11/5/07 Hello from Delhi! Our tour starts this afternoon and I wanted to get this blog posted before that. The travelogue that I have written and will attach below will tell you about our journey. What it doesn't cover is the time between my last post and the start of this trip. Besides all the packing and organizing, there was a very nice farewell Happy Hour and dinner around our neighborhood fire pit with our special Park Sierra friends, hosted by Carol Rodely. Because the weather had turned chilly, the new fire pit got a workout and was much appreciated.

Saturday we drove to San Diego and stayed with Darran & Marielle for two nights. They are doing well and very happy now that they are engaged. Here is a picture of them with the Dana Hotel behind them, which is where they will be married next October.

We walked over there with them on a sunny Sunday and had a delicious lunch at the fish restaurant across the street at the marina. Then we all went to Marielle's sister's house for dinner and Halloween. Here is a picture of Meg and Marielle.

The young people all carved some pumpkins. Here is Darran with his:

Two of the couples have little girls, and they were dressed up for the occasion:

There were not too many Trick or Treaters this year so the adults at the party did the most damage to the candy bowl. A good time was had by all thanks to Meg & Ben. Here they are with their "baby", Daisy.

The next day, we got ready for the big adventure, which is described below in our first travelogue. It is rather lengthy, but then we are having so many new experiences that we are enthusiastic!

India Trip Travelogue #1
11/4/10 Thursday
The odyssey began Nov. 1 when we boarded the Amtrak train from San Diego to Union station in Los Angeles, and then caught the Flyaway bus to LAX. This was such a delightful way to get there as over a long distance, the tracks ran right along the oceanside, with wonderful views. And the ticket prices are fairly inexpensive. Our senior discount tickets added up to a bit less than $60 for 2, with the Flyaway bus costing $7 each. At LAX we had several hours to relax after dropping off our bags at British Airways and going through the lengthy security process. Having rarely flown out of LAX, we didn't know that most of the good places to eat and drink are located before you pass through the security check. So we had a very expensive beer and hot sandwich at the one bar/deli near our boarding gate. Our flight to London left at 6:25PM and the plane was packed. There was a large contingent of young girls of various ages and their chaperones who had done quite well at an Irish dancing competition, judging by the numbers of medals hanging around their necks. I was seated next to a very nice young Spanish woman who was a pilot for Iberia Airlines and who had just gotten married in Hawaii. Her husband is a botanist working on an advanced degree in California, so he stayed behind. It turns out that she lives in Palma de Mallorca, one of the islands where our ship will call on the cruise we are taking after the India part of this trip. She gave us her card and told us to call her when we get there. So many nice people with interesting stories are out there which always make even the fairly uncomfortable parts of travel delightful.
The flight was decent, with the very nice flight attendant, Marsha, supplying us with lots of small bottles of wine. It was disconcerting that there were so many movies, TV shows, and other entertainment on offer right on the small screens in front of each seat, but the volume wasn't loud enough to overcome the engine noise. On the next leg of our journey, from Heathrow to Delhi, we were seated in the front part of the plane with better seats and different headsets, which totally blocked out the plane noise, and we happily watched a movie we had been hoping to see. Isobel, the pilot we had met, said that at Heathrow we would not have to go through security again so we took several of the unopened bottles of wine with us off the plane. Unfortunately, she was wrong and we had to endure that unpleasant ordeal once again. And, of course, they confiscated every bottle we had. The plane was not full at Heathrow, and because some people had checked some bags and then not arrived for the flight, we were delayed for an hour while they found those bags and off-loaded them.
Although that delay caused us to be late arriving in Delhi, and despite the fact that it took a long time to go through customs, and then retrieve our bags, as we exited the airport, thankfully there was Sachim waiting for us. He works for Intrepid Travel just picking up people from the airport and helping them check in at the hotels. All the travel books warn about the touts at the airport, ready to convince unwary travelers to go with them on an over-priced ride to a similarly over-priced hotel. They were waiting outside the arrivals hall in their hundreds! Speaking of the airport and the arrivals hall, their terminal is new and gorgeous. Here is a picture of the decorations in the customs area:

