festivals

“The Lights of Christmas” celebrates 25 years

/ Roadtirement / 10 Comments

The Warm Beach Camp & Conference Center, a well known and popular camp, conference and retreat center has been in Stanwood, Washington since 1956. Stanwood is north of Seattle and south of Bellingham. In 1997 it opened the first “Lights of Christmas” event on the beautiful wooded grounds. Please note that our iPhone photos do not due justice to the quantity and quality of this wonderful festival of lights!

A waterfall in lights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we are getting into the Spirit of the Season

Sher and I went with our daughter, son-in-law and grandson to see this attraction, billed as the largest Christmas Festival in the Pacific Northwest. It features over one million lights and of course Christmas themed light displays. We started our idle speed driving tour with the purchase of some absolutely warm and decadent mini-donuts and a bag of freshly popped kettle corn. By tuning your car radio to a particular FM station you get some great Christmas music, some good clean humor and an excellent background program.

 

Festive canoes

The whales are here!

 

 

 

 

Tall ship in lights

In the past patrons had left their vehicles for out of vehicle activities like the train rides. The website calls out a lack of staff this year, so you stay inside your vehicle, with the exception of the snack bar/store and Santa’s Village areas. Santa’s Village and store was, for us, quite a walk from the parking. Restroom breaks and stopping at Santa’s Village aside, the drive time through the lights takes a little over 30 minutes.

Santa gets a break talking to kids

What a remarkable event this has become over the past 25 years. What started out as an idea to keep the Camp & Conference Center busy during the slow winter holiday season has turned into the holiday highlight for thousands of Pacific Northwest families each year. This is a delightful attraction, and we heartily recommend it.

Tickets must be purchased online before arriving at the event to control the attendance numbers. Admission costs are per vehicle and are very reasonable. This is The Lights of Christmas website. Dates, times and all other information is provided here.

 

 

Harmony Winery gave us a break from the Highway 40 sale

/ Roadtirement / 22 Comments

Today was another wet day, though not a total washout. Sher and I decided to visit a local winery in the early afternoon while our son stayed at our setup for the sale.

Tasting room/bar

Inventory racks

 

 

 

 

 

We headed west for about 5 miles to Knightstown, Indiana for a visit to the Harmony Winery. This comfortable and intimate winery is located in an historic building that used to be a chicken hatchery at the turn of the century. The winery has a great selection of wines and we decided to taste a flight of 5.

Tasting the flight

Our host was most helpful in our determination of which five wines to taste. He described not only the making of the wines we tried, but also gave us hints of other uses of wine in different ways. Some of the owners concoctions sounded very interesting. We purchased three bottles before we left and look forward to enjoying our selections each evening after the sale closes. This is the Harmony Winery website.

 

Rain rain go away

/ Roadtirement / 53 Comments

The rain started last night at midnight. Sixteen hours later it has let up, but more is forecast tonight and tomorrow. This is really putting the damper on preparations for our Highway 40 Yard Sale.

We have set up some of our tables, put out a little bit of merchandise, and covered up with waterproof tarps. All day we have been watching the tables, but no wind to speak of and tarps have remained in place. Other vendors are also waiting to get set for the sale that was scheduled to start today.

Getting ready for Historic US 40 Yard Sale

/ Roadtirement / 24 Comments

One of our typical setups

This has been a rainy day in Central Indiana. We are back in Indiana getting ready for one of the big antique shows we try to do every year. Of course, we didn’t get to go last year. Though the Highway 40 is really a very big yard sale, we do very good selling our vintage items and bigger items that we have found in our travels.

It becomes a big clean out the garage month for us. We set up at the Dunreith Baptist Church east of Greenfield, Indiana. It is such a great place for us to set up. The pastor and his wife are very nice and helpful. They let us park the RV right behind our display, which is so nice because we don’t have to travel every night.

Highway 40, also known as Old National Highway, is a historic road and fun to travel just to see the old buildings and historic sites. This year the sale will be from June 2 to June 6th. It starts in Baltimore, MD and continues thru St. Louis, MO. It draws lots of people and some interesting characters. We enjoy doing this show.

