MUDDSCAPE

This post was intended to go out yesterday (Tuesday) but the internet froze.

We’ve been enjoying Portland Oregon for the last 4 days, visiting with Cousins Sue and Larry and at last finding GELATO! While the weather had been dreary on our visit to Oregon with lots of wind and rain, there had also been some beautiful days.
For instance, the day we arrived it rained and was a little chilly but when we found the Gelato and Yogurt Lounge I completely forgot the outside weather. That wonderful Italian treat (my favorite Italian food and word) has a very different cold to it than the cold I get from a rainy day. And then, on Saturday, we took a nice long walk to Portland downtown and had lunch, then visited Powell’s Books (what a GIGANTIC place!), then had a nice return walk. While it was brisk, the sun shone and town wasn’t crowded so a good time was had by all. We were surprised by the abundance of “food carts”, just trailers turned into small walk-up restaurants really. They have proliferated greatly over the last 2 years, sort of starting in parking lots surrounding Oregon State and making their way to many of the parking lots downtown that find themselves “roomy” from our economy.
So, we’re packing this morning to drive up to Seattle for our family Thanksgiving and it’s my job to police the outside of the rig. I got good advice from Wendy yesterday to pack up as much as possible, especially since it was predicted to hard-freeze overnight. So I dumped tanks and stowed the sewer hose, and turned on the pump so I could drain and disconnect the shore-water hose and stow it as well. A darn good thing! THIS is NOT what you want to see when you open the door in the morning and head down the steps to outside!

The Big Chill greets me in the morning

It’s a good thing that some fresh snow really perks up a landscape scene. This is us parked at Jantzen Beach RV Park, right across the street from some HUGE shopping, the Jantzen Beach Center. It’s on Hayden Island in the middle of the Colombia River, and also just a literal stones throw from Vancouver, Washington. There isn’t a sales tax in Oregon, but there is a pretty hefty one in WA, up to 9.1%. Sales tax is Washington’s principal source of income since they don’t have an income tax. In Oregon, there IS an income tax, and the property taxes are also quite high, but no sales tax. So, Washingtonian’s from the southern part of the state make their way to shop in Jantzen Beach. It’s not really legal to buy here and take there, but there isn’t any money for enforcement so it’s the honor system for WA residents to pay their own sales tax. I’m guessing in these parts, on this issue, there is also a pretty short supply of honor.

Jantzen Beach RV in Portland Oregon

Yes, Virginia, those ARE icicles on the outside of the rig!

Yes, it snowed. Yes it was 25F all night. Yes everything froze. It was tough stowing everything for the departure, but it all happened and no fingers fell off from frostbite. So we got it all together and hit the road.

Now, THIS is the part that was to be added today, Wednesday, so I’ll happily add it here to it’s belated sibling.

Our drive was pretty uneventful. The interstate had been deiced, so our only challenge was the surface streets we took to GET to the freeway. No big deal there, just very slow and easy. The day warmed up a tad while we drove and this is what actually became our only problem. With the deicing chemicals and a little sunshine on the asphalt, the snow melted into a slush so that any truck or car that passed us sprayed our windshield, requiring frequent squirts of the windshield washers to clear our vision. Which worked for about 5 seconds until our windshield washers also froze. It’s just fluid inside of a tiny rubber tube after all, and with the temps in the 20’s it doesn’t take much to plug them up. So we had to make 2 rest stops to pour some hot water into the washer reservoir and onto the windshield so we could clear it up. As long as we spritzed every couple of minutes the washers would stay clear, at least until a sizeable ice berg built up on the edges of the wiper blades and rendered them useless for vision assist. Another rest stop, more hot water, presto. The drive took 3 hours and when we got to Kent we had a lovely pull-through spot waiting for us.

Our big challenge on arrival was ensuring a running water supply. Our internal supply was OK, it’s got a heating pad installed on it that runs off of our 12V system. But the pump, which sits against the outside skin of the rig, froze up when there were no heaters on inside during the drive. Luckily, we had ordered a “heat tape” online and had it shipped to Julie & Glenn here in Kent. So, they dropped it by and we used electrical tape to pair it to a 25’ water hose, then covered all that with split foam pipe insulation. Hook it to the faucet and the rig, wrap the excess heat tape around the faucet, turn it on and Voila!, running water. It works great!

All is well this morning, but we will be off to the auto parts store to get a gallon of anti-freeze windshield washer fluid!

Oh yeah, as always here’s Tippy!

OMG! Is it Saturday already? Better catch up on the blogging…..