Sachim called his driver and off we went on the 25km trip to Karol Bagh, the district of our hotel. While we were off-loading the plane, we had noticed a burning smell and as we exited the airport building we discovered it was from all the air pollution. The air was even worse with smog than we had experienced in China. As we motored along we noticed many of the things we had read about: cows standing on and alongside the road, cement tenement buildings, some people living along the roadside in tents or corrugated metal shelters, motorized rickshaws swerving in and out amongst the many taxis and trucks, areas of broken sidewalks with abundant litter, fields with smoldering garbage, people picking through garbage heaps, and lots of unfinished looking cement buildings.
The area where our hotel is located would be considered a slum in the United States. The front of the hotel looks nice, and the interior is clean and mostly wood and marble, but the buildings all around it look shabby. Here is a picture of the front:

Our room is fairly decent with all the amenities we need: TV with English stations, internet access, bathroom & shower, fridge, coffeemaker, etc. There is a whole row of stalls across the street selling car accessories. People pull up to have upholstery installed or repaired, buy parts, etc.

Just around the corner is one of the main streets although there is not a lot of traffic because the street is so clogged with people selling things off street carts, walking in the street because the sidewalk is so uneven and broken, eating off food carts, and all of this taking place in front of store fronts. We walked down to the McDonalds about 3 blocks away because it was the only restaurant we could find. The menu is very different because they don't eat beef here (Hindu people don't eat meat). So we had a veggie burger and a wrap that was a type of cheese (paneer) with a few veggies and salsa in a flatbread wrap. There were also some chicken choices, but no lamb, as we had been told. The place was packed. Of course, because we hardly slept on the planes, we were exhausted, so we slept for a while and then went back out on the street later. There is a lot going on probably because the Diwali Festival starts Friday. This is kind of like Christmas for the Hindus. There were lots of strings of lights over the street, and several special things are happening, such as women getting elaborate patterns painted on their hands. In other countries this has been done in henna, which lasts about 3 weeks. Here it is just a shiny, brownish paint which lasts a week or so. As we walked around, we could see that there had been quite an accumulation of litter and garbage on the streets as the day progressed, so apparently people here think it is someone else's job to clean up after them.
We tried to find a bank to change money but ended up at the money changer nearby. It was also a travel agency and telegram office. The rate we got was 44 repees per dollar with no commission, which was very good compared to the airport exchange booths which offered 41.3 rupees and a 10% commission. Unfortunately for us, the dollar is dropping, so this trip is getting more expensive as we go along.
Thursday morning we had the complimentary breakfast at our hotel and it was a nice assortment of foods, plus coffee, toast and eggs. Clearly they cater to foreign visitors. We chatted with two Canadian ladies who were just finishing their trip and they warned us about being really careful about only drinking bottled water, not eating salads, washing fruit even before peeling it, using hand sanitizer especially after handling money, etc. There are fruit vendors on the street with beautiful displays of things like pineapple, and it is killing us that we can't eat it!
When we asked the hotel clerk about taking the Metro to see some of the sights, he gave us a good map and some help and then he said he could get us a taxi and driver to use all day (8 hours) for 950 rupees. This was only about $22 and would enable us to get to more of the far-flung sights, so we agreed to do it. He picked us up at 9:30AM and we were immediately glad to have him because several women beggars with small babies were very persistent when w­e went out to get into the car and we literally had to shut the door in their faces. Again we noticed that the air was very bad. We asked the driver, Ramiz, about it, and he said that it wasn't particularly bad at this time of year; May was the worst. It was worth it to take the car just to experience driving around on the streets and be right in the traffic. My God – it is amazing that everyone isn't killed. They swerve and weave into every available opening with no regard for lanes or allowing anyone any stopping space. There are auto rickshaws, small trucks, mopeds, motorcycles, bicycles, buses, cars, horse-­drawn carts, and people all vying for space on the very crowded roads. Here is a picture of an auto rickshaw:

And here is a loaded bicycle with the pusher guy in back:

If there are 2 lanes, they make at least 5 or 6. Many of the bicycles are carrying huge loads of goods, and sometimes have a man riding on the front and one pushing the load from the back as he runs along with the bike. Mopeds are carrying entire families. They leave so little room between vehicles that every car has scratches and dents on the sides and often on the back. And if they didn't get damaged while driving, they would while parked because they leave about 2 inches between cars.
Ramiz drove us first to the Lakshmi Narayan Temple which is a large and impressive temple erected in 1938 by a rich industrialist and dedicated appropriately to Lakshimi, the Hindu goddess of wealth. We merely stopped across the street to take pictures.

