Nine years!!!!!!

Nine years ago today we drove away from our jobs, a stick home, our friends and our family to join the full time RV'er lifestyle.  We have no regrets whatsoever!  Note:  Juanita has missed seeing the grandkids grow up however......

Our friends and family members were all busy leading their own lives, our jobs were a big pain in the butt and our stick home was an anchor.  Now, we travel when the urge arises, or stick around in places we enjoy for as long as we like.

The first four years were like an extended vacation...we moved around a lot.  For various reasons, the past five years have been much more relaxed.  Although we haven't made any plans to plant ourselves in any specific location at this point, we enjoy spending long periods of time in special places.

Two travelers in a very special place indeed!

Places we have visited over the years of travel have been spectacular beyond belief...the life long friends that we have made during this journey have been the icing on the cake.

I can't even list the huge number of friends that we have made over the years but should note a few that were special during this time.  Jim and Jan were the first full timers that we met on the road at City Of Rocks State Park in New Mexico.  We formed an instant and close bond with Roger and Pat at the McCall RV Resort in Idaho during the early summer of 2006.

RV classmates of 2006, Barb and Dave took us on our first geocaching adventure in Arizona in January of 2007.  We will never forget that excursion and these two intrepid travelers.   Mike and Sandy introduced us to warm (if not for a "rare" snowstorm) Texas hospitality, Will and Karen let two strangers camp next to their big red barn in Illinois and became great long term friends and Ed and Marilyn were good neighbors in Texas and hosted many afternoon sessions of laughter and companionship.

Dave and Toni keep us laughing, Steve and Karen have been awesome hosts (with beagle benefits) in both Idaho and Arizona, RV park owners Tim and Cindy are almost family in Oregon and Harry and Gayanne have become Oregon fishing buddies.

Canadians Wolfgang and Christine have forged with us a long lasting cross-border friendship, Steven and Linda add to our photographic and culinary interests and we took special pleasure in following friends Paul and Mary from their full time beginnings to current some-of-the-time RV adventures.  And who could forget our dear friend Randy...he introduced us to "The Red Green Show" and keeps his stick on the ice to this day.

Because this blog entry is already getting out of hand, I have left many fine people off the list.  I will probably be severely excoriated for doing so.  All of you, however, are not and never will be forgotten.

I need to mention that we have met dozens of people in the virtual travel world of the Internet.  Although we have laid eyes on only a few of you over the years, we value the friendship of our journal and blog readers more than you will ever know.

We realize that this journey will end sometime but have made no specific plans for that eventuality.  New places and more friends lie ahead.  After all, we live on wheels!

Ready for some fishing!

Since my last entry I hauled myself down to the local hardware store to pick up an annual Oregon fishing license.  It is a bit pricy for non-residents at $106, but I usually catch enough fish to justify the cost during our time in the state.

I joined my local friend Harry on his boat for a quiet morning fishing trip to nearby Bradley Lake.  Bradley is only a 30 acre body of water, but it contains a good population of trout and bass.  The small lake is completely surrounded by private property and can only be accessed for fishermen by boat.

Fishing for the first hour was very slow and we tried trolling at different depths to attract a fish or two to our lines.  My friend Jim landed the first trout.  It was the usual size for recently planted fish at about 8" in length.

Soon after that my pole nearly bent double and line began to sing as it pulled rapidly from the spool.  Since I was using only light tackle, I played the fish very carefully and it was obvious that I had something very special on the line.

It took about 10 minutes to land the fish, which turned out to be the largest rainbow trout that I have caught for a long time.  The fish weighed just over 6# and looked like a small salmon.  My gentle handling of the fish was justified when the lure easily fell from the trouts jaws immediately after being netted.  Now, that is luck!

Nice fish!!

I put the fish in brine last night and will smoke it this morning after a couple of hours on the drying rack.  The fillets look like salmon and I can't wait to see how it all turned out.

The fillets look like salmon

We caught more of the smaller trout before leaving the lake in early afternoon.  It was most certainly a good result for my first fishing expedition of 2015. 

The western sky gave the appearance of an excellent sunset in development on Thursday evening, so we drove to Paradise Point beach with the hounds...and my Gopro camera of course.  The potential of a spectacular sunset was fulfilled and I spent the remainder of the evening putting together another video on YouTube.

After I complete the process of smoking the fish today, Juanita will put together a smoked meat loaf for this evenings pot luck dinner at the RV park.  The theme of the pot luck is "meat loaf madness", and I'm sure there will be several tasty dishes on hand.  It's good that we have two smoker/BBQ's to handle all of our outdoor cooking activities.

I still need to get my Nikon out for some photo exercise soon.  I know, I keep promising and never deliver....................................

Looks like spring...feels like spring

Days since Juanita's return from her quilting retreat have been extraordinarily busy.  The weather has been perfect for all sorts of activities, many of them outdoors in the warm sunlight.

J had a fantastic time at her get away from the husband days in Gold Beach.  She made new friends, learned a few new quilting tricks and started a new project.  Since her return she has been working on a neat "quilted" jacket, which is really a reverse appliqué.  I'll try to talk her into putting a photo of the completed project on the blog.

I smoked nearly three pounds of beef jerky with mesquite wood on Monday after a thirteen hour soaking in a home made Kentucky Bourbon marinade.  The results were completely over the top and I put several more pounds in marinade this evening.  I will spend much of tomorrow smoking the beef for about four or five hours per batch.

I have already given away half of the first smoking and I'm sure that the aroma around our rolling home will draw park residents like flies tomorrow.  Oh well, I'll just keep making the stuff.

We drove up to Bandon this morning to pick up more wood cooking pellets, coffee beans from a local  roaster and some groceries.  I took my Gopro Hero 4 camera along for the ride and took about 40 minutes of video around the boardwalk and port area.  I spent about four hours this afternoon putting together the following video.

Good weather is in the forecast until the middle of next week, so I hope we can get out for more outdoor action.  I haven't taken the still camera out for a while.  Maybe it's time...................