How We Spent Christmas - or - Never go to the hospital on Christmas

So follow along: 

We set up for a close and cozy Christmas just the two of us.  Up the very curvy Apache Trail.  Beautiful government woods around the Salt River.  The campground was up at Tortilla Flats and just a mile before road paving stopped.  Beautiful campsite and many birds.  Lovely mountains across from us and the river below.  Perfect spot for a wonderful holiday…………………**

Merry Christmas, All!

Have you been watching the red asterisks?  ** 

HINT....how we spent Christmas

Next morning (Christmas eve) we were reading our weekly financial statements.  BUT Laurie couldn’t find the "ON" button for her computer.  The numbers coming out of her mouth were were not the same as the numbers on the report she was reading.  She couldn’t recognize the script.  Hmm.  What’s going on?  The campground host (retired EMT) came by.  Talked a bit with Laurie and said Dean needed to drive her to the hospital – not to wait for an ambulance….and our Christmas changed.

So we figured out which hospital we should head for.  We even knew the name.  Problem is Laurie couldn't read anything on the GPS so we guessed our route.

Day 1, The hospital ER folks were phenomenal. Laurie was onto a gurney and into an examination room in minutes. She was given some shots to slow down a very fast heartbeat and high blood pressure. (Dean sez that’s the “white coat fear syndrome” --- fear of the unknown in a new and scary situation.) 

And the results of her first ElectricoCardioGram (EKG) in ER:

** NOTE - FIRST TEST - SEE: ATRIAL FIBRILLATION

Overnight standard hospital stuff: next to a bed with lots of moaning and groaning, no breakfast, no aspirin.  No staff - it's Christmas!  One thing I had not expected was finding a nurse rummaging my purse "looking for drugs".  (Dean had my credit cards and money with him, thankfully)

No food, no cardiologist for the first 36 hours.  

On day 2, "stop-by's" by speech and physical therapists both proclaimed I was pretty close to normal and no other therapy needed to be done.  A neurologist came by for a visit.  A number of tests were ordered.  By who?  Unfortunately, due to the holiday, it appears that technicians to administer and/or evaluate the tests were not available, and few tests were done. The next couple days were spent laying around waiting for tests to be done and being bothered approx. every four hours for blood pressure, oxygen level, and pulse rate collections. And lots of promises, but no doctor and few actual tests. 

Stroke!  Stroke!  Stroke!  She can go home in 48 hours. ....well, no, guess not, one of the EKGs showed Atrial Fibrillation.

Oh, perhaps "we" (meaning the hospital) guessed wrong.  Lets keep testing EKG EKG EKG.

Day 3 - Guess what!   I heard a doctor showed up but not a cardiologist.  A hospitalist????  Think she does paperwork.

Day 4 morning an MRI (guess what?  They showed cartoons while I laid very still.)  AND a cardiologist(!)  looked at test results and pronounces A/Fib.  Another doctor comes in and says A/Fib.  The hospitalist comes by and says A/Fib.  The nurse reports that the cardiologist says I have A/Fib and that I can't be released until I have an Echocardiogram and he reviews it.  Still have not met that cardiologist.  His assistant told me to sit down and read my book.  

Evening on the 4th day the Echocardiogram was performed.

On the fifth day, Laurie emulated her dad, and essentially walked out.  The cardiologist had decided not to work for the hospital and won't read the  echocardiogram.  (The results from the echocardiogram were not available until I was out of the hospital a couple days)

We have since amassed over 200 pages of reports from everybody at the hospital from doctors, nurses, the lady who delivered meals and the the one who mopped the floor every day. Bills from all of the above are expected.

Oh, by the way, the first Electrocardiogram at 2pm on the day I arrived at the hospital says ... A/Fib 

So just in case you have the chance to "visit" the hospital on a holiday.  Don't....just don't.

Warm Country

 

What a December!  We finally left the 80 degrees in Indio and headed along the Mexico border on Interstate 8 where we glimpsed the "newish" "partially-done" border WALL.  