He then drove us by the huge and impressive parliament building and the associated congress halls, but again, we just drove by. There was a huge park area near the India gate, but because parking was difficult, we didn't stop to see this monument which is like the Arc d' Triomphe in Paris, but not as big. It is a tribute to the 90,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who fought in WWI. We could barely make it out because of all the air pollution. At the Mahatma Gandhi last home and assassination site, we found a very peaceful place with beautiful gardens, lots of information, and some exhibits illustrating his life and achievements. It was free and very well maintained. We had again watched the movie “Gandhi” before coming here, which greatly contributed to our understanding of the political situations which influenced his life. The next stop was at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum. She was not related to Mahatma Gandhi but was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister. She was India's first woman president and prime minister. The museum was her home, and it was filled with exhibits about all of her achievements in addition to displaying some of her personal effects and furniture. It was interesting to see her office, bedroom, dining room, etc. and the beautiful grounds. There is a glass path across the grass indicating where she was walking when she was shot by one of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, and there is still an honor guard here.

This museum is also free and well kept. In the car park there were men selling peeled cucumbers, with chili sauce of course. This was a unique snack food, we thought, but we didn't dare eat one.
We had a fairly long drive south to the Qutab Minar, the world's tallest brick minaret at over 210 feet and started building in 1139 under India's first Muslim ruler. Because of the smog, we could barely see it and didn't relish the idea of paying 250 rupees each to enter the area and climb it because the views from the top would have been zilch.

The practice here is that Indians pay about 10 rupees and foreigners pay 250, for many of the monuments. Ramiz was quite surprised that we didn't go in. He then drove us to a restaurant for lunch after which we wish we had insisted he take us somewhere else. It was overpriced and clearly existed off feeding foreigners mediocre food. I suppose Ramiz got his meal for free because he took us here, a common practice in many of these countries and one we had experienced before in the Middle East. The last stop of the day was at the Red Fort, one of the main attractions in Delhi. The red sandstone walls are nearly 100 feet tall and form a rough oblong of over 2 km.

Shah Jahan, the same ruler who built the Taj Mahal, started this fort in 1638 and it was completed in 1648. It took us a couple of hours to walk there from the car park and see all the gardens and buildings inside. Once again, we paid 250 rupees each and the locals paid 10. I guess this is only fair because they don't make much money and they wouldn't be able to see and appreciate the monuments of their own country if it cost too much. Even so, there are many parts of it that are under repair or restoration, and a lot more of it is in sad disrepair. There are the usual things you find in a palace complex: a bazaar area for commerce, the bath area or hammams, a pavilion for public audiences, one for private audiences, living quarters, extensive gardens, outdoor pavilions, and servants quarters.
By the time we got back to our hotel, it was nearly 4:30 PM and we were exhausted, even though we had been driven around the whole day. Jet lag is still having its effect, I suspect. After a rather mediocre dinner at the nearby Raffles Restaurant, we hit the sack early. We have noticed that the nearby main street is very busy and crowded, with open stores and shops and then it comes to an abrupt halt at 9PM. There were a lot more sounds of fireworks into the night last night, so the Diwali celebrations have started already.

10/26/10 This will be my last post before we leave for India next Monday. We are still at Park Sierra and have been enjoying our stay, although the arrival of some cold and wet weather is making us anxious to get to warmer climates. This is usually a busy time of year here because the annual meeting was last week, as well as the dinner. The meeting this year was a lot less contentious than in other years, perhaps because we have 43 new members. Many of the founding members have had to leave because of poor health, or they have gone to the great campground in the sky. We enjoyed the annual dinner because we sat at a table with some of our best friends here in the park. This picture shows all of us: Ken and Carolyn Kimpton are standing up behind Viv and Curt Rogers, and Carol and Alan Rodely are on the far right.

Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary and we wanted to do something special. So we invited Viv & Curt Rogers to go with us to dinner at the Asian restaurant over at Chukchansi Casino. They were major players in making our wedding a big success two years ago and we wanted to be with them at our celebration. It was a delicious dinner and a good time was had by all:

After the meal, our server brought a special dessert to honor our event, and here is a picture of us before we devoured it:

In a few days, our friend Marie will be back with her little doggie Kristi. They were here a few weeks ago and here is a picture of me holding the little darling:

The packing is fairly complete and we are just doing last minute things now. Every time we are getting ready for a long and foreign trip, it seems like we do a better job of getting our home paperwork, closets, etc. in a more orderly condition as well. Look for the next update to be from Delhi!!!!

