Serene Wandering

When my parents owned property near the Washington Coast, we had deemed their meadow as The Best RV Park Ever. It had a nice view, great company, no leash rules, was free, and came with good food. After they moved to the city, we had to consider options for the next “Best RV Park Ever” and we found a great one!

My Aunt Bonnie and Cousin Lisa’s family live in the Tri-Cities of eastern Washington. It is a dry, barren land except for the orchards, wineries – and their backyard!!

Their yard was lush and green – and we appreciate grass ever so much now!    I liked that I just had to open the door to let Elko out in the mornings – although it took him until the second day to understand that he could go without me.  They even had an apricot tree giving us as many tasty apricots as we wanted each day.

We had great company, no leash rules, no charge and good food.  My cousin and her husband, Chris, are the chili cook-off people, and they also smoke meats and cheeses.  Yum!

They even allowed vehicle washing – something that is very rare in RV parks! Even though Randy didn’t love it, he did agree that the time was right to wash the truck and trailer.

Cousin Kylee is very busy with her activities. During the mornings she went to volleyball camp at her future school, Richland High.

Both of my parents and my uncle graduated from Richland High. The school mascot is The Bombers – connecting with the extensive Hanford nuclear site which employed so many members of my extended family.

Tours are available of the Hanford site and I tried to sign us up but several weeks prior wasn’t soon enough! I’ll have to plan better next time!

One evening, Kylee had a softball double-header.  It was fun to go watch her play.

After our visit with family, we came to Ponderosa Falls RV Park in Cheney, Washington.  We lived in Cheney when I was a little girl and my parents attended, what is now, Eastern Washington State University.

Our visit to Cheney has corresponded with area Extreme Heat Advisories so mostly we have just hunkered down and been glad we have 50 AMP service so we could run both air conditioners.  One evening the entire area lost power for an hour or so.  It got hot quickly and confirmed why we are uncomfortable leaving Elko alone in the trailer in hot weather.    (Another day we lost water, but that was because someone backed into one of he utility pedestals in the campground and they had to turn everything off to repair it.)

We have read, listened to podcasts, played Yahtzee, watched TV and completed some inside projects. We have also done future planning, getting reservations for the winter in Arizona and then some others as far out as March 2016. Of course,  RVers’ plans are set in jello, but I am so excited that the working plan includes the Mountain West Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas!  Go Broncos!

From here we will head to Farragut State Park and start our new volunteer gig.  We are excited about the family and friends that we will see while we are there!

“See you in a month.” That is what I said to my mom last night as we were leaving their house in Vancouver. We were just here two weeks ago for a couple nights and then back again for most of this past week. Being able to see family and friends more often is a great perk of this lifestyle.

This week we enjoyed a car show and drag races. The old cars were cool, but we wished owners would utilize signs to show the model and year. Although not the information we sought, we did find a couple interesting signs.

Mostly we just had to admire appearance and guess at a general time frame unless it was one my dad or Randy knew. My mom found a model that had been her parents one and only brand new car (no picture – bummer!).

A station wagon?

The drag races were interesting. The variety of cars was huge, from the type you think of with drag racing to old station wagons and everything in between. We learned only the very basics about the layers of competition and different times that are posted after each run. It was once again a reminder of “worlds” we know nothing about and what a great opportunity we have to learn a little about things along the way.

Randy and my dad worked on a  roofing project for dad’s new lean-to to protect the golf cart. This turned into a multi-day project because they kept deciding on modifications.

Mom and I went on a Vancouver Historical walk sponsored by the local Historical Museum. This walk was about the original Vancouver business district. The Evergreen Hotel was opened in 1928 as a First Class Hotel between Portland and Olympia. Its opening corresponded to the very night the city of Vancouver first lit their electric street lights. The hotel is currently an assisted living facility run by the Kensington-Evergreen company. Kensington-Evergreen has six properties around the country, several of which are on historic registers, that were restored and re-purposed as assisted living centers.

