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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Past and Present

Day one of our four day garage sale was underway today.  All went well and we actually sold things that I, seriously, didn't think would sell.  No accounting for people's taste.  But at least we can see the end of the road on Karl's aunt's house.  It's been a long time coming - almost two years, in fact.  The hard parts done - the sorting and tagging - and the rest is downhill from here.  We will do day two tomorrow and then again a weekend in August when we get back to WA.  After that things go to Goodwill or the (gasp!) dump.  Just a word of advice to children of parents that are getting up in years - start cleaning out their houses NOW!  You will thank yourselves later, trust me!  You would be surprised what parents will keep and not remember.  Anyway, that is the present.

As for the past - we were having lunch the other day with a friend of Karl's and we started to tell her of the horrible start of 2010 when I realized that I never really told my blog readers what was going on - starting in September of last year.  So I will entertain you of our wonderful times starting in 2009.

Most of my travel blog readers are also my Sadie blog readers so I won't really go into a lot of the details of the saga of Sadie which happened in mid January.  I will go back to the month of September 2009 as a preface to the "fun" we had at the beginning of 2010.

So in comes September 2009 and we are traveling from Colorado to NM where we were going to be for the months of Sep and Oct because we were having two couples coming over the beginning of Oct for the balloon fiesta.  I had been having stomach pains on and off for about 25 years , but never could find the source of it.  So I would just live with it.  Well as we were travelling to NM my pains were so bad one morning that I couldn't even get out of bed.  If you've ever ridden in a diesel motor home you know you really don't want to be in the back where the bedroom is while on the road because it is very noisy.  I was so sick at the time that I didn't care.  Finally after a few hours it stopped hurting and I could at least come up front with Karl, but was too weak to drive.  Get to NM and I am fine for a while.  I work through the small pain and get on with my life.  The first part of Oct our friends show up and I had planned a great week for them with plenty of things to do in and around Albuquerque including the balloon fiesta.  I ended up making 2/3 of them.  On top of the stomach pains I kept having nose bleeds.  I was having such "fun".  To give you the Reader's Digest version of this story, by the middle of December I was in the hospital getting a foot of my colon removed.  I was released on Christmas Eve and the doctor had the nerve to tell me that I couldn't travel for a while.  What?  NO WAY!  I had a grandbaby being born (at that time) the 12th of January and I HAD to get to Phoenix!  So he gave me permission to leave on the 10th of January with the strict instructions to Karl that he had to stop every 1-1 1/2 hours so that I could get out and walk for 5-10 minutes to stop the threat of blood clots.  No problem.  Got to Phoenix on the 13th and was there for Sadie's birth on the 19th.

Now the problem with our delay in leaving CA was that in the summer of 2009 while up at the farm in WA we did some great crabbing.  Got a lot of fresh Dungeness crabs and had some in the RV freezer for good eating.  We moved the RV over to NM to Phoenix in November because Karl's son-in-law was graduating from U of Phoenix and a baby shower was being thrown for Sadie.  We left the beginning of Nov with the RV staying at our RV lot in Phoenix plugged in and safe.  Or so we thought.  For those who don't know RV's, a short lesson on power.  An RV will run on either 12V power (a generator) or what we call shore power (plugged into an electrical outlet).  Everything in the RV will run off of either - EXCEPT the refrigerator.  That needs both 12V AND shore power.  And what happens when one doesn't work?  It drains all six of the house batteries and both of the engine batteries.  And what happens when the batteries die?  Everything SHUTS OFF!  Including the refrigerator.  And what happens when the refrigerator shuts off?  Everything DEFROSTS.  Have you ever smelled crab that has defrosted and sat in it's own crab juice in a warm freezer in a warm RV in a warm climate?  It ain't pretty, believe me. 

We arrived back at our RV in mid January and the freezer was out since, probably - we're not sure , since the end of November.  Karl opened the freezer door and dropped to his knees because of the smell.  It permeated the whole coach.  I tried everything anybody recommended on how to get rid of dead fish smell to a little bit of success.  It didn't get rid of it, but it made it tolerable to open the door for a few seconds without knocking you out.  The other problem was that our ice maker was in the same compartment.  If we left the ice in there it would pick up the odor and we would end up throwing it out.  Having a drink that smells like crab is not great.  We thought we could handle it, but then we got to thinking that we are traveling across Canada this summer and couldn't see living with the smell.  Plus if the freezer ever got warm again that smell would increase again.  So we decided to take it to the RV repair shop and get a new refrigerator.  We call that our $4600 accident.  On top of that, when we got to AZ in November and I tried to level the coach with the electric jacks, one of the jacks malfunctioned and wouldn't extend.  We call that our $1000 accident.  Then in the morning we started the engine to increase the air pressure in the air bags so that the coach wouldn't move so much since the jacks weren't down to stabilize it and the air bags wouldn't inflate.  Come to find out a rock was thrown up under the coach and punctured a hole in the air line.  We call that our $300 accident.  The total bill for all this?  $6400.  Oh well, that is the price you pay for having a home on wheels, I guess.