Our 10 days in Florence were delightful! We had a few gorgeous days, and we had a western Oregon version of a Nor’Easter, those fearsome gales that blow onto the New England coastline in the fall. Ours was 50-70 mph winds with a couple inches of rain, topped off by a dusting of corn snow. Corn snow is like sleet or hail, but colder and softer. Anyway, it accumulated up to about ½” on our truck and on the dock where we planted our crab trap.

Corn snow on the windshield

Oh yeah, the crab trap. We had luck with our Crab Max hand-thrown traps. Wendy got a nice keeper Dungeness off of the Winchester Bay Coast Guard Pier.

Wendy’s crab – Mongo

But while we were shopping for boots at Fred Meyer we saw some folding box traps for sale ($20, no sales tax in Oregon!) and got one. We also found really cheap turkey necks at Safeway (go figure, turkey necks at THIS time of the year!) which turned out to be great crab bait. We hauled a half dozen keepers out from under the marina dock in 3 days and have either eaten them or shucked the meat and frozen it for future consumption. Yummy!

We also found a great little burger joint in Florence. We don’t eat out much on the road; we prefer to make our meals. We couldn’t resist The Hot Rod Grill however, complete with a full line of ’53 to ’63 Chevies (at least the front ends) and an authentic Bob’s Big Boy statue that was bought at auction in California. Yup, that’s a car crashing out of the left side. Andyou can’t see it from here, but there are 2 booths inside made out of ’55 Chevies.

The Hod Rod Grill in Florence OR

We did make a few sightseeing trips. We went south to Coos Bay, but didn’t like it much. Very industrial, which shows off it’s past as the largest timber shipping port in the world until the spotted owl did in the timber industry. And we obviously stopped into Winchester Bay, which was quite small but very picturesque. Most of the harbor seems to be RV park, which we are finding is very common all over Oregon. While we know of only 3 RV parks in the LA area, there were at least 10 in Florence alone. And nearly every highway exit has at least one RV park advertized. It’s kind of strange that we had such a tough time finding one for our stay in Kent WA for Thanksgiving. We far and away prefer the Central Oregon coast, but will have to save our appraisal of the North Coast for another time.

We also dug a few, make that 2, butter clams on the Siuslaw River banks near the marina. Although they were good size, we had to resort to buying a can of chopped clams to make our clam chowder. Wendy added a bunch of lump crab meat (from our keepers) and it was fabulous! It helped that the outside temperature was hovering around 41F most of the time.

We are now in Portland, camped at Jantzen Beach RV on Hayden Island. This place is very nice and clean, with a great staff. It’s also surrounded by the Jantzen Beach Center, a HUGE shopping mall. Since we’re in the market for some warm clothes and an amped-up electric space heater, we will be patronizing this later. We’re here to visit cousin Sue and hubby Larry for a couple of days, and hoping to connect with Wendy’s old buddy Grace from her La Leche League days. Then we’re off to Seattle (Kent) for Thanksgiving with the fam! We’re just a little leery since the weather forecast for the next 4 days has snow in 3 of them, and below freezing temps at night every night. We will get some practice on freeze-proofing the water hose. Thank God our rig is winterized with heated tanks and internally protected water lines. We have also invested in some 1” foam sheets to insulate the roof vents, and are thinking about making some insulated covers for the windows to cover them at night. Every little bit helps!

Speaking of stitchery, Wendy is finding all kinds of novel ways to sew in small spaces. She efficiently uses 3 rooms of our house on wheels for her projects.

Cutting patterns in the Kitchen

Ironing pieces in the Bedroom

Sewing in the Dining Room

The Kitchen and Dining Room also serve as our Bakery!

We’re off to shop and visit, but not before Tippy gets his $.02 in!

We had a beautiful sunny day today in Oregon. We made yet another pass at the crab fishing off of the local dock in the marina attached to our campground.

The Crab Max weapon!

1 hour of casting and retrieving our Crab Max traps brought in over 200 crabs, but no keepers!

Lots of crabs, but no keepers

Wendy's BFF fishing buddy

So we packed it in, showered, lunched, and took off on an exploration to the south. We found out that the Central Coast has lots more to offer than the South Coast, except for Winchester Bay. There we found “the old Coast Guard pier”, the best non-boat crabbing in Oregon. We had only about 15 minutes until sundown but that still gave us 3 casts of one Crab Max. The tide was also running, so we had everything going against us and yet we still pulled up a half dozen Dungeness. No keepers, but we have decided that one sunny day next week we are going to return with more bait, a picnic, and the Crab Max weapons. Stay tuned, there might be “film at 11”!

