steved44

Hmmmmm looked outside this morning and Joe had already sneeked out!! We had a nice dinner and talked about everyone, so all of your ears must be ringing this morning. It was good to see Joe and Bandit again, now we'll have to "chase him South". Jeri, sorry to hear about the windshield, did a rock hit it, or was it a stress crack? Linda, sorry you had to take a bath on the unit. It just doesn't seem fair, but at least you won't have to hassle with the selling part. We kind of felt that way about our house, but at least it's GONE! We are heading out to get flue shots today, how exciting is that. Steve

Well we jumped up at the "crack of 11" and drove to the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia river today. Had a nice tour of the power generation station, and then went to the fish hatchery next door. We saw "Harold" the 450 lb 10' sturgeon. He was 70 years old and looked like he was doing fine. They had a lot of sturgeons there and also a large amount of rainbow trout. Should have brought my pole with me, but they checked for things like that. Later we met Terry and Jeri for drinks at the Elks club. They are getting ready to head out in the morning, so we hope they have a great trip heading south. We will probably hang around here for another 5 or 6 days. Carol is shooting pictures of a senior girl Saturday for a friend of hers from Oklahoma,who couldn't come here to do it herself. We scouted out locations yesterday, so we are ready for the shoot. Can't believe we used to do about 4 seniors a day when we had the studio. I've got to look outside and see if Spiker has any spies hanging around.. You can't be too careful you know. Rumor has it that he finally got his pin pulled out of the ground and is migrating. Hmmmmmm ps: I did get my charging solenoid installed finally. It was pretty easy to get to, so it wasn't that bad a job. Now the house batteries finally charge while driving down the road. I don't think that thing ever worked, but I was using my generator part of the time so I didn't notice. One more thing off my list.

Dangit!

High 'O Silver!

Lee, sorry to hear the pain came back. OK, I'll call the cowgirls off, but only temporary (gotta keep some in reserve). My back isn't doing to good either, but I think I'm better than you sound. You need that hot tub BLM west of Yuma to soak in for a while. I received my charging solenoid today, so maybe I can install it tomorrow. I was going to do it today, but it started to rain just when I went out to do it. Terry offered to help, and I should have taken him up on it because he was already walking Duchess out in the rain, so it must not affect him. Anyway, we drove over to a RV park near hear and dumped the tanks, so we're ready for another week. When I got back and re-parked the Winegard TV antenna wouldn't find the satellite. I tried it 5 times, and finally it worked, but I don't know what the problem was. Maybe the clouds were thick enough to the south to interfere with finding the satellite, but I don't know. Hope it's not a preview of a system crash of some kind. Hmmmmmmmm Carol got to play a little tennis tonight, so she's pretty happy. We found a tennis center about 3 miles from here that takes "walk on's", so that was great. Well got to watch a movie, so I'll sign off for now. Steve

No we're not quite tuckered out yet. We got up late and went to the Laundromat to get our stuff done too. We started out to do the laundry the day before, and wound up going to Mt Hood instead. We realized the weather was only going to be clear through yesterday, and decided we'd better take advantage of it. Turns out we were right as it clouded up today, and we wouldn't have been able to see as much as we did. We had lunch at Timberline lodge up on the mountain and it was really nice. It took a while to get seated for lunch as we showed up at the wrong time, but in the end it was fine. We were worn out by the time we got back to the Elks, but all and all it was a nice day. We checked out a tennis club for Carol in Vancouver, so she can get her "tennis fix", and found out where the dump station is so we can get that done tomorrow. Got our mail today, and my health insurance, Generations, sent me a "credit card" for getting my flu shot. It said I could go to any Walgreen's, target, or place that offers flue shots. Nice touch OK, Lee, add in the "cowgirls".... Joe!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, STRIPING EAST HAMPTON??

Ok, Lee, you're pretty sly, but I think we have it figured out now. You say you feel better after sitting around waiting on your rig to be repaired. The solution is, if we have a problem with any of our rigs, all we have to do is call you, and you can wait in the waiting room for us. You will feel better and we can be out doing all the decadent things we are suppose to be out doing, until someone figures out what we have to do to fix our rigs. Then, when you call us with the answer, we will pick you up and give you the proper "cranberry juice" to keep you feeling good. You understand this is just a test program, but who knows, it might just work!

That's terrible, Lee. What kind of rig was it? Had she had the recalls done? It will be hard to get much out of Norcold if the recalls have not been done. It took us a long time to settle our fire damage with Norcold (six months), and we were not under the recall at the time we had our fire. They did settle finally though. It's a scary thing, a fire, I'm glad no-one was hurt. Steve

SOONER!

Ehh?

Awww Jeri, you did fine, although I noticed you didn't post until 8:30 this morning. Here it is the "crack of 10:30" and we're ready to rock and roll. That was a nice lunch yesterday with John & Judy, and I hope I didn't scare them off. You guys know that all I had was "praise" for all of you. Now about this "sympathy board", do they sell sympathy credits? I may have to stock up on a few just in case either of you guys run out of pain, and I would have to step in and "save the day". No kidding, "HEAL UP"! that's an order!! Well, I guess I'd better sip a little coffee and check out this burg. Steve Wow! I stepped out of the bus door and tripped over John & Judy's "pin". Great to see you guys on the map! Coldsmoke, you're up in north country where I grew up. Right ahead of you on rt 11 is Chateaugay where I lived. Just to the West of Chateaugay is High Falls park campground. Nice place to check out. There used to be an old pulp mill there on the river years ago. Good trout fishing there too. Steve