Yuma

It was great to visit our friends, the Tennents, in Yuma.  Formerly from near our home in Washington, they are now plunked in the Sunniest City on Earth.  They now only need umbrellas for sun protection not inches of rain like us.

It's Christmas time and we enjoyed a display of 400 Nativity scenes at one of the big chuches.

It was so nice to catch up on what has been happening in the time since we last saw them - pre-Covid.  I certainly could tell I hadn’t spent much time face to face with friends that time – mostly emails.  I kind of stuttered on saying longer words.  Sheesh **

From Yuma, we kept heading east and stopped at a little-used nicely-kept county park that we’ve been to before.  Dirt roads, picnic tables, and no plumbing.  Did we care?  

Ah, but within an hour the rain came…came…24 hours.  Wet wet wet.  We are a bit higher than the local road which flooded.  Then the rain stopped and we still weren't going to go anywhere as dense fog kept us in place.  Finally the fog lifted.  We dragged the little car thru deep"ish" waters and headed for the city of Casa Grande.

Next stop: Casa Grande

We did some looking around at the town and learned that the town was named after the national monument nearby.  We've been through the Casa Grande ("Great House") National Monument before and were agog at the building that is nearly 1000 years old,  So glad it was protected.  At the time we were there previously, we were taken on a tour of the building.  Learned a lot about the agrarian community Hohocams and very impressed with hearing of the hundreds of hand-dug canals. I was most impressed with the rising sun alignment holes on the second floor lining up the spring and fall equinoxes.

The twenty-first century Casa Grande city is in the midst a big growth streak with homes, malls, and restaurants and a hospital.

Best reason to visit this area was to visit with longtime friends -as many Washingtonians from the wet part of the state, they've retired down in warm sunny country.  We find as we get older, that our friends are also.  ** Rick had recently had a heart attack with an accompanying helicopter ride.  He looked like he was feeling great by the time we got there.

Off to Catalina State Park

We've been trapped in this park or outside this park a couple times when it has been raining.  The wash becomes BIG!  No rain this year but from the picture below they had a lot of "washing" of the dirt since the last time we were here.

The sand washed down through the park with the last rain

This park is one of our favorite and is so very close to where my sister and husband live now in Saddlebrooke.  We timed it so we could see a Christmas show where Irene sang a solo.  

The choir - my sis is the one with the biggest smile

Great visits and time to see the whole of Saddlebrooke.  Great views from her back yard of the Catalina mountains.  Saw a lot of deer all around the complex.

Almost to Usery

Usery Mountain County Park

Merry Christmas.  Next stop is a real favorite: Usery Mountain County Park for a couple weeks.  We were late getting ready for Christmas: cards, gifts (especially for grandkids), and, thank you, Amazon, we caught up!  We had great visits with our "letter carrier people" long-time boating and RVing friends, Earl and Cyndy.   We got to admire their newly-remodeled kitchen and tried out a few new restaurants and saw a few movies.  Definitely goofing off a while.

It has been nearly 10 years since we've seen cardinals in this park

Went thru 30 lbs of bird seed for the birds and parrots (lovebirds) and cardinals.

Counting 10 lovebirds in this photo

 

We set up for a close and cozy Christmas just the two of us.  Up the very curvy Apache Trail.  Beautiful government woods around the Salt River.  The campground was up at Torfilla Flats and just a mile before road paving stopped.  Beautiful campsite and many birds.  Lovely mountains across from us and the river below.  Perfect spot for a wonderful holiday…………………**

Merry Christmas, All!

Have you been watching the red asterisks?  ** 

Hint....see how we spent Christmas

Warmth and sunshine in Southern California

Hooray!

We made it down to Petaluma - sun.  Then across the Sacramento Delta on a very bumpy road.  Knocked all my pals down  (AZ: coyote, kokopeli, TX: ladybug, armadello, FL: manatee.  And Mr Green Million Mile frog - just wore him out).