Sundown at the Old Coast Guard Pier - crab fishing is done!

No keepers today - but we'll be back

Meanwhile, we also discovered Clausen Oysters in Coos Bay. Harvested daily, $6 per dozen, sweet and tasty! 2 dozen of them became our dinner accompanied by fresh sourdough bread from Reedsport and a fresh acorn squash from just up the road. Yummy! Oh yeah, forgot to mention that our neighbors, who have a boat and 3 large crab pots, pulled their pots this morning and had 60 keeper Dungeness. They graciously contributed 3 of those bad boys to our stash, and we will very likely dine on them tomorrow! We did trade them the location of Clausen’s, so it worked out pretty even.

A Northwest Dinner at it's finest!

Anyway, there’s fishing, and there’s catching fish. Or crabs. So, with rain predicted for much of the weekend, we will likely get some serious reading and internet work done, and set our sights on crabbing for a sunny day next week!

But wait, Tippy’s knocking!

First, for our Vet’s: Thanks for your service to your country!

We’re in beautiful Florence, Oregon for this blustery Veteran’s Day 2010. We arrived 2 days ago to a drenching, cold and windy storm that delayed deployment of the rig by almost 2 hours before we got it all done. First, hook up the power, then inside to dry off and get the electric heaters going. At the next short break in the rain, outside to hook up the water hose. Then back inside to dry off. A couple of hours later, boredom sets in and I go out IN the rain to hook up the TV cable and also hook up the sewer hose at the same time. I’ve got my priorities, after all.

Florence is the northernmost tip of the Oregon Dunes, a 43 mile long stretch of coastline that is covered with towering sand dunes, that in turn are covered in all kinds of vehicles designed for climbing sand dunes. We can’t hear them from our campground, which is in the Port of Siuslaw Marina, but they are clearly evident on the main drag through town. We highly recommend the Port of Siuslaw for camping, by the way. Our main reason: although the campground itself is probably only about 10 acres, they have at least 8 wireless internet repeaters scattered about and the internet connection is fabulous! Oh yeah, the rate is also darn good at $165 a week with full hookups, not bad for a resort area!

The weather ushered in The Changing Of The Wardrobe. When we packed up last summer, we put all the winter clothes into our spare suitcases and stuffed them into the cargo hold. This morning we got them out and swapped all of the shorts, tank tops, and tee shirts for long pants, long sleeve tees, sweaters, sweatshirts and wool socks. With only so much room in our closet and dresser, we need to use a dual-wardrobe strategy.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we got up at the crack of dawn, actually 30 minutes BEFORE the crack itself, and got an early breakfast so we could drive up to Newport, about 50 miles, and visit Bill Lackman. Bill is the guy that sells the Crab Max, an innovative crab net that can be cast out from the beach or a dock with a fishing rod. We found him (and his Crab Max’s) on the internet and since he was so close to us, we dropped by his house and picked up 2 of them to take advantage of crab season in Oregon. In this state, it’s open 12 months about of the year, and when we are in Washington after Thanksgiving the season will be open there too. Fresh Dungeness, woo hoo! After picking them up we decided to just keep driving north.

Wet weather and high surf on the Central Oregon coast

We found ourselves at the Tillamook Cheese factory about lunch time. I highly recommend this self-guided tour, because it’s free! And you HAVE to try some of the ice cream at the factory store, it made a great lunch! And, for Elaine, here are some authentic plastic cows:

This is where plastic cheese comes from!

We toured a little on the way back, stopping at a fabulous little farm stand to get some fruit.

Farm Stand near Beaver, Oregon

We also got side-tracked by Mother Nature who was putting on quite a show on the coast with waves up to 20 feet that were whipped up by the storm.

Heavy Surf at Boiler Bay Oregon

They were breaking as far offshore as ½ mile, and in Depoe Bay they were pounding on the sea wall and sending spray over the highway. Take in a glimpse on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-CarcF15Q (turn up the volume!).

Today we tried our hand at crabbing with the Crab Max. We are quite used to using larger “pots” and a boat, the way we like to do it on Orcas, but this was very different. When we fish with pots, we bait them and toss them overboard, returning several hours later to haul them up and see what we got. Using the Crab Max, we toss them off the dock and stand there holding the tether in our hand until we feel it jiggling. That’s when the crabs have found the piece of bait (we use fresh chicken) that is pinned to the net. Then you haul away and the tight line shuts the trap like a clamshell, trapping the crabs inside. The good news: we had PLENTY of crabs to catch. The bad: no keepers, they were either females or too small to keep. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow!

