family – Page 9 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Spring snows and off to the beach!

It’s been a week and a half since I had the chance to sit down to my personal computer and think about writing something about the passing days. They have been so full. The sadness in the southeast, and the devastation and lost lives was heartbreaking. With no time for blogging or reading blogs, the news about Al and Kelly’s Max still came in through Facebook and I was saddened again. Somehow when sadness intervenes I go quiet, it’s hard to write about my “stuff” when others are going through so much. This morning the sun is shining, and Mo and I are packing the MoHo for a trip to the Oregon Coast, and it’s time to start writing again!

Of course, as mentioned in the last post, I have been working three weeks straight through, with last week requiring a trip to town every single day. It was time for the formal Progress Review for the Klamath Soil Survey, and I couldn’t manage that one from home. I loved every minute of it, long days going over all the details of years of mapping the basin, and this time I was only a participant, with no stress, no management responsibilities. Yeah, I am still working after retirement, but I don’t have any of the stress of the job. Chris is a great project leader, had the review well prepared, and the regional specialist who reviewed us is one of my favorites. We have a long history going back many years.

The daily trip to town was a bit daunting, for a couple of reasons. Spring keeps trying to show up around here, but as the joke going around the internet says, it isn’t installing properly. I woke up on Thursday to an inch of frozen snow and ice, and slid all the way to town on that stuff. Ugh. Since I left early, I had time to slow down and appreciate the gorgeous skies and blue waters of Klamath Lake, and even pulled over a few times for photos. I kept thinking, “Just slow down and appreciate the beauty instead of complaining about the snow”. Then I slipped on the ice and managed to keep from sliding under the car with some fairly weird body moves. I was rewarded for my efforts by suddenly looking into the eyes of a blue heron right in front of me, trying to fish, and wondering where the snow came from. Of course, 30 miles each way isn’t bad when the weather is good and the sun is shining, but when gas is at 3.95 per gallon and I am driving my Dakota it gets a bit depressing. The Dakota gets about 15 mpg, so you do the math.

While I was intently focused on work stuff, Mo was valiantly working away on the greenhouse. We had a bit of a funny start with the project, funny unless you are the one wielding the shovel. We decided on a location for the house, and my job was to remove the sod from the 10×12 space. Took me a couple of partial days to get the job done and I was extremely proud of myself. Mo came in the house after I was done, looking sheepish. Seems as though we had located the house straddling the official property line, and half of it would be in the “road” if the county ever decided to enforce the rules. We thought the house would be something we could move around at will, but after reviewing the complex directions, Mo decided that she didn’t really want to ever move it once it was built. So, I got out the trusty sharp shooter spade, and once again lifted a 10 x 12 square foot area of sod. This time, Mo helped move it all after I did the cutting and it only took us a day. When I came home from work the following night, Mo had faithfully replaced all the sod squares in the original site. By mid summer, no one will ever know we tried to build a greenhouse in the road.

The rest of the week, while I worked, Mo patiently fiddled with the instructions and put that thing together. I swear it was like some sort of evil erector set. The directions were ok, but the drawings were a bit weird. I think Mo spent 3 hours trying to understand just how to put the top beam together. The kit is all screws and bolts and straight pieces of aluminum. It’s a good thing I wasn’t the one doing it, or it would still be in a pile somewhere!

I am excited about the project, though. When I got home from work on Friday it was completely finished, and now we are going to town today to buy the raised bed materials for the interior. We also decided to put down a floor of 1/2 inch hardware cloth wire to try to keep out the voles and rabbits. The sun was shining beautifully yesterday, but the wind was cold. I stepped into the greenhouse and reveled in the warm, humid air. I will have at least one 10×12 space of deer free, frost free gardening, at least as long as I remember to never leave that wide door open!

Last weekend we took some time out from work and greenhouse building to celebrate Easter with family. My daughter and son-in-law, my two grandkids, and my sister and niece all came out to Rocky Point for a celebratory brunch and Easter Egg hunt. We had a great time, and I made Mo’s favorite orange walnut coffee cake to go with the zip-lock bag omelets. I love those crazy things, always perfect for fun and laughs in a crowd. The kids then colored all the eggs and Kevin and Melody played Easter Bunny hiding them in the yard. We had some moments of snow flurries, but the sun came out warm and bright in time for our festivities. Then the kids decided to hide the eggs for the adults and we had lots of laughs together over that one.

