family – Page 5 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

3-14-2014 Bookin’West through Tornado Alley

Current Location: Foss State Park, Oklahoma: still dark at 7am and 41 F

Yes, yes, I know. I still haven’t written about the Natchez Trace, Vicksburg, and Hot Springs, Arkansas. Way too many thoughts and photos of these amazing visits to manage, so the writing will have to come later.

We had good reasons for moving northward as we traveled west. We watched the weather diligently and prayed that the Polar Plunge events that have plagued this part of the country all winter would let up enough for us to make it to Joplin without mishap. My son John, and his wife Shannon, live near Joplin and I don’t get to see them often. They are in the busy time of life with a high school kid and a couple of daughters and grandkids that need them. Both are working, and not at the kinds of jobs that give much time for play. Every time I see John, I wish that I hadn’t waited so long to get back to Missouri. I am so glad I didn’t miss it this time. Thank you, Weather Gods.

After some truly wonderful family time, and sharing morning coffee with John while we packed up, Mo and I headed southwest. When leaving Joplin, there are options, some including tolls. Looking at the map, we decided the $19.50 total cost of the tolls was less than the cost of the fuel avoiding them and within minutes of our campground in Carthage, we were on I-44 heading toward Tulsa.

I can’t believe I didn’t take a single shot of the campground, The Big Red Barn RV Park, in Carthage. I guess because it was actually simply another privately owned campground, quite nice but still only a place to park. Actually it was also a place to do laundry, wash the rig and the baby car at the nearby car wash with a big RV bay, shop for some essentials, and plan for the time with John and Shannon.

We also learned something new at this particular campground. In spite of its flat screen status, and its fancy Sony Wega Gate programs, our MoHo TV is NOT digital. This park has digital-only cable television and we couldn’t get a signal. Sigh. For the first time in a month or more we thought there might be a bit of TV in our life after family visits, but it was not to be. Researching on the internet, I found out that there is no way to tell if your TV is digital or analog, but if it was purchased before 2008, it will be analog. Ok then.

Satellite signals and most cable signals are broadcast in both digital and analog bandwidths, and we knew that local broadcasts were digital only. Mo tried to install a digital converter to our antenna but various roof thingies didn’t allow the space for the thing to retract, so we know that we don’t get digital signals from local broadcasts. However, with all the tv hookups we have had over the months of travel since the digital thing happened, we had no clue our tv wasn’t digital.

With family time the priority, TV watching would have been minimal anyway, but it was a good thing to discover. Most parks have a dual signal, but if your park specifically states, digital TV’s only, pay attention.

Friday morning we were on the road by 8:20, knowing that we had another 358 mile day ahead of us. Our destination was Foss State Park, nestled into the low brown hills surrounding a lake/reservoir that is the largest in western Oklahoma. We camped here long ago in December of 2007, on our route east in the baby MoHo. It was a sweet little find back then, and we decided that once again, the pleasant, quiet park, eight miles off the interstate on a decent paved road, would be a good overnight stop.

I-44 is a direct, fast, and for the most part smooth route across most of Oklahoma, circling both Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It is part of the Oklahoma Turnpike System, which at first I found very frustrating, because all the routes are named but the turnpike website doesn’t have a decent map of the routes and the names so it can be easily figured out. Frustrating, but we did manage to get across the state on the system.

I am sure that there is a lot to see in Oklahoma. We have visited the memorial and the museum at Oklahoma City and didn’t need to stop there again. I am sure Tulsa might have been interesting, if we had time to meander and research, but we didn’t choose to stop.

Tulsa, Oklahoma is tucked away in my own family history in an almost mythical way. My mother was born when my grandmother was barely 15, in Palestine, Arkansas, as small a town as you can imagine. Nine months later, my grandmother left my mother with her mother and ran away to Tulsa. It was 1926. Times were hard even then, though the Depression had yet to come in full force. My grandmother searched for work, and finding none, resorted to being a photographer’s model. My most treasured photograph of her was taken in Tulsa, and for the time it was a bit risque.

