The Off Ramp to Adventure

Randie and I headed to the grocery store on Saturday morning, September 26th to restock the cupboards in the RV one last time. Emmett has only one grocery store, an Albertsons, but a very special Albertsons. Joe Albertson was from Emmett, Idaho as it turns out, and although he opened his first store in Boise, the second one was opened in Emmett. The summer after I graduated from High School, I got a job in the Albertson’s bakery in Emmett. To this day, I can’t eat a hot dog bun without visualizing those little bread torpedoes shooting through the slicing machine at 100 MPH. The store I worked in, the original one in Emmett, was torn down not long after I left Idaho in 78 and the replacement has since been torn down as well. Emmett is on its 3rd Albertsons, a big and beautiful store, if that can be said of a grocery store.

I offered to do the shopping while Randie ran the trailblazer through the car wash, one of the small joys in life for him these days. When I came back out and we headed for home, he unexpectedly made a swerve into a lube shop, saying that the brakes felt funny. As it turned out, he had made the mistake of putting power steering fluid in the brake fluid reservoir. This was now swelling the seals and changing the performance of the brakes. The lube guy was able to do little more than point us toward Les Schwab. We’re already big fans of Les Schwab Tire Centers, using them frequently to add air to the RV tires. They apologetically told us that parts would have to be ordered and all the seals would have to be replaced at a cost of about $1500. To make Randie feel better, they told him that they see a couple of these cases per month. It is a somewhat common mistake. Randie stated that they probably didn’t see the same person do it twice. A costly lesson that people just don’t repeat.

Randie took his frustration out by weed wacking the long entry driveway to the road and taking an axe to tree roots he came across while trying to destroy the gopher hole that had caused the flood where we park the RV. I enjoyed a little of the Fall sunshine while putting a couple coats of varnish on Dad’s new walking stick. He prefers to call it a “staff” which reminds me of Gandolf. He’s got the white hair for the role. Maybe some flowing robes for Christmas?

As if he hadn’t had enough one on one time with the axe the previous day, Randie felled a dead tree on my parents’ property Sunday, with some assistance from Neil. I walked into the house while Mom was busy and told her I was returning her cake plate. My goal was to sneak it into the cupboard without her noticing that it wasn’t the same plate I had taken out to the RV weeks ago. “What cake plate?” I explained that I still had the plate from my birthday and was willing to put it away if she would just tell me where she keeps it. “Just put it on the counter, I’ll get it.” I said, “No, I don’t mind, just tell me where it goes. I’ll put it away”. She insisted that it would be too difficult to tell me, that there was much digging required to get to the proper burial place in the cabinets reserved for this seldom-used plate. Resigned to my fate, I set the plate on the counter and waited for my execution. She buzzed into the room, grabbed the plate and started putting it away in the back of a cabinet. Stupidly, I said,” Do you like your cake plate?”. She kept digging and said, “Yeah, I like it. Why?” “Nothing, I just thought it was a pretty plate”. She closed the cabinet door and buzzed out. I stood there for a second, letting the fact sink in that the bullet I had been expecting had, instead, whizzed by, missing me by a mile. Good thing she doesn’t read the blog any more.

I atoned for my deception by doing a couple favors around the house, hooking up a DVD player for Kurt and poisoning the ants in the driveway. My parents have an infestation of ants in their dirt driveway that makes it appear as though it has been riddled with machine gun fire in some areas. To combat them, one has to pour some poison granules on each little mounded hole. It takes an hour or so of deep knee bends spooning out poison with a spoon from an old tin can full of ant death. Generally, the next day, I find it difficult to walk.

On Monday, with sore legs, I applied more varnish to the staff while Randie waxed the front of the RV. We had originally planned to leave on Monday for Portland, but were now finding ourselves in limbo, waiting to hear back from Les Schwab. Once we heard that the parts needed for the toad were not readily available, we made a new plan to depart Wednesday in the RV and accept JoAn’s offer to borrow a car while in Portland. With the weather getting cooler, we all spent less time outdoors and Mom and I actually started a puzzle. As we worked on it, we got a call from a very old family friend, Lynn Bruce. The two families were very close when I was a child and spent many a day or evening together in S. California. It had been years since my Mom had spoken to Lynn, so they had a nice long chat to catch up. Her son Rich and I are about the same age and still keep in touch occasionally by email. I had actually been thinking of Rich recently, since he showed up repeatedly at childhood birthday celebrations in the home movies we had watched on the RV trip to Arizona.

Tuesday, the weather stopped any pretense at being Fall and went straight to Winter. Over the past two days, the daytime highs had dropped by 30 degrees. After a quick game of dominoes at McDonalds, we all headed home to await the big event of the day – the delivery of the new refrigerator Mom had ordered prior to the canyons trip. Not long after returning home, we got the call that the truck was close and we began emptying the fridge and pulling off about 100 cute little magnets. It had obviously been a very long time since my Mom had weeded out the stuff in her fridge, and this was a good opportunity for her to discard the restaurant packets of butter, jelly, pizza crushed red peppers, and taco sauce that had amassed during the previous few years. Two men rolled out the old and, after devising a work-around for the unusual plumbing receptacle behind the fridge (my Dad did the wiring and plumbing in the house himself 35 years ago), got the new big boy hooked up. It’s a beauty at about 27 cubic feet with a bottom drawer freezer and light up panel like a little computer that will allow you to measure out specific amounts of water and shows the date among 20 other things. While she reorganized, I put the last coat of varnish on the staff. My Mom had an extra rubber foot in the junk drawer which fit it perfectly.

As we all ate lunch together at the table, I tapped the forward button repeatedly on the computer as we watched a slide show of the pictures taken during our recent trip to the canyons. That evening, I picked up a Subway sandwich and headed over to Kim’s to hear the latest on her recent breakup and enjoy some girl time. I took along one of the Euro board games that I thought she might like as an introduction. With a little pleading, I convinced her it wouldn’t be too hard and she ended up enjoying it and getting into the strategy part of the game before it was all over. While putting it away, she started sentences with “Next time, I would…” so there is hope for a rematch sometime.

On Wednesday, Sept 30th, we joined my folks for coffee at McDonalds before heading for Portland. It was an all day drive without even a full stop for lunch. We parked long enough to make a sandwich and then ate while back on the road. We arrived in Portland at the Gateway Elks late afternoon, got parked and paid, and then headed over to JoAn’s. Together, we went to Chang’s Mongolian Grill, and did some catching up before borrowing Laddie’s little pickup for the week.

After the hard day of driving the day before, it was nice to have a relaxing morning on Thursday as we got a late start on the day. Randie made contact with his ailing brother and we scheduled a dinner for the latter end of our Portland visit. I followed Randie in the pickup and we made the move out to the Hillsboro Elks, planning to be close to the convention at the nearby Hillsboro fairgrounds. Unfortunately and quite surprisingly, the RV lot was totally full. The RV host seemed to think that migrating snowbirds were the reason and that a spot might be available that afternoon or the following day. We left the RV in the boondocking area of the regular parking lot and went to the movies. After all, it was Tuesday and that means $1 popcorn at Regal Theaters. We saw Julie and Julia with Meryl Streep and enjoyed it very much. She did an amazing job channeling the late gourmet. We made a stop at Costco after the movie to gas up the truck and pick up enough 2 pointers to get us through the week. Without an opening in the RV parking area, we boondocked for the night for $5, using our propane and little space heater to keep us warm.

On Friday, I started a painting project and, without the hoped for opening at the Elks materializing, we moved over to the fairgrounds. The cost was higher, but at least we would have 30 amp power to run TV, microwave, and other conveniences. This also put us walking distance to the gaming which meant we could come and go separately and eat in the RV between games.

That night we met up with old friends at the Round Table Pizza nearby. Tom Bishop had notified lots of Randie’s old friends from High School and his early working days that he would be in town and it turned into quite a gathering. Randie mingled with the nearly 20 friends in attendance and the volume of the pizza parlor rose considerably. I met some of his old friends for the first time, having heard the names frequently over the years featured in starring roles populating Randie’s many tales from his delinquent youth. Round Table is our favorite pizza, and with all the friends to chat with, it was hard to find time to savor our once a year pizza splurge. The best story I heard was a description of life back in The Hawk Shop, a bar controlled by the Gypsy Jokers who were the Hells Angels of Portland. Randie and his friends played foosball there with the tacit permission of the Jokers and observed a lot of the harder and much scarier side of life. On more than one occasion they left the bar dodging flying pitchers of beer when hairy fights would break out.
Saturday was the first day of the convention and I awoke totally excited, like a kid on Christmas. We sat in the comfort of the RV waiting to see the people arrive and stream into the big building 50 feet behind of where the RV sat. We saw only a few cars arrive in the lot and not a soul got out. After a while, the cars left and we began to wonder what was going on. If the LED marquis out on the road wasn’t announcing the event with today’s date every 2 minutes, we’d have thought we’d gotten our days wrong. As it turned out, the event was being held in a different building, a 5 minute walk away, with its own parking lot. We grabbed our cooler full of sodas and snacks and made our way over, bundled up against the cold temperatures, in plenty of time for the first games at 9 a.m. There were a half dozen large round tables along one wall where dungeon masters were busy setting up shop for D&D games. The rest of the hall was filled with long tables for board games, a kitchen selling sodas and snacks, a game signup area, and a lending library of games along the far wall provided by Rainy Day Games. We scoped out the signup sheets and plotted our course for the day, choosing some games we knew and some we wanted to learn. At noon, we walked back to the RV for a quick lunch and, while Randie took a nap, I hurried back to the convention in time for the 1:00 game block. Aside from this break, we gamed non-stop until 11 p.m. that night. Over the two days, we played a new edition of Railroad Tycoon, Stoneage, Pandemic and Amun Re, all familiar to us. The new games we tried included Stoneage Settlers, Finca, Munchkin, Small World, and Lost Cities. I’m sure there were more, but I can’t remember now. Each time a game was finished, a sheet of paper was filled out listing the players ranked by how well they finished in the game. Papers were turned over to an official who loaded the info into a program designed to track for a grand winner weighted by performance and number of games played. Sunday evening, as we played our final game about 5 p.m., the convention host announced the winner. When I heard my name, my mouth dropped open quite literally. I was in a daze as I walked up to accept my $40 gift certificate to Rainy Day Games, the show’s sponsor. No sooner had I retaken my seat when they announced that Randie had won second place, scoring a $20 gift certificate. Randie says they may not invite us back.

At six, I headed over to a different building where a silent auction of used games had been set up. There must have been 100 games spread over 6 large tables, some still in shrink wrap but most were used. I scoped out the room, slowly moving between tables writing in bids here and there. When Randie joined me, we discussed which games we wanted most, and when all was said and done we had spent $45 for 7 games, most of which retail for $40 or more. A good haul.

On Monday, we had lunch with nephew David at Sweet Tomatoes. He has a full time job caring for two severely handicapped foster children. During the Summer, this job is 24/7, but with the start of the school year, he gets a welcome respite during the day as the kids attend special school. We enjoy our visits with him very much and are glad he can usually find the time to get away and share a meal with us. Driving back to the RV, we both commented on the colors we were seeing in the trees. The reds and oranges were everywhere, whereas just a couple weeks earlier there was no sign of Fall yet. This beauty is one thing we used to miss out on, living in Kona year round. Although missing out on raking leaves is O.K. with us.

That evening JoAn joined us for dinner with Randie’s brother Rick with his long time girlfriend Teresa for dinner. It was nice to see them but disheartening to see that Rick’s condition is not improving. The exertion to get out of the house and meet us at a restaurant was more than he could handle and, before dinner was over, he was needing to get home.

On Tuesday, we moved the RV to Gateway Elks again, I did some painting, and we met an old business friend and his wife for lunch. They’ve kept in touch by email frequently, but this was my first chance to meet them. We met at Corbett’s fish house, a small place that specializes in gluten free food. All the fish is battered in rice flour and it was delicious. The place was hopping by the time we finished our early lunch. All those people can’t have gluten allergies, so the good food must bring in a lot of customers too.

After lunch, we met JoAn at the movie theater for our regular Tuesday matinee outing. That day we saw the Toy Story 3D double feature. We had seen both movies when they had been originally released, but they are classics that we didn’t mind seeing again. . . especially in 3D. We ate at Changs one last time before finishing the evening at JoAn’s to pick up some photos and things of Laddie’s that she wanted to pass on to us. We shared hugs and said our goodbyes and gave her her birthday present a week early before she drove us back to the RV.

We drove all day Wednesday from early morning till late afternoon and finished the audio book along the way. 36 CDs has got to be a record for us! We had the RV parked behind the hanger in time to join the family and the Heimbucks for dinner and then a few hands of Oh Hell around the kitchen table.

The next day was especially cold. Randie has resisted wearing long pants, but his resolve is weakening day by day. The local news is warning farmers and gardeners that freezing temperatures will be reached any evening now. We all know that Mom’s melon patch days are numbered and we are picking all the corn and other veggies out of the garden that are fit to eat. We did the McDonalds coffee klatch thing in the morning and picked up the trailblazer on the way home from Les Schwab. I took care of some bookkeeping during the day, caught up with a couple weeks of email, and sent out an email feeler to my Kona friends to see if there were any jobs available. We enjoyed the last harvest of corn that night and I used up the last of the berries I picked in the Olympic Peninsula for a baked dessert. In countdown mode, we are trying to eat up everything in the freezer and fridge before we have to leave.

After McDonalds on Friday morning, Mom gave me a lesson in canning tomatoes. She has canned a lot through the years and I have always tried to make myself scarce during these times. As I get older, I realize that these are skills that I’d like to have even if I don’t use them. And as my Mom gets older, I realize that she won’t always be around to teach me. Mom had picked every tomato that had the least bit of a hint of color other than green the other day. We canned all the red ones, and the others will continue to ripen in the house until they are ready for canning in a couple weeks. I was surprised at how easily the skins slipped off after boiling the tomatoes for no more than 30 seconds. I packed 7 jars which is the number that fit in her pressure cooker pot.

While we were busy in the kitchen, Randie and Dad went to work changing the tire on the riding lawn mower so that Dad could cut the grass for what will probably be the last time this year. There is a terrible weed that grows along the driveway out by the road with long stickers called goat head weed. I don’t know if this is the real name or a local tag, and no, they don’t resemble goat heads at all. Randie’s weed wacking activities the other day spread the stickers into the driveway and, somehow, one of these puncture heads made its way into the mower tire.

