Mega Blogs by Von

This is the first opportunity that I have had to blog on this web site for quite awhile. I have been keeping a daily dairy of sorts so I will paste them below for your happy reading.

Bentley had quite an exciting morning for such a little guy. First he got to run around without being on his lead and was able to explore and sniff stuff that he had not been able to before. Then he rode in his basket on my bicycle for a while. I then wondered what he would do if I just rode my bike without him in the basket. Well, he thought that was great fun chasing me and running along side the bike until all of a sudden in the road there were about 20 horseback riders. Bentley thought he could take them all on so he got to barking at them. I was afraid that he would spook the horses so I parked my bike and scooped him up and we watched the horese go back as we stood on the side of the road. Later a couple of hikers came into our camp site and asked directions. Of course, Bentley had to tell us all about the fact that these two guys were standing there talking to us. He had quite the morning!

Below are the daily dairy ramblings that I put down:

May 31, 2008, Saturday

We’re on the Road Again by Von

Set the alarm to 6AM and get up at 6:30AM. Load the car with all the bags, helmets, rain gear, leathers and everything else that go with the Harley. Greg road the Harley over to Aaron’s storage room in Corvallis while I followed him in the car with all the stuff that we have collected over the years for the Harley. We parked the Harley in the storage room and put all the bags of stuff in with it and locked it up.

Then back to the motor home to get it ready to roll. Unhooked all the connections, the water, sewer, cable and electricity and packed everything up to move on down the road. I collected all of my potted plants and packed those away in my car. We then put the bicycle rack on the back of my car and loaded the three bicycles on to it. Now, we are ready to take off.

Greg drove the motor home while I drove the Jetta and we headed east on Hwy. 20. We took a short break at Fisherman’s Bend campground and then took off again. As we were driving over the Santiam Pass and nearing the summit, I was looking at the 7 foot snow banks on the side of the highway. The thought that was going through my head was: ?Oh sure, we’re going to get to Jack Creek and there will be snow everywhere. I don’t think I’m going to like that much.? The summit is at 4817 feet and then as we traveled down the other side the snow was growing less and less visible. ?Okay, maybe there won’t be 7 feet of snow where we are going.? The turn off to Jack Creek is one mile from Suttle Lake. It is the National Forest Road 12. Of course, I made it to the turn off before Greg in his slow over the mountain motor home and waited for him to catch up with me. We then headed down Road 12 for about 3 miles and then turned left towards Jack Creek Campground and drove for 1 mile until we were at the creek. There is a 1 lane bridge crossing the creek and some dispersement camping there. There was a suburban with a utility trailer parked there and it looked like those people were camped because they had their suburban and trailer up on blocks to keep them level. We then continued around the corner to check out some more dispersed campsites. If we had turned to the left we would have been going towards Jack Creek Campground. Then we turned right onto a Forest Service Road 200 and chose the third turnout to set up our camp.

Greg and I looked this huge site over to see where it would be the best to park the motor home so that it would be in the sun most of the day so that the solar panels could recharge the batteries during the day. We parked the motor home and as we were starting to set up the campsite there was loud thunder clapping so the first thing we did was put out the awning so that we would at least have some place were we wouldn’t get wet. It never did rain, but the awning is nice for blocking the sun while I sit outside and smoke, read and watch Bentley romp in the woods.

Von

June 1, 2008, Sunday

We’re on an Adventure by Von

We apparently parked the motor home in a really good spot for the solar panels. We have been watching out input and outgoing battery usage and are doing well. The sun is charging the batteries pretty well and we are able to use them pretty much how ever we want to. We have a fire pit right outside of our door and a few trees to rig up a rope to tie Bentley’s lead to so that he has a lot of room to roam around. Bentley is a little bit nervous about the woods and the strange noises that he hears and is doing a bit of woofing at things. He’ll get used to the surroundings soon and will feel a little bit more comfortable about this open space and strange noises around.

We piled into the Jetta with the GPS and took off onto the forest service roads to find the Camp Sherman Store. We were on an adventure and hoping that we wouldn’t get too lost. Using the GPS we were able to get to the Store without going out to the Hwy and driving several miles. We found a way to get there a shorter way so that we will be able to ride our bicycles to it. We had some ice cream and then drove into the Camp Sherman Campground and filled to water jugs. We also spotted some fire wood and snagged that to take back to our campsite. Then we drove back to the motor home and started a fire. We burned all of the paper that I had been collecting to shred and never got around to. We have to change our thinking about our trash. Instead of throwing everything in the trash, we now need to burn all the paper and save the cans to recycle. This cuts the garbage down quite a bit.

I’m loving the privacy that we have in this wide open space and no neighbors to see everything that Bentley and I are doing outside.

Von

June 2, 2008, Monday

Can you hear me now? by Von

When there is no deadline or need to be anywhere at a certain time, we have found that we go to bed around 10:30PM and wake around 7AM. It seems that the human body does need 8 hours of sleep during the night. I don’t think I ever got 8 hours of sleep while I was working. I think I was walking around in a sleep deprived state most of my working life and was never rested. This feels so different to be rested and getting enough sleep!

This morning a little squirrel paid Bentley a visit. The squirrel was in a tree near where Bentley was roaming around and was talking to him. At this point Bentley was wishing that he could climb that tree. The squirrel finally figured out that Bentley wasn’t going away so the squirrel decided that he might as well leave instead.

We had a fine relaxing day at our camp site today. Naps were in order in the afternoon. We have a Coleman Camp Oven that works on our Coleman Propane Stove and we made a meat loaf in it. It only took about 50 minutes for the meat loaf to cook in the camp stove. We had put the meat loaf in a pie pan so that it was thin so that the cooking time was shorter than if it was in a regular bread pan. Boy was that yummy!

