Serene Wandering

This is the view out the windows in our trailer.   (Randy says we should always have a “room with a view” in our trailer or we should move).    We are in our favorite site, at one of our favorite parks, with two of our favorite people, Darrell and Cindy.   As I wrote earlier in the year, we have been coming to these sites with them on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends for years.   This is where we had our flood a few months ago!

The skies flooded last night during a very impressive storm!    We could see the black clouds rolling in while we were having dinner and it didn’t disappoint.   It is pleasant to hear the rain on the roof in a trailer – but you feel bad for people in tents!    In the middle of the wild storm, one of us wondered why we hadn’t gotten an alert on our Weather Radio which is intended to do just that.   Technology again!!   Apparently it still thought we were some place we had already been and already left….Randy has to figure that one out!

We can’t seem to escape the technology gnats.  In the Eagle RV park, their wifi was so strong that it was dominating our personal wifi system and not allowing us to log on.   As we prefer our secure wifi account, we took the laptop and mifi out of the park, got the laptop to log in and then left them both on and connected for the week, exceeded our wifi allowance, and were shut off for the rest of the month.  This morning our old HP laptop was refusing to wake up and play AGAIN, so tomorrow, I am off to the Apple Store for a MacBook Pro.   We have long considered going Mac but I was hesitant as I didn’t want to have to use two different computer systems and the school district uses PC – Windows.   As that situation is very shortly going away, so is the HP laptop!

I am enjoying helping new teachers and have been doing some tech stuff at work that I never thought I’d be doing.  Having dinner conversations with Randy about Java updates and pop-ups has not been part of our regular communication pattern!   I will turn in my retirement/resignation letter this week and anticipate the next month will go quickly.

Randy spent many hours replacing our grey and black tank sensors.  It drove him nuts that  the sensors would say the tanks were 2/3 full when he had just emptied them!   He had to remove the underbody of the trailer to get to them but eventually got the old ones out and a different kind of sensors installed.   We are so fortunate that Randy can do, and fix, so many things himself.  I wouldn’t want to know how much Camping World would charge to do the things Randy can do.  Plus there is the fact that this is our home, and where would we go if our home was at Camping World?

Now that the fair has moved on, we moved back to the Riverside RV Park on the Greenbelt.  The Eagle Park was very clean, and the people were nice, but the sites were very close together and it wasn’t really a good place for Elko.  Now we have the Greenbelt and can listen to the Boise Hawks game announcer if we are outside in the evenings.

Randy and Elko get to watch Archer several days this week while Natasha works.  Randy is excited, not sure about Elko!

We have had a nice first week back in Boise.   It is interesting how quickly you can go back to your normal life.  (Although this version of normal STILL has technology problems!)  Randy is working on fixing things here in the trailer and also installed a new dishwasher for our friend, Bridget.  Randy and friend Kent “crashed” book club (again) by having dinner at the same restaurant, at the same time. as those of us who read the book. We enjoyed time with Archer, Seth and Natasha.   We have not yet driven by our old house but I would imagine we will go by and see it sometime while we are here.

Randy and I have enjoyed getting together for dinners and lunches with friends this week!   Thank you to those who have invited us and if we haven’t seen you yet, we are looking forward to it!

I began work on Monday and have sympathy for those of you who work (or have worked) at a desk job!   I am use to my days flying by as a classroom teacher and that has not been my experience this week.   Of course, that may change as my month progresses and I do not want in any way to be perceived as complaining.   I am very grateful for this short-term position so I can retire instead of resign.

Much thanks to our great friend, Jonna, for taking in our mending!  I don’t own a sewing machine anymore, and neither do my mother or Natasha, so we appreciate Jonna helping us out.   It is humbling to ask someone to sew for you but I knew she was a friend who could and would.

After not golfing all summer, Randy has golfed several times this week.  He even competed in the club championship and won  3rd gross for his flight.

This morning I was able to sing with our church choir, a joy in my life.  We have enjoyed worship at churches in whatever towns we have been in but it is great to be back at our home church, Cole Community.