The next few days were filled with pre-departure activities and Randie, with help from Neil, finished chainsawing up a felled tree. The highlights seem to mostly food related. Isn’t it interesting how so much of our life revolves around food? On Sunday, we all breakfast at the Blue Ribbon Bakery. I really like this place and it’s authentic Mom and Pop feel. The prices are great and the place fills up early. For $2.95, you get 2 eggs, 2 pieces of meat like bacon or sausage, and either hash browns, toast, biscuits and gravy, or 2 huge pancakes. My favorite part of the experience though is overhearing snippets of the conversations from the closely packed surrounding tables. On Sunday it was tractor talk between a table of 4 farmers debating the merits of different brands. Over the course of this summer, I’ve heard great talks about cattle management, the price of acreage in surrounding areas, and my favorite was a talk about hunting and shooting animals illegally who are preying on livestock. The memorable quote was “Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up”.

When we arrived at Cold Mountain to meet up with the Heimbucks on Saturday night, the owners had set up a Halloween maze made of haybales. We all went through at some point during the evening before dark and enjoyed the many decorations within the straw walls, including scarecrows, pumpkings, and lots of rubber spiders and fake webs among the deadends. Before the end, each explorer needed to duck below a low web inhabited by a 2’ brown furry spider. Many other town merchants are feeling the season and there are plenty of bundled corn stalks, hay bales, scarecrows, and pumpkins up and down Main Street.

On Monday, we all gathered around my cell phone’s speaker for a conference call of sorts with Chris, my x-husband and President of the company that holds most of the family’s investment dollars. He spent an hour giving us a blow by blow overview of all the apartment properties and other assets that we are invested in, most suffering from the economic downturn.

We headed for Boise in the RV on Tuesday morning, the 13th, before 8 a.m. for our winterizing appointment. The rest of the family headed in a different direction for dental appointments. At noon, they dropped by the RV place where we had been spending a few hours in a comfortable waiting room and picked us up for lunch. Being Tuesday, we subsequently headed for the theater and watched Couples Retreat with Vince Vaughn. A very funny comedy that is worth the price of admission. Leaving the theater, we found ourselves in the rain with a windy storm brewing. After we got dropped back at the RV dealer, the family went on to dinner while Randie and I raced the clock to fuel up and return to Emmett. We wanted to be able to work through the process of reparking the RV in the hanger before dark. We were quite wet but successful after just a couple attempts and both of us agree that it gets easier each year. The hanger is just a couple feet longer and about 4 feet wider than the RV with the slides out making it a tight fit and a bit of a challenge coming in from the angle we have to use. Since the rest of the family had eaten dinner in Boise, we enjoyed one last visit to Blue Ribbon where I was able to have one last buffalo burger for the year. I wish I could take this place home with me to Hawaii.

Our last day in Emmett started off with McDonalds before Randie and I went shopping for dryer sheets and flea collars. The dryer sheets, placed near the propane valves for the furnace and fridge in the RV, keep spiders away that are normally attracted for some reason to the smell of propane. The flea collars are cut into pieces and placed in lower compartments and food cupboards, discouraging bugs and other varmints. Roger Heimbuck met Randie in the hanger at ten to put the RV up on heavy duty jacks and his help was invaluable. We packed and mailed a large heavy box and smiled at the postal employee that told us it would be in Kona in 11 days going parcel post. Having lived on the Big Island for many years, we know better. We’ll hope for a month and be surprised if it gets there sooner. By late afternoon we were feeling fairly calm and prepared for departure. We are catching a flight, hopefully, at 5:40 tomorrow morning flying stand-by to Kona. That means getting up about 2:45 with an hour drive to Boise. It’s been a wonderful summer full of friends, great travels, and lots of family time. We’re looking forward to the warm weather that awaits us out in the Pacific and reconnecting with all our Hawaii friends. Until next Summer, Ciao and Aloha!

On Monday, September 14th, we began our pre-departure rituals of deflating airbeds, lifting shades, locking cabinets, shower doors, and sliding doors, and bringing in the slideouts. When we were visiting the canyons, our shorepower automated cord reel had broken and Randie has been retracting the cord manually ever since. A pain in the butt and a much slower process that can’t be fixed until the new one he’s ordered via the internet meets up with us back in Idaho. While Randie started unhooking us from water and electricity, I grabbed the kitchen trash and went looking for a nearby dumpster. Stepping out of the RV, the smell of skunk hit my nose immediately. As I approached the small fenced in assortment of metal and Rubbermaid trashcans, I was intercepted twice by fellow RVers with a word of warning. It seems that a hungry skunk had somehow gotten into a trash can and could not get out. Curiously, I cautiously leaned over the can just enough to catch a slight glimpse of black and white fur and pulled back before provoking an odorous response. It looked like a very small skunk from what I had seen and, as I dumped my trash into an unoccupied can, I wondered what brave soul was going to give the little guy freedom.

By ten, we were on the road dodging construction cones in the red dust of Sedona’s streets. Road construction is a constant in this town according to all the reviews I’ve read online. Randie and I flashed back to Kona when Alii Drive was getting ripped up from end to end to install sewer lines. As the years rolled by, we wondered if the project would ever be finished, and I imagine that is how the Sedonans feel now.

As we drove into Mesa, Arizona, we were all struck at how little greenery there was. What we saw plenty of was tons of trailer courts and RV parks, so it was obvious that the reputation as a retirement snowbird roost was well deserved. In a word though, I would describe the area as “stark”. Once our office check-in at Mesa Spirit RV Resort was done, a man led us in his golfcart to our parking spot near the pool and restrooms where we would spend three nights. I took a walk to investigate the buildings and found the amenities exceptional. The bathrooms/showers were built to a high standard with lovely tile and granite, the pools were clean and the buildings included a library, card room, big screen TV room, billiards room, craft room, puzzle room, woodshop, lapidary room, and a huge ballroom with two stages and a hardwood floor. The park gave us an upclose view of what is known as a “park model”, a permanent home the size of an RV that has the look of a small mobile home. Although they are built with only one bedroom, many people add on an “Arizona Room” with a hide-abed and extra living space. I can see how, with all the activities and amenities, people can spend an entire winter season in a place like this. Tired, we napped, did laundry, and settled in for the night.

On Tuesday, we went exploring, covering the entire town of Mesa from one end to the other. We looked at the downtown area, all five shopping malls, and took in a movie while we were at it. We saw Gamer with Gerard Butler. Although the sci-fi premise appealed to me, the filming was done in that hurky-jurky style that becomes tiring very quickly. Very bloody too. We retreated to the RV for the evening to compare notes on our first impressions over dinner and The Biggest Loser season premier.

On Wednesday, we drove through Apache Junction and then on to Carefree, AZ to see our friends, Ralph and Debbie Richey, and their new home. As we had some refreshment, we learned about the area and my Mom asked lots of gardening questions. While she was asking “What is this called?” over and over, I took Kurt into Ralph’s office to show him the framed photos of Ronald Reagan and Ralph’s tickets to the presidential box at the Kennedy Center. His daughter had been a Whitehouse intern and Ed Meese had been a neighbor in San Diego years ago. My brother is a huge Reagan fan, owning every book written by or about him, and he was duly impressed. In fact, his jaw literally dropped.

After lunch at a local saloon/restaurant, we split into two vehicles (girls in one, guys in the other) and toured the town and surrounding community. The area was much greener than Mesa, if you can call a desert landscape green. The saguaro cacti are prolific in this area and vegetation covers the vacant areas and hillsides. The town was definitely more upscale than Mesa and a much smaller community. There were no RV parks or campgrounds except for the nice state park in neighboring Cave Creek, which gave us reason to wonder if getting one started here would meet a lot of local opposition. Also, land prices in Carefree would be a premium as compared to other areas we were investigating. By mid-afternoon, we were headed to Sun City to see family friends of my folks and what it had to offer. It was an older developed area and the drive home, via Tempe, forced us into heavy traffic near the college making nearby Phoenix’s traffic influence felt.

Once back at the RV, I pulled the big Ziploc full of boysenberries I picked earlier this summer out of the freezer and put together a berry crisp for the family. Randie made a tamale dish with Spanish rice and we ate well. Randie, the master cook in our family, is beginning to feel much more comfortable with the convection/microwave and the adjustments needed to normal cooking times. I, on the other hand, just ask, “How long should I cook this?”

We made a stop at Cracker Barrel on our way out of town Thursday, headed for Yuma. After a lunch stop in Flagstaff, we arrived in Yuma by early afternoon. We pulled into Friendly Acres one day after they officially opened for the season. I rang the bell at the office door and after a few ringing tones I heard “Hello?” over the intercom speaker. The office isn’t manned until October when the snowbirds really begin arriving, but the voice was happy to meet me at the office for registration. About the time I was starting to wilt from lack of AC in the 105 degree heat, the lady rode up in her golf cart. Friendly Acres is a family owned park, now operated by the deceased founders’ daughter. We learned that 75% of the park’s spots are occupied by returnees each year and the grounds were filled with a similar percentage of park models. Although only a handful of people live in the park year round, the park model owners pay a fee to keep their homes on the rental spots throughout the off season. The park was established over 40 years ago and shows its age, but the location is good and the people here love the place. While the guys napped and relaxed, Mom and I took a drive around Yuma to orient ourselves with an additional mission of picking up a local map and a bag of ice. After several days of 100+ degree temps, our ice maker just wasn’t keeping up with demand. After buying the map and ice at a convenience store, the clerk was kind enough to point out a few things on the map and even was willing to give me last years phone book, which will come in very handy should the family decide that Yuma is the place to be this Winter.

When we got back to the rig, I pulled the crab we had frozen from our Samish Island family reunion time out of the freezer and made a quiche, again asking Randie, “How long should I cook this thing?” Once the sun went down, we enjoyed the break in the heat as we played cards and watched Leno before inflating the beds.

As I headed past the pool to the shower at 6:30 Friday morning, I met three ladies who have lived at the park for 25 of its 40 years. They were doing water exercises in the pool with their golf carts lined up outside the gate. I chatted them up to learn what I could about the park and any potential problems. There is a closed RV park next door to Friendly Acres, and as I’d guessed, they knew all the gossip about why, how long, and its future prospects.

After a quick breakfast at McDonalds, we toured the town while I navigated with the map from the backseat. Although Yuma has plenty of restaurants and generica chain shops, there is only one large and modern shopping center. One thing we really liked was the grid style street system of numbered streets running perpendicular to numbered avenues. It made it very easy to find any given address, reminding me of Salt Lake City’s similar design – only without the temple in the middle. We stopped at several RV parks for literature and found one, in particular, which looked like the kind of place we’d want to stay at or own. We did a drive by of the old historic territorial prison harkening memories of the movie 3:10 To Yuma, but didn’t take the time to explore the landmark. What we did make time for was a stop at DQ to cool off from the 100+ degree temperature outside. Friendly Acres had given us a coupon book when we registered, and we took advantage of the BOGO offer for a couple free blizzards. Blizzards are a traditional treat that we enjoy once a year when we do these family RV trips and we savored every bite knowing it would be a year before our next one.

Once back at the RV, Mom made an apple pie using the bag of apples she had picked up at Bauers Campground the previous week while we reheated leftovers. She and Randie figured out the adjustments necessary for the convection oven and it turned out beautifully. After dinner, we played cards crowded around the dining table and watched a Nobel Prize winner become the second person to win the million dollars on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.

On Saturday, we left Yuma, driving all day entertained by the book. Our lunch stop was a Subway in Lake Havasu City where we passed the famous relocated London Bridge. After a quick photo stop, we made our way on to Quartzsite, famous as a boondocking haven for RVers each winter. My grandparents spent many a winter in Quartzsite in their RV forty years ago, and the numbers arriving to fill the surrounding BLM lands have continued to grow over the years since then. We made it to Sams Town on the outskirts of Vegas before dark and were given a convenient spot very close to the bathrooms and showers. The front door to our coach was beginning to stick so badly that the family kept thinking that, after almost two weeks on the road, we were locking them out. Randie went into McGyver mode and fixed the problem with lip ointment. I just have to shake my head sometimes and smile.

Once we were settled in, we called for the handicap shuttle which took us all into the casino. Before dispersing to do our own thing, we made a plan to all meet back at a central spot at 6:30 for dinner. Mom and I stuck together and she watched me slowly lose my $20 dollars before we all met for a nice dinner at the TGIFs inside the casino. Dad, who doesn’t gamble, headed back to the RV after dinner, and the rest of us joined him there a couple hours later with a little less money in our pockets for dessert.

We headed next door to the new Cannery casino for breakfast on Sunday morning, then returned to shower for the day. This was unexpectedly out of sequence for us, but when we all headed over to the showers earlier that morning, we encountered a sign stating that the restrooms were closed from 6-8 a.m. for cleaning. I’m surprised that the management of Sam’s Town can’t figure out that this is the time of day that most people use the showers and toilets the most…..or maybe they have. As if to compound our frustration with the experience, Kurt took a tumble in the shower, landing on his back. Security was notified by a Samaritan, and we were asked to either sign a release or they would send him to the hospital. Although he was sore with a possibly bruised flank, there appeared to be no serious damage. The security guard, however, didn’t have any release forms at his disposal and the one later delivered to our coach after we’d left for the day, somehow never got signed. We loaded into the toad after Kurt was back from his excitement, and drove down the strip, snapping some photos and looking for changes since our last visit. Although it didn’t have the dazzle factor projected in the evening, it was still a spectacle to see. Following our slow drive down the strip, we turned our direction toward Henderson to visit friends, Thom and Shari, who we cruised with just a few months ago. They moved to Lake Las Vegas last year from Kona for Thom’s job as regional manager for Gentle Dental, and have been renting a fabulous home there overlooking the lake in a community designed for the rich and famous. We got to hear how the neighbors complained so much that Celine was forced to stop using a helicopter to get to work. As only Shari and Thom can, a beautiful lunch was presented with assorted sandwiches, homemade minestrone soup (the best I’ve ever tasted), heirloom beet salad and more. There was enough food to feed an army and everything was delicious. Unexpectedly, they offered to follow us home to Sam’s Town in order to see our RV for the first time. It seems that they are considering an RV purchase themselves, and we hope they follow through. We’ve done many trips with them over the years, and RVing together would be a natural and fun extension.

