The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Time stops in Florida

It probably doesn’t help that I just finished reading Stephen King’s novel “11-22-63” about traveling around in time. When I am here in Florida, I somehow feel as though I have stepped into a time-warp of sorts. Bel isn’t working, and her days seem to run together in a flow of cat food plates, letting kitties in and out of the door, a break for a cigarette, more cat play, and short store runs.

The first day I was here we delivered prescriptions to Wal-Mart. The second day I stood in line to pick them up, almost an hour for that process. Today we ambled mid-day down to Staples so I could buy a computer mouse for the laptop I sent her last month.

Tonight I think we are going to go downtown to see the First Friday Art Walk at the Downtown Square in Ocala. Those of you who know me, or even those who have read my stories for a bit of time, know that I usually am kind of attached to “getting stuff done”.

My job when here with Bel is to slow myself down and listen. To sit and knit, and wait until the time is right to do whatever I can manage to do to try to be a good friend to Bel. Yeah, it wears me out. I am not the least bit in control of anything at all. Bel’s conversation wanders, and I learn to wander along with her and learn not to tell her what she needs to do or when or how. Any idea how very hard that is for a type A person like me??!!

A good part of this morning was taken up with bathing. Bel doesn’t use her hot water heater, instead she heated up pans of water and provided me with several gallon jugs of perfectly warmed bath water to use in the shower. After 5 jugs I had a truly fabulous shower, clean hair including conditioner, and it felt just great. Reminded me of camping.

Yesterday after picking up the prescriptions I just couldn’t quite make myself go back to the house and instead I said, “How bout a trip to Micanopy”. Bel complied, as long as I stop for smoke breaks and make sure she has plenty of Mountain Dew, she is fine with a couple of hours or so in the car.

The sun was brilliant and warm coming through the car windows, and within minutes of Wal-Mart we were driving north on 336 toward Anthony and then on to MacIntosh and Micanopy, the “other” Florida. On the way, we passed through Citra, stopping for huge sweet oranges fresh from the trees.

When I was traveling the Alaska Highway, my favorite parts were the stretches without any other cars on the road and somehow in this part of Florida I get those same moments, minus the mountain grandeur of course, but still. Open road…no cars…either direction. The live oaks stretch across the road, dripping with gray Spanish moss, with vines meandering through the branches, catching all the light and reflecting it back like stained glass.

Micanopy is very nearly silent, quiet in the way it seems that only a southern town can be. Big old houses, old brick buildings now selling antiques, a bed and breakfast here and there, an ice cream shop. We park in the shade and walk the streets before being told by a storekeeper about the Thursday chicken and dumpling special across the street at the café. The bowl is styrofoam, but the chairs are “real” naugahyde and the chicken and dumplings are true south.

On the way back home, we stop at Lowe’s for something or other and are sidetracked by the garden shop, filled with blooming plants and flowers on this winter day in Florida. Bel, with her wacky sense of humor, finds a pink plastic flamingo and takes it for a ride in her cart until she finds a proper resting place for the poor guy. Time has stopped again. My real life seems far away and unreachable, in spite of the daily phone calls home. I feel a bit loose, a bit disoriented. My friendship with Bel is from another life, one I barely remember, yet still meaningful and important to honor. So here I am, in Florida, in the time warp.

Thanksgiving

Here in Rocky Point Black Friday is actually black. The sun has yet to rise, and I have no plans whatsoever to tackle all that crazy shopping that is going on out there in the world today. I woke with the disquieting feeling that I was terribly behind for who knows what reason. Yesterday was a beautiful day, one of the smallest Thanksgiving dinners I have ever hosted, though not as small as many full-time folks who managed a great dinner for two from the compact kitchens of their rigs.

My children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are scattered across the country, and as the years go by it gets harder and harder to get everyone together for the holidays. For many years I managed huge dinners shared with extended family and friends. Times change, and the delights of a small, intimate dinner can be wonderful as well, as I discovered yesterday with my celebration for five.

I cooked ahead with the same fervor I would have if serving fifteen, but with much less food. The morning was beautiful with sunlight and light winds blowing the pines around, temperatures in the 40’s. Melody and her family thought we would be sledding as usual on Thanksgiving Day, instead there were only a very few residual piles of snow at the base of steep roofs and the lawn showing beautiful green grass. NOT a usual occurrence in November in Rocky Point.