Another passion revs up this week!  The Boise State football team plays Ole  Miss on Thursday (ESPN).   Go Broncos!!

We left Bend on Thursday and went as far as Burns, Oregon.  Randy reminded me en-route that I had said I would drive when we got on these straight roads.  I had not forgotten, but was not going to volunteer!  As you can see, I complied.

Once there, the three of us celebrated our survival with some ice-cream!  I usually share with Elko, but he had his own this time.

We got in to Boise on Friday afternoon.   We went right over to see Natasha, Seth and ARCHER!   He just got cuter while we were gone!  Tomorrow we get to go to the fair with him and see the big animals.

This afternoon I picked up my rental car in preparation for starting work on Monday.  It feels very normal to be here, see familiar places and drive familiar roads.    There’s no place like home!

We listen to an RV podcast each week called Living the RV Dream.  It has been quite helpful for us while prepping for this lifestyle.  A couple of weeks ago they invited people to share mottos for their RV travel.  We didn’t share with them, but we came up with “Fun Will Now Commence” a quote spoken during an episode of Voyager, an old television show we enjoy.

A couple years ago we heard that friends, the Kuklinskis and VanSkivers, made it a Sunday evening activity to watch episodes of Voyager together.  Randy and I had seen a lot of episodes of Voyager years before and decided to watch the series from beginning to end.  We got the episodes first through Netflix, then by borrowing season sets from Karen Kuklinski, and now through Amazon Prime.   It was in late season 6 or early season 7 when former Borg, Seven of Nine, told the children, “Fun will now commence.”

Fun can certainly commence where we are now!  We are at the Bend-Sunriver Thousand Trails RV Resort in central Oregon.  Many RV campgrounds call themselves a resort but this is the first that we have experienced that truly deserves the title.  The place is huge and the campsites are generous. We attended a breakfast and a church service on-site.   The recreational activities abound!  We have gone in the adult pool and hot tub, played mini-golf, ridden bikes and played pickle ball.   (Pickle ball is a cross between tennis and ping-pong and was quite fun.)    There were many more activities we did not have time to take part in!

The only down sides to this park is that it only has 30 amp service and no sewer hook-up.  Most newer parks have 50 amp service and many have sewer.  We can work fine with 30 amp, we just can’t run the bedroom electric heater, the electric fireplace, the electric water heater and the microwave at the same time.   That means I have to do a little juggling in the mornings when I want to warm up and have some hot cocoa.  We do have propane systems, we just don’t usually use them.  No sewer service has meant quick showers (or showers in the pool clubhouse), a visit to the laundromat and paper plates.

Another huge thunderstorm is brewing outside this afternoon.  This is the third day in a row!  We are glad to say that we haven’t had a leak even though the rains have been torrential.   There are fires in the area so hopefully the rain is helping more than the lightning is hurting.

We are here in a golfer’s mecca and Randy hasn’t gone golfing one time.  In fact, he hasn’t golfed all summer.  The club championship is coming up at Shadow Valley soon and it will be interesting to see how he does.

This summer initiation into our lifestyle has been very good but not without some challenges.  First and foremost, technology problems are so annoying!   We want cell service, internet service and satellite service, and I am the one that doesn’t do so well when we don’t have them!  I really enjoy watching the Mariners on TV and Randy has been very patient trying to find and/or move to a spot that has southern sky access to satellite service.  (We have moved mid stay at a park 3 times, but only once was for satellite.)

Randy has decided that the most stressful part of this venture for him is trying to get fuel.  We are just so big and long that we can’t get in and out of regular stations easily.  Truck stops are our friends!  We were on the phone today talking with someone about getting a Pacific Pride card so we can use their commercial fuel stops.

Another challenging thing has been lack of recycling, something we were very diligent about in Boise.  Most campgrounds have little or no opportunity to recycle.  The best set up we have had in two months was at Dworshack State Park in Idaho.  A few have had aluminum bins, but most have nothing.  It is discouraging.

