After enjoying ancient Greek art, spent the next 2 weeks or so just hanging around the Stagecoach Tavern and visiting with friends. But the poor ass WiFi was annoying so I headed up to Corbett and the nice little RV park up there. Advantage is really fast WiFi, and a change in scenery. Oh, and the bath room just being 50 feet from my RV instead of 100 yards away. Got all my laundry done, cleaned up the RV a little, read books, and surfed the internet. The nearest bar is like 3 miles away, and the weather precluded riding the bike down there so staying home was the rule of the day. But there is a nice old fashioned grocery store across the street from the RV park so I’d wander over there, buy a latte and sit and read the newspaper. This being retired stuff is kinda cool.
Parked in Corbett.
The office and facilities.
The weather was holding off. For Portland, this is comfortable. At least there’s not a downpour going on. Usually we’d get some drizzle during the day. But not too bad.
I finally bought a new camera, an Olympus SZ-10. It’s a little beaut and about time I got one. Looking forward to many great pictures without the occasional pink overcast the Kodak was causing. Above is the first picture I took with it. I got it from Amazon after spending hours researching cameras on-line. It’s gotten hard to buy anything these days because there are just so many products. And so many conflicting reviews. After reading about this camera and that camera for a couple hours and not being able to make a decision, I’d sometimes just give up for a couple days. Much better if we were like the Russian commies where you only have 1-2 choices. Da?
But I persevered and finally found the Olympus, had the right specs, great price, and good reviews. Ordered to be shipped to me at the RV park but a few days later found that it would only be delivered to the Corbett PO. It was coming USPS and I thought they’d bring it right to my door…or at least to the RV parks office. Turns out they won’t deliver anything to the RV park. Except for the notice that your package was at the PO, even though the postperson stuck that note to my door while I was there. No one could give me a satisfactory answer as to why. Anyway, after I’d found out it would end up at the post office, it was close enough that I could ride my bike down there and pick it up. Plugged it in, charged it overnight and the next day had a great time playing with it. New toys are fun. After having, at this point, several months with it, I’m happy with the purchase. The Li-Ion battery holds a charge well, pictures are great resolution, connects up to the computer with no need to install memory stealing software, big view screen, flip up flash, and it’s easy to use.
A few days later, TJ invited me to join her and the family for T-day. Sure! So here’s a few pictures of enjoying thanksgiving with the Nelson family.
Tables all set, waiting for the rest of the family.
Mom, TJ and Lee, Jeff and Jackie all in various stages of helping cook.
Ronnie. Such a cutie.
Jeff and Jackie’s little one, Maddie. The little boy in the background is Michelle’s son but I forgot his name.
TJ cooking the whole dinner! Great job too.
Everyone getting ready to enjoy. The Nelson gurl’s dad Lee in the captains chair.
Ronnie tries to talk everyone into having a shot of Jaguar. It worked! She’s very persuasive.
Michelle talking to her son while Lee looks on.
So, that was my Thanksgiving. Good company, good cheer, good food. Had a great time. Thanks to the Nelson family!
A few days later, I decided it was time to get out of town and head south before the real downpours start up in Portland. It can rain for months it seems so I planned a trip due south to Rosamond for a visit with my brother Dan.
Before I left though, I invited some friends up to the Stagecoach Tav to say goodbye and have some fun. I decided to park my RV over across the street next to a big building and as I was pulling in, I clipped a Toyota pickup truck. I didn’t notice the actual impact, but I did hear something unusual as I’d passed it. When I got out, the owner was standing there looking at it. He was kind of laughing, pointed out that I’d only scraped his front crash bar, then we walked over to my RV and I’d gotten most of the damage. The bar had scraped along the side wall of the RV for around 6 feet near the passenger rear. Crunched a couple door frames and ruined one of the door panels. These are compartment doors I’m talking about. Damnit. Anyway, the owner thought it was funny because a couple days earlier he’d caught his gurl friend screwing around on him with a friend and he’d gotten so angry that he’d bashed her car with his truck. So he’d done much more damage then I’d done. And it seemed fitting to him that the truck would get even more damage. Like karma. He didn’t want to bother with insurance and sent me on my way. I offered to buy him a beer but he was fine with just my apology. I spent the night in the WalMart parking lot dry camping and late the next day, I headed off to California.
