It’s so amazing how life can change in the blink of an eye. Just this last week, we watched the sad news story about a small airplane crashing into a vacation home located in the Oregon coastal town of Gearhart. Five people were killed: the pilot and passenger in the plane and three children in the house. A mother and two more of her children escaped with severe burns, but they are alive. That mother also lost one other child in that fire/crash. Earlier that morning the parents of the other two children who died in the house, had gone out on an early morning walk and returned to find their lives changed forever. Our hearts and prayers go out to those families who lost so much in that “blink of an eye.” We tend to complain about our problematic lives, but they seem so trivial compared to what those families are now going through. We all must count our blessings and be thankful for our lives and health.
While we were camping over the 4th of July, I received an email about a friend who had died. I had worked with “Don” for 28 years at Moore Business Forms, and it was quite a shock to hear that he had passed away. Again our hearts and prayers are with his wife and family during this sorrowful time
One piece of happy news is my beautiful “older” sister turned 80 last month. Thank God, she is doing well and staying happy and healthy (even in her old age…. LOL). Vonna, I love you and wish you many, many, more birthdays!!
Since our elderly lady friend passed away in May, Ken has been working with an attorney on her will and getting her house and property placed in probate. She had several bequests in her will, and once all the paper work is done, he will be spending more time on those. Oregon’s probate process can last from 4 months to much longer, so we aren’t holding our breath on getting this finished any time soon. There is so much to do in and around her “dilapidated” house that we can’t get it all done before we head back to Arizona in October.
Time is running out for us because there is so much going on in the next couple months. This weekend, Ken has a high school multi-year class reunion. We hear there are several hundred alumnae from Sacred Heart and Serra High Schools attending. It is going to be a busy weekend with all the activities that are planned.
On Labor Day, we drive to Seattle, then early the next morning fly to Yakutat, Alaska for our annual Salmon fishing trip. This year Ken’s brother, Richard (Dick) and a friend (Bob) from Boise, Idaho will be going with us. This is going to be Dick’s third time to Yakutat, but for Bob, it will be his first (sure hope he enjoys it as much as we do).
Right after we get home from Alaska, there is a Monaco RV Rally at the Oregon State Fairgrounds (Sept. 21 through Sept. 25). We will have the coach parked there, but plan on spending the nights here at home (only a couple miles away). A couple days after the rally, we are scheduled to have the coach in Junction City for some remodeling work on the front cabinets. If all goes well, we plan on heading to Arizona the second week of October.
Like I said earlier, we are running out of time!
August 6, 2008
July 27, 2008
Expensive Summer
Remember a few months ago I was talking about replacing the tires on the coach? Well, we didn’t do it then because even though the tires were several years old, they were still in great shape.
In May, while we were in Yuba City, Ken noticed the front left tire was slowly losing pressure. After we got home, Ken took it to a local tire shop and they rebuilt the valve stem. It seemed to help for a while, but while camping, Ken again noticed the tire was losing pressure. The tires now have over 30,000 miles on them, and even though they still look good, the leak and the fact that they are seven years old, caused Ken to look for eight new tires ($$$$).
Last week, Ken checked on the availability of the size tire we need (295/80R-22.5) and discovered the “oil prices” have really affected the cost of tires. One dealer quoted Ken $600 a tire, plus more for balancing and installation. However, after checking around, he found the same tires at Les Schwab for around $500 a tire (balanced & installed)….still expensive, but better. He was going to wait until the Monaco Rally in September to see if he could get them at a discount, but he was told the oil prices will just cause them to get more expensive. So, he decided to “bite the bullet” so to speak, and went ahead had the new tires installed on July 22….however, the air leak hasn’t stopped. It is still losing about 10 pounds of pressure a day. Last Thursday, Ken discussed it with the guys at Les Schwab and they said it could possibly be a cracked wheel. They advised Ken to watch the tire/wheel over the weekend, and if it continued losing pressure (it has), bring the coach back in on Monday (tomorrow), and they will put a “test” wheel on to see if that takes care of the problem……. If it does, they will order a new wheel ($350) to replace the old one.
OH BOY, with the new batteries in May, now the new tires, and possibly a new wheel, this is proving to be one very expensive summer. Wonder what will be next???