That evening, we drove downtown for dinner and a chance for everyone to see the newest Fremont Experience street light show. It was a tribute to the summer of love Woodstock scene with 60s music and gogo girls embellished with psychodelia and peace signs floating through the overhead scenes. Weaving our way through the dispersing crowd, we looked for a fast dinner. As it turned out, we filled up on quick and cheap Chinese food that tasted the same before heading home.

Before going to bed, we decided “slides in at 7”. True to our word, we were on our way out of town listening to the audio book by 7:15. It was an all day drive-a-thon with a lunch break at a Nevada rest stop where we broke out the leftover sandwiches that Shari had insisted we take with us. We all said a loud “thank you Shari” before digging in. It was the same delicious banquet all over again. Our day ended at the Angel Lake Campground in Wells NV where we dug out all the fridge leftovers in anticipation of our return home the following day. It was a very nice small campground with the cleanest bathrooms I’ve ever seen on the road.

After a breakfast stop at McDonalds, we got on the road Tuesday morning and “headed for the barn”. We made another rest stop lunch hour, utilizing the end of Shari’s sandwiches and soup, and continued on our way with the book playing all day for entertainment. By late afternoon, we were driving down the main drag of Emmett when Randie spotted a guy selling corn out of the bed of his roadside pickup truck. He made the corner and I jumped out of the RV to buy a dozen ears, answering the question about what was for dinner. Randie can make an entire meal out of corn, given the chance, but the rest of us intended to add a little to the menu. As we pulled into my parents’ driveway in Emmett, everyone commented on looking forward to being home again… and being able to sleep in their own beds. To our horror, we quickly discovered that there had been a small flood behind the “hanger” where we park the RV. It seemed that a gopher had tunneled into the nearby irrigation ditch, sending a stream of water off course. Gophers have been a continuous foe for farmers around here ever since I can remember. In fact, I can remember times when my Mom would trap the critters and turn in their tails for a bounty offered by the county. Caddyshack wasn’t offbase when it portrayed the little guys as clever. The stories my Mom tells are both funny and revealing of the rodents’ brainpower. Turning the RV around on my parents’ property is a bit like an elephant turning around in a phone booth, but we did it twice, trying different positions that would get us access to electrical without sinking the RV into the mud or water.

While Randie and I parked and reparked the RV, Mom got the house back in order and Dad went through two weeks worth of mail. We reconvened for corn and melon and pork chops. The fresh corn was great, causing us all to anticipate how great the corn in Mom’s garden would be. Surprisingly, neighbors Fayne and Roger who were caring for the garden while we were gone, left most of it in tact.

During our roadtrip, Dad had arranged for the engine on the old tractor to be worked on. When Randie fired it up on Wednesday, he said it was like a new machine with more power than he’d ever enjoyed with it. While he began mowing the front acreage, I inspected the garden. We have two rows of corn ready to eat, and enough melons to feed five families. Not able to keep up with the production, melons ripen to the point of bursting in the garden where they sit and gradually rot away. Naturally, this puts the seeds back into the soil where they start more melons the next year and so on and so on. I don’t think my Mom needs to even plants melons anymore because so many come up as volunteers.

I arrived at Kim’s on time for my 10:00 hair appointment and heard all the latest on her breakup (thank god) with her boyfriend. After 18 months, it finally came to a head and as she put it, she blew the bridge. After that, I made several stops looking for a cake plate. The plate that held my birthday cake had slipped from my fingers while I was washing it in the RV a few weeks back and had broken into many pieces. My Mom forgot I had it and I have been living on borrowed time ever since, but with Dad’s 85th birthday looming on Friday, I knew the jig would be up soon. It was a beautiful cut glass plate and I wanted to have a replacement ready when she asked for it back. I ducked in and out of a few stores in Emmett without any luck before thinking of the antique stores and thrift store in town. I found a very pretty one in one of the antique stores and headed home feeling I had narrowly escaped a bullet.

We and the family met Fayne and Roger at Cold Mountain Creek Restaurant for dinner followed by cards afterwards at the house. Randie was pretty exhausted from his mowing work and we ducked out after just a couple games of Oh Hell.

On Thursday, Randie finished the other half of his mowing job and I got comfortable in front of the TV with a new VCR/DVD player, an instruction book, and a bunch of cords. I hate this kind of thing, but kept thinking about Randie out on the tractor and knew I had the easier job. With a flashlight and a few contortions, I was able to get the box working and showed my Dad how to work it. We’ve given him a bunch of old movies over the years on DVD and, until now, he hasn’t had any way to enjoy them.

With the irrigation water shut off the previous day, the area around the RV was beginning to dry out. It had progressed from pond to marsh to mud in the last 24 hours. Randie decided that, with my parents’ permission, he would have a truck of gravel delivered to raise the area in which we park, improve drainage, and eliminate the low spot that attracts water. To make room for the truck, we once again had to move the RV. After securing everything and bringing in the slides, Randie drove it out to the freshly mowed field to park it temporarily. As we watched from the front porch, he drove into the field and then slowly backed out again. I walked out to see if he needed help and could quickly see that the RV had begun to sink into the dirt/mud. The ground was soft from irrigation overflow, but not too soft for the tractor to drive over. The RV’s tonnage, however, was a different story. The front had sunk to the hubcaps, but luckily he had realized what the odd feeling was in the drivers’ seat and backed out in time to avoid the need for a winch attachment on the tractor. I guided him into a safe area and, as he cut the engine, the dump truck arrived with the load of dirt and gravel. Randie spent a couple hours leveling and moving the load around using the tractor and a scraper attachment before we reparked the RV.

By this time it was late afternoon, and I headed for the cornfield to pick our first harvest of corn. Some of the ears were quite large and all had golden tassels. Mom told us that the variety was called ambrosia, a mix of white and yellow kernels, and right now I couldn’t even tell you what else was served at the table that night. The corn was so sweet, having gone straight from the field to the pot of water, that it is all I remember.

Friday , the 25th, was Dad’s 85th birthday and he chose a day in Boise as a way to spend it. We all piled in the trailblazer, rather than the Lincoln, so we could continue listening to the audio book during our drive to and from. We still have about 6 CDs to go and we’re beginning to wonder if we’ll have enough opportunity to listen to all of them together. The group is definitely all hooked on the story and, like with any good book, you want to know how it ends. After dropping Kurt off at Borders where he prefers to spend the day, we did our shopping including Costco where we had a two pointer and played some dominoes. The movie he chose for the day was Matt Damon’s new flick, The Informant. We can’t recommend it at all. It’s based on a true story of a pathological liar and just seems to go nowhere. Dad even fell asleep.

Back at the ranch, family friends Stan and JoAnn stopped by to wish Dad a happy 85th before dinner. When he chose the evening meal and dessert, he didn’t ask for a birthday cake, but rather a birthday pie, chocolate to be specific. This meant that my moment of truth with Mom over the cake plate had been postponed. I just wish I knew where she kept it so I could secretly put the new plate away for her to find at a later time. I can see her pulling it out and saying “Hmmm, this looks different than I remember”. Mom and I took a magic marker to the big five and oh candles used for my cake, turning the oh into an eight. Dad blew out the number five and new number eight candles on his pie and we all sang and took pictures. Among other things, Randie and I presented him with a walking stick made from a branch I found in the Giant Redwood forest. Randie has been working on stripping the bark from it ( a difficult job) and once done, I will varnish it for him. He seemed to like it and remembers seeing a lot of people using them when we were visiting the Canyons a couple weeks ago. He uses a cane most of the time and I think this will work much better for him. Wow, 85 years old. Not many people are lucky enough to have both their parents alive at this stage in life, and I count myself as very fortunate.

We’re back in Emmett for just a few more days. Early next week, we will be heading to Portland for the game convention and one last visit with friends there before returning to Hawaii.

As the new day dawned on September 8th, we began making trips from the house to the RV loaded with clothes, bedding, and foodstuffs. Kurt and my Dad were able to help a little, but mostly they just stayed out of our way. To everyone’s surprise, we were on the road by 8:30 heading south. An accomplishment for this group. Of course to get this close to our targeted time, my Mom had stayed up until about 3 a.m. getting ready. After the conversation died down, we started the big audio book we had chosen for our two week trip, World Without End by Ken Follett. Within a half hour, we were all into the story and happily traveling down the road gazing at the scenery, but mentally in another world. We made a stop for lunch at a Subway in Jerome. It gave us all a chance to stretch our legs and get in a game of dominos. We finished the day at Utah Lake State Park near Provo. It was an inexpensive stop at $20 with 50 amp power and clean bathrooms which is not reliably the case at public campgrounds.

On Wednesday, we again drove all day entertained by the book. I had chosen a small private RV park called Bauers in Glendale, Utah as our home base for exploring the canyons. Glendale is located conveniently between the two parks and the on-line reviews were raves. Conversely, the reviews for the parks right outside the entrances to Zion and Bryce were just the opposite. When we arrived, we found that our reservation had been lost. Randie and I, having been in the business for years of taking reservations, have a certain amount of sympathy for this situation if the owners handle the situation well. These folks did. They apologized that our requested site was occupied, gave us another one only a little farther from the bathrooms, and then made an adjustment to our bill as compensation. I enjoyed talking with the owners about campground ownership a bit. Seems they had never been RVers themselves when the decided to turn part of their apple farm business into an RV park. They talked to a lot of RVers before setting up the park and made some good decisions, but they also learned some things the hard way. Tammy, the owner, told me that the advice she was given was to make the bathrooms nice, especially the womens shower area. If the wives are happy, you’ll get returning guests. We all took the opportunity to check out the showers that evening and agreed they’d done a good job.

Being out in the middle of nowhere, there was no television reception or cell phone service. We all decided this was a perfect time to open up the old home movies that I had picked up from Costco recently. For my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, we had taken all the old super 8 movies from 1958 through 1989 and converted them to two DVD discs. We watched the first disc that night beginning with scenes from the months before my parents’ wedding, through the toddler and childhood years through to 1974. There were some portions that I had never seen before and, of course, much of it was new to Randie. He claimed not to be bored as we all hollered out comments like, “Look at Mom’s hairstyle!” and “There’s Kurt pretending to be Batman”. Randie commented on how attractive my parents were in their youth. My Mom looked like a pin-up gal and my Dad was movie star handsome complete with a pipe.

Since it had rained much of Wednesday evening, Randie consulted his favorite weather satellite websites on Thursday morning. The colorful pictures helped us decide, based on the movement of the front, to attack Zion first. We all loaded into the toad and drove to the park entrance where Dad produced his Golden Access Pass, gaining us all a free entry. We all thanked him for being old. Entering the park from the East, our first experience with the park was the tunnels, the longest being a mile long. Quite an engineering feat in the 1920s, it was not built with modern vehicles in mind. It is possible to travel through these tunnels with an RV, but you must drive down the middle of the two lanes, forcing a closure of the tunnel for oncoming traffic. The park accommodates this with an extra fee and some inconvenience to other park visitors. The builders were thoughtful enough to blast out several openings along the mile long stretch providing fleeting previews of the amazing scenery that awaits once you emerge from the darkness. In an effort to reduce traffic in the park, a shuttle system was introduced in 2000 to ferry visitors to all of the major viewpoints and trailheads in the park. After watching the introductory movie at the visitor center, we left the toad behind and rode the shuttle to all the stops. At the furthest point, we left Kurt and Dad behind on a bench and with my Mom started down the riverside trail which leads to the Zion Narrows. Not being up to the full challenge nor wanting to keep the guys waiting for too long, we walked only about a half mile along the river. We saw several places where the water was seeping out of the rock, making its way to the river and had a close encounter with a chipmunk. They seem to be as unafraid of humans here as the ones we saw at Crater Lake.

For those of you who have never been to Zion National Park, the scenery is ….massive. The rock formations are gigantic and beautiful. I felt like I did back at the Redwoods: small. The scale of the environment just seems a little out of whack. We lunched at the lodge and removed our sweatshirts and jackets while commenting on the improving weather. By midafternoon, I was zipping off the bottom half of my pant legs and we were refreshing ourselves with an ice cream cone. By the end of the afternoon, Dad was exhausted and the rest of us were not far behind that feeling. It was a very quiet drive back to the campground which was evidence of just how tired we all were.
We finished off the home movies that night and went to bed early.

On Friday, we turned out of the RV park driveway in the opposite direction from the day before, heading to Bryce National Park. Once again, Dad’s park pass saved us the $25 entry fee and we thanked him for being old.. Although the two parks are within two hours of each other, the terrain is quite different. For those of you who haven’t been to Bryce, just picture Big Thunder Railroad at Disneyland. It is obvious from the first few minutes in the park that this is where the imagineers got their inspiration. Aside from the large variety of colors found in the rocks, from pink to deep orange to vermillion, the most notable feature in Bruce are the hoodoos. Hoodoos are pinnacles of rock left standing as a result of nature. In some cases there will be one large hoodoo and in other cases, there are hundreds standing together like an army. Also worth noting are the windows and arches formed throughout the park as softer layers of sediment erode below stronger strata of rock. As the previous day, we started our explorations at the movie location for an overview and then made our way out to the end of the 18 miles canyon rim road before turning around and stopping at all the viewpoints on the way back. The plateau we traveled along was dotted with ponderosa pine and aspen trees, but the canyon floor 2000 feet below was barren except for glimpses of a green ribbon that was the Bryce creek. When we could manage to force our gaze away from the beautiful and colorful formations, we found we could see well over 100 miles into the clear distance beyond the opposing canyon rim. In addition to all the natural geologic wonders, we got to see a lot of wildlife as well. We dodged deer in the road more than once, commented on the large size of the ravens patrolling the parking areas, saw chipmunks, an antelope, and a herd of bison. Randie was lucky enough to spot one of the park’s black squirrels, easily identified by it’s white tail. This species of squirrel is found only Zion and Bryce Canyons. It was a beautiful day in the park, although it had rained much the day before while we had cleverly avoided the squall in Zion.

When we got back to Bauers, we showered in anticipation of an early departure the next morning and Randie hooked up the toad for a quick get away. Mom came back from the showers with a dozen or more small apples and thoughts of baking a pie. Although the Bauers had converted the use of the land to an RV park, there were still numerous apple trees around and they were happy to give away apples to their guests. There were always a few 5 gallon buckets near the shower building full of apples looking for a good home.