But wait! There’s always room for Tippy!

It seems like we were forever in LA. So it seems like only an instant that we were stopped over in Bass Lake to visit Mort, our Chief Postal Officer. We have been a little concerned that Mort might use the cold weather as an excuse to not fetch our mail on some days, so we awarded him with an authentic postal fur cap to make sure he can always get the job done!

Mort, CPO and the new Cap

More accurately we were camped in Coarsegold at the Park Sierra SKP campground, a private campground that belongs to a club we recently joined, the Escapees (www.escapees.com). They have a network of co-op parks where you can either just stay if you are a member, or buy-in and live there full-time if you want to pay a quite reasonable fee. Although it’s cheap to visit, the scenery is priceless. Our site was spectacular, and we had early morning visits from some of the natives:

Our site at Park Sierra was Gorgeous!

We were visited by quail every morning

Wendy added to the Rock Garden in our site

Since this was our first time not only at Park Sierra, but in a SKP park at all, we were offered a tour. On the day we had open all of the volunteer tour guides were either out-of-park or otherwise engaged, so one of the original founders of the park, Mary Tuma, offered her services. This produced far more than we expected since she has been living here for more than 20 years, from the very first days of Park Sierra.

She introduced us to all of the park amenities, paying special attention to the many hiking trails throughout, which she delighted in showing us dune-buggy style from her golf cart. No matter that I (aka Lard Butt) had to jump off one time so we could make it up a steep and rutted path, it was a fabulous tour that got even better when we began meeting some of the other old-timers. It seems like they all wanted Mary to tell us the story about the water towers. They all started in but were quickly shushed by Mary who promised to tell us “the truth”. We finally got it out of her that the “big story” was really not much more than a couple of gals, two lawn chairs, the top of a new water tank, and a bottle of wine. I wish I had paid more attention to the other versions of the story, the ones involving gurney’s and cranes, or picnic benches, or loose articles of clothing. Maybe on our next visit…..

The park, like many RV campgrounds, is like a giant family. It’s all volunteer run (except for the occasional hired tree trimmers) and it shines like a gem. We’re aiming to stay at a sister park in Chimacum Washington for the winter, so we’ll just have to see if the SKP reputation holds up.

Park Sierra is virtually across the highway from the Chukchansi Casino, and we took the opportunity to indulge our favorite gambling tradition during a dinner there with Mort and his friend Johnnie. That tradition involves stuffing a $20 bill into our favorite dollar slot (the Marilyn Monroe) and pulling the handle until we either hit the jackpot or go bust. This time was a bust, but we’re ahead of the game over all (for now). Mort introduced us to his favorite new machine, the Texas Tea slot. Amazingly enough, 3 of us were at least double winners on this machine, which just seemed to want to pay us all night until Johnnie sat down. Oh well.

Our visit was very very relaxing and gave us time to finish up some travel planning. We’re now all set for the winter and able to start thinking about what we will do come spring. And we have also taken notice that Dungeness crab season will open up for us in Oregon and Washington while we are there! So we have also made arrangements to acquire a couple of Crab Max traps to try our luck.

Our Person of Interest this time is our tour guide, Mary Tuma. We’re still waiting for the REST of the story Mary!

Tour Guide Extraordinaire Mary Tuma

And let’s not forget our Tip of the Day! Here’s Tippy!

One of the joys of camping in one place for an extended time is that you actually should get some of that time to yourself. We’ve been staying in LA since Oct. 12, and with all the family visits, Wendy’s Puerto Rico trip, my fishing trips, and catching up with friends we’ve hardly been home. I suspect the cats have been looking through the phone book for good adoption homes. In any event, this leads us to SuperBlog 2, step-sister to the Mother-Of-All-Blogs from last month. Where to start? Here’s a shot of our current site.

Camped at Walnut RV in Northridge

Wendy had a FABULOUS time in Puerto Rico. She went with 7 other women, 3 from LA and 4 from Boston, who are all associated through their friend Andrea who sadly passed away from breast cancer 2 years ago. So the trip there was a celebration of her life for the girls. They stayed in a 5 bedroom villa just 50 yards from a beautiful beach just outside of Old Town Puerto Rico. Visits to the rain forest, the Bacardi plantation, the Bioluminescence Lagoon, and Old Town kept them very busy.

Girls Gone Wild in Puerto Rico (minus to sleepy heads!)

