Rancho Jurupa County Park

We spent a week at Rancho Jurupa County campground in Riverside. This nice park is convenient to many places like a dog park, and a bike trail, and air museums, and an RV surplus store. And even convenient for my brother Glen to come visit. What more could we want!It was a great place to celebrate Christmas. We had our lights lit. 3 Christmas trees on the dash and one tall one outside. We cooked a nice prime roast for dinner. A very good day.

WARMLY Enjoying the Christmas Boat Parade

We must say that watching a Christmas boat parade in Ventura, California is infinitely more comfortable than the same in the Pacific Northwest. Especially, this year!

Here Ventura Harbor has an open house with families coming to stroll the harbor, ride rides, listen to bands, shop and dine before the boats start cruising. And after the parade, there are fireworks. Lucky us! We know some Cruise-A-Home owners who have the best seat in the house to watch the festivities and Lynn and Nathan invited us aboard for the evening.

John S. from Salinas

The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas may be the best museum we've toured ever. Great information nicely displayed on John Steinbeck's life, many interactive displays for all age levels, and cuts from movies made from his novels.

Many of his stories were geographically set within 100 miles of his hometown of Salinas. We both realize that over time we have read a number of his books.

"Travels with Charlie" is the latest of his books that I have read. Enjoyed the story of him traveling in his camper across the country with his full-size poodle "Charlie".

A quote from the novel about Charlie:

"His perceptions are sharp and delicate and he is a mind-reader...I know too well is look of despair and disapproval when I have just thought that he must be left at home." Charlie's mannerisms reminded me of traveling with Pogo and now Miss Lily.

Sights from the Golden Gate Bridge

We wanted to travel over the Golden Gate Bridge just once. To admire the views from the bridge of the bay and ocean and San Francisco. Ah, well.

Best thing: sure glad we weren't riding our bikes across!

Charles M. Schulz & Charlie Brown

Alway have enjoyed the Peanuts bunch and finding us so close to the Charles Schulz museum, we took the opportunity to go check it out.

While the museum was a disjointed presentation of Charles Schulz' life and not so much the Peanut comics, we really enjoyed the statues and cartoon strips displayed. We saw tiled Peanut strips in the lavatories over the toilets and over the sinks. And we enjoyed Charlie and Linus and the kite up in the tree.

There was a tile mural 17 x 22 feet with almost 3,600 2"x8" tiles with comic strips printed on them. We liked seeing the early strips and how much Charlie & Lucy and the rest of the company changed over the years.

The picture below is a detail of the mural. Note how the artist used the comicstrips that depicted night scenes to make the dark outlines for the figures.

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Miss Lily posing with Snoopy and Woodstock.

Missing Winter Weather - nope

Was going to write about how mild this late fall has been. Since we left home just before Thanksgiving, we've had wonderful weather with little rain and temps above freezing.

But we could have had the same weather at home as winter hadn't come to the Pacifc NW. Well, that all changed this week. Though we are sorry for those trying to keep warm up north, we are happy we aren't there!

We are in the San Francisco area right now and they are in a tizzy because of the weather forecasts it getting very cold....down to 36! Huh? Nothing like the teens back home.

Sticker shock

While staying at the Elks in Petaluma and we see that just down the street tours are offered of Mrs. Grossman's Sticker Factory. How can we pass that up?

Learned alot about the company and the processes used to make up stickers. They had on display over 1100 different stickers. Rolls and rolls of stickers were shelved in their warehouse awaiting orders.

They have fun in this company. Dogs are invited to work each day. Outside the front entry are two small fountains. Maybe for the dogs to slurp from? There are also 3 outdoor kennels and a gate to an adjoining park. (Didn't see any day care facilities, though.)

On the tour they gave us a lot of stickers. Thank goodness, as I would have had just buy more! Think I have enough?

Shore Acres

Wasn't this nice! The RV park at the Mill Casino in North Bend, Oregon, offered to drive their guests out to enjoy the lights at Shore Acres. This is the 22nd year for the lights over the holidays. Shore Acres was the former estate of lumberman Louis J Simpson and is now a state park. Only the formal gardens and the gardener's cottage remain.

Finding friends everywhere

So, Miss Lily doesn't have enough friends in the neighborhood. We don't let her play with the bullies (the pit bull and the boxer) that live next door. So she has made friends with the frisky little black doxie that lives in the dishwasher. She is frustrated that she can never find him when I open the door of the washer.

