My Summer is Slipping Away!

I have been working hard to get Mom's list of things that need fixing around the house completed and at this point appear to be down to the last two items on her list and 1 item I added. So far I have fixed a number of small things around the house, cleaned and sealed/painted 3 wood decks, replaced the back garage entry door and revived her riding lawn mower that has not run in 3 years. I still need to finish up the mower, paint the replacement door and do some mortar repair on the fireplace chimney.

Along with these tasks I keep the lawn mowed and try to keep up with the outside maintenance. Then the neighbor across the road always seems to have projects that need additional hands or muscle for me to get involved with.

Today I am waiting for a call from my son-in-law so I can go and let the plumbers in so they can finish up the basement bathroom in their new house.

My summer seems to be flying by and I have yet to get started on any of my projects/maintenance for the motor home and Jeep.

Last night we were having dinner with Mom and our two nieces. I was drafted to grill the steaks. I had left Bud in the back yard so he would not have to be couped up in his cage and decided to bring him out front to be with me while I was grilling. He was laying in the shade holding his left front paw in the air as I arrived to get him. I had to pick the poor boy up as he could not walk on the injury. I looked him over and did not see any real injury, but did see one of his pads would quite red. I am guessing he got stung by a wasp.

The was a very traumatic experience for the boy and he just kept looking at me saying help me. We held him for 15 minutes or so and then I took him back to the coach, gave him a baby Benadryl along with dinner and slipped him into his cage. I then returned to the house to dig into a well prepared steak (if I do say so myself). By the time I returned to the couch later that evening all the pain and suffering from our foot was over and we were back to normal. I tell you dogs are as bad as kids!

Hello Portland

Yesterday we started the final leg of our depositing Manda in Portland. We were both awake so we got started at 5AM. We had about 160 miles to go so we arrived at the apartment about 8:30 in the morning, basically before Amanda and her friend got up! We unloaded the car, parked the tow dolly on the side of the street and backed the truck up the hill and into the parking lot of her apartment building. I am kind of a pain when it comes to getting all the junk moved in so everyone let me get things organized and we soon had the truck emptied. From there we headed for the Penske truck return which was across the Willamette river. As usual we managed to get turned around a couple of times before we actually made it, but it really wasn't that big a deal.

I really loved the scenery along the Columbia River Gorge, we had reasonably good weather and could see for a really long way. We manged to see a few water falls while traveling along I-84 and decided we needed to make a day trip back up the gorge once we traded the truck in for our rental car.

Next on the agenda was to pick up the rental car and get some lunch. Other than a few missed turns things went fairly well. Next Amanda needed to get the car's emissions checked prior to registering it in Oregon. From there we dropped the girls off and headed back to the east to check into our hotel. By this time Linda and I were ready for some dinner and since we were staying in an extended stay hotel we needed to stop at and pickup some groceries.

Today Linda and Amanda started the process of getting the car switched to Amanda's name and registered. Things went well until the DMV asked for proof of residency. Amanda was not quite prepared so they needed to return to the apartment and get proof of her address. The car now lives in Oregon and Amanda is studying for her written drivers test.

The girls and I took a took the Historic Columbia River Highway from Troutdale to Multnomah Falls and then crossed the Columbia River using the Bridge of the Gods into Washington. From there we headed back west on highway 14 to Vancouver, then took 205 back into Portland.

At this point the girls are cleaning up the apartment and I have been drafted to make Mexican Chicken for dinner. I am currently drinking beer to recover from the day and preparing to make tonight's dinner.

We are working on getting the hundreds of pictures Linda's has taken during our trip organized and will post a link as soon as we have them ready.

Day 3 of the move to Portland

Yesterday we made it to Cheyenne, WY and had dinner with Robin, a friend we originally met in Texas. Mileage was much better on Sunday due in part to a tail wind instead of a head wind and I tried to keep the speed at 60. We managed a respectable 12+ MPG for the day.

Tonight we are in Ogden, UT. Our original plan was to stop here for the night but, I had hoped to make another 120 or so miles today. When we stopped at around 5PM for gas the Flying J computers were acting up, so we could not fuel up, which kind of told me we should just call it a day. The Comfort Suites was at the same exit just on the other side of the road, so we decided to just get fueled up in the morning and hit the road early. The scenery was really great today, Linda managed to fill the memory card in the camera before lunch! We had to offload the card at the rest area so she could take a bunch more. There were lots of prong horn antelope next to the the highway and there was a fair amount of snow next to the road where the snow fences had piled it up pretty deep over the winter.

We saw several wind farms in Wyoming & Utah today and they were pretty impressive.