Tomorrow we will leave and begin the trek back to Boise, probably stopping in Burns to break up the long drive.  It has been fun to talk with people this week and set up lunches and pending activities.  I have been logging on to my district email almost every day for a couple weeks trying to get my mind around going back to work after wandering all summer.  Monday will come soon!

Our friend, Jonna, asked me the other day if it will seem strange to come back to Boise and not go to our house.   I don’t know – we’ll see!   Home will be the RV park in Eagle for the first 10 days.

We are very excited to see grandson, Archer – and of course, his parents –   just two days away!   Looking forward to seeing all of you Boise friends!

We, and my parents (Glenn and Beverly),  had a nice trip on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad today.  People of all ages and stages stopped and waved at our train all through the little towns of Rockaway Beach and Garibaldi.  Everybody loves a train!

Mom and Dad came down to spend a few days with us at the beach.  In addition to the train we have enjoyed the campground, our camping neighbors (Cliff and Edson from Mississippi) and spending time at the Garibaldi Mariner Museum.  We learned today that the nautical speed of “knots” was determined by throwing a “board” at the end of a rope (with knots tied at specific intervals) off the end of the boat.  After 30 seconds you count how many knots have been pulled into the water.  The number of knots is the speed.  Cool, huh!

Before they came Randy and I went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory (for cheese and ice-cream), to the Tillamook Farmer’s Market and to the Tillamook Country Smokehouse (for jerkey) twice!

We took a day trip to the Tillamook Forest Center.  It includes an interactive museum/discovery center that is very well done.   Beginning in 1933, the area had devastating forest fires every six years.  The fires in the first three cycles could not be suppressed  until nature did it with rain and snow. By 1951, firefighting skills and equipment had developed such that human efforts were successful.   Over the next many years, the area was reforested with the help of school children, prisoners, and regular folks.  It was estimated that the deer ate 2 of every 3 seedlings.  They also used the experimental technique of dropping seed by helicopter.   The forest is beautiful now, 60 years later,  so something was successful.

We also went to Cape Meares Lighthouse.  When Natasha was young we visited a lot of the Oregon and Washington lighthouses but I don’t think we have ever been here before.  On the grounds there is a tree they call the Octopus Tree – you can see why!

A very enjoyable part of our stay has been  daily (sometimes twice daily) visits to Manzanita and Rockaway Beaches.  The beaches here are beautiful and not smelly!  The sand is perfect.  Elko had a great time chasing his ball on the beach.  We just enjoyed the walks.

In an effort to keep our brains stimulated (yeah right…)we conducted a beach experiment today.  The wind creates these wonderful peaks and ridges.  We stepped on the ridge and walked down the small dune.  We waited to see how long it would take for the winds to re-create the dune.  It was almost perfect in 10-12 minutes.

Tomorrow morning my parents head back to Vancouver and we head to Bend for a week.  Boise is the week after that.  We are looking forward to seeing those of you who live in Boise!

At last post, we were headed down  I-5  towards Vancouver, Washington.  Driving through Seattle (or in my case riding) pulling our fifth-wheel was quite interesting.  The road is way crowded and very much in need of repair.   On one of the many times we were at a complete stop, I saw the University of Washington stadium and wondered how Coach Pete was adapting to Seattle traffic.  Ironically, just a few days later when he was being interviewed at the Pac-12 media days, he mentioned Seattle traffic.

We eventually did make it safely to my parent’s home in Vancouver.   We enjoyed an “Amazon Christmas” of sorts.  After many weeks on the road we knew the modifications we wanted to make to the trailer.  These included a second air-conditioner, an upgraded mattress and a variety of other miscellaneous things.  We had all those things shipped to my parent’s house and spent some time unpacking boxes and making those changes.  See Randy  getting ready to start installing our new 100 lb. air-conditioner.  Getting it up there was interesting!

While in Vancouver we also enjoyed Music in the Park and visiting.  There is a neighborhood park within walking distance of my parents’ home where Elko is able to enjoy the dog drinking fountain.  Vancouver is a nice town.