 

Kind of how I felt after taking on that road

As we headed south, we traveled a bunch of farm roads trying to guess what was or had been  growing in the fields.  One area it looked like many mini watermellons were laying just off the fields - just left there.  Maybe they grew too small?  No place to stop our rig and run to pick one up.  

Wagons like this had dirt lifted and run on a conveyor through the wagon.  There were 6 to 8 pickers per wagon picking the "crop" and the dirt goes out the back.  Whatever they were "picking" it was an underground crop (onions?)  We didn't want to stop their work but thought it was a wonderful way of getting the job done out of the hot sun.

Aren't we glad we have a Tire Pressure Monitor System (TPMS).  We don't get this low tire picture in the RV like the car but we certainly know when the TPMS activates: the system starts beeping.  Yup, we're losing air.

Apparently while watching the farms we picked up a brand new screw in our 6 month-old tires.  Oh, great.  Our very nice camper neighbor with a compressor added air to that mostly flat tire and we headed for Les Schwab.  

They found the nice screw.  Fixed the tire rapidly and we were on our way.

Still heading south.  We stayed at a few more of our favorite Elks Lodge campgrounds before heading over Tehachapi Pass (3770').  We had a wonderful nice and warm day - no snow - no wind.  And for the first time on the pass we saw a train going over the Tehachapi Loop (spiral) .  

Scooted around the northern hills of LA .... and we didn't learn our lesson still heading on lesser roads past Lake Los Angeles (didn' t see the lake) made our way to the mile upon mile backup of Interstate 15.  Geez, this is why we go back roads to avoid this.

Popped down to Indio in the Palm Springs area.  Beautiful area, safe, secure at the Elks Lodge and we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner and stayed long enough to get their famous Sunday breakfast.  Took care of laundry and groceries.  

The Elks has a small park in the campground with citrus fruit (limes, lemons, grapefruit AND one kind I didn't recognize.  The Rough Lemon.  Very ugly.  

ROUGH LEMON

cross between mandarin orange and a lemon

Brought a few along with us to share.  Hope it's yummy.

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Headed south again but stayed on paved government roads.  Wasn't much to see along the Salton Sea but the road was nice and not too busy.  Was getting a little perturbed that I was getting odd elevation readings from my GPS.  Showing us hundred's of feet below sea level.  That is until we went past this building:

Sea level way up there.  Yep.  

This building is in the town of Brawley - elevation minus112 feet

Tonight we are at -179 below sea level.  Just think of all the water that could flood this direction. The Salton Sea is -264' .  Oh good, we are higher than the sea. 

But just in case

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Made it through CA and didn't pay for gas over $4.99 - that was enough but not $5 or $6 as we feared.  We are a gas RV now but if we were still fueling with diesel, we would have paid over $6/gallon.

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This worked: Beautiful Oregon Coast and the California Redwoods - no snow!

Southern Oregon / Northern CA Hwy 101 hangs on along the coast.  The highway frequently many times has lost lanes (slid away down to the ocean) requiring temporary solar-powered street lights to allow one way traffic.  A lot of maintenance.  Nothing has changed.  Thankfully there were no bikers pedalling along the narrow road in the winter.

There are many Elks lodges with campsites along this route.  Nice places to stay but there are always places to peek.  

We visited Boice-Cope County Park for the first time.  Very pretty place and campsites with power.  Known for kiteboarding and windsurfing in the summer.  No one practicing that now - because it is cold?  Or because there was no wind?  

Fun learning about the almost successful and beautiful town of Lakeport 1910.  Looks like somebody should have done some researching BEFORE building the town. 

          Sometimes we see odd things and we need to do a double take.  

Here are 3 dumpsters in the small park.  Ok.

But the middle dumpster is labeled

DUMPSTER DIVING.

Perfect!! 

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As we entered California, we gained some elevation and carefully traveled through the Redwoods.  "Carefully"  We mean not hitting a redwood.  They can handle a bump better than the RV can.  More sun but cool nights.  Heavy dew in the mornings and lots of wet mud and tree needles all over the vehicles.  We've traveled through the Redwoods many times.  All looked well.