In May, while we were in Yuba City, Ken noticed the front left tire was slowly losing pressure. After we got home, Ken took it to a local tire shop and they rebuilt the valve stem. It seemed to help for a while, but while camping, Ken again noticed the tire was losing pressure. The tires now have over 30,000 miles on them, and even though they still look good, the leak and the fact that they are seven years old, caused Ken to look for eight new tires ($$$$).
Last week, Ken checked on the availability of the size tire we need (295/80R-22.5) and discovered the “oil prices” have really affected the cost of tires. One dealer quoted Ken $600 a tire, plus more for balancing and installation. However, after checking around, he found the same tires at Les Schwab for around $500 a tire (balanced & installed)….still expensive, but better. He was going to wait until the Monaco Rally in September to see if he could get them at a discount, but he was told the oil prices will just cause them to get more expensive. So, he decided to “bite the bullet” so to speak, and went ahead had the new tires installed on July 22….however, the air leak hasn’t stopped. It is still losing about 10 pounds of pressure a day. Last Thursday, Ken discussed it with the guys at Les Schwab and they said it could possibly be a cracked wheel. They advised Ken to watch the tire/wheel over the weekend, and if it continued losing pressure (it has), bring the coach back in on Monday (tomorrow), and they will put a “test” wheel on to see if that takes care of the problem……. If it does, they will order a new wheel ($350) to replace the old one.
OH BOY, with the new batteries in May, now the new tires, and possibly a new wheel, this is proving to be one very expensive summer. Wonder what will be next???
July 15, 2008
Holiday Fun
It has been awhile since my last post and so much has happened, too much for lots of detail, so I will just talk about our holiday.
Do you all know how glorious it is to be completely out of touch with everything for 2 weeks? No TV, Cell phone, or Internet to be bothered by/with. Well, we were fortunate to experience just that.
We left Salem on June 23 and stayed two nights at the Crook County RV Park in Prineville, where we completely cleaned the inside of the coach and emptied the holding tanks (black, gray, and fresh). Once all was clean, we filled up with 100 gallons of fresh water for our long "dry" campout. Also during those first two days, we drove the Jeep down to the Crooked River BLM Sites and found 2 nice camps to stay at over the 4th of July holiday; one large site for us and a smaller one for our friends trailer. In order to hold the sites, we pitched a tent on each one of them and paid for a couple nights to give us time to move the motorhome down there.
On Wednesday, June 25, we moved the coach down to our camp site along the Crooked River (15 miles south of Prineville) and got settled in for our 11 night stay. Since we weren’t sure if a better, bigger site would open up before our BFFs (Best Friends Forever) Rod & Lynda arrived (June 27) we only paid for their smaller site through Friday. That way we had a site for them to park their trailer when they came, but if a larger site would open up, it would also give them the opportunity to switch to it and allow room for another couple, who were due in on July 2, to park their trailer in the same site. As it turned out, that is just what happened. A huge site opened up, Rod & Lynda took it, and when Daryl and Kathy showed up, they pulled in right behind Rod & Lynda’s trailer. Once Daryl and Kathy got settled, they quickly got in our “lazy” camping mode.
This is a picture of the two trailers with Rod just relaxing.
Here is a picture of our coach with the tall mesa in the background.
We camp in a canyon just a few miles below the Bowman Dam and the Prineville Reservoir. It is a great rafting spot because the water flows pretty rapidly in some places and still has lots of calm places. Most of the river is quite shallow and full of fly fishermen (great Trout area). Where the water is swift, it can be tricky because of large boulders that we must work our way around. A few years ago, I found myself in the water after our raft “hit” one of those boulders...that was not fun! This year, we had no problems...just lots of fun. Sorry, no pictures of the rafting because I forgot the camera.
The walls of the canyon near where we camp are about 750 feet high and at times the canyon can get very windy and most always very hot. We experienced some cool to very warm nights with most of the days in the 90s. We had thunder/lightning on a couple evenings, but what rain we got was more a mist which just raised the humidity. With the many trees around camp, we managed to stay cool and comfortable.
There are many hiking trails in the canyon and some that take you to the rim and other neat spots. Once you get up on the rim, there are many OHV (off highway vehicle) roads to play on. All of us managed to partake of many activities and also just sit and enjoy the sun and water. By the way, the water is from snow melt and is very cold.
The first picture is of Rod & Lynda relaxing after a long hike up to Chimney Rock.
The next ones are views of the river from Chimney Rock.
These are shots of the river from our camp.
