Summer 2011

May:

After getting back from the Panama Canal Cruise we started preparing for departure. We had new park managers arrive and we helped them unload their truck and move in two spaces down from ours. We were all invited to a get acquainted party to meet them and the parties seemed to keep coming every week. We decided to stay until after a “Monsoon Meeting" they had arranged on May 18th.

We left on May 20th and stopped in Las Vegas for a few nights. We got tickets for Mystère Cirque du Soleil at the same-day discount outlet and got very good seats. It is amazing what those performers can do….I thinks it’s all done with smoke and mirrors!

We decided on a different way home from Vegas. We had heard that Hwy 93 through eastern Nevada was a good level road. So we went that way and it was a nice change from the freeway. We stopped in Ely and had a monstrous thunder-lighting-rain storm that night. And discovered a leak in the roof that was dripping down through the TV compartment. We removed the TV to check it out but couldn’t determine where the leak was coming from. Consequently we took the front TV out for the rest of the trip and just watched the one in the bedroom. Other stops on the way home included Nampa, ID, Memaloose State Park, OR to visit brother Richard, and then on to the Salem Elks.

June:

One of the first activities this summer was to attend Sue Stose’s surprise 60th birthday party. The time was even a surprise to Tom who had arranged it. He couldn’t figure out why everybody was arriving so early….until he check the invitation and found out it said 11:00 rather than 1:00 that he thought he had put on it….Surprise! We saw many of our old sailing buddies at the party and had a great time.


RV TV Remodel

 One of the things we wanted to do this summer was to put in a new flat screen TV in the front. We had seen another RV exactly like our last fall that had put one over the entrance way rather than in the middle, and turned the old TV cabinet into storage. We took pictures into some RV remodelers in Woodland, WA and they said it would be easy and cheaper than a complete remodel. And they had the 32” TV right there. They got to it that same week and only took one day to install the TV and put a shelf in the old TV cabinet.




Backpacking Eagle Cap Wilderness

The next activity was dinner with the Dickstons, Doug and Peggy, our neighbors in West Linn. We hadn’t seen them since we moved away and decided it was time. During the winter, I had scanned 8 years of slides into digital pictures from weeklong backpacking trips Doug and I took when we live there. I put them into a DVD slide show and gave them to him. The slides were a little faded after being stored for 20 years, but he enjoyed them.


July:


Mulligan - McQuire Concert


To our surprise, a singer that we followed in Mexico, Mark Mulligan, was doing a back yard concert in Dallas, OR with another singer, Kelly McQuire. We signed up right way and got tickets for Tom and Sue Stose as well. They had followed him in San Diego and San Carlos too. The weather was perfect, the setting magnificent, and the entertainment superb. Although we like Mark’s singing style, we were pleasently surprised at Kelly McQuire’s performance. We obviously got some of their newer CD’s.

Other activities this month included Kim Taylor’s 50th birthday party, a long time Sauvie Island Yacht Club friend and Mexico Cruiser. It was held at the old SIYC picnic site on Sauvie Island, called Parker’s Landing. Again, we saw and caught up with a lot of our cruising friends. On a more somber note, we attended a “Celebration of Life” for the passing of a fellow cruising friend, Ken Gregory at Ken and Gail’s house in Battleground, WA. It was a celebration!

For our “bucket list” this summer, we decided to spend a couple nights at the Wolf Creek Inn between Roseburg and Grants Pass. We have always zoomed past on the freeway and always wanted to stop and spend some time there. The weekend we chose was during their first annual crawfish feed. It is a wonderful old inn, and the oldest continuous use hotel in the state of Oregon, that has seen many a movie star spend the night there. In fact, one room is called the Clark Gable suit, and other stars included, Mary Pickford, Robert Redford, and even Jack London stayed there while finishing one of his books. We thoroughly enjoyed the stay, but may miss the crawdad feed next year…just too much work!

Grave Creek Covered Bridge

While staying at the Inn, we made a little side trip to the old mining ghost town of Golden and explored some of the old buildings. We also went to Grave Creek and took a picture of one of the last remaining covered bridges you can drive through.
At the end of July, we traveled to Long Beach, WA in the RV to visit Pat and Susan Caniff, long time cruising friends. Although I had recently started an activity called Geocaching (finding a container with a logbook via a GPS), they introduced us to Letterboxing. This activity is similar, but there is a hand carved stamp in the box with the logbook, and you have a personal stamp and logbook. When you find the box, via some clues at Atlasquest.com, you stamp their logbook, date it, and sign it with your “trail name” (ours is Jolly Mon). So in the end, you have a logbook of all the stamps you’ve collected. This was much more fun that Geocaching, and took over all our spare time. In the first two months of Letterboxing we logged over 100 each month….what spare time! We continually thank Pat and Susan. Now whenever we go somewhere, we query altasquest for that location and find some more Letterboxes.