If I had more time, perhaps I could have wandered the streets of old downtown Tulsa and found the locations of my old photos of my grandmother with the husband she married in Tulsa. They played cards, gambled, danced, and partied during the heyday of the late 20’s and I have some pretty cool photos of the “Duke and Duchess” as their friends called them, sitting on the running boards of their old Packard.

Instead, we traveled at close to the speed limit all day, and I could find not one thing in the brown low flats and hills of Oklahoma to inspire me to pick up the camera even once. With crazy winter ice storms, and a late spring, Oklahoma is still simply many shades of brown, and windy, and the skies are a bit blue, but with a murkiness to them that wasn’t particularly inspiring.

I suppose I could have photographed the traffic jam around construction in Tulsa, or managed some kind of creative treatment of the leafless cottonwoods along the highway. Instead, I navigated, and found our campground, and with the great, fast road, we landed just a little before 4pm, with plenty of time for me to make our favorite Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana soup for supper.

We took a nice walk along the trail toward the lake before supper, but even then I wasn’t inspired to take any photos. After so much verdant green and vivid blues and gorgeous architecture, I can’t get excited about the simple brown landscape. Of course it is lovely in its own way. Another time I might have a great time shooting photos of this place. Maybe I am just a bit tired of processing photos, and needed some down time from the camera.

Foss State Park is as quiet a place as you will find anywhere, and we slept well. Today we will cross the Panhandle of Texas with the same focus and determination. Our goal is to get west of the infamous Tornado Alley. No matter what kinds of lovely sights are here, I have no desire to linger. There are high winds and thunderstorms predicted through Amarillo, and as the sky lightens this morning, I can see some interesting cloud formations building.

Tonight we will rest in Tucumcari, at the New Mexico border. Searching weather pages, I found that the possibility of tornados in Tucumcari is close to zero. A good number, unlike the moderate to high rating for the landscape we will cross in the panhandle of Texas.

After dinner last night, Mo and I reviewed our jello plans for returning west, and completely shifted our focus. We were trying to decide if we could stay north on the 40 rather than dropping back down to the 10, and instead decided that we will go north from the 40 when we leave Albuquerque and wander west toward the Four Corners region. Weather predictions seem to be in our favor, and once again we have a chance to explore new country rather than following the same tired interstate routes that can get so repetitive.

I am beside myself excited about this plan for more than one reason. The Colorado Plateau is one of my favorite places in the world, and Antelope Canyon near Page is on my bucket list. I have artwork in my home depicting that famous ray of light, and if things go the way we are planning, before long I will have my very own photos of light and shadow in the world famous slit in the earth.

Bet I don’t have a problem picking up the camera then!

Christmas 2013

In Rocky Point, Oregon on sunny day with only a bit of snow left around here and there

Christmas was lovely this year, with some good times with Deborah on Christmas Eve, and then celebration on Christmas morning when daughter Melody and my local grandkids, Axel and Xavier, joined us for breakfast and dinner. Not often we try to do both traditions on the same Christmas day, but somehow this year we wanted the eggs benedict breakfast AND the Christmas dinner.

In spite of the goodies in between those two great meals, we still managed to have a wonderful time eating a succulent pork roast dinner by 3PM without too much trouble. It helped that we skipped dessert after dinner, opting instead to sip Deb’s great dessert wine from the local Troon Vineyard in the Applegate Valley.

Family gifts were a part of the tradition, with some homemade stuff from mom and some incredibly lovely and thoughtful presents for Mo and I from the family as well. We had fun. The sun was shining, and with the snow melting the icy driveway kept us from going on the traditional walk or the other tradition, sledding. Kevin was in California working, so he and Melody talked via text and video, and of course the phones were ringing off and on during the day while we talked with distant loved family members. Truckers Deanna and Keith even made it home to Washington to spend Christmas afternoon with son Steven.