A bath tub? Seriously?

/ Roadtirement / 19 Comments

The Florida Flywheelers is an antique tractor club located in central Florida.  Twice a year, in January and February, the Flywheelers have huge five  day tractor shows coupled with flea markets and swap meets on the over 200 acre facility.

Yes, this is a motorized bath tub.

The grounds are so large that most people drive around the site. While golf carts are the most prevalent transportation, other “custom” means of travel are also seen. There is a nearly constant parade of vehicles driving down the aisles where vendors and tractor exhibitors are set up. You never know what you’ll see driving around!

Coronavirus is causing us to change our April

/ Roadtirement / 12 Comments

April is usually the month we start getting ready for spring festivals to sell our glass pendants.  The pendants all need to be shined and all tablecloths washed.  Usually we are getting ready for antique shows, where we sell antiques that we collect all year.  In fact our first show of the year is usually in April. This year we’re not even sure if there will be any festivals or shows for us to go to.

Selling our pendants at an Austin show

We have gotten everything for the spring, but doesn’t look like we will able to do any.  Not even sure that we can do any at all this summer. We are hoping that by fall things will back to normal, but we can’t count on it.

We’ve been in Texas for most of the winter and came back at the end of Feb. because of Coronavirus.  Then when it was suggested that older people and people with other diseases were high risk, it caused us to “shelter in place” at our home.  We still have family, kids and grand-kids that live in Indiana and Ohio and we’ve postponed seeing them for the time being.

We use facetime a lot and it has helped keep our sanity.  Very thankful for all we do have.  We have a warm home, food, and don’t have the virus.  We have books to read, movies to watch and facetime with family.  We have time to get caught up reading blogs we haven’t had a chance to read.  And, we are so grateful for all our online friends that keep us on our toes.

Keep safe!!!

 

Bastrop Texas

/ Roadtirement / 2 Comments

Bastrop Texas is an interesting little town southeast of Austin. We headed there with our Austin family to check things out.  We found a place to park and found a nice map of the town on a large display board. This let us kind of make some plans for our adventure.

Great map allowing for planning the day

Cute gravel alley leading to some shops

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed the visitor center that also had a museum as well. The history  of Bastrop is a tale of the old West that is fun to learn. The town is proud of its heritage and rightly so.

Some neat old stuff

A very unique raised flower bed

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed the 602 Brewery and Restaurant for a beer and a delicious meal. (read our review of the 602 Brewery here) After our meal we walked around the Main Street looking at the stores and shops. We also took a driving tour that led us to several historic homes in and around the downtown area.

Posing with a tortoise outside Visitor’s Center and Museum

Main Street, Bastrop

 

 

 

 

 

All in all we really enjoyed seeing Bastrop. There seem to be a lot of activities planned during the spring and summer months. There are over 30 festivals planned each year.  The 900 acre Lake Bastrop has a plethora of recreational opportunities. This town is proud of its heritage and is most welcoming to visitors. Put Bastrop on your list of Central Texas places to visit.

Arvey RV’s first post

/ arveyrv / 6 Comments
Here is what I look like at a campground. This was at a place called Disney World.

Hi folks. I’m Arvey RV, and I carry those two Roadtirement people around the country. I decided that since they have a blog I might as well hop on and give you my side of the story.

I started out somewhere in North Indiana at a factory named Thor. I was bought by the Roadtirement people and boy were they funny. They had just had a trailer, so it was new for them to drive something like me. I’m not big like some of my cousins, and I soon found out that the people would squeeze me into parking places and lots that were made for cars. They kept saying how nice it was to be able to drive me to the store or theater or whatever/wherever they wanted to go.

I knew right away that I was in for quite the adventure. Lots of my friends take their people out for short  trips close to where they are usually parked. But my people were going to be driving me around a lot of the time. In addition to visiting their kids and grandkids, they were talking about things called auctions, flea markets, antique stores and festivals. I knew that I would be stopping at places other than campgrounds!

Check back often. I’ve got lots of stories to tell!

Arvey RV