Here we are, on the road: We head towards Bellingham, currently in Oregon

Sunday, April 26, 2009 Lorraine’s report

It’s been two weeks since I last wrote for the blog, so here goes. We survived the busy Easter weekend and Kaitlyn’s fourth birthday party at Pump It Up Jr. We were all pooped, and we sure did have one tired four year old after everything was said and done, but she did have a lot of fun.

Sunday, April 19, we went to the San Jose Swap meet. It was unseasonably warm, the temperatures were up into the mid 90’s. A bunch of records fell that weekend for the whole area. There were tons of people at the swap meet, and everything you can think of, but we didn’t buy too much, mostly looking.

Monday was a quiet day spent watching Kaitlyn; we all needed that. Mark came back from Seattle that evening.

Tuesday morning Chuck got a call from the generator place to bring the coach in, so off he went while I went up to watch Kaitlyn. He called after 10am and I went back to pick him up. Then we drove up to see some friends, Melba and Carol in Walnut Creek, CA. It was great to visit friends we met last year in South Jetty, Oregon, and then again in Las Vegas. They both looked great and they sure live in a beautiful area of CA. We enjoyed our visit with them.

We went out to dinner with Susy and Kaitlyn on Tuesday evening, then it was time to say our goodbyes. That was so hard, I cried half the way home.

To my grand daughter, Kaitlyn, I have to say I really miss seeing and watching you everyday; you bring so much love and joy to our world, and you helped NaNa get a lot better, physically. It was so hard for me to say goodbye to you and Mommy, even if it is only for a few weeks.

We are now in Canyonville, Oregon at Seven Feathers RV Park. We left the Bay area on Wednesday morning, April 22 and went up to visit our friends Bill and Jeanette. We met them at Quartzsite this year, and they went to Mexico with the group. They have some land and a beautiful home in Lincoln, just out of Sacramento. They also had room for us to park the motor home. They called our other friends, Mike and Linda and they came from their home in Auburn and met us all at Bill’s and we all went to Thunder Valley Casino for a wonderful buffet for $9.95. It was great to see everyone and catch up.

I went shopping on Thursday to their big mall, while Chuck washed the coach. That evening the four of us went to Old Sacramento to the Crab Shack to eat and walk through all the little shops, although most were closed since it was a week day evening. We had a blast visiting Jeanette and Bill. Happy Birthday Bill, hope you had a great day with your family. Thank you both for everything!!

Friday we got up early and were pulling out to leave before 9 am when the turn signals wouldn’t work. Chuck and Bill worked on them for almost an hour before they got them to work. We drove from there by Sacramento to here that day. Usually we don’t drive more than two to three hours, tops but we had our friend, Tim waiting for us here at Seven Feathers. Tim drove down from Lynden, WA by Bellingham to meet up with us.

Saturday was Tim’s birthday. We took him to dinner at the casino and had a great meal, way too much food.

Tomorrow we leave here and head farther north. I still have some shopping to do here in Oregon where there is no sales tax, so we plan on stopping at Woodburn outlet mall. From there we go on into Washington. We plan on being in Birch Bay on April 30.

We have doctor appointments, wedding arrangements to help with, fittings for the wedding, etc, plus all the visiting with family and friends, before we leave for Alaska.

So that’s it. I want to say “Happy Birthday” again to Bill and Tim. Hope you had a great day. I’m looking forward to seeing our family and friends at home again. Thank you again Bill and Jeanette for letting us stay with you.

Till next time…..Be well…..Lorraine

4/26/09 Chuck’s report

When last we wrote, we were sadly getting ready to leave Susy’s in a couple of days. We started breaking it to Kaitlyn that we were leaving in 4 – 3 - 2 days so she could be prepared to not having Nana there everyday. Talking to Susy and Mark after we left, that didn’t work as she still missed her Nana when she had to return to school on Wednesday and Thursday. And I can attest that Nana is missing Kaitlyn too, I don’t make a very good replacement I guess.

Last Sunday we went to the San Jose swap meet with Susy and Kaitlyn. The weather was unseasonable hot and set records from way back but we still had a good time. In my opinion, the Yuma swap meet is better and has better junk but there are lots of vendors here.

Monday we picked up Kaitlyn and pretty much stayed around the coach. We did do a bit of shopping but it was a day mostly for Nana and Kaitlyn to be together. Mark returned home from Seattle in the afternoon, Susy and I picked him up at the airport.

Tuesday Lorraine picked up Kaitlyn while I took the coach to the repair shop for the last of our planned work this trip. We got the coach back in the campground by noon and then took off to visit with friends of ours, Melba and Carol, in Walnut Creek. They had invited us to stay with them for a few days but we were only able to spend a couple hours visiting them. They live in a nice planned community, backed up to an open area with deer and wild turkey, very nice place you have, Melba and Carol, thanks for sharing it with us! When we got back to Susy’s, we had a nice dinner but Mark had to teach a class that evening so he couldn’t go with us. This was the last of our time with them before we left, wasn’t fun saying goodbye that night, either.