My sister Sal got a reprieve from trucking with a visit home to her loved ones in California, including her daughter Savannah, who managed to get south to sunny California for the holidays. She is a sophomore now at Oregon State and studying zoology, so Christmas break is definitely appreciated.

It was a simple day with lots of love and hugs all round, and another chance to appreciate the uniqueness of every single one of us. Nothing simple or ordinary about any family, I am sure, but somehow the holidays remind us of our bonds and our lives and what we love and what we share. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Today instead of doing the shopping thing that many are doing, Mo and I are backing up files, packing up the last of what is needed for our trip, and checking off the list items with relish. All is good for departure, and I am definitely ready for some desert time.

Sick of that photo!

In Rocky Point, OR: 26 degrees F and the high predicted today is sunny and 57 degrees?!

I have nothing exciting to write about, but I am sick and tired of looking at that last post with that face! Needless to say, I am better, with just a few yellow and green patches here and there and a bit of a weird nose. November is my least favorite month for outdoor photos, though, and I don’t have many that are worth putting up. I suppose I could get out there and try for something, but all the leaves are gone, there isn’t any snow on the ground, and nothing seems to inspire me much. Instead I’ll just pop in a shot of last November on our cruise for bit of text relief.

It is almost the end of November and just a few days ago, Mo motored around the yard with the mower. She said technically she wasn’t “mowing” although that is what it looked like. Instead, she was mulching up the bazillions of pine needles that come down every year and make spring raking a back breaking chore. With no snow yet to speak of, that chore should be a bit easier this year when we return in April to the Rocky Point homestead.

I have been busy quilting, and sent sister Sal’s quilt off to her daughter in Corvallis. She was supposed to make it home for Thanksgiving, but instead is holed up in a motel on the Iowa/Minnesota border, waiting once again for a truck repair. Cold and no income while she is sitting. Bummer. The life of a trucker can be so frustrating when the truck doesn’t run. Although with the weather back in that part of the country, I guess I am glad she isn’t on the road. She has her gorgeous big German shepherd with her for company, and I am glad for that as well.

Daughter Deanna is safely home in Washington State for the holiday, something that doesn’t happen all that often. Thanksgiving for her will include most of Keith’s family and at least one of their sons. Makes me happy for her. They will be back on the road again before Christmas, and I am dreaming of the chance for a visit with them here sometime around Christmas. Then again, who knows, I may not see her again until we are both somewhere in Florida. They deliver a lot of jet engines to Miami.

Tomorrow Mo and I will amble into Klamath Falls for Thanksgiving dinner at my daughter, Melody’s home. Yippee! I am often the Thanksgiving hostess, although last year I was cruising around Hawaii for the day. This year Melody decided she was up for doing the holiday and since Daughter Deborah lives close enough now to share, she is heading to Melody’s tonight after work. I hear rumors of lots of sister cooking with some drinking involved. Ha! They should have a lot of fun together. Makes me happy.

I have just two jobs. Dressing and Gravy. Melody and Kevin are making the turkey on his Big Green Egg. Makes for a great turkey, but then there isn’t any gravy. So I bought a turkey, will cook it today, keep the meat for sandwiches for Mo and I, and have lots of gravy to take to Melody’s tomorrow. The girls have big lists of goodies, including a lot of our traditional favorites and some new things Deb is trying. I am stress-free. All I have to do is show up. Wow, that is just soooo different, but kinda nice.

I even managed to finish Deanna and Keith’s quilt and get it down to Merrill to the machine quilter. It is promised before Christmas and I can get the binding on in time to deliver it to Deanna before we head off to the southland.

In exactly one month we will be heading out on our three month sojourn, and I will find out just how well all the planning worked. Being on the road that time of year is a crap shoot, and the possibilities run the gamut. Smooth sailing or crazy weather, either way it keeps us young and if we stay loose, it will be great.

In the midst of all the homey things I have been doing that involve a sewing machine, I neglected to wander around the internet enough to keep track of the comet Ison. This morning I heard that it may just get blown up by the sun, but if it doesn’t then we should get a great comet show in December.