We had some fun with this chart about cousins and their different categories- which I pulled from Facebook (thanks Amy). I’ve always thought I had lots of second and third cousins but instead, those people are first cousins once removed and twice removed etc. It would be hard to even know someone who was a second or third cousin. But in the discussion, I found out that, on my dad’s side,  I am distantly related to Lawrence Welk and to the folks that began the Gallup Poll. Cool.

In the vein of very quirky “family,” last night we watched the last episode of the 1990’s series Northern Exposure.  Mom bought the series DVDs for Randy years ago and we have been watching them in order for the last few months. The writers knew the sixth season was the last so they had an opportunity to wrap up storylines.  We thought the very end was perfect.  We even watched the very end twice.

Today we are traveling to stay a couple nights with my aunt Bonnie, cousin Lisa (and husband Chris) and first cousin once removed, Kylee. At least that was an easy one!

And how will we see my parents again in a month? They, and Natasha, Seth and Archer, are coming to join us for a week near our next volunteer gig in northern Idaho. We will look forward to them coming, and also for friends Darrell and Cindy to join us, north of Couer d’Alene. We will be at Farragut State Park for July and August in the Waldron loop. Reservations at the park are tight, as our friend Beth is finding, but if you are in the vicinity – we’d love for you to get in touch!

We are at the beach at Ocean City, Washington  – and we have done fun things  – but this trip will be remembered as the one we had mice INSIDE the trailer. After our first meal,  Randy opened the cupboard under the sink and saw that unwelcome mouse.   That started a two day frenzy in which the man was “the man” and the woman was reduced to a pitiful former rendition of herself – one  who wouldn’t get out of bed in the mornings until the man checked the traps.  (Given the pack rats, the snakes and the mice – I’m not sure what I’m doing out here!  Growing?  Maybe?)

This was round one at the hardware store.  We eventually went four times in two days!

I’ll spare you all the details ( I don’t really want to re-live them) but the man ended up trapping two mice and tightened up our potential access points such that, if there is still a mouse in here, we don’t know how it would get out.    We also have purchased deterrents for almost all senses – Fresh Cab packets that they supposedly don’t want to smell, an electronic attachment to our wiring giving magnetic pulses that they supposedly don’t want to feel,  ultrasonic sound emitters that they supposedly don’t want to hear and of course, the traps for their sense of taste.  The good news is that we’ve now gone 5 days and nights with no evidence of any additional stowaways – but the man is still looking and the woman is still  sleeping with the light on!

While we were still blissfully unaware of our intruders, we enjoyed a couple days with my parents in Vancouver and then went to Seattle to see a Mariner’s game.  It was Kyle Seager Bobblehead night so getting there early was a priority!

Bobbleheads for grandson Archer and cousin Kylee.

Archer’s T-shirt!

It was an eventful game.   Seahawk Richard Sherman threw out the first pitch, the manager and catcher both got thrown out of the game, A-Rod was thoroughly booed each time he came up to bat,  the closer blew the save so the game went to extra innings, and the Mariner’s lost.

As for the fun things we’ve done  ….  the best was reconnecting with friends John and Julie, who live in the area.  We met them in Mazatlan last December, (a conversation started because of John’s Seahawks hat) and spent time with them at the pool and dinners out.  It was a very pleasant and comfortable evening being with them again!

We enjoyed 2-3 walks on the beach each day, either at nearby state parks or down the short path from our campground, through the dune grass, to the ocean.

Elko loves going to the beach!

One day it was so foggy that we could hear the ocean but could not see it until we were very close.

Because we couldn’t see the ocean, we did notice the cool patterns that the surf made in the sand.  There were several within a short distance of each other.

We went to the Ocean Shores Kite Festival and learned a little about the world of kite competitions. Competitors were flying kite routines to music and getting scored on a rubric we did not understand.  We also watched a foursome practicing their synchronized routine where the kites moved very closely together, wove in and out  and, somehow, did not tangle lines.

Mostly we just enjoyed looking at all the different shapes and sizes of kites!

