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.

And here’s the Snake River bridge. On the left side after crossing the bridge is a state park and museum. The Sacajawea Historical SP. Years ago when I was living in the area with family, we went here often. Back then the museum had a skeleton of a native American in a glass case. That’s been repatriated to the tribe of course. This plot of land where the museum is located was where the Lewis & Clark expedition camped for a couple nights amongst a large camp of natives. I didn’t stop at the museum this trip.

Here’s the Snake. Rather wide at this confluence of the Snake and the Columbia.

And here was my destination. I actually worked here one summer between years at Columbia Basic College where I was working for my AAS (Electronics) degree. I did okay for a while but I failed to get the info on a motor that they expected from the college fast enough so they let me go. I remember working on a rock crusher motor from the cement mill that was so large, I walked inside of it after the armature had been removed. I blew out all the powdery cement dust. I don’t recall wearing a mask but I should have. I’m still alive 50 years later without lung problems so maybe?

See that roll up door and that big fan sitting there? That is were I did most of the work on giant motors while I was here.

Anyway, they couldn’t or didn’t want to work on my fan motor so I decided to stop nearby for a haircut. Note that it’s here in the industrial area of Pasco. I sat down, the guy asked what I’d like, did the work, than asked for $30! WTF??!! In a seedy old barber shop like this, in the industrial part of town? Wow. I was disgusted but paid up. My mistake for not asking up front.

And then I headed for Kennewick where I grew up from age 3 to 16. Lived there all those years with family until Dad got sick of the town and the drive to the paper mill in Wallula where he worked. The heat and the drive (no AC in our cars in those days). So he drove us all over to Walla Walla one day to check it out. We peaked the hill outside of WW and headed down into the WW valley and immediately noticed that on that day, it was like 10 degrees cooler there then in the Kennewick area. So, yeah, we moved to WW in my junior year of highschool.

Here’s the new Silver bridge I think the locals call it. The other bridge is blue and called the Blue bridge whereas I always called it the New bridge. Doesn’t work anymore so Silver and Blue bridges it is from here on out. We used to live in a trailer park just over that bridge and 3/4 of a mile beyond.

And here’s my destination. Clover Island. We used to walk there as kids but it was rather seedy back then. Looking fine now. I was looking on finding a nice bowl of soup on that island while I watched the river out of the windows roll on by. Something we used to do as kids was to sit on the shore and watch the river. Love the Columbia.

And there’s the Blue bridge off in the distance.

Silly little light house on the island.

And here was where I got that bowl of clam chowder. Pretty good. Had one of their IPAs too and that was fine as well. Hung out for and hour and a half just watching the river.

And then back on the Silver bridge heading home.

That’s the old train bridge were as little kids, brother and I, and our crew, got caught with a train coming and climbed off to the sides. Our dog Gypsy didn’t make it. Laying between the tracks with her head down, and it got quiet a little to her, she lifted her head and was clocked by the cabooses rear axle. Dan carried her home and we went to the vet but there was no hope. Every organ in her body was damaged along with multiple broken bones. Poor girl.

So that was my visit to Pasco to find a motor replacement for the OEM motor that they were asking $540 for. I would have paid $250 easily enough but the shop didn’t want to rebuild it, and there was no substitute for it because of the odd RPM specs. So that kinda tipped the scales for me to just buy a new HP since the bad one was 22 years old.

Anyway, with that ordered and on the way, not much to do but sit around, watch TV and visit family. And here the old HP is out along side the compartment, and then you can see my broken rocker/swivel/recliner ready for the dump. Bought this 2 years ago for $199 and it broke down just a couple weeks before. I watched the local ads and soon enough I found a used La-Z-Boy for $25 that I couldn’t get to fit in the back seat of my car and the sellers were kind enough to bring it to me. A 10 mile drive for them. But it was on their way too so…

The spot I’m occupying now use to have a trailer in it, but the owner got high and nodded off with a candle burning and burnt down his trailer. He’s disabled with strong epilepsy episodes but he escaped. The trailer didn’t. And this Seismic 5th wheel next door was badly damaged due to the heat. The FD tried to keep it cool but the fire melted a lot of the plastic surrounds and the vinyl. The trailer owner was given subsidized housing with a caretaker so he won’t be back here.

This is a view of all the prepared lots they have here for manufactured homes. Why the owner slowed down on leasing these out, I don’t know. Probably the economy way back when he stopped being aggressive about it.

Downtown old town of Milton Freewater is where my daughter works at a cheese factory and here’s some of their expensive cheese. Spicy hot. And the really good book I was reading at the time.

And here’s my daughter, after bringing me a free bowl of soup. I think she’s writing it down so it’ll be deducted from her pay. Awww, so nice. I tried to pay btw.

So that’s it for this posting. Next time will be an all nude all the time review. Probably. Maybe. Who knows?

Thanks for reading!