And into Mexico…

Left Tucson heading to Mexico in late February…

and first stopped at the TSD station for a diesel fill up. And couldn’t get the pump to start pumping! Tried every trick I knew about pump islands with remote pumps on the opposite side but nothing worked. Dammit! I needed fuel! So I drove around the fueling station (these are business type sites…no humans anywhere around) and tried a different pump, and it worked. Cost me nearly 45 minutes of screwing around to find they have defective equipment but no sign. Wasn’t until I was 10 minutes away that I realized I could have put a note on the pump myself. Doh!

Anyway, I did make it out of Tucson onto the west bound I-8 freeway.

One of the dune buggy havens that dot this area. There’s a huge meeting over those dunes a couple times a year. I’ve passed it in the past but never stopped.

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Welcome to 2024…

Having survived 2023, it’s time to enjoy some lo-jinks in 2024.

Not much had happened after I arrived in Tucson, John, my host, and I got back into our old-guy routine of sitting in the sun in front of his garage every afternoon enjoying the weather (normally sunshine even on coolish days) and tossing stories back and forth. We strictly avoid politics. But we’re both atheists so we do complain about the latest religious outrage on occasion.

I do enjoy the sunsets here…

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2023 – October thru December…

November 1st, 2023 was a travel day heading south towards Winnemucca.

First have to climb the very steep hill on I-84 outside of Pendleton. Known as Deadman’s Pass. Can be really dangerous in the winter so I always try to time my travel through here when it’s safe. There are several Webcams showing conditions. Usually, even after a snow event the roads melt the snow so by 10 AM it’s safe. Of course in the summer, overheated vehicles can end up stuck on the side apron. Coming down is as dangerous if you don’t downshift or have an exhaust brake and overuse your regular brakes.

Several hours later, the Winnemucca valley.

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More from 2023…

————————Sept. 2023——————————–

I have created some of my own recipes over the years, and this cottage cheese salad is one of them. Diced onion, peppers (red and green), diced tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and the cottage cheese. Very refreshing and an excellent foil to the spicy, garlic heavy spaghetti sauce I make. Cleans the palate.

I don’t eat pasta unless it’s angel hair pasta in soup so I just make a pot of spaghetti sauce and eat it from a bowl along with the salad and some garlic bread.

And of course, the meal isn’t complete without French Vanilla and Orange Sherbet ice cream swimming in ginger ale.

On rare occasions, if I have a bottle of Burgundy, I’ll have a glass to go along with the meal.

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Two months later…

Yes, I’m still around, still RV’ing. Nothing terrible to report about my absence, just run-of-the-mill laziness.

Anyway, I’m back to posting and this post will cover from the end of July after I returned from my visit to Troutdale, through December to finish out the year. In a few days, I’ll post from 2024.

—————–July 2023—————-Brunch with the family in Walla Walla——————-

So my sister Teri and Gary invited us over for brunch. Daughter Mush came with me but my son James decided to skip. I’ve always enjoyed their back yard. But I’m beyond enjoying yardwork.

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Back Home Again…

After that 4 day visit with my Troutdale friends, headed back east along I-84 that travels alongside the Columbia. Which is now just a series of lakes as the backup from each dam reaches within a mile or three of the base of the next upstream dam.

Cruising along the divided highway, drivers pass through this nice long tunnel. Just past this tunnel heading east is the Eagle Creek Trail, one of the most popular and spectacular trails in the entire USA. Gets around 3,000,000 hikers per year. Well worth the hike. I’ve been several times. You really only need to get around 3 miles up the trail and most of the day hikers have turned back.

And then further on, is the Bridge of the Gods. And nestled practically underneath is my favorite restaurant in the gorge…the Bridgeside Inn. I’ve been coming here when I wanted to get away from the Portland/Gresham/Troutdale area since the early ’70’s. Often for breakfast or lunch, and just as often just to sit and take in the grandeur.

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Visit to Troutdale…

Eventually decided I’d finally go visit my friends over in the Portland area. It’s been 7 years since I’ve seen them but I do keep in touch with Facebook. With my newer travel route putting me here in the Walla Walla valley for both convenience and savings, I’ve slacked off heading to the Troutdale area. I used to spend most of the summers over there.