At a leisurely pace, it takes a full day to get from Portland, to the California border. Weather was sort of dismal but it wasn’t raining much. Weather reported a really big storm swirling up the coast from the southern Pacific so I was planning to dodge that. Reportedly, it was going to be a doozey with high winds AND heavy rains with expected flooding. And was predicted to last several days. Yikes. So I’m heading south on I-5 and it’s fairly calm down to around Eugene when the winds picked up. So I stopped in Eugene for the night. Wanted to check out a Passport America RV park there anyway. I overshot the turn off in order to fill up at a station I knew that had low prices for diesel, and easy in/out for my big rig. Traveled back towards the park on a back road that was going to go right by the park but darned if I could find it. Took about 2 up/down tours on the road before I finally spotted the place. Had a very long driveway and the RVs were kind of tucked back there where you couldn’t really see them that well from the road.
All set up in Eugene.
You can tell that the weather is getting a little dicey. That’s not smog in the above picture, it’s moisture. The park is the Shamrock Village. Weren’t many people there when I arrived at 3pm. WiFi was pretty good, had cable, and all the other services. Watched the local news and the weather was going to be a problem. I thought I could beat it to Rosamond (90 miles north of LA) before I’d started out, but it’s profile had changed enough that I wasn’t exactly sure that was possible now. Well, I thought, these guys don’t always get it right so I’ll keep on going and see what happens.
The next morning was nice and calm and off I go. Wanted to try out my new camera on a telephoto shot so I stopped at a view point of Mt. Shasta and took this shot:
Mt. Shasta telephoto shot.
Not sure if this is still Mt. Shasta from a different view point or some other mountain.
I’d timed it just right. The weather through the Siskiyou Mountains was uneventful. Low winds, no rain. None of the potential snow that had been predicted. Except a little along the sides of the road near the summits. Breathed a sigh of relief as I headed down the backside of the mountains into the California valley. The winds did start to pick up though. I’d cleverly planned the trip so I’d be somewhere to bail off the highway if the weather turned on me. My 3pm end-of-day plan worked fairly well. I stopped in Orland, California at the Old Orchard RV Park. This older park doesn’t have a web presence but there are some independent reviews…that weren’t all that good. But take it from me. It’s a nice park. Some of the sites do have long term visitors (local contractors and such) but it’s clean, nice big spaces, easy in/out, 50/30/20 amp, cable, and WiFi. I didn’t have anyone near me, and I was close to the office for the best WiFi.
So I get there in Orland around 3pm and the storm is definitely brewing. I get all hooked up with a light breeze going on and that moist feeling that makes you feel it will soon be raining. You could smell rain in the air. And sure enough, at about 8pm, the clouds opened and we had a downpour. Then the winds picked up until the rig was rocking back and forth on my jacks. Rain coming down in buckets. And no intermittant let up like with many storms. It just kept coming down.
I’d only planned on staying one night, but the weather reports on TV and on-line were really bad. Heavy rains and heavy winds. Flooding here and there all ready. About twenty five miles from where I was there was a bridge washout and a couple cars ended up in a creek. And the storm had only just begun. Next day was predicted as full on rain all day, and heavy winds. OK, I’m just not going to drive in conditions like this. So, I ended up staying at Old Orchard for 6 nights.
