Rocky Point – Page 11 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

View out my window today

I have another follower! It’s so much fun to follow the wonderful conversations out there in blogland, especially those that have some link to the amazing world of RV life. Welcome! to Jeana, from the Seattle area. Right now she is flying off to Tucson to find some sunshine and after spending a very large chunk of my life in the northwest, I know how that feels!

Today I am working at home, a much nicer locale than the office in town with it’s dim, fluorescent lights. The cat is curled up in his favorite place while I am working. Can you tell that is a cat in there? I am in my pajamas, and at the moment it is lunchtime. Looking out my window I see huge pines and firs, and deep snow. Mo is again out trying to plow the deep, slushy stuff that is the result of warming temperatures. I’m having lunch, taking a break, and thinking about my upcoming trip to Florida. I am partly excited, and partly not so much. Flying isn’t what it used to be, and from what I have been reading lately, might be even less fun during this holiday season. Cheap fares seem to require several flight legs, and the old days where I could jump on a plane in Spokane and fly directly to Orlando are long gone. This time I will board in Medford just after 8am, and after three jumps, will land in Orlando at 10 PM. Ocala is still a good 90 minute drive from Orlando, so I will probably be lucky to get in at midnight after picking up the rental car. The trip home a week later will be even worse, with stops in Cincinnati and Salt Lake before finally arriving at Medford, again just before midnight. Big Sigh, the price of a cheap ticket.

Did you know that it’s not really ‘cool’ to love Florida if you are a Westerner? I think many of us out west think of Florida as that strange, flat place epitomized in Miami Vice, full of fast cars, fast boats, pastel high rises, and way too many people. I used to think that way, of course I had no experience with the state at all. In 2000, a very dear friend of mine went back to Florida to care for her elderly parents. During the first few years after she left, I traveled to Ocala several times to help her deal with all the logistics required, and I found out that Florida wasn’t anything like I imagined. I fell in love. I fell in love with skies that swirl in circles with big puffy white clouds, with rain that fell so hard you had to pull over to the roadside and then blink into brilliant hot sunlight minutes later. I fell in love with north central Florida, that world between the Emerald Coast and Gainesville, south to Ocala, on the limestone backbone of the state. I fell in love with the most gorgeous horse country in the US, with miles of black rail fences and grand estates. I fell in love with palms and oaks and pines in the same forest, with palmetto understory filled with snakes and alligators, with giant grasshoppers that looked like some sort of Technicolor cartoon, with springs so crystal clear you can see the gar 200 feet down among the swirling eelgrass. Yes, parts of Florida are horrendous, but the north-central limestone spine and the magical isolated northeast coast from Apalachicola to St Petersburg are an amazing wonderland of complex wilderness and beauty.

More storms are predicted here for the next few days, although it seems that it will bring lots of wind and rain to much of the area, and maybe not so much snow as we have had recently. The skies are becoming more gray by the minute, and the thought of velvet, warm Florida air is so seductive. Who knows, some of the bloggers that I follow down in the south say things aren’t really that warm and velvety right now, and my friend Bel sent a little text note saying, “Bring mittens”. Hmmm. I’m trying the carry-on only way of traveling this time as well, so we will see how that works out! If it’s really that cold, I think I will have to wear lots of layers on the plane. That could get interesting at the security checks. How many jackets and shirts, and scarves can I take off quickly while I am trying to get my shoes off and my computer out of my backpack? I’ll let you know.

Someone recently asked what what I was knitting, so here’s a shot of it. I bought this hand-dyed wool, thick and thin yarn in Silverton, Oregon when we camped near there last spring. There are so many sweet little yarn shops desperately trying to stay in business in these small towns, some of them truly wonderful. It requires that we take the time to purchase our goods directly from these little shops if we want to enjoy all they offer. I know how easy it is to buy online, but when traveling I always try to buy something special at the local yarn shop. I am a fairly new knitter, maybe the last 5 years or so, and sometimes I miss things I shouldn’t. In this case, the two skeins of very special hand dyed yarn looked identical until yesterday, when the bright light of day revealed that they weren’t exactly alike after all. So my project is now a bit weird, with one end of the scarf just enough different than the other end to look off. Sigh. I think my sister won’t mind too much, since she took one look at the hat at Thanksgiving and said, “I want that!” Hmmm. I hadn’t planned on giving it away, but how many wonderful yarn things do I really need anyway. Awful person that I am, the imperfection makes it a bit easier to give up.