While Wendy was away, I went fishing. Well, I went fishing twice. The first time on a day boat out of Marina Del Rey where the fishing was very good because it had been raining for 3 days and no boats had visited the captain’s favorite spots. I was rewarded with a nice 5 lb. red snapper, a 4 lb. rock bass, a 2 lb. sculpin, and a 20 lb. ling cod that just missed winning the jackpot for largest fish. We are still eating that sucker. I drove to Oceanside 2 days later and spent a good part of the day fishing with my big brother Brian. He has a great fishing boat and we prowled the waters off of Carlsbad and Encinitas where we managed to score 3 sand bass, one almost big enough to be a record fish! We ate those babies as fish tacos at Bri’s house before I drove home. My big ling is shown here next to the derby winner, who I nicknamed Mongo.

Warren's Ling (left) with Mongo (right)

We celebrated Joyce’s birthday at a nice Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills. We cooked fish tacos for Dylan, Brandon, Dana and Jeff one night. I cooked dinner (ling cod, what else!) for Mike while Wendy and Elaine attended their monthly session of the LA Book Club. And son of a gun, the Giants went up 2-0 over the Rangers in the World Series! We even saw a movie! We did everything but blog.

We had a real treat when Dana invited us to help with a class project at Brandon’s school. Actually, she suddenly was reminded that it was her turn to do a project just a couple of days before it was due, and she pleaded with us to help come up with a theme, get it all together, and show up with her to do it. In keeping with her grandmotherly reputation, cookies became the theme. We prepped up 6 dozen sugar cookies (what better to give a bunch of 2nd and 3rd graders early in the morning than sugar?), several dozen cake icing piping bags, and bowls of candies so the kids could decorate Halloween cookies. They did a great job, and luckily we got to leave before the sugar really kicked in! Sorry Mrs. Colón, we hope you survived the rest of the day!

Cookie Crafting

Andy Warhol would be Proud!

Today, Saturday, is the big Cousin’s Party. While a few of us are in town (and a few others will fly in) we’re gathering at Michael Frank’s with 3 generations of cousin’s from the Frank Family side, Wendy’s Mom’s side of the family. This happens only once every several years, so watch for the police reports out of Westlake, CA.

And tomorrow I get to go the biggest custom car show in the San Fernando Valley! I was invited by Steve, a friend, for the last-Sunday-of-the-month impromptu show held in the parking lot of a local shopping center. There will be several Corvette clubs there, and of course this is my favorite car. Visit my homage website at www.67-corvette.com.

Our person of interest today is Brandon Marks! We were inspired not only by the artistic efforts of his classmates but by his teacher, Mrs. Colon, who must have a bulletproof sense of patience with her kids. Brandon made sure to fetch Wendy’s sugar cookie recipe to give to her after we had left. Good for him!

And of course, here’s Tippy!

We got all excited last week when we were planning our short visit to San Diego to find Coastal Trailer Villa located only 2 miles away from my sister’s house! What a find, and only $30 a night, right in a major city! Quaint and comfortable! We should have known.

It started poorly and went downhill from there. Not the visit, that was great. It’s always great seeing family. Anyway, we have this GPS system that we nicknamed Betty the Re-Calculating Bitch. You know, when you make a wrong turn, or forget to turn, and she has to build you a new route? Except that we are SURE we can detect a note of sarcasm and resignation when she intones “Re-calculating…..”. So when Betty, with her purring mother-in-law-like voice, leads you to an obscure intersection where there isn’t a single piece of signage, and forces you to make a virtual U-turn onto a narrow side street, then sends you on an immediate left turn down an even tighter side street, and all you can find is a narrow gap in a fence with RV’s behind it, the hair on your neck should stand up. What the hell did I ever do to her that she does THIS to me? Remember, we’re dragging a 36 foot long house with a turning radius of about a mile and a half. We have arrived at Coastal Trailer Villa in San Diego, except not at the main entrance (around the corner and down the street) but at the fire exit. Needless to say, a couple of attempts at entry here results in jammed traffic, a small dent in the port side skirt of the trailer, frazzled nerves of the driver (moi) and a portent of gloom and doom.

We finally get all this sorted out, turned around, and into the main entrance. I felt like I was driving the rig on the Autopia at Disneyland. Remember that one? Little putt-putt cars chugging around a narrow concrete trough with bumpers everywhere? Now imagine something this exact same size and scale turned into an RV park. Then find out YOUR reserved spot is in the middle of one of the rows on one of the “side streets” that once was tight quarters for a single-wide trailer much smaller than us. It took a village, the whole village, to coax that big beast into the spot, and when we slid out the rooms, all 4 of them, we could not only hear the neighbor’s TV, we could feel the vibration of the sound coming out of the speakers. This spot was tighter than new jeans on a supermodel. But we weren’t done yet.