Communication was different as well. Although the phone was busy for much of the day, with long distance visits from my kids and friends, I also read emails, read blog posts from full time travelers, saw photos of pies and turkeys from all over the country on Facebook and Google+. Our communication is different but some things never change. The smell of the turkey as it roasts, the delight of pies on the table, and the warmth of family hugs as the front door opens to the brisk fall air and coats and shoes are shed at the door.

We sat together holding hands before our meal, each saying what we are most thankful for, a long time tradition for us. Some roll their eyes at this, others embrace it fully. My 18 year old granddaughter said “Grandma, I practiced for this”, and then proceeded to voice her thanks in words that made me cry.

With no snow for sledding, we instead took “the family walk” between dinner and pie, also a long time tradition for our family. Just enough to convince us that we were indeed working off all those pie calories, and of course we knew better but it didn’t matter in the least. It was a lovely day and I am so grateful that in the midst of busy life and busy world, there is always family and shared traditions.

Back to that feeling of being terribly behind? I need to work today, finalize the last few weeks for the California survey before I move to the next few weeks working for Oregon again. I hope to take down all the fall decorations. The brilliant fall colors have brightened the house for the last two months, and I love them, but Christmas is coming. I need to get out the Christmas stuff. My quilt is waiting to be finished, the fabric for a dress I want to make is crying to be cut.

Instead, tomorrow, Mo and I must travel to Northern California once again for a memorial for Mo’s fabulous Uncle Don, who passed away recently. Sad to lose such an amazing man, WWII and Korean Conflict pilot who actually passed away on Veteran’s Day. We will visit my sweet mother-in-law who lives in the same area and return on Sunday. Hopefully I will find time to pack Sunday afternoon for my trip to Florida on Tuesday. Once again I will be off to Ocala, to spend some time with my long time friend Bel. In between all this, on Monday, I get to visit the dermatologist for one of those fun outcomes to a youth spent in Southern California sun and a lifetime of an outdoor career.

Writing has slipped again. I suppose I may never actually manage the day by day, blow by blow description of our last cruise to New England. Instead, I hope to actually write about the last three weeks that included a fabulous visit with my life-time friend Maryruth in Oroville, California. I drove past Shasta on a gorgeous sunny day and spent four wonderful days to a girly weekend of spa and our favorite hand and foot game. I started that blog post yesterday, and when I opened up LiveWriter this morning decided instead that I needed to write about Thanksgiving, before it slips into that accumulated list of life moments that are as yet unwritten.

Another Rocky Point Sunday

The air has finally started moving again, and as I look outside the bedroom window I can see the last of the leaves twisting in the breeze. There is snow on the ground, still, from our foot of snow dropped a week ago, but it is thinning. Not that bad, really, for mid November. Sometimes during this time of year in our part of the world the air gets still and cold, with fog from the basin around the edges of the lake and smoke from the slash piles and prescribed burns making the air murky. It was like this for a week or so, and then a couple of nights ago the winds started blowing, dropping pine needles into the snow like pick-up sticks, and clearing the air. I love the sound of the wind at night.

Check out that great new stain on the house! The job is finally finished, with the crew coming to put the last touches on the last day before the snow fell. They did a great job, but we certainly weren’t very happy with the amount of time they spent doing it. The job was started in late September and only finished on November 3rd. Sometimes the crew wouldn’t come out until mid afternoon and only stay a couple of hours before leaving. We live a long way from town and we could never figure out how the contractor expected to make money doing business like that. Maybe he had too many jobs going on at once and was trying to keep everyone happy. Whatever. At least the job is finished and the house looks great and we didn’t have to do it ourselves!

On November 1st, Mo and I traveled west to Brookings for three gorgeous days on the beautiful sunny coast. On Monday, the 31st, Mo turned to me and asked, “Remind me again why we couldn’t leave for Brookings today?”. Halloween, silly! I had to be home for Halloween with my kids, actually the kids are only part of it. The rest of the story is the wonderful tradition of walking on the dark sidewalks filled with happy costumed families on Pacific Terrace, where I used to live in Klamath Falls. One more time I met my daughter and grandkids to walk through crispy leaves, smell the popcorn that one family hands out every year from their outdoor popcorn machine, and be amazed at all the wonderful decorations that line the street for a mile in each direction. There is no better place to be at Halloween than Pacific Terrace in Klamath Falls.