Must Be About Time To Head South

 Ok, we're excited and ready to head on the road.  

Go and visit son's new home in Idaho and as long as we have gone that far, we bought new Gazateers for Idaho, Montana and Utah.  We have lots of places in those three states to explore.  We've always gone straight through.  

Ok, we planned places to see and explore.  Knew we'd probably have to hurry through as winter was coming.  

And it did.  We didn't get out of town before Idaho had snow.  We thought maybe we could go mid Oregon or the eastern part of Idaho.  Guess what?  It's snowing.  

How about through Boise and then head down through Utah.  Dang it - we missed the Museum of Clean in Pocatello.  No snow at that time just 17 degrees overnight and many campgrounds shut for the season. 

Well heck all of this looks a bit problematic so ok we'll head down I-5.  Still dry from the summer but it's getting cooler.

First night we made it to Kelso in Washington.  Not too far but within an hour the rain started and it rained for 2 full days.  4" of rainfall.  Glad we weren't traveling in it.

---

So the next time it quit storming off to Oregon we went.  Got cheaper fuel and stopped in Keizer.  No rain forecast - hooray.  Next day we took the old 99 route through Corvalis at about 230' elevation and it started raining.      That is rain, isn't it?       Exploring grapes and winery areas and the rain is turning white.  Isn't that funny, ha ha.  Not!      A few miles farther the grapevines are getting white, a few miles later the trees, and then the road and slush!  Well heck we don't want to travel with the RV and tow car.  So we headed back to the more traveled roads - less snow - but no campgrounds.  Around the town of Eugene to find a county park - nice - where we sat for two days awaiting the snow to go away on I-5.  It didn't.  

The next day the weather folks tried to come out with excuses for their non-accurate forecast:

"Yesterday was a strange weather day, nestled in a chilly & wet weekend.  I want to recap the surprise snow to some lower elevation spots during the daytime Sunday. To get snow to the valley floor on November 6th? Everything has to be exactly right for that to happen.

You may recall we had the atmospheric river and initial cold front pass through Friday and Friday night, models just nailed that one with about 2″ rain in the center of the metro area and 8-10″ in the wettest parts of the Coast & Cascade ranges. Then we were in the scattered showers behind the front Saturday; an uneventful weather day.

A cold front was forecast to move onshore Sunday morning and this would be the leading edge of cooler air. Snow levels would come down to around 2,000′ at times Sunday (the forecast), and 5-10″ would fall in the Cascades. That DID happen. Models were also forecasting very heavy rain to fall south of the Portland area down into SW Oregon with yesterday’s system. Note the rainfall forecast with very heavy rain south of Salem and down to about Roseburg. This is from the WRF-GFS model. That DID happen."

Excuses Excuses Excuses

There is more snow on the freeway to the south.  Then how about we head for the ocean.  Ok, but we had to wait for the snow to go away on the highway to the ocean. (We saw 780' elevation.)  Low snow there also.

 

SUMMER OF CLIMATE CHANGE 

OF COURSE, WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT WEATHER

 

HALF INCH OF RAIN

Yep, after complaining about all the rain in May.  Come the first day of summer we had the bluest skies ever seen in Seattle all summer long,

Only a half inch of rain during the whole summer.   Dean helped it out running sprinklers and paying water bills.  Never have these Washingtonians ever had a more beautiful warm summer!

Easily many days over 90 some over 100.  Broke 12 hot weather records.

Now it’s almost October and we still haven’t a forecast of rain.

SUMMER PLANS

The plan for this year was sprucing up the garden beds.  This required many days of shoveling bark and weeding.  

Boring as it may sound - it truly was BORING.  

Mainly weeding was followed by a covering of bark mulch.  The bark we have always used was called nugget bark - 1 to 2" pieces.  But then the spotted owl with Covid and "bark" is more like tree slivers and ground bark.  It'll work but may not do the best job of keeping the beds weed free.  Ah, well.  