I think the funniest moment of the day, however, was trying to explain to my daughter’s Thai exchange student why a rabbit would lay eggs. It’s hard enough to explain to our own kids, but when you add the cultural differences it’s even funnier. We finally went to the internet to discover that the tradition goes back to the middle ages and morphed into the Easter Rabbit sometime during the 18th century in Germany. It was perfect family time, even though I rarely manage to get all my family together at once, I am still so grateful for the ones that live close by.

The sun finally came out and in spite of the cold temperatures, Mo managed to get the MoHo all washed and shiny and I cleaned out the interior. The MoHo is five years old, and now and then something needs replaced. We had the original CO2 detector that is supposed to only last five years. Sure enough, it started screaming at strange moments having nothing to do whatsoever with CO2. The problem is that the original unit is no longer made, and the new one is a different size than our original. Mo had to cut out a bigger square in the wall to install the new one, but now all the green lights are on and there are no weird screams in the night. She had to find the replacement on the internet, since the local RV shops only carry the type that have both CO2 and propane detectors in one unit. Dumb. We already have a propane detector near the floor and the refrigerator, where propane might actually show up. Now we are all good to go, with safe detectors. I remember the explosion in an RV at the Sands RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs last winter that was caused by leaking propane. Good detectors are important!

I now have a whole week without work, and Mo and I decided it was a perfect time to head for the coast. We miss the beach, and this time we are going to Brookings, where Mo once had a condo overlooking the ocean. We will camp at Harris Beach State Park for a few days, and then drive north to South Beach where we will meet her brother and his wife for a couple of days of more family fun. Of course the kayaks are going on this trip, and we hope to test the waters in the Chetko and Pistol Rivers and maybe Brookings Harbor. The best part of this plan is that we have sunshine and temperatures predicted in the 70’s! On the Oregon Coast!! Some of our fellow RV’rs haven’t been so lucky lately, so our timing is perfect.

Medford and Iraq

One of the best things about living in Rocky Point in Winter (yes I know it is supposed to be Spring) is the ability to leave it behind and head over the mountain to Medford on a whim. This wasn’t exactly a whim, since I needed to get to the Social Security office and Medford is almost as close as Klamath Falls. Big difference, however, between those two cities at the moment. Klamath Falls has snow flurries and Medford has spring sunshine. It was a fairly easy choice deciding which office I wanted to visit.

Traveling 140 over the pass at Lake of the Woods

There have been some new followers to the blog since we left on our travels to the southern deserts last month, and I thank each of you. It’s always encouraging to see that folks care enough to follow along. Russ and Donna are Oregonians, now on the road, so we travel many of the same roads getting from here to there. Andy Altes, Sara, John W, don’t appear to have blogs. MacTrailer’s blog is in Portugese, but can be translated with Google Chrome. Not sure if IE does this as well. He does not yet have any posts, but I would imagine that some will follow eventually. Margie Anne’s New Zealand Diary is a fascinating look into life on another continent, where fall is in progress and winter is on the way. I may have thanked Linda already, but didn’t want to miss thanking her again, since I read her entire story of their Alaska trip last year and she has sent along some helpful emails as well.

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The snow level was the lowest we have seen all winter in April!

Yesterday morning, looking out the office window at the snow, I was glad for the excuse to leave our forest and travel the short 50 miles or so over the pass to Spring. Medford isn’t always quite a beautiful as it was yesterday. In winter, fog can lie in the valley making things very murky and cold. In summer, it can get very hot, and similar inversions hold the smog close to the ground as well. Yesterday, however, the skies were clear and the grass incredibly green. Forsythia was in full bloom along with the landscape tree flowering pear, used everywhere in town for early spring snow white blossoms. We planted a flowering pear last fall to replace the sweet gum that couldn’t handle our hard late spring freezes, so I am really looking forward to it’s first year in our yard.

Mo decided that it was a good day to replace some of the lost tools from last month’s vandalism, so after the social security office we went to Harbor Freight. I should say Mo went to Harbor Freight, while I sat in the car with Abby for 75 minutes of pure heaven, doing absolutely nothing except watching the white puffy clouds slide across the brilliant blue sky, enjoying the sun and spring breezes. I took Abby for a walk, took a couple of photos, and just soaked up the warmth.