On Wednesday we finished packing up the coach, started it up and turned it until the compass pointed North, heading for Bellingham. We wanted to visit with a couple of friends and make a couple of stops along the way. So that afternoon we went to our friend’s, Bill and Jeanette, in Lincoln, what a nice place they have. They are a few miles out of town on 18 acres, a nice house, good size shop, horses for the grandkids and a full hook ups for a motorhome. That evening we met with Mike and Linda and went out to a local casino for a buffet and good conversation. We were with both of these couples in Quartzsite and Mexico and it was good to visit with them a few months later, catch up on what they had been doing and seeing what their plans were for the summer. Although it doesn’t appear we will see them again this summer, we know somewhere down the road our paths will cross once again.

Thursday turned out to be a bit cooler so I washed the coach while Lorraine went to a local mall to do some shopping. Once she got back, I washed the car too. After Jeanette got home from work, they took us down to Old Sacramento. This is an area of town they have developed for tourist, very nice. By the time we had dinner on a patio overlooking the river, it was late enough that some of the local shops were closing but we still got to experience the flavor of the area.

Friday was going to be a fairly long travel day, at least by our standards, so we wanted to get an earlier than normal start. We got up a bit earlier and things were going well, we would be on the road before 9:00. However, once I hooked up the car and while checked the lights, I noticed the left blinker and tail light didn’t work on the car. So with my assistance, Bill figured out our cord from the coach to the car wasn’t passing current through. He had another cord that he let me have, everything worked and away we went. Thanks Bill and Jeanette for letting us stay with you for two days, we will return for a longer period someday. By the way, Friday was Bill’s birthday, Happy Birthday Bill.

For the most part, the roads in California are ok but most need some work, especially in the slow lanes. A few places we were bouncing along pretty badly, even keeping at the posted 55 MPH while towing. Now of course, after washing the coach and car, it had rained during the night but the roads were fairly dry and we only ran into a couple of small rain squalls. Lorraine was on the phone for some of the time, making plans with doctors, friends and campgrounds. About 5:00 we pulled into the campground at 7 Feathers in Canyonville. We walked into the office to register and there stood our friend, Tim, who had driven down from Bellingham to spend some time with us. He had just walked into the office to ask them a question. It was good to see him but we were surprised to see him waiting for us in the office. We had a good visit before we headed over to the casino to try their buffet, it was as good as I remembered.

Lorraine likes to shop in Oregon, especially nice since there is no sales tax here. We had made plans to drive back to Medford on Saturday to the mall and a shoe store we found last year. As I have very narrow feet, it’s hard to find a place that carries shoes that fit, this place has them. Saturday was Tim’s birthday, we headed back to the casino for another birthday celebration dinner this week. Happy Birthday to Tim, too. Boy are there lots of birthdays in April for us this year.

There is a chapter of the FMCA having a rally here, the Bus Nuts. I think there are 22 coaches here, most of them are Prevost with a couple of bus conversion. They plan on leaving today after their breakfast, will be quite a sight watching them head down the road. This morning Lorraine plans on going to the indoor swimming pool they have here and I will have a couple of repairs I need to work on so guess we should get ready to start moving.

We plan on leaving here Monday morning, traveling to the outlet mall in Woodburn for a day’s adventure then pulling into the 1000 trails park in Chehalis, WA. Our plans have us pulling into Beachwood Campground on April 30th for two weeks and probably at 1000 Trails in Birch Bay for another week. I want to make sure Lorraine is getting over her liver problem before we head North and still have a couple of items to get ready for the trip. We also plan on off loading a bunch of stuff from the coach and store them in the shop, no sense in hauling stuff we don’t need up there and back. I don’t think we ever will have an empty compartment but that’s what I’m shooting for. We will probably remove our outside TV and have place for a freezer too.

So with that, I’ll add a few pictures and get this thing posted.

Kaitlyn wearing Nana’s straw hat at the swap meet. We sure miss her already and its only been 4 days.

Melba and Carol, nice folks we first met in Oregon and then again in Las Vegas.

Kaitlyn and Susy at dinner on our last night there.

Jeanette, Linda, Mike and Bill at dinner with us.

Here’s the group picture, Mike, Linda, Bill, Jeanette and Lorraine.

I thought this was a good picture of Lorraine.

Following group of pictures are just of part of our trip to here. Although we liked the desert, it sure is nice to see real trees and mountains again. Wish it was warmer however, we really got used to the weather down there.