She needs more play dates!

English as a Second Language

Well, we've been busy getting used to Miss Lily or she's been busy getting used to us. Part of her training is the realization that she knows all that we are trying to teach her. She can sit and stay and get down and do her job outside. She just doesn't know the words we use for it.

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"Wassa say?"

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But then being a dachshund adds another twist to the training process. She is as smart and stubborn as any doxie. So not only do we have to teach her ESL we have to convince her that she would really like to do something. Pleasing their master is not high on a doxie's list.

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"Hmm - Maybe I'll think about it"

Invasion of the Firebird

So I love the beautiful blossoms on the crocosmia lucifer (aka Firebird) which have overtaken! the beds I have put them into.

My friend Marj brought them to me just 10 years ago. And I put a few here, then a few there, and then I started running out of room. They have beautiful and long lasting blooms and are a prolific bulb generator. The nursery's description of the Firebird say that any plants easier to grow than these are likely to be plastic.

They'd taken over so much of my beds that I decided to build a bed just for them. Dean brought in railroad ties and formed a new bed. He found enough composted dirt in the back to cover the transplanted bulbs. All the while I dug up bulbs, and dug up bulbs, and dug up bulbs.. Expect we had a 1,000 bulbs transplanted to this new bed. They were so thickly packed in one bed that we had to use a pick to break them apart.

Hopefully they will like their location and we'll see a gigantic display next year. Keep your fingers crossed. Pictures from next summer's blooms will be forth-coming!

Happy Fall, Friends

Ninja Monster Dog!!!

So remember the picture of our new little pup. So calm. Sleeping when we first brought her home? Well, she was tired that first day. But has since got her strength back!

Ninja Monster Dog!!!!

Very active, very sharp teeth.

Miss Lily is interested in exploring everything and hardly ever stays still.

And she's really into teething. Eek!

I have many pictures of her as a blur

.... or where she was

But on one sunny day she discovered lying in the sun soaking up the heat was preferable to acting the Ninja.

Lily seems to have decided we are OK and especially likes our laps. And she is a most intelligent dog - and seems to have figured out what going outside is about.

Think we'll keep her!

Mountains, Watefalls, Blackberries, and Bears - oh, my!

Love the Pacific Northwest especially when the weather is perfect.

And a perfect day we did have traveling up to the mountains to check out the new visitor center at Paradise in Mt Rainier National Park. Many other folks had the same idea.

A couple short hikes, pretty waterfalls, and BEAR sightings - plural!

Ended the day with famous blackberry pie at the Copper Creek Inn.

So lucky to have someone along that can discern movement on the hillside. Can you see the bear in the upper left corner inside the circle? She did and was able to let us all see thru the binocs the bear working its way across the hillside.

A little further along our route we found a couple with a spotting scope watching another bear. It just wasn't humanfolk who were enjoying the sunny weather!

Got to enjoy a few cascades, peeks of the peaks of Rainier, and marvel at the destructive force of Mother Nature along the Nisqually River (floods of December 2006).

Miss Lily with the sparkling blue eyes

Welcome to our house, Miss Lily!

Today we adopted a red mini dachshund (defined as a "red" in dachshundese - but looks tan to us). We got to meet her mom and her dad and watch while she played with her sister. Though we had thought we might take home a black and tan colored puppy, we fell for Lily's personality and expression.

First activity as her new parents was to take her to the pet store for a collar, a bed, a travel crate, and toy. Of course, everybody had to come see the new puppy. She was much like Pogo: "adore me if you must" Yawn!

She adapted to the travel crate immediately and let us know that she has had a long day, "excuse me while I nap".

We stopped in Gig Harbor to introduce our friend Kay to her. Kay was playing horsie at the boarding stables. Miss Lily likes Kay but wasn't sure about the big-footed snurfing horses behind the fence.

Next stop home and Lily had a romp around the yard (it's hard to run with the dog and take pictures) before cozying into her new bed and letting her eyes drift shut.

Long day for a new baby.

Have Goats : Will Travel

So you have a lot of blackberries taking over your property? Are the weeds getting way too high? Go Green! Use Goats! Call the Goat Trimmers. The company will bring their herd to your property and let them chomp. If needed, they will install an electric fence to keep them in the problem area and out of your gardens! Just 3 days and they had our neighbors blackberries chomped away.

