The Ryan RV Express: 2025

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

01-30SEP25 - Sultan, WA (house/yard work & start of new RV adventure 🚐)

Monday early AM (labor day) off to grandson Mason soccer team’s third game of the Labor Day Cup tournament. They win the game and are now in the final at 4PM🙃 So back home until then. After some R&R back to Starfire Soccer Complex for the final.

Mason’s team wins 3 to 2😊 Other team had two phenomenal forwards that our defense made couple of big errors allowing goals. But the other team played rougher than they needed and was assessed two well deserved penalties; that we scored off of using set plays.

Rest of week Corrie has girl’s day out with Jan Formisano; first day of school for grandboys; outside chores; mowing; and routine medical appointments. Plus hours and hours tending to the flowers and harvesting last of the summer crops.

Saturday AM, 06SEP, Dan heads to Jaxson’s soccer game in West Seattle. (NOTE - for very old friends with good memories, Dan’s first house (see Below pic, NOTE - still no lawn:) was in West Seattle one-half mile from site of the soccer game; bought for $32K in 1978, now estimated on Zillow $560K.) After game, Dan fights weekend traffic out of Seattle, one hour drive takes two.

Sunday cool day with light rain. Dan takes opportunity to go to our ancient barn (built early 60s) to clean out five years inattention. Starts with two outside stalls, then shifted to work bench area. Tons of cobwebs and dust removed (thank goodness for portable, battery powered shop-vac). In process attacked by two killer rats! More cleaning to follow.

Monday, 08SEP, lunch time, contractor shows up to clean moss off roof and then clean solar array (which hasn’t been done since it was built). After contractor leaves Dan breaks out our gas powered pressure washer and cleans outside of roof gutters and then cleans the small deck (16ft buy 16ft).

Wednesday starting oiling small deck. Then back to barn, all accumulated plastic sheeting/tarps damaged by rats/mice disposed of (2 more killer rates encountered). Back to house and pressure washing large deck. Thursday Corrie runs errands and does yard work, Dan starts “oiling” small deck with Thompson Water Seal.

Sunday, 14SEP, overcast and drizzle Dan works in barn most of the day. And goes to Mason’s soccer game in Seattle (which was on Saturday. Oh Yeah - Jaxson is now training to be soccer referee! Monday sun returns and Dan gets back to oiling small deck.

Tuesday AM Dan runs RV to local RV dealer for new backup camera; then home to continue oiling small deck. RV ready at 330Pm so Dan stops work and we go to pick up RV. New rear camera system is great! Old camera and monitor still in RV and works. But it was terrible and now can be ignored.

Rest of week doing errands/chores - flu/covid shots; finish oiling small deck; mowing; cleaning barn (encountering two more killer rats); getting Rocket groomed.

Saturday, 20SEP, catch morning ferry to Kingston and on to Pitre’s for early celebration of grandson Mason’s twelfth birthday. After unloading truck it was off to two different grandboy’s soccer games -- Dan, Raymond north of Seattle in Shoreline for Mason’s game -- and Corrie, Rebecca stay local for Jaxson’s game. Unfortunately because of traffic Dan, Raymond and Mason take almost three hours to return house. Then immediately off to Olive Garden for Mason’s early b-day dinner. Then Pitre to home for some cribbage and then to bed.

Sunday (last day of summer) early AM we catch ferry and drive home, just to relax, recover and do nothing. Monday & Tuesday lots of little chores done and start prep’ing for lengthy RV trip come at end of week.

Wednesday (24SEP, grandson Mason’s actual b-day) Dan moves RV out of garage. Gets it fueled and then parks it by house to prepare for planned trip. Every item removed, and items for the prior trips with grandboys removed and not re-stowed.

Thursday AM Dan is off to bi-monthly lunch with CG Academy classmates who live in driving distance of Seattle (on occasion attendees drive in from Portland, OR). Last one was 24JUL.

Friday major effort by us to get RV ready for Saturday departure. Not sure we have done enough to get out tomorrow. Dan was making one more mowing of the yard when ride’m mower ran out of gas and battery died☹ Probably at worse part of driveway (farthest from house and mower facing downhill😕 Dan hooked the Fiesta up to rear of mower. Corrie drove him and mower Dan riding on hood of mower to steer since it was going backwards. Jump start and back in business.

Saturday, 27SEP, all of morning and until 3PM used to get RV and Toad ready for our long drive to Houma, LA. Purpose of trip is spend significant time in our old home town of Houma,LA. Primarily to see son Joe, wife Bethany, and granddaughter Coraline. As well as cajun in-laws; old friends and be there for Coraline’s sixth b-day and holidays (maybe even xmas).

Took longer than expected with a few hiccups. First stop is at Dan cousin Steve Kiesel and wife Bonnie’s (haven’t seen them since JUL2022. Great visit and a surprise was that their daughter Joleen was also there. Decompress from drive, Lasagna for dinner and reminiscing and early to bed.

The Ryan RV Express: 23-28JUL22 - Kittitas, WA & Various (enroute canada - eh?)