During the occasional breaks in the weather, I took some walks around the park. It’s pretty nice. I’ve added it to my list of ‘nice places to stay’. I read one on-line review from just a month before I stayed there that said the neighbors were all trashy and they feared for their equipment. Bunk. Nice people, no trash dumps on peoples sites. Sure, there were some long-term sites but those weren’t trashy, and they were nearest the freeway so the short term places away from the freeway were nice and quiet. Clean restrooms, friendly & accommodating staff, walking distance to a fuel station & convenience store, good RV services, etc.
The storm took 5 days and nights to finally peter out, but I was comfy, and enjoyed those downpours.
All settled in at the Old Orchard RV Park.
Getting a little wet.
I appreciated the fact that there wasn’t any mud. Nice gravel spaces that were flat and good sized too.
That’s the restrooms and club house. Nice and clean. There in the foreground is a ’66 Thunderbird. It stopped running several years before and they hadn’t gotten it fixed. I asked the owner how much she wanted for it but she was asking too much in my opinion. It’s in pretty good shape though. Engine rebuild, tranni rebuild and a few minor repairs and it’ll be road worthy.
Finally, the storm’s winds had abated enough that I felt comfortable heading on south. Six days of cooling my heals just to let a storm pass. Neat. Off I went on the seventh day and arrived in Rosamond at my brothers house. Kind of dull weather by comparison with Orland.
Along side the road…snow, just past Orland. Thought that was interesting.
Arrive at Dan’s place and it’s all sunshiny and warm.
But the wind had been here the day before I arrived.
A couple hours after I got to Dan’s I’m all settled in. Have to empty the refer in my RV because the street out front is so steep that it would ruin it if I left it running.
Got my computer set up and running and for the next few days, I’m busy arranging for my trip to Hawaii and Allison’s wedding. Gonna be on the BIG island. The one no one goes to. Needed some clothes for the wedding so I ordered some Hawaiian shirts. Not the outlandish type that tourists wear but the type the locals wear. After hours of searching, I was able to find a rental car, office right near the airport where I found and reserved a compact car for $24/day. Through an on-line company that’s got contracts with all the big rental car companies and gives a nice discount. Best I could find and actually less expensive then a moped, U-Haul van, or a Hertz. It was really surprising at the gouging going on with the mopeds. They’re just little scooters that only cost a few thousand but every scooter rental place seemed to think they were made of gold. More expensive then the average rental car even. There were rental bikes that weren’t to bad for a weeks rental, but I opted for the car. More on that in my next posting. Also purchased a tablet type computer to take with me. And a new phone from Tracfone. One of those fancy, schmansy smart phones. It’s now mid December and I’m all ready to go. Everything is in place for my trip to Hawaii, all the reservations have been made, clothes have been bought, tickets purchased, and on-line searching for the best things to do have been made. So it’s time to relax and visit with my brother and accompany him to his retirement party down at a brew pub in Lancaster.
We stop at a friend’s house. They’ve volunteer to be the designated drivers.
And here we are at the Bravery Brewing company. Place is owned by a couple guys, one of which is a movie actor.
The beer!
Manny on the left, that actor guy on the right.
After the retirement party, the gifts, the conversations, the awkward dancing, off we go to another friends house and a TV & movie actor shows up. I recognized him right away and talk to him about the show he was in for a bit, but I was a little loopy at the time so I don’t remember his name or the name of the movies he was in or the TV show he is a regular on. Oh, well.
We had a great time. There were probably 70-80 people at the pub helping get Dan out of the way so there would be room for advancement at NASA. After all, he was now 68 years old. Time to let a younger wo/man take over. Get out of the way, ya old goof-ball!
Christmas rolled around and one of Dan’s former employees invited us over to enjoy Christmas dinner. Nice people. Had a great dinner and a very nice time. No presents though. Pikers.
So, that’s all for 2012. It’s now July 4th so I’m still quite a way behind on the ol’ blog, but I have more then enough time to get up to date here eventually. It’s sometimes a chore since I’ve been doing this since ’04. There’s over 400,000 words and something like 4,000 pictures up so far. Or so, that could be hyperbole. Whew.