On another very exciting note, my theater geek daughter, Melody, who acted with Albany Civic Theater, Corvallis Civic Theater, and the Linkville here in Klamath Falls, was just cast in the Sally Field role for Steel Magnolias. Acting is Melody’s first love, but it sometimes is hard to do with a family, a full time job, and all the other requirements of daily living. She thought long and hard about auditioning, especially since she works in a jewelry store and it is the Christmas season. I pushed kinda hard, knowing how much acting means to her and she went for it. Of course she was cast, my daughter is one amazing actress, something that was born in her, and something I knew by the time she was two.

Worst part about this whole thing is that the play is opening on January 15! Yes…right in the middle of the part where we are somewhere in Texas. For the first time, I will miss one of my daughter’s plays. Filming or photographing a play is just a no-no, but rumor has it that someone is going to film it, with permission from the director, just for Melody’s mommy! Is that great, or what!

On a final note, my son-in-law Kevin, Melody’s husband, who has worked in our small town of Klamath Falls for insignificant salaries, just landed a job with the big guy! Kevin is now a Google contractor, and will be heading south to the Mountain View Google Campus for a year long stint with hopes for more permanent employment in the future. Sad to say, the Klamath Basin just doesn’t offer much for computer geeks, so Kevin and Melody will be managing a long distance marriage for a time, at least until the grandson exits high school in three years or so. Working at Google is pretty amazing, and Kevin’s brother has been there for some time now. Melody is in super freak-out mode, knowing it is a good thing and still not excited about being a long distance wife. Of course. Those two communicate on Facebook when they are sitting in their own living room, so I would imagine they are better equipped than most to handle the apart time.

Time to get busy with the turkey (source for the gravy) and finishing up the complicated quilt blocks that are making me crazy. Wishing all the US folks a great Thanksgiving celebration.

A Fight!

Home in Rocky Point: cloudy, chilly at 40 degrees F, with snow coming tonight

It was just a fight with a lawnmower, but the results looked as if I had been in some kind of bar fight! Early in the month, we took the MoHo over to Grants Pass for the last time this winter and decided to do a bit of yard cleanup while we were there. Mo, of course, is the riding mower queen and I was busy raking leaves. I was at least 20 feet away, but was downside from the eject window on that mower and a rock hidden in the long grass decided to come my way.

Ugh! It knocked me down, hurt worse than anything I can quite remember, and the results were not pretty. Of course, all the yard equipment danger stories came out of the woodwork after it happened. Of course I wouldn’t mow barefoot, am pretty careful with the weed eater, and have managed to do yard work for half a century without anything like this happening to me in the past. Still, you can bet I won’t be anywhere in the yard in the future when that mower is going.

Now, of course, it has been a bit of time since I last posted and lots has been happening, and it is time to try to catch up so I don’t forget what we did in November. How do you pick a title for the mish mash of stuff that is to follow? A funny thing to note….until recently the most popular post in my entire 6 years of blogging is one called “Vandalized”. Go figure. At last the main post about the MoHo has surpassed the stats for Vandalized, but it has taken years! Betcha I get a bunch more hits when I talk about a fight. What is it about people anyway. I am sure the the word “Fight” gets a ton more views than something like “gorgeous bird” or “Halloween” or “My grandson’s play”. Wanna make a bet with me on that?

We have driven the MoHo across the mountains more times than we planned because it was time for new tires. Basin Tire does great by us, but it is a locally owned company in Klamath Falls, 30 miles east. The MoHo was already over in Grants Pass, where she doesn’t have to be winterized, 100 miles west. Oops. So we brought her home to get tires, and an oil change and transmission service, which made her very happy, and made us very happy with more than 8,000 travel miles already tucked away on our winter agenda. Of course, sitting at home in Rocky Point, with sub freezing temperatures and a smattering of snow wasn’t the best. Mo set up the electric heater inside and we parked her under the shelter of the big trees. It was nice to see frost and snow all over the grass but not on the driveway.