Woo! Hoo! Jeri's right. We tried to eat all the ribs at Famous Dave's last night. Mmmmmmmmm Good! Lets see now, where are we? Oh yeah Vancouver, Washington. Now we've got to check out this town. More neat things to see! Steve & Carol

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! HUH?? look out Jeri, see if there's any more spaces left in the Elks down there. We are pulling out in about 30 minutes. Steve

Congrats on the new bike. We got Carol one too. We'll have to form a "bike gang" when we get together again. We went to Seattle music experience yesterday and then had dinner at the top of the space needle to top off our stay here in the "big town". Sure is a pretty view from up there. We started off in the daylight, and finished dinner after dark, so we were able to see the transition from light to dark. We then went up to the observation deck for another hour or so before we called it a night. We were going to leave here today, but Carol has another museum she wants to see, so it will probably be tomorrow. That will give me time to get some new wiper blades. Seems it wants to rain all the time here now. Linda, glad to see you got the wheels loose and on the road for a while. Have a nice trip down South. About the "staying at rest stops etc. We do walmarts, some rest stops and a few truck stops. We stayed at a TA truck stop just West of Denver on I-70 last year and it was fine. They tend to be a little busy and noisy, but so far no trouble. Don't try Walmart in Seattle. They have the lot filled with little "tree islands" and don't want overnight campers there anyway. I didn't know if we were going to run over an old lady with a shopping cart, hit a tree or clip a car, before we got out of there, but we made it! That was a very busy place. Everybody have a great day today. Steve

Well, got a few little things done yesterday. Carol has a bad cold, so she's laying low for a while. She had to go all the way to Green Bay, WI to bring it back... What I really wanted was a t-shirt, oh well. I had been noticing that my water pressure was low. I talked to a couple of the guys parked next to me and they said, "did you notice the red water"? They were working on the pipes down the street from us so I guess they stirred things up a bit. My water was not red, but I thought maybe my filter picked it up. I replaced it and yep, that was it. I'd had it in there a year, so it was ready for replacement anyway. I also adjusted a couple of blinds, replaced a cabinet latch, serviced the batteries, and checked out my battery combiner switch that I suspected was not working right. I checked the voltage on the house batteries, and they were at 12.7V and the chassis batteries were at 12.2V. When I pushed the aux start switch (which is supposed to combine the two), the solenoid clicked, but the voltage on the chassis side did not change, so i think it's bad. The same thing happens when I'm driving down the road, the alternator from the bus engine is not charging the house batteries. Hmmmmm The solenoid is getting the signal to change, it clicked like it did, but no results. I think I'll look around for one of those today. It's raining, so might as well do something constructive. Steve

SOONER!!! Texas won't forget that one for a while!

We've stayed at Lake Pleasant also. Nice place, fishing there too! Steve

Congratulations! Eric & Karla, new grandbaby's are always fun! Enjoy! Steve

IYQ, glad to see you carving again, I'm looking foreword to seeing more of your beautiful work. Kay, maybe you guys should have stayed in the big 12, I cried for you, but Carol is from Wisconsin Today I didn't have anything to do, so I went over to my brothers, and we went to Fisherman's Terminal where he keeps his boat to do a little work on it. Seems a sea otter was living on the boat. We came down there the other day, and while we were getting the boat ready to leave a guy that was parked near us came over and said a 4' sea otter came out of the upper fly bridge area when we first stepped on the boat. We were in the rear, so we didn't see it. There was a square hole under the front where the GPS was attached, that you couldn't see, and he had built a nest there. Today we patched the hole, and don't think he'll get in there again we hope. Now I'm back at BessyBus and it's raining. The real Seattle weather is starting to show, so we are going to head out of here around the 11th. Carol had a nice time at her class reunion in Wisconsin and is coming back tomorrow, so we will get ready to head out. Rain sounds great on the roof. Steve

Hey, Dave, glad to see you post again. I thought you lost your keyboard! Tell Grandma and grandpa hello from us if you hook up with them. Life is good here in the PNW, we were going to try and sneak up on Jeri & Terry, but they must have heard us planning and "beamed" over to Phoenix. Steve

Jim & Sandie, way to go! Woo Hoo! Glad that Chevy had enough power to unstick that 5th wheel from the driveway! We went as far as we could go West, so now we'll have to try South for a while. We won't be leaving Seattle for a couple of weeks. Carol is leaving tomorrow for Wisconsin for a class reunion, (not the class of 08), so we will hang around here for a while. We have to make one more trip to the Olympic Peninsula to the dentist she used over there to get a crown replaced, and then we will start heading down the coast. The Elks have a prime rib night Friday, so I don't want to miss that. MMMMMmmmmm Steve

SOONER!! You probably got the dog hair in the filter when you were giving Millie "flying lessons" We are heading for Pike's Place, fish market today and the Seattle music experience, so it should be a good touring day. Steve

That old hotel was where we had the wedding reception. Beautiful area! We moved off the island yesterday and wound up in Auburn, just south of Seattle. We tried to get into the elks, by the airport, but the people that were going to leave decided to stay, and they were full otherwise until Monday. We got in a lot more traffic then I wanted to drive in and finally found this park in Auburn called Game Farm. Odd name for a park, but they have 30A and water with a dump on premises and right on a little river. Hidden little gem. I was sure ready to park by the time we got here at about 5:30. We started at 8:30am, and it took all day to go 103 miles and find a place! Going to take it easy today. Steve

That Estes Park is a neat area. My sister was married there 5 years ago and we shot the wedding. The road gets a little tight up there though. It's probably better now that the tourist season is over. You'd better get out the instruction book to see how to put chains on your rig! Steve