Pidge asked if our insurance company was stepping up, but Mo decided that with only 1500 or so in losses and 1000 deductible it wasn’t worth making the claim. It’s amazing, but the trauma of the vandalism is almost completely behind us now, and the only thing left to do is slowly replace the missing items. The MoHo is intact, and as beautiful as ever. We did have an interesting conversation this morning about next winter, however. We probably won’t pay 179 per month to store the MoHo in a high security covered storage facility! Ha! Talking about other options, including storing her in Medford just for November and December and heading south from January through April next year. Who knows, plans shift and change, but I like the thought of this one.

After a good shopping spree at Harbor Freight, we did the Costco run, and had the best hot dog in the world for a buck and a half. That is often part of the Medford run for us, a perfect dog at Costco. On the way home we took some side roads through the tiny town of Eagle Point, with it’s historic old grain mill, and then along Butte Creek which was in full flood stage, almost overflowing it’s banks with brown wild water. Another side road took us up to a higher terrace, one we have never seen before, with broad vistas of the surrounding mountains and beautiful grasslands and big ranches. Someday, maybe by 2020, Mo and I will decide to leave the deep winter snows of Rocky Point, and the possibilities of where we might go are always there in the background. In spite of our love for so many parts of this amazing country, we will probably remain somewhere in our beloved Southern Oregon.

You might wonder how Medford relates to Iraq. I guess it doesn’t, except it was on my mind a lot yesterday as I watched the blue skies. My grandson Steven is once more being deployed to Iraq, and yesterday was in the security advance group, out of touch, until he leaves today for 3 weeks in Kuwait before going on to Iraq. Steven has a wife and two young children, my great grand kids, and already did one tour of Iraq a couple of years ago. When he came home from war, he left the Army, but the world out there was incredibly difficult for a young father with two kids and he decided to re-enlist. Steven is a computer security specialist, so his assignments are not front line, but even in the Green Zone he was subject to bombings and danger.

to Medford (11) I don’t understand why we are pulling troops out of Iraq, and yet more young men and women are still being deployed there. Steven says that it will be more difficult this time, without the large number of troops, there won’t be as much support as previously. Makes me sad and angry at the same time, but I honor our troops and what they do for us. I just wanted to take the moment to honor Steven and send him off with a big hug and lots of support.

Folks are following and all I am doing is “painting the living room” and cooking

While I was writing about our trip to the California coast, and working diligently to catch up on my cruise stories, a few more followers joined my list of supporters. I want to welcome you and thank all of you, visible and invisible for your support. I also think you might deserve better than the sudden silence that followed immediately after you joined.

Welcome to PB and J, a young family writing about their travels through some of my favorite places in the southeastern US. It’s nice to see young families out there adventuring together.

I have followed Connie and Tracy at the Gypsy GMas for some time now, as they create their full-timing life while continuing to work. I treasure reading the incredibly open stories and enjoy how much Connie shares her feelings about life, love, working, and creating a more meaningful life.

Welcome also to Erik, who does not yet have a blog, but plans to start blogging when he begins his full time journey, and in the mean time is learning from all those full time folks out there sharing their stories.

I have followed John and Carol for some time as well, while they kayak in the gorgeous clear waters of north central Florida, one of my favorite places in the world. Check out their great blog “Our Trip Around the Sun”.

But back to the living room. It is snowing again in Rocky Point, it is February, my least favorite month to be in snow country, so of course it’s time to do a nice big home project. When Mo built her home in 2002, she painted everything a lovely off-white, to create light and open airy space in the deep forest. On the other hand, when we worked together on the mobile where I lived in California, we painted warm colors and white trim that also created a nice environment that we both enjoyed.

It’s been a year now since I have shared Mo’s home, and we came to the joint conclusion that it was time for the white walls to exit and something a bit newer to enter. We spent the last year or so looking at colors and thinking about just how it might look with the change.

