Our trip to SLC

We left Tuesday for the return to Houston.
We finally got on the road about 9:45 am without incident.
We drove to Hermiston, Or and the return to the mountains was really ambiguous. It was beautiful and thrilling and at the same time very tiring climbing those grades and then coming down on the other side. The trip was 321 miles and I was very tired when we arrived at Hermiston.
We stayed there 2 days, and we had planned to go to Walla Walla Nursery to check out there irrigation system. They are one of Mike's suppliers and they were very helpful with our problem. I explained to the owner that our watering was very labor intensive and not very affective. I took a few pictures of their greenhouses and irrigation system and I e-mailed them to Mike. The nursery is on the Washington/Oregon border. One half of the nursery is in WA. and the other is in OR. I'm not sure how he handles the finances of 2 states, but I am sure he has figured it out.We then proceeded to Glenns Ferry, ID. where we stayed in a Passport America Park. It was only 50 feet from an active railroad line. It was very busy and we heard trains all night.
The next leg was a short drive, 225 miles, but still mountainous. I wasn't nearly as tired when we arrived in Brigham City, UT.
This is a quaint small town and the park is nice, too. The sites are close, but small green lawn and picnic table at each site. The sites are also shaded.

We are only 50+ miles from SLC and not too difficult drive.
We went down today and visited the Mormon Temple Square.We were greeted at the gate by 2 young ladies who offered and proceeded to give us a tour of the grounds. We got a good and informative tour. They led us to two of the buildings and gave us a history of LDS. They were on a volunteer program for 18 months at the temple and were very enthusiastic about their faith.
We found out that not only do boys go out to evangelize but so do the girls. They really look forward to their time out as they are so involved in their church.
After to the tour there was an organ recital in the tabernacle. This is a huge domed building in which the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform. There is a huge pipe organ and it is beautiful and sounds so good.

Becky called us yesterday and told us that our granddaughter has joined the snaggletooth club.
She lost a tooth in school. She has had a loose tooth for several weeks and it finally came out.We plan to go to church here in the morning here, and stay one more night here. We will do some site seeing here and move on down to Kanarraville, UT and see Brice Canyon and Zion National Park.
The park that we are staying in is close to both of them. So it should be convenient to both.

More when we visit those places.

Ta ta for now

Fixin' to hit the road (to rib Becky)

Our time here in Monroe is soon coming to an end. We are leaving on Tuesday heading into eastern Oregon. I told Mike that we would try to stop at one of his suppliers in Walla Walla, to checkout there irrigation system.
Brenda is planning the trip home. She has us to Salt Lake City, Utah so far and she will continue as we move southward.
I want to check out Lake Havasu, AZ as a possible place to winter. So we will head southwest to Nevada after we see Brice Canyon in UT., then onto western AZ.
She hasn't decided if we are going to Vegas or Pahrump. She is researching Pahrump, so I will just have wait and see.

The coach is ready for the road. I changed the oil in both vehicles and lubed the coach. The weather here has been spectacular, so I was able to climb under the coach without laying in mud. It is raining now, but it is supposed to be over in a few hours.

Fred and I are planning to try our hand at salmon fishing on Sunday after church. The Snohomish River runs right by the campground and we have seen lots of fisherman in or near the water. The report is that this is the largest salmon run in the Snohomish River in many years. Maybe, just maybe, we can catch a few.
Becky, Heather and Lindsay are coming to the house for games and dinner, and we will catch up to them when we finish fishing. Fred and Lurlene were invited on Sunday, but we didn't give them enough notice as they already have plans for that day.

Becky is keeping us busy and will keep on doing so until Monday night.
She wants to go to the driving range to hit a few balls and wants me to teach her. Ha Ha, the blind leading the blind. I really don't want to teach her my bad habits. I enjoy playing for the camaraderie of my fellow players.

Heather is working almost every day so we don't get to see her much. She is also a house sitter and is tending a house for a coworker next week. Pretty good pay and all she has to do is live there.

Lindsay is still enjoying school and looks forward to going everyday.
Her homework assignment this last week has been to read every night. Becky has bought her some early readers with lots of repetition. She reads to one of us every night and seems to enjoy it. She is getting pretty good.

Fred is less busy now with only one class. The quarter is only 5 weeks, but it is 7 days a week and homework everyday. As he rides the train to and from work every day, he has time to get most of his homework done then.
The 2 classes at one time, were very difficult for him, but he aced both. We are very proud of him.

We'll see the Houston folks in November.

Ta Ta for now.

