HOT July

As all of you have heard (or experienced) we have had some pretty hot temperatures during this last week. Since arriving home from camping in Prineville, we have had temperatures in the high 80s and 90s. But on July 27, the temperature went to 103 with high humidity. Our evening lows stayed around 75 and muggy. Ugh, we felt like we were in a sauna! The next two days, the triple digits hung at 107 and 106. We escaped yesterday to Newport on the Oregon coast where the temperature was a marvelous 61 (106 in Salem). As usual, Newport was foggy with a light mist, but what a relief to feel cool.

These pictures are taken at Yaquina Bay where the Yaquina Bay Bridge was shrouded in gray which made it very eerie.

Today, Salem topped out at 92, The humidity is still high, so things are still kinda uncomfortable. That is all supposed to change as a cooling trend (high 80s, low 90s) is happening for the rest of the week. We can only hope!!

As I said earlier, we spent the 4th of July camping south of Prineville along the Crooked River. We had a great time and uploaded many pictures on my Picasa Web Album. Hope you take the time to check them out. I have many albums posted on Picasa, so take your time and check them all out.

After we left Prineville, we took the coach to Davis Cabinets in Junction City and had new inside solar and privacy screens installed. The privacy and solar screens now take the place of the front wrap around curtains which were getting old and ragged. The new screens make a huge difference while driving. Before, we had split visor shades and the sun always found a way to get into our eyes. Now, we can lower the one piece shade (no splits) for complete sun control.

One big job we have had since being back in Salem is cleaning out an an extra large storage unit. There was a lot of furniture and boxes in the storage unit that needed sorting and distributing. We ended up donating the majority of it to St. Vincent DePaul. We were able to send a bunch of old electronics, to recycling, but there was a lot that had to go to the landfill. We have that out from under us, but we still have to clean up an old house and get the lot taken care of (no not our home, this is another one we have to take care of).

As for our house, the main bathroom was desperately in need of repainting and some cabinet work. We have repainted the walls and changed some of the hardware, but still have all the cabinet work to do.

On July 21, I had my first Colonoscopy. Oh my, that was an experience. Yes, they did find one very tiny polyp and quickly removed it. The pathology came back clear! Now, instead of having that test every 10 years, I have to have it done every 5 years(ugh). Actually, the preparation for the screening was much worse than the actual procedure. At least I have 5 years before I have to go through that again (grin).

On July 24, we took the Grand Cherokee in for its checkup and oil change. Seems the brake buddy we use while towing the Jeep has been causing the brakes to drag a bit and caused the calipers to heat up. Now, it looks like we will have to replace those in the very near future. We really didn’t need to hear about having to do that.

On top of having to replace the calipers on the Jeep, we may have to replace the seal on the toilet in the coach. We were having a lot of problems with the “electric” flush control while we were in AZ, but now we are having problems keeping water in the bowl (more work to be done).

Have I mentioned in past posts that I have a sister? Well, I do! She isn’t going to like my talking about her, but she doesn’t have anything to do with a computer or any of that “Techy” stuff, so she will never see this (unless one of her daughters shows it to her). She is 14 years older than me and just had her 81st birthday. Bless her heart, she is doing great and still maintains her large home all by herself. With my being gone so much, we haven’t had a lot of times to visit, but my daughter and I are going to visit with her early next week and get caught up on all the “family stuff.” I just hope when I get to be 81 (God willing) I will be doing as well as she is!!

Speaking of family stuff, I mentioned in the last post that we have a new great granddaughter. This is the birth picture of Ciara Rose Rojas-Rodriguez (long name for such a tiny thing).Isn't she a cutie!! Lauren and Abraham are doing well and the baby is doing great!

Ken is still making some gorgeous jewelry. Even with all the work we have been doing, he is finding himself beading during the evening hours (keeps him out of trouble anyhow).

These are some of his latest creations.We are going to Eugene on Friday the 31st to the Bead & Gem show where he hopes to find some more beads to work with.

I will have a lot more to talk about in August because my grandson Justin is marrying the love of his life, Holly, on the 12th. So until then, I hope all of you stay healthy and keep safe.

Camping

After a fun filled 12 day camping trip, we are back in the land of TV, Cell Phones. and Internet. It was so refreshing to be completely out of touch from June 30 to July 11. Well, we weren’t completely out of touch, we did drive to town a couple times, and I did manage to go through at least 60 plus messages each time on my iPhone. When we finally got the coach back to electric hookups on July 11, I had 150 email messages to sort through. Egad, that was a mess!! Especially since we are in a small town called Prineville and the cell phone (Internet Data) service is very slow. I still have in the neighborhood of 40 email messages that have attachments that will take forever to open here……so, I am waiting until we get back in a better service area to deal with them.