August:


Letterboxing @ Mission Mill Musuem



Twin Tunnels Columbia River Hike

 We did a lot of Letterboxing in the Salem area this month and found places that we didn’t even know existed. And some of the places we became very familiar with. Then we headed up to Hood River for a couple days to take the Mt. Hood Railroad train up to Parkdale. We also walked the 5 mile Twin Tunnels section of the old Historic Columbia River Highway between Mosier and Hood River. We had done the train ride before, but quite awhile ago and only went as far as a park beyond Odell.

Visiting Ray & Carol Rogers, Victoria B.C.

Later this month, we left Salem Elks with the RV and attended the annual Cruisers Rally in Cathlamet, WA. Again, we saw plenty of cruising friends and traded stories. When we left Cathlamet, we drove to Mt. Vernon, WA and put the RV up at the Elks there. Then drove the car to the San Juan Ferry, rode the ferry over to Sidney as passengers, and spent a few days with Apache Wells friends Ray and Carol Rogers at their home in Victoria, BC. We had a lot of fun as they chauffeured us around their old stomping grounds and had wonderful meals prepared by their chef-of-a-daughter, Wendy.
When we returned we visited friends Bud and Lisa Root on Whidbey Island and showed them what Letterboxing was all about. We spent a few more days in Mt. Vernon……yep, Letterboxing! One day we set a new record with 18 boxes for day. However, this activity can be hazard to your health. In the Salem area, we got into stinging nettles, blackberry vines, and burrs. In the Mt. Vernon area, we were looking under a log, moving brush out of the way, when we disturbed a hornets nest. I was stung twice and Molly got stung once.

September:



Mt. Howard Tram, Wallowa Lake

 This month we took the RV to Wallowa Lake for four days with Pat and Susan Caniff, Tom and Sue Stose, and Wayne and Glenda Irwin met us there and stayed with Tom and Sue. Molly and I had been there two other times, but we had just missed the tram ride up to the top of Mt. Howard both times. So with four days allotted, we all wanted to ride to the top….of course there were several Letterboxes up there too! In addition we drove to Hat Point over-looking Hells Canyon on the Snake River. Something else we’ve always wanted to do, but the road is 25 miles of wash-boards and dust. Susan planted a new Letterbox up there and we all had to follow her clues to find it.

After leaving Wallowa Lake, Pat and Susan and us, drove back to Bend and stayed with Herm and Nancy in day-use area they were hosting, but they had arranged for us to dry-camp there in the RV. Susan planted another Letterbox on Pilot Butte.

Happy parents at daughter's wedding, Craig & Rene Jones

Another reason we went to Bend was to go to a wedding. Our West Linn next door neighbor’s daughter was getting married. The last time we saw her, and them, she was a very little girl. We were flabbergasted when we got the notice. It was just great to see Craig and Rene again, and they were beside themselves that we attended. We were apparently one of the first ones to confirm our attendance, and during Craig’s toast to his daughter, Joycelyn, and her new husband, he made reference to all the people that came including “our first neighbors in our first house right after we got married, Brent and Molly”. It was a great get-together and party.

Just before we left the Portland area for our trip back to Mesa, we had a new braking system put on car for our RV. It was a real hassle to put the Brake Buddy in all the time and lash it to the brake pedal. Now, it’s built in and works off the brake lights of the RV. When they are activated, the brake in the car is activated automatically.  There is nothing to connect other than one small plug when connecting the normal towing lights.

We traveled back to Mesa via Idaho, Utah, and Nevada, Letterboxing along the way in Boise, Ogden (stayed at Willard St Pk), Beaver, UT, and Las Vegas. While in Vegas, we got same-day discount tickets in the front row again for The Lion King performance. The music was great, the performance pretty good, and costumes were something else.

October:

Then it was on to Mesa, get the RV unpacked, cleaned up, and stored away at Mesa Regal, another Cal-Am park close by. Molly didn’t have too much time to get climatized. She just had time to pack for a flight back to Oregon for a quilting camp in the Cascades with sister JoAnn. That left me with a major jobs list of cleaning and organizing the place here. A small price to pay, knowing she is having fun with family doing what she likes doing.