Some of you know we run a couple of businesses on the road. These require internet access and phone contact, in our case cell phone contact. We had neither at Coastal Trailer Villa. Alvin, the owner, happily told us we were camped “right under the wireless antenna, at least it SHOULD be back there by you somewhere”. I’m hoping he wasn’t referring to the pie tin tied to a broomstick we saw in the corner of the lot. Internet 1, Mudd’s 0. Cell service? My phone doesn’t show fractional bars, but it would have needed pretty high precision to detect a signal if there was one. Zip. We were, for all intent and purposes, hermits from the world at Coastal Trailer Villa. All of a sudden the $30 per night looks pretty expensive.

What your cell bars SHOULD look like!

We DID have, as we had hoped, a great visit with family. Starting with Mom and Jay, they FINALLY got to see the rig when we found a way to wedge it onto the dirt at the front of their house on our trip from Laughlin to San Diego. It brought back lots of Mom’s RV memories from years ago. And of course, we spent lots of time with Mary and Jeff, and their new remodel, and their heavy furniture, and their scrap and garbage heap. But mostly with them. Thanks for the great salmon dinner on the deck, we love that deck! And we love the new apartment work downstairs, especially the new island for the kitchen. But one shining memory will be that first night when Frankie and Wally (M&J’s neighbors) hosted us for dinner. Jeff had a big day with the remodel, Mary and Morgan had a HUGE day with a massive garage sale, we had driven 300 miles or so, and we were all dog tired. Frankie and Wally to the rescue. An impromptu bouillabaisse with fresh garden salad and bread did the trick. And we also got to watch Frankie and Wally compete for who could tell the best story of the past year. They are a truly delightful couple, and it was a treasure meeting them. We hope to meet up with them on the road again soon. So we are making them our People of Interest for this blog. Many thanks for the friendship and meal!

Frankie and Wally

And always last, not but not least, here’s Tippy!

In my excitement (read “frustration”) while working on WordPress I neglected to add this very important part of my “It’s the little things…” blog. I’m taking my mistake and turning it into an opportunity to tell more about this incredible gift and the givers.

In our dining room window hangs the beautiful, colorful lei that was created from some of the “one thousand origami cranes” that were made by the friends and family of Mitchell Louie as he fought the battle for his life against cancer several years ago. He is survived by his identical twin brother, Adam, his parents, Rhonda and Dave and a very supportive extended family, friends and community.

Bitter sweet memories...

Mitchell fell ill at the end of his freshmen year at Carlmont H.S. with a rare and incurable cancer. Needless to say, this was a devastating time for his family, friends and the Carlmont community. Rhonda and Dave rallied the community to try and keep Mitchell’s spirits up. Adam spent as much time with his brother as possible while trying to keep focused on school. It was an extremely difficult time for Adam and I tried to keep an eye on him as things progressed. When Mitchell died less than a year after his diagnosis, Adam was lost.

Losing an identical twin is not an experience many of us can understand. Adam didn’t know where to begin. He missed his brother and best friend beyond words. He had difficulty being with friends who became constant reminders of his brother because they all hung out together. It was during this time that Adam and I got to know each other. We spent time just talking about “stuff” and sometimes sharing stories about losses and family. He needed time to mourn and time to redefine himself as an individual. He struggled to find out what really mattered to him, what he needed to make him love life again. In reaching out to others to share his experience, Adam found his voice. Carlmont’s principal, Raul Zamora, was so touched by the Louie’s, that he provided a place at the school’s entrance for a beautiful plaque and tree in Mitchell’s memory. He, also, gave up a portion of his graduation speech to give Adam an opportunity to tell his and Mitchell’s story. As Adam spoke in a strong, deep voice, the audience was silent.

The Louie’s have continued to support each other and the community has continued to help by keeping Mitchell’s memory alive. Before leaving on our adventure, Warren and I were served a wonderful dinner when we brought two of my largest avocado trees over to be planted in the Louie’s yard. I knew that my “babies” would be getting the best care possible. Rhonda is a whizz with orchids and loves growing all kinds of plants. We left with a huge bag of “Mitchell’s Famous Cracked Corn”. It really is addicting! We feel blessed to have spent time with such quality people. Good karma is sure to be everywhere we travel with such a special gift.

My newest babe- missing from my last blog.