On Saturday, we got an early start, but let it slip away from us at a spontaneous stop at McDonalds for coffee, dominoes, and breakfast. Fortunately, we got a nice surprise when we crossed the border into Arizona and found that we gained an hour of our day back. We left the coach around 11 o’clock at Kaibab National Forest campground, the best option we were able to come up with on-line or from the Trailer Life book. We got a nice long pull-thru spot with no hookups by the bathroom for $8.50 (thank you Dad). By a little after noon we had made it through the gate for the Grand Canyon North Rim and were having lunch at the lodge. When I was a child, my parents took my brother and I to the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and I can still remember thinking then that it looked unreal, like an oil painting. Although we could easily see the 10 miles across the canyon to the more visited South Rim, to drive there is more than 200 miles of road. We made the drive out to Imperial Point and then took the road to the end of the other leg of the park to Cape Royal. The views were beautiful and I have to believe that the Grand Canyon offers one of America’s most memorable landscapes.

Sunday morning we made the drive to Sedona. In route we stopped at a tourist rest stop in the middle of nowhere with a parking lot built for and filled with large tourist buses. The beautiful large store was stocked with Indian jewelry and artwork along with the customary cheap souvenirs and trinkets. We used the restrooms and stretched our legs while laughing at our memories of experiencing these type of places on our African and European bus trips. When we walked back out to our coach, we found foreign tourists from the buses parked near us bent over our front license plate CNIC RD taking pictures of the plate. I’m not sure if was the lettering or the fact that it was a Hawaii plate that attracted them, but several people snapped a close up. One French woman was even brave enough to approach our door and ask to take a peek inside, which we endulged. Our route to Sedona took us through a steep canyon comprised of numerous switchbacks. The hairpin turns were fittingly hair raising and the narrow road kept drivers very aware of the yellow line. Randie turned off the book as we started our descent for maximum concentration and we all tensed while somehow enjoying the view. When we checked into Rancho Sedona RV park we once again found that our reservation had been lost. These folks were not as accommodating though. And even though the mens room was out of order, the staff had a take it or leave it attitude about the ridiculous rate of $75. Admittedly, the park is beautiful and has a great location right downtown, but still… Once parked, we piled into the toad and went exploring to make the most of our one day. My folks had been here on more than one occasion, but it was the first time for Randie and I. My mom pointed out some of the notable formations of rock surrounding the town. Coffee Pot was the easiest to find, and it really does look like an old fashioned coffee pot. We drove all the way out to the old mining town of Jerome where the building seem to cling to the cliff walls by their toenails. We all left the Haunted Hamburger restaurant there fully satisfied from our early dinner and made our way back to Sedona in the dark. I would assess the town as artsy fartsy with the benefit of tons of natural beauty all around. We would have liked to have spent more time and hope to be back one day.

From here we head to Mesa to begin looking at potential snowbird roosts. I think we’re all looking forward to staying in one spot for a few nights and a nice hot shower.

We left for Boise quite early on Tuesday, Sept 1, with the family for the weekly “Boise Day”. We made the usual round of errand stops in addition to a stop at the appliance store where Mom had made her big purchase a few days earlier. We took a depth measurement we had neglected to consider on our previous visit and made plans for delivery when we return from our Arizona roadtrip. The movie we went to see that day was District Nine, a sci-fi film. I really enjoyed it and was quite impressed with the costuming and special effects. When we read the credits at the end and realized it was a Peter Jackson film (Lord of the Rings) it was obvious why. My folks were not as impressed as I was, but after I explained some things to them that they had missed, they seemed to like it much more. Like Lord of the Rings, there are no blockbuster stars, but the script is great and the visual stuff is realistic. They’ve also left themselves open for a sequel that I hope will come. After a stop for dinner, we headed home for birthday cake and games.

We got a slow start on Wednesday, but Randie worked hard most of the rest of the day. He and my Mom went into a pruning frenzy, trimming about 15 trees on their property. As Randie would cut limbs overhead, she would haul them off to the burn pile. When he headed for a shower late that afternoon, his head and shoulders were covered in sawdust and woodchip dandruff. As if they had gotten the tree-trimming memo, the power company arrived that day as well to start chainsawing off limbs that were growing too close to the power lines that run along the right perimeter of the property. Making no effort to consider the aesthetics of their endeavor, they simply cut sections out of the tree so it looks like a brontosaurus took a big bite and walked away. It looks so odd, we just have to laugh.

We met the neighbors, Fayne and Roger, at one of the restaurants in Emmett for dinner, followed by games at the house. Randie and I usually stick around for 2 or 3 hands of Oh Hell before excusing ourselves to give them time to play pinochle or dominoes.

Thursday was the big BSU vs. the Oregon Ducks game. The local news has been talking about nothing else for the past week and the whole city was hyped for the game. Tickets sold out immediately, and the few hundred set aside for students generated a mass sleepover outside the ticket windows by enthusiastic college kids. Randie bet a buck with my brother, Kurt, against BSU just to add to the fun. Randie, coming from Oregon, likes both teams.

After attacking more trees during the day, Randie BBQed a big London Broil and Mom picked up a dozen ears of corn at a roadside stand. We were hoping that the corn in her garden will be ready before we leave for Arizona, but having been planted so late, it isn’t quite ready yet. The big game didn’t get underway until about 8:30 due to ESPN’s edict, so we weren’t able to watch the game, but Kurt listened to it on the radio and had the score for us first thing Friday morning. I guess it was a blowout, putting BSU in the running for a possible bowl game. Although it was the first game of the season, the implications were huge, not to mention the rivalry that exists between the two schools. However, all the said, the thing everybody was talking about on Friday was “the punch”. A BSU player made an ungracious remark to a duck player who had been talking a lot of trash to the media before the game. The duck lost his mind, clocked the bronco and even went after one of the fans. He was later suspended for the entire season. As the senior was considered to be a second round NFL draft pick and a contender for the Heisman trophy, this was a life altering event for him.

In an effort to remove some of the birthday cake from our butts, Mom and I began walking Friday morning and have been doing so ever since. We get a half hour headstart, and the guys pick us up down the road on the way to McDonalds for coffee. We spent the day in preparation for our roadtrip. I vacuumed out the cars and RV, cleaning house from top to bottom, while Randie worked on exterior projects, including putting the newly arrived missing wingnut in the antenna.

After dinner, Randie drove to Emmett High School to watch the Huskies get beat by a nearby town’s team. Fayne and Roger’s grandson was playing and he thought it would be fun. He came home absolutely amazed at how young the players looked. It was a wake up call to realize that he looked that young when he was playing high school ball, feeling all big and grown up.

Saturday, after the morning walk and domino competition at Micky D’s, Randie got back to tree trimming with the help of Neil, the Heimbuck’s grandson mentioned earlier. I, worked on address changes in preparation for our return to Hawaii and researched campground options for our upcoming trip. By early afternoon, Randie was exhausted and finished for the day…or at least until it was time to start up the BBQ rib dinner he had been planning for the family and the Heimbucks. Neil joined us as well, and with the dinner table shoulder to shoulder and two of us at t.v. trays, it felt a little like a Thanksgiving. Randie also made his doctored up baked beans and Mom made the potato salad we all love. It was a feast. Neil, whose parents are in Germany in the military, has chosen to do his senior year at Emmett instead of overseas. He has recently decided to make a try for the military academies and we talked about what he needed to do in order to get the congressional nominations needed before he can be considered for an appointment. Having gone through the process myself, I was able to give him some insights. I was fortunate enough to get nominations to West Point, Annapolis, and the A.F. Academy, but due to a benign tumor discovered during the physical, I was out of the running that year. That was back before laparoscopic surgery allowed for quick recoveries, and my abdominal surgery to remove the tumor meant I would be unable to complete the strenuous physical bootcamp required before the school year would begin. I could have reapplied the following year, but by then I was in love and life took a different turn.

Sunday and Monday were filled with preparations for the trip. Randie washed and waxed both the RV and trailblazer and performed another McGyver trick worth mentioning. He cut some wood slats with a half round notch to place opposite each other atop the shower enclosure. He used a broken rake handle as a pole to fit across the shower and fit into the notches, thus creating a hanging closet for my folks during our trip. They will use the shower to hold laundry baskets of their clothes (easier and less bulky than suitcases) and the new hanging rod will hold hangers of clothes above the baskets. With all the work we were doing to make ready for our Tuesday departure, we still managed to have some fun.
Sunday evening we picked up Kim and headed to a little Chinese place in Emmett. We heard the latest in the continuing saga with her boyfriend. Since they had split during the past week, there was much to discuss and we had mixed feelings about the situation. Certainly we were sad for Kim as she was going through a difficult time. She is such a great catch that we really just want her to find someone who will value and appreciate her.

As I write this, we are ready to roll out of here at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. We’ve emptied the garden and my parent’s fridge, made room for their belongings, brought on board additional bedding, games, and DVDs, and are looking forward to the roadtrip ahead. Sore and tired from all the heavy yardwork, I think Randie will be happy to put all the trees on this property in his rearview mirror too.

On Tuesday, August 25th, we all piled into my parent’s white Lincoln and headed for Boise. Tuesday has been their traditional Boise day ever since I can remember. It gives them a “fun” day that they look forward to each week and allows them a predictable day to schedule Kurt’s bloodwork or Dr. appointments along with any shopping that can’t be accomplished in Emmett, such as Costco. Included in the day’s agenda is always a movie. Since Randie and I generally do a movie every week as well, we’re happy to go along for the ride and get a few of our errands done on the same tank of gas. The Lincoln makes for a comfortable ride and Randie generally does the driving since my dad’s Bells Palsy has forced him to wear an eye patch over his right eye.

On this trip, we included a trip to Camper’s World. With as much T.V. as my family likes to watch, we thought investing in a better antenna for our upcoming family roadtrip would be a good idea. The movie we saw was Unglorious Basterds, and we all walked out thinking it was a pretty strange and bloody film. It left many unanswered questions and some parts just didn’t follow correctly. My best guess is that the very long film lost some of its cohesiveness on the editing room floor in an effort to shorten it up. Its always fun to watch Brad Pitt, but we really can’t recommend it. After stopping for a salad bar dinner, we made it home in time to play a few rounds of cards before bed.

Wednesday, between blogging and cleaning the RV, I began doing the mountain of laundry we had accumulated on the road. Randie opened up the previous day’s antenna purchase and found that the sealed bag was missing a wingnut. He was none too pleased and I wont repeat anything he said. He went ahead and installed it with the remaining nuts and called the manufacturer who was happy to mail him another. In McGyver mode, he also fashioned a replacement cover for our retractable step and filled our water tank.

This was also the day I took over the duty of zapping my father. The Bells Palsy that set in on the right side of his face last Winter in Hawaii has yet to reverse itself. The doctor has given him a device, about the size and shape of a bent electric toothbrush, which emits an electrical pulsing to stimulate the muscles it is applied to on the face. He calls it a cattle prod and makes jokes about Mom trying to use it as a sex toy. After securing a soaked pad to his arm which is attached by wires to the zapper, the fun begins. Over the course of this past week, we have slowly increased the zaps’ intensity using the little dial on the device and we are already seeing some exciting improvement in his muscle tone. The therapy causes an uncomfortable zap at best, and at worst, a painful “taze” jolt, depending on the number on the dial and the fleshiness of the area targeted. Following a face map diagram, I target each point of twelve with 5 or 6 pulses in each of three rounds per sitting, two to three times a day. It’s a bonding experience for us….at the subatomic level I’m sure.

At dinner that night, the family heard about neighbors Fayne and Roger’s plans for their daughter’s surprise 40th birthday. Those of you old enough to remember Soupy Sales will be able to easily visualize the whipped cream pie throwing free-for-all they were planning.

On Thursday, Randie took on another project he had been chewing on for quite a while. For three seasons now, we have been keeping a big clear storage bin in the rear of our toad. This holds all the cables and apparatus needed for hooking up the car to the hitch when we aren’t towing. Once filled with all the towing junk, Randie pulls out the heavy metal bracket from the front end of the toad and lays the yard-long contraption across the top of the bin. Over time, the weight has started to break down the sides of the plastic. I would have just gone and bought another, but then, I don’t have the McGyver gene. Randie salvaged some sturdy 3 or 4 inch hollow square plastic tubes along our travels and had figured out a solution. He sawed the long tubes into lengths he could stack along the short sides of the bin from top to bottom. Now, the hitch rests it’s weight on the tubes, not the plastic bin itself. Voila!

At 5 p.m., we picked up Kim from the beauty salon she works at and headed for Famous Dave’s in Boise. We tried this great BBQ place with her last year and wanted to renew the experience. We spent the evening at dinner and later back at her apartment for coffee just catching up on the past month’s events and travels. We enjoyed hearing about her tribulations with her current boyfriend. Kim is a very neat minimalist. There isn’t a drop of clutter in her super neat and clean apartment. Her boyfriend is quite the opposite with stacks of stuff inside and out, literally paths to the doorways. She describes his yard as Sanford and Son. I can’t imagine these two ever reaching the point where they could live together.

Randie and I drove to Boise on Friday late morning for my planned girls’ day rendezvous with Carrie. Randie had some errands to run looking for some new heavy duty jacks for the RV, so he dropped me off with Carrie and I agreed to call to be picked up late afternoon. Since Carrie had plans to visit the Idaho State Fair with her husband that night, there wasn’t any chance to get into too much trouble. We had a nice lunch at a trendy restaurant and then headed for a Vietnamese nail salon for pedicures. We were led through the smelly manicure stations and took a seat side by side in a row of vibrating pedicure chairs against the far wall. With cue balls rolling up and down our backs and under our butts, we covered the meaning of life and love, menopause, jobs, travels, kids, tattoos, and faced the fact that we had put our 40s behind us. I don’t know if the young immigrants kneading our feet spoke English, but they never cracked a smile at any of our jokes or let their attention stray above our calves. The chair vibration was so intense that after a while we both figured out how to use the remote to turn them down. We continued our conversation with less tremor in our voices over a diet coke at Burger King, and before long, I was on the phone to Randie telling him it was safe to come back.

