May 29th

We made it back from the dunes in one piece.  We are both doing great, and working on getting things ready for our Alaska trip.  Right now we are spending time at our son's house.  Our storage trailer is here so it makes it nice to be able to get things out and store stuff too.
The last couple of days I have been busy getting a few things fixed here in the coach or should I say  making them better.  First and foremost clean the out side of the rig and getting rid of some of that road grim.  Then we put a cover over the bathroom vent to help protect the vent.  Then with the two dogs I put some Plexiglas on the bottom half of the screen door to keep the dogs from jumping up on the screen and braking them down.  Not bad, getting my list worked down.  Next was to get the RZR cleaned up real good before parking it at Janice & Jeff's place for the next 3 months in their garage. This way when we come bach in late August it will be ready for the trip down to the desert.  Lets see getting things done.
Work on the truck is almost done,  Had new rear heavy duty shocks installed by Les Schwab, its nice when you get the life time warranty on shocks it never cost anything to have them replaces when bad.  I am thinking about having air bags added also, if everything goes right I should have them here from Amazon by Monday.  The first ones I ordered were prefect for the truck, except if you have a Reese 5th-wheel hitch then you needed this other one.  Again I am happy that I order things through Amazon, when things are not right they take care of them ASAP.
Tomorrow, we are going to finish moving stuff into the rig for the caravan trip.  Then we are meeting some old friends at our favorite Chinese restaurant here on South Hill Puyallup.  It is amazing how many of our friends want to meet when we are in town for just a few days. We will do our best but can't keep everyone happy.
Sunday more packing so that we can head out Monday with a few stops along our way to Great Falls, MT.  Hope we get to see everyone along the way, if not maybe next time.

May 24th

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Weekend and remembering what this Holiday weekend is all about.  Being a Veteran I know what it was like coming home during the Vietnam War and not getting the treatment that we deserved for fighting for our country.  Now day's the US people, I fell know what this weekend is all about and treat our Veteran's with a lot more respect now days.  It is great to be able to stand up now and say yes I am a Veteran and proud of it!!!!!
 Well this weekend we are spending some time with our daughter playing here in Coos Bay, OR.  Yesterday and today have been some great rides and I am starting to feel what old can do to you,  I hurt all over after out there riding hard, but it was well worth it.  Here are a few pictures of the area that we are riding in and watching the kids and there son ride with friend that also came down.

We had 7 quads and 4 RZR's in our group,

Look out here they come, after finally getting them all together.  The weather was good and the wind is blowing a little to help keep the sand smooth.

 Here our grandson and his best friend are hill climbing.

Jared's mom showing him the right way to climb the hills!!!!

We stopped to have some water and make sure everyone is still all with us and we seen some big sand rails heading by us.  There are a lot of these running around here this weekend.  What is nice with all the people down here and the size of this area we are riding in is not really that crowded.

I think this view of the bridge going into North Bend has got to be one of my best!!!

The boys are having fun racing around this small sand pond, it should be gone by the last part of August.

Every once in a while some one has to see how deep these ponds are, well this guy found out that it was just a little bit deeper is this spot.  I hate to say this but it happens to be one of the guys that are in our group and he found a nice deep hole in the middle.

Yep, with the wind blowing the water is cold.

Here his wife is pulling him out.  After drained the air box of water, and the water out of the exhaust pipe.  This Honda started right up with very little problems.  After all of the water blew out of the exhaust pipe, it ran just fine, Honda are great bikes.

After all of the hard riding today and the adults are pooped the kids can still play.  Here they are burying our grandson, I am glad he is not sleeping in our coach.

The two boys are getting along pretty good now.  They play together all the time now but Turbo is the alpha dog and keeps Spike in his place.  One more day of riding and we head back to the Tacoma area before we head out to Alaska.

May 22nd

We have been proud owners of our new coach now for a month, and you ask why is that so important to us.  We made the first payment and boy they did it before I even got on line this morning to check it.  We both like this coach so I think we will keep this one for a while.  Going to Alaska this summer will be interesting when we park this zip code as the kids call it. So far we have had no problems getting it in where we want it.
After taking our time at getting up this morning we head out about 11:00 AM, which is late for me on a move day.  I like to leave by 8:00 AM so that we can get to the park early and set up and relax, at least I do anyway.  But today was going to be a slow drive from Seaside to Coos Bay on 101.  It wasn't to bad, I remember it being rougher then what it was this time.  We had a great drive and no problems.
We had planned on staying at the Mill Casino in there dry camping area, but to our surprise now they want $15.00 a night for dry camping.  I looked at her and said you are kidding.  We were planning on going over and playing a little bit and eating dinner, but scenic you want $15.00 we are going back to our friends place were it is dry camping and no charge for one night. So if you are planning on going through Coos Bay and want a place to dry camp take the Mill Casino off your list for free night of dry camping.
Tomorrow morning we will head down to the Box Car Campground and get ready to play for the weekend.  Now to sit back and enjoy one more night  before the kids get here.