10/19/10 Just a quick note to say that we are both doing fine. The weather here at Park Sierra has improved somewhat and we are enjoying the Fall temps of between 72 and 78. Because our upcoming trip involves travels on 4 different airliners, lots of land vehicles, 2 ships, several different climate zones, and involves much more limited baggage allowances than previously, we have started packing already. We will be taking one 21 inch rolling suitcase and one daypack, and possibly a purse. So we have to pack very lightly which requires the exact right stuff. Now the trick is to fit in all the essentials. One of the essentials is our new netbook, so that we can keep in touch by e-mail and post to this blog. Because we have to have power for this device, as well as for our battery charger, we checked into the electricity situation in India. Of course, they have a weird situation - 240 volts with 50 cycles. Ken and Carolyn are loaning us a converter and we hope we have the right plug configuration or else we will have to try to buy it there.
Thursday is the annual meeting for park members, so we will attend that even though we usually try to avoid political situations here. Friday there will be a big dinner in the clubhouse, and Saturday night a casino night there. Because a lot of people are back in the park, there have been several private Happy Hours and dinners as well. Boomer friends, Dan & Jenny Sheppard have been visiting here and it has been great to have them in the park. They were also at the Crabfest with us recently. I slipped up and didn't take their picture for this blog.
On Oct. 30 we will leave here to drive to San Diego, where we will stay with Darran and Marielle for 2 nights before our flight to India on Nov. 1.

10/7/10 Hello from Park Sierra. We have been back since Monday afternoon, but have been too busy to catch up with things like blog posts. Tuesday I had jury duty in Madera and it took all day to select the jury. The trial was going to run about 2 weeks and I did NOT want to end up being on the jury. About 4:30PM I was finally excused - hooray!
Coarsegold has been having very unusual weather for October - cold and rainy. Usually this is one of the best times of the year here, sunny with temps in the low 80's. Hopefully, we will be returning to that weather pattern starting tomorrow. The weather has not been dampening the social interactions which usually occur when we return here. Within hours of our return, our Boomer friend Marie von Minden arrived with her little dog Kristi. They had been up in Yosemite and had never visited here before. So she was with us for dinner for 2 nights, and then last night we were at her place; all delightful interactions. Today we are attending a BBQ at Viv and Curt's, and tomorrow there is a big Happy Hour potluck at the clubhouse. The beat goes on.
Our last post was from Winchester Bay, where we were having an incredibly successful month of crabbing. Unfortunately, the last week there the crabs decided to go elsewhere. Dick and Carole Schneider were still there with us, as were some of the RoVing Rods, so we still had delightful social times. And we greatly appreciated Carole's help when the time came to clean up the boat and all the crabbing equipment. Here is a picture of Elaine and Carole, who had collapsed in laughter, while trying to force all the air out of our boat in order to pack it up:

Rich Baumann, one of our Park Sierra neighbors and also a RoVing Rods member, had been going out in the boat with me and pulling up the traps ever since Mike Harrison had left, and I greatly appreciated his help as well. Usually Elaine and I manage to do these things by ourselves, but this year with her hand still recovering from surgery, she was unable to do any of the physical parts of crabbing. She stayed home and was a great help with the cooking and picking of the crabs, and also did a lot of canning of both crab and tuna. So we have some good seafood in jars and all ready to share with family and friends when we have social get togethers.
Chuck and Betty Goehring were with us almost the whole time at Winchester Bay, and Chuck is always a big help too, and they both are fun people. We got a good picture of them together at the Eagles prime rib dinner which we wanted to share with you:

The rest of the time we were there, I slipped up and didn't take a lot of pictures, so all the other friends pictures are only in our memory bank, and not in the blog.
On our way south in Oregon, we stopped again to visit our friends Tom & Pat Bryant at their farm near Days Creek. They are taking care of her Mom who is in hospice care, so they were unable to visit us on the coast as they usually do. We had caught a few crabs that we were able to bring to them, and also some oysters from the Umpqua oyster farm which is located right where we stayed the whole month. We had a wonderful dinner with them and went home with some delicious produce from their garden, and some special wines from Pat's wine tour job.
Our agenda for the next 3 weeks is to catch up on paperwork and rig maintenance while also preparing for our upcoming trip to India. Our flight to Delhi leaves Nov. 1 from LAX. After a 21 day land tour in both northern and southern India (with Intrepid Travel), we will fly to Barcelona and catch the Adventure of the Seas for a 2 week transatlantic cruise which ends in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Then we get off the Royal Caribbean ship and get on a Celebrity ship for an 11 day southern Caribbean cruise. On Dec. 24 we fly back to LAX. So there will be no interesting blog posts until we start traveling again Nov. 1. At this time we are both healthy and Elaine's hand is recovering from her surgery quite well. Now we just need to drop a few more pounds before starting the travels again....

9/25/10 Saturday night in Winchester Bay is a quiet place. This is pleasant because it means the wind isn't blowing. Tonight was the RoVing Rods prime rib dinner at the Eagles Club in Reedsport. The meal was good and there was going to be live music afterwards. But in between there was an auction of a bunch of baked goods in order to raise money for the local scholarship fund. Very few of our RR members stayed around for it, and eventually we left too. Our Boomer friend and computer guru, Padraic brought his wife, Willie, and below is their picture. They have been staying at an RV park in Coos Bay, so they did not stay here with the RR's this week. Padraic has been driving over to crab with us and he also fixed my infected computer, which I greatly appreciated.

The last update I did was when we were getting ready to host Elaine's long-time friend Elaine Lewter. The unfortunate thing was that we had some of our worst weather during her visit. Luckily, she didn't have any great expectations and during the early part of the week, we continued to catch and process crab and have some social times with friends here. Towards the weekend, we pulled our crab traps in so we could do some day trips to show her some other parts of the Oregon coast. On Saturday, Carole, Elaine and I took her to Shore Acres State Park which has an enclosed viewing area overlooking the shoreline, where we wanted to have an indoor picnic since it was a rainy day. This is a picture of us with Elaine in the enclosure:

The view overlooking the shore line was impressive because of the unique rock formations:

Here there are also some beautiful gardens. Once the grand estate of pioneer timber baron Louis Simpson, Shore Acres features lushly planted gardens with plants and flowers from all over the world. Something is in bloom almost every day of the year. There are a few buildings left over from the estate nestled among the varied bedding plants

a greenhouse with some exotic plants,

and an Oriental pond with some metal sculptures and water plants:

We also drove to some of the other state parks and viewpoints further south but we couldn't see nearly as much as when we had done this with Lee & Susie because of the rainy weather.
The next day we caught a break in the weather so we drove Elaine to Bandon, a little town south on the coast near the Coquille River. There are lots of attractions nearby such as a wild animal game park, golf courses, a lighthouse, but we just wanted to have lunch and wander around the Old Town. First we walked along the waterfront, which has been very well done and is such a pleasant place to stroll. Here we are in front of some of the wooden carvings there:


Eventually we had lunch at La Fiesta, a Mexican restaurant right along the waterfront and had a delicious and filling lunch for only $5 each. Afterwards we visited the Cranberry candy shop where we ate lots of samples and Elaine bought some gifts to take back to Michigan. There are lots of interesting little gift shops so we visited a few, and then took Elaine around the point to the cliff overlooking the beach where there were lots of rock formations in the water:

While Elaine was here, Dick and Carole were very good about having us all over for dinner and making her feel welcome:

The day we drove her back to Portland, we stopped to take some pictures at the Elk viewing area which is just outside Reedsport, on highway 38. There were lots of Elk lying around on the grass of the federally protected area, so she was able to get some good shots.

Once Elaine left, we started crabbing again and I was fortunate enough to catch another crab with a tag for the Crab Bounty Contest - this time #7. Here is a picture of me with the crab (look for the little green tag hanging from his leg):

Padraic also started to come over for crabbing and here is a picture of us together:

Now that the RoVing Rod event is in full swing, we have been having happy hours, a crab potluck, and other gatherings. The members have been catching and sharing LOTS of crab! The weather was rainy on the day of the crab potluck so we rented the community center and held it inside, a very smart move. The food was delicious and there was even entertainment because Dick played the piano:

He is an excellent pianist and everyone enjoyed his playing, with some people even singing along or dancing. We sat at a table with all of the Boomer friends, and here is the picture, which includes Jenny and Dan Shepherd, Padraic, Dick & Carole, and us:

I will end this posting with this picture which was taken the other day when we had once of the nicest days we have ever had here:

9/14/10

This update is being written while Elaine drives us in the car to the Portland airport. Her lifelong friend, Elaine Lewter, is flying in from Michigan for a week with us and we are picking her up in about an hour. Hopefully, she will get in on some more of the fun social times and great crabbing that we have been experiencing since we arrived at Winchester Bay.
Yes, the crabbing is still good and even though we took three days off over the weekend, we were amazed yesterday when we totaled up what we had caught so far – 199!!! It was a very good thing that we had between 8 and 10 friends nearby to help with some of the work and also help eat this many crabs! Here is a picture of some of the catch right after we cooked them:
The friends have also been preparing a joint dinner for everyone every night, which has helped us a lot. Plus the food has been delicious and the company outstanding. Here is a picture of Mike & Marilyn with the dinner they cooked for everyone:
Carole & Dick have been really great about having everyone into their RV because it has been mostly too windy or cool at dinner time to eat outside. Here is a picture of them on the one day it was sunny enough to be outside:
And here is part of the group eating in their RV:
Kit and Nancy Carter arrived also, and spent about 5 days with us, and everyone was delighted to have them. Kit jumped right in and learned everything he could about crabbing and processing them, and was a huge help. Here is a picture of Kit, Mike & Lee sitting outside picking crab:
Nancy, of course, was a big help with the other chores. And they taught us a new way to prepare oysters, one that even I liked a lot. They took the oysters in the shells and spread them out on the BBQ (on a piece of foil because the sea water drippings will wreck your BBQ otherwise) and heated them enough that the shells started to open. Then Kit pried off the top shell and as they continued to cook Nancy spooned garlic and butter on them. When they were nearly done, she grated Parmesan cheese on the top. Try this at home because these were awesome! Here is a picture of them cooking:
And here is a picture of them together:
And here is a picture of the people who were coordinating everything and teaching everyone how to do the crabbing experience in style:
Jack and Karen Vincent, RoVing Rod members we already knew, arrived early and are parked near us. They joined us for Happy Hour on the sunny day we could sit outside:
Lee & Susie got a new car and here they are, showing it off:
Saturday they took us for a nice drive in it to lots of the inlets and state parks south of Charleston and we had a delightful day. It was sunny and we saw lots of great scenery as well as some sea lions, seals, and even a couple of whales which had come in very near the shore. Here are a few pictures from our day:



Yesterday we started crabbing again and although we didn't get our pots out until nearly 11 AM, by evening we had caught 24. And the exciting part is that one of them had tag #26 on it. Every year they have a month long contest and if you get a numbered tag on a crab, you get entered into a drawing for $1000, plus various other prizes. The drawing is on Oct. 1.
The bad thing that happened is that my new computer is infected with something. I am typing this on our new netbook which we bought for our upcoming trip to India. Hopefully, Padraic, the computer genius of the RoVing Rods and Boomers will be arriving soon to help me out.
Mike and Marilyn will be leaving Thursday, Lee & Susie on Friday. Come the weekend, Mary & Rich Baumann will arrive and probably some other friends. This flux is all part of the RV lifestyle, and we love it.

9/3/10 One thing about doing a blog, sometimes life is so routine and boring that you have nothing to write about, and other times you are so busy that you don’t have time to update your blog!! The past week or so we have been too busy to update this, and we apologize. But now - Hugs from Winchester Bay! Yes, we have arrived at the coast and although today started out with the water calm and the sun out, (see picture below) now the fog is rolling in and the wind is coming up. That is one thing about the weather here – it changes rapidly! Yesterday when we arrived it was sunny and warm and we had a delightful afternoon and calm evening – somewhat of a rarity here.