I found a used Dell 15″ laptop for sale on FB Marketplace that is one of Dell’s prime, top-of-the-line devices. Or it was back in 2006 when it was made. Still quite useful and had very few hours on it. The owners paid around $999 for it back then and it just sort of sat on a shelf most of the intervening years. Or so the seller said. I paid the seller $125 for it. Dell still makes that model, updated of course. This one has all the goodies, touch screen with very thin screen surround (more screen, less plastic case), multiple cores for seamless video watching, Bluetooth and Wifi, tough metal case in a slim design, all designed for heavy use. I plan on using it when traveling.

I don’t know if my readers remember but last time I mentioned how some guy sat next to me on the plane on the flight back from Costa Rica with a 15″ screen watching movies on the onboard Wifi and my little 10.5″ screen just didn’t compare. I was jealous. So that’s why I bought this Dell. It’s lightweight and has a much larger keyboard then my 10.5″ unit. Which I just sent to my friend over in Iowa so she’d have something to use since her’s broke. But the Dell is fine for travel, and if it gets stolen, or dropped in the ocean or something, I’m not out much. I do keep my receipts when I travel and enter them into a spreadsheet and this bigger keyboard will be very handy.

Anyway, here we go on the way to Troutdale from Milton Freewater taking the Walla Walla River road that connects to I-5 a few miles just past Irrigon, Oregon. I only took this route because it’s scenic and I get tired of freeways. If I’d headed due south instead I would have gotten onto I-5 just outside of Pendelton, Oregon. Here I’m heading west towards the Columbia at Wallula Junction.

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Settled in at Milton Freewater…

It’s been over a month since my last post. Sorry about the delay, no excuse, I’ve just been a bit lazy lately. 

One thing that happened was I had a 10 day cold! This is rare for me and my immune system is rather strong and I wasn’t laid up really, but I did wear my mask when out, and tended to stay home so as not to infect anyone else. I haven’t had a cold for several years now, but this one reset that clock. Ha. I did take the Covid test and that came up negative.

And then, here at the RV park, we all got notice that the park has been sold. Sort of expected it as the owner Darrell is 97 years old. He has family but I guess none of them wanted to take over all the lands and projects Darrell had going on. I was willing to help him on one of the bigger developments he had going nearby which would have been managing the creation of 100 home sites, but he may have dropped that project, but I haven’t gone to visit him since the sale in late May either.

Shortly after I arrived in Milton Freewater and got set up, I started work on the heat pump (HP) which I mentioned back in Winnemucca as not cooling anymore. I bought 2x 5 gallon buckets from Walmart and an 8 foot length of 2X6 and had it cut in half. Made a bench out of it like I did years ago for work on the HP. There’s a picture later on.

Had the young men from next door help me pull it out of it’s basement compartment, opened the top and found that the outside motor had gone bad. Pulled that out, went to a motor repair shop in Pasco (55 miles away), they determined it wasn’t worth fixing, so I decided to just forget it and buy new. Sadly it was during the height of the inflationary period we had so I paid 48% more then if I’d purchased a few months previous. Gouging by Coleman. Cost me $4,000. If you’re interested in the entire story, click HERE. I see that Hebron no longer has stock of that model.

But I did make that trip to Pasco so I’ll post a few pictures. I must have driven this route more than 1,000 times over the years. And here I’ve already reached the Columbia River after following the Walla Walla river 30 miles or so due West. This section of the road is heading due North.

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After John Day…

Didn’t take long after leaving John Day to arrive in Milton Freewater and my home base RV park. But first, leaving John Day…lots of water here too this year…

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On to John Day…

I really need to find a different route to Milton Freewater, just for the adventure. But I do enjoy visiting in John Day, which is where I headed when leaving Winnemucca.

So here is the river that passes through downtown Winnemucca I mentioned last article. There is a homeless encampment off in that direction under the bridge I cross after this one. Encampment is kind of a mess, even has an older RV sitting there.

And there’s the ‘W’ for Winnemucca. It’s got some interesting buildings way up on top of those hills over there that I wonder about. Probably some commie secret spy ring put them up there. Or the local Boy Scouts. Ya just never know.

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