And then, Elko became the “one if by land” staying with my parents, while Randy and I became the “two if by sea”, going on an Alaskan Cruise.

We are a little bit attached to Elko and are grateful to my parents for taking him in.    My mom took good care of Elko even though spoiling dogs is not in her nature. My dad loved him and spoiled him because it is exactly in his nature.    I don’t think I knew growing up that mom didn’t really like pets because my brother and I had dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, birds and even a monkey at one time!

Leaving Elko behind, Randy and I took off on a Sunday morning to family friend Kim’s house near Seattle.  She had graciously volunteered to keep our truck and shuttle us back and forth to the Holland America Pier in Seattle.  We found Boise friends Darrell and Cindy almost immediately and  were able to board the ship together, find our cabins, have lunch and explore the ship.

We had a great time!   This was our second cruise to Alaska and for the most part we went to different places which was nice.    On our first Sea Day, we went to the Tracy Arm Fjord where we got up close and personal with the Sawyer Glacier and saw icebergs, seals and orcas.

In Juneau, we went on a tour where we saw humpback whales “bubble netting”.  This is a technique in which Alaskan humpback whales coordinate to catch herring in a bubble circle and then feast on them.    We were fortunate to be at the right place and time when the herring and whale migrations overlap.  There is usually about a two week window of opportunity each year and we caught the end of it.  Here is a Youtube video of bubble net feeding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxC7a3KQKpw

We enjoyed additional port days in Sitka, Ketchikan and Victoria, BC.  We were able to get our sightseeing done each day before the weather became problematic.   See Darrell and Randy on Married Man’s Trail – the back way in to Ketchikan’s Crooked Creek of brothels – turned tourist shops.  Along crooked creek we were able to see many salmon attempting to go upstream to spawn.

We also really enjoyed our ship time.  We spent time in the Piano Bar most evenings doing things like team competitions for Neal Diamond Name that Tune (we were respectable thanks to Cindy’s Neal Diamond passion) and the Beatles Name that Tune (we were not).   We watched a few shows, went to a few classes and saw a couple movies.  Our ship, The Amsterdam, was very nice,. The food was great and the ship’s crew were so gracious.  I’m already looking forward to our next cruise in a couple years– anyone interested in cruising the Mediterranean?

Back on land, Randy and I went to Safeco field.  We were there a couple of hours early for the  Mariner’s game but we enjoyed wandering around the stadium.  We went to the Mariner’s Hall of Fame and saw the induction speeches of those going into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on Seattle’s very big video board.   The Mariners lost, but we had a good time.

Then we headed back to Vancouver and reunited with Elko and my parents.  We enjoyed a few more days there where Randy drove his old BMW again and we saw a Boise Hawks Baseball game – in Hillsboro, Oregon.

And now, we are on the road again!  Unfortunately we had to traverse more of the I-5 corridor heading south through Portland but we survived and are now on the Nehalem Bay near the Oregon coast.    More to come later in the week!

Today we initiated a crossing over, and completed a crossing over.

Application for Retirement!

I actually mailed my application for retirement to PERSI, Public Employees Retirement System of Idaho.  Randy and I had to go sign in front of a notary documenting that the choice of payment was acceptable to me as the member and to him as my husband.  Then we mailed it.   October 1st I will be crossing over from employed to retired.

Children of a Common Mother

Then we went to Peace Arch Park, a joint park between the state of Washington and the province of British Columbia, at the border.  Within this area, approximately 300 yards long, you can meander from country to country.  It was quite nice with the sentiments expressed in the arch and each country’s flag represented in flowers.

May These Gates Never Be Closed

Elko and I have three feet in the United States and three feet in Canada!  Crossing over.

Tomorrow we leave here to go to the Vancouver that is farther away, (Vancouver Washington instead of Vancouver, British Columbia) for a visit with my parents.

What is that smell!?   It was perplexing and it was unpleasant enough that we needed to figure it out!