When the rain stopped at the end of May, the slave driver brought home 4 cubic yards – and said get started.  Then by the 4th of July he brought home 5 more cubic yards (he sez I exaggerate).  

Ah, we were still shy and he said he’d bring another yard home…..but no: 2 more cubic yards.  What a "kind" feudal lord – he did not make me spread bark when it was over 80 degrees or raining...but as I wrote, it never rained. 

Now we are down to only one small bed to be barked and maybe some to be parked in some area.  Parked Bark!

By the way, the gardens look great.

GARDEN BLOOMS 

Lots of people have grown sunflowers this year.  I did especially since sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine.  With such great summer weather, we expected huge sunflowers. 

Some people did. The neighbor’s sunflower grew above their eaves. 

                                                    Ours overtook our car.  

           Still awaiting the seed head = maybe in October?

WHICH WAY TO GO GNOME?  HOME OR NOME?

Our Gnome had been pretty slovenly letting his gardens over grow with weeds – not fixing his windows or doors.  Dean had to straighten that out.  Everything looks a lot happier in Mr Gnome’s garden now.

OK, Mr Gnome, have fun with your birdie buddies
but keep your yard clean!!

PROJECTS WE CARE ABOUT BUT NOBODY ELSE DOES

One of Dean’s projects for the summer was to bring underground power/cable/phone into the house – nice to hope for but never happened.  

Puget Power is low on capable people.  3-4 weeks between visits.  Very frustrating.  Finally gave up for the year.

Somewhat frustrating for him but he got to “crack the whip” a lot.

And, oh, yes, he was going to digitize our remaining LPs – but we haven’t found the  turntable.  We are so not organized.

But he kept busy grinding garden weeds and tree trimmings.  Kept all sprinklers pointing the right way.  Fed wildlife.

WILDLIFE

We love watching the birds and squirrels.  Did have an overrun of starlings so had to shorten up the bird feeders to keep the big guys from eating all the seed there.  We had numerous woodpeckers, and bush tits and others along with siskins, sparrows, chickadees, nuthatches, finches plus!  For the first time, we had 3 nesting pairs of goldfinches.

All of our wildlife were thirsty.  We have two fountains and 2 watering dishes.

We had up to 6 squirrels enjoying peanuts from their feeder.  For a while some neighbors did away with the rodents but by September we’ve got more back.  Can tell the 2 mothers and a few weirdo idiot kids who can’t figure out who, what, when – what a hoot!  Lots of sommersaults and cross-yard chasing. 

Splooting Squirrel

 All the animals appreciated water for cooling and drinking.  The squirrels spooted.  A raccoon used to step into our water fountain after he dragged the pump out and chewed on it.  We fixed that by bringing in the pump each eve.  Then we learned about Raccoon Latrines:

RACCOON LATRINE – Who ever heard of such?  Only those with close and friendly raccoons.  I expected raccoons might bury their stuff like cats.  Oh, no, and Dean got to be the finder and the cleanup person.  Currently trying slippery plastic in the spot and smelly ammonia.  Maybe when the rains come he’ll not need to come in our yard for water.

Yeah You, kindly take "it" elsewhere

 

FIELD TRIPS 

READING FOR KIDS 

Dean reading to the kiddos

We were finally able to read to children in person – masked, of course. The kids were so excited to have someone come in and see them after the long quarantine.  

Did our hearts good!

STAYING COVID SAFE

Fully boosted, we have become a bit less paranoid about wearing masks.  Enjoyed visits with our TRUSTED SOULS who are also well protected from COVID.  We’ve even been to our favorite restaurants…The ones that are still in business…That is a problem trying to find staff.  Cyn and Earl traveling from Arizona met us on the waterfront of Seattle and we enjoyed lunch at Ivar's Acre of Clams.  

