Pancho and Grunt. LHC

Pancho and Grunt were delighted to see us return home, although they pretended to be totally indifferent. One might call them stoics. They are quite reserved, displaying little emotion regardless of the occasion. No doubt they were sick of being cooped up in the hot dark garage for 4 months; like Trish and I, they’re outdoors types at heart. For those who have yet to meet P&G, I’ve included pix (Grunt is the short one) – and some of the LHC house/yard also.

.
Trish has spent many hours swamping out the EDGE interior since our return. Four months of occupancy plus 500 miles of gravel road equals one filthy RV. We’ll wait for the weather to cool a bit before cleaning and waxing the exterior, tightening screws and nuts, lubing springs and jacks, etc.

.
Speaking of weather, it’s been a least a week since I last whined about it, maybe 2 weeks. Too long entirely. It feels great to be back in the dry heat, but it would be even greater if heat levels were normal. Late September highs are running 10-15 degrees above normal which means daily highs of around 105. We’ve had the A/C on most of the time since our return home and the 10-day forecast indicates it will stay on awhile. The A/C was only on for 3 days in the Jan-May, 2010 period however. It's quite comfortable without A/C with temps up to 90.

.
Having recently enjoyed several days of OR liquid sunshine, I’m reminded of an old stale joke – one that is actually better spoken than written but what the hell, you’ll figure it out. In recent years, OR has earned quite a reputation for producing excellent wines, in addition to its rep for long, rainy winters. OR natives, when asked, “What’s your favorite OR wine?” consistently respond with, “I wish it would stop raining!”

.
I ordered a couple of portable misting towers to use during hot spells. Misting is a very effective cooling method, should allow us to be comfortable outside on the terrace even with 100+ temps. Will let you know how well they work.

Lake Havasu City, AZ

Home again, home again. We hit LHC at 4 PM on 9-23, found house and yard to be in fine shape despite our 4 month absence. We switched the breakers on, turned on the water, plugged in the fridge, and slept in our spacious, comfortable bed. Woo-hoo!

.
Trip summary:
1. Days/miles: 116/14189
2. Gas cost: $3998
3. Cheapest gas: $2.45; Gallup, NM
4. Highest gas: $8.36; Toad Lake, BC on The Alaska Highway
5. Camping fees: $2624 (about 15 nights were freebies, parked in people’s yards or driveways)
6. Number of states/provinces visited: 12/4
7. Number of times we set up camp: 58
8. No flat tires, no mechanical breakdowns, no empty gas tank, no traffic tickets, no hits, no runs, no errors, nobody left on base
.
What would we do different if we did it all over again? Not much. Let's see ........okay, I’d leave my long johns at home. We hit some cruddy weather but there was only that one night in Leadville, CO when it got down to 32 degrees. Our pre-trip planning was thorough and we had the right travel references, The Milepost and The Traveler’s Guide to Alaskan Camping. Four months turned out to be a little long, will shorten that up a month or so next summer.
.
If you’ve an interest in seeing AK and haven't done the Inside Passage cruise, I suggest you cruise to Homer or Skagway from Vancouver, BC, rent a vehicle and drive back. We might have done that ourselves but I’d already taken the IP cruise.
.
For those hundreds of avid readers who are flat out devastated and depressed at the thought of these posts coming to an abrupt end cuz the trip is over, take heart. The blog posts will continue, filled with harrowing tales of life in a harsh, barren desert teeming with venomous snakes, biting spiders, voracious buzzards and hordes of marauding Q-tips. “What are Q-tips?” you ask: people with white hair and white tennis shoes. AZ is heavily infested with ‘em, especially in winter.
.

Pix: Mt Shasta, Carina (niece) and I psyching ourselves up for pickleball, wind farm near Tehachapi, CA.