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Combining households at this stage in life is always an interesting process. Mo is understated and has great antiques, and likes neutral colors and not a lot of “stuff”. I am flamboyant, love the southwest canyon look, and love my ceramic chickens, rocks, jars of sand, and a ton of other stuff. Her paintings are European originals gathered from her travels. Mine are mostly inexpensive prints, a few good prints, and limited edition photos of rocks, sand, and other southwest themes. Pulling all this together in a cohesive unit has been a fun process, and both of us have a goal of creating a home that feels warm and welcoming to company, but most of all, comfortable to us.

It works! The color we settled on is a warm honey gold called on the paint chip “Chamois”, but we laughingly refer to it as our pumpkin/carrot soup bisque. It’s fun in that sometimes it is a nice warm yellow gold, and other times in turns peachy, or bronzy, or who knows what color to call it. Much like my beloved canyons, the color shifts with the light. I love that. We decided to accent with another darker warm butterscotch color that initially looked a bit like baby poop till we fixed it a bit. Now it also is perfect. Amazingly, the light is warm and the rooms aren’t a bit darker than they were when the walls were white.

In the midst of all this, an old folk song from the late 80’s keeps running through my head. I used to have it on a CD somewhere, or maybe it was a cassette tape, sung by one of the women singers I used to follow, but when I went to the internet, I could only find the actual authors of the song and the You Tube video. Don’t click on the title unless you want to get redirected to YouTube and a very silly bluegrass song, the gist of which is that the world is falling apart and so…

Why Am I Painting the Living Room?

Ah yes I can see how my tombstone will read
Here lies someone of exceptional worth
Though she did not do a lot for her kind
Or help hold together this crumbling earth
Here lies a woman they’re saying of whom
Sure had a good looking living room…

Sunday morning dawned bright and cold today, and I started cooking early in the day for the planned Sunday dinner for Melody and her family. One of my favorite magazines is Cook’s Illustrated. This time the star of the show was an old fashioned blade pork roast with the bone in, rubbed with kosher salt and brown sugar and steeped for 18 hours, then slow cooked for 7 hours until it was meltingly tender and encased in a crackling crunchy crust. I made roasted potatoes and an apple onion sauté to go with it and that great orange spinach salad that rolls around the internet recipes. Yum. By the time the kids arrived in the early afternoon the house smelled so dang good anyone would be hungry just walking inside.

I love having Melody and her family close enough to share a simple Sunday dinner, and I love that the almost 18 year old and the 12 year old still like to come and hang at Grandma’s house. Melody’s husband Kevin brought their Wii console and we all laughed ourselves silly over bowling, baseball, and tennis. Mo and I really cracked up watching our little Wii selves jumping and rolling on the tennis court. This week is Mo’s birthday, and the kids all spent a lot of time making handmade cards for her and I made her requested carrot cake.

It was a wonderful way to spend a very cold and snowy week, with temperatures dropping into the single digits. It was also a wonderful way to spend a perfect Sunday before I go off to work again tomorrow.

Jan 22 Off on the Legendary Blues Cruise

I have four kids, and with their partners, their children and their partners, and their children’s children, it’s a good sized family. I often hear of moms who take their entire families on reunion trips and cruises, and it sounds like so very much fun. That would take a lot more dollars than I can manage, so my choice is to take each of my children on a one-time special trip of their choice. One-on-one time with Mom, which is also nice, and usually doesn’t happen during the big family get-togethers. My eldest daughter Deborah chose this Legendary Blues Cruise as her dream destination, one that she probably wouldn’t be able to manage on her own any time in the near future.

Of course, Deb and I wanted to fly together to Miami, and the Portland airport is big enough to serve as a good jumping off point. The weather cooperated fairly well with my choice to drive to Portland on the Friday of our late evening flight. I left at 7 in the morning from Rocky Point and chose to go the I-5 route, even though it’s a bit longer, it seems a lot safer than icy HWY 97 at this time of year. It was a lovely drive and I was in Portland by 2 in the afternoon, just in time for Deb to arrive home from her short work day. Deb is a financial director for a non-profit in Portland and has a long commute. I guess the price of a good job sometimes is that dang commute. When she got home, she was pretty excited. Deb works hard and doesn’t get much time for vacations so this coming week is pretty special to her.

The skies were gray and chilly, but the traffic was light. I love being a passenger when my daughter drives through Portland traffic because she is really good at it, and knows just when to jump off the freeways and wind her way through downtown back streets to get to the airport.

