We covered 515 miles today. We are now parked with all the semi’s at a Pilot truck stop for the night, and will head out early in the morning to do it again. Weather and map location are current as of now.
We have been listening to the wind blow since very early this morning. Some of the gusts were a little scary in our little motor home. Then the rain came for a short time–a completely miserable day. The cat wanted out, but with the wind blowing, he really didn’t want to be outside, so he was bored all day long. We did a thorough cleaning of the coach–dust, vacuum, organize, laundry, etc. We are now pretty much ready to hit the road–we just need to stow a few things, unhook, and go. I am spending this weekend at the coast with a high school friend of mine and Kevin’s Mom is coming here to stay with him for a few days. We will both be busy all weekend, so we didn’t want to wait until the last minute to get cleaned up. We have a long drive ahead of us, and now we have a clean coach to start our trip:)
Check it out in Projects
I spent the weekend at the Oregon coast with my grandmother. She has a little cabin in Lincoln City. It is difficult for her to make the two hour trip by herself, plus she really doesn’t like to stay down there alone, so I made a point to take her down while I was here in Oregon. We didn’t have very nice weather, but we did make it down to the beach twice. The main reason we chose this weekend was for garage sales. It was the Lincoln City annual city-wide garage sale–there were more than 100 sales, but we probably only hit around 30. We bought a lot of books and just a few other things. I have not spent all that much time with my grandmother in the last few years, so it was fun to spend a few days with her.
While I was gone, Kevin worked on getting a Tow Defender attached to the coach. That will keep rocks and things from chipping the paint and the windows of the CR-V while it is being towed. The one he picked is made to work with our tow bar, but our RV tailpipe stuck out too far to use it, so he also had to replace the tail pipe on the RV. His other big project was reorganizing all of our outside storage areas. He got his tools organized into plastic bins, and got rid of the stuff we do not need. He also worked on mapping our trip to Texas–quite a long, expensive drive, but we will go through several states neither of us have seen, plus we will be able to spend a few days with my Mom in Yuma, Arizona. Should be an interesting trip…
We have accepted a summer job here. Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp/Resort is in Texas, near Houston. We were hired to run their(not yet completed) snack shack through Halloween. We will leave Woodburn on the 30th, driving nearly 2400 miles to our destination. While construction is being completed on the snack shack, we will be doing odd jobs in the park. The first 15 hours of work pays for our site, then we are paid by the hour, plus we get some discounts and benefits around the park. Hopefully we will like our job, since we are committed for the entire summer season.
More photos of Silver Falls state park
(continued from yesterday)…After we had lunch, we drove out to Silver Falls State Park–Oregon’s largest state park. The main attraction is the Trail of Ten Falls–an eight-mile hiking trail where one can see ten totally different waterfalls along the North and South forks of Silver Creek. There are parking areas near South Falls and North Falls–our pictures are of these two. We did not do the hike as we had already done a lot of walking at our first two stops–maybe some other day:) There is a campground here, as well as day-use parks, so there is plenty more to do if we decide to come back.
One interesting thing we noticed on our drive out to the park was the number of Christmas tree farms–they were EVERYWHERE!! We took a couple of pictures of one of the tree farms, but the number of trees was incredible–from teeny tiny ones to trees that look like they may have been planted to farm, but just kept on growing…
When we got back to Woodburn, we stopped at Wal-Mart for a few groceries, then back to the coach. We looked around for the cat, and we found him on the bed…under the covers…sound asleep. I have no idea why he has started to sleep under the covers. Maybe something scared him while we were gone.
More Tulip photos here
More Oregon Garden photos
Yesterday we finally had a nice day, so we wanted to get out and see the area we are staying in. We first went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, where they have a yearly tulip festival while the tulips are in bloom. We took a bunch of pictures and wandered around for awhile. There were quite a lot of people there, although the event is fairly small–really just one farm, although they do it well. There is plenty of parking, a snack shack, and a nice gift shop. They also have a fresh-cut tulip kiosk of course. They even have some kiddie activities and arts and crafts booths. We bought a postcard and some fresh cut tulips, then headed to Silverton, Oregon.
Our next stop was The Oregon Garden in Silverton. It has only been around since 2001, but it is a big garden, and they are expanding–even building a lodge and around 100 guest rooms. It cost $8 to get in, and that includes a tram tour. We took the tram all around the park which gives a great overview of the entire area in about a 30 minute ride. The driver was knowledgeable about the history of the garden and was fairly interesting to listen to. We then wandered around on out own for awhile, then decided we were done there. We went back into Silverton and stopped at the grocery store for some batteries for the camera(I forgot to bring extras, and of course we needed them). We went to McDonald’s for lunch, then we headed out of town towards Silver Falls State Park…(more to come)
Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday so I spent the afternoon with him. We did a little shopping–the Grocery Outlet, and Reser’s Fine Foods factory store in Beaverton, Oregon. Then we went to Azteca Mexican Restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. We got there at around 4:00, and we were practically the only ones in the place! I have always gotten good food there, but this meal was just OK. For Mexican food, it actually was a little bland. Even the salsa was too mild for me… Then we went back to my Dad’s house, and I got a few clothes that I had stored there (I have a lot of clothes that I didn’t want to get rid of, but did not have room for in the coach, so I am storing them at his house), then came home. Kevin said the cat had been meowing all day to go out, so I took him out a couple of times. That was about it for the day.
Today was another rainy, cold “inside” day, so I decided to do some baking. I had found this recipe, so I thought it would be fun to try it. I made one batch, just like the directions stated, but they were just not quite right. Plus I think my flour was a bit old, so the flour flavor was very strong. After reading some of the comments of the recipe, I made a new batch with fresh flour and some of the tips from others who have tried this recipe. I added about 3 tablespoons of butter to the liquid ingredients, and let the dough proof for 2 hours, instead of 30 minutes. There was a vast improvement in the taste and the texture of the pretzels. The dough came together easily–the hardest part was rolling out the chunks of dough into thin ropes. As you can see from the picture, they came out a little fat–they should be thinner to be more pretzely. I would definitely make these again, though, with the changes I made the second time around.
I don’t have much to say about today, since we did nothing but go to Wal-Mart all day. I have not talked much about my little jewelry shop for awhile, so I thought I would mention it again. Here are some samples of my early work, but there are lots of designs on my website Expedition Jewelry. I have necklaces and bracelets for sale. They are all my own designs, and hand made, by me. I use lots of Czech glass, other glass beads, lots of freshwater pearls, and some genuine stone. I make them mostly for fun, but I have made more jewelry than I can possibly ever wear or give as gifts, so I sell them for very reasonable prices–just enough to cover the cost of the materials so that I can keep buying more beads:)
| August 28, 2008, 10:14 pm | |
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Partly cloudy current temperature: 81°F |