Of course, in an RV you fear “black tank” (bathroom) odors but that wasn’t the problem as the odor was in the kitchen area.  Randy cleaned and flushed the gray tank numerous times and that didn’t solve the problem.  We thought something was rotten or dead somewhere but we couldn’t find it.  After a couple days and a couple of very thorough cleanings with vinegar, Randy decided the offending item had to be in or behind the slide out pantry located between the stove and refrigerator.  When he bent to remove everything from the pantry, he happened to notice one of the knobs on the propane stove was just slightly ajar/open.  Problem solved!   We hadn’t cooked on the stove in a couple days and the weather was nice enough to have had the windows opened all the time so there was never enough propane to set off the alarm or pose a health danger – just enough to have an odor and drive us crazy!    Randy feels like his engineering skills must be getting rusty –in hindsight he thought he should have figured that one out much sooner.  The end result is that we have a VERY clean kitchen, and finally, no odor.

UPDATE:  The “smell” has a name. Here is some information about mercaptan:

Natural gas is both odorless and colorless, so gas providers add an ingredient called mercaptan to it so you can detect its presence. If they did not add mercaptan, it would be hard for you to know that unlit natural gas was coming from your stove after you left the valve turned on. And leaks from furnaces and hot water heaters would be nearly impossible to detect without expensive equipment. So mercaptan’s smell is a very valuable safety feature.

But one thing’s clear — mercaptan stinks. In a concentrated form, its smell is almost unbearable. And it takes only a few parts per million of mercaptan for the average person to wrinkle a nose and say, “What is that smell?”

Mercaptans contain sulfur. That’s what makes them smell. The kind gas providers use blends well with natural gas and, in a gaseous state, has much the same properties as natural gas, so it will also rise and dissipate with natural gas.

There are other uses for mercaptans in industry, including jet fuel, pharmaceuticals and livestock feed additives. They are used in many chemical plants. Mercaptans are less corrosive and less toxic than similar sulfur compounds found naturally in rotten eggs, onions, garlic, skunks, and of course, bad breath.

We have spent the week at one of our membership campgrounds and have enjoyed the area and our campground neighbors.  We are just a few miles from the border and many Canadians vacation here.  It has been interesting to have conversations with them about health systems, taxation levels and the number of days they are allowed to be in the US (182).  Even crossing the border to get gas, which seems to be a common event, costs them a day.

We have wonderful neighbors from Canada on both sides of us.  One retired as the director of Mission Aviation Fellowship in Canada.  (We are very familiar with Mission Aviation Fellowship as their US headquarters are in Nampa and several people we know at Cole Community Church work with MAF).  In fact, as we were leaving to go visit the Dutch community of Lyndan this morning, he and the neighbor on the other side both offered to keep Elko for us while we were gone.   Elko is such a hit with his mild manners…but, we took him with us!

We were also able to enjoy a nice afternoon with my brother, Kyle, and his girlfriend Trish.  We don’t see them often so it was great to visit.   We watched the World Cup finals together on Canadian TV.  We had our choice of an English or French broadcast.  In fact, each evening we can choose (or not) to watch the news in English, French or Mandarin Chinese.  There is a broadcast in each language.

Birch Bay, here on the Puget Sound , is nice but we don’t have the appreciation for salt water and the marine smell that many do.  We did, however, really like this boat in the meadow!

Driving here from Winthrop was stunningly beautiful.  Highway 20 across northern Washington (closed in the winter) goes through North Cascades National Park but it wasn’t just the park that was beautiful.  The whole journey was so nice that we didn’t listen to the radio or podcasts, we just enjoyed the view.

Lake Diablo was especially beautiful with its blue green color from glacial silt.

It is interesting to me that after worrying about our old truck pulling our old trailer UP the mountains, I now wonder about this truck and trailer getting DOWN them.  Our mountain grades have been so steep in several areas this summer, and this trailer is so heavy, that I worry about braking.    Randy feels like he is getting better at letting the transmission do the work instead of the brakes.  When I finally do start driving the truck and trailer together, I want flat, straight roads to learn on.  I know there is one of those coming up between Bend and Boise in mid-August!  I think I can wait until then.