Mt St. Helens and the circus

Saturday morning we went over to Becky's house for the trip down to Mt. St. Helens.
Brenda has been wanting to go see it for several years now.
It is a 2 1/2 hr trip down I5 to Kelso and another 50 or 60 miles east of I5. It is a long way but well worth the trip.There are three visitor centers for the mountain. The first is close to the exit off of I5.
The next is a learning center about 1/2 way to the mountain. and the 3rd is on Johnston Ridge, which is about 5 miles from the crater. Alex and his friend, Jia, met us at the 1st visitor center.The monument is run by the US Forest Service, so Brenda, Alex, Heather and I got in on my Golden Pass. That saved $32 on entrance fees. Lindsay was free because of her age. The rest, unfortunately, had to pay. I can only get in 3 other people on my Golden Pass. 90% of the fees go to maintain all of the facilities there.Mt. St. Helens was active from early 1980 until 2008 when she went dormant again.
We had a short film and a talk from one of the rangers, that explained what happened up until the eruption until it went back to sleep.The lava of Mt. St. Helens is what they call peanut butter lava. It is different from the lava on the Hawaiian Islands. That lava is called honey lava. The difference is in the way it flows. Hawaiian lava flows like honey poured from a jar, while pb lava flows like pb and looks like a cow pie when it comes into the caldera.
After the initial explosion, the volcano was very active, rebuilding a lava dome in the crater.
It erupted many times, without the devastation of the 1st one.
There is even a small glacier in the caldera and it is moving ever so slowly. It was formed initially by the snow and ice on the south side of the crater and the subsequent snow falls in the winters that followed.
There is a paved path that leads to a point that you can see on both sides of the ridge.
At the top is an observation point, with a plaque that looks like a compass and shows different areas and types of destruction. It is very interesting and so much more detailed than anything that we had heard or read about of Mt. St. Helens.
The area around the crater and down the north side is sterile and no vegetation has grown back. In the areas where there was no rock slide and the trees were either blown down or burnt and no lava, the trees have returned in the subsequent 29 years since the destruction.
This area was heavily logged before the eruption, and most of the new growth was replanted after the explosion.

We stayed until almost dark then went looking for some place to eat.
Alex found a small family owned restaurant close to the freeway. The place was kind of small but the food and service were excellent.
The only trouble is that there was too much food too late in the day and it was sooo good.

We stayed in a motel overnight as the drive back that late was just too much for us.
If we hadn't had tickets to the circus on Sunday, we would have stayed for part of the day and gone back to the mountain.
We drove back to Monroe in good time and went to meet 'the birthing class' at the Comcast Center in Everett for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
We got there early enough to see the animals and spend some time on the floor of the arena with the clowns and some of the animals. The kids really enjoyed it.I have not been to a circus since I was a kid. As I remember I didn't particularly like it, so I never went back. If it weren't for Lindsay, I probably would not have gone yet.
The ringmaster was a magician, and the show was based around his magic acts, The clowns were very involved in his acts.
There is so much going on on the floor of the arena that it was very difficult to keep track of all the activity.
For instance, there were 2 dog acts going on at the same time. I tried to split my attention between the acts, but was not successful, as I missed something in both acts.
The show is very high energy. I now know what people mean when they say that the confusion in a certain place is like a 3 ring circus.
Everything is very colorful and fast moving so the kids had a great time, but, it was just too fast for my brain. Lindsay stayed wound up at least until we left to go home. That child is so full of energy.
Ta ta for now

Back at Thunderbird.

We returned to Thunderbird RV Resort on Tuesday. This is a nice park and we enjoy staying here, although we only sleep here. It is peaceful.

We spent Labor Day Weekend up at the lake with Fred, Becky, Lindsay and Fred's parents, Fred and Lurlene.The park is owned by the Sons of Norway and sits next to Lake Riley. The land is leased to the members of the Sons of Norway and they are allowed to make improvements to the lot.
There are many different structures on the lots, but are well maintained. Very eclectic.
It rained most of the weekend, but we still got to build a fire and enjoy the outside on all but one day. Sunday was a washout. We ate most of our meals outside and enjoyed each others company.
Monday was Lurlene's Birthday, so Brenda and Becky made a dump cake in the oven on Sunday. It is supposed to be made in a dutch oven over a hot coal bed, but the weather was so bad that we couldn't build a fire.Lindsay and her daddy played in the sandbox. Fred really is a good daddy and spends as much time with Lindsay as he can, as busy as he is now with school and work.
Binga, Lindsay's puppy, joined us at the lake. She really likes to play and run in the park. She is very obedient and comes when she is called.