My Mom has always been a garage saler. I can remember as a child being on the way to somewhere, anywhere, and if a posterboard sign was posted on the corner along our route, there was a better than 50% chance that the car was going to swerve for a detour. As time went on, she progressed to thrift stores. Like 30 garage sales in one, they are much more efficient. Today I wear her second-hand finds with much more pride than I did in high school and love a good bargain as well. On Saturday, the two of us headed to Boise for our girls’ day. She rarely gets to Boise anymore without Dad and Kurt, so her thrift store opportunities are limited these days. This was an opportunity to shop ‘til we dropped and we hit several thrift stores during the day, making some incredible finds. In addition to the three pairs of LizGolf pants I found, I came across an old scrabble game. I’ve been looking for one now for over a year and was thrilled to come across one. The board was ripped and it was unpriced. Pointing out the condition of the board to the attendant, I was told I could just have it – free. You might not think this was such a great deal, but I wanted the tiles to put together a game prototype I’ve been working on. Not needing the board, this was the best scenario imaginable. I walked out feeling like I had just scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter of a tied game. It’s the little things, ya know.

Our other big stop was a furniture/appliance store to look at recliners for my parents’ living room. Before leaving, we looked at refrigerators. My folks are using the same fridge they’ve had since they moved into their house 35 years ago. The gasket started leaking years ago, leading to melted and refrozen ice in the ice maker tub. For the past five years or more, every time somebody wants ice, my Mom reenacts a horror movie scene and attacks the tub with an ice pick. She’s been putting up with this situation for too long, and I’ve been on her to get a new fridge every summer. Well, today was the day. Some $2,400 later, we were walking back to the car and Mom had a look on her face that said “What have I done?” In our spontaneity, we did manage to get assurances that should the measurements of this 27 cubic foot giant not fit in her kitchen properly (or Dad should have a coronary), she could cancel the order.

We met up with the family at Cold Mountain restaurant for dinner where Randie was looking very handsome, fresh from Kim’s barber chair. We headed over to the Heimbuck’s after dinner for games and news of the surprise party which was slated for earlier that day. Fayne had spent an entire morning making the whip cream pies and, from what they said, it was worth every minute. Their daughter loved the concept and everybody was told ahead of time about the need for a change of clothes. We looked at some pictures and heard about how the pies flew before getting down to the business of Oh Hell.

After dropping Kurt off at church to represent the family, we headed to the Blue Ribbon Bakery in Emmett for breakfast on Sunday morning. A popular spot on the weekends, it is important to arrive early or face a long wait. The bakery, back in my high school years, was a fast food drive through and the site of my first job. I car hopped after school until closing a few times a week, serving up burgers, shakes, fries, and more. No roller skates, but the hanging menu with a black phone handset made it authentic. The checks were small and the tips smaller, but it was a good experience overall.

Randie and I left for Boise about 4 p.m.to join Carrie and John for dinner on the eve of my 50th birthday. While Randie was on his own running around Boise on Friday, he had picked up a bottle of Dom Perignon which we popped and savored while we enjoyed some pupus and John worked the grill. What a great beginning to the birthday celebration. The dinner was delicious and when the dishes were cleared, Carrie walked to the table with a small cake topped by a singing candle.

I awoke on Monday the 31st to the sound of my Mom singing Happy Birthday outside the bedside window of the RV. We threw some clothes on and I pulled a brush through my hair and we headed off to McDonalds for coffee and dominoes. In spite of my birthday, the guys beat the girls in all three games. When we got home, we played some more games, Mom baked my traditional German Chocolate cake and I talked her into working a jigsaw puzzle with me. It was a day of leisure filled with fun and family. Randie grilled salmon in his special way wrapped in foil with onion and lemons and I made the cucumber dill sauce that everybody likes using a fresh cucumber from my Mom’s garden. When we gathered at the dinner table, there was a bouquet of helium filled mylar balloons waiting for me. Most were inscribed with nice wishes or heart shapes, but there was one token black over-the-hill balloon to round out the mix. After dinner, I opened a pile of gifts from my family. When Mom brought the cake to the table, the group sang Happy Birthday accompanied by a musical candle. Two musical candles in one year? I guess that’s what turning fifty will get you. As if the cake wasn’t decadent enough, Randie surprised me with my favorite Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Bar ice cream. Well, you only turn fifty once, so I indulged without guilt knowing weight watchers will be waiting for me when I return to Kona in October.

My 50 trips around the sun have been filled with some highs and lows, but gratefully the good times FAR outnumber the bad. Life is good and I am grateful for all I have, and that list is topped foremost by a loving husband, family, and great friends. I look forward to many good years and thank you all for your friendship.

After a couple long days of sightseeing, we made Monday, August 17th, an easy day. Getting a late start, we did our shopping and loaded up on two pointers for the next week before heading to the Humboldt County Fair. It was a free day at the fair, sponsored by a local casino. To our disappointment, it was a “no animal” day. All the barns which are normally dedicated to showing off the pride and joy of local 4Hers were empty. That left us with the buildings designated for arts and crafts, gardening, and food. The art exhibits were an interesting mix of media which spanned the gamut of expertise. Some of the paintings were excellent, some not so much. One building had a corner sponsored by the Society for Decorative Painters which I am well acquainted with. There were at least 20 tole painted items and I recognized the designer, although not the painter, of several pieces. We thought of JoAn as we perused the needle arts. She was preparing to enter some of her expert work in her local fair when last we saw her. I thought of my Mom as I looked at all the quilts. It was obvious from the gardening barn that the local fuchsia club was a major player in the Ferndale area. There really was little else on display. Neither Randie nor I had any idea that there were so many different types of fuchsias. After looking at the cut-into pies and cakes in the food competition area, we were ready for a break. Outside again, Randie spotted a shaved ice booth and we made a stop. The family running the booth looked “local” and after a little friendly conversation, we discovered they were originally from Maui. We picked a bench facing the carnival section of the fair and enjoyed a short rest while we people watched and shared our combo dreamsicle/pina colada flavored treat. There were plenty of booths offering fairgoers a chance to challenge their throwing or aiming skills. Not needing any stuffed animals or goldfish, we simply made one casual lap around the booths and carny rides before calling it a day. As we walked back to the car, we noticed a big drop in temperature, and on the drive home we could see some fog coming in.

We buttoned up the coach early on Tuesday morning and headed for Redding. The drive was mostly over twisting mountain roads through the Shasta-Trinity national forest. We ran into a bit of roadwork, and made a roadside stop to make a sandwich and play a game of gin rummy. We arrived in Redding by early afternoon at about the same time as two other RVs. Thank goodness for the cones. We paid $20.00 for a 50 amp hook up and were glad for it. As we unhooked the toad, the digital readout on the dash told us it was well over 100 degrees, and we wasted no time getting the AC cranked up. Amazing, the difference a few hundred miles can make. In Eureka, we were getting into the low 60s. Now we were digging out the tank tops and shorts again.

Randie got to enjoy an afternoon nap, one of life’s simple pleasures that he often misses out on when we are relocating. Refreshed, we headed off to Redding’s main attraction for us – the whole reason we diverted through Redding – Jack’s Grill. I was repeatedly warned earlier in the day that we had to get there early or there would be a long wait for a table. Randie used to be a semi-regular at this restaurant 25years ago when he was obliged to visit the town intermittently on business with the logging industry for his family’s company in Portland. Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark interior, Randie could see that the price of a filet mignon and the flat screen t.v. above the bar were about the only changes that had crept into this place over the years. The restaurant was established around 1940 with a brothel upstairs above the tin ceiling. When we arrived at a few minutes past five, we had to wait at the bar for a table to free up. Randie has been talking about this place for years and sporting a t-shirt from Jack’s Grill as well. I was fearful that, like with many things, the huge build-up would serve to disappoint. I’m happy to say that the place lived up to it’s reputation. It equaled Ruth’s Chris in quality, but with the inclusion of a big baked potato and salad, it was a better value although not cheap. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, don’t miss it and get there early.

We had a three hour drive to Fort Klamath on Wednesday where we parked at the Crater Lake Resort for $25 a night. The RV park was on a wide scenic creek which, although adding ambiance, provided a breeding ground for mosquitoes. By the time we were settled into a nice shady spot, we were swatting away and looking for the OFF to get us through the next couple days. Coming and going from the RV became an exercise in speed to try not to let any of the bloodthirsty pests into our home.

The area had no television signals and only a single bar registered on our cell phones. The resort compensated though by offering an extensive selection of DVDs for camper enjoyment, free for the borrowing. We took advantage of this several times during the few evenings we were to spend there, along with quite a few boardgames.

We left in the trailblazer early Thursday morning and drove to Crater Lake 20 miles away. I had never been there and Randie hadn’t seen the lake since he was a kid. As every visitor will tell you, it is intensely blue and incredibly clear. We stopped at the visitor center to watch the 18 minute video explaining the lake’s origin 7,700 years ago. In a nutshell, a volcanic mountain violently erupted, collapsed into itself, and formed a resulting caldera approximately 5 miles across with steep 2,000’ sides. Over the last 5,000 years, the volcano has been inactive and the crater has slowly collected water from heavy winter snows and seasonal rains. Because of the steep sides, access is limited to one dusty trail for hikers who don’t mind the steep climb. There is one sightseeing boat which is accessed via the trail for those who want to get out on the water. Our curiosity was satisfied by driving completely around the lake, stopping frequently at different lookout points to enjoy the view and take photos. We also made a stop at the lodge which sits on the edge of the rim, like the Volcano House at Hawaii’s Volcano National Park. In contrast, however, this lodge experiences snow drifts of up to 40 feet in the winter.

We found the lookouts teaming with chipmunks, so accustomed to people that they would come right up to you looking for handouts. We chose one pullout with a picnic table to enjoy our packed lunch, and while eating, had birds landing on the table hoping for a free lunch. We later identified them as Clarks Nutcrackers with the help of a birder we met at one lookout who was equipped with a scope looking for the birds we enjoyed lunch with. The other interesting wildlife of note were the dragonflies. They were a shimmering baby blue, practically neon, and only about one and a half inches long. During one of our short walks, we saw hundreds of these beauties.

On the drive home, we made a stop at the Fort Klamath museum. A local historian manning the facility gave us the rundown on the large cavalry operation that once called the grounds home while attempting to keep peace with the Indians.

On Friday, we chose to drive to the upper Rogue River. One particular walk we took along the small rushing river was particularly scenic. Cascading over one small waterfall after another as it rushed downstream, you could hear it long before you got close enough to the overlooking path to see it. The area, as mentioned before, has a volcanic origin and we not only saw empty lava tubes exposed in the rock walls above the river, but there was one spot where the river drops into a lava tube and then resurfaces through another opening 30 feet downstream.

We made several quick detours along our drive to loop through campgrounds for future reference. The area, like the Redwoods, is one which we wouldn’t mind spending more time at in the future to relax and enjoy the nature. Although, the twenty foot poles that line much of the road to provide guidance to snowplows, makes us certain that any future visits will be limited to summer.

After picnicking at a reservoir, we made a 9 mile impromptu detour following a sign indicating a nearby historic bridge. As we got deeper into the cattle ranching area, we had to literally dodge squirrels in the road. There were hundreds of oak trees, sometimes quite thick, standing watch over all the cattle, and the squirrels, no doubt, were collecting the summer’s bounty. As our road turned to packed dirt and gravel, we came upon a baby deer in the road. We now have first hand knowledge of where the “deer in the headlights” expression comes from. The fawn just froze and stared at us for a minute, giving me enough time to get the camera up to my face, before retreating. We never did see an adult deer which seemed odd. We finally reached our goal a mile further down the road and what a sight it was. An old covered bridge was waiting for us, lovingly set on the banks of the river near it’s modern replacement. It was obviously cared for by the locals and decorated with flowers and nice landscaping. We walked in and signed the guestbook, took a couple photos, admired the little park built beside it, and headed back in the direction we came.

We made a stop at one of the best antique shops I’ve ever been to on the route home that afternoon. Instead of all the knickknack “dustables” as I call them, it was loaded with old cash registers, mantels, enamel signs, sleds, creels, barbershop chairs, red wing crocks, and more. They even had an old post office box wall similar to the one we have hanging on our wall in Kona. There were so many neat things I would love to have, but having no room for such things, we held onto our wallets and just admired what we saw. Once home, we finished the evening with some burgers on the grill, a couple games, and a DVD.

Saturday, I puttered in the RV while Randie washed and waxed the RV. When we first bought the RV, he jokingly told people that the only thing wrong with the coach was the wax buildup around the license plate. Now, it’s true! After a late lunch, we drove to Collier Memorial State Park and logging museum in Chiloquin. We took the self guided tour around the museum grounds, reading about the rusting hulks of huge equipment that once harvested the area forests. The exhibits covered the horse and mule days, through the first cats, and the machines that laid track in front of itself and pulled it up behind to transport the logs to water. Randie’s family business manufactured crew buses for the logging industry before he moved to Hawaii, so his interest and understanding of what we were looking at was keen. Most of it made no sense to me, but he definitely enjoyed the stop. Before leaving, we checked out the RV campground. Being a state facility, the $17 per night value is terrific. Like staying at an Elks, only without the bar.

We got to the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino, named for the three tribes who share the area, in the late afternoon. The players’ club desk didn’t offer any coupons, but because I was within the month of my 50th birthday, they put $5 on my card. Even after paying for dinner, we left with much more than that to add to our pockets. It was a very favorable evening at the penny slots. Back at the RV, we enjoyed two pointers while watching a DVD called The Missing with Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones. A good western that we would recommend.

On Sunday, the 23rd, we headed out by 9 for the Bend, Oregon Elks. We were back in hot weather again, so we stoked up the AC, did some provisioning, and spent the evening inside our artificially cool cocoon playing games.

We awoke to 36 degree cold, turned up the heat, and headed for Idaho. The drive over rolling hills of high barren desert was made better by the audio book. We finished the last few CDs on the drive to Emmett, and as everybody knows, that is generally the best or most suspenseful part of a book. The drive from Bend is pretty boring except for the cute town of Burns, Oregon. The large rural town has commissioned murals depicting scenes of life along the Oregon Trail to beautify the outer walls of many commercial buildings along its downtown streets. Some of them were really great.

We pulled into my parents’ driveway about 5:30 to a warm greeting of hugs and kisses. After getting parked in our usual spot behind the hanger, we sat outside for a while, enjoying the early evening and mountain views with a cocktail while catching up on each other’s lives. The corn I planted with my Mom before we left has gained some height and the melons and cukes are coming in faster than they can eat them. We have two weeks planned in Emmett over my big Five-Oh, before heading back on the road with my parents and brother on board to investigate snowbird roosts for them. Although we’ve really enjoyed our recent travels, it will be nice to be in one place for a little while and catch up with old friends.