Due to WordPress formatting issues, I wasn’t able to place my “baby” tree next to the Lucky Bamboo picture in my last blog. Please note the innovative holder I designed using a peanut butter jar and one of my brand new Cutco knives! My tree may now travel with no spills. My hope is that it will grow and thrive as we travel and then get planted when and where we decide to put down our own roots.

We’ve been having so much fun in southern Utah that we’ve simply been too dog-tired to blog. So let’s catch up!

We left you last in Henderson, Nevada. Our stay there was at the Desert Sands RV “Resort”. It’s Vegas, right? We’re expecting some cool place, but we find out that $15 a night buys you a space, some electricity, water, a sewer hookup, and a dip in a pool. There was no ambiance in that list because the DS is basically a trailer park for long term (and apparently minimum wage) residents. At least they have their teeth. And really great tans! The “Mayor” of the Desert Sands, Al, looked like he was a leather suitcase with arms and legs. We thought it was really hot at 105F until Elaine called to tell us that the day we left Anaheim for Vegas it was 113F in Los Angeles! The all-time high record. So, maybe for the first time in history, someone went to Vegas to cool down! We were definitely cooled down when we found that the 2 “top spots” for gelato had gone belly up. Bummer. Then we cruised by the Sunrise Station casino and dropped a quick $50 on a dollar slot and 2 nickel poker machines. Not to be defeated, we did make that trip to see Hoover Dam, the real reason for our stopover. It was STUPENDOUS! We also discovered that they have completed to new highway bypass around the top of the dam by constructing a massive bridge over the gorge just below the dam. So when the docent at the start of the tour said “Enjoy the dam tour!” he didn’t really understand we were enjoying so much more!

Wendy at Hoover Dam

New Hoover Dam Bypass

We slithered off to Hurricane Utah on Sept. 29 for our first official full week of camping! Up to this point we’ve been 2 nights here, 1 night there, so much setup and teardown! This time we’re really delighted at the Willowind RV Resort. Clean, paved, wide spaces with grass around them! Modern utilities to hook up to! Really friendly staff with a real front office! And great neighbors who are mostly full timers just like us, except they don’t live here year-round. On one side I was greeted immediately by Howard with “Are we having fun yet?”. This as the sweat poured off of me while I schlepped the power cable and the sewer line out for hookup. But, I WAS having fun, so Howard and I became immediate friends. His wife Marge we never met, she’s a “rig hobbit” who rarely goes outside apparently. On the other side we met Charlie and Roy (wife and husband, keep your minds focused here). She’s delightful and he’s retired from the California Dept. of Forestry. Oh, he’s delightful too, but she’s much more sociable so we see her a lot more. It always amazes me how fast you can meet people in an RV park and within 1 day know virtually everything about them. For instance, Charlie and Roy have been full-timing for 14 years. They didn’t intend this to begin with, but like many full-timers they just forgot how to live in a house. But last April they were rear-ended in Yuma Arizona while towing their big 5^th wheel by a semi truck and sent flying out into the desert. The rig was demolished but they escaped with very minor injuries. It was a quirk in their rig insurance, the “full replacement” clause that put them back on the road. If it was a “cash out” policy they would probably have purchased a house in Redding CA (their home base) and called it quits.

Thursday Sept. 30 was a day at Zion, about 30 miles up the road. We started the morning with a short 2.5 mile walk before breakfast. When we arrived at the park entrance we thought we were pretty darn smart by purchasing an annual National Parks pass for $80 instead of a one-time entry pass for $25 only to discover that the time starts ticking on the 1^st of the month, in this case Sept. 1. Oh well, what a difference a day makes! We enjoyed wonderful Mother Nature at her finest and decided that since we had a short morning walk that we would take a short afternoon hike. Just under a mile to Lower Emerald Pool. Perfect! But when you make ONE wrong turn at the start of the trail, you end up 1.5 miles farther and 500 feet higher at the Upper Emerald Pool. The view was worth it, and we took plenty of Advil before going to sleep that night.

It's really really hard to pick a good picture of Zion!

On Saturday we visited Kolob Canyons, a new addition to Zion National Monument. Since we had taken no morning pre-breakfast walk we decided to hike the Taylor Creek trail to Double Arches Alcove. What a gorgeous hike! The “outside” temperature was over 90 (above the canyon walls), but in the canyon along the creek bed it was a very pleasant and shady 70. And the end of the trail made it all worthwhile.

Double Arches Alcove on Taylor Creek Trail

On our trip back to the RV park we got to discussing the origin of the name of the town of Hurricane. I was convinced that because it was so implausible that an actual hurricane could ever reach these parts that it must be something stupid like a wild horse named Hurricane that killed one of the original town settlers, or something like that. Our curiosity was satisfied a short time later when a sudden storm front pushed through with gusts of wind that slammed the sides of the rig and stripped a ton of leaves off of the surrounding trees. Wow. No crazy horse I guess.

