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...................

While the cat's away...........

.......the mice will play.  And this mouse has been playing!

Juanita is enjoying day three of her quilters retreat in Gold Beach while I keep the home fires burning.  I decided that staying out of the public eye was not for me and have avoided becoming an old recluse in my little box at the RV park.

So, with cameras in one hand and two dog leashes in another, I have become a rather common sight around Port Orford.  And, until today, the weather has cooperated quite nicely with warm sunny days and very little wind.

After about six hours of work on the computer, I documented one of my local journeys on You Tube. The effort wasn't problem free, however, with one Beagle going left behind me and another going to the right in front of me and, in the process, wrapping my legs with two leashes while I tried to record the hike.

Port Orford Heads State Park is located on the headlands just west of downtown.  The small park has several miles of well maintained trails with a good number of spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean. The Port Orford Lifeboat Station Museum and Interpretive Center is also located on the property.  It is closed in winter but opens again in April.

I enjoyed the quiet walk in the park yesterday and especially appreciated the fact that I wasn't on public display when my two loyal hounds took me to the ground when I wasn't paying attention to their twisting and turning.

Juanita will be ready for pick up in Gold Beach late this afternoon and we will celebrate her return to the pack with a dinner at Sunset Family Pizza before returning to Port Orford.  She has a just completed a quilt to show of in a future blog entry....................

Already making plans for next winter

We have had another fantastic week on the Oregon coast.  Skiers and east state farmers are not at all happy with the continuation of the dry weather, but I'm sure more moisture will soak the area before the rainy season ends.

Because we snoozed and missed out on making late spring and early summer reservations for a park (or two) in Idaho, we decided to get our act together and make early plans for next winter's destination in Arizona.  It's good that we planned ahead.   The park we chose in Tucson fills most spaces with returning visitors and has very few large lots available for first timers.

After a lot of research, we decided to spend the four month period from December 1 to April 1 at Desert Trails RV Park just west of Tucson.  The park has a very unique layout that twists around the landscape of an old defunct water park.  Most open sites were either too small for our equipment or difficult to access.  The space we selected is marked on the Google Earth snapshot below.

We have previously visited eight different locations in Arizona but have never stayed in the Tucson area.  Lots of special and interesting places are located nearby and we are looking forward to seeing new sights during our three month stay.

I wasn't able to take my aerial photo platform to new locations this week and failed to make videos or photos that I would be proud of showing off on the blog.  Sorry about that!

Juanita has been the more productive person in our little family unit this week.  She has nearly completed a quilt for one of the park residents and will begin a new project when she goes on a three day quilting retreat in Gold Beach this week.  Too many people will be keeping an eye on me and I might not be able to get in any trouble.  Oh well.

I'll see what I can do to get past the park spies and report on any nefarious activities next week...maybe.

Spring has sprung?

I realize that our good friends and family in the upper Midwest and Northeast part of the country won't appreciate my brag much, but it appears that spring has sprung on the south Oregon coast.  There is a little rain in the distant forecast but, for now at least, we can see only sunny mild days ahead.

Juanita treated me to a fine Valentine's Day breakfast this morning...or maybe it was the other way around and I treated her.  Regardless, she paid for an excellent meal at Port Orford's Tasty Kate's.  The chicken fried steak was tasty for sure and, considering the fact that I am on a diet, will be the last meal of the day.

We took our furry friends to Bullard's Beach State Park near Bandon a couple of days ago and documented our beach walk with a short video.  I am still experimenting with the Gopro Hero 4 camera, but 31 minutes of video had enough decent content to construct a 3 minute plus addition to my YouTube channel.

While I have gone on a major league reading binge on my Kindle, Juanita has continued a heavy duty schedule of quilting.  She is near completion of one project and has several more on the books for future efforts.  She has also signed up for a three day quilting retreat in Gold Beach, Oregon for the middle of next week.  She is a brave woman and can't imagine the destruction that the two Beagles and I can cause during her three day absence.

I have already completed one of two self assigned duties today...the holding tanks are clean and ready for another week of waste gathering.  After repairing the seal on the dining room window,  I will be allowed to enjoy the balance of the day.  Photo opportunities are calling out my name.......................

Life under a waterfall

Not that we're complaining, mind you, but it seems like we have been living under a waterfall this week.  A seemingly endless series of fairly warm Pacific storms has dumped nearly 8" of rain on Port Orford with another inch or two on the way through tomorrow.

Because our two hounds require a good amount of outdoor time each day, my trusty Carhartt rain jacket has gotten quite a workout...as have my boots and soggy body.  My dear wife drys the beagles with old towels, leaving me to wetly rot away on my own.  Oh, the life of a geezer is tough!

Late yesterday afternoon a brief break in the storms provided a good opportunity for a dry dog walk around the RV park.  I took the Gopro Hero 4 camera along for the brief excursion and put together a short video to document the event afterwards.

We have been making plans for spring travel and have finally settled on Long Beach, Washington as our destination from May to mid July.  Our attempts at getting reservations at a couple of Idaho locations were thwarted by hoards of campers that made plans on January 2.  I guess that makes us a day late and a dollar short.

Regardless, we are looking forward to spending a couple of months with the beach about 50 yards from our front door and Juanita can't wait to drop some cash at Boardwalk Quilts in town.  Hopefully, a few low wind velocity days will allow some aerial video opportunities at the many scenic locations in the Long Beach area.  If not, I guess I can always go out and fly a kite.

Juanita and I have both been trying to shed a few pounds since late December with some success.  I don't want to bore you with specific accomplishments in this regard, but I can say that I have lost the equivalence of a bowling ball at this point with, hopefully, a lot more to come.  Juanita is also doing well but not stressing over the process.

Since my bride will soon celebrate (or not) reaching the golden age of 65 years, she has begun the frustrating process of setting up supplemental medical insurance and Part D Medicare coverage.  I already went through this process several years ago, giving Juanita the benefit of my extensive research on the subject.  That didn't prevent her from spending several frustrating and confusing hours on the phone with insurance agents however.  Such is life!

It looks like the river of atmospheric water will shut down tomorrow and allow us to dry out and enjoy some time outdoors.  I have all my cameras and flying machines ready to go......................