Summer and Fall 2009

This is a long-time-coming update to our blog for the Summer and Fall of 2009 by date. Enjoy!


June 2-6: Molly flew to LA for grand-daughter Megan’s High School graduation in Thousand Oaks and a visit with Lynda. For her graduation present, Molly made Megan a beautiful quilt that she had been working on for quite a while. It was full of bright colors and she really enjoyed it.

June 6: While Molly was in LA, I went to the Sauvie Island Yacht Club picnic in Scappoose. It was good to see all the old gang again, even though we don’t have a boat anymore. They are initiating a new membership, however, for those who have sold their cruising boats. It’s good to still belong!

June 18: One of the first thing we did when we got back was to have dinner with Carrie and Mark and his son. Carrie has moved out of her apartment and in with Mark. They are waiting until the kids get out of school for any future plans. At dinner I met a high school chum, Roger Rimers, and had a good chat and reminiscing about our other classmates. We said we should get everybody that’s local together for a mini reunion. It seems like we are starting to loose some of them.

June 22 – 26: We had a great opportunity to RV to Bullards Beach State Park in Bandon with Tom & Sue Stose, Pat & Susan Caniff, and Tom & Cathy Edwards, to visit Tom & Sue’s RV friends that were hosts at the Bandon Lighthouse this summer. Good time had by all! Then we motored up the 101 to South Beach, Newport for a few days and visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium before heading back to Salem.

July 10 – 12: Molly & JoAnn went to Sisters, Oregon for the annual Quilt Show there. They drove over to Bend and stayed with MaryAnn and family. While there, they met up with JoAnn’s friend Susie Irwin to catch up on things. The quilt show was another very crowed event but the quilts were something to see.

July 16 – August 9: When I was informed that the new Desert Belle had arrived at Saguaro Lake, I flew to Mesa to work on it for while. I stayed in our park-model and boat-owner David lent me his car for the month. The temps were bouncing around 113-114 for the highs. I called Molly everyday and one day when the temperature only 107, she didn’t have any sympathy for me, because it was 107 in Salem that day too. For the next month I did quite a bit of work from painting, and cleaning, to ordering and picking up new carpet and linoleum. When almost complete we took it out for sea trials and finally took our first passengers out on August 8th. By then I had had enough of the heat and work, so flew home on the 9th and let the local captain take it from there. That’s when I’ll take the helm again at the start of the Fall season in October.

July 28: Molly signed up to Face Book this summer and made contact with several high school chums. We made arrangements with one of her friends Pat Short and her husband in Vancouver, WA for lunch to catch up on old times. Isn’t the internet great!

August 11: Grand-daughters Megan and Brianna came for a visit this summer all by themselves. We picked them up at the Portland Airport, but they stayed with Aunt JoAnn because she had more room and their cousin Karen was also visiting at the time. But they were close and we did quite a bit with them while they were here.

September 3: We found out that the "check engine" light on the Toyota was going to run into much more money than we were willing to put back into the car…again, so we started looking for another Rav 4 or a Honda CRV. Finally bought a 2 year old CRV in Salem with only 12,000 miles on it. The two criteria for the new car were, it had to be towable behind the RV, and any color but black (since both of our last two cars were black and not compatible with Arizona sun). We had a hitch put on it as part of the bargain so we could tow a trailer to Mesa, AZ.

September 8-9: We made a trip to Rockaway to visit friends Bud & Lisa Root at their time-share. We had great outings for eating, shopping, and just hanging around catching up. And this was the first trip in the new car.

September 17-18: Our Apache Wells friends Jim and Char from Wisconsin made a surprise visit to the Northwest. They called and we made arrangements to meet them in Portland. We spent a few days with them showing them the best Oregon had to offer for the newcomers who had never been here before. We stayed in an inn near the airport and on the first day of their visit we took them up the Columbia River Gorge scenic highway to Crown Point, Multnomah Falls, Bonneville Dam, up to Hood River, and around Mt. Hood with a stop at Timberline Lodge. The next day we took them to the Oregon coast at Cannon Beach for a bit of shopping and on to Seaside and Astoria with a visit to the Astor Column and a ride on the trolley. Then we made a quick trip back up the Columbia River to Portland. It was great seeing them and having them contact us during their vacation.

September 23: We decided to leave the RV in Salem this winter since we bought the park-model in Apache Wells RV Resort last year. There didn’t seem to be any reason to drive it down and spend all that money for fuel. Molly wanted a washer and dryer put in the park-model this fall, so we decided to buy it in Oregon with no sales tax, clear out our storage unit, and take most of it to Mesa in a U-Haul trailer. It took us only three days going very slow with the new car pulling the trailer at its maximum load.

We arrived in Mesa Sept. 25, unloaded the trailer, but couldn’t put anything away because we were having some remodeling done in the Arizona Room for the washer and dryer. They needed to get into the attached shed for plumbing, so I had to take everything out of there too. The carport was stacked with several rows of boxes and shelves. What was estimated to be a three-day remodel job, turned into a week and a half. We just kept coming up with "one-more-thing" as long as you’re here. But the final job was just what we wanted. It got done just in time for Molly to wash clothes for her trip the next day back to Oregon.

October 15 – 22: Molly flew back to Oregon to go to a quilt retreat up in the Cascades with sister JoAnn. So she missed putting all the boxes away in the storage shed and in every little hidey-whole after the remodel. All this while I was captaining the new boat on Saguaro Lake. But she had a great retreat and we wouldn’t want her to miss that.

October 23 – 29: Sister Jodene finally came to visit us here in Mesa the day after Molly got back from the quilting retreat. She wanted to see the place and go for a ride on the new Desert Belle. We showed her the area, took her to our favorite restaurants, and it appears she had a good time. She was the first one to stay in the newly remodeled Arizona Room.

November 8 – 12: Right after Jodene left, we got ready to fly to Las Vegas for our 35th anniversary. Tom & Sue Stose were flying in from Portland to share their 40th anniversary with us. Their anniversary is on Nov. 8th, and ours is on the 9th, so we have shared that event with them on several occasions in Portland and in Mexico. The first night we got there we went to see the finalists of the "America’s Got Talent" TV show. Then the next night we had tickets for "Jersey Boys". Molly & I had seen the show in Phoenix last year, but had horrible seats. So we were thrilled to see it again and enjoy it with good friends. Again, the show was superb! Tom wasn’t feeling all that great after a cold, so we had plenty of time to just lay back and enjoy a luxurious room in the brand new Trump International tower.