Moon Over Bald Point

I just had to make one more post of the beautiful moonrise. Our site in the park looks directly across the water to Bald Point. As the moon came up tonight, it was awe inspiring; and though I recognize that photos can never capture the full beauty, they can give you a little idea of how blessed we are to be here at this time.

Winsome weather, walking wife, and new neighbors

Today dawned crystal clear, except for a slight layer of mist over parts of the canal. As the day progressed, the weather became more beautiful, if that is possible. It definitely felt like fall; nevertheless, it was warm enough that no jacket was required, which would not have been the case if the wind had been blowing.

As you can see in Jill's photos, the water was as smooth as glass. In my water-skiing days, I would have given anything for a day like today. Alas, I have neither a boat, nor water skis, nor the death wish that would be necessary to get me back on them. It is sometimes nice to relive the memories and appreciate God's creation just for the sheer beauty and not for the practical applications for which one might use it.

After we spent about an hour doing our current Bible study, we made a trip to Hoodsport, about 3 or 4 miles up Hwy 101, and "did the shops." There is a row of half a dozen or so touristy boutiques, although not all of them were open today. The used book store that we so enjoyed a year ago is now a tattoo parlor. Things change, and we like to see what small (I mean really small) town America is up to from time to time.

After lunch, I nodded off and then crawled into our bed for a "short" nap. I awakened about two hours later. Jill called to me, when she saw I was up, and said I needed to meet the new neighbors. They are from Tillamook, and they are Christians. We enjoyed chatting with them about many things, including the times we live in and how they fit in with Bible prophecies.

I learned that, while I was in the arms of Morpheus, Jill hiked around the RV park several laps to get her exercise. She said that the neighbors teased her some, but bless her heart, she walked for a half hour. I was not that motivated today.

On The Waterfront

Click on the photo for a slide show.


Once again we are on the waterfront with our Sadie. We decided to do one last RV vacation before we put the old girl away for the winter. Since we canceled our trip to Hood Canal in August, because Jill was in San Diego looking after our daughter, Laura, before our new grandson, Judah, was born, we decided we had to make it up.

We arose this morning in Clackamas to rain and heavy cloud cover and a temperature of about 49 degrees. We were a little concerned, but we pressed on with our plan. We headed off to church, and then came home and finished the packing of the coach. We hooked up Daisy Mae behind Sadie, loaded Pogo into her crate, and took off.

The first fly in our ointment was that there was a car that appeared to have slid off the road between our house and our favorite gas station. The police were in attendance, but the street was partially blocked, so we decided to just head for the highway.

The further north we traveled, the better the weather became. We finally stopped to top off the gas tank in Kelso, WA, about 50 miles north of Clackamas. The traffic was not awful today, which it can be on the stretch of I-5 that we traveled. Nevertheless, we stopped at the Scatter Creek rest stop for lunch. We discovered that the rest stop has been refurbished and now has room for many more trucks and RVs. They have even installed 6 (count 'em, 6) RV dump stations! Now, that is significant.

From Scatter Creek we continued on to Olympia, where we headed west to join US Hwy 101. The drive is beautiful at any time, but with the clear blue skies and sunshine today, it was spectacular. We arrived at Potlatch and our RV park, The Waterfront at Potlatch, just at 3:00 PM, as early as we could check in. For those few of you who don't know where Potlatch is, it is located between Skokomish and Hoodsport, on Hood Canal. Now that we have cleared that up, I will close by saying this has been a marvelous day, and as you can see from the photos, the scenery couldn't be more beautiful.

Yet another riverside park, yawn...

Click on the photo of the Clackamas River for a slide show.


Today we returned home from Barton county park, one of our favorite close-to-home destinations. It is, in fact, 8.5 miles from our driveway. Nevertheless, it is beautiful and restful. To be honest, our motivation for THIS trip was to pick blackberries. In years past, we have gleaned quarts and quarts of the sweet black jewels at Barton. In fact, I can recall one trip when we skipped dinner, because we had gorged ourselves on black berries.

This trip was not to provide such bounty. We were, I think, about three weeks late. What berries hadn't been picked had dried up on the vines, in part, no doubt, as the result of several days of summer temps over the century mark. It appeared, too, that the grounds crew had been trying to eliminate some of the vines. They didn't check with me, before they started on that quest!!

So, we didn't have blackberries...alas, there will be no blackberry jam on the table this winter. On the other hand, we had a wonderful time strolling around the park and visiting the Clackamas River, which runs along the southern edge of the park. Yesterday, it was very hot, so we spent a good deal of time enjoying Sadie's air conditioner and new TV set! Most of all, we enjoyed time together to relax. We started a new Bible study and chatted about the lifestyle changes we are choosing to make, including joining an athletic club and minding our food choices better.

We were at Barton for three days and two nights, but as is usually the case in public parks, there was no internet connectivity, so I had to wait until we returned home to post this.

Gee, the traffic was terrific...

This is a belated post of the remainder of our stay at Columbia Riverfront RV park. It was delayed for a couple of reasons. First, we had a scare on Tuesday evening. After dinner, around 9:00 PM, Jill began complaining of pain in her chest. As time passed, she had nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, light-headedness, and she nearly fainted at one point. We began to fear the worst, so, I had her chew an aspirin tablet; we locked up the coach, jumped in the toad and headed for Kaiser Sunnyside hospital, about 30 miles away from where we were camped.

