Adventures of Paul and Karen

I thought the pool at the Ambassador RV park was the warmest yet, so came back to the rig to invite Paul for a swim. He didn’t agree, but did enjoy the hot tub. There’s also a sauna here, but neither of us partook of that particular pleasure.

After the swim and shower, I still had some time before dinner. It seemed like the perfect place and time for a quick bike ride. The park is very large, very flat, and has wide, straight, paved roads. So I got on my bike and rode like the wind for 15 minutes. The whole time I could see storm clouds gathering. The sky was turning very dark and ominous, threatening quite a storm.

After dinner the wind started whipping up. It pounded directly on the port side. It sounded like it was about to do damage to the self-awning above the sofa and dinette, so I pulled in the slide and left it in until the storm had passed, about 11pm. The silence fell heavily after the deafening beat of the downpour.  Then some idiot set off fireworks that woke Paul and scared the cats.

During my usual 4:30am trip, I had occasion to see the moon again: a lovely bright white waning gibbous moon, with Venus dangling below. We’ve also seen the moon in the morning the last few days, because we’ve been going west.

Paul filled out the “How are we doing?” card for the campground, and turned it in when we went over to the office for free pastries. He wrote glowing comments, about how we couldn’t have been treated better if we were royalty. I explored a bit, and found an exercise room, a pool room where they also stored a huge rack of jig-saw puzzles, and the video lending library. When combined with the pool, sauna, hot tub and individual showers, what more could one want?

Yesterday afternoon when we arrived, we had the air conditioning on. In the early morning hours, when it dropped to 58 degrees, Paul turned on the heater.

Today we headed west on Hwy 20 across Oregon. We stopped for lunch at Dairy Queen in Burns. None of the first 100 or more miles was familiar, but the DQ was. I must have slept through it all the last time we came this way. Part of Hwy 20 is scenic:  it winds along a river, and goes over two summits. But much of it is sagebrush, much like driving across Nevada. At some elevations, there were tiny light pink flowers, short enough to be ground cover, to break the monotony of the sage. Later, there were bright yellow low-growing flowers, and clumps of purple lupine-like plants.

We got our last hour back today, having lunch at only 11:30 local time. I should have no trouble getting up at a reasonable hour tomorrow!

We arrived in Bend early enough that I got a stop at the yarn shop, Juniper Fiberworks. As we were following Fiona’s directions, with 2 miles still to go, I saw the shop go by! Paul pulled off a few blocks later and I phoned: they had moved. I got the new address, and Fiona took us back those few blocks. The shop didn’t have any of the books I wanted. I was disappointed: I have purchased many a good book there in the past.

Hannah spent many hours on my lap today. She also spent time on the dash and climbing into several high places while we were traveling. Slightly unusual behavior.

For tonight we’re at Newberry RV in La Pine again. Sydney really, really wanted a walk: she had tried several times today to exit the motor home. So I harnessed her up and took her out for a roll in the gravel. I also took her across the road, but the grass there was really dry, and the area was too far out of her comfort zone: so she skedaddled back.

It’s in the comfortable 70s right now. Tomorrow it’s s’posed to be 100 at Corning:  at least they have a pool.

Well, last night my wi-fi connection disappeared before I could publish my latest posts. They must have cut it off when they closed the office. And this morning it was still gone. “Free wi-fi” is advertised all over the campground directory I use. You get what you pay for.

We bought gas at Costco this morning ($2.669/gallon) because it was the cheapest Paul had seen during our drive-about yesterday. Then we headed west out I-86/84.

Glimpsed over the Snake River: about twenty large white birds, wheeling together in large, lazy circles. Depending how the sun hit them, sometimes they were sparking white, sometimes dark gray, sometime you couldn’t see them because they blended with the sky. They appeared to have long necks/beaks and black areas on the wings. Maybe they were pelicans: do pelicans flock and wheel?

This morning we had clear blue skies, 68 degrees, and a welcome light breeze. Rain is supposed to be approaching Boise from the west later today.

Glimpsed: a heavily-laden bicycle and a 20-something yr-old man stopped on a bridge with a scenic view. It made me wonder how that disabled vet is doing. I met the Viet Nam-era vet checking in at Storm Lake. He is bicycling from South Carolina to California to prove to his fellow vets that he can, after gaining 80 pounds while recovering from a serious illness.

We’ve arrived at Ambassador RV Resort, a place we enjoyed a couple of years back. I’ll get a swim this afternoon because the sky is still clear. This evening we’ll get leftovers for dinner.

At check-in I received a bag of treats for each of the cats. The girls smelled the treats through the plastic bags, while the treats were lying on the dash: they had to have a couple before I put the rest away.

Yesterday afternoon Paul and I swam. The pool was larger than it first looked, but it has a rope midway: 2 strokes and you hit the rope. Paul removed the rope so we could take longer laps. I wondered aloud if he was going to trip an alarm. He didn’t, but the rope police paid us a visit about 60 seconds later! The campground host (who looks a lot like John Vogt, by the way) is very alert for any violation of the pool or campground rules – he does not want to bring inspectors, code violations, damage, or shutdowns of any kind.

Today we have a very short drive, 2:41 according to Fiona. So we took the time before packing for cat walks, bin cleaning, and window washing. I saw the man next door bring a small vacuum cleaner to his wife, which reminded me that it was the perfect time for me to vacuum, too – no time constraints and relatively cool weather (76 degrees).

The scones were excellent! They had taken about 50 minutes to bake, instead of the 15 recommended on the box. I hadn’t put in our oven thermometer, I checked them every 5 minutes (letting out heat), and the air conditioner may have been counterproductive.