Sunday we got up at 5AM and drove the 120 miles to Bryce Canyon. After all, we bought the annual pass we might as well use it. Totally different from Zion, and magnificent. This is a sample in high def video. We elected the easy hike again to “The Queen’s Garden” down into the canyon but decided after reaching it that we would complete the “Navajo Loop” back out to another spot on the rim, the Sunset Point. All in all about 2.5 miles, and we lost and then gained back about 1000 feet of elevation. Pretty strenuous except this is all early in the morning so it wasn’t hot. But it was also all at about 8,000 feet of altitude to begin with. My body will be bursting with red blood cells when we leave here!

Bryce Canyon - The Queen's Garden

There is so much more, but we wanted to salute our Person Of Interest. Today it’s our Chief Postal Officer, Mort Lasnik! Without a permanent address his house in Bass Lake has become Muddscape Mail Central. And it’s been an exciting week. We are getting daily updates about checks, retirement benefit changes, insurance notices, all kinds of stuff. And Mort is right on the job. He figured out that phone calls don’t always go through to the boondocks, but he can send an email summary of the days mail and scan and forward important stuff, so we’re thinking of adding to the “Snow, sleet, rain….” motto with a little “Sort, scan, and send” footnote! Great job, Mort! Now if we can figure out what to do with the checks…

Chief Postal Officer Mort

And last (but not least), here’s Tippy!

I smile every time I walk in or out of Wertle! We told everyone that we didn’t want or need anything for our rig, especially after ridding ourselves of a ton of unwanted stuff. We did receive a few small things and one of my favorites was from Dana, who insisted on getting something for our new home. It was the perfect gift, a colorful flip-flop doormat. Some of you might know about my shoe collection. During our purging, I was forced (self imposed) to get rid of most of my shoes. The flip-flop mat is a reminder of my favorite kind of shoes and my favorite daughter-in-law, albeit, my only daughter-in-law. It’s not too large so it fits neatly by the front door when we pack up to move. It’s functional, so we can keep dirt out of the rig! And, of course, it’s cute shoes!  What more could a girl want!

So cute!

Another gift that I use on a daily basis has a familiar theme. My very thoughtful sister, Elaine, or “E”, as I call her, gave me a very functional water bottle that has a shoe design, all colors and shapes of flip-flops.  It comes with me when I get in the truck for a travel day and on our hikes. She, also, gave me a beautiful, functional, leather bound journal that I have to start using! I’m so lucky to have such a thoughtful sis!

Functional & cute!

Besides shoes, another thing I had to give up was growing avocado trees- Warren was insistent that the rig could not sustain a 6 foot tall tree while we traveled. I tried to be good but motherhood got the best of me. Just before we left our home, I cut into an avocado that had already split and was starting to grow roots. It has always been my rule that if they had started to grow I had to help them continue. Soooo…I am now caring for my newest “babe” as we take our journey.  It will be interesting to see how big it gets before we set down our own roots.  I did manage to take one other plant, a gift from Luis Bustamante (Carlmont), because it was a Lucky Bamboo and was small enough to find space in our new home.

A very lucky gift!

I also had to leave behind my huge elephant collection but I did manage to find room for some of my “more petite” friends. I was able to hang a string of elephants from one of the window frames, a very thoughtful birthday gift from Joanne Davis some years back. I managed to find hanging room for Amelia, my barnstorming elephant who peddles a tricycle-turned-biplane. I’m sure she’s been on some crazy rides since we began our trip.

Lucky elephant times 5!

Carole Pierce, an English teacher at Carlmont, came to see our rig when we had our open house in May. Due to a handicap she was unable to walk the stairs to see the inside but she wanted to give us a beautiful “sun catcher” that she made. It now sparkles in the window of our rig, a constant reminder of  some of the wonderful people I was fortunate to work with at Carlmont.

Shiny Reminder!

My last small gift is something that started out much larger. Andrea Dembrowsky passed away over two years ago after loosing her long battle with breast cancer. Andrea gave me a very large bar of “Thyme” bath soap. I started using it before we left home and it’s now half of it’s size. I couldn’t bare to part with it because it had sentimental value so it came with us on our journey. Now, I can think about my dear friend each time I shower.

A sentimental gift!

We truly treasure all of the well wishes from friends and family and we’re delighted that the only space they take is in our hearts!