Here we are, on the road: Why are we still in Blaine, Washington?

Sunday, September 05, 2010 Lorraine’s report

Hello again from Beachwood, in Birch Bay, WA. Well, this week was considerably slower for us, which we needed. It gave us time to do the unloading and cleaning out of the coach. We got Misty into her veterinarian and she was given a clean bill of health, plus all her needed shots for the next year.

We went to dinner with friends, Joe/Alice, Jeff/Merrily, Marshall/Dea, Julian/Kim and their children, and Bob one night to Chihuahua’s. We enjoyed seeing and visiting with all of Chuck’s old work buddies. Thank you Joe for setting this up, it was a lot of fun.

Wednesday morning I had been cleaning the upper shelves above the desk out and had wanted to reorganize them when I got a call from BIL, John. He said his friends here at Beachwood were leaving, and did we want their space, which was a 50 amp. Chuck told his yes. So I called Garth/Deen and Deen said they were leaving by 2 and we should get right over, other people were trying to take the spot.

We both had stuff all over inside and out, and it must have been a sight to see us both start throwing stuff into the cabinets, the car and packing up as fast as we could. We moved out of there in just under 40 minutes or so.

I picked up John and Chuck was right behind me in the coach; we pulled into the front of the spot where Garth/Deen had their rig, and waited for them to leave. We were fortunate to get such a prime spot, especially for this busy weekend here. Thanks John, Barth/Deen for getting us this spot.

Right now Beachwood is overloaded. Everyone who has Holiday is here from Canada, as well as a few from the states. The overflow area is packed, and people are in parking lots dry camping.

Our “weekenders” have been whooping it up until the wee hours the past couple of nights, making it hard to sleep. I sure will be happy for them to head back home, and life gets back to being quiet and simple.

One day in town, we tried to find a camera store to see what is wrong with the camera, there are no camera stores left in Bellingham, but a gal at Fred Meyer was able to help us out.

She said that since I don’t delete the pictures after I down load, and since I use an 8 gig memory card, there are too many pictures, so it overloads the system. I bought a 4 gig memory card, thus eliminating the problem.

Friday evening, my sister, Thelma and BIL, John, brought mail over for us, and stayed for a visit. We enjoyed a very nice evening with them. I know I will miss my sister when we leave; we love being together!

I spent an hour or so one afternoon trying to figure out how to make up some more of the business cards we give to new friends. It took me a while, but I made it. Richard, you would be proud of me.

Saturday afternoon was spent in the kitchen, making up food for our Labor Day party with my sister and the family today.

That’s about all for me this time. We are winding down our visit home, and I think Chuck is starting to get hitch itch, me too. Especially the day it rained so hard it set a new record for that day here in Bellingham. We want to be gone before the real rainy days come.

Until next time, I hope this finds everyone well……Lorraine

9/5/10 Chuck’s report

I think this may be the longest we’ve stayed in one area since we’ve been on the road. Not that I mind visiting with family and friends mind you, it’s just that the hitch itch is setting in pretty heavy. I’m ready to get back on the road to new places.

Last Sunday we drove our car over to Beachwood to see Rob/Norma before they headed back home, missed them by that much. Sorry we didn’t get over in time, hope we see you two down South this winter. I’ll send out a note to you two and Rick/Joy later with information about our plans.

Monday turned out to be a very nice day, in fact, I started washing the coach. It sure was dirty, I think the last time I washed the roof was back East, it’s seen lots of travel, dust, birds and trees since then. Of course, my plans were to wash the roof and one side and finish up the next day. But the weather forecast said rain on Wednesday plus Lorraine came out to help so we ended up washing the whole thing. All that was left was to do the tires/wheels and the back mud flap, something I could do in a short while on some later day.

Later we met with some ex-coworkers for dinner. It was fun to see Joe/Alice, Marshall/Dea, Jeff/Merrily, Julian/Kim and their children and Bob once again. There was plenty of talking and laughing going on along with the good Mexican food.

Tuesday we took Misty to the vet for a checkup, no problems found. The vet did give us some antibiotic pills for her as she might have caught the bug once again. Sure enough, after two days on the pills, she seems better once again. She also got her shots updated, good for another three years.

We stopped by Lowes to pick up some stain for the decks at our house, the renters told us if we supplied the stain, they would change out a couple of rotting boards and stain the decks this year, good deal for both of us. We also stopped by a Wal-Mart and Costco, both were too busy for me.