On Monday, August 10th, we headed south toward Eugene and found a spot to park for the night at the Springfield Elks. Along the way, we made a stop at the Monaco service center, or what used to be the Monaco service center before they entered into bankruptcy. Now it is just a parts distribution center where we were able to pick up the cog part for our bedroom slideout. Since entering into reorganization, Monaco has been purchased by Navistar who also owns International Harvester. They have consolidated their manufacturing and service center facilities, and we are hopeful that Monaco will continue getting healthier. We’ve heard that it’s no fun to be an RV orphan without the support of the coach’s manufacturer. The place was pretty deserted, but Randie finally found a live body and said he was there to pick up a part. The guy said, “You must be Farish”. I guess not many people pick up their parts at will call. After that, we stocked up on two pointers at Costco and had a nice dinner out at Olive Garden.

Tuesday morning, Randie went to breakfast with Ken Bingham, an old friend who lives in Eugene. I awoke with a migraine and opted out, giving the guys some time for a little male bonding and frank “guy talk”. With meds in my system, we headed out late morning for Loon Lake. It was a scenic drive off the main highway along a forested winding road. We had chosen to make the stop at Loon Lake resort in an effort to meet a couple who are friends of some friends of ours in Kona. They’ve been working on the road for years and we thought a long conversation might yield some valuable information or ideas we could use down the line. Unfortunately, our arranged meeting fell apart once we learned that the couple had moved on to greener pastures just the day before we arrived. We decided not to take it personally.

When Wednesday morning dawned, my migraine was finally fading into the past, and we were on the road by 9:45. Without the headache, I was able to enjoy the scenery much more. The forest was dense and the trees were covered in green mossy fur. It was obvious that the area experiences a good deal of rain, but you couldn’t prove it by us. We made a stop near Coos Bay at the Old Mill Casino and headed in for lunch and an hour of gambling. When stopping at a casino for the first time, we always head to the players club desk to see what the deal of the day is. We know we’ll never accumulate enough points for even a coffee mug, but there is often a coupon book. This one had, among others, $4 off each adult lunch at the restaurant and a $5 match for your first blackjack bet. A couple hours later we left with our winnings and our stomachs full of what ended up being a free lunch. The blackjack table we sat down at together turned out to be lucky for both of us. What a nice stop.

By late afternoon, we had arrived at the Brookings Elks lodge where we managed to grab one of only a few spots they had left. In such a situation, we always grab the little orange traffic cones we travel with, block off the site we want, and then Randie heads into the lodge to make our choice official. The small seaside towns tend to have busy RV parking areas and the cones can mean the difference between having a place to park or moving on. As the fog began rolling in, we headed into the lodge to play bingo as advertised on the signage. We learned that every Wednesday is bingo night and in this town, it is a BIG deal. Thinking it would last about an hour as per our previous experience at other elks, we headed in at 6:30 with thoughts of eating dinner afterwards. At 8 p.m., we took advantage of the short intermission to grab some food from the RV and get back to the table for the second half. It was a fun, though unprofitable, three hours. The room was filled with 30 or more regulars all equipped with colorful dobbers to mark the assorted paper cards. I thought cruise ships were imaginative with bingo, but these folks took the cake. Every game had a different goal before the winner could scream bingo. You needed four corners, or four corners and a line, or the letter T, or two bingos on a card, or one of about 10 other patterns. Then there were wild numbers on some games, such as marking off everything on your card with the numbers 2 or 3, or all the even numbers before starting one of several blackouts, etc. They even had cards with two different numbers per box. The friendly folks sitting at our table were more than happy to keep us on track. We just had fun and figured that the Old Mill Casino paid for it.

We spent Thursday in the Brookings area exploring the surrounding scenery. Randie was especially interested in the hydro-jet boats that take visitors up the Rogue River Canyon. The original company is the Mailboat outfit, originally started in the 1850s to deliver mail to small communities upriver. Over time, the boats began taking passengers which later evolved into a tourism business. Kind of reminds us of the original Capt. Zodiac in Kauai’s genesis. Clancy was using a zodiac to travel up the Napali Coast to where his secret garden of pot was growing. Occasionally, people would offer him money to take them along so they could see the coast, and the rest is history. Better at growing weed than running a business, the company has changed hands since then and now only the Kona operation survives. Mailboat still offers the original 64 mile mail run which is named the Postman’s Run, but they also offer the 80 mile Special Delivery and the 104 mile Handle With Care.

On Friday we left Brookings early to make our way to Eureka in hopes of arriving earlier than other RVers. When Randie called the Elks Lodge on Thursday, they said they were full, but that two rigs were leaving in the morning. On our way out of town, we stopped at a farmer’s fruit stand and picked up some corn, a cuke, and a bag of “donut peaches”. These guys are the size and shape of those small powdered donuts that you buy in 6 packs at the grocery store. We were sold when we found that they taste just as good too. The flesh is white and they are full of sweetness and juice. A mouthful of joy.

As Brookings is close to the Calif border, it wasn’t long before we crossed the state line… and panic set in. If you’ve ever crossed into Calif, then you know that there is an agricultural stop where you must declare all fruits and veggies. When I was a kid, my family would travel from our home in S. Calif to Emmett just about every summer. I can remember those stops and having to give up our fruit or being sworn to secrecy by my parents before they smiled and lied to the ranger. Once it dawned on me what the upcoming forced stop was for, I was out of my seat like I’d been shot out of a cannon. Knowing I had only moments before the ranger finished his search of the car in front of us, I opened the fridge doors and started grabbing plastic bags of fruit and veggies, loading my arms up to my chin. I closed the fridge with my knee and catapulted on and over the bed (when the slides are in there is no walk around) and started throwing stuff in the closet, hoping the inspection wouldn’t go any deeper into the RV than the kitchen. While I was still unloading, Randie yelled back, “I’ve gotta go” and I felt the RV start to inch forward as he gave me as much time as possible. Figuring they’d be suspicious of me walking back to my seat as he pulled up, Randie had an idea. On my way through the kitchen, I stopped at the fridge and grabbed an unlucky bag of apples that hadn’t made it into my clutches moments earlier. I reached the front of the coach to offer it up in time to hear Randie tell the ranger we had some apples we had bought at the grocery store. The ranger said that as long as whatever we had was from a store and not a farmer stand or field, they didn’t need to confiscate them. Randie offered to find the receipt as I held out the apples, but he said no, and waived us on. Pfew! Like an unsteady man on a rocking boat, I stumbled back to the closet as Randie got us back on the highway and refilled the fridge.

Before long, we were cruising down Hwy 101 in Redwood country. We made a quick stop at Crescent City’s visitor center for a map of the forest, but opted not to detour for sightseeing at this point so as to arrive at the Elks as early as possible. The welcoming committee for the area is a resident herd of Roosevelt Elk that frequent the meadows just north of Orick. Along the way, we passed literally dozens of RV parks, so finding a plan B wasn’t an issue so much as the savings we benefit from at the Elks. When we arrived, the two spots we’d been told about were vacant. As I headed over with the orange cones, Randie went in to pay for the next 4 nights. Before he emerged from the building, another RV pulled in. By the time we were unhooked and in our spot, there was another RV scoping out the lot. Our beeline to the lodge had paid off. We heard over and over from the other travelers in the lot that the 24 spaces with full hook-ups they have in Eureka are full every single night, and we found that to be true while we were there.

Once settled, we headed out in the afternoon to explore the town of Ferndale to the south. This Victorian town was established in the 1850s and looks today much as it did in the 1800s. All the buildings on Main Street look original and many still serve the same purpose. The Ring Pharmacy was a twisted mix of time with modern medicine on the shelves, but behind the counter was an entire wall full of dark wood apothecary cabinetry. Each small drawer was fronted with a brass label holder to identify it’s once herbal contents. There were large framed photos on the wall from the pharmacist’s grand opening circa 1850. Likewise, the bank, post office, and grand hotel were still engaged in the business for which they were originally built. We walked up and down the street enjoying the atmosphere and then got in the car to drive the streets of Victorian homes surrounding the business district. We must have said “Oh, look at that one” 50 times as we admired the fishscale siding, the turrets, cupolas, covered porches, lacy gingerbread, and extravagantly complicated paintjobs. On our way back to Eureka, we made a mental note of the signs we saw announcing the Humboldt County Fair’s opening that day at the Ferndale fairgrounds.

Before starting out on Saturday, Randie called Ed Simon in Kona. Ed and his family are good friends, fellow racquetball players, and Ed is kind enough to help us with mail and watch over our condo while we travel. Ed and his wife, Connie, went to Humboldt State University and he was able to give us some suggestions of things to see and do based on his familiarity and experiences in the area. Better informed, we headed north to the Prairie Creek Redwoods State park accessing it via the Newton B Drury Parkway which branches off and parallels 101 for 8 miles. This is actually part of the original Hwy 101 which diverts visitors through the heart of numerous large old growth groves on a narrow 2 lane road maintained in great condition. Prairie Creek is the oldest of the three redwood state parks in this area created to protect the redwoods and maintained by a joint effort with the NPS. The 40,000 acres they encompass are only 10% of what once stood on the coastline. Thanks to the efforts of the Save the Redwoods League in the 1920s, we still have these groves of ancient forests to enjoy for ours and future generations.

The coastal redwoods, sequoia sempervirens (eternal life), are slightly different from their cousins, the giant sequoias (sequoiadendron giganteum), found in the Sequoia Natl Forest. While the coastal redwood variety lives about 2000 years and reaches heights of over 350’ and a diameter that often exceeds 15’, the giant cousins found on the slopes of the Sierra Nevadas top out at 150 – 250’ but often exceed 20’ in diameter and live a mere thousand years longer. O.K., the science lesson is over.

Anxious to walk among the trees, we found the pull out for the Big Tree Loop and followed the trail to a behemoth of a tree. We took some photos and stared in awe at our surroundings. Driving through the trees is impressive, but walking among them is an unforgettable experience. I was torn between a sense of serenity and peacefulness and a feeling of expecting a T-Rex to appear our of the vegetation. Indeed, Spielberg filmed parts of The Lost World in the redwood forest and I can totally see why. The scale is so out of whack, and it makes you feel so small and inconsequential.

Next stop, a drive-through tree. The man at the entrance booth took our $4 and handed us a leaflet after asking us if we had a few kids hiding in the backseat (they charge by the person rather than by the car). We assumed he was kidding and Randie said “I hope not”. When we topped the hill and saw the tree, we made a sharp right and headed for it. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the nearly worn away painted arrow indicating that we should make our approach from the other side. Turning and trying to drive through the tight fit was a challenge. I got out with the camera to guide Randie through, but the always-lit headlights on the toad made it impossible to see the distance between that area and the tree. Randie felt what I couldn’t see and backed out of the attempt in disgust. After inspecting the scrapes, he decided that they would probably wax out and, if not, they would be a permanent souvenir of our visit to the redwoods. Once we lined up with the proper trajectory, we barely made it through the tree without contact (with collapsed side mirrors) and found our happy Kodak moment.

After our scenic state park designated drive, we went to the totally commercial Trees of Mystery featuring a 30 foot tall Paul Bunyan and Babe standing to the side of the parking lot. I was expecting to be disappointed with a really cheesy low class tourist trap. Instead, we were both pleasantly surprised by this, admitted, tourist trap. The fee we paid was well worth the experience we had. We were educated along the walk, were entertained, and got some exercise. The highlight was the skytrail ride through the canopy to the top of a mountain for a birdseye view of the entire region. We were busy taking photos and looking for nests on the ride up the mountain, but on the ride down, our mischievous minds started to wander. The four descending cars would slow to pass the four uphill cars to allow for emptying and refilling at the docking stations. This created a short window of interaction between the passing cars. Randie suggested it might be fun to BA one of the uphill passing cars on the way down. We laughed and dared one another until the next uphill car slowed to a crawl to pass us. Randie stood, turned his back to the window and looked over his shoulder. The man in the passing bubble laughed and put an index finger to his temple as if to say, “I know what you’re thinking buddy”. Along with those in the other car, we laughed until our cars sped off in opposite directions.

We exited the attraction feeling famished at 2 p.m. and had lunch at the first place we found. Mistake. ‘Nuff said. We drove home through the town of Trinidad, making a stop at the windswept cliffside lighthouse for a photo op and then on to Samoa. Yes, the Samoa Cookhouse, a historic restaurant that Ed Simon told us about that serves up the last surviving lumber camp-style cookhouse meals in the West. The large old building is filled with elongated tables covered in red checkered cloths and lined with benches. Seating is family style and breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served 7 days a week with two entrees to choose from per meal which change daily. If you can still manage to walk comfortably after one of their large family style, pass the mashed potatoes, served meals, there is a museum of cookhouse and logging memorabilia in an adjacent room to explore free of charge.

Home and tired, we entertained ourselves with a game of Stone Age and Randie beat me badly before we retired for a sound night’s sleep.

Sunday, we headed south from Eureka to drive the Avenue of the Giants. We spent the morning doing short designated trails into the forest to look at the trees and take photos. Between the two days in the woods, we probably took over 100 pictures, but we know that they will not adequately convey the sense of being there. Like standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, seeing the New England leaves at peak season, or flying over an active volcano, pictures just can’t do the landscape justice. We grabbed a quick lunch at a small village market deli and made conversation with the cashier while waiting for our sandwiches to be built. He was a local good ol’ boy who gave us his recommendations for the drive home, and we headed off in the direction he suggested. At one stop, we walked in to see the “Giant Tree” with a sign that proclaimed it a champion with a height of 363 feet and circumference of 53 feet. We also walked around the Dyerville Giant which fell in a 1991 storm and measured 370 feet on the ground. Fallen trees in the redwoods are everywhere and known, sentimentally, as nurse logs since they nourish and provide a living incubator to the forest for new growth. The suggested route led us 86 miles over backroads, at times gravel in fact, and past ocean beaches occupied by nothing more than frisky cattle. My only complaint was that the only radio station we could get played nothing but 1960s and older country music.

Back at the RV, we reviewed our days in the forest and toasted our luck in having such wonderful weather. Our time at the redwoods was very memorable and could be happily repeated as far as I’m concerned. We are planning on visiting the fair on Monday and then heading on to Redding before our visit to Crater Lake. Jacks Grill, here we come!