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving celebration turned out a bit smaller than planned, due partly to weather and the long miles between Portland and Klamath Falls. My eldest daughter and her sweetie didn’t make it this far south, and I missed her. However, my youngest daughter living in Klamath Falls came with my granddaughter Hillary and their new exchange student from Thailand, Kwankae. The man behind the camera is Melody’s long-suffering husband, Kevin. My sweet little grandson had to do the court ordered thing and spend the holiday with his father in Portland. Families can certainly get complicated, can’t they!

With horrendous icy road conditions, my sister was afraid to drive out to Rocky Point in her 2 wheel drive vehicle, so Mo made the trip to town twice to pick up Sally and my niece Savannah and return them late in the evening. That amounted to about 4 hours of icy driving, but Mo felt it was worth it to get Sally and Savannah to our home for the celebration. Thankful. I am just really thankful for so very much.

Just a little aside here: My sister and I share the same mother, she died when we were small children, and we were separated. I didn’t find her until 36 years later. Sally lived in many parts of the country before coming to live with me in Klamath Falls in 2003. After a year, she moved out on her own, making her own life and focusing on raising her fantastic, talented daughter Savannah. Of course, sisterhood isn’t without flaws, especially since we didn’t grow up together and came from such different backgrounds. For 36 years I didn’t have a sister, and now I do.

I had fun spending most of Wednesday cooking all that I could do early so Thursday morning was a breeze. Woke up too dang early, though, probably just excited, but at least I was awake in time to get the 20 pound turkey stuffed and in the oven before 8. Got a comment from a friend about our Thanksgiving table…not yet piled with food. Usually I forget to get the photo before dinner and then it’s too late after dinner and all the food is all messy looking. This time I forgot to take a photo of the food! LOL Here’s one of everything on the counter where we filled our plate. Turkey, old fashioned bread dressing with onion, celery, and tons of sage, mashers, gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, southern sherry glazed yams with pecans, fruit salad, that silly green lime jello thingy (for old time’s sake), and 4 kinds of pie for dessert. The daughter that couldn’t make it had our traditional cream cheese veggies with her, so we didn’t have them this year. Somehow the plates were completely full anyway, even if two chairs were not.

Mid-afternoon, with the sun shining and making the frigid air seem a bit less daunting, we all bundled up to go outside and try out the new Costco sled I picked up the other day. Of course, Mo’s antique sled with runners, a real one, did much better in the snow and the three teenagers had a good time laughing and falling and playing in the snow. They were great sports, no complaints at all about the weather, the cold, or Grandma’s silly plastic sled.

Just for fun, here is a photo of the last time I had Thanksgiving for my family. A few more managed to get to Klamath back then in 2003, and it wasn’t easy then either. Thanksgiving has always been special to me, it’s the holiday that is specifically for family, without any other agenda, and I love that about it. Well, of course, there is the food part, but without family that would be irrelevant.

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Melody is in the front row with my grandson on her lap, Hillary and Savannah have changed a bit in seven years, I think. I am on the right, next to my first-born daughter, my sister next to her, my two grandsons in the rear (both now Iraq veterans), my middle daughter next to her husband holding my first great grandchild and a step granddaughter. These family pictures track the history for us, the changes in family dynamics, where everyone has been, where we are going perhaps. Yes, it’s a bit nostalgic, and yes, so very much fun, and yes yes yes, I am grateful for my family.

Heck of an early winter here

Nice to have a new follower, I am always amazed when that happens. Thank you. Barry and Linda are talking about boondocking sites, always an interesting subject.

The guest cabin is getting buried!

Although for the last few days I haven’t been spending much time reading. Every morning I have shoveled 2 to 4 inches of snow from the driveway, enjoying it actually, until today when we had more than a foot dumped on us overnight. It seemed like a little bit too much, I had nowhere to throw it and it’s only November. Mo tried to start up the snow blower to finish the job, but it wouldn’t go, so I shoveled and she plowed and after about 3 hours we had the driveway and road passable. This big storm has rampaged across the northwest, leaving snow in Victoria, ice in Bellingham, and wreaking general havoc on roads and highways all over the place. We knew it was coming, but the predicted temperatures tomorrow are below zero, and that’s Fahrenheit, not Celsius! The wind blew hard all night and covered the wide front and back porches with hard, icy snow that I couldn’t scrape off no matter how hard I tried. I think I am ready for a break already. Yeah, I know it’s only November.

I’ll be off to visit a friend in Florida for a week in early December while Mo keeps the home fires burning and the road plowed. The day I return, we are jumping in the Tracker and going to pick up the MoHo in Redding and find some sunshine in Desert Hot Springs for Christmas week. Whew! I am having Thanksgiving this year, so there will be some good family time there, and told my Klamath daughter and grandkids that I would celebrate a late Christmas with them when we return.

