8/22/10 Hello from sunny Sacramento. We are set up on the property of RV friends Ron & Carol Leonard in anticipation of starting work on our Woodland rental tomorrow. Our new tenant expects to move in Sept. 1 and we have some painting and fix-up to do before that happens. I suppose, since Elaine's hand is still heavily bandaged, most of the work will be done by ME! Luckily, my hand and foot have healed nicely, and I am probably able to do most of the needed chores. If not, we will merely hire somebody!
Speaking of Elaine's hand, she got her stitches out on Friday, which is what freed us up to leave Park Sierra and drive here. I took a picture of her hand after they took the cast and bandage off and before they removed the stitches, and here it is:

It looks pretty ugly but actually it is healing rapidly. You can see that this was a pretty extensive surgery and why it might take a while for Elaine to get back to 100%.
Last Sunday we had a delightful afternoon with our neighbors, Carol and Alan Rodely up in the mountains having an excursion on a former logging train. It is called the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad or "The Logger" for short. It is located about 10 miles north of Oakhurst on the way to Yosemite and is a beautiful ride right through the forest. There is a gift shop, bookstore, snack bar, museum, and gold panning area to occupy you while you wait for the train ride. One of the couples from Park Sierra, Rick and Laurie Phillips, work there, and also Al Brunsell, who runs the gold panning. Laurie works in the bookstore and Rick gives the spiel on the train. Here is a picture of Rick in his train gear:

There is a nice shady area near the bookstore where people can picnic and here are the friends enjoying the coolness:

This is the old steam engine pulling the front cars along the 4 mile route

After the ride, we had everyone over for dinner on our patio:

When Carol heard that we were leaving Friday, she arranged a Happy Hour and dinner under our neighborhood tree for Thursday. Our neighbors, Rich & Mary had returned from Idaho, and one of our new members who has become a good friend, Bev Mauck, also joined us.

There is another couple who just became members of Park Sierra yesterday, Glenda & Elleen, who have been joining us for social stuff every now and then and they came Thursday as well. They have been doing lots of bike riding in preparation for an upcoming trip to the Est Coast when they will be riding the Appalachian Trail. Here is their picture:

We were delighted when they called us yesterday to say that they had just become the newest members of our park!
Yesterday Elaine and I stayed at the Elks Club in Fremont so we could see her son, Darran and his fiancee, Marielle, who flew up from San Diego. We also spent some time with Elaine's daughter Tarra, her husband Alonzo, and their three girls, Ari, Alia, and Analy.
Here are "The Moms" with Tarra and Darran:

Here are the two happy young couples:

And of course, we need to put in a picture of the cute granddaughters:

Once we leave Woodland, we will be heading for the Oregon coast, looking for other RV friends, coolness, and crabbing. So if you are going to be in that area, contact us!!

8/12/10 Just a quick update to let you know that Elaine is doing just fine and surely must be healing rapidly. Of course, we can't know yet because her hand is in a cast and covered by a big bandage. Here is a picture of her taken tonight, right after she got out of the shower.

She has even been able to help with some things, such as drying the dishes. She is very independent and tries to do everything for herself, which certainly works for the nurse!
We have also been having some nice meals and happy hours with our good neighbors, CArol & Alan Rodely. Last night their daughter and her 2 children joined us too, but I didn't get a picture. This picture was taken a few nights ago when Carol & Alan were here:

About two weeks ago, Lee & Pat Pond were here cleaning up their lot because they are moving and they gave us some nice chairs, a table and an umbrella. Also a wooden swing, which was in fairly bad shape. So we took it apart, cleaned the boards and painted it and now we have a bright yellow bench to swing on in our yard:

8/10/10 I am sitting in the waiting room at Kaiser, waiting for Elaine to come out of surgery for her left hand. She has something called Dupuytens Contracture which causes the tendons in her palm to knot up and pull her fingers into a claw shape. Her surgeon is the hand specialist here who did my carpal tunnel surgery 11 days ago. I am healing well and was able to drive the car today in order to get her here, and eventually home again. Her recovery will take longer than mine, and I will make sure she is well taken care of. She was certainly a good nurse for me, although I didn't need too much help after the first few days.
So our time has been spent doing chores around the RV, socializing with our Park Sierra neighbors, and trying to catch up on some trip planning. Not much excitement to report in this blog. Since we have never been at Park Sierra during the summer before (it is always too HOT), we were unaware of all the new wildlife that emerges at this time. There are hundreds of new little quail running around in the early morning and evenings and lots of bunnies with their little white cottontails. They blend in so well in the mottled brown leaves that they are hard to see if they don't move or show off their tails. On one of our walks we saw a mother deer with her adolescent. There are tons of pesky woodpeckers which try to shove acorns in every available place, and who even peck on our RV!! There have only been a couple of days in the hundreds, so it hasn't even been too hot.
Once Elaine is released by her doctor, we will have to deal with a vacant rental in Woodland, CA. Then we will head for the Oregon coast looking for some coolness and hopefully, some crab.