The day we were there the wind was blowing 2-3 mph.  The day before was 11 mph and we would have seen a completely different collection of kites.

We enjoyed talking with this couple, veterans of decades of kite festivals and competitions.  They always make their own kites, including the butterfly kite below, and told us of their transitions from using bamboo to graphite to fiberglass.    They also use fishing reels to manage their kite lines.  It was interesting stuff!

Today we leave the Washington coast for the Oregon coast.  We are headed for Seaside.  Hopefully there aren’t any mice there….just fun times.

This being our first time to volunteer in a state park, we were wondering what to expect but told ourselves  “we can do anything for a month.”   We are delighted to say that this experience has exceeded our expectations and been very enjoyable.

Carl, Ruth, Lisa, Serene and Randy

One of the reasons we wanted to volunteer was to be in a place long enough to be part of a community.  We have been very happy to work with our ranger friends, Lisa,  Chris, Kathy, Blu, Sheryl and George!

Lisa

Randy and Chris

Serene and Kathy

Blu

Sheryl

Very cool George

And also were most happy to share the Crooked River Camp host duties with our partners and new friends, Carl and Ruth.  We enjoyed all of the people we worked with, and would be happy if these relationships can continue outside the park.

We spent one afternoon with Carl and Ruth (and Elko) on a pontoon boat we rented at the marina.

We were able to explore Lake Billy Chinook and view the steep walls and palisades from the lake level.  Namesake for the park, palisades are columns which formed in the basalt after volcanic lava flows.

There are a variety of interesting formations along the lake.

There are also a variety of wildlife, especially birds, that live along the lake.   Although it is a prime area for viewing Golden Eagles, we seemed to mostly see the ever present vultures.   One day I was driving my golf cart out to the ash dump area and saw a group of vultures circling the area.  I was nervous about what I was going to find out there given the circling vultures in old westerns.  I didn’t look too hard, but I didn’t see anything dead or dying.

Very unfortunately, we did end up seeing quite a few snakes,  including this guy who thought our campsite was an okay place to be!  Not!  Randy was gone when I saw it so thanks to Carl for moving it away!

Fortunately we never saw or heard a rattlesnake.  When one of those is sighted near a path or campground, they are moved  to a different part of the park.  That is a ranger’s job – not for us volunteers!  Not that I would do it even if it was in my job description…

There is an interesting type of lizard in the park.  The Whiptail Lizard is native to the southwest, but somehow made it to central Oregon.  They are all female and reproduce without the need of a male partner.

We finally had some nice weather to venture out on our days off.  We spent time at the Peter Skene Ogden State Park.  He was a fur trapper who roamed the west in the early 1800s and was the first in this area.  Additionally, he rescued the survivors of the Whitman massacre near Walla Walla, Washington and the city of Ogden, Utah is named for him.

Elko stayed in the truck!

The Ogden park is adjacent to the steep Crooked River gorge and there are three bridges within walking distance crossing the expanse.

The first is the Oregon Railroad Trunk Bridge, built in 1911.   This bridge was significant in the railroad wars between the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway and the Union Pacific.   The SP&S won in court but outside the court, the battle involved “night raids, dynamite, gunfire and fistfights.”

The second bridge, 464 feet long and built in 1926, was for vehicles on Highway 97.  When constructed,  it was the highest (295 feet), single span bridge in the country.   It served vehicles until 2000 and is now open for foot traffic.

It was replaced by the Rex T. Barber Veterans Memorial Bridge.    Rex Barber was a fighter pilot in World War II from the nearby town of Culver.   He and his crew were credited with shooting down Yamamoto Isoroku’s plane in 1943.  Yamamoto was  the mastermind of Japan’s  attack on Pearl Harbor.

We also went to Pelton Park which is one of the parks run by Portland General Electric.  They operate three dams in the area and the fish ladders are quite extensive.

The path on the right is the fish ladder.

At a wildlife overlook we heard a huge amount of loud squawking across the river!

The visible brown sections are nests and inside were many, many huge birds!