When we left Tuesday morning for the coast, the weather was incredible. Blue skies all the way, without even a hint of fog over the ocean to mar the views. We went immediately to Harris Beach State Park, hoping for one of the ocean view sites, only to discover that those sites were all taken, even on a weekday in November! Instead, we settled into a roomy spot just across the road from those premium sites, power and cable and water for 22 bucks and still a great ocean view.

Our main purpose for the trip was to get the MoHo settled in to her storage berth, so we immediately went to meet the owner to be sure that the unit was easily accessible. Turns out that it is just fine, and when we slid the MoHo in on Thursday morning before traveling back to Rocky Point, it was a piece of cake.

In the mean time, we spent a good deal of time looking at possible properties in the Brookings area, but none were just right for what we wanted. Still, it was fun driving up the Chetco River to look, and then to the north end of town, just hoping for the right combination of view, price, and of course a big RV storage shed to appear. We took some wild rambling roads and were surprised to discover that many roads around Brookings are incredibly narrow and steep. Saw a spot with a gorgeous view of the ocean, with the words “great for a two story cottage”. That should have been a clue, since the property was on the side of a mountain with just enough flat ground for a very tiny home, and no space for an RV shed.

We saw another truly beautiful home and giant perfect RV shed with a gorgeous view, and an unbelievable 8 foot deer fence surrounding almost all the property, enclosing 50 roses and some beautiful gardens. The price was OK, but then there was more than 5 acres that needed subdividing, with some weird garages with no windows and with people actually living in them! Very strange. All a bit too complicated, and we laughed and said, “Let’s go find the fish and chips”. Once more we went to the Chetco Café down in Harbor where the ambience is certainly funky but the fish was as perfect as last time, thin thin very crispy perfect coating on tender, flavorful perfect fish. Yum. And a decent white wine at 3 bucks a glass. Can’t beat it.

We spent the next day relaxing, or I should say Mo relaxed while I went into town to use the coffee shop internet for a work conference. Finally in the afternoon we headed for the gorgeous, sunny beach. Dinner was a perfect steak brought from home and a great campfire and then a walk that took us to the campsite of some local Rocky Point friends who just happened to be camping there as well. They invited us in to their fire, offered more wine and conversation, and the evening stretched out to the late hours with fun and laughter. Seems as though Harris Beach is a pretty popular place for most of us.

On Thursday, once the MoHo was settled in to the storage unit, we drove north to take the back road route from Gold Beach through Agness and back to Grants Pass. The road is called the Bear Camp Coastal Route, and is not maintained after November 5 through the winter and spring. We made it just in time. Although on the map the road looks like it should be a short fast way back home, in reality, it is steep and slow and absolutely beautiful. It follows the Rogue River to Agness then climbs the coast mountains before dropping back down to the Rogue near Hellsgate. Even in the Tracker, the road was a bit daunting, especially on the passenger side. It was beautiful, though, and while we may not have to do it again soon, I am glad I finally got to see the famous route over the mountains. Let me just say, DO NOT ever even think of driving this road in any kind of motorhome!

That morning Brookings was shrouded in clouds with rain coming down and snow predicted for the mountains above 4,000 feet. Sure enough at the top of the route we ran into some snow, some deer, and even a bear! I WILL learn to keep my camera in my lap and on, but instead, at the bear moment, Jeremy was snoozing in my lap and the camera was on the floor. By the time we got home, there was fresh snow over the pass on 140 but no snow yet in Rocky Point. We would have loved to stay longer in Brookings, but too many details awaited us and thank goodness the heaviest snow held off till our Friday errands were run and we were safely back at home. I can’t believe how lucky we were to get in just under the wire with the first really big snowstorm arriving the day we put the MoHo in storage in snowless Brookings. Perfect.

I spent last weekend cutting and sewing strips for my very first quilt. It was a perfect day to be playing with brightly colored fabric with the dark skies and falling snow. It is just a simple panel, with borders, and I got all the borders on and am now attempting to learn how to do the machine quilting part. Mo is worried that I will now start collecting fabric the way I collect yarn. Hopefully I will refrain from getting too carried away with all this.

I have been knitting, and quilting, and working soil survey stuff, and somehow the time to write has slipped. Winter is here, life has simplified a bit for now, and I am enjoying that a lot.