The road to Medford on the way to Costco

The road home from Medford. Class A with no chains??

Yesterday Mo and I decided to make a Costco run. For us, that is a 45 mile drive to Medford, over the pass on Highway 140, past Lake of the Woods and down the Crater Lake Highway. It’s usually a beautiful drive and we can be at the Costco parking lot in less than an hour. Not so yesterday. After our morning snow exercises, we left around ten and the storm was already coming on fairly strong. By the time we left Medford and headed back east, it was in full force, with many sliders and slow vehicles trying to get over the pass. I was especially surprised by the big Class A motorhome stranded on the pass trying to get out the the Basin. I have no clue why someone would attempt to drive a big rig like that over a stormy, snowy pass, with chains required signs everywhere, but with no chains.

Today we had to go the opposite direction, again after morning snow exercises and on another snowy, icy road. I ordered a free range organic fresh turkey from Howard’s Meats in Klamath Falls and of course needed to do the rest of the Thanksgiving shopping there as well. On the way home, we saw that Klamath Lake is beginning to freeze already, and there are still hundreds of ducks in the bay, and even some Canada geese. Tonight that little bit of open water is going to close in even more. I worry about the birds. Our lake and basin is on the major Pacific flyway and these little ones are on a clock that didn’t include subzero temperatures in November. Heck, we rarely get sub zero temperatures in the deepest of winter!

The MoHo is in Redding, where tomorrow morning the temperatures are predicted in the low 20’s. Pooh. We drained the tanks, but didn’t put antifreeze in the drains. The whole reason for that expensive storage place is that Redding rarely drops below 30 degrees and we wouldn’t have to winterize. Sigh again. Mo thought about driving down there today while I did the Klamath shopping, but 3 hours each way in a winter storm isn’t particularly fun. After talking to some folks we decided that the rig would probably be fine. The temperatures will go low, but it is inside, and the sun will be out and the temps in the 40’s by 10 am. Tomorrow is the coldest day, so we are watching the weather map on weatherunderground and hoping it won’t be as bad as predicted.

Tomorrow is the big cooking day, so as long as the power grid holds up I should be busy. Mo also got the snow blower running this evening so my shoveling time might be a bit less. Who knows. I love winter, and I love being able to leave it as well! It’s the best of all worlds.

Snowy weekend

The snow has come for real to Rocky Point, with enough on the road yesterday that Mo had to plow. She fires up the tractor for the road leading to the house (aptly named Easy Street), and I get out the shovel and do the big driveway by hand. We have a snow blower as well, but I only get that out when the stuff is really deep, at least a foot or two. Yesterday it was just 2 inches, and this morning another 2 inches. I think an hour of shoveling up and down that driveway qualifies for at least half of my ten thousand steps a day, (which I haven’t actually done in a very long time). Difference between our snow and Rick’s snow is that ours probably won’t melt. If you have a dog, or know a dog, or just want to laugh from joy, drop over to Rick’s page and check out his video of Rylie running around in the snow. Abby doesn’t get quite so excited, although I do have some videos of her doing similar silly stuff in water, warm! water that is.

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When I moved back to Rocky Point last year, I packed up a lot of boxes of stuff, even after a year of thinning and selling and giving away stuff, I still have stuff to deal with. Mo has a small shed out back, and in that shed are some chests and boxes, including a great drawer full of travel brochures and memorabilia. I went out there yesterday to find something and came upon an old travel journal. Mo and I have traveled together since mid 2003, and it was great to find all those old handwritten stories tucked away with places, dates, all the details that we forget as the years continue. Sometimes we go to the blog to try to remember a trip, or a date, and it is a bit frustrating to find that what we are trying to remember is pre-blog.

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I decided it would be a good idea to go back in time and add those old trips and photos here. I was a little bit concerned that the posts would show up all over the place as recent, but I checked a few blog rolls and it seems that as long as I remember to put the right publish date, blog followers won’t be bombarded with ancient history. It’s fun to go through the stories and photos and get it all down in proper blog format. I find I enjoy my own memories more with the illustrations accompanying the text, so it’s a great little trip down memory lane. Mo thought is would be nice to have everything in one place as well. I didn’t start blogging our travels until we were on our cross country trip back to Florida, and we started that trip in the baby MoHo and bought the current one on our return trip, but that story is here. The prior stories are coming along. I know that I don’t often crawl back in blog archives to see someone’s history. So much is going on right in the present it’s often hard to keep up!