We chose to park in the economy lot to save some extra dollars, but the shuttle was quick and efficient and without any glitches we were in the terminal, checked in, and through the security line. Since we had a long layover in Seattle before our red-eye flight, we skipped some of the great restaurants at PDX in favor of killing time nicely with dinner in Seattle.

The Alaska flight from Portland to Seattle is less than an hour, with just enough time for the crew to deliver complimentary wine and beer from a local brewery and winery. I guess that makes up for the little planes and the fact that you have to do a gate check of your carry-on if it is much bigger than a purse.

Once in Seattle, we were already inside security with a three hour wait so it was nice that there are some very good restaurants available. We settled on a slow delicious supper at the Alaska Grill with yummy seafood and Juneau’s great brew. Our flight was on time and it didn’t seem very long before we were settled in to our seats for the long overnight flight to Miami.

As we approached Florida, we could see nothing but thick fog blanketing the landscape. As we circled Miami, I felt the ominous lift of a plane circling back higher, and before long the pilot announced that we couldn’t land and would have to return to Orlando for fuel. It didn’t take very long to fuel up again and fly back to Miami, but once there we continued to circle and circle. I heard later that one of the planes coming in couldn’t land anywhere and was running on fumes. Eventually we landed, a couple of hours late, but it didn’t matter because we were scheduled far enough in advance that it wasn’t a problem.

I love that first smell of Florida when I get off the plane in the early morning, walking up the jetway. It’s thick and robust, wet and organic in a way that you don’t often get out in our dry western landscape. The skies were cloudy and the temperatures were in the low 50’s. Once again, Florida was experiencing a colder than normal week and we were in the middle of it. I hope that someday I can get back to Florida when it is full of gorgeous warm velvet air, but this year I haven’t been very lucky in this regard.

We barely had time to pick up our bags when a Holland America representative met us, “Are you Deborah and Sue?” In just a few moments we were whisked off to the curb, our bags were loaded into the shuttle, and we were on our way to Ft. Lauderdale. Once there, before very long we were through security, checked in and received our cruise cards and were on the ship. I have been on only 6 cruises now, but this was the slickest embarkation I have experienced so far.

We wound our way up the gangways and started exploring the Holland America MS Eurodam a bit, and within just a few minutes it was announced that our staterooms were ready. That was fast! By 11 we were in our room unpacking, checking out the large closets, the nice veranda, and the very comfy beds. The skies were still overcast and breezy and the views of Fort Lauderdale were a bit dingy. We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the ship, trying to find where all the venues were located, and enjoying a great lunch buffet at the Lido, the main area for casual dining on the 9^th deck.

The mandatory safety muster was easy, with no requirement to wear our life jackets, but we had to be there on the Promenade Deck 3 below our designated lifeboat to check in. It’s surprising to me how differently this is handled among different cruise lines, with some doing the entire thing in one of the bars. The sail away was a bit confusing because I have this “thing” about wanting to be at the high point on the ship as we leave. However, the Eurodam is designed in a way that makes it hard to find the highest point very easily, with convoluted access to some of the decks, and stairways that stop in the middle of a restaurant and don’t go anywhere. As a result, Deb missed the waving crowd along the Fort Lauderdale beach while I led her around in circles trying to get to the top of something. Silly me.

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It was pretty cold and windy out on the aft deck, but the music was good and the atmosphere was energizing while everyone danced and drank and laughed and started up what was to be a seven day party. Deb and I had the cruise drink of the day, something called the “Bluesarita” that was a tasty treat at around 5 bucks, plus tips and taxes of course. The “Sail-Away”party was in full swing by 4:45 with a rear deck southern bbq with ribs and all the fixings, but we didn’t eat because we wanted to enjoy our first full dinner on the ship in the main dining room. Rick Estrin and the Nightcats set the pace with some rousing blues and everyone was having a great time out on deck. They even closed down the aft deck swimming pool for this cruise and converted it to a dance floor. Deb and I found the stairs to the 10th deck above all the party people for a better view and more room to dance. The banners on the ship above the party deck were certainly not your ordinary cruise logos!