7/25/10 The time has slipped away since my last post! Today was our first day back at Park Sierra and it was HOT here. Usually we don't like air conditioning but today we had ours on almost all afternoon. Tomorrow we go to Kaiser to start the lab tests and pre-surgery appointments. Friday I have carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand.
During our last week at Mike & Marilyn's we had fairly hot weather there too. We used the time to wash and wax our RV and once that was done, we rewarded ourselves with a nice afternoon canoeing on the lake. In case you can't tell, that is Mary & Elaine in the canoe:

July 16 Pat & Linda Jenkins drove down from Canada to visit all of us. They are also RVers but this time they just stayed in a bedroom in the house. It was great to see them, they brought us some cans of escargot from the dollar store, and we all had lots of fun together. Of course, we had Happy Hours and delicious dinners together. Here is a picture of dinner on the deck:

After we left Mike & Marilyn's, we stopped at Tom & Pat Bryant's farm near Canyonville. Here is a picture of them:

They have been working on their farm for about 8 years and have done such nice things with it. Here is a picture of the view from their house:

Every time we visit them they have more animals. This time they had a new hen house and about 20 chickens. There were more but a big raccoon has been breaking into the hen house at night and killing some of the chickens. Elaine helped gather the eggs. When she was growing up on a farm in Illinois, she used to raise chickens too, and at one time had hundreds of them. There were also some young ducks:

They always have lots of goats, and here is a picture of some of them who jumped up on the fence:

When they got goats and sheep, they had to get guardian dogs to protect them from predators such as cougars. Here are the two guardian dogs, Dutch and Char:

The most fun addition to their menagerie are the two pigs, Frank and Furter. When Elaine squirted water on them with the hose, they got so excited and ran all around. They also love it when the water makes a mud hole for them, because it helps keep them cool.

We were able to meet Pat's mother, Irene, who now lives in a little house on their property. Pat is taking very good care of her and she is also on hospice.
Our next stop was to visit Carol and Byron Hall, some of our cruise buddies. They have a place about 10 miles from Grants Pass. It was quite a tight fit to get through their gate, but they even had an RV hookup because they used it themselves when they were building their house and lived in a 5th wheel. They fed us a delicious dinner and we enjoyed catching up on all their news. Carol has had quite a few unexpected health challenges since we were all on the Spring transatlantic cruise to England together last April, but she is fine now. Actually, she looks great because she has lost over 20 pounds! Here is a picture of them:

While they were fixing dinner, we were able to see the little grey fox who comes often looking for a handout. All I had was my phone camera, but here is his picture:

My brother Jerry, and his wife, Diann, live at Lake Wildwood, so we stopped there next. They have a lovely home on the golf course, and Jerry fixed us a nice dinner.
Haven't seen them since our wedding, almost 2 years ago, so it was good to be there. They have recently acquired an Itasca RV so we conned him into showing it to us. It is a class C, which works well for their trips, and we know they will have some fun adventures in it. Here are the 2 siblings in front of it:

Our last stop on the way back was in Fremont where we had a quick visit with Elaine's daughter, Tarra. We picked up an old dresser from her to take down to Darran's. It was much cooler there, because of its proximity to the San Francisco Bay. We enjoyed it! While we were there, Darran called because he and Marielle had just returned from Ireland. The exciting news is that they got engaged while they were over there. We are very happy for them because we believe that they are perfectly suited for each other and will be very happy together.

7/14/10 A rather hot day here at Agency Lake, but we spent the whole day in Klamath Falls, shopping with Marilyn & Mike. This morning Kit and Nancy Carter, fellow Boomers who had been staying here for a few days in their RV, left. It was fun to have them here and also to get to know them better. Here is a picture of the 6 of us having dinner together:

They called on the very day that we were returning from our camping trip over at Farewell Bend NPS park on the Rogue River. It was a very nice park with lots of trees and unfortunately, quite a few mosquitoes. We had a scenic spot right on the river. This is a view of the river from the spot where we had our chairs:

And here is Elaine sitting in our chairs with our rigs in the background:

Almost as soon as we got set up, we started having visits from a couple of golden mantle ground squirrels, commonly called chipmunks. It was fairly obvious that people had been feeding them because they were totally fearless and kept approaching us, even though Elaine kept yelling at them and chasing them away. She has a serious rodent phobia and it extends to all small, furry creatures, even when they are cute chipmunks. Here is a picture of one of our visitors:

They were pretty smart and usually only showed up when we had food outside. One night at dinner one of them kept jumping up right next to me on the picnic table bench, that's how fearless they were.
Here is a picture of Mike & Marilyn at the campsite:

They just love camping and especially campfires, so they brought lots of wood. We also did lots of walking and we weren't very far from an area called the Rogue Gorge. Here the river drops through a series of rapids and then a steep rocky gorge. There are four viewing areas and we took a few pictures. This is the rapids:

And here is where the water drops at the beginning of the gorge:

We have been trying to get a few chores done during our visit here so we have washed the RV since we returned, and also waxed the roof. Now we have to try to finish the rest before the next batch of visitors. On Friday we are expecting Linda and Pat Jenkins to arrive. They are Boomer friends who live in Canada, and we haven't seen them for a long time, so we are excited about their visit. Tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day since we arrived - 90 degrees. Don't know how much RV waxing will get done in that temperature!

7/5/10 Hope you all had a very Happy 4th!!! We joined Mike & Marilyn on their deck overlooking the lake for a hamburger BBQ. Here is a picture of the celebration:

It has been so pleasant to be here because the weather has been just about perfect: sunny and between 75 and 80. Those are good temps for the activities we have been doing: walking 3-5 miles a day in the nearby wetlands preserve, deep cleaning in our rig, and doing some rig repairs and improvements. The fact that I can walk that many miles indicates that my toe is healing quite well. I dropped the vacuum cleaner on it today, which really got my attention.
Mike and Marilyn have also been doing projects after our joint walks. Then we all have Happy Hour on their deck at 4:30 and dinner together afterward. One day Mike showed me that a little bat had decided to sleep in the corner above their front door. I took a picture of it:

Then Mike said to poke it with a broom stick to get it to spread its wings for a better picture, which I did. But he got pissed at me, made a rude hissing noise, and flew away before I could get a better picture. The other wildlife we have been seeing, besides lots of birds, are river otters which have dens in the banks along the path at the wetlands preserve where we walk. One day we saw 4 of them on land but we have only seen one in the water. If we are quiet on the walks, we usually see at least two. They never hold still long enough for a picture, however.
Tomorrow we are going to a campground near the Rogue River for a week, and Mike and Marilyn are joining us in their RV. Mike says there is no phone or internet service there, so it will be "rustic" camping for us! I will update this blog, hopefully with some pictures, when we get back.

6/29/10 Hello from Agency Lake, Oregon. This is the small lake just above Klamath Lake and about 25 miles north of Klamath Falls. Our friends Mike & Marilyn live here and we are parked on the side of their driveway so we have a good view of the lake. They have incredible lake views from their deck:

And here is a picture of friends at Happy Hour on their deck:

We have been here 2 days and every day we go for walks at the wildlife refuge just down the road. Besides the Wood River going through it, there are lots of wetlands which attract many types of birds, and there are green plants everywhere surrounded by a ring of mountains, some of which have snow on the top still.

And here is a small heron which we saw today sitting on a rock at the edge of the water:

Our last post was from Park Sierra, where we were waiting for my foot to heal after having toe surgery. Our last social gathering there was a celebration because Tom & Judy Tillery were back in the park for a visit, and I promised to put a picture of them in this entry. They are so cute and it is difficult to imagine that they are about to have their 50th wedding anniversary!

The evening turned cool and we had some papers we needed to burn so the group moved out to the fire pit to end the evening:

One of the fun things about being at Park Sierra this time was all the social gatherings with good friends, some of whom were also "stuck" in the park because of medical issues.
My foot was healing fine so we were able to head for the Bay Area. One day we met our old friends, Mitz Alverson & Bev Porter for a nice visit and a tasty lunch. It was great to see them and catch up on all their news. I used to play softball on the same team with them, and Mitz and I coached at different high schools and our teams used to compete against each other quite often.

Because of our long trip last year, we hadn't seen Elaine's daughter, Tarra, and her family for about a year and a half. She and her husband, Alonzo, live in one of our rental houses in Fremont. On New Year's Day a pipe broke in the bathroom wall and there was quite a bit of water damage, which they have had to repair. Because they did all the work, they were able to use the insurance money to fix everything and do some upgrades. Here is a picture of them in their new kitchen:

Alonzo's three daughters, Ari, Alia, and Analy, have all grown so much while we have been away! They have all matured a lot and we had a delightful visit with them, especially when we got to see two of them at their softball games. They all play on different teams and all are very talented athletes. It makes me want to stay around there just to "coach" them a bit, and also go to their games! Here is a picture of these darling girls:

Gordon & Laura Bornkamp were parked next to us at the Fremont Elks club so we had a happy reunion with them too. Here is a picture of them we took at Mardi Gras in New Orleans:

Besides these visits, the goal of being in the Bay Area, and then in the Sacramento area, was to inspect the rentals, which we did. Happily, most of them look great, one needs a little TLC, and one is a major disaster. But we won't have to deal with it until the current tenants vacate, so we aren't going to stress about it!
Ron & Carol Leonard were kind enough to let us stay on their Sacramento property once again and we had 2 nice Happy Hours with them. It was fairly hot while we were there and the huge oak tree hanging over their deck provided much appreciated shade:

Our last day there we were treated to a delightful lunch by our friends Roberta Firetag and Odette Kummer. They have just had their 40th anniversary, and their son, Raymond, had just gotten married, so there were lots of great pictures to share and news to catch up on.

