Happy Holidays From our Home to Yours

Why I Love the Yuma Area

Yuma has awesome sunsets.

While sitting at a red light to your left is a military vehicle, 

and to your right is a truck laden with produce right from the field.

We've done a couple of things to the rv while here,  first we changed our heater from a Wave 8 to a ProCom.  The reason is the controls and lighting buttons on the Wave 8 are at the bottom, as seen in this picture from the internet.

Wave 8

On the ProCom the controls are on the top, making it much easier to light.  Both heaters are propane, both are ventless and both heat up to 300 square feet but now, for me, having the knobs on the top is much better.

ProCom has a blue flame.  

The other item we crossed off our list was an electric awning.  Installed by Shade Pro, the same company that did our window awnings last year.  Haven't used it yet because it's been windy but happy to have it.

As you can see in the picture above we are parked out on the desert and you can see some rv's behind us.  Those are some of the Escapee Boondockers that are here as well.  We have gathered for our annual Christmas get together and potluck.  All of the folks that we met and spent time with this summer in Washington are here and it's nice to visit with friends, old and new.  Sadly Goldie, the owner of the property in Long Beach Washington where we spent the month of August, isn't here because of health issues, so that means Freda isn't here either, we miss them both.  There are about a dozen rv's here which makes for a nice gathering.  

Be back soon.

Evelyn and Joy plus Bubba and Missie

Some Not So Good News and Some Good News

A note about the different header picture.  This is an older picture of the rv out off American Girl Mine Rd., west of Yuma.  Even though it's old I felt it was a better fit than the other picture that was taken in Oregon. 

Now on with the story.  

There is so much to tell you and I have absolutely no energy to tell you the whole story so you'll get the very condensed version.

After arriving at the home we bought last spring, in Yuma, we started the process of making it our own.  Had 2 loads of junk hauled off to the dump, got a painter scheduled to start the day after thanksgiving, yard cleaned up, bought new bed, ordered furniture for the living room.  Busy busy busy.  

Pretty sunset.

The day the painter came to give us a bid he noticed this thing hanging from the ceiling.  I thought it was a speaker wire.  Wrong. Termites.  Ok add getting the house sprayed for termites to the list.

Signs of termite.  See that tail hanging from the ceiling?

On thanksgiving day mom voiced this idea that she couldn't really see us in this house.  I thought about that for about 1 minute and agreed with her.  The house was taking way too much money and time and all my energy as mom can't really help with anything.  So we decided to move back into the rv, cancel furniture order, cancel painter, and clean up the house sort through our stuff and rent a storage unit and go back to the beginning.  Living full time in the rv.

Back into storage.

So I got all that done in 5 days and let me tell you,  I am tired, bone weary tired.  But on the good side, it's all done and the house is for sale once again, and the market is up so we are hopeful.  We drove away yesterday morning and it felt good, really good.

We are firm believers in the philosophy of, if a decision you've made isn't working for you move on.  Don't waste time, cut your losses and move on down the road.

So tonight we are back dry camping at one of the spots in Yuma and on Tuesday we will head out of town going to Quartzsite for a few days and then on to the Phoenix area for Dr. appointments.  

Yeah back on the road.

But wait there's more.

When we got to the house, since we were going to be there for a long time, I made the decision to let the cats outside.  Well that worked for the first two weeks, then Bubba disappeared.  In the midst of all the chaos around the house, piles going in and piles going out, that boy brought me a lizard at 3pm and that was the last I saw him for 3 days.  I went knocking on all my new neighbors doors, introducing myself and asking if they had seen him.  I did this on 3 streets mine and the two on either side of me.  I even joined 3 Yuma facebook groups for pets, posting the picture you see below, and going to the website for the microchip he has, reporting him as lost. Interestingly after reporting him as missing to the microchip site I got an email alerting me to the fact that there was a lost pet in my area.  In the end, all the time I spent walking around at night calling for him, did nothing. He came home on the third night at 3am.  I was up and looked out the window and there he was.  Cats will be cats and boy cats will be boys.  Yes he's been neutered but apparently that isn't enough to keep him home.  So now they only go out on leashes, of which we don't have any right now, so they're in the rv, only.

This is the picture of Bubba that I used on the facebook groups when he went missing for 

THREE DAYS.

So things here have calmed down a bit, my friend Bette is parked nearby and we've gone to dinner a couple of times.  We're waiting for Amazon things to arrive at our newly rented UPS mailbox and then we're out of here.

Evie and Joy and Bubba and Missy

Isn't she an angel.  Black lipstick and all.  

I'm Going to Cover a Lot of Topics Tonight and Bring You Up to Date

Yes, finally, the rv is fixed.  It was a rainy day when we pulled into Tillamook RV Repair for the final installation of the newly made part.  It took 3 months, not the fault of Tillamook RV but because the guy in Ohio who makes this little part dropped the ball.  Anyway it's fixed now and time to move on.

There's a rainbow, it ment good luck was coming our way.

You can't see Morgan but he's under there putting it back together.

Spent a night in Eureka, CA to visit a friend of mine who was holding on to some of my things.  These pictures are of his home/museum. 

This is my old kitchen table that I gave him looking really good on his new kitchen floor.

The remains of our lunch are there, sorry.  It was really nice to be able to sit on one of my chairs.