Yesterday was Lindsay's first day at school. Brenda and Becky walked her to school and she said that she really enjoyed her first day. Brenda & Becky took pictures.
We now have HD in the coach. The installer tried to talk me out of it. He was emphatic about how hard it is to line up the dish. He had an instrument called a Bird Dog. It is a satellite finder that works to line up the dish to the proper satellites, there are 3.
The picture is sooooo much better now, and we kept the programming that we had only now it is in HD.
We will see if I can line up the dish without the Bird Dog. I looked online for a used one and they are pretty pricey. The receiver in the coach gives the parameters for setting the dish and I will try it by hand before we expend the money for that instrument.

I was here for the installation of the HD, so I didn't get to walk Lindsay to school yesterday. I am today.

Fred is getting off work early tomorrow, so we are planning to go fishing.
We have been several times and the fish don't seem to like what we are offering them or they don't like the presentation. We will try again tomorrow.

We have a trip planned to go down to Mt. St. Helens on Saturday, spend the night and be back in time to go to the circus on Sunday with the birthing class. We get a discount for group rates due to the number of people going. Another busy weekend planned.
We are hoping that Alex will get to join us for our trip to the mountain.

Ta ta for now.

More time with the family

We have been here for about 12 days now and quite a bit has happened.

Last Friday we had to move out of Thunderbird Resort because of the Evergreen State Fair.
They rent space out for the fairgoers and I guess some of the workers. There is not an RV space to be found in Monroe or close proximity.
The contract that we have with ROD (Thunderbird is a participating park) is that we can stay for 2 weeks and out for 7 days then back in for 2 weeks.

Fred's folks were kind enough to offer there yard & driveway to park in until we go to the lake. We just barely get off of the road, but they live at the end of a dead end street, so it is not a problem.
We will be here until Thursday, when we head up to the lake for 5 days. We then move back to Thunderbird for 2 weeks then leave for an extended trip to Magnolia, TX.
The Grannan's are such super people.

We are having a great time with the kids. Fred is very busy with work and school, but finds time to socialize with us.
He has until Monday for 2 classes (lots of homework), then he drops down to 1 class. It will be easier for him.

Becky is keeping us busy.
Sunday we went to the Fair and met some of the birthing class. We have heard about them since Lindsay was born, and it was good to put faces with names.
They get together for different functions several time a year. The kids enjoy each others company as well as the adults.
She is a good hostess, and keeps us occupied.

Alex came in on Friday and spent the weekend with us. It was a great time with him. He went to the fair with us and seemed to enjoy himself.
He left yesterday, but before he left, we got to spend some time together alone. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with him and discussing different things with him. That is something that we have not done in a very long time.
He has applied to Fedex and seems optimistic about getting hired. His film and television work is sporadic and he would like to have something more stable. We all wish him luck.

Heather is working most of the time and we have not seen her as much as we would like to.
She has found the time to cook for us. Night before last she made spaghetti for us and it was delicious. She made garlic bread and a salad.
She credits her mother for teaching her how to cook, but she has become quite a good cook herself.

Lindsay is such a joy. She is at a great age where she wants to be with her grandparents, and seems to really enjoy her Poppa and Grandpa. We rough house with her and she enjoys the physical contact.
It is such a pleasure to watch her interact with her grandpa. They are very close.
Her Grammy and Grandma have a different relationship.
Grammy plays games with her and sits next to her in the car as well as at home. Lindsay has taught Grammy how to use and play the Nintendo DS. I think it will help with Brenda's memory.
Lindsay rode with us in the motor home and Brenda played with her and kept her occupied.
Lindsay is a bundle of energy. After over 8 hours at the fair, I expected her to be just worn out when she got home. Quite the contrary. She was so full of energy and excitement, but when she stops, she crashes.
I just wish I had 1/4 of her energy.

I finished installing the new tvs. It was not as hard as I thought it might have been. I had thought about it for some time, and I had read somewhere how someone else had taken their old analog tvs out and replaced them with flat panel hdtv. There were pictures and a good description of the procedure. I couldn't find the article, but I modified the cabinet and installed them from memory.
Directv is coming to the park next Wednesday to install HDTV in the coach.
We have seen the on air digital broadcast and the picture is great.

Greg and Dawn came down to see us again on Sunday. They went to the fair with us and seemed to enjoy themselves. The 4 of us left early as we were tired and came back to Becky's house and played Mexican Train until it was time for the to head home. They are such a kick to be around.

We are such dingalings, that we forgot the camera in the coach all the time Alex was here, so no pictures.

Ta ta for now