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When we purchased our tickets, we scheduled early dining at 5:45 so that it wouldn’t interfere with the music of the night during the cruise. We thought the seating was for a table of six with Deb’s friends, but when we arrived at the dining room, it seemed that it was open seating. This turned out to be the case throughout the cruise, with our choice of table changing each night and our seat mates coming and going at will. We didn’t get to know our servers in the way that you do with assigned seating and I missed that a bit.

Dinner was lovely, and our choice of table by a big rear window was great, with views of the coast fading in the distance as the sun set through the dim gray skies. The excellent dinner was typical of the rest of our dining experience on the Eurodam. I liked the food on this ship. While not of Celebrity quality, it was still very good most of the time, flavorful and well prepared, and served with a bit of flair. Much better than our recent Princess cruise, but again, nothing like what Mo and I experienced last year on the Solstice when we went through the Panama Canal. An example would be the Bananas Foster dessert, on Celebrity it was flamed directly in view of our table, and on the Eurodam there wasn’t a flame in sight.

In the blur of activity, I have no idea what we did that first night after dinner. I am sure that music was involved, and I am sure Deb was dancing at one point or another. I have lots of blurry photos of people dancing and Deborah laughing and hugging her friends from Portland that had been on this cruise in the past and were really excited to be doing it again.

I spent the obligatory hundred dollar bill to ensure internet access throughout the cruise, making good use of my great little wifi booster that I bought back in Desert Hot Springs. I had an excellent connection in my stateroom and never had to go wandering off to a ship café to get good internet. However, “good” is relative with the ship’s satellite connection and it was never as fast as I needed to really peruse for any length of time.

It had certainly been a long time since I left Klamath, and a long day since we landed in Miami, so I was definitely ready for my comfy bed with the down comforters and the high end pure white cotton hotel style sheets that awaited me.

If you care to see the rest of the photos, with pictures from around the ship, and including those blurry dance photos, the link is here.

Love that wood heat…most of the time

we go from this: to this:

with this:

That pile on the porch is about what we use in two weeks keeping the house warm. This time we only made it to Monday, though, which means we burned half a cord of wood in about 10 days. Whew! Today it was about 10 when we got up and by the time we started to move wood it was all the way up to 18. I don’t believe it, though, because with that little soft breeze blowing, it felt like it was 10 again.

I love wood heat. It keeps me warmer than any other kind of heat, bar none. I am warmer in my house here than I ever am in California with the gas turned up as high as I can stand it. It cost me 400 bucks a month to heat my house in Jamestown during the winter and 500 a month to cool it in summer. Yeah it was older and not very well insulated, but still. When I am tromping up the stairs here, however, hauling the wood from the trailer up the steps to the back porch, huffing and puffing away, I wonder just how long we will manage to do this. Once back inside the warm house I have no doubts at all. Love it.

It’s been a quiet week since New Years. We have been staying home, feeding the fire, doing small house chores. I have been working on soils “stuff”, knitting, and finally getting around to reading “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”. The Kindle I ordered should be here sometime this week, and my first purchase will be the next book in the series.

I actually managed to get out my cross country skis, (the first time since I left Klamath to work in California in 2006) and shusshed around on the local roads a bit. Cross country skis on my feet aren’t made to go down hills. At least not any more. Guess I am going to have to practice a bit and get my balance back, but it was still fun.

Yesterday my daughter Melody brought her family out to Rocky Point to enjoy the deep snows and get in some great sledding. The skies were sunny, with temperatures that weren’t so cold you couldn’t have fun and we certainly did. Mo has an old sled that is everyone’s favorite, but the big green thingy I bought from Costco wasn’t a bad ride either. Kwankae, Melody’s exchange student from Thailand, had a great time as well, laughing in the snow. This is her first year for snow, since that is something you certainly don’t find in Thailand. I loved the chance to make a couple batches of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, knowing that I could send most of them home with the kids. We all drank hot chocolate and ate cookies and laughed about all the “air time” the kids got jumping over the moguls on the old roads around our house. Speaking of wood heat, after we all got back in the house, everyone really loved backing up to the wood stove to warm their buns!

In less than two weeks I’ll be flying to Florida with my eldest daughter to board a cruise ship to the Eastern Caribbean. Yippee! Wood heat is wonderful, but white beach sand heat is a whole lot better!