Day 116. Bakersfield, CA

“Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again.” John Fogerty; Creedence Clearwater Revival
.
Headed south out of Sacramento on I-5, we heard a radio advisory to take a different route cuz an accident was blocking 3 lanes up ahead. We jigged left, over to hiway 99, spied a grocery store in Lodi, decided to stop and get a couple things - but had already passed the turnoff. I turned right 2 blocks past the store, into a residential area full of cul de sacs and no side street access back to the store. I did a huey and returned to the main drag, planning to hang a left. No way Jose, concrete divider, right turn only, the hell with it, there’s other stores.
.
You may notice a remarkable phenomenon in the day count in this post: the clock got turned back 4 days. I’ve been cavalier about the accuracy of the count but figured I should get it right for this, our last day on the road. So, I did a calendar check and discovered the discrepancy. Do I really care? Uh-uh. Am I going to go back and correct all the day counts in previous posts? What – you think I got nothing better to do? Get real.
.
Trish grew up in Sacramento, which she often calls Sacatomatoes. I didn’t understand this until yesterday. On southbound I-5, there are tomatoes on the right shoulder of the highway, mile after mile. No, they aren’t growing there. They’re ripe tomatoes that fell of the trucks hauling them to market. Or, maybe a couple harvest workers riding in the backs of two separate trucks had a running tomato fight, which is not as farfetched as you might think. I vividly remember a lengthy tomato fight with my brother Gerry one crisp autumn day back in MN. It was great fun – more so because the tomatoes were rotten, killed off by the first frost. There are darn few things in life more satisfying than nailing your big brother with a large rotten tomato. Yes!
.
Orange Grove RV Park is the scene of our last night’s campout. It’s a large campground with many amenities and hundreds of mature orange trees heavily laden with fruit. Several weeks out, the happy campers here will be gorging themselves on nice ripe oranges. See pix.

Day 119. Sacramento, CA

Doug, Trish’s brother, is a civil engineer, manages huge construction projects, and is a skilled builder. He built a snazzy gazebo in their back yard, complete with lights, fan, natural gas centerpiece and mister. Doug and Jan own a space at an upscale RV park near LHC and they’re building a casita there. They’ve spent most of their LHC time (the month of February) on that project the last couple years and will wrap it up this winter I think. The pix are of D&Js back yard; pretty neat, huh?
.
Doug took the day off yesterday, and played golf with Trish and me in the morning. He hadn’t played for about 5 years but enjoyed it, said he’d play with us in LHC this winter. D&J are great hosts, even going the extra mile (and the extra dollar) to buy my favorite single malt Scotch. Last night they served up a fantastic dinner of barbecued ribs; their 2 sons, Doug and Eric, joined us for the feast. Trish hooked up her PC to the big screen TV after dinner and presented her slide show of our trip.
.
A couple of posts back I mentioned injuring an arm muscle while playing pickleball. Two days ago I noticed an 8” bruised area on my inner forearm, similar to the look of a badly sprained ankle, purple and green and ugly. I really did a job on that sucker and it’s going to take awhile to heal. With the help of 2 Aleve, it didn’t bother me much when I played golf.
.
This AM we start the home stretch. We intended to drive through Yosemite NP and camp near Mono Lake, CA tonight. However, the shortest and quickest route to LHC from here is down I-5, or alternatively, down 99. We hate driving CA freeways: beat-up roads, lots of traffic and a posted maximum speed of 55 for all towing rigs – what’s to like? But this time we’re going to bite the bullet, eliminate one day’s travel and beeline it for home. We’ve been on the road long enough.

Day 118. Trip miles: 13513. Sacramento, CA

Our last night in OR was spent near Ashland, OR at Emigrant Lake Recreation Area, a spacious county facility with good campground and day use areas on a manmade lake/reservoir used for irrigation. The lake’s water level is now at its annual low point, some 60’ below the average high water level in late winter. Some floats and buoys are high and dry and look silly sitting on the ground 400’ from the water. The paved boat ramp has been extended to the water’s edge, appears long enough to land small aircraft. The pix were taken at Emigrant Lake.
.
Trish’s new kayak rides in style inside the RV cuz we don’t have a roof rack on the pickup - not a major problem, since the kayak is only 9.5’ long and very light weight. We move it outside upon arrival at the campground. It’s presence in the RV ‘hallway’ hampers bathroom and refrigerator access but we can live with that for the few remaining travel days.
.
Trish and Ranger stepped aboard the new yacht for the first time yesterday – on dry land cuz schlepping it to the lake was not a viable option. We’ll have to get a bottle of champagne for the actual launching and christening although breaking the bottle on the prow is ill advised – not to mention a waste of perfectly good, albeit cheap, bubbly. We’ll just wave the cork over the prow; it’s the thought that counts.

.

It occurs to me that Trish has yet to come up with a name, will have to work on that. Lollipop? QE3? Jalapeno? Bambi? I kinda like QE3, short and unpretentious like the craft itself.
.