One morning we got up and I looked out the coach window and thought I saw Rod’s dog (JD) outside, but after looking closer, I saw it was a small buck (deer). He was just casually feeding on some greenery just off the road beside our coach. The windows on our coach are dark tinted, so he couldn’t see us, but we sure could see him. Naturally, the main camera was in the Jeep, the second one had dead batteries, so I only had my cell phone camera to work with. The pictures aren’t great, but you get an idea of what he looked like.
Notice the little guy is in velvet (antlers really fuzzy) and is just a small spike.
He didn’t stick around long because he sensed us as we were taking pictures from the inside and outside the coach.
We were having so much fun that I really forgot to take many pictures. Maybe next time I will get more.
As usual, all good things must come to an end, so we ended up coming home on July 7.
Do you all know how glorious it is to be completely out of touch with everything for 2 weeks? No TV, Cell phone, or Internet to be bothered by/with. Well, we were fortunate to experience just that.
We left Salem on June 23 and stayed two nights at the Crook County RV Park in Prineville, where we completely cleaned the inside of the coach and emptied the holding tanks (black, gray, and fresh). Once all was clean, we filled up with 100 gallons of fresh water for our long "dry" campout. Also during those first two days, we drove the Jeep down to the Crooked River BLM Sites and found 2 nice camps to stay at over the 4th of July holiday; one large site for us and a smaller one for our friends trailer. In order to hold the sites, we pitched a tent on each one of them and paid for a couple nights to give us time to move the motorhome down there.
On Wednesday, June 25, we moved the coach down to our camp site along the Crooked River (15 miles south of Prineville) and got settled in for our 11 night stay. Since we weren’t sure if a better, bigger site would open up before our BFFs (Best Friends Forever) Rod & Lynda arrived (June 27) we only paid for their smaller site through Friday. That way we had a site for them to park their trailer when they came, but if a larger site would open up, it would also give them the opportunity to switch to it and allow room for another couple, who were due in on July 2, to park their trailer in the same site. As it turned out, that is just what happened. A huge site opened up, Rod & Lynda took it, and when Daryl and Kathy showed up, they pulled in right behind Rod & Lynda’s trailer. Once Daryl and Kathy got settled, they quickly got in our “lazy” camping mode.
This is a picture of the two trailers with Rod just relaxing.
Here is a picture of our coach with the tall mesa in the background.
We camp in a canyon just a few miles below the Bowman Dam and the Prineville Reservoir. It is a great rafting spot because the water flows pretty rapidly in some places and still has lots of calm places. Most of the river is quite shallow and full of fly fishermen (great Trout area). Where the water is swift, it can be tricky because of large boulders that we must work our way around. A few years ago, I found myself in the water after our raft “hit” one of those boulders...that was not fun! This year, we had no problems...just lots of fun. Sorry, no pictures of the rafting because I forgot the camera.
The walls of the canyon near where we camp are about 750 feet high and at times the canyon can get very windy and most always very hot. We experienced some cool to very warm nights with most of the days in the 90s. We had thunder/lightning on a couple evenings, but what rain we got was more a mist which just raised the humidity. With the many trees around camp, we managed to stay cool and comfortable.
There are many hiking trails in the canyon and some that take you to the rim and other neat spots. Once you get up on the rim, there are many OHV (off highway vehicle) roads to play on. All of us managed to partake of many activities and also just sit and enjoy the sun and water. By the way, the water is from snow melt and is very cold.
The first picture is of Rod & Lynda relaxing after a long hike up to Chimney Rock.
The next ones are views of the river from Chimney Rock.
These are shots of the river from our camp.
One morning we got up and I looked out the coach window and thought I saw Rod’s dog (JD) outside, but after looking closer, I saw it was a small buck (deer). He was just casually feeding on some greenery just off the road beside our coach. The windows on our coach are dark tinted, so he couldn’t see us, but we sure could see him. Naturally, the main camera was in the Jeep, the second one had dead batteries, so I only had my cell phone camera to work with. The pictures aren’t great, but you get an idea of what he looked like.
Notice the little guy is in velvet (antlers really fuzzy) and is just a small spike.
He didn’t stick around long because he sensed us as we were taking pictures from the inside and outside the coach.
We were having so much fun that I really forgot to take many pictures. Maybe next time I will get more.
As usual, all good things must come to an end, so we ended up coming home on July 7.
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