We arrived at AB Camping in time for lunch. They still have the BBQ, so pulled pork for dinner it is! The campground map had an ad for the local quilt shop, so I headed over there after lunch. On my return, I did two loads of laundry, a “necessary evil” another camper called it.

There are over 300 cable channels here. It takes so long to get through the TV guide we still have no idea what’s on.

The people on our port side have a rottweiler tied up outside, and they smoke. We can’t keep the windows open for breeze, and Sydney was hyper-vigilant on her short walk.

Did I mention we’ll be going back through Pocatello? We’re dawdling, and the weather’s cooler here up north. It’s a two-day trip there; end of day tomorrow takes us near Green River, WY, home of the “Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport”.

It was 103 degrees yesterday afternoon, and a balmy 72 this morning. The pool was really crowded yesterday, what with the heat and it being a Saturday. Paul and I went down about 5pm, hoping the crowds were at dinner. It was exhausting trying to swim around the remaining erratic children.

I gave myself the night off writing. I didn’t feel like re-living the previous night, and the internet was so slow I would not have gotten the blog published anyway.

Hannah and I watched fireflies in the front dash last night. They were winking and blinking all over the golf course directly across the road. Hannah and Paul watched the electrical storm later. Hannah bounced from chair to dash to couch to table and back around; Paul sat still.

Sydney really liked yesterday’s campground. She kept demanding walks [4 total, I think], and I obliged, even in that heat. Hannah went out briefly this morning. She seemed calm in my arms, but went immediately to the door when I put her down. There was time for Sydney to have a morning walk also, as Paul was taking on fresh water.

During my evening walk (without Sydney), I looked at the underground storm shelter here. I would not have wanted to spend one minute down there. It was a steel tube, about 8-ft in diameter, 20-ft long, partially underground; it was dank and rusty, with no seating.

Today, a wind turbine blade passed us going like a bat out of hell. [The speed limit here is 75 mph, but Paul never does above 65.] It was so huge, I didn’t at first believe it was a blade until I saw more of it. We passed it resting by the side of the road, than it passed us again and I was able to get a shot or two:

Later we saw 3 more stopped by the side of the road:

We passed under this archway.  I probably already have a picture of it somewhere.  I got off the shot just as we were going by.  But I wasn’t paying attention (I was writing), so I don’t know where it is or why it is.

Tonight we’re in Ogallala. I love the sound of it! We stopped early, and tomorrow we’ll have a short day, too, because we’re headed to the campground in Cheyenne where we had BBQ last time we came through. I hope the BBQ trailer is still there! The pool here looks as big as a postage stamp, but I will be going in later. Now I’m baking – the first time in 4 weeks. I have really felt the need for scones lately, and it seems cool enough to bake. I’m unprepared to bake them, though. I had no flour to knead the dough in, so sprinkled Bisquick on the cutting board. And I don’t have a cookie sheet, so I shaped 8 large scones, small enough to fit into an 8”x8” pan: they’ll have to rise instead of spread.

Here we have cable TV and Tivo; Paul’s gonna stock up on TV shows again.

When packing before this trip, I brought every map I could find at home for the states we would be traveling through. When we got to Iowa, I couldn’t find a map here in my collection. Apparently we’ve never stepped off the Interstate, never had need for the state map. I’m glad I bought one at the first gas stop.

And as we came into Storm Lake today, Fiona gave us bad directions. We ended up in a residential area with narrow streets, and parked directly in front of a mailman. He knew when I stepped out of the rig [probably even before] that I needed directions. He gave excellent directions, and we were out of that residential area and into the campground in no time.

Unfortunately, Storm Lake lived up to its name. Nothing really happened weather-wise, except lightning, thunder, and a brief, intense downpour. But it was an adventure. Hannah is still traumatized.

We had gone to bed with clear skies, but were awakened at 1am by the police, with warnings of severe thunderstorms and flooding. I had gone to bed wearing earplugs because there’s a dredge in the lake that runs noisily day and night. By the time it registered that someone was giving directions on a loudspeaker, and I got the window open to hear better, they had stopped speaking. As I woke Paul, got dressed, and put the cat carrier together, I could see the campers leaving the campground in droves.

I stepped outside to see if someone could tell me where to go. The host said I could head to the bathroom, which wouldn’t do much good in his opinion, or up to the local hotel. The assistant host mentioned “rotational rain clouds” and possible tornadoes. That’s all it took. I told Paul we were heading to the hotel, then I grabbed the cats and put them in the car.

Up at the hotel lobby, there were only about 5 families, including the host. His wife told me that many of the campers live in Storm Lake, so they probably just headed home to their basements. [They pay good money to camp in their backyard?] We stayed at the hotel about an hour, until the warnings in nearby counties had expired, the rain let up, and the lightning was less frequent.

Last night, well before the storm, a large golden full moon was rising behind leafy tree branches [as seen through the dining room window]. At four this morning, that same large golden moon was setting behind a tall Y-shaped tree trunk, bathing the lake in soft moonlight [as seen through the bathroom window].

Today we stopped in Omaha, NE, to fill up with fruit, lunch, and gasoline at the Costco. The roadway was strange there: the main expressway is elevated above, while what I would call a frontage road was centered underneath, with stop lights every block.

Tonight we’re in Waco, NE. I called for reservations just a couple of hours before we got here. The campground is quite full, but the manager managed to finagle us a pull-through at the back of the campground, too far from the wi-fi antenna to get good internet service.