On Sunday, August 2nd, we spent the morning around the RV. The Elks had some blackberry vines growing around the parking lot’s perimeter, so I grabbed a colander and did a little picking. I didn’t reap enough to justify any baking, to Randie’s relief I’m sure, but finished with a nice bowl for snacking on with our lunch. Shortly thereafter, we headed back to Rainy Day Games for a full afternoon of gaming. Rick was there again and we played a game called Stone Age that was really great. The game design boils down to management of limited resources and piece placement strategy. It is limited to only 4 players, but I walked away that evening thinking we may have to purchase it soon. The fact that I won had nothing to do with it. ;0) After playing two more games with Rick on Sunday, right on the heels of enjoying his company on the previous Friday, we decided to exchange contact information with him before departing the store. He said there was a possibility we might be able to reconnect mid-week. When I read his name on the slip of paper he gave us, “Rick Rodrick”, I said “I know that name”. He had told us earlier in the day he was from Wisconsin, so we started trying to find out where our paths might have crossed when we both lived in different states. Our shared histories placed us both in S.L.C. in the late 70s and early 80s. As we all have, he has aged in appearance over the last 30 years, but his face had some familiarity for me. It finally dawned on me that he was once a roommate of my first husband’s around 1978 or 79 before we were married. We had actually played games together 30 years ago! What a small world we live in. We were all blown away by the coincidence that both of us, visiting Portland at the same time, should end up sitting across the table from each other…and not even realize it for two days.

By noon on Monday, I was on the phone to Chris, my x-husband, to tell him about crossing paths with Rick. We laughed about our memories of that time when Chris was sharing a house with 3 other 18 and 19 year olds who had all been high school friends. With one bedroom left to rent, Rick, a bit older graduate student, joined the house. Rick later confessed to me that he couldn’t handle all the craziness of that house for very long which prompted his eventual move out.

We met up with Jim Grant and Fred at Bay 13 after they finished work for the day for dinner and drinks. Jim has been seeing a gal in China for the past year or more on his frequent business trips to Shanghai to buy granite. We got the latest on their relationship and were surprised to hear the M word mentioned. They have applied for a fiancé visa to bring her to this country and are hoping it comes through in the next 6-12 months. Jim, a confirmed bachelor and a bit of a playboy for the last 30 years, is truly smitten. The fact that the girl is 30 years younger, teaches yoga, and thinks he is a wealthy American demi-god probably plays no part in this. It is so funny to hear him speak of a woman with real affection, since in the past, when asked about his feelings for any specific woman, he would generally start his answer with, “I’m not going to die in her arms, but….” Jim and a date shared our honeymoon boat charter in the BVIs in ’95, so by the end of the evening, we had made loose plans now to do the same for him in 2011.

Randie met Tom Bishop for a workout early on Tuesday morning at the Elks’ gym. Afterward, we headed back to northeast Portland to see Jim at his business, Touchstone, to show him our vacation pictures. I culled the best from well over 1000 digital photos, but the slideshow I created upon our return still takes almost a half hour. I think a half hour is awfully long to expect someone to maintain interest in your vacation pictures, but some people insist that they really enjoy it. Unfortunately, Jim is not one of those people, but he was courteous enough to keep looking after 20 minutes. Once back at the rig, Randie went to work on the T.V. again, armed with some new ideas from his conversation with Tom during their workout. Success and Glory! We now have television and can rejoin the informed world. Being without T.V. hasn’t been as terrible as we’d envisioned, thanks to Blockbuster and games, but it will sure be nice to have the Today show to wake up to. We’ve kind of missed Matt Lauer.

Our evening was spent with JoAn, Randie’s stepmom. We dropped by her place and, while we went through the slide show, we took her up on her offer to let us use her machines to do a load of laundry. Together, the three of us went to Chang’s Mongolian BBQ for dinner and then back to her place to watch her slide show. Turn around is fair play. JoAn did a cruise of the Med right after ours with a girlfriend. It was a very similar itinerary, and it was fun for all of us to see many of our memories from a slightly different angle. She visited a few places we did not, however, so there was plenty of new ground to cover.

On Wednesday, Randie played golf with Tom Bishop, Tom Sellers, and P.J. Just as last year, this was a very fun event for him, and he came home all smiles in a great mood. Given the chance, I believe this may turn out to be an annual event for these guys. As soon as he got home, we headed over to our new game friend Rick’s. He had contacted us after Sunday’s game event and invited us over to join him and a friend for an afternoon/evening of gaming. We had a wonderful time playing with him and Susan while his non-gamer wife, Janet, cooked us dinner. She has worked as a personal chef in the past and fed us a delicious meal. We played Rolling Through The Ages first which is much like Yahtzee for gamers. We followed that with Power Grid using the Korea map expansion. It’s an interesting variation of a game that we own. Finally, we played Stone Age again, and yes, I won again. Darn, I like that game.

Thursday started out with a workout meeting for Randie and Tom, followed by a trip to Costco for us to stock up on two pointers and groceries. The high temperature on Thursday was only about 70 degrees; an amazing 40 degree swing from just 1 week ago. We found ourselves turning on the heater instead of the air conditioner. We dropped by JoAn’s in the afternoon for a bit of laundry and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle that I had started in February while Randie went to visit a friend. We regrouped a couple hours later, picked up a friend of JoAn’s, and headed to Takahashi’s for a Japanese dinner. This place looks like a total dive on the outside that I would never have chosen to enter, but JoAn and Laddie introduced us to it a year ago, and it is quite good. Our plans for a low point sushi dinner went out the window though when we both ordered tempura, fried rice, potstickers, and fried soba noodles. Everything was fried except the miso soup, but it was sure good.

We made a move on Friday morning to the Sherwood Elks on the outskirts of Portland. When we arrived, we heard there was a “bikefest” scheduled for the weekend which made us a bit nervous. As the today progressed, however, we never heard a loud motorcycle and saw only a few. Not much fest in that bikefest. I filled my morning researching Arizona snowbird roosts for our September route until it was time to head over to Randie’s brother, Rick’s apartment. We ran into some pretty bad traffic along the way and, ultimately, had to cut our visit a little short. Rick, still on oxygen, had a new motorized wheelchair to show us. It should make his life easier and allow him to get around much better. Being a guy, he had to see how fast it would go and had a humorous story to tell us illustrating the difficulty in controlling the chair when it gets up to about 20 mph. We were sorry that we weren’t able to see Teresa and promised to stop by again in October.

We met up with Randie’s nephew David and his two kids, Mac and Ezra, at Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. Mac is on crutches, having just gone through knee surgery in the past week. In retrospect, a salad bar was probably not a popular choice with two kids, but David was kind enough to accept our suggestion when choosing a place to meet. Aside from Mac’s knee problem, the family seems to be doing well, and we always enjoy seeing them. We piled our plate high with salad and chatted away for an hour that flew by too quickly.

Before we had time to get very hungry again, it was time for our scheduled visit with Tom and his wife Tammy. We had a cocktail around the patio table in the back yard and enjoyed the nice weather in beautiful surroundings. Tammy has a green thumb and a passion for garden art and sculpture. The inviting small back yard area is filled with whimsy and flowers. Before long it was time for dinner, and we headed to a little Japanese place near their home in Hillsboro. Our appetite was just starting to come back and we began looking forward to the great sushi we remembered from our visit last year to this place. It was every bit as good as we’d remembered, and before long, all that was left on our plates was shaved ginger and wasabi. At Tom’s request, we did the Italy/cruise slideshow at their home before saying goodnight and thanking Tammy, once again, for buying us dinner.

Randie spent the morning and much of the afternoon Saturday washing and waxing the entire RV. I, on the other hand, was much less constructive and went shopping. I had yet to wander all the aisles of a Michaels since we left Hawaii, and today was the day. I had a 40% off coupon that was due to expire in a week and it was burning a hole in my purse. I spent very little actually, but left inspired. A stop by the video and grocery stores later, I was back home preparing artichokes for our dinner. I had bought two monster size artichokes a week before, but with all the meals with friends and game events, we just hadn’t gotten around to eating them. Randie BBQed a marinated trip-tip and, with a little rice left over from our dinner at Takahashi’s, we had a small feast in the parking lot of the Sherwood Elks. Watching a video later, we had 2 pointers topped with frozen berries. Life is good.

We had a homemade brunch of fried rice omelets on Sunday and headed to Guardian Games in downtown Portland for our last game event. We were there before the store opened at noon. I felt a little like an alcoholic waiting in the parking lot for the bar to open. I’m hooked and when we travel, the opportunity to play the euro games is rare. Randie enjoys it too, although not quite to the extent that I benefit. Although both Rick and Susan were there, we didn’t do any gaming together. We played a game of Stone Age first and, Rick was later pleased to learn, I finished in last place. Randie was the big winner actually. Yes, I still love the game. Our other game of the day was Agricola which we had played once last year at Guardian Games. The owner of the game was ill matched against us and one other rookie. He swept the floor with us, but we enjoyed the beating. It is a very involved and well designed game. Again, frustratingly, it only goes up to 5 players, so it won’t work with our gaming group in Kona. While I helped put away all the little pieces once the game was finished, Randie secretly purchased and then presented me with Stone Age as an early birthday gift. Italy AND a game! Since the game can be played by as few as two people, we can keep it in the R.V. We said our goodbyes to Rick and Susan and promised to all get together in Portland again next summer. Tomorrow we leave Portland for parts south on our trek to the Redwoods.

On Monday, July 27th, we hooked up the toad and moved to Forks. If you don’t know about Forks, ask any teenage girl. I guarantee that they will have heard about it. For those of you over 17, Forks is the setting for the romantic teenage vampire movie/book Twilight. This little Podunk town has hit the fame lottery and is raking in the dough and basking in the glow. The local chamber of commerce has a replica of the teenage girl protagonist Bella’s beat up, old red pick-up truck parked right in front. Walking inside, we were offered a map to all the local twilight locations in town. Although the movie wasn’t even filmed in this town (it was done mostly in the Portland area) the chamber has recognized one of the local B&B’s as “the Cullen house”, the young male vampire and forbidden love of Bella. I’m guessing that the owner either is related to the mayor or made a big donation to the chamber for this distinction. The streets were filled with out of town cars and the sidewalks full of teenage girls wearing t-shirts proclaiming their affection for the male character of their choice, such as “Team Edward”. Since the book gained popularity about 4 years ago, several entrepreneurs had opened retail stores selling all things Twilight and many things vampirish. We went into one for a laugh and elbowed our way through the mob of teenage girls. Randie found a XXL t-shirt which stated that he’d been in Forks with, I think, blood dripping from the lettering. The whole town had gotten into the spirit. A small grocery store had Bella’s bulletin board which was full of thumb tacked love notes to Edward and Jasper. The small motel’s marquis sadly proclaimed that “Edward Cullen Never Slept Here”. At the town / reservation border there was a sign that said “Treaty Border, NO Vampires Beyond This Point” referring to an unspoken arrangement in the book between the local Native American population and the vampire family.

We, however, did cross the border and headed to Nea Bay where the Makah Tribe is headquartered in order to visit the museum we had heard about. Since time began, according to the Makah, their ancestors have lived up at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula living off game and mostly seafood. Their longhouses, holding up 30 family members, were built near the shores, and like many Cliffside oceanfront dwellings, were occasionally buried in landslides. About 30 years ago, rain and tidal conditions were such that one such ancient burial began to surface and beach campers began to find artifacts. An archeological crew was brought in and the site was unearthed meticulously to uncover a village covered in earth for 500 years. The items were preserved quite well and provided a picture of this complex society dating back to the time before Columbus, before Jamestown, or the Renaissance.

After the museum, we drove out to the Cape Flattery area which we’d heard had a beautiful trail. Not knowing really what we were getting ourselves into, we parked and started down the path leading into a rainforest toward, we hoped, the ocean. The walk was a gradual downward grade and, as we progressed deeper into the forest, the temperature dropped about ten degrees. This was a little chilly on the walk down, but very welcome on the climb back. The path eventually changed from a wide swath of ground to tree slices. It felt like you were stepping from one wooden lily pad to the next. Eventually, the discs were replaced by a slightly elevated narrow boardwalk and sunlight was losing the battle against the trees. The thick trees were covered in moss, and many a fallen giant lay on the ground, slowly sinking in a sea of ferns and other greenery. The smell was woodsy and the place was very quiet. Our birder friend, Rob, would have been a little disappointed at this point, but when we FINALLY got to the end, a half hour hike later, we were rewarded with lots of birds to go along with the amazing scenery. The viewing platform on the edge of a cliff provided views of sea caves, sea stacks, Tatoosh Island, and lots of cute fishing puffins. Luckily, there was a birding couple there, complete with bird book and binoculars, to identify all the species for us and we were grateful for the closer looks we got with the borrowed binoculars. In addition to the crested Puffins, we also saw black oyster catchers with red feet and long red beaks that looked like pencils. The birder also identified pigeon guillemots (not pigeons at all) and a peregrine falcon. Between the uphill return walk and the drive, it took us a couple hours to get home and toast our fun day.

On Tuesday, returning from a sightseeing run, we found a small lake of water growing at the rear of our RV. We jumped from the car to investigate and, in my haste, I just ever so gently tapped the car door against the edge of a slideout, thus chipping a small bit of paint. It turned out that our outside water connection hose had burst, but, in Randie’s eyes, this calamity paled in comparison with the paint chip. Randie eventually forgave me and set to work to solve our water problem. He McGyvered a way to use the failed hose along with some hose remnants he had saved in order to get our fresh water tank full. We would just have to live off the tank until we could find a drinking water hose in a larger city with a Camping World or maybe a Wal-Mart.

On Wednesday, we drove south along the West side of the peninsula to Lake Quinalt as the temperature crested 100 degrees. I’ve noticed that in the Olympic Peninsula, the letter Q is used as frequently as the letter K in Hawaii. We snagged a nice spot with a little shade before the multitudes started arriving at this campground in the afternoon. The area has proclaimed itself as the Valley of the Rain Forest Giants because the surrounding forest boasts 5 record-breaking trees. We were given a pamphlet at check-in and discovered that we were parked in the shadow, literally, of the largest Sitka Spruce in the world. It stands 191 feet high and measures nearly 56’ in circumference. After Cape Flattery, we just didn’t feel up to the long hikes necessary to see any of the others, but I’m sorry we weren’t able to cast our eyes upon the largest Douglas fir in the world, standing 302’tall. As more campers arrived, hooked up, and turned on air conditioners, the park’s power went out.