May 18th

Do you remember where you were 35 years ago.  Cyndy and I were down at Ocean City, WA digging razor clams.  We need to run to the store and that is when we found out that Mount St. Helen had blew its top.  Everyone were saying that Washington was going to be covered in ASH from the mountain.  So we went back to camp told everyone what had happened and headed for home, hoping we would make it back to Puyallup.  We were the lucky ones, no ash any where in the northwest part of the state.  The people that were in eastern Washington got most if not all of the blunt from the mountain's eruption.  Today it still has a eerie felling when we go up to Windy Ridge to look into the mountain, the trees that were blow down still lay as it had just happened.  The natural reseeding of the forest has began and it is starting to grow back.  Don 't miss this park when you are in the area.
Today we moved from Long Beach to Seaside, just about 40 miles, but it was an easy move.  We got a great spot here at the Thousand Trails Park.  We went out for a light dinner of clam chowder at Mo's, we ordered the family bowl so we have another meal for tomorrow or the next day.
Tomorrow we are heading to Fred Meyers and Costco to start buying food for the Caravan.  It is a little bit cheaper here in Oregon (no taxes), so we will pick up some of the things that will last for a while.  We have a nice size freezer, so we can keep it a little bit longer.  We are going to pick up the chicken for the dinner in "Chicken Alaska", and then cook it and freeze it.  Canada has a rule we can not bring any raw poultry into Canada unless it is cooked.  Other than that we are getting ready for this weekends playing in the sand.

May 16th

We have been doing a lot of work lately getting ready for our trip to Alaska.  We are the wagon-masters for this trip and looking forward to it.  Cyndy has been busy getting the meals planned and getting everything in order for what we will be doing.  Now you wonder what I have been doing.  Looking over calender, roster's and wagon master log to make sure we have time for everything that we are planning on doing.  Cyndy has some great meals planned so now all I have to do is find out when I need to cook what she wants for that day.  We are having fun getting this stuff done.  We both feed off of each other planning these things and we are still both smiling at each other.
The last few days we have been spending some time with our friends Brian & Rita.  We only have a couple of days left here and it will be a while before we see them again.  We enjoy visiting with them and Cyndy and Rita have been friends forever, like back in 5th grade.  That is a long friendship. It was fun watching the dogs play.

Spike and Gabby have been playing hard the last few times we have been over to their house.

It is fun watching them run from one end of the house to the other end. I know when our puppies get home all they want to do is lay around and sleep.  Turbo even gets in on some of it.

Today we went down to the Farmers market in Ilwaco.  We got some fresh veggies and looked at all the people walking around.  We meet Brian & Rita their with their Daughter Josie and had fun talking and just walking around.  Brian talked to a guy about going out bottom fishing but we will be in Coos Bay when thay want to go fishing so I am out.  Besides the sand sounds like more fun.  Tomorrow we might go over to Astoria for their Farmers Market, that is still up in the air if we get more stuff done tonight.  Well it is time to get back to our trip to Alaska, more later.

May 14th

What a great day, the sun is out, and it isn't raining.  The last couple of days we have been busy finishing hanging some more pictures and make sure we have things where we like them.  Well at least for right now, tomorrow we may move the stuff again.  Both of us are really felling good about this coach.  It is very homey and conformable for us, we can't ask for much more.
We are looking at replacing the 4 blinds up in the bed room with the dark MCD blinds that we have in the rest of the coach.  The bedroom has those according type blinds that do not keep out the light.  They are a little pricey but are made in America and look good.
Did some work around the outside today, the main reason was Cyndy was inside cleaning and I wanted to be out of the way.  The best thing for that is to be outside.  So I check all the tires pressure on the coach and re-torqued all the lug nu
ts on the coach.  They didn't move so they must be tight, I set the torque wrench at 115.  Then it was on to the truck.  The pressure on them were all down about 5 to 10 pounds.  I need to renumber to check them at least once every month instead of every other month.  Tires are good on everything, serviced the truck last week so we are ready to head out for Alaska.  All we have to do is head home and pick up a few things and drop of the RZR.  Looking forward to the trip to Alaska.
Today we went over to AAMCO and picked up the check from the damages they did when replacing the power steering pump.  I didn't think they would come through but they did and I am very happy for them stepping up to and fixing the problem.  If you are ever in Astoria, OR and need some work done on your vehicle look up the AAMCO dealer at the north end of town, they stand behind there work.
I think tomorrow will be one of those days that I will become a geek and do some backing up of both computers and get them running a little bit faster.

