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.