While the campground management figured out the power situation, we decided this would be a good time for an exploratory drive and headed for the toad. We took a nice drive and made a stop at the Quinalt Lodge to make a reservation for a nice dinner. The old lakefront lodge is a throwback to the big wooden lodges built in many of the national parks, a destination in itself. Without air conditioning in the rooms, I wasn’t envying the guests though. We found a really beautiful waterfall near the road on our drive where we parked and I walked in for a closer look. The water cascaded from pool to pool among fallen tree and rock natural dams. Reminding me of the area at the top of Kaloko in Hawaii, there were many hydrangeas growing along the roadsides. The big powder puff balls of blue were some of the bluest I’ve ever seen and Randie picked me a couple to take back to the RV.

Back at the RV, the power was back on and we stoked up the AC in a pitched battle against the climbing temperatures. Had we known then that Portland was experiencing a previously unheard of afternoon high of 110 degrees, we would have considered ourselves lucky. Dinner at the lodge that evening was first class, but would have been more enjoyable with AC in the room. We had a window table overlooking a sweep of green lawn sloping down to the lake scattered with Adirondack chairs, flower beds, and a corner gazebo. Very nice. The waitress brought us dampened cloth napkins to cool our skin and pointed an oscillating fan in our direction to make the dinner more enjoyable.

On Thursday we headed out for Portland and said goodbye to the Olympic National Forest. By late afternoon we were pulling into the Hillsboro Elks. Since all the electrical sites were filled, we unhooked the toad and were resigned to boondock, using the generator for AC. Although one spot surprisingly opened up, the electrical pedestal tested faulty with our PowerPal device. We took a drive for supplies and ended up driving by the Beaverton Elks where we had stayed a few days last year. The blacktop there has a significant slope beyond what our levelers can compensate for. There are a half dozen sets of ramps built for visiting RVers, but with a dozen sites, they were all in use on our previous visit and we had to stack wood from Home Depot to create our own makeshift ramp. On this visit though, there were still a couple sets available. We decided we would be better off moving to Beaverton and hid a set of ramps while we went back to retrieve the RV. An hour later, we were reparked with the AC running and trying to cool off.

We caught up with Tom Bishop for a $5 footlong at Subway on Friday. He owns a wood stove and fireplace business. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that, in spite of the summer heat, he is busy with remodel work. We stopped at Camping World and picked up a new drinking water hose after that and made it out the door with not much else. Camping World reminds me of Costco. You go in for just one or two things, and you can’t get out the door without spending $100. We spent the evening at a boardgamer gathering at Rainy Day Games in nearby Aloha, Oregon.

Rainy Day is one of two game stores that we have discovered over the years in the Portland area, and both stores have open gaming nights on the calendar. The public is welcome to bring games with them that they’d like to play or to use the open used stock of games at the store. Tables and chairs are provided and you can bring in your own cooler with sodas and snacks to get you through the evening. We joined three others to learn the game of Puerto Rico, a very popular game among gamers that we’d never played. We played with a nice guy named Rick and two women who were friends, one of which Randie and I suspected was actually a guy. She was large, yet small chested. She had a very deep voice, big hands, and carried her weight as a beer belly, instead of in the hips or bust. It is quite possible that the extra skin around her neck may have hid an adam’s apple. We had fun with the group and we liked the game quite a bit, but since it is limited to 5 players, it isn’t suitable for our regular gaming group in Kona. We said our goodbyes after 10 p.m. and told Rick we hoped to see him back at Sunday afternoon’s event.

Randie worked out early Saturday morning with Tom. After the previous late night, I was just getting up about the time he got back. We hung close to the coach for most of the day, venturing out only for a Mongolian BBQ lunch (one of our favorites) and later to rent a movie. We still don’t have T.V. because of the darn digital conversion. Randie has been trying to get it working, reading manuals, and playing with the conversion box we bought, but no luck so far. The man at Camping World gave him some ideas to try, so he spent some time trying new cord configurations. Without the T.V., we’ve relied more on cards and computers to keep us entertained, and occasionally listen to part of one of our audio books. When there isn’t a book playing, we listen to Radio Margaritaville on Sirius channel 31 which offers a wonderful mix of music. Although they carry all the Buffett concerts live and replay others occasionally, they also play a lot of Hawaiian music, a little Reggae, a little Country, a little Grateful Dead, and a little Calypso, among others. We enjoy it immensely.

We have a full week left in Portland before heading down to Eugene on our way to the Redwoods. With at least two more gaming events and lots of friends and family yet to see, it promises to be a busy week.

After leaving the Hopleys on Tuesday morning, the 21st of July, we drove to Port Townsend. The drive took us over 6 hours, but it flew by because we were thick into the audio book. The book is 32 CDs long, but we were down to about 5 discs when we finally landed at the Elks’ RV Park. We unhooked the toad, settled in, and then took a drive into town for a quick look around. We had been to Port Townsend once before about 5 years ago on a bareboat charter with friends. In my research, I had discovered back then that P.T. was having its annual wooden boat festival at the time we were exploring Victoria and the nearby area. We decided to add it to our itinerary and cruised in under power at the same time every sailboat in the Northwest was arriving. Sailboats, according to maritime law, have the right of way, and we were immediately in a difficult situation with vessels approaching on all sides. Capt. Randie sent all hands to different corners of the boat to shout out where the sailboats were and how close. A short while later, Randie performed a miracle of a parallel parking job between sailboats at the slip, and the guys (Randie, Thom Miller, and Jim Grant) kissed the dock when we stepped ashore. As we drove through town, all those memories came flooding back as we recognized some of the town’s businesses and layout.

On Wednesday morning we headed for the laundromat. I used the time to work on the blog, but Randie had different ideas. He was gnawing at the bit to get the car washed and, conveniently, there was a car wash next door to the laundromat. While I was doing my 4 loads (not so bad when they all run simultaneously), I started chatting with another traveler doing the same. As it turned out, she and her husband, who was next door washing their toad, were staying at the elks too. Is this clean vehicle thing part of the Elks code?

Once back home, I made big green salads for lunch and we topped them with crab meat the Hopley’s had sent us off with. Our explorations the previous day had netted some important events we slated for Wednesday afternoon. Namely, a farmers market where we scored both some fresh baked wheat sourdough bread and a very fat cucumber and an old time theater that was showing the new Harry Potter film.

The theater reminded me a bit of the Aloha Theater in Kainaliu. Just past the snack bar, a heavy curtain had to be peeled back to expose a descending center aisle with short aisles of low seats on either side. It was quaint, but unfortunately, the audio equipment was apparently original to the operation and we had a hard time catching all of the dialog. We didn’t feel the movie lived up to its legacy, but then perhaps the venue’s problems contributed to our final impressions.

On Thursday, we pulled up stakes, unplugged, and moved to Sequim (pronounced Skwim). We checked into the Elks Lodge there and paid for 4 nights with plans to use it as a homebase to explore neighboring areas. After lunch, we started exploring in the Trailblazer and ended up at Fort Flagler. There were a couple big gun entrenchments from the early 1900s to protect the Straits of Juan De Fuca that we climbed around while admiring the views. Some of the areas we drove through left Randie in shock. He had apparently driven through a couple of these little towns back in his 20s making sales calls for the family business. Like everywhere else, the area has grown. It was during this drive that I began noticing what looked like berry vines all along the road. At a forced road construction stop, we chatted up the lady wearing the dayglow orange vest holding the stop/slow sign. She told us that the berries were in full swing right now and she had no trouble filling a bucket when she headed out looking.

We were back at the Elks lounge by 5:30 for barstool bingo, a regular Thursday event there. We joined a table and bought a couple cards each. It turned out the nice couple we were sharing the table with was the ER (that’s Exalted Ruler for you non-elks) and his wife. Well, we all must have been living right because our table won 6 out of the 10 games during the hour and half that followed. With half the proceeds going to charity, the three pots we won didn’t quite cover our investment, but it was fun and the $1.00 chili cheap dinner more than made up for the deficit.

On Friday, we headed to Port Angeles for the beginning of the annual Masters Sandcastle Sculpture Competition. We had always wanted to see one of these and can now cross it off our bucket list. It is a very forgiving artform. If you take off a little too much sand, you just pat some back in place. The artists, all considered masters at the artform, were terrific and we were intrigued by all their tools of the trade. They had all sizes of trowels and palette knives, feather dusters and soft brushes, and each wore a straw-like device around their neck by a lanyard for blowing away debris in small areas. There were probably 8 sculptures, but our favorites were all grouped together. One stood about 6 ft tall of a woman from the waist up. Her hands held a lotus between her belly and huge breasts. Her hair fell like winding tubes with daylight between the strand columns. I believe these were supposed to represent tree trunks because they branched into a sort of tree canopy at the top of her head. The sign in front of her said “Mother”.

Randie’s favorite had a woman in flowing sleeves and windblown hair at a ship’s wheel with large scrolls below saying “Wonders of the World” in about 5 different types of writing/languages such as Arabic, Chinese, German, etc. My favorite, about 6 ft tall like the other two, was a large coral head at the top with fish and eels all around. It featured a beautiful mermaid floating horizontally and smiling down at a scuba diver looking up from below. One final sculpture deserves honorable mention here. It would have been my Mom’s favorite for sure. It was a 5 ft high Mayan temple with the steep stairs leading up all four sides to the top platform where several fat chickens seemed to be dancing around a center egg. It was called………………………wait for it …………… Chickeneetsa. The sculptures were only about half done during our visit so we decided to stop by the next day to see how they turned out.

From Port Angeles, we headed up into the Olympic National Park taking the drive to Hurricane Ridge. The views were beautiful of one small mountain after another blanketed in green from tall pines. The view of the road was actually beautiful too, made so by the wildflower assortment. I couldn’t believe the array of colors represented by so many types of flowers; red, orange, yellow, purple, blue, and white. It was like a roadside bouquet. At the top lookout, we walked around the visitor center and were able to get quite close to several young deer resting in the shade of their bushy landscaping. They didn’t seem in the least bit intimidated by people. The one I found most interesting was the young male with a miniature rack of antlers covered in brown fuzz. After snapping a bunch of pictures, we drove home for a nap and then headed over to the elks for dinner.

On Saturday, Randie got out the ladder and began washing and waxing the motorhome. They told us at Life On Wheels that if you ever want to meet some of your neighbors at a R.V. park, just lift the hood. Guys will come out of the woodwork to talk about mechanical stuff. Well, they should add to that list, pull out a ladder and begin washing/waxing. Randie had an audience before long sitting in lawn chairs in the shade nearby. What size engine have you got? What kind of mileage do you get with that? What speed do you run and at what speed do you go into 6th gear? Can you hear Tim Allen grunting in the back of your mind?

While Randie worked on his tan on the ladder, I headed into the Elks where a Wood Artisan Show had rented out the big room. There was a large variety of art styles on display; inlays, carved figures, carved decoys, turnings and scroll saw designs, wooden pens and bottle stoppers, etc. Since one needn’t be present to win, I placed a bid on a silent auction item and bought 6 raffle tickets for $5. I really liked the way they did the raffle. There were probably 30-40 donated items ranging from gift certificates to restaurants and retailers to art to automotive items to woodworking tools. Each item had a coffee can with a slit in the lid next to it. You’d write your name and number on the back of each purchased ticket and then choose which items/cans to take a chance on.

After lunch, we headed to town for the final whistle on the sandcastle competition. The sculptures looked great and I got some more pictures of the final products to compare against my earlier “work in progress” shots. Once it became apparent that there would not be any immediate awards bestowed, we headed to a matinee to see the Ugly Truth with Gerard Butler and the blonde from Gray’s Anatomy. Of course I was still waiting for a call to say I had won something at the raffle, so I put my phone on vibrate. I would describe the movie as a guy’s version of a chick flick. Randie laughed harder than I did as he could, I’m sure, identify more with the man’s perspective being argued, but we both enjoyed it. On the way home, we stopped at Safeway for 97 cents a pound cherries. Yes, we bought a lot. If I could serve my man Dungeness crab for dinner every night and cherries for dessert, it would be a month before I got any complaints, if then.

Randie spent Sunday morning on the ladder finishing the R.V. while I went out berry picking. I had spotted a U-PICK sign near the elks and had been eager to try my luck since talking to the stop sign gal. I grabbed a handled brown bag, put my hair up, grabbed my cell phone (still hoping for that call), and started following signs. A few miles later, I was parking in a field surrounded by lavender, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and boysenberries. I confessed my inexperience to the lady in charge and she told me it was $2 a pound for whatever I wanted to pick, but I couldn’t mix product. If it’s all the same price, I couldn’t understand the logic, but I wasn’t going to argue. I decided to go for boysenberries and headed to the area she pointed to. Never having done this before, I learned some lessons as I went, such as the berries get better toward the center of the rows. People start at the beginning of the row and work their way in until they get the quantity they want, thus, the center area receives fewer pickers. Using my taste buds as guinea pigs, I got better at identifying the attributes of a really ripe, (read that sweet), berry. This is where the defective gene I inherited from my mother kicked in. I couldn’t stop myself. The next bush kept looking better than the one I just finished picking over, and those huge berries, so ripe that they were barely clinging to their calyx, just couldn’t be left there to fall to the ground and go to waste. The bag was getting very heavy and I knew Randie was going to roll his eyes when he saw my haul. Looking for an excuse, I kept thinking of all the ways I could use them up…..and I kept picking. Finally, thank God, the quality diminished as I progressed past the row’s center and neared the other end. I mustered all my self-control and pulled myself away. The lady at the stand said “Wow” as she took the weight from me to place on the scale. 6 lbs. The weight of the berries themselves was starting to crush the ones on the bottom and she offered me a clear plastic bag large enough to hold the brown bag. I paid her and headed home still trying to alter my peach crisp recipe in my head to use up berries. By the time I got home, the bottom of the plastic bag was drenched in blood red juice. The only thing Randie said was “Where are we going to find room in the fridge”. An RV fridge is not very big and we had just stuffed the nooks and crannies with cherries the night before. We froze some, we ate cherries and replaced the vacated space with berries, and I made a berry crisp. Randie pulled out the manual for the oven and we figured out together how to use the convection oven for the first time in the three seasons we’ve been RVing. It was delicious.

Almost forgot to mention the results of the raffle. On my way back to Safeway to buy berry crisp ingredients, I got the phone call I had been hoping for. I detoured from home and picked up both the silent auction item I’d won and an automotive creeper for Randie. For the women out there, a creeper is a cot on wheels that one uses to lie on and roll under vehicles. He was very pleased and not another word was said about the berries.