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.