After dinner Bentley and I drove out to the Highway so that I could get a cell signal to make some phone calls. This spot we are in is just about perfect except for the lack of cell and Internet signals. But, driving out to the Highway is only about 5 mile, so it isn’t too bad to make a phone call.

When Bentley and I got back to camp we watched Seabiscuit on the VCR. We had charged the batteries so well during the day that we had enough to watch a movie. This is pretty nice.

Von

June 3, 2008

Wet and Wild by Von

It rained during the night, pretty hard at times. However, with the awning out, I still had a dry spot to sip my coffee and smoke my first cigarette for the day. Bentley got pretty wet and dirty when he went out to do his business though. Oh well, he dries and can be washed. Later when I stepped out to have another cigarette the blanket that we are using for a doormat was all messed up. As I was straightening it up I noticed that one area was chewed up and wet where it looked like a critter had been chewing on it. I guess that squirrel decided that our blanket was a good thing to try and put in his nest, or he was getting back at Bentley for invading his home area.

We went into Sisters today to mail some bills that were due, buy some more supplies, fresh veggies and groceries and do our laundry. That took all day to accomplish. I had heard somewhere that life was 99 percent maintenance and 1 percent new experiences. So I have tried to learn not to resent having to do all the mundane things that just living requires us all to do, like cleaning & repairing, that’s just life.

Von

June 4, 2008, Wednesday

Come on Sun by Von

This morning we woke to partly cloudy and some sunny patches around. We want the sun to come out and charge our batteries so that we can play with all of our electronic toys.

Today’s big job is to move the motor home so that the rear end is level. We parked it so that the back end of the motor home is a lot lower than the front end. When we close the door it is a little bit of a jam so you can tell that we are not level. Some how we have been able to sleep with it lower in back with out any trouble, but it does need to get leveled up. That means that we need to move all of our stuff that we have put out around the motor home away from it and then rearrange it all again. The other thing that needs to be done today is to hook up the 20 gallon propane tank and start using it and keep the propane in the motor home as a back up. Oh yeah, and those pesky dishes, there’s that 99 percent maintenance thing again.

Bentley spotted 3 deer across the street from us and he let them know that this was our place and that they better stay away from Mom’s flowers. He must have said something that they understood because they moved right along.

We had wonderful barbecue salmon dinner tonight. Yummy!!

Von

June 5, 2008, Thursday

Chores and more chores

Today was really cloudy and it rained a bit. I’m wondering when we are going to see some good weather? It seems that through the winter, even though we spent several months in Arizona, the weather has not been very good. Even in Arizona it was a cold winter for them. Now that we have been up here in Oregon since March we have only had a few sunny and warm days. It just has not been a very good weather year any where.

We piled in the car with the water jug and wood cutting tools and headed for Camp Sherman. We took our short cut that we have discovered towards the Camp Sherman Store. We saw those 3 deer that Bentley had told off yesterday again. We first stopped at Arlington Campground and filled the water jug and dumped our garbage in a dumpster. We then drove on to the Camp Sherman Store. At the Store Greg bought his fishing license and we picked up some coffee and snacks. Greg sat out on the porch of the Store and got on the Internet and emailed a couple of people. It was so cold out on the porch that Bentley and I sat in the car and read the Bend Bulletin paper. When Greg was thoroughly frozen he gave up on the Internet and we went to the Post Office that Camp Sherman has there. We found out that we can have our mail service send our mail General Delivery to Camp Sherman. While we were in the Post Office, Greg picked up a couple of used paperbacks that they had there. They have a little book exchange and we should take all of the books that we have read to them and add to their inventory.

When we left the Store we drove on out to Hwy 20 to leave a message with our mail service to send our mail to General Delivery at Camp Sherman. When we need to use the cell phone we need to drive out to the Hwy. We left a message with a couple of other people to let them know that we were thinking of them.

Now we needed to find some fire wood on the way back to our camp site. We drove a while and Greg spotted a limb that had fallen down along side of the road. We got out our saw and away Greg went sawing away at this limb. We got quite a few logs out of it until Greg wore himself out. Into the trunk of the car the logs went and we drove back to our ?homestead?.

While the sun was going down we were sitting in the motor home and I looked out and there in our site were those 3 deer again. I think they are trying to figure out how to get to my plants without us getting them. I think we are having a little game going on here.

We watched the Cloverfield movie that we had rented from the Camp Sherman Store earlier and that is a really scary movie. I enjoyed it a lot. I was glad that it wasn’t dark outside when we watched it or I would have been really scared. I can’t believe how dark it gets here at night without any city lights around.

Von

June 6, 2008, Friday

Rain, Rain go away by Von

Woke up and it is cloudy and patchy sunny spots again! I know that sun will come out some time in my life time, but not yet I guess.

It was rainy and drizzly all day today. The temperature never did get above 43 degrees all day. We had to turn our generator on to charge the batteries on the motor home it was so cloudy and rainy.

We drove in to Camp Sherman to return the movie Cloverfield and rented a couple more movies because it was such a cloudy, rainy day that movie watching was what was in order for the day. We rented The Kite Runner and The Day After Tomorrow. We then drove in to Sisters just to do a little touristy window shopping. We bought Rodeo tickets for the Sisters Rodeo on Saturday, June 15th afternoon. They are going to have a parade in the morning and then we will go to the rodeo that afternoon. What fun! The weather wasn’t too bad while we were in Sisters, but when we returned to our camp site it was raining still.

I guess this is where I say: ?That’s why it is so green here in Oregon.? I’m starting to yearn for the desert again. I’m really tired of the cold and rain. But then, everybody that reads my blogs probably already know that by now.

Von