding just awful. It was stinky too... Joe finally took a look at it today and it is the head gasket. So, chances are good we will be junking the thing. It was a brand new engine, so that's really frustrating.

On a side note, it's been snowing for two days here and it's absolutely gorgeous! It's so dark though. We've been getting up around 8:30 and it feels more like 6:30. We also spent Friday checking out some of the gyms around town. One was tiny, no pool, and really fancy, but not too pricey. It was pretty busy though. We did come during the lunch time work out though, I guess. We then checked out The Summit, which is the massive gym that is associated with the hospital in town. It's huge! Has a lap pool, climbing wall, track and lots of other stuff. It is pricey though. The last place we checked out ended up being really cheap (they were having a special for this month). They have a small therapy pool, so not good for lap swimming, but they have a hot tub. Also, the couple times we've been there, it has not been busy at all, which we both really like. So, hopefully we keep up with this. The plan is to go basically everyday for an hour or two. :)

-Miranda

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Los Angeles 
We drove into LA on Tuesday and haven't been doing too much since then. We have been enjoying our visit with Laura though. :) Laura has been working in the mornings, so Joe and I are able to work as well. We did have sushi the first night here. The place we found had 6 different veggie-type sushi rolls, which were very good. The next night we went to see New Moon and then had dinner at a vegetarian Ethiopian restaurant. It was a different experience and very good as well.
We made Thanksgiving dinner when Laura got home from work yesterday. That was fun. Don't really know what are plans are from here. We'll be playing it by ear for a bit, as usual.
-Miranda

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San Diego 
We spent the day working, basically. We drove to Trader Joe's and went to a nearby French cafe nearby for lunch. That night, we stayed at the nearby state park. Wow there were surfers everywhere! Joe asked the ranger if there was something surfer oriented going on and he said no, it's just good waves.

The next day we drove to pick up Stacy, one of the original beta testers of Horse Isle. We all had an Indian buffet and went to the San Diego Natural History Museum. There was a Darwin exhibit that was very interesting along with some fossil exhibits.

Joe and I really wanted to go back to that vegetarian place again, so we headed back that way. Oh my gosh, parking in this city is impossible! You can park on the streets for free (at least in that area) but even all the residential areas were packed. We finally found a place and went in. The food was very good again. :)

We stayed in front of Stacy's house last night and, yay for no ticket. :)

-Miranda

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Lots of Driving 
EDIT: I added the Carlsbad Cavern photos.

It's been a little bit since the last entry, so this is going to be a long one. .. Sorry. :)

The next day we went back to the Whole Foods Market for lunch and ended up getting far too many sweets to bring with us. We debated on staying near downtown in an RV Park, but decided to just get on the road and drive for a while instead.

Outside of Austin a ways, we say an older couple hitchhiking. Joe decided to pick them up because he always complains about how no one will pick him up when he really needs a ride. David and Cynthia are heading to California also, so it actually works out pretty well.

That night we stayed at a Parking Area off of I-10. They're kind of annoying areas... There are garbage cans, and that's it. No bathroom. But we didn't know when the next rest area was, and Joe was tired. David and Cynthia have a tent that they stay in a little ways off when we've been parking.

The next day we decided to check out Balmorhea State Park (http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/balmorhea/). The main focus there is a pool that is fed by a natural spring. In the pool are fish, turtles and ducks. The bottom was mostly rocky and was up to 25 feet deep. We had goggles, so it was really fun swimming in there.

I really wanted to see the Carlsbad Caverns, so we headed north and stayed at a campground in Guadalupe National Park which is just south of the caverns. The next morning we drove to the caverns. The "Big Room" is a self guided tour. If you take the Natural Entrance (instead of the elevator) you have to walk down 750 feet via ramps, but there was a lot of very interesting formations along the way. I did get some photos, so I'll get them up soon. It sounds like Cynthia's never really seen much outside of Mississippi, so she really enjoyed the caverns. It worked out really well that our annual park pass covers up to 4 people.

David and Joe noticed that the welding that holds on the back bumper was starting to rip, so Joe was hoping for a weld shop in El Paso. We found one where the guy came out, looked at it, said he could do it, we pulled up to his truck that has the welding equipment in it, he started on it right away and finished within 15 minutes. The bumper is now more solid than it was before we ever started the trip! It was cheap too. We then found a Mexican restaurant to have dinner (because you have to have some Mexican food when you're in El Paso ;) ) which was very good.

Also, remember the electric problem we had before? Well, the RV started clicking again (what it was doing when we drove down the mountain after the electric problem). Joe pulled over and finally found out that it was the transmission relay. So, the overdrive wasn't working anymore, but otherwise, the RV was just fine.

Unfortunately, the internet in New Mexico is horrible. So, we basically just drove for quite a while until we found one of the best rest stops I've been at. You can stay there for up to 24 hours and they even had little picnic shelters that you could park by farther off the interstate. We parked by one of them. Then Cynthia and David could tent behind it.

We left in the morning and headed for Tuscon. We got laundry done and Joe went to see about the transmission. One guy he talked to wanted to flush it then when joe talked about the overdrive problem, he basically said that it would cost $55 - $75/hr depending on how complicated it was. .. There was another transmission place nearby, so Joe went over there. The guy said that whatever you do, don't flush it. That would actually ruin the transmission. Joe told him about the overdrive problem, so the guy drove the RV around for about 10 minutes, and, of course, the overdrive worked without a problem... The guy didn't charge Joe a cent. So, that worked out really well.

We are now headed to Picacho State Park. We should have great internet so we'll finally be able to get some work done.

-Miranda


A tall stalagmite.

Soda straw formations.

A super neat formation named the Whale's Mouth.

A pool with a column in the middle. The pool was completely filled from cave drips.

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