Sunday, AM on the interstate to Yakima and cheap diesel at Wolf Den. South into Oregon and decide to drive on to Caldwell, ID, to finally call it a day (388 miles in seven half hours).

Monday less hours driving 290 miles to Tremonton, UT.

Tuesday (end of the month) on road heading toward Moab Utah. Leave I-15 and take the road that bypasses east and north of SLC (better than fighting always heavy traffic in I-15). Make great time to Heber City. Unfortunately major one lane construction blockages on US 191 all the way to Price, UT (GPS still doesn’t “know” where it is in this part of Utah, just like last we were here? see below email link). So frazzled by now, just get to Green River, UT, and call it a day. What was planned as a six hour trip to Moab. ends up being seven hours, stopping short of Moab by one hour🙃

The Ryan RV Express: 27SEP-06OCT23 - Cleburne, TX & Various (or, id, ut, nm, tx)

Sunday, August 31, 2025

01-31AUG25 - Sultan,WA (⚽soccer & more soccer⚽)

Friday first day of August, another sunny hot day; Dan mows back yard and then pressure washes north side of Shop/RV Garage.

Saturday 02AUG big event was installation of DISH satellite service for house; and a portable DISH box for RV. We are sure no one remembers, but when we were RV’ing full time we had portable, manual satellite Dish for RV use. Then we built house and we had DISH on the roof. But eventually dropped DISH and moved to cable/hi-speed internet from comcast/xfiniti. But every year Comcast ups our bill by fifty bucks, we whine and they give us “special” rate for one more year

This year we decided enough! We will keep comcast cable for xfiniti internet only, and drop all their cable channels. End result is more channels on house new DISH system. And a portable DISH box for the RV that works wherever we camped (and including local channels). Total bill for DISH TV and keeping comcast internet is fifty bucks cheaper.

Drawback is that on DISH you cannot watch older/archived episodes on demand like we could on comcast. So if you miss an episode and didn’t tape it, you are out of luck on DISH. But on comcast/xfiniti; you call up the show and you can usually play the entire season up to that point (or in some cases have multiple seasons arranged chronologically to binge watch).

Sunday Dan spends most of morning getting ready to head to Rebecca’s to help chauffer the grandboys around next week while Raymond is deployed and she works (Jaxson has sail camp, and Mason has soccer practices). Upon arrival Dan observes grandboys and neighbor boy building some sort of tree house (at least he thinks it’s a tree house)?

Monday AM (Coast Guard Day) Dan gets grandson Jaxson to Sail Camp (same camp he and mason went to two years ago). Then back to house to get Mason to and from soccer practice and then back to get Jaxson, that will be the routine for next four days.

Tuesday, 05AUG, we find out Dan’s cousin (on his mother side) Kathy has passed after dealing with cancer for 28 years; her lengthy “battle” was due to the success of cutting edge treatments. The treatments worked but often with significant side effects that took time to recover from.

Wednesday night, late, late, Raymond returns from national guard training. Thursday (another trip around the sun completed for Dan) Corrie arrives with Rocket for dinner. All six of us head out for B-day dinner for Dan at Boat Shed Restaurant and then home for the night.

Friday, 08AUG, early AM Corrie packs Toad, grabs Rocket and heads home to take care of things (like medical) that can only be done on a workday. Raymond and Dan head to Mason’s soccer game (first game of four day tournament). Mason’s team has lost to this team three times, but this time they play excellent in all aspects and win 2 to 0. On way home Raymond, Mason and Dan stop at Panda Express for lunch.

Saturday late AM all of us off to Mason’s second soccer game of tournament. Another win (big time this time 8 to 0); stop at Chick-fil-A for late lunch.

Sunday off to third and maybe last game for Mason’s soccer tournament. They win and now are in the tournament final on Monday. Meanwhile Jaxson is attending four hour referee training clinic to become soccer ref ($35 per lower level games up to $60 per game). Once everyone is home for afternoon it is discovered that Jaxson’s bicycle was stolen off front porch either yesterday or today☹ Dinner at Silver City Brewery and desert at Blu Berry Frozen Yogurt.

Monday 11AUG very early Dan and Mason off to championship game. Due to work schedules mom and dad can’t attend. Extremely exciting game; opponents score one point in first half; then we score one point at end of regulation. AND then we win the shoot out 5 to 4!!! After game Dan hands Mason to friends of Rebecca who have son on team, and Dan hits road to the ferry and home to Corrie and Rocket, and mowing.

Thursday, 14AUG, mid morning finish preparing RV and Toad for short trip to the Puyallup Fairgrounds RV Park. Traffic on I-405S stop and go, so we put our Good to Go pass on the dash and use the HOV lanes. We will find out through the mail if it is not valid for RV towing a car in the HOV lane? Get to RV park behind the firegrounds. Been awhile since we used a RV facility that most county or state fairgrounds have.