No, I did not take any pictures! There are many already posted in our Web Album (check left side of page for link) so I didn’t think we needed more. Just know it is a beautiful spot and sooooo very serene!!

We left Salem on June 28 and drove to Prineville where we parked the coach for two nights in the Crook County RV Park. That afternoon, Ken & I drove the Jeep 16 miles out of town along the Crooked River and into the canyon looking for a camping site. The usual spot that we stay at was full, so we found a nice area near the end of the camp grounds for us and our friends. We quickly held the sites with tents and made the payments to keep them.

Once we had the sites secured, we went back to the coach and settled in for the night. The next day (29th) we drove Jeep to Redmond and did some geocaching.

On June 30, we moved the coach down to the river campground and spent the rest of the day relaxing and just enjoying the solitude and hoping to see some wild animals (we didn’t, not then anyhow).

On July 2, we drove Jeep back into Prineville for some needed supplies and to check on IF we were great grandparents for the 5th time. Well, it seems our grand-daughter had an ultrasound on June 30 and was told all the amniotic fluid had leaked out, so she was immediately moved to the birthing center and labor was induced. The baby girl was born at 6:30 that evening. Her name is Ciara (pronounced cee-air-ah) Rose Rojas Rodrigues, weighing in at 5lbs 13ozs and 17 ½ inches long. Mommy (Lauren) and daddy (Abraham) are doing well, but it seems daddy was a bit weak kneed for a while. Our daughter, Leigh, had been trying to call us and had left messages, but alas, we were out of touch. Anyhow, while we were still in town, we had the chance to call and talk to Laurie, so all was well.

Our friends showed up shortly after Noon on the 2nd and quickly got settled in to camping mode. During the next 10 days, we tried to be very lazy and do a lot of nothing. The guys did take a long hike along the rim, then one day, all but me took a hike up to Chimney Rock (big tall rock outcropping with big elevation change). I later went up part way (.25 mile) with Ken to try and find a geocache, but we didn’t find it. That same day, Ken & I took a loop drive from camp up and over the rim, and drove the back way into Prineville, then back to camp. We did do some off road stuff, but nothing hard. Naturally, we found some caches along the way (grin). Another day we all rafted down the river. We dropped the rafts in just below the Bowman Dam and pulled out about 5 miles down stream at our camp. The river was moving pretty fast, so it only took us about an hour and a half to make the trip. Some spots were pretty shallow and we scraped bottom a few times.

One of our outings was just us girls driving to Bend (the back way) and shopping at the Outlets. The guys didn’t want to do that, so they stayed in camp and lazed the whole day. Yes, we all did go to town (Prineville) another day and had dinner and special milk shakes at The Tastee Freeze. They have some marvelous burgers and just the very best “REAL" milkshakes. Our last day of camping, no one wanted to BBQ, so we all drove to town and ate at the Sports Bar and Grill. They have wonderful pizzas and you can even shell the “free” peanuts on the floor…..we had a mess around us when we left (grin).

If you are wondering if we went to town on the 4th of July to watch the fireworks, the answer is no…. we didn’t want anything to do with that mess. Besides, we have been there and done that, so we were all contented to enjoy the peaceful river and see the occasional Owl, Eagle, and even Deer a couple times.

Most of our days were warm and sunny. We did have some wind and clouds and even a couple evenings of thunder and lightning. What rain we did get was minimal and didn’t last long at all.

Unfortunately, our time along the river went all too fast and we broke camp on July 11. Our friends drove straight back home, but Ken & I drove back into Prineville and settled in at the Crook County RV Park for two nights.

Today, July 12, we went out and found 19 caches before the weather turned bad. This morning, we woke to beautiful warm sun, but by early afternoon, the skies turned black and menacing. Soon the thunder and lightning along with wind arrived. We even had some heavy rain for short intervals. One thing about Eastern Oregon, the thunder feels and sounds like it is sooooo much closer. It really resonated when sounding off. Our temps dropped from the 90s of yesterday to the high 60s this afternoon (wild).

We will be leaving here in the morning and heading for Junction City which is a few miles north of Eugene. While in Junction City, we are having our front privacy curtains removed and installing electric solar screens and privacy shades. The front ones will be all one piece and will fit just inside the windshield. Each will be moveable from driver and passenger sides. The driver side and passenger side windows will have manual screens (solar and privacy). This is going to make a huge difference in how the front looks, and we won’t have those awful curtains to move back and forth. Now everything will move up and down. We should be in Junction City all of Monday and probably part of Tuesday, but we won’t know until they get in and start working on stuff.