Not long after the tires were added, I got an early morning wakeup call from Daughter Deanna, who was just an hour out of the truck stop in Central Point. This was exciting for several reasons, one of which is that I don’t get to see her often, and their jet engine deliveries don’t take them down I-5 all that often. For some reason she thought I was in Grants Pass, but instead we jumped up and dashed over the mountain in the melting snow, in the MoHo, so that we could meet them by 8 at the restaurant so they could continue with their very tight schedule. They were delivering some kind of big jetway, an oversize load, and had all sorts of permitting and route variations they had to follow on their way south to LAX.

Whew! Now, just maybe, a few old time readers will remember Deanna lent her huge fast magnificent Nikkor lens to me for our trip to Alaska and I crashed to the ground and crashed the lens. I replaced it for Deanna, and repaired the old one for myself and I love it. I happen to have a zoom lens, but it isn’t anything like the big zoom lens that Deanna had for her photography business, and since I was responsible enough to replace her lens, she had no problem lending her big zoom to me for our upcoming trip to the southeast. I really do want to get some spoonbill photos! Now lets hope my old lady tendency to crash every now and then won’t cost me the several thousand dollars it would cost me to replace THIS lens.

The good part about the quickie visit to Medford, is that Deanna had a chance to pick up the lens from their storage in Wenatchee and bring it along for me. Way better than trying to ship and insure the thing. Breakfast and daughter hugs were great too!

Another good part about the quickie visit is that I was able to bring the beginnings of the quilt I am making for their truck bed over for her to see and approve in person. Deanna saw Sally’s quilt and asked for one, and was willing to pay for the fabric if I would make the quilt. We decided on an idea, and it was great to see that our over the phone choices worked out perfectly for the soft gray and blue interior of their truck. Eventually I will even make truck curtains to match. It is been good that I can stay at home in the dreary November weather and just quilt and not scare people with my fighter face.

Another little glitch showed up early in the month while I was working away on the quilt with a broken sewing machine. Sheesh. My machine is a Bernina 1230, a model from the 80’s, and it seems the part is expensive and hard to find. It would require a 150 mile round trip to the Ashland Bernina Dealer. Sister Sal, the other trucker in the family, who recommended the 1230 because she loves hers, sent a quickie text message to me saying, “Go get mine, it is in storage, you can use it while I am driving” Wow! Just before that, Mo and I decided it was time for me to get the little 12 pound travel Janome 600 machine I had been eyeing for awhile now. So now I have the Janome for travel and classes and quickie piecing at home, and my broken Bernina, and Sal’s working Bernina and two of her sergers which I haven’t a clue how to thread. Did I mention I don’t have a sewing room, that I store all my sewing stuff in my bedroom and quilt on the dining table? Ha!

It seems I don’t have a lot to show for it yet, except of course Deanna’s quilt which will be ready for the quilter this week. They promised to get it back before Christmas, so the next time I meet Deanna on the road somewhere (probably in Florida or Texas or something), I’ll have her quilt all bound and ready to give to her. Yippee!!

The other little busy maker around here has been Mo’s computer. She has a great Dell workhorse that has plunked along for a very long time, but it is a bit slow and still runs XP without the bones that could be upgraded to Windows 7. I had Bel’s little Dell laptop I got for her before she passed away, just sitting in a cupboard, so decided that it would be a good backup computer for Mo. Sure enough, Mo is now learning to use Windows 7 and is getting more and more used to the idea that she can let the old beast go. I have been using Windows 7 for some time now, but in teaching Mo the differences in the OS, I am learning things I didn’t know. I have no desire whatsoever to try out Windows 8 any time soon. Just the upgrade to the IOS on my iPhone made me a bit crazy. Finally, after some of our computer work, this morning Mo said something to the effect, “Gee, I like this, I can work on Quicken on my old machine and see all the banks on the laptop at the same time!” Power User! You go Mo!!

