Here we are, on the road: We’re at Lake Tyee and have changed our plans -

Sunday, September 20, 09 Lorraine’s report

Well, we left Bellingham, Tuesday and came to visit our friends, Sandy and Steve here at Lake Tyee, near Concrete, WA. We are staying on Andrea’s lot. Andrea is a friend of Steve and Sandy. Thank you Andrea and Steve and Sandy for letting us stay with you for a few days. We got here and decided to stay for another day; then another, and we will be here for five days, we’ve enjoyed our time with Steve/Sandy.

I got a call from Dorothy on Tuesday afternoon. They had made it to Beachwood in Birch Bay. She wanted to see us; I had to tell her we had just left Birch Bay; we were 40 miles or so away. We made plans to meet on Wednesday at 11 am at Camping World in Burlington.

Wednesday, we got up and Steve/Sandy and Chuck and I took off to meet up with Tom/Dorothy and to run some errands. It was great to see that Tom/Dorothy had finally made it out of Dease Lake, BC, had gone to Stewart to see the bears, (they saw some bears), and that the motor home was fixed. They had no other problems and were anxious to get home. They hoped to be home by this weekend or Monday. After meeting with them, we all had errands to run, which we did. I even got my flu shot at Walgreens.

Thursday, we went to the Puyallup Fair, it’s the biggest fair in Washington. We had fun, saw lots of stuff, ate lots of junk food and enjoyed the small crowds and great weather.

Friday Chuck took the Outlook into the dealer for an oil change and to have the sun roof leak fixed, and the undercarriage checked for any damage from the roads on our Alaska trip. He came back with a rental car; they needed to repair the leak and had to get a new fuse box put in since the leak ruined the old one.

Friday night we went to Swinomish Casino for the Seafood Buffet. There was seven of us and Chuck told them that we were celebrating our 37^th wedding anniversary which is on Tuesday, Sept 22. That buffet was wonderful, especially since we had $10.00 off coupons.

Saturday we stayed home, I did the wash and Chuck worked on the coach. We then watched football and saw the Washington Huskies beat USC. After the game, we went into Burlington and picked up the car. We then had dinner with Steve/Sandy. I should say that Steve/Sandy are planning to go with us to either the WA of Oregon coast for a week, and that Sandy has been busy going through stuff she brought from her home, so we could take this trip with them.

We decided that we would not be going to the beet harvest in Minnesota, since it is so far, diesel is still pretty high, and we aren’t sure if we’d make enough to cover our expenses.

That’s it for another week. So until next time, take care…..Lorraine

Sunday 9/20/09 Chuck’s report

My, were does the time go? Here it is late September already! It sure doesn’t seem like we’ve been in this area for three weeks now. One nice thing about around here, we get to watch the Seattle Seahawks and Washington Huskies football teams play on TV. Both teams were bad last year but seem to be getting better this year with both teams getting new coaches. I don’t expect either to win championships or anything but it is nice to see them doing better.

We are at Lake Tyee in a private resort in which our friends, Steve/Sandy, own a lot. This place is somewhat off the beaten track, very quiet yet we can get satellite TV and cell phone service from here, pretty nice. Lorraine’s sister used to own a lot up here years ago and we came up to spend the weekend with them a time or two back then. We are staying on a lot one of Steve/Sandy’s friend owns and plan to leave tomorrow, Monday.

Last week we went to the Silver Reef for Monday night football and some slots. I watched the game, Lorraine took care of the slots, ha. They have free hot dogs during the game, a giant screen and cheap beer, what more could you want?

Tuesday we headed up here to Lake Tyee, it was good to see our friends once again. We actually met them in Red Bay, Alabama two years ago and we’ve managed to get together in Quartzsite and here.

Lorraine got a call from our friends, Tom/Dorothy in the afternoon. They traveled to Alaska with us, had a rock go through their radiator in Dease Lake, British Columbia and had to stay there for the repairs. Well, they finally got back on the road and were in Birch Bay, where we left the day before, bummer. Anyway, we made plans to see them the next day in Mount Vernon at Camping World. They are making a bee line for home, they actually left Desert Hot Springs, California in April. They traveled to Branson, Missouri for a rally, to South Dakota for new driver’s licenses. met up with Mark/Sue and traveled to Dawson Creek where they met up with us on our Alaska trip. They aren’t full timers but sure have been in their motorhome for a long time.

It was good to see them, although for a short time. They were in Dease Lake for two weeks, had to have their radiator completely rebuilt vs. repaired. There wasn’t much to do in the little town of Dease Lake but they made the best of it, listened to the one and only radio station they could get, watched the DVD’s they had and read their books. They were sure glad to get on the road and head for home though.

On Thursday Steve/Sandy and us went to the Puyallup Fair which is about 3 hours away. Steve and Sandy’s daughter agreed to watch the our dogs so that really helped out. We left about 8 am and didn’t get back until after 10 pm, a long day. It seems we picked a good day, lots of sunshine but the attendance was the lowest day of the fair so far so the crowds weren’t too bad. We had a good day there, saw the animals, ate “fair food” enjoyed the vendors selling their “as seen on TV” wares and had a good time visiting with our friends on the car trip.

Friday I took our car to the dealer where we purchased it. This spring they did a recall on it for a possible water leak. We didn’t have a water leak at the time, they did the recall and away we went. However, once we got into heavy rains in Alaska, we developed a water leak, sometimes a bad one. Anyway, I took the car back, they found the problem and also found that water had been running down into the fuse block, causing it to rust. They had to replace the whole fuse block. Of course, they didn’t have one, had to order it. Lucky for us, they got it delivered and changed out on Saturday so we have our car back once again.

And now for the above mentioned change in plans. Last winter while we were in Quartzsite, we talked to some folks about working the sugar beet harvest in North Dakota. The local farmers like to hire RVers to help with the harvest. The season starts in late September and usually lasts for ~ three weeks. We would be working 12 hour days, 7 days/week with overtime paid for anything over 8 hours/day. According to Yahoo maps, we are about 1600 miles away there. I found out last week we have to be back here on November 9th so that would mean a round trip of over 3200 miles just to be able to work three weeks. After putting pencil to paper, it just didn’t make sense to go there for this job so we’ve turned it down. We were planning on working there with Mark/Sue so we won’t be seeing our friends, bummer. We also won’t be seeing our friends Dave and Sandy who are in Minnesota, another big bummer. We know we will see you down the road, just don’t know when or where.

Seeing as how we don’t need to take off for North Dakota, we talked Steve and Sandy into going to the Washington and Oregon coast with us for a week. We plan on leaving here tomorrow (Monday) with no set itinerary, just know that we will be traveling down the coast. According to the weather forecast, it is supposed to be nice, warm weather for most of the week. Steve and Sandy will be returning back here until Thanksgiving but we will continue exploring Oregon until we have to return in early November for our appointment. We still plan on spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with our daughter, son-in-law and grand daughter in California before we head East for the winter.

So that was our week and a peek at our week ahead. It has been nice to slow down for the last three weeks, we got rested up and got the coach and car ready to travel again. I think we both are getting hitch-itch, in other words, we are ready to get on the road and see more sights.

And now for some pictures.

Our travels through British Columbia