September Intermission

By Jen.

After scraping ourselves clear from the Road from Hell, we made a beeline to Post Falls to meet the Van Compass guys at their new facility. They graciously upgraded front shocks kit to the newest version with better bolts and fixed the gaping hole we had acquired when the bolts had come loose previously. Since they installed it, Jonathan didn’t have to suffer from the wrist damage that he got the first time around.

We tried getting all the mud off the day before, but we weren’t very successful.

As we mentioned previously, it was now latter end of the middle of August and we had a wedding to attend on the first of September. So, we figured it was time to hightail it back to Tulsa.

Magpies are beautiful birds here in the USA. This one was a bit bedraggled, but the iridescence was still present.

We stopped and visited my sister’s family, where I was asked to read them their favorite book.

Back in Tulsa about a week early, we had plenty of time to spend with family and get some errands done.

I even babysat 3 children (plus a cat) at once! Fortunately the older 2 were sleeping at the time.

Check out those colors!

Then it was time for the wedding of the year! This fancy shindig was an interesting blend of Persian and American traditions, which made it quite fun and surprising. Jonathan was one of the best men.

We clean up nicely, don’t you think?

The wedding video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnc0MCEjqp0

We gave the twins free run of the van for a little bit (their favorite activity with us, I think).

Then we left for Mountain Home, Arkansas, so we could tear the van apart and do some maintenance without breaking any HOA rules.

Jonathan replaced the steering rack and pinion with an aftermarket one. While there were some manufacturing differences, he seemed fairly pleased with it, especially considering it was half the cost of the OEM one.

He also tried some springs to lift the front of the van.

From there we visited my family in Shell Knob, Missouri, and got watch while they installed the new chicken coop.

Another very quick stop in Tulsa, and then we were off again. Making our way towards Yellowstone NP. We left plenty of time for us to get there, though, and make some fun stops on the way.

A stop in Wichita to visit old friends.

We also planned a stop at one of long-overdue desired places to visit: Mt Sunflower. This is the highest point in Kansas and is a bit of a misnomer, as expected. There really isn’t any mountain here, barely even an hill. Another couple from Pennsylvania was there at the same time and pointed out that the hill further east seemed higher. Probably was, but that was Colorado. This point is located right next to the border with Colorado.

The “Mount” is at the end of that road. As you can see, barely even a hill.

It was located along Washboard Rd, fortunately it was currently a misnomer and nicely graded for the moment.

Then, we stopped a few days in southern Colorado to bother my brother during his elk hunt. It was apparently the perfect week to do so as the trip before had still been green, but this week was all the glory of fall!

We accompanied him once on the start of his hunt until had to start crashing through the underbrush.

Chimney Rock National Monument area on our way to visit Durango, another potential future-home site.

It was actually good we were around, as on the second day we were there, my brother’s truck got a tire puncture. Jonathan patched it up with his handy kit so that we could go back down the mountain and get it replaced. But other than that, I am not sure we were more than a distraction keeping him from getting the hunting done he wanted to do. But, it was a good time and I am glad we got to participate in one of his hobbies.