Crossing into CA one must stop for a fruit check. That statement opens the door for any number of snide remarks but, being the sensitive, totally PC guy that I am, I will of course refrain. The checkpoint is a wise and necessary precaution, protecting all manner of native fruits and nuts from assorted nasty infectious alien vermin and fungi. At the checkpoint I confessed to the dastardly deed of having in our possesssion 2 tomatoes. Apparently, tomatoes aren't on the no-fly list: they weren't confiscated.

Day 116. McMinnville, OR

This is the home of Evergreen Aviation and their pilots are highly skilled at landing on short runways. Witness the 747 that landed on top of that building in the pix above.
.
Evergreen built an air museum near the airport here; it has Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, a Blackbird spy plane, several fighters and so on. By coincidence, there’s an older fighter plane parked outside the museum, and it has the names of the pilot and copilot written on the cockpit. The pilot’s name is Major Tony McPeak. Tony was a Blue Angels pilot who later became a 4-star general and air force chief of staff. It so happens he was a neighbor of mine when I lived in Lake Oswego, OR in the 90s.
.
We spent a pleasant 2 hours listening to Brian and Carina yesterday, doing a pro bono gig at a local music store. They have an appealing sound, nice blend of voices. Brian has several original songs and some of them are very good. See pix. After the performance, we all went out for dinner at the Golden Valley Brew Pub, good brews and chow.

.
About 8:30 this AM we’ll hit the road, destination somewhere in the stretch between Ashland, OR and Weed, CA. En route we’ll stop at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Salem to pick up Trish’s new kayak – her third toy acquisition on this trip (the others were a folding bicycle and a set of golf clubs).

Day 114. McMinnville, OR

Pix taken in McMinnville.

.

“Growing old is not for sissies.”
.
Several days back I turned 66. Anymore, that’s not considered as ancient as it once was - ‘60 is the new 40’ and all that crap. Generally speaking, I don’t feel old but there are times when I’m rudely reminded of my senior status, and those times are becoming more frequent.
.
I’ve played pickleball 3 times in the last 6 days and each time I’ve strained or pulled a muscle or 2: my right forearm doing overhead slams, a groin muscle when I rush to the no-volley line after returning a serve. My style of play has always been aggressive but maybe I have to tone it down now. More stretching and warm up exercises will help, no doubt; we’ll see how it goes.
.
Pickleball came into existence in 1965 in western WA. I discovered the sport a few years later, while living in Seattle, and shortly thereafter put away my tennis racket in favor of the new game. It takes a fair amount of time and effort to become decent at tennis but not so pickleball: you can pick up a paddle for the first time and be enjoying the game within minutes. Now it’s becoming quite popular with seniors, especially in retirement havens like Phoenix and Tucson. To my knowledge, it hasn’t hit Lake Havasu City yet – but it soon will: yours truly is taking on that mission.
.
Trish will be spending time with her daughter today, tomorrow we’ll sit in on a musical performance provided by Carina and her guy, Brian, and Sunday we hit the trail back to AZ. We’ll spend 4 days on the road plus a one day break in Sacramento to visit Trish’s brother Doug and his wife Jan. Doug and Jan are the culprits we hold responsible for our move to LHC; they’ve been going there for years, typically spending the month of February in their 5th wheel RV. Truth be told, they were quite surprised that we decided to move there after only 2 weeks of exposure. Have to confess, I’ve never been one to dawdle when it’s decision time.
.
Life’s short. Do it. Now.

Day 110. McMinnville, OR

When we’re planning our road excursions, we use Streets and Trips software to work out our itinerary. It helps determine travel time and mileage, overnight stop locations and en route stops for sightseeing, gas, and groceries. The estimated total mileage for this summer’s travels, according to the software, is 11100; that’s the number of miles for the RV. The pickup racks up more mileage, of course, cuz it’s used for various side trips and errand running while the trailer resides at the campsite.
.
The ‘trip miles’ reported sporadically in the blog are the actual miles from the pickup trip odometer. My total mileage estimate was 15000 and we’ll come in quite close to that: 12667 to date plus another 1300 OR to AZ according to the software, plus side trips. It’s doubtful that you readers are jumping up and down in rapturous excitement about this useless information, and it doesn't do that much for me either. However, I do enjoy the little game I play with myself, seeing how close my estimate is to the actual. There’s something of the statistician in my nature.
.
McMinnville is in wine country, has a population of 32000 and strikes me as an appealing place to live. I don’t know the town well but Carina’s been here several years now and likes it a lot.
.
Trish is off to Neskowin on the OR coast today. She owns a lot there and there’s an adjacent parcel of landlocked property available, part of an estate that’s in probate. She’s meeting with the estate rep on site to see if the adjacent parcel is worth acquiring. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ll be doing clean up/fix up on Carina’s place and the RV. We’ll be getting our last batch of forwarded mail today. Maybe.