Jill felt pretty awful during the ride, and I think she was pretty frightened, too. I know I was. We arrived at the emergency room about 10:45. When we announced that Jill had chest pain, she got the royal treatment. They wheeled her into the ER and began doing tests and monitoring vital signs. To shorten this long story a bit, we stayed in the ER until about 4:30 AM, at which time Jill was discharged with a diagnosis of severe gastroenteritis, perhaps brought on by a virus. It was NOT her heart, thank God. We went home to our house and slept there until later in the morning, and then we returned to the RV park.

The second reason for the delay in posting, and more to the point, was that the same evening that Jill was ill, my computer died. That is to say, the battery ran down, and when I tried to recharge it, the charger would not do anything. I got out my volt meter and discovered that the AC adapter was producing about 19 volts. We found a computer repair shop in Woodland, but he had neither the time nor the parts to repair, what he diagnosed as a broken power jack on the computer where the charger plugs in. The repair would have to wait until we returned home.

So, now I have a wife who has had a stress test and was told that she has the heart of a 35 year old, and a repaired computer.

One of the joys of staying at CRRV park is the ship and boat traffic that passes by within clear view of the coach. I have included a slide show of some of the traffic that we saw. (Click on the photo.) It was a terrific show, the like of which I have not enjoyed since my days of plying the Columbia in various sailboats, the last one of which I sold in 1986.

The remainder of our trip was fun and restful. We drove up to Lake Merwin, which is a reservoir on the Lewis river, a tributary of the Columbia. It is a beautiful lake and very popular with boaters and campers.

On the way back from the lake, we stopped at a country store and bought some sweet corn and fresh mountain huckleberries. Well, we were just about in heaven. We had brought along some filet mignon for the grill, so I will just let your imagination take over here. (Hint: Jill made a huckleberry crisp.)

The rest of our activities comprised exploring Woodland and environs, walking on the beach, and watching the traffic go by. On Friday, our friends Pat and Kim, from Gig Harbor, WA, came down in their fifth wheel trailer and we had a great time sitting out in the evening air, watching the river, sharing a glass of wine, and catching up with each others' lives. Next morning we shared coffee and more chatting with our friends, before we had to pack up and go home. In all, we spent six days and four nights in Woodland (remember, we spent one night at home...and in the hospital.) This is a trip we will not soon forget.

Below is a small slide show of our beloved Sadie. Just click on the photo.

On the road again!

At long last we are having a chance to spend time with Sadie again. Five and a half weeks ago, we got a call from our daughter Laura. She was in the hospital with early labor. The doctors were able to get the contractions stopped, but they told Laura she needed to be on complete bed rest, and she would not be allowed to go home, unless someone was there to look after her and Josiah, her 4 year old son.

Jill hopped on a plane and was there in hours. She was nursemaid to Laura and nanny to Josiah, as well as housekeeper for the family, while Tim was at work. Laura's due date was some five weeks in the future from the time Jill flew to San Diego. Well, baby Judah could not wait that long, and he was born after Jill had been there for three weeks. (For some pictures of our beautiful grandsons, visit our blog, Pilgarlic Postings.)

As soon as I got the word that Judah had arrived, I hit the road and drove to San Diego. Jill and I then filled the role of looking after Josiah and entertaining him, while Tim and Laura got used to a new son. After a couple of weeks, they were settled in, and we came home.

So, what, you may ask, has all this to do with our Travels with Sadie? Well, after a five week hiatus in our usual routines and in our relationship, Jill and I decided it would be a good thing to take a vacation and relax and reconnect with each other. So, we are parked on the waterfront at Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland, WA. The view from our coach is breathtaking; the park is quiet and well kept; and we have nothing to do for the next five days except relax and enjoy each other's company.

If you click on the photo at the top of this post, you will see a slide show of our little slice of heaven.

Click the photo for a slide show of our trip to Nehalem Bay State Park. Don't ask me why there are no pictures of Jill...(she has become the family photographer!)


It has been rather strange not to post on this blog for a month. Today I reached that landmark. We arrived home on June 5th and now it is July 5th, the traditional "first day of summer" in Portland. It has been hot for the past week, which seems unusual for the end of June/beginning of July. My sense is that it usually rains through the Independence Day holiday, and then summer begins.

We were able to get away to the Oregon coast for three days last week. We stayed at Nehalem Bay State Park, which is located next door to Manzanita, OR, one of our favorite towns. This is a large and wonderful park. There are lots of level, paved trails for walking or biking. We didn't take our bikes, but we wished we had.

The weather was pretty good. It was warm on the beach, and we had sun until the morning we left. In the afternoons it got very windy, which is pretty normal, given that the weather inland was so hot. But of a morning, the weather was perfect for walks on the beach, one of the prettiest on the Oregon coast.

On our second day, we walked to Manzanita, where we bought a bottle of wine and some crackers to enjoy in the afternoon. Jill and I agreed that having a glass of wine at the beach is somehow not only imperative but completely natural.

While we were in Manzanita, we went to the sweet shop and had ice cream cones. There we met a trio of young people in their 20s. It turns out they were two sisters and a brother who have been coming to Manzanita every summer for twenty years. They were delightful conversationalists, and we were glad to make their acquaintance.

Pogo was delighted to have numerous walks while we were at NBSP. In fact, her primary activity when we were not walking was sleeping to get rested up for the next walk. We also met a group from Vancouver, B.C. They were camping in three coaches across the road from us. They had been as far south as Florence, and they were quite taken with Sadie.

My only regret about the trip was that we had no internet connectivity, so I was unable to blog the trip while it was happening. Well, the other regret was that we had to leave and come home after only three days. We look forward to our next outing. Life with Sadie is always a joy.