Oh yeah, another little busy maker….I am trying to get all the old VHS videos that I have in boxes transferred to DVD’s so that I can actually do something with them. I bought a Toshiba machine that does the job, but still takes a bit of tweaking and concentration to make sure that the resulting DVD can be viewed on a computer. The plan is to eventually get those files converted and transferred from the DVD’s to the computer and to then make some nice movie clips from the good parts. I can’t believe how much wasted, pretty boring footage there is on the old videos, and yet how many sweet special moments are tucked away in there as well. It is a big job, and I have to thank Erin and Mui (this is a link to his great videos) for sending some emails along that helped me at least begin to understand what I was dealing with, what kinds of files and software I needed to understand to actually do the project. For now, I am just happy to get them to DVD’s where I can skip and fast forward and find things much more easily.

Another delightful treat early in the month was a trip to town to watch my youngest grandson, Xavier, starring as Jack Rover in the play Wild Oats. It was amazing to me to see how great the kids were in this high school production. It was as good as many community theater productions I have seen. I even went for the second night since I did learn, when Melody was doing theater, that every single performance has its own nuance, its own special moments. Sure was proud of that kid! Plus he is getting all A’s for his first year of high school in advanced placement classes. He is on a roll, and I trust it will keep going throughout his high school years.

I would imagine that those who read the blog because it said “Fight” are long gone. Those who read the blog because they read RV travel blogs have probably bailed by now as well. But at least when I go back to the blog to try to remember what we did this month I will have something to read. There are times in the past when we ask that question, and if we weren’t traveling there is nothing but a big blank!

I have lots of practice ahead of me using Deanna’s lens, but I did try it out a little bit. She has a nice tripod that is attached to then lens rather than the camera to help hold it. While it is only a 200mm, it is fast, so hopefully I can get photos that are more clear than I have managed with my much less expensive slower lens. Wish me luck!

50 years gone, let’s celebrate at the coast

Currently in Rocky Point, Oregon mostly cloudy, breezy, and 57 degrees F, with a chance of thunderstorms with snow? predicted for tonight.

So very glad that this forecast wasn’t around last week when we were on the Oregon coast, enjoying gorgeous sunny skies and nary a bit of fog. When we planned this trip last spring, our comment to our California friends was all about how gorgeous, warm, and fog free the coast usually is in early fall. We had no clue that a huge storm would blow through just a few days before our arrival, or that the predictions for continued rain and wind would be all wrong.

Long time blog readers have heard me mention Maryruth often, my lifetime friend. This month we are celebrating 50 years of friendship. It isn’t often that friends can stay close, much less even in touch with each other after so many years. Especially since we didn’t grow up together, or go to school together. Maryruth and I met over the neighborhood fence in 1963, both of us young mothers with babies. Even though life circumstances took us thousands of miles apart many times, we never lost each other. The friendship cemented in those early days has stood the test of time.

Congratulations to US!

Maryruth and her husband Gerald don’t have an RV, and haven’t been tent camping in some time either, so a yurt at an Oregon State Park was the perfect solution. Especially the great yurt at space C2 in Harris Beach State Park. The site is huge and just a step back from the front ocean view sites, but also boasts a very long, paved RV pad with electricity, water, and cable TV. The yurt also has electric, with a nice heater that came in handy on the cool coastal evenings. Good thing we had reservations, since the fall is high season for yurt camping on the Oregon coast.

Our friends drove from California to spend the night with us in Rocky Point before we caravanned over to the coast on a cool, cloudy afternoon. Of course, we had to stop on the way in at the Chetco Seafood Company for the best fish and chips ever. (Just proves that you can’t always tell how good something might be by the reviews).

Since they were driving their car and we didn’t have ours, we thought it might be a good idea to stop for supper with the MoHo so that Abby could wait ‘patiently’ while we ate rather than leaving her in the park. The restaurant has a big parking lot adjacent to the harbor where she can bark away and won’t bother anyone. Not such a great idea in a campground.

By the time we settled into our comfy site the clouds were lifting and the skies promised good weather for the next few days instead of the gloomy forecast on weatherunderground. Of course, as anyone knows, forecasting the weather on the Oregon coast is not an easy thing to do.