Day 107. Trip miles: 12667. McMinnville, OR

We’re parked in Carina’s driveway, our last stop before heading south for the winter. Carina is my wild and crazy niece - one of many nieces but there can only be one wild/crazy title holder and she's it, nolo contendre. She's the one that's responsible for Trish and me getting together. Actually, no, she’s really not to blame. Trish and I did it to ourselves. Carina just provided the contact information, an accessory before the fact, but otherwise innocent of all wrongdoing.
.
I’m sure you’ve been wondering how we stay in such fantastic shape on the road, how we keep our bodies so breathtakingly svelte and just plain drop dead gorgeous - the 6-pack abs, the picturesque pecs, the tight ends. It’s a challenge you know, given that most days we’re just sitting on our butts driving down the road, and stuffing our faces every few hours. Sure, we play golf and hike some but not enough.
.
Our portable gym consists of a foam exercise pad and a surgical tubing-type resistance set – simply an adjustable length of tubing with handles at the ends. You can do all sorts of exercises with the tubing, limited only by your imagination. My plan is to exercise every other day – but I don’t. I admit to being less than enthralled with exercise for its own sake. Give me something competitive though, and I’m all over it. I’ll be playing pickleball with Carina tomorrow morning, love that game.
.
Trish is more disciplined in her exercise than I, does Pilates, too. At home, she gets on her exercise bike and goes like the proverbial bat outta hell until her clothing is wringing wet. Ranger doesn’t have a fitness plan but does 4 miles to our 1 on hikes, and does speed sprints with squirrels and rabbits to see who gets the checkered flag at the nearest hole or tree. To our knowledge, Ranger hasn’t won any of these races but he continues undaunted nonetheless.
.
Speaking of Ranger, he was given a clean bill of health yesterday. We’ve been concerned about this for some time and it’s a great relief. He’s a lovable, well-mannered little fur ball, a joy to have around.

Day 106. Corvallis, OR

Both of us lived in Corvallis for a while, Trish ’75-‘78; me, ’79-’82. Trish was attending OSU and working part time. For me it was a company (CH2M Hill) move from the Seattle area, to a corporate assignment, manager of financial analysis. The company (consulting engineers) was headquartered here at the time; corporate offices have since moved to Denver, but they still have a large office here as well. By coincidence, Trish worked for the same company as a keypunch operator on the night shift.
.
We’re here for 2-3 nights to get Ranger checked out at the OSU veterinary school. He had a cancerous spot removed from his tongue shortly before we left AZ and we need to find out if the operation was totally successful.
.
It rained all day Tuesday, Wednesday had scattered showers, supposed to start improving today (Thursday). We’re outdoors people, chafe a bit when forced inside due to weather – a redundancy given my weather comments in prior posts. We’re such sweet people that we start melting when exposed to rain for more than a few moments. Yeah, it’s a burden.
.
Our campground is at the county fairgrounds. Many fairgrounds now include camping areas and I applaud that trend, putting to use and getting income from land that otherwise would sit idle much of the time. I’m strongly driven towards high efficiency and minimal waste, no matter the activity, asset, product or service, and no matter who does it, owns it or provides it. In fact, it’s safe to say I’m obsessed: it influences virtually everything I do. As obsessions go, mine is, I think, less repulsive and socially unacceptable than some. On the other hand, it's possible that my viewpoint just could be prejudiced. Nah.

Day 102. Armitage Cnty Park, Eugene, OR

This is a pretty and spacious park with full hookups and wifi. We’re here for 2 nights so Trish can get fitted for a custom folding bike, one that will fit in the back of the pickup with the tonneau cover over it. Hauling bikes around on the back of an RV beats them up pretty bad so we don’t do that anymore.

.
Meanwhile, a coast retrospective….. A couple miles south of Coos Bay, one drives by a substantial home with a nicely fenced yard and security gate. This is the home of world famous (?) Bonk and Bonk Investigations. When we drove by this place last summer, I did a double take and burst out laughing. We’re talking major incongruity here. Is Coos Bay such a hotbed of intrigue, vice and assorted misdeeds that it requires 2 - count em - not l but 2, Bonks? Mercy me! Who’d have guessed? Double Bonking right here in little old Coos Bay! Anyway, it appears that the Bonks are doing well and I wish them continued success.