Wednesday morning Lorraine started cleaning out more cupboards. I tried to help by taking everything out and putting everything on the table, countertop and any other flat surface available. Then just as the clock struck 12:00 I got a phone call from my BIL, John. Seems our mutual friends at Beachwood, Garth/Deen, were leaving earlier than expected and wanted to know if we wanted their site when they left. They had one of the premier sites, bigger and serviced with 50 amps. It took us all of 10 seconds to decide we would move over there. They also said there was a different couple that wanted it and we would need to be waiting when they pulled out or we might not get it. Plus, with the long, holiday weekend coming up, it was doubtful we could get a spot until after the holiday.

So it was a mad rush to put stuff away for the 5 mile trip. I still had all the outside stuff plus all the utilities were still hooked up. Lorraine had all the stuff from the the cupboards plus all the normal things she had to put away before every move. But we had everything ready in less than an hour, Lorraine drove the car over to pick up John and I drove the coach over to Beachwood. We got there in time (read that before the other couple got in line) to get in line to get Garth’s spot when they pulled out. We did get a chance to visit with them so might have slowed them down a bit too, ha.

We said our “See you laters” to them as they pulled away and then backed into our site and got set up. Thanks once again to John for getting us into the park for another two weeks and in one of the best sites too. We left 1000 Trails in such a hurry I didn’t even take time to check out and get a refund for the days we had paid for and wouldn’t be using. So later I went over and checked out, just to make sure they knew we were out and to get our refund.

Thursday Lorraine started once again trying to go through the cupboards and divest ourselves of some stuff. This time she was able to finish without having to put everything back in a hurry. We found some out of date food we didn’t trust so got rid of that too. I think we only have a couple more hours to finish up going through all our storage spaces while we are here. Boy is it true, nature abhors a vacuum! If there is an empty space, it doesn’t stay empty very long, be that here in the motorhome or in our sticks and brick home. But we were able to get rid of some stuff and organized a little better.

Later we went to town to get gas in the car, the dash light was showing low fuel. We then took the stain over to our house for the renters. We actually met both of the renters for the first time, they’ve lived there for about 18 months and I’ve met the husband but never the wife. While we were there, we also put more stuff in the shop for storage. Someday we will have to go through all the “stuff” we have stored there, most of it will be given away as we’ve found we can live very well without it, thank you very much. But it will be a big job, not something that will be done in a day or two, that’s for sure. Anyone want to buy a 1968 Cougar XR7?

Friday we went to town to keep our appointment with our financial advisor, Jamie. Nothing much to say about that visit, we are still on track to spend all our money while we still can, ha. We went over our investments and decided to leave everything pretty much as it was. Afterwards we just took it easy, watched a movie on TV. We were pleasantly surprised to have John/Thelma come over in the evening for a visit. We had our monthly mail delivery sent to their house and they brought it over too us, thanks.

Saturday was the start of college football and I was able to watch a couple of games while Lorraine was fixing some food for our dinner over at John/Thelma’s later today. We both were able to watch the Washington Huskies play BYU, a bad outcome for the Huskies however. Plus their quarterback from here in Ferndale is trying to “run” for the Heisman trophy award as the best college player in the country and he didn’t have an extraordinary game. But that’s only the first game, hope to see/hear better from them as the season progresses.

After the game, Lorraine wanted to go to the casino for an hour or so. We happened to see our friends Raymond/Barb there. They told us they are planning to come back to Beachwood on Thursday for the weekend so we will be able to visit with them some more before we leave. And while we were at the casino, Lorraine got on a winning streak and won more than I lost, good deal.

This morning I got up and proceeded to follow my normal routine, walk Misty then get on the computer for awhile. When Lorraine came out, she asked if I had finished our blog yet, Oh no, today is Sunday, I hadn’t even started it. So while Lorraine wrote her portion, I’ve been working on mine too. This time I am the reason it didn’t get posted very early.

The weather has certainly changed lately, fall is starting so show up in a couple of ways. The tree leaves are showing a bit of color, some are falling already too and the nights are getting cooler. We’ve actually turned the heat pump on twice this week in the morning to take the chill off. And the forecasters are saying more rain today/tomorrow with the highs only getting to the 60s. I’m hoping this isn’t the start of the fall rains as we want to be out of here before they start.

We still don’t have a set schedule for when we will leave here. At this time, we think we will probably spend another week here and leave the following week. By the time we leave here in mid-September, we will have been here almost 7 weeks. As I said earlier, the hitch itch is already setting in, I’m ready to get back on the road.

I’m still not sure what is wrong with my computer but it is still hard to add pictures. As luck would have it, Lorraine didn’t take too many pictures this week anyway so I will add a couple then get this posted.

At dinner with L to R, Bob, Marshall, Dea. Kim and Julian with the sun in his face.