On our second day at the park, we decided to just lay low and enjoy the beach walks, the trails, and sitting in the campsite reading and visiting. We had a campfire every single night thanks to Mo packing up firewood in big bins that just barely fit inside the MoHo, but it was enough. Tuesday evening we finally made it to O’Holleran’s Steak House, an old Brookings institution. We had heard good things about their food and thought as many times as we have been to Brookings, we should at least say we had tried it out.

Dinner was ‘nice’, with the $31. price of the New York Steak special quite high for the ambience of the place. One of the nicest amenities was a note on the menu that said if you want to share a meal, there would be an extra $3.50 charge, which would include an extra plate, an extra potato, and bread, and vegetable. There was still only one salad for this price, but Mo and I shared our dinner and had more than enough salad, and since we can never eat a full restaurant meal, the sharing option was really nice. Maryruth and Gerald shared their New York Steak with Blue Cheese special as well. What a great idea.

The food was decent, the steak was good, but the restaurant itself doesn’t have the atmosphere that I associate with that kind of price. Although I must say that the service was impeccable. Glad we did it, won’t have to do it again.

That morning, as we walked around the park, I passed a great big 40 footer parked up on the front row. Something looked very familiar to me, and I told Mo that I was sure I must know whoever was in that rig. I kept looking and then thought…hmmmm….it is an Endeavor, now who do I know with an Endeavor?! But wait….I thought Nina and Paul were off to the east side of the Sierras on 395 already? Nope…I checked their website and lo and behold they were in Brookings.

After a few years adjusting to this blogging thing, I have learned that it isn’t exactly cool to just bop up to someone’s rig and bang on the door, so I sent Nina a note inviting her over to our fire. Within minutes she showed up with sweet Polly and we chatted up a storm. Of course, Nina and I couldn’t stay off blogging and traveling subjects and Maryruth and Gerald thought the conversation wasn’t all that exciting! Ha! Guess it is like the old days when I would have soil scientist friends to dinner and the spouses would roll their eyes at all the work talk.

Nina wanted to know about all the exciting things to do in Brookings since we come here so often. I looked at Mo, and couldn’t think of a thing. Geez. We love it here, but most of the time that is because we can do nothing. I wasn’t much good at local recommendations. When Nina asked what to do I said, “Go to Bandon?” Harris Beach is fabulous for just hanging in the campsite, relaxing, walking the beach and the trails and enjoying down time until the sunset shows up.

I followed my own advice and on Wednesday Maryruth and Gerald and I took their car up to Bandon to explore all the wonders of that sweet little town that, unlike Brookings, actually DOES have a cute downtown old town area. Mo thought it was nice to stay home with Abby since she has been to Bandon many times.

It was a perfect day for coastal driving, with gorgeous sunny skies and warm temperatures. Mo suggested that we stop in Port Orford and check out the boat lift, thinking Gerald might get a kick out of it. As many times as we have driven that part of the coast, I had never stopped at the lovely Visitor Center or been down to the docks to see the famous lift, one of only six in the world and only two in the US.

As luck would have it, there was a fishing boat coming into the dock while we were there, and we got to see the famous lift in action. We watched in fascination as the fishing boat was lifted up by a hook and just four ropes and dropped down easily on a big old wooden trailer.

There is much more to do in tiny Port Orford than I realized and I added the Lifeboat Station Museum to the list of future todo’s, in addition to going to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, but on this day Bandon was waiting.

Our first stop in Bandon was Tony’s Crab Shack where I had fresh grilled halibut with cilantro lime, Maryruth had fresh steamed clams, and Gerald had a rock cod sandwich. So fresh, so good! YUM.

Back another block from the waterfront we found the Coastal Mist chocolate shop. As we walked through the door the rich, warm aroma of really good chocolate welcomed us into this beautiful little store full of the most amazing chocolate ever. Trained in Belgium, the owners are chocolate makers par excellence! I had never tasted “sipping chocolate”, and believe you me, it is nothing whatsoever like your everyday cup of hot chocolate. It was beyond incredible, and so rich and so decadent. Of course I came away with a little bag of solid gold/er chocolate truffles and a big chunk of pure Belgian chocolate.