This week I get to remember that I really am retired. I don’t have to work at all! The weekend has been great, with shoveling, hauling another load of crackling dry juniper to the porch for the fire, cooking, cleaning, and some good knitting and tv watching as well. We had three Grey’s Anatomy shows stacked up on the DVR so that was great fun, not having to wait a whole week for the outcome, just fast forward. Today I am continuing with the cleaning projects, and have all my Cooks Illustrated magazines out on the counter looking for some new recipes for Thanksgiving. I know better than to mess with family classics, but I can at least experiment with an extra here and there. Half my children will be here with spouses and kids, the other half are in other parts of the country. I am really looking forward to a big dinner, to the cooking and camaraderie, to family time. The four years I was in California were hard for me, my family couldn’t manage the distance to travel to me, and I haven’t hosted the holiday at my home since 2003, when I still lived in Klamath Falls. Family and food and fun. Mo’s brothers are up north, and her sister is in Colorado, so they don’t often manage to get everyone together for Thanksgiving. So Mo will be here as well, patiently tolerating and even enjoying my family and all it’s craziness.

Loading up

Finally! It is Sunday and we are loading up the MoHo. Tomorrow we will be on the road again, certainly not another long jaunt, but almost two weeks of ambling down the California coast with our new kayaks. The snow melted, and even though it’s raining today, the snow level is above 6500 feet or so, higher even than our pass crossing to Medford tomorrow. Once over the pass (I can’t believe this pass doesn’t have a real name) we will be out of snow country. Of course, rain and fog are distinct possibilities, but with a cozy home, lots of fleece, and raincoats, that isn’t a problem either. The ocean is wonderful even in the rain, and fog just makes the redwoods more mysterious.

I guess you can tell who takes the most pictures around here. It looks like Mo does all the work, but not really. I am just the one with the camera. Mo has been raking and burning to hopefully get a head start on the pine needles that will accumulate in drifts by next spring when the snow melts. I worked all last week, but managed a few work days at home, which gives me a chance to run laundry loads in between uploading data. I also got the house all spiffy for our return in mid-November.

Mo is checking the tires and the air shocks while I load up the food and clothes. She also did a bit of retrofit on the cubbyhole that holds the DVR so it would stay in place. The little wooden fence will keep the remotes from hitting the driver on the head when the road gets too curvy! I stood in the MoHo for a minute and couldn’t for the life of me remember just what I needed to pack. It’s only been a month since we landed, and I cleaned everything out back then to hopefully starve the mice. Hmmm, what has to go back in? ?? I laugh when I read about everyone packing their computer cords, batteries, computers, cameras, all that techie paraphernalia. Someday maybe batteries will be implanted in our bodies and run everything wirelessly? I put in the dry foods, the kayak clothes, too many shoes, and started to get back into the routine of living in the MoHo. Only took half an hour or so to get back in the groove.

Our new kayaks are coming from Canada. It’s been a bit worrisome because of the bad weather this week, and the trucker was trapped in Montana for a couple of days. I have to say that the company has worked extra hard to get them to us in time for our trip. We are meeting the driver in Medford tomorrow (on our route) mid day to finally pick them up. It is pretty exciting. Of course, we could have taken our old trusty boats, but since we paid for these back in September, it sure will be nice to have them with us.

I have been reading the RV blogs more and more lately, and thanks to some prolific writers who mention mine now and then, I am actually enjoying some readers following Mo and I as well. Welcome to these new followers. You inspire me to take better photos and write more often. Gail Durham looks like she is enjoying Halloween very much and Kathy talked about how unique each person’s story is, and I so agree with her. The only problem I am having now is trying to read everything. The list just keeps getting bigger and bigger! whew! Life and work and travel might get in the way now and then, but it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t really appreciate this great group of people. Hi and welcome as well to Randy and Pam who are working on a Habitat for Humanity home, and to Loree, tucked away on beach making gorgeous afghans. Donna found me, both here and on Facebook, and I had to tell her I had been reading her blog a long time before she and Stu got together. Pidge and Don, The Frugal Travelers, go to some really great out of the way places I might never find without her blog.

Jeremy is watching me closely through the front window!

Happy Halloween everyone! I am going into Klamath Falls tonight to celebrate with my daughter and her family. They live in my home in a neighborhood known “the terrace”. Pacific Terrace is a double boulevard with a grassy median lined on both sides of the street with old unique homes from the 40’s. There are big beautiful trees, sidewalks for walking, and every year the entire street lights up for Halloween. Almost every house is decorated, and there are lights and kettle corn, and one person has outdoor scary movies projected on his garage door. People bring their kids from all over town to trick-or-treat here. It is like we all stepped back into the 50’s when kids could be out late and there were no scary people doing scary things to the treats. On Pacific Terrace, Halloween is still fun and fabulous.