Milking the remaining good days out of summer

We have had such luck with great cruising weather this year. We milked it for all it was worth! We have just returned from 3 lazy weeks in our South Puget Sound waters.

Nothing too exciting, except sun and warm temps. Too warm to even have the leaves turn their fall colors. Nice! Picked huckleberries and blackberries. Read a lot. Just a couple cool days with showers but that just gave us more reading time!

One highlight was seeing a pelican afloat off Gig Harbor. We were amazed earlier this year to see a pelican on the Strait of Juan de Fuca as we've never seen them this far north or in our inland waters. And then here was another sighting!

We would have enjoyed it much more if we had been able to tune out the reports of the economy's financial problems! Ha!

Support Breast Cancer Research

I was fortunate to be able to escort my sister, Irene, and my friend, Caroline, to a Breast Cancer Survivor's Celebration with 450 survivors and co-survivors aboard the ms Oosterdam hosted by Holland American Cruise Lines along with the local affiliate of Susan G Komen for the Cure. What a wonderful opportunity!

Holland American sponsors a shipboard walk for a breast cancer cure on every cruise with their program "On Deck for the Cure". In less than 2 years, they have raised $1.1 million on their cruises in support of breast cancer research!

When we boarded the ship, we were handed a glass of pink champagne and greeted by 50 crew members wearing "On Deck for the Cure" T-shirts. After a short introduction of dignitaries, we were treated to a Las Vegas-type floor show with lots of high-energy dancing. After the show, we were escorted to a beautiful dining room where we were served an elegant 4-course lunch with wine and our choice of salmon or lamb chops or a mushroom souffle. Everything was superb!

Everyone on board the ship treated us like royalty. We found out that everyone of the staff that greeted, entertained, and served us had volunteered their time for this event. Wow!

Ladies: be sure to get an annual mammogram; perform monthly breast self-exams, and watch for any changes! This is important.

There's no place like home

We took a mid-summer outing in the RV. When we left home it was 100 degrees. We knew that it would be much warmer in Eastern Washington so we took all of our shorts, all of our tank tops, and our cool ties. We were ready but duh! Our first visit to Eastern Washington in the summer that we weren't sweltering. We got rained on; we had numerous nights in the 30's; and the best we could do was 80 and gale winds in the gorge.

As we came back over the pass, lookie here! Blue skies! Warm temperatures. A beautiful Indian summer in the Pacific Northwest. Ah, there's no place like home.

Our first stop was to see niece Heidi and Jeff get married. It was 95 degrees.

Then up and over Snoqualmie Pass to the National Forest campground WishPoosh to visit Earl & Cyndy who are camphosting there. Just a few sprinkles but weather was cooler and it felt like fall.

The launch at the lake there still had enough water to be used. It's very long and wide and very steep.

The water in this lake is used for irrigation and now there is little water in the lake and no access by this launch.

We noticed the fireweed blooms are near the top. In Alaska, that means time to head home.


We got a kick out of all the squirrels scurrying across our path with pinecones in their mouths.

We thought they needed a little variety and supplied them with peanuts.
This little critter likes his vegies as he's eating a clover flower.
We visited 3 of our Leisure Time/Thousand Trails campgrounds.









Stayed a couple days at the Wenatchee Confluence State Park. Then spent a day in Leavenworth and got in touch with our German heritage with sauerbraten for lunch.

Took a number of rides on Forest Service roads looking for wildlife but it wasn't until our last morning at our TT campground that we saw a bear bounding through the playfield across the lake from our campsite.

Headed west over Stevens Pass to the sunny Pacific NW. Played and almost beat Dean at mini-golf. That is very unusual!

Well, hey, now it was my birthday. Spent a nice afternoon with my mom then out for dinner. And as a bonus, "Did the Puyallup" fair on its opening day. Everything was so fresh. The first day is judging day so the 4-H animals were very clean and trimmed finely. But my favorite is the vegetable displays put on by the granges. All the fruits and vegies were very fresh.

We got home to a beautiful green lawn. We did miss out on the torrential 1 1/2" of rain that happened one afternoon while we were gone. Our area usually gets lots of hours of sprinkles and never gets gullywashers - but it did happen! Everybodies lawn and gardens are looking very healthy.

We've been home a week with lots of sunshine, dewy mornings, and mid-70's in the afternoon. Ah, there's no place like home!