We arrived here yesterday, along with Carole & Dick Schneider, shortly after noon and were delighted to find several friends here from the RoVing Rods: Chuck & Betty Goehring with their daughter Pam and her partner, Charlie, and also Ted Sudtell. Mike and Marilyn Harrison were also parked out on the point. Elaine and I quickly purchased crabbing licenses, got some tuna carcasses for bait, Elaine assembled 3 of our crab traps, and we threw them in off the dock by about 5 PM. Chuck & Charlie had been getting lots of crabs so Chuck brought over some cooked crabs which Mike & Marilyn, Dick & Carole, Elaine and I all enjoyed at Happy Hour. Chuck agreed to move our traps from the crabbing dock across the channel for us, and when Mike and I went down to the dock to get them, we already had caught 2 keeper size males! In a few minutes Chuck will take me over to the traps to check them again and see if we got anything overnight. Later today Mike is going to help me set up our inflatable boat so we can get over there to deal with our own traps without bothering Chuck.
Before coming here we stayed for 2 nights at the Sutherlin SKP park with Dick and Carole parked right beside us. Other RoVing Rods friends, Pam & Sid Bowen, have a lot there and we enjoyed Happy Hour on Tuesday with them, and also met their two new little doggies.



Tuesday Dick was the designated driver while Carole, Elaine and I did some wine tasting in the Upqua Valley. There are quite a few small wine making operations here and they make some surprisingly good wines. Although they all seem to have an emphasis on pinot noir, and we usually enjoy reds more than whites, at this batch of wineries we liked the whites better, especially pinot gris. They have a “passport” and if you get yours stamped at 5 wineries, you are entered into a drawing for lots of wine from all of the wineries. So, of course, we had to visit 5 wineries in one afternoon, which was about 2 too many! Also, we all believe in supporting these small boutique wine makers so we not only tasted a lot, we bought a lot. By the time we got back to Sutherlin and met Pam & Sid for Happy Hour, we all switched to water….
9/4/10 Ran out of time yesterday to finish this. When we went to check our traps in the late morning yesterday, we had 4 BIG keepers, and in the late afternoon, 4 more less large ones, so once again we had hot crab for Happy Hour with the 4 friends. We also bought some fresh tuna from one of the commercial boats so we had seared fillets for dinner with some of Carole’s delicious nicoise sauce. And Elaine canned the rest of it. Mike helped me set up our inflatable boat but when Chuck came over to help me get the motor started, we were not successful. He knows a lot about engines like this but he says ours is too new and has too many electronic components for him to fix it. We will try to get a guy in Reedsport to look at it later today. This morning we put the traps out on the crabbing dock and several hours later had caught 4 more big males. So things are looking good for crabbing this year.
Before coming here, as you know from my previous post, we were working on our rental in Woodland. The kitchen cabinets looked bad so we cleaned them, primed them and painted them with white semi-gloss. I would have taken a picture in order to show you the marvelous transformation, but somehow we lost our camera, which I thought I had loaded into the car. There was a lot of stuff in there for the rental work, and also our inflatable boat and motor. So when my niece Kathy, and her daughter Camille, visited us at our RV for dinner one night, I could only take their picture with our cell phone camera.

On our way here we stopped at Costco in Roseburg and bought a new digital camera which was my birthday present. Then, yesterday, when we unloaded the boat and motor, there was the “lost” camera! Now I have to decide if I am going to keep the new camera. It has a lot better zoom on it – 12x which is really great for a small camera. But I don’t like the fact that it has a specialized battery. When we take our camera on foreign trips, it is much easier to get AA batteries (which our old camera uses) if we can’t get our batteries recharged.
For my birthday, which was last Sunday, I asked my daughter, Laura to meet me for lunch at a restaurant in Roseville. She lives in Sparks, NV so she had about a 2 hour drive and I drove up from Sacramento. I hadn’t seen her for almost 2 years because of all our travels and it was a wonderful reunion. Here is a picture of us at the restaurant,

and also a picture of Laura by herself.
After lunch and a nice walk in the park, Laura went with me back to our RV and she had a nice reunion with Elaine too.
Laura has recently divorced her husband, so her daughter Michaela (15) was spending the weekend with Scott, otherwise we would have been able to see her too.
The reason we were able to leave Woodland and head up here to Oregon a few days before our tenant turnover at the rental was because we were done with the cabinet painting and we convinced our new tenant to take over the other chores. She seems like a responsible person and since she would be the one having to live with any inadequacies left by the old tenant, she didn’t mind taking over. It will be interesting to see the place the next time we are there.
Lee and Susie Blattner have just arrived and managed to get the parking spot right next to us. We haven’t seen them for a while either, so this was another happy reunion. Isn’t this RV life great because of all the friends we can hook up with in various places??!!