After browsing a gorgeous gallery that almost tempted Maryruth to spend a half year’s salary on a clock, we ambled off to the new Face Rock Creamery, built to replace the old Bandon Creamery that had such a great Bandon history. Sold to the Tillamook Cheese company, the owners lost their rights to the Bandon Cheese name. Bandon Cheese is now made under contract by Tillamook Cheese somewhere in Wisconsin. Check out this website. Sheesh. We still like Bandon Cheese that we can buy at Fred Meyer, but it isn’t really Bandon Cheese.

Face Rock Cheese is wonderful, and the owner is the original Bandon cheesemaker’s son. I asked if there was any cheese that tasted like the old Bandon cheddar and the cashier laughed and said, “No, not yet, We haven’t been open long enough! Just leave it in the fridge for a few months and you’ll have it”.

Hoping for an ice cream dessert so touted by so many visitors, we decided instead that the money was better spent on cheese goodies. The ice cream is great, but it isn’t made by Face Rock, and we can get Umpqua ice cream any time.

Home after a great day, we cooked up a good supper of spaghetti and salad, eating one more time at the big picnic table with another roaring campfire. I think it was a perfect way to celebrate our “anniversary”.

On Thursday we had a leisurely departure from the park, driving through the brilliant light and dark shadows along the Smith River, past Jedediah Smith State Park, and home to the cottage in Grants Pass. The celebration wasn’t yet over. Maryruth and Gerald decided to stay in town for a couple of days to check out the area, see the cottage, visit with Deb (who is almost like a niece to Maryruth) and share some more great meals with us before they went back to California.

Grants Pass has a great downtown area, with historic buildings, some nice art installations, and several annual festivals. Saturday and Sunday was the annual “Art Along the Rogue” festival, a celebration of street art. I guess that street artists are a genre of their own, and I only saw them some time ago when visiting downtown Pasadena. I loved having such a cosmopolitan event right there in our second adopted home town. Both main streets were shut down to traffic so the artists could create these amazing images with chalk on asphalt. Ephemeral, beautiful, like a sand castle, they are created, we enjoy them, and they then disappear. I actually do wonder just how long they last after the traffic opens again.

Maryruth and Gerald left for home, and Deb, Mo and I wandered the town, discovering the fabulous Saturday market where I bought more goodies than I really wanted to carry. We then met up with our neighbors, Wes and Gayle who were also at the market, and wanted to come and see the cottage before they leave for their winter home in Arizona this week. We then ran into a bunch of folks from Rocky Point who were visiting the festival as well. So much social stuff! Geez, for someone who isn’t very social, this was a LOT of interaction. 10-05-2013 Art on the Rogue

When we got back to Rocky Point on Sunday afternoon, I was so very very glad to be home where I didn’t have to talk any more. Except for one little surprise. My sister Sal, who was a medical transcriptionist, lost her job to changing technology, and instead of sitting around moaning, decided to go to truck driving school and become a truck driver. I hadn’t seen her since Easter, and she was in Klamath Falls for just a quick turn around before getting back out on the road.

My baby sister, at 63 years young, is now a big rig driver! Sheesh! the girl has guts, always has. She is trying to get her tractor fixed up a bit with some girly stuff, and asked me to make a quilt for her that had LOTS OF COLOR!. So I did. I was glad to have the top finished at least to show her when I drove into town for our quickie visit.

So now, finally, it is Tuesday, and I really don’t have to talk any more. Once I hit the PUBLISH button for this blog, I don’t even have to write any more. I don’t have to do a dang thing! At least not today. Tomorrow it might be time to pull out the Halloween decorations, trim back the summer foliage for winter, wander around taking photos of the fall colors, and maybe catch up on the Homeland DVD’s that showed up in the mail yesterday.