7/24/07

Hello again Blog Readers:

Now that we have escaped from the campground for two days and are visiting our friends Kathy & Sally in Coeur d’Alene, ID, we have the use of their wireless internet and I can update this blog at record speed. Hooray! The main problem we have had lately is that the air card we got from Verizon only 50 days ago has already gone bad and after we jumped through all their hoops, they sent us another one. Of course, they don’t deliver to a campground so we had to wait until our days off to pick it up at the Radio Shack in Cle Elum. That meant we had no internet or e-mail access for a week. Now I have to see if the new one works.

Luckily, there is no big news to report of the same nature as the tree disaster of the last blog update. Yesterday, the loggers started to harvest the fallen trees in the campground and they were also going to take out about 15 of the ones that were still standing that seemed questionable. Our area managers want to reopen Thetis Loop, but those of us that work there think it is too dangerous. We will have to see what happens next.

Mostly what has been happening since our last update is that we have been working harder and longer because the warmer weather caused us to have a lot more campers, and we have been having visitors, with many more expected during August.

Jeanne and Rodger, 2 of our neighbors from Park Sierra, were visiting us this past weekend, and will return next weekend, along with Rodger’s son Marty and his daughter. It was great to see them and Marty brought out a great meal for all of us on Saturday.

In the more stories from Lake Kachess category, we have several incidents from this past weekend. On Sunday we walked over to one of our loops, Mineral Creek, only to find that one of the barricades used to close off Thetis Loop had been moved across this loop instead. The other barricade was totally missing and has yet to be found. So Thetis, which is supposed to be closed because of the danger of falling trees, was totally open! All done by some prankster in the middle of the night. The other incident was that this is the first weekend that we have been getting “stiffed” by people with regard to firewood sales. We keep bundles of firewood in front of our rig and there is a pay box where they are supposed to insert $6 for each bundle they take. Someone took 3 bundles and paid nothing, and the next guy took 1 bundle and paid $2. So much for the honesty of campers. A story on the good side of campers is that one of our older couples who is camping with us for several weeks, drove home to North Bend for the day and brought us back a container of raspberries from their garden. That was really nice. Of course, it happened during the time when we are having ripe huckleberries and blueberries all over the campground, so we possibly weren’t as appreciative as we would have been another time. We had huckleberry cobbler for dessert three times over the weekend, and we have brought enough here with us to Idaho to do it again for Kathy and Sally. Yummy!

One problem has been that Elaine has severely pull the rhomboid muscle in her back on the left side and has been in a lot of pain from it. We even drove to Redmond to the urgent care to find out what was causing it, and that was their diagnosis. So we haven't been kayaking or fishing and she has been taking pain killers and icing it. Hopefully, she will be better soon. The biggest problem is that we are getting older, and it is a bummer when these things happen as a result.

There are some pictures below that I have been unable to blog at other times.

1. Mary and Elaine in camp host uniforms
2. Mary and Elaine at Cooper Lake
3. Chipmunk eating like our campers!
4. Mary, Marsha, step-brother Richard, & his wife Carol
5. Mary & Marsha – the twins, on her recent visit with us.
   
6. Elaine & Frank – one of the other hosts.