They were flapping around making noise and we assume they were juvenile great blue heron thinking about jumping ship.

On a personal note, we celebrated our 35th anniversary on May 23rd.

During our honeymoon in Mazatlan, Mexico we ate at a 5 star CHINESE restaurant.  Strange, we know.  So, in keeping with that idea, we went to Madras Oregon’s highest rated Chinese restaurant on Trip Advisor.

The Ding Ho Family Restaurant doesn’t look like much, but the food really was great!     Even the left overs were great.

This week we were finally rewarded with a very clear view of Mt. Jefferson.  It has been a treat to be able to see Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood and the Three Sisters from the campground and while on our local travels.

We are preparing to leave here in a few days.  We will play tourist again for the month of June and spend time with my parents in Vancouver and my cousin’s family in eastern Washington.

In July, we become volunteers once again. We can only hope the experience will be as good as this one has been at Oregon’s Cove Palisades State Park.

We are in the middle of our volunteer gig at The Cove Palisades State Park in central Oregon and it is going very well and very quickly.  We are camp hosts in the Crooked River Campground and some days we work long enough and hard enough to actually be stiff!

For our free site, our commitment is 4 hours per person, 5 days a week –  and that is about what I work.  Randy is a happy, over-achiever in this job and frequently works about 7 hours.  (We figure that I am “making” almost double his hourly “wage” as I am working only half the time that he is for my share of our free site.)

Randy  is doing a lot of seasonal prep for the campground and enjoys “playing” with all their power toys like the Z Track mower.  

He has also used one of his own toys, his metal detector, to find irrigation couplers which have been overgrown by the grass over the years.

In the mornings, Elko helps me change camp site signs to reserved or available.

I enjoy running around in our golf cart and specialize in cleaning fire pits.

Super clean fire pit!

We have a nice camp site with very good satellite access, acceptable Verizon data service and  really poor voice cell service.   It is nice to have lots of green grass – even if it is part of our job to keep it watered and mowed.

From our site we see almost everyone who comes in and out.   We have seen some interesting rigs, including this custom “trailer” made from parts of 10 different cars.

We have enjoyed meeting many of the  “guests” in the campground.  The weekends are busy, but during the week we have plenty of time to chat.  We have met lots of interesting people including two separate couples from Germany.   One couple rented an RV to tour the US  and the other had their own German motorhome shipped here, via Argentina (after spending time there last year).

We have had days off during the last couple weeks.  The weather has been hit and miss, but one nice day we went on a hike up onto the peninsula bluff, a 7 mile loop trail called Tam-a-Lau.

After not seeing the dreaded snake in all of Arizona, it took no time at all to see one in Oregon.   It was slithering across the trail during one of the brief times I was leading our trio, but  I survived.

Elko wasn’t impressed by the view.

From this side of the bluff,  we had a good view of an extension of the peninsula called The Island.

The Island

The Island has steep vertical cliffs on three sides, rising 700 feet above the Crooked and Deschutes Rivers.  It is about 200 acres on top. Due to the steep cliffs, the Island was only grazed for one season, by sheep, in 1921. It has not had any sizable wildfires in the last century. As a result, the Island has one of the United States’ last remaining undisturbed areas. It is a Nation’s Natural Heritage Site and was designated a Research Natural Area by the Bureau of Land Management. It was closed to the public in 1997.

We have a few more days off before we leave at the end of the month.   We hope to have some good weather to explore more of central Oregon’s high desert, but if not, we are still having a blast being working stiffs again.

When I was teaching kindergarten, one of my favorite units was map skills.  One of my favorite books within the unit was Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller.  The states had grown weary of their geographic places and neighbors and were ready for a change.  Idaho has a prominent role in the story and Nevada and Mississippi fall in love.   I’m not proposing full blown changes like that, but it would be great for us if Boise were in Kansas.

We have had such a great month in Boise and leaving is hard knowing we won’t be back for another six months.  If Boise were a little more centrally located  in the country, we could loop around and visit more often!