In the past few days we have had expectations dashed and expectations exceeded.

We spent the weekend at Priest Lake State Park.  The lake was beautiful and the water clear.  A campground program director reminded us of a cruise director with activities at varied times of the day and evening for all age levels.  And then there was the campground….expectations dashed!

We knew this was a very popular park because reservations are hard to come by.  Given that this is a high profile park we expected a nice campground with some of the improvements we have seen at other Idaho State Parks.    But, even though I had put in our trailer length, we had the tightest, smallest site ever and Randy had to try multiple times to even get us in.  He is usually very accomplished at backing in our trailer and he was considering bailing.  When we finally got in, we had about 6 inches of clearance between our trailer and some concrete pilings.

The concrete pilings were the only demarcation between our campsite and the ones on either side.  We were right on top of each other and it wasn’t pretty!   On one side we had a couple from Washington who were very pleasant.  He and his large group had been reserving 2 weeks at Priest Lake for years.  The other side had two families that made us glad we were having a short stay.  Music, yelling at the kids, campfire smoke non-stop etc. .. better to have difficult neighbors this way than in a regular house!

We decided to leave the campground on Saturday and drove to the west side of the lake.  We visited Granite Waterfall and the Roosevelt Cedar Grove containing  large 800 year old cedars.  There were nice things about the visit!

We left Sunday morning headed to a “spot on the map” – Winthrop, Washington.   I knew little about the stop except the private campground had good ratings and we needed a stop somewhere mid-Washington.  I generally try to look for campgrounds in our membership systems and/or state parks.  As neither were available here I looked at the third option, a private park.  Oh my, expectations EXCEEDED!

Our little campground, Pine Near RV Park, was such a nice surprise.  We have a wonderful spot with grass everywhere.  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed grass until we have it all around us again.  It is clean and cool and Elko enjoyed playing with his toys in the grass.   There are deer wandering around the park, with one even getting into the neighbor’s foodstuffs.

The town of Winthrop is an old-west tourist town complete with boardwalks  and false front  buildings.   We have wandered through town, visited their Historical Museum and walked across the river on both of their suspension bridges.  We spent a nice afternoon sipping hard cider and eating cider donuts and peanuts for lunch.  We went to the Northern Cascades Smokejumper Unit and had a tour of their facility.  Smoke jumping started in Winthrop, Washington in 1939.

Today was hot, 99 degrees, which was just tolerable in a trailer with one air conditioner.  Once we knew we were returning to Boise in August and September, Randy has spent time researching a second air conditioner.  Today validated that need!

Tomorrow we are on the road again, headed to Blaine, on the Puget Sound right up by the Canadian border.  And cooler weather!

My father is an only child yet he had 58 first cousins.   We have spent the week in Newport enjoying the company of three of his/my cousins:  Audrey, Britta and Venita.  Of course, there are third cousins (Vicki, Terri and Kim) and even a fifth cousin, Tillman.    With them, we have watched a small town rodeo parade, eaten meals in and out, and taken a tour of Diamond Lake on a pontoon boat where they live or have cabins.  It has been a pleasant week of visiting.

On our own we walked some trails and went to Church in the Park.  In our campground we have enjoyed the wild turkeys, deer, mini-golf, ping-pong, hot-tub  and fellow campers.  Because it is a membership campground, it is full of full-timers and we have gleaned some advice from their experience.

We drove almost all the way to the Canadian border to Gardener Cave in Crawford State Park.   It is the second largest limestone cave and the only publicly accessible cave in Washington.    On the way back we saw a large bald eagle on his/her nest.

The other thing we have enjoyed here in Newport is having cell service, internet and satellite TV that all work at the same time.  That hasn’t happened since we left Boise and it has been a nice reprieve.  When you are accustomed to having it all, to do without it is a struggle!

After breakfast at Britta’s we take off today for Priest Lake State Park for the Fourth of July weekend.  This will only be a two night stay, our shortest stop so far, but all I could get at Priest Lake.  It is a popular park!  Happy Fourth everyone!