As we drove north on highway 5, we stopped in Corning, where there are lots of olive retail places. We tried the Olive Pit because we have been trying to find the same kind of green olives we so enjoyed in Barcelona. After tasting quite a few, we bought some picholine olives. Not as good as the ones in Spain but the closest we could come. It was very hot in the central valley, and as we started to climb, near Lake Shasta, we enjoyed the cool down. We were delighted to see that Lake Shasta was completely full of water. In past years it has been really low. And Mount Shasta was heavily covered in snow and looked so majestic as we passed it:

Mount Shasta can be seen peeking over the tops of the mountains surrounding this lake, as we walk in the wetland preserve.
We took highway 97 to get here and on the way passed at least 6 deer, several alive standing on the side of the road, but most had been hit by vehicles the night before. It feels good to be "out in the wilds" again, with all this beautiful scenery surrounding us.
The plan is to stay here for several weeks while we do some cleaning and rig repairs, and enjoy visits with Mike & Marilyn and other Canadian friends, Pat & Linda Jenkins, who are going to arrive mid-July.
Before I close, I want to show you a picture of the latest jewelry creation by Marilyn. She is an expert wire wrap jewelry maker and here are her earrings and necklace which I like a lot:

6/18/10 Well, my foot surgery was yesterday and all went well, I think. Won't know until Monday when the bandages come off and I have my follow-up appointment. Here is the picture Elaine took of me yesterday in the hospital just before they wheeled me off to the operating room:

The hardest part is sitting here on the couch with my foot up, because I am not accustomed to being so inactive! The pain hasn't been bad and I am even planning to hobble over to the weekly Happy hour at the clubhouse this afternoon. Tomorrow there will be another Happy Hour here in our neighborhood because Tom & Judy Tillery, who used to have a lot here and are now visitors, are staying on Brenda and Dave Neil's lot right across the street from us. I will be sure to get a picture of them at this event so we can post it next time.
The doctor said that Elaine can remove my stitches and do the rest of my follow-up stuff so we will be leaving Monday for the Bay Area. It will be good to see Tarra (Elaine's daughter) and family again and check on all our rentals. After that we will repeat the process in the Roseville area. The biggest bummer is that when we contacted our tenants in Woodland about coming for an inspection, they said that they will probably be moving in August! Darn - there goes some of the time we had hoped to have to return to Oregon for crabbing. But these rentals provide our ONLY retirement income so we had better pay attention to business, right??!!
The more we sit here on our lot, the more time Elaine spends on the internet looking at cruises. So she just found a great deal and booked us on it and I want to tell you about it in case any of you want to join us. As you might remember, we are going to India for most of the month of November, then flying to Barcelona to take the Adventure of the Seas back on a 14 day transatlantic. It ends in Puerto Rico, a place we have never been before. The end of that cruise is Dec. 12 and on Dec. 13 Celebrity Millennium leaves for 11 days in the southern Caribbean visiting lots of really neat islands which we have also never visited. It is very cheap, at $699 pp for an inside cabin. Yes, it gets back to Puerto Rico on Dec. 24, which might be a problem for some people, but not us. So, if you want a nice cheap cruise that goes neat places, with fun people (us), look on the Celebrity website.

6/11/10
Not much news to report. We have been having some medical appointments and all is well. Next Monday I have my 2 pre-op appointments and Thursday my hammertoe surgery. There is a good chance we can talk the doctor into letting Elaine handle my follow-up stuff so we can leave the area for a while. Mike & Marilyn have invited us up to their place at Agency Lake just above Klamath Lake, in Oregon, and we would like to go there. We will also stop to inspect our rentals on the way north. Then we will have to return to Park Sierra the last week in July because I have been scheduled for carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand July 30. It shouldn't take me long to heal, so Elaine's hand surgery will be on August 10. Then we hope to leave again and head up to Oregon for some crabbing.
One nice thing about being here has been having the time to schmooze more with our good neighbors, the Rodelys and Jeanne Taylor. Here is a picture taken when we all got together on our patio.

From left to right: Carol Rodely, Alan Rodely, Rodger Lyman, Elaine, and Jeanne Taylor.