Given that Boise is where it is (and not likely to change) we visited our old lives with gusto!   Tops on the list was babysitting grandson Archer almost every chance we could.  We were usually exhausted by the end of the day but it was great to see him grow and change (and become a really good walker) right before our eyes.  I wish I could let you see what a cutie he is, but we are honoring his parents’ wishes of no pictures 😦

So the activities I can show you are….

We got back in town just in time for me to join the Easter Choir at our church.  What a joy it was to be able to be there, sing again, and see our friends, including Jonna and Bridget,  at Cole Community Church.

One day after church we even did our old Sunday pattern of going grocery shopping at Albertson’s, getting my mocha from the usual Starbucks barista and checking out, as always, with Jackie.

We also enjoyed seeing friends morning, noon and night!  We have only one vehicle so our friends often had to pick one of us up so the other could have the truck.  Thank you for the flexibility!   Randy enjoyed golfing and lunches.  I enjoyed visiting my old book club and I fully recommend the book Boys in the Boat. We so appreciate our friends taking us back into their lives after our absence!

We thoroughly enjoyed dinner at the Philps!

We loved our weekend with Kent and Pam Johnson at their cabin in Donnelly.

Part of the reason our month in Boise seemed so fast and furious was that we spent a week of it in Cabo!  We will only go somewhere without Elko when we know he will be loved and cared for in our absence.  Thanks to John and Deb for loving and taking care of him!

We had a really lazy week in Cabo since I was sick when we got there and then, as Randy says, incubated my illness to it’s most extreme form, and gave it to him.  But, as I say, since we’ve been to this resort before, and will likely go again, it wasn’t the end of the world to hang out at the pool, or sit on the balcony and read!

We did venture into town one day to see our “kinda” cousin, Zaida.

Zaida is Rosa’s (Randy’s dad’s wife) niece.  Sounds like a cousin to us!  Zaida manages a restaurant, Soloman’s Landing, in the Cabo Marina.  

Even Guy Ferrari, from the Food Network,  has eaten there.

We had easy flights down to Cabo, even getting benefit of TSA Precheck where screening is minimal and easy!  Coming back was a different story!   Randy got the dreaded SSSS on his boarding pass (who knows why?!) and was searched thoroughly out of Cabo even including swabbing his hands, shoes and backpack.

Thoroughly didn’t even begin to describe what happened in San Diego!  He said it was everything short of a cavity search.  They offered to take him to another room to be patted down everywhere but he declined.  I would have been quite worried if they’d of taken him away!

Once back in Boise we saw a few more friends, spent time with Natasha, Seth and Archer  and prepared to leave.   Last night we prepped the trailer as much as possible and  reviewed details for our new hitch.  It is called an Anderson Hitch and has a towing capacity of 20,000 lbs.  It also weighs only 40 lbs (instead of 200) helping Randy’s back and our truck/trailer weight issue.  As we are driving along, the ride is much smoother than the previous hitch!  So far so good!

Tonight will be spent in Burns, Oregon.  Tomorrow we go to Culver, Oregon to begin our volunteer gig at the Cove Palisades State Park.   We will be there for the month of May.

We are also scheduled to volunteer at Farragut State Park north of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for the months of July and August.     September will find us at Chief Plenty Coupes State Park near Billings, Montana.  Come see us!

Some day we’ll want to leave the west and explore other parts of the country.  Then we will really wish that Boise was in Kansas!