Our RV group has been a bunch of anti-vaxxers and we stayed away.  One rally they had 9 people catch COVID.  We didn’t need that.

We came early to our grandson Kolden's birthday.  Helped set up and converse with him.  Quietly, we scooted out before the crowds (a few anti-vaccers) came in.

Son Jeff and wife Linda found a wonderful new home in Idaho.  Beautiful country, the fresh smell of the outdoors, and a safer area than Seattle has become.  

NEW NEIGHBORS – we have many long-time neighbors.  Nice and peaceful here.

But great wonders!  2 families arrived in the houses behind us with little kiddos.                                                                   Ooh, can’t wait for Halloween!

PATIENCE, PLEASE 

Our ferries are running at half staff – usually...unless they can’t round up a trained crew in which case the route is canceled…or not. 

Our local ferry is running one ferry out of two.  On our way to Seattle one day, we had to make room for cars planning to ride on the Vashon/Fauntleroy ferry which crashed.  Apparently more training was necessary. 

Fast food restaurant are short handed.  The Police departments too.  Grocery stores have big gaps – this week there is margarine – last week there wasn’t. 

We’ve all recently gone through the oddness of our life with COVID.  Protecting kiddos and grandparents by leaving gaps in visits and hugs.  Many of the elderly passed on with COVID.  Many, with the opportunity, just quit their jobs and are living off their early retirement.  Too much danger of getting exposed to sick folks,  And because they quit, the knowledge of their job was lost causing whoever is left a lot of guessing on how and what needs to be done.  

US deaths by September

• COVID                                                     over 1 million
• Working age 18-64                                  a quarter million
• Add in 65-74                                            another quarter million – many workers
• Too old 75+                                              half a million

With each of those deaths were lost skills and knowledge that kept company’s running.  They automatically knew when the invoices went out.  They knew what to do when something unusual happened.  They knew how to handle it.  But they are now gone and those who took over are trying their best....but not always succeeding.

Be patient.  Be kind. 

Is This The Most Miserable Spring?

Not sure I have ever complained about rain at home (Of course, I know.  I do!)

It was so great to get home and see all the rhody's getting ready to bloom and the pink dogwood attracting lookie-loos to it's beauty.

And even by this date in early May, 2 rhody's haven't bloomed and 2 are past.

And by May 21st, more blossoms

May was clean up the gardens month....we did that between rain showers....

By mid-May we've had over 200% our monthly normal rainfall.

Our rain doesn't come all at once but in recent years it comes fast.

On the list: 6" gutters to replace the 4" - as 6" size will handle the heavy rain better.

Continuing along....

Oh, look, by the end of the month we were just 210% above average.

By the end of the month, many many blossoms are now on the ground (still colorful). 

 Knocked off by heavy rain.

A week into June - all blossoms gone and another 1/2" of rain.  

Boo hiss

We are happy to proclaim that by next week the temps might rise to above 60 for most days.  Maybe even get to 70.  Or maybe not. 

Oh, yes, the wonderful 3 day weekend in May.  Campers heading to the ocean.  It rained.  

As a child I remember the Memorial Day weekend where we 6 sat in the tent and tried not to touch the fabric and have it start leaking.  We did this EVERY Memorial Day weekend as I remember.  Came home, re-raised the tent to let it dry in a week or so.

Weather Forecasting For Dummies

For those not experienced in reading northwest weather, give this a try:  

The white cloudy looking things in the forecast are clouds! ..sometimes we have one cloud covering the whole sky and sometimes we have two.  

The yellow half circles are supposed to portray the sun peeking out - it might on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.  

The 3 little blue drip marks indicate the percentage change that it will probably rain. Notice every day has a drip mark and a percentage.  Yup - most likely!  The little blue rain drops indicate the chance of rain.  This figure changes on the hour so that by news time the weatherman called it correctly.  

Maximum temperature reached in May was 65.  And 9 days of rain.  The temps month were average for March - oops.  Not average for May.  But we have no tornadoes or hurricanes (at the moment)

May showers bring drowned June flowers.