Usually these facilities are used by the “workers” who set up and tear down the events (anything from swap meets to full blown state fair). Right now Washington State fair is in two weeks, so facility is 2/3 empty. We have found that these facilities are usually bare bones, - gravel roads, park on grass, water & electricity only (don’t count on bathrooms or sewage). But the one we used many times in Monroe, WA, had restrooms with hot showers🙃

We set up camp and then Dan call Dish about getting new Dish Wally receiver to work? (by the way have you noted the names of DISH receivers? – (Hopper, Joey, Wally) We bought our RV used and original owner had a never used Winegard on-the-go satellite dish installed but no receiver (ie Wally). We did without RV Satellite until we got pissed at Comcast raising rates yearly on our home system. So like we said last week, we had Comcast turned off, and DISH connected to house.

And for $5 more a month we got a DISH Wally receiver in the RV🙃 This will be great for us because more and more RV parks are turning off their cable because most RV’ers now stream everything off wifi (which causes big lag problems in the park). And with DISH you call them up, give them zip code, and they give you local TV (pretty important when hurricane or wild fire heading your way).

Later we headed out to Mama Stortini’s for early Italian dinner. We were last here 21AUG2023. They still have their happy hour menu of half size items at reduced prices. Still highly recommended. Then back to RV.

Mama Stortini's Restaurant & Bar - Federal Way, Kent & Puyallup

Really early Friday, 15AUG, off to Jaxson’s first soccer game of the tournament at 0830. Forecasted rain holds off, good game ending 1 to 1; we head back to RV. Corrie decides to stay in RV and Dan heads to local RV dealer to see what is on the used RV lot; nothing exactly fits what we are looking for. But Dan noticed an interesting change on how new RV’s are equipped for TV programing. Now it assumed you will use WiFi or some other internet connection, not antenna or cable. Over the air antenna’s and satellite dishes are no longer standard on RV's and few people install after purchase. Back to the RV to do nothing but stay inside from the constant rain.

Saturday AM rain stops and sun returns before noon; off to Jaxson’s second tournament soccer game (along with the rest of the Pitre’s). Jaxson’s play has significantly improved. And coach must have noticed because Jaxson played almost entire game and was assigned many corner kicks. Won the game and have a chance for championship. Then all of us of to Chick-fil-A for after game lunch, then we head to RV and Rocket.

Sunday,17AUG, at noon off to third game Kitsap loses close one and now team must wait to another team plays at 4PM. If that team loses Kitsap may play for championship tomorrow? Back to RV to wait; unfortunately Jaxson’s team is eliminated from championship game☹ Rest of night spent getting RV & Toad mostly ready for tomorrow’s early departure.

Monday AM disconnect RV and, dump tanks and hit the road; shortest route is SR 167 to I-405N. But that means dealing with Monday morning rush hour for over half the miles driven☹ So we change plan - start on 167; shift to SR-18 to I-90; and then finish on what we call the valley road from Preston, WA, to Monroe, WA, and home. We make it home in the usual two hours with no stop/go; Corrie immediately starts picking, tomatoes, zucchinis, jalapenos; Dan mows.

Tuesday Corrie gardens; Dan mows by barn and the starts dis-assembling movable rack for old solar water heat for old pool now gone. Wednesday, 20AUG, Dan spends most morning taking solar array apart, then more mowing, followed by cleaning of trailer parking spot.

Thursday AM Corrie is off to ferry and pitre’s in Silverdale to spend time with grandson Jaxson; Dan takes some “broken” Ryobi tools for disposal. Turns out a place called Direct Tools at the Premium outlet mall by tulalip casino recycles the tools. Then Dan heads home and starts putting trailer “walls” back together. Friday Dan finishes working on trailer; then spends several hours on phone with DISH to get Wally working. The problem is that to get all channels the satellite antenna must instantly switch from satellite 110 to satellite 119 (or vice versa). This is not happening and system gets stuck on one satellite and you lose half the channels.

Friday 22AUG all the Pitre's head to Baker National Park/Forest for BnB and outdoor adventures.

From Saturday 23AUG until Wednesday 27AUG, Dan spends almost all his time dealing with DISH and Winegard about what should be an easy fix (in his opinion). Not only was this tremendous loss of Dan’s time better spent on things that really matter. But had to be done in the RV during record heat warning days for Seattle☹ RV not plugged in, so no AC (batteries were good enough for TV system but not cooling).

For the satellite dish to work there are three components – 1) satellite dish supplied by Winegard, 2) receiver box (aka Wally) supplied by DISH, 3) coax cable ran thru RV walls by builder of the RV. Unless you have access to seller of RV, you will only get support from DISH and Winegard, but of course it can’t be their equipment! So after many, many tries, Dan gives up and buts RV back in the garage on Wednesday.

Meanwhile on 26AUG, Tuesday, Rebecca takes boys to Devil Punch Bowl located on Cresent Lake, Olympic National Park, outside Port Angeles, 2.6 mile hike one way. Something they have done for couple of years now each summer.

Friday, 29AUG, final part of cleaning-up RV from last trip and beginning prep for next one (hint – a biggie)! As for outdoor work; blueberry picking is finally done after two months of almost continuous picking. Now Corrie is harvesting beau coupe tomatoes and yellow zucchini’s.

Saturday early morning off to Starfire Sports Complex (former training site for Seattle Sounders). Both grandboys are on Kitsap Alliance select soccer teams and are playing in the Labor Day Cup tournament. First morning game is Jaxson’s.