We are looking forward to getting this banner for us to hang on our rig while out camping.

May 11th

Mother's Day was a lazy Sunday for us, I fixed Cyndy breakfast, and then we walked the digs and went for a short ride, just to see how the other world was doing.  Stopped by McDonald's for ice cream sundae and cone for me.  After that we headed back to the preserve and did just about nothing.  I fixed her dinner so Cyndy was pampered just like she should be.
The other day I had done some work under to front storage and opened it up a little so that we could use the space under there.  While I was installing the surge protector I found this space and went we need to use this. It would be a good spot to put things we don't use a lot like Christmas stuff maybe.

There used to be a plywood front all the way across here, but now I opened it up for more storage.

It adds about 3 square feet of more storage space, Good place to hide Christmas stuff, which is only used once a year.
This morning we were going to go to breakfast with Brian & Rita at Laurie’s Homestead Breakfast House,  Well Rita was under the weather so it was just Cyndy & I that went and it is a great place to have a good breakfast that sticks with you.  

I had a my usual Ham & Cheese Omelet with hash-browns and English muffin.  It was great and they even put a slice of a candy apple on the plant too.  I haven't had one of those in a long time.
Cyndy had Hot Chocolate -------

 The look on her face was out of this world when she set it down in front of here, and yes that is real whip cream!!!!

Cyndy also had a 1/2 order of Biscuit and Gravy, I would of hate to see what a full order looks like.  She only finished about half of it and was full.  She asked our waitress if they have a 1/4 order of biscuit & gravy.  The lady just smiled and said sorry no!!!! 
We had to make a run over to Warrenton to find a UPS Story so I could send back Cyndy's ice shaver that we got for her bullet.  We used it once and the rubber gears were destroyed.  After that we stopped by Jo Ann for some fabric for the new rearview screen that we got with the coach to watch the stuff in the garage and what is behind the coach.  We need some kind of protection for it when it is not in use.
Well a week from today we move over to Seaside for just about a week before heading down to meet up with the kids at Coos Bay for a weekend of riding!!!!

May 9th

First of I would like to wish all the MOM's out there a very Happy Mothers Day!!!
Today we took our time getting moving this morning, retirement is a rough life.  After having breakfast and walking the dog's we headed out for Ilwaco to see what is going on at the Farmers Market.  There was not much fresh food but we did find some asparagus that was a good price, it was good with dinner tonight.

 There was a lot of artist showing there wears, and some food vendors also.  What I couldn't help noticing was how empty the boat basin was.

  In another month this place should be hopping with more fishing boats.  We priced the crabs and they are up to over $10.00 a pound now.  I still have shrimp in the freezer, so I will skip the crab for now.  After walking around the water front here we headed out for our favorite place to get sea food, Oysterville. It is on the Willabay Bay side of Long Beach.  One of the things that make this place so interesting is the old homes that are here.

 This is the oldest chruch on the peninsula.  Here are some of the homes you can see here.

 They keep these homes looking so good.

While we are here we might as well get a couple of pounds of butter clams, they are so good.  They will go good with the asparagus we bought earlier today. They have Oysters also but today we are just getting the butter clams.  I want to let you know they were good for dinner tonight.

On our way back Spike is getting along with us real good.

Spike and Turbo each like looking out the window while we are heading down the road.

After a rough day the pup's are dog tired, and take advantage of Cyndy.  Well time to finish this so I can finish watching the rain delayed race tonight, GO KANE!!!!

May 8th

What a beautiful day we had today, woke up to clear sky's and warm weather.  The only problem here at the Longbeach TTN is when it is warm and no wind, the mosquitoes seem to find you very quickly.  But before you knew it the wind starts to blow a little and those little devils disappeared.
Spike and Turbo are getting along real good, Turbo knows he is the boss and Spike just follows him around peeing on everything that Turbo pees on.  We were wondering if Spikes barker was removed because he had not barked yet.  Well today while over at Brian & Rita's he was outside and started barking at the neighbors dogs.  It was funny watching him, every time he barked his hole body jumped.
While over at Brian & Rita's today she wanted me to try and get the pictures off her old computer, because it is about to die. So after about an hour of fighting with it I finally got all the pictures copied to a CD for her.  Now it is time to see if I can save it.  Now this laptop is almost 10 years old.  First I tried to hook up to the wireless router. For some reason I could find the router but still not able to get out to the internet.  Brian's computer hooks up with no problem and I even got our phones to hook up to it also.  They had taken it to a computer geek (which I am not or even try to be) and he said the hard drive is about to die.  He then tried to get them to buy a new laptop.  My though is (and this is what I said) Buy a new laptop and use this one for a boat anchor, Rita wasn't to happy with my thoughts, even when I called it a stupid computer.  She said, am I calling her stupid and I said no, just the computer.
While at Brian & Rita's today Brian asked if we would like to go out for prime rib dinner tonight.  He also said it was a good price, $11.00 per pound.  Lets do it, were are we going to eat at, he said we will eat here, but we have to go up to Thriftway's Deli. He said it is good and we have to be their before 4:30 or it will all be gone by 5:00.  So at 4:00 we headed up to the store here in Ocean Park.  We were the first in line and by 4:30 there was at least 15 people waiting in line.  They have specials everyday.  So for $15.00 I got a nice big piece of prime rib and a nice big order of baby red potato's.  This fed both Cyndy and I with nothing left over, what a great meal.
We got back to the coach and both of the dogs are sleeping,  They played hard with Brian & Rita's dogs.  It looks like Spike is going to work out real good in this family.  Tomorrow we are going down to Ilwaco for there farmers market.