(My rant for the day , Laurie)

I'm not the only one feeling this way.  

Click the link to Seattle's Weather Blog

Is This The Most Miserable Spring

HOME TO GREEN and WET - THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME

 

We made it home.  Looks like our average mileage was 30 miles a day.  Well, that wasn’t quite so.  We have to admit to a stop or two for a night or two. 

 Two -- no Three -- no Four great events.  Ah, heck, Five great events.

 1)  Number one was stopping at the Garden Grove Elks to be near my OLD brother who turned 60 or as he states his fifty-tenth birthday that week.  What we hadn’t allowed for was sitting at a place breaking heat records of 106!  In April!  We all kept masks on and even received some more masks from Glen’s girl.  We had a nice dinner outside.  

We gave him a yodeling pickle which was on his must have list  :o) 

Everybody happy.

 

2)  Before we got out of the LA area we stopped to have breakfast with an RV'ing buddy, Howard.  He shared a bunch of avocadoes from his different trees.  Great to taste the difference.  Store bought DO NOT taste as same.

 

Enjoyed a couple nights at Harvest Host golf courses.  Nice to be where it is green!  Central California has some spectacular gardeners.  Lots of color and many rose trees.  

Pretty sure rose trees won’t bloom at home but they were so pretty.  Usually lining the entrance walkway.  Different colors and perfectly trimmed.

 3) Easter weekend we spent at the Lodi Elks after a stop at Les Schwab for a new battery – they had it on hand and it worked great.  AND they had on hand 4 tires for the RV which were on the “things to be done this summer” list.  So we got them installed.

One of our greater goals of traveling through California was to be able to buy fuel for under $5/gallon.  Terrible price but we made it.  Most expensive was $4.999 but still….

Had read that this year was the earliest dates for commercial crabbers in Newport, OR so that is where we headed.  Got a fresh crab in Florence, OR but held out for Newport to pick up some canned or frozen…..Guess I needed to have read the crab news a bit better.  Yes, Newport fishery was able to open early.  But by December 15^th, they had caught 87% of their harvest and all the crab pots were back on the docks by the time we got there.  

We found one crab for sale that looked pretty unhealthy so we passed.

 

4) Fish Tales and Marionberry French Toast.  Anytime we or friend Kay pass through Newport, had to enjoy.  It was still as good.  Yes, you can go back!

 

5) Through Tillamook with a tasty stop at the Tillamook Dairy.  A tour and pack of curds.  Hooray. 

AKA SQUEEKY CHEESE

Highway 101 has had a lot of improvements to mostly control slides.  We mostly traveled through rain from Ukiah, CA north.  Not too much traffic but saw this one truck that climbed over the guard rail and turned upside down.  

Thankfully no one was hurt.  We wondered how the tow trucks would manage to get the engine and cab and the trailer back over the rail.  

As we worked our way through Oregon we found signs of too much rain, flooding, fallen trees, slides.  Laurie gave up driving and handed Dean the wheel when the speed limit was 50 and the road shoulder had fallen.  Argh!!

For the most part we stayed in nice Elks RV lots.  But when we got to SW Washington we had a hard time finding anywhere to park.  A favorite stop before was a county park in Pacific County along our route.  Parks expected to be open weren’t, so we ended up at a boat launch.  Nice and quiet, water view, and in the morning a parade of Corvettes :o) on their way to a parade in Long Beach.

And then we were home and it was dry for a day.  Got the RV washed.  Still unpacking.  Lots of green in the garden …. Some people call them weeds but that’s their problem.  :o) 

Lucky us – forecast was for ¾” of rain – and so far we’ve had less than half an inch.  I’ve included a few weather charts show that in spite of our griping – no, it isn’t still snowing or freezing.  

Yes, we are supposed to be in the 70 degree range but we are very happy when we hit the high-50’s.  And, all in all, we love where we live.  Rain, sun, rain, clear skies, rain – you get the idea.