For those of you who have read my blog last year about the freeway cat, I hope you got as much  enjoyment out of this blog this year as well.  Notice that something major starts our travel year each time?  Makes me kinda wonder.

Monday, June 14, 2010

What do Scotsmen and Washingtonites have in common?

Some people like to toss phone poles -

Some people like to climb phone poles -


Either way, both like to play with wood! 

Since we've been in WA we have done nothing but the aunt's business - i.e. banking, garage sale, sale of farm, yard work, etc.  Saturday came and it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day.  Real sun and warm weather for a change.  So we decided to take a "fun" day and go to Deming and see the log show that they hold every year.  Basically it is a time for the loggers of the area (and some out of area) to come and compete in different  aspects of the logging industry.   Some of the competitions were axe throwing, pole climbing, log rolling (in water of course), iron man relay, stump chopping, two man saw and one man saw.  Then the most anticipated event was chainsaws that were attached to car engines!  It takes four men to move the thing!  Two men hold the saw and it takes about 1.2 seconds to cut through a medium size log.  Talk about testosterone!  I ended up with a sunburn (yeah) but had a great time being in the sunshine and watching men and WOMEN doing their thing with wood.

Now it is Monday and it is back to work.  Thank goodness the sun is shining and according to the weatherman it is supposed to stay nice and dry with sun and some clouds for the rest of the week.  We need to start sorting things for the garage sale this weekend.  Do you realize how much "stuff" will accumulate in a farmhouse occupied by a depression era baby that had lived there for over 40 years?  You don't really want to know.  Let's just say that it will take us about three complete days sorting, throwing out and marking for the sale.  I did put the large appliances on Craig's List to try and get rid of them before the sale and we did sell two of the four.  Now it's just small trinkets, dishes and other odds and ends.  It's going to be a looonnnggg week.  BUT the good thing is once this is done and the farm is sold we can come up here while the aunt is still alive and just enjoy ourselves.  Once she is gone we have decided not to come back here for quite a while.  No offense Pacific northwest people, but I hate it up here.

In about two weeks time we will be flying back to CA to get ready for our motorcycle trips that will take us close to 3000 miles of travel.  We are going to enjoy the 4th holiday up at Donner Lake again this year first.  Then we are home for about a week.  After that I fly to NY (a command performance from my mother) and Karl goes to his high school reunion.  When I return back home I will have only one day to get ready for the MC trip.  Phew!  July is going to fly by.



Thursday, June 10, 2010

Northwesterners are WIERD!

I know that the above title will get me in a lot of trouble, BUT my contention is that anyone who loves the rain (constantly) is nuts.  And if you live in the northwest you know that you are going to get rain - A LOT.  The reason I am ranting is that we arrived at the farm on Tues and it's been raining ever since.  Now I don't mind a little rain, but three days worth is a little much.  Of course residents here call it liquid sunshine.  Right.  So do the Hawaiians, but their liquid sunshine lasts maybe an hour and then there really is sunshine after!  Here it just stays gray and then more "liquid sunshine" starts.  Karl's aunt knows I hate the weather up here and she feels really bad that it's so lousy right now.  In fact I won't come up here in spring or autumn because of the weather.  But the weatherman says that it will become sunny tomorrow (I don't know if I trust them anymore).  So off my soggy, wet soapbox for now.

Like I said, we arrived on Tues and parked the MH at the farm until the beginning of September.  During this time our main goal is to try and sell the farm and all the "stuff" that has been accumulating in the house for over 40 years.  We were able to give a lot of things away to family that his aunt wanted to make sure stayed in the family.  But do you know how much stuff is in a 40 year old house that was occupied by a depression-era baby?  Believe me, it is stacked.  When we first started cleaning out (about a year ago) in the kitchen closet I found bags and bags full of bags and bags.  She never threw anything out.  You know the saying, "I may be able to use that sometime."  Needless to say we have been throwing a lot of stuff out.  Now it's down to trying and selling things that are sellable.

His aunt is very happy in her assisted living apartment and has no qualms about selling the farm.  Karl can't wait until it's gone because he's been working on it for about 25+ years and he is tired of it.  So soon we can come up here and just enjoy visiting his aunt instead of working.  That won't break my heart!