.

The Bonks inspired a couple of limericks.
.
Call Bonk and Bonk, night or day
The investigators in Coos Bay
They’ll ferret out vice
Mysteries solved in a trice.
Bonking everyone that gets in their way.
.
In Coos Bay, it’s Bonk and Bonk
Investigations: just pull up and honk.
How a friend lost his life,
Cheating husband or wife,
That body stuffed in your car’s tronk.

Day 101. Sunset Bay SP, OR

Oregon has an impressive state park system, and some of the best are along the coast. Trish and I stayed at this park last summer and returned this year to hook up with friends Ron and Holly, from Portland. Trish and Holly have been close friends since their college days at OSU in Corvallis, the home of the ferocious Beavers (beware: they’ll gnaw off your leg before you know it). Trish is an honorary aunt to R and H’s 5 children.

.
R and H have 2 exchange students living with them for the high school year, one from South Korea (Alan) and one from China (John). Both have spent a prior year of study abroad, Alan in New Zealand, John in Georgia, and both are fluent in English. This is an intriguing situation for the boys, given that South Korea has poor political relations with China; SK is understandably intimidated by the proximity and military power of their huge neighbor.
.
On Thursday morning, Trish pulled a muscle in her back. It’s improving slowly but she has to limit her activities for a couple days at least. We were hoping to golf at a course that’s adjacent to the park but that’s not gonna happen.
.
I finally got the replacement RV radio from Camping World. One of the complications of this transaction was that the outfit that supplies the radios doesn’t install them: that’s done at the (Heartland) RV assembly plant. If I had worked through a Heartland dealer, they would have obtained the radio and installed it. Trouble is, most states have only a couple Heartland dealers and the locations are seldom convenient. I could have had CW install the radio at a cost of $75, but I did it myself, took 5 minutes, end of story.
.
The top 4 pix were taken in Shore Acres SP, a nearby day-use park which is the former estate of Louis J Simpson of Simpson Timber. LJ had a grand mansion on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and also had formal gardens, a separate rose garden, plus numerous varieties of plants and trees scattered about. In the mid 1900s, LJ fell upon hard times which ultimately resulted in the estate being donated. The bottom 2 pix are of Charleston Boat Harbor, south of Coos Bay.

Day 97. Champoeg SP, OR

Nope, streaming a movie or TV program to laptop via USB droid tether doesn’t work. It comes through in 3-second bursts with several seconds between bursts. It is possible to watch TV on the droid itself, though, so the problem is most likely the cable. The newer model, Incredible, can do it, saw it on youtube, using a composite video out cable. I called Radio Shack: they didn’t have said cable, never heard of it, doubted that it even existed. Gee, am I on the leading edge of technology here? Don’t think so after seeing the youtube thing. It may be that the Motorola Droid simply doesn’t have this capability. Stay tuned.
.
Thinking back on that Kenworth motorhome a few posts back, it would have been entertaining to be a fly on the wall when the guy trotted into DMV with a mitt full of sketches, 2 vehicle titles and God knows what else, to get a new title and license. “It’s a what? Are you kidding?” It had to be the highlight of their day, the DMV employees, whose jobs are slightly less exciting than watching chickens molting. And then there’s the insurance company, bet they loved it, too. It reminds me of the Johnny Cash song about building a car, a Cadillac I think, one piece at a time from parts smuggled out of the assembly plant over the course of several years.
.
No doubt, readers are tired of my bitching about the weather. Sorry about that – but I’m gonna keep on bitching. August in the Pacific NW is normally warm, sunny and dry. Not this year. Cool, cloudy and damp days abound and we’re tired of it. AZ sun and warmth will be quite welcome again, ETA 9-25.
.
Good old Camping World strikes again! The lady who ‘handled’ the order for the replacement RV radio - didn’t. What she did do was screw things up nicely and then go on vacation, leaving no clue as to status, contacts or anything else. To CW’s credit, it’s obvious that they do a bang-up job of hiring the mentally challenged. One wishes, though, that they’d place these employees in positions that don’t overtax their abilities - cleaning toilets, opening boxes, sweeping. Customer service types need to be more capable, maybe have an IQ with more than one digit.