Last night we had howling winds and the temperature plummeted.  We woke up to 34 degrees and Randy reluctantly put his shorts away.  The ability to wear shorts is Randy’s barometer of whether we are in appropriate weather zones. This morning we bundled up in three layers and gloves and took Elko out for his morning stroll.  We walked down to a large rock area with a placard we had noticed earlier – but had not yet visited. Interestingly enough, we finally got an explanation about Massacre Rocks – which is missing from the park information on the Idaho Parks website and other places I looked.  Maybe political correctness is at work. So, since I had given false information in the previous blog, we thought a correction was appropriate. The large rock on the left is Memorial Rock to commemorate those killed in this area on 3 separate occurrences between the Oregon Trail emigrants and the Shoshone Indians from 1851 to 1862. This posted sign talks about an incident on August 10, 1862 in which nine white men were killed and six wounded.  No mention of the number of Shoshone killed.  It was posted in 1927. And on a cheerier note, these pictures were taken with Randy’s phone camera.  The last month’s picture taking has been a collection of his phone, my phone and our broken camera.   The camera was dropped and the view screen has gradually gone away. The picture quality is better with the camera and our strategy has been to take a jillion pictures and hope some of them were capturing what we wanted it to capture.  It has been the ultimate “blind” point and shoot!   A new camera is on our to-do list in Boise. Signing off for now….

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we are on our way home.   We are looking forward to hanging out in our old life for most of the month of April.  We are especially looking forward to seeing Archer, Natasha and Seth and friends we left behind.

We left Arizona behind and had a brief stay in St. George, Utah.  Nothing of note to tell you about except that I drove part way.  For those keeping track, that is the second time!

We  didn’t see any lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) on our trip but we did see bison!

We saw lots of bison (and even one lone antelope) at Antelope Island State Park.  Antelope Island sits in the Great Salt Lake and is accessed by a 7 mile causeway.   The services are limited in the campgrounds (none!) but the scenery and the animals were very interesting so we were glad to have a short stay.

We learned that using the name buffalo is incorrect for the North American bison.  Buffalo are their distant cousins, the cape buffalo in Africa and the water buffalo in Asia.

The bison herd on Antelope Island began with the introduction of  12 animals in 1893.  There was a huge hunt in 1926 but enough animals survived to re-establish the herd.  Currently the herd is maintained at approximately 550 animals.

I asked about beginning with such a small genetic pool, and was wondering if they brought in other animals to expand the DNA.  I was told that the herd is 99 percent pure and they are actually trying to increase the purity.  Every bison on the island has been genetically identified and there are two males that have a small amount of bovine DNA.  Those two males are not going to be allowed to breed during mating season.

Even though the island is named for the antelope, the bison are the stars.  They are everywhere.  They go where ever they want to go, even right through the campground.

Elko isn’t quite sure what these things are…

He also didn’t know what this funny sand was, and why dad wouldn’t let him go swimming in the lake.

Antelope Island is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake, which is the largest lake west of the Mississippi.  We enjoyed a nice sunset during our evening on Antelope Island.

At the south end of the island is the Fielding Garr Ranch,  currently a ranch museum operated by Utah Parks.   Garr was assigned to establish the ranch to manage the Mormon Church’s tithing herds.  It operated in this capacity from 1848 to the mid 1870’s.  At other times it was operated privately for cattle, bison and sheep.  There is a sheepherders wagon on display.  I like my RV better!

As much as we enjoyed the island, it was time to continue on down the yellow brick (lined) road towards home.  And we made it back to Idaho!

We are staying two nights at Massacre Rocks State Park – one of the few Idaho State parks we haven’t been to before.  As future Idaho camp-hosts, we are even getting to stay here for one night free!

The name came from Oregon Trail days when the narrow gap in the rock formations allowed only one wagon at a time to pass through.  Additional information on the next blog titled Massacre Rocks.

Nearby is Register Rock where emigrants carved their names and dates  as they passed this area.  The rock is now covered and protected and names are still visible.

We attempted disc golf.  They advertise that it is not your momma’s disk golf course, and we believe it.  It is really a hike where you get to rest once in a while to throw, or find a disc.

Elko came along and loved finding our errant throws – mostly mine!  By the time we got to the 14th tee, he was ready for a rest.

Randy had one impressive errant throw!   His blue disc is barely visible in the tree towards the top just left of center.  He had a really bad lie for his next shot!

Tomorrow we have the final stretch back to Boise.  To those of you there, we can’t wait to see you!   We have been blessed to go to some pretty amazing places but, as Dorothy knew,  there’s no place like home.