In the background you can see some of his Fiesta Ware collection.

He's having his collection appraised, wants to sell it.

He also is a gardner. 

Moving on.  We stopped in the Piercy, CA area to visit my friend Diane and to retrieve more things.  So now our car is full of wonderful treasures.  

We spent two nights in Willits, visiting friends and eating at our favorite restaurants.  But while there it started to rain.  We'd had enough rain in Oregon so on we went, to Ukiah.  Cramming into two days what I had thought would take a week to accomplish. 

Eat at the new In and Out in Ukiah.

And what do we have here?  OMG they've started working on the Costco store in Ukiah.

We left on friday afternoon heading to the Santa Rosa fairgrounds, but they were all full of rvers whose  homes burned last month so we kept going to Petaluma Elks lodge, where we dry camped, no hookups, for the night and at first light took off to Lost Hills, CA.  We again dry camped there, parked on a side street.  Left this morning at 6:19am and drove pretty hard so as to get through the Los Angeles area before traffic got bad.  Made it to Morongo Casino by 11:30, not too bad.  Took a break for lunch and give the kitties some outside time and moved on down the road to Salton Sea.

The beautiful Salton Sea.

We'll be home to our little home in Yuma by noon tomorrow.  Lots to do there and looking forward to being there and out of the rv so I can get some things done on/to it.

We are well and glad to be back in the southwest, it is so relaxing here and warm too.

Evie and Joy + Bubba and Missy

A note:  One of my friends mentioned to me that he wasn't able to leave a comment on the blog.  I don't know what to do about that, it must be a blogger issue, which is a google program.  I'm sorry if you're having troubles, unfortunately I don't know what to do about that.

That Missy, she won't hold still for a picture.

We Drove up the Columbia River Gorge

In early Sept. we had booked a 5 hour boat tour up the Columbia River Gorge but because of the wildfires that started the week before, our tour was canceled.  Last week we drove the rv up to the KOA in Cascade Locks and spent a couple of days exploring the area.

This is the boat that we would have been on, if we'd been able to take the tour.

Zoomed out 10x with iPhone 7.

Native american fishing platforms hanging over the river.

Waterfall photo bombing a tug boat.

Zoomed out 10x with iPhone 7.

We are back in Tillamook, Oregon still waiting for our rv parts to get here from Ohio, and that's all I can say about that without shouting at someone.  Sorry.

Evie and Joy

It's fall.

Oregon City, Oregon

Since leaving Long Beach Washington, several weeks ago, we have been cruising up and down the Oregon coast.  We made a fast trip south to Crescent City California to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew the tags on both the rv and the Honda.  Last year I did the renewal online and it took forever for the tags to catch up with us in New Mexico.  So since we were within striking distance to a DMV in California we decided to drive on down and get it taken care of in person.

Now we're in the Portland area where we've been doing some sightseeing.  Most of the time we've been staying at Elks lodges because they are so much cheaper for members, which we are, to stay in.  But as a treat we are now in a park, run by the city of Oregon City, on the banks of the Willamette River.  I mean we're parked on the bank of the river, what fun.  Just how do you pronounce the name of this river you ask?  I found this on the internet. The correct pronunciation of Willamette is Will-AM-it as in Will-AM-it, damit.  Hope I didn't offend anyone.

 

Looking up stream, that's the highway 205 bridge.

Looking downstream.  Bubba has the best view, when he's not sleeping.

Oh look upstream, the Willamette Falls.

Looking at the falls from the east.

From the west.

I know you can't read this but it's a good picture of what this area looks like now.

Mostly closed factories on both sides of the river, except the hydro electric plant still running.

   

This is what it looks like today.  I put these two pics together.

If you want to read more about the falls and see some fantastic pictures click here.

To get to the west side of the river you go over this neat old bridge.

I took a picture looking back at Oregon City and that's when we saw Mt. Hood

 in background and tall white thing in front.

Oregon City has two levels.  Part up on the bluff and part down below.

Mt. Hood

Oregon City was the capital of the Oregon Territory and was started by the Hudson Bay Company.

Read all about it here.

We'll be heading up the Columbia River Gorge tuesday so will be posting lots of pictures of that. 

Evie and Joy + Bubba and Missie

Oh and if you're wondering if the rv has been fixed yet, no, not yet  We're still waiting for the parts to get here from Ohio where they are being manufactured.

Sunset on the Willamette River taken from bedroom window.

More Images from the Long Beach Peninsula

Unique shingle designs.

 Diamonds and balls, I think.

This picture is from the internet.

Sawtooth, Diamond, Octagon, Ball and Spear, Honeycomb.

The Wreckage 1912.

The Chowder House, this is one flat side wall.

 Footprints in the sand.

Our first eagle.

We're leaving Washington tomorrow morning and making a mad dash to Crescent City, California to renew the tags on both the rv and the Honda.  We'll tell you about that next time.

Evie and Joy

A note about these photos.  A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my cell phone to a new iPhone 7 with its fancy camera.  These pictures were taken with the new phone.  The picture below is zoomed in 10x.  The pictures of the eagle were taken in a burst of 100 pictures, as he was flying away from us.  I chose only three to post.  But the burst is like a video, one frame at a time.  Now if I can learn to hold still.

Spider webs in the early morning dew.