Sunday test only

Seems as though Live Writer can’t get to the blog today. Since I have been remiss in posting and finally managed, I am bugged that the thing refuses to go up. So this is a test to see if I can make a post directly from draft blogger. Just a test. minus the photo that I just tried to add and it wouldn’t add it. sigh. Thanks for the comments, guys, I can see this post as well, but the dang LiveWriter post is still grinding away after more than an hour. Hopefully it will work eventually, since I haven’t created a post with photos, formatting, etc here on draft blogger in at least two years and I am sure it would look like …well…excrement?

Rocky Point Sunday

No, I still haven’t put together the rest of the stories about our cruise. Hopefully I can get motivated on that project before I completely forget all the little details. Instead, we arrived home last Sunday night and Monday morning I immediately went to work at my “real” part time job, the one that needs to have 40 good hours of attention every two weeks. Working from home is great, as long as the home computer does its thing without hitches. Instead, my old Dell computer running XP (for the government software) decided to burp and then basically throw up. So it was off to town for me and a couple of days working on the reliable government computer at my official office. I am lucky in that my bosses have all agreed that it is smart to have a real workstation available for me here in Klamath Falls, even though I technically work for Portland, Oregon, for Davis, California, for Sonora, California and for Klamath Falls, 30 miles away from my home in Rocky Point.

After some serious time with my computer guru in town, we managed to get the Virtual PC XP operating system working inside my new Windows 7 Dell. I only barely understand what is going on here, but with this system, I can actually install the government (XP only) software on my new machine. Good thing, since my old machine is still at the computer guru’s house getting gutted. Possibly too much information here for anyone but Rick, but what the heck, I need to have an excuse for not writing about the cruise yet! Back home with a working system and functioning software the rest of my work week went just fine.

I didn’t write, but managed to try to keep up at least a little bit on the blog world. Something interesting appeared that I thought would be fun to check out. It seems that several RV bloggers have dogs that are some kind of blue heeler, or blue heeler mix. We have figured out that Abby is mostly blue heeler with cocker spaniel overtones. Check out Travel with the Whippets and read their stories about the ability of their dog Bandido to disembowel any toy in a matter of minutes. Hmm. Abby does that. Check out Pheebs over on Al’s website. Al has regaled us with stories of the Pheeb’s energy repeatedly since she became a part of the Bayfield Bunch family. Abby. Another story, that I seem to have lost track of, talked about another heeler’s separation anxiety and panic attacks when left for even a moment in a car or a house. Again. Abby. Could it be possible that all this energy, toy destruction, separation anxiety and absolute complete devotion is a characteristic of the blue heeler breed? Just a thought.

The colors have changed here in Rocky Point, just a bit later than last year, but still beautiful. In fact, the aspens seem to have more pink and orange tones than usual. I thought that the pink color in an aspen was related to the variety, but some of these trees are usually just yellow and this year are many shades of pink and orange, so I guess my original thought is completely wrong. Back to aspen research, I guess. In the mean time, I am just really enjoying all our fall color right here at home after traveling clear across the country and missing out on most of the seasonal brilliance on the east coast.

The burning season has opened again for a short time and yesterday Mo raked some pine needles while I cleaned out the greenhouse. Mo also tore up the old boards on the back cabin deck that need replacing and built a very serious bonfire with them. Just one whiff of that wonderful wood smoke reminded me of hot dogs. Yes, hot dogs. I said, “We have some dogs and buns in the freezer, let’s do it!” Within minutes we had defrosted the dogs and buns in the microwave, skewered the dogs to the end of the pitchfork, drug the chairs to the bonfire and had ourselves a quick, impromptu perfect hot dog supper. I’m not on the diet officially any more, but still doing the maintenance thing, so Abby lucked out and got 2/3 of my bun.

I noticed as we were enjoying this wonderful home moment that I had no desire to run for the camera, to turn it into a blog moment, fully documented. I just wanted to enjoy the bonfire, the fall leaves in the background, the smell of wood smoke. So, no photos, but still worth writing about so I don’t forget how wonderful simple moments can be. Last night in the hot tub there was no moon to dim the brilliance of the stars.

Today we will continue a few outside maintenance jobs and start to load up the MoHo for the short trip to Brookings. This year the snow has held off for us, unlike the east coast and unlike last year. We as yet have no snow at home or on the passes, so our journey to the coast will be in time. With night temperatures dropping into the teens and the MoHo un-wintered, we will be glad to get her safely to storage where the temperatures don’t go below freezing. A couple of nights at Harris Beach and some days walking the sands will be fun.