To the beach

This morning was so lovely, sunshine and calm, we decided to pack up a few things and head down to the beach.   Since arriving here Dave has walked to the beach every day on his  morning 5 mile walks.  Cheye and I have opted for a shorter 2 mile route around the Thousand Trails park, so this was Cheye and my first walk in the sand/ocean on this beach trip.  Cheye had a blast running in the water so, of course, I had to video it and share it with you!

Once back to the park we lounged around the trailer for a bit before walking to the Post Office to pick up mail.  From there we followed the Prom along the beach and then back to the RV park.  Added a few more miles to our usual daily exercise!


Photos: taken this morning at Seaside, Oregon

Seaside Oregon

This is our first visit to Thousand Trails Seaside, OR…really nice park! It is about a mile to the beach, but the park is good sized and well maintained. The weather has been pretty darn good for the

Oregon coast, in the 60’s and we have actually seen the sun 3 of the 4 days we have been here! It’s been foggy/misty each morning

and evening but that is pretty standard for this area. We went out to dinner a couple nights ago at the Taste of Tuscany restaurant, yummy!

Tuesday was a sad day for us…friends, Gary and Ann Miller, died when their home in Zillah, WA burned down. (here is an article about the fire) Dave had known Gary for years. I think the nagging question is why they didn’t make it out of their home in time. Gary was a Washington State Trooper and Ann was a dispatch manager for the Washington State Patrol, so they had emergency training. Ann called 911 to report the fire but all 3 people in the home perished. Perhaps the home collapsed on them as they tried to get out or maybe they were trying to alert the guest staying in the basement…probably will never know. I do know they will be greatly missed, Gary and Ann were super people.

Photos:  All taken at Thousand Trails Seaside, OR

Our site

Still here!

We are still in the Chehalis, WA area but should be getting back on the road in less than 2 weeks. It's been a great place to stay for a couple months. We are out in the country but close to shopping and restaurants, Cheye has a big fenced-in yard and Jim & Kathy are so easy to get along with!

Last weekend we went down to Vancouver, WA to visit with my family. It was fun, a picnic out at my sister's home, unfortunately I forgot my camera. I was glad Mom and we 3 siblings were able to all get together at least once before Dave & I head south again. My sister's 2 sons attended and a Seattle cousin that just happened to be in town that day was there too. A nice get together.

Now begins the task of re-organizing and tossing out some clutter we have accumulated. I have a Goodwill bag started but need to go through a few more cupboards. It's so easy to collect stuff when the trailer is parked in one place for so long.

Photos:

top left - a pretty hydrangea Kathy is growing

right - Kathy's horse

below:

1.Kathy grew some colorful nasturtiums too

2. Stole this pic from my sister...it was too cute!

Video: Cheye is going to miss her morning romps with Jim's dog Recon...this is their routine almost every morning!

A few memories

Our location hasn’t changed…we are still at Dave’s brother & sister-in-law’s place, “camping” in their backyard. Dave and brother Jim have kept busy…so far they have installed a Banks iQ (gives us all sorts of information about the engine, good info when towing), a 45 gallon external fuel tank/tool chest, a deeper transmission pan and some new synthetic tranny fluid, all in the pickup of course. Good stuff to have but personally I’m more excited about the new Corian sink covers they made me! :o) We looked for Corian to match the counters but as we only needed a small scrap piece we didn’t have a huge choice. I decided on a white speckled, a contrast to the counters which are black speckled. The covers that came with the trailer are a bright white plastic-type material so these look much better…not to mention they never could get us covers that fit our both sides of our sink. It is sooooo nice to have the extra counter space these new covers give me.

My project while we‘re here was to scan our old photos. It was fun going through our pics, lots of

them I hadn’t looked at in years! Thought I’d share some with you of our first RV…it was a 1975 Fireball Class C we bought in 1995. Not the fanciest thing, but it showed us the possibilities and fun of RV’ing. We took it on a few trips, the Oregon coast and to a few Washington State parks. The summers of 1996 & 1997 we rented a spot up on Rimrock Lake (on White Pass in Washington) and parked the RV up there. It was like our little cabin in the woods…Friday after work we would pack up our little pickup and spend the weekend in mountains with our dog Jazmine. Good times!

Photos

above left: new sink covers!

above right: Dave, Jazmine in our old Fireball

below 1: our old Class C

below 2,3,4: camping at Rimrock Lake, White Pass, WA

Some visiting

Our Vancouver, WA visit was good. Mom had a procedure done a couple weeks prior to our visit to remove some basal cell skin cancer on her nose. Her nose may have been covered with gauze but she didn’t let it keep her from taking us out to dinner 3 times while we were visiting! We also took Mom out to my sister’s and had a great visit with everyone.

We’ve been back at Jim & Kathy’s (Dave’s brother & sis-in-law) for almost two weeks now. We are staying in our trailer parked back behind their house. For the most part our couple of weeks have been quiet but there were two short trips; the first trip was a sad one, a funeral of a friend, only 69, over in Grandview, WA. However the funeral led to seeing a number of friends we hadn't seen for a while. As a matter of fact through the funeral we ended up hooking-up with some friends that are now living in Westport, WA, friends we haven’t seen for years. So yesterday it was off to Westport for a terrific visit with our friends Al & Gloria.

It happened to be Rusty Scupper Pirate Daze in Westport so along with our visit we all took in some of the festivities. A good sized crowd, some live music, lots of vendors and food booths. Al & Gloria drove us around the area a bit also, it’s a nice little community. All-in-all an exceptionally fun day.

Photos

Above left :surfer dudes at Westport, WA

Above right: Al & Gloria's lil' Subaru that we took down on the beach

Below - I'll put the explanation under each photo!

Dave, Mom, me, Boni & Dave enjoying Boni & Dave's front yard

Boni & Dave are Raku potters, above are a couple of their pots

(left one is quite old...the one on the right is more their current style)

Boni & Dave's front yard again

Lovely little waterfall right next to Boni & Dave's front yard

Above and the next 2 photos below are of the Westport, WA area

Above and the next 3 photos are of the Rusty Scupper Pirate Daze in Westport, WA

Visiting

Last week was busy, busy, busy with visiting friends and family in the Yakima Valley. We stayed in Prosser, WA at the Wine Country RV Park. It is close to centrally located for us with friends/family stretching about 50 miles to the west and about 40 miles to the east. It’s always fun to be in our old stompin’ grounds again. Besides some terrific visits we also went to some favorite restaurants and got a few appointments taken care of.

Currently we are in Vancouver, WA visiting with my Mom. We’ll be here for a few more days before we head back to the Chehalis, WA area. It’s actually supposed to make it up to 80 degees this weekend here in Vancouver…we are looking forward to it!

Photos:

above- Cheye

below-

1. our site at Wine Country RV Park in Prosser, WA

2. A mare and her cute littl' colt in a pasture next to the RV Park in Prosser

3. John Day Dam in the Columbia River Gorge

Western Washington

Time has been passing quickly…we’ve been in western Washington for almost 3 weeks now and it has gone so fast. Our “campground” is in Dave’s brother’s backyard and is quite nice! Dave has been helping Jim with some projects around the place. One I was involved with was laying sod in a little area outside our trailer…kinda our own little yard…at least while we are here! Cheye has been having a fabulous time running free in the big backyard. Of course the weather is typical western Washington, a little sun, a lot of clouds and plenty of rain. Oh well, we are having a great time!

Photos:

Above - our trailer viewed from the new sod area

Below -

1. The new sod area

2. A rainy day bored dog :o)