May 7th

Every once in a while we all have something happen to us that just fry's my patience and today it happened again.  How offend do we go to professionals and expect them to do the job we pay for.  Well today, was one of those times. We took the truck to the Ford Dealership in Astoria, OR to have the truck serviced.  Now when I take the truck in for servicing I expect to get the oil changed number one.  Then there is checking the rest of the fluids and topping them off if any of them are low.  In my day servicing also meet getting a grease gun and greasing all the fitting that are on the vehicle.  Well today after they so called serviced  my truck, I do my regular check, oil OK, fluids look OK, what do you mean no greasing done on grease fitting.  Now I am a little up set, no really up set.  This is the second time in a row that this has happened in the last two services that I have had done by Ford Dealerships.  Why can't people do there job!!!
OK on to better things, I have burned that bridge to long all ready.  Today we went to pick up Spike!!!  He is something else.  Him and Turbo are getting along pretty good.  When we take them out for a walk one pees then the other one is right behind peeing in the same spot.  He is still a little skittish but getting better.  as you can see.

We picked up a bed for him from the shelter and Spike has taken it over as his bed. We got some pain med's for him so he doesn't hurt you know where.  He seems to be getting along with us.

 They are both just laying around and getting some well deserved rest.

May 6th

Yesterday we went out for a ride and ended up at a Animal Control & Shelter.  Now you ask why would we do something like that?  Lately when ever we go to our friends Brian & Rita's Turbo and there new dog just play and play.  So we though maybe Turbo needs a brother of sister to have as a companion.  The first dog that we picked, I should say we are looking for another Chihuahua. Anyway the first dog was not very social with Turbo.  We were about to leave when they brought this little guy out.

He is just 9 months older than Turbo and a little bit smaller and they got along pretty good.  So after holding him for a while we went what the hell one more can't be that hard.  So we filled out the papers and paid a small fee and he is ours as soon as he gets NURTURED, yep lose his manly hood!!!   We will pick him up tomorrow and bring him home with us.

Turbo is being Turbo laying around and sleeping and taking us up on our laps anytime he can.  All I have to say is Turbo you need to go out and he beats me to the door.
We did our final cabinet or should I say pantry going through today.  Everything is some what organized the best we can for now.  We are both real happy with the way this coach is turning out.
Went down and got my clam digging licence today.  It has been over 7 years but I am going to give it a try tomorrow.  The next 4 days there is clam digging tides here at Longbeach and I might as well try and get a few.

May 4th

We would like to say Happy Anniversary to US!!!!
It has been 41 years together through thick and thin, rough and smooth times, along with ups and downs.  We have been blessed with two wonderful kids, a great son in-law and a great daughter in-law, and 5 super grandchildren.   It has been fun this last 7 plus years traveling all over this great land that we call the United States.  I think the best part is Cyndy & I are really loving the life style we have chosen to see this country of ours.
Anyway I wanted to take Cyndy out to our favorite place to eat while out here on the coast.

 This picture was taken out the window that we are sitting in front of.  Let me show you one more picture and I bet you can guess where we are at.

If you look behind us that is the Hay Stack Rocks in Cannon Beach, and yes we are at Mo's!!!!  We both enjoy the food from here.

Our favorite is clam chowder, but I think I make a little bit better clam chowder though.  Yes, and we had shrimp cocktail too.  We had a great dinner and really enjoyed ourselves.  Now time to head back across the bridge to Seaview, but fist we might as well stop and pick up a few things we need from Fred's as long as we are in Oregon (no TAX's).  We got back home just before the storm that is coming in started to dump some rain.  I hope it is just a light rain.  Tomorrow I don't know what we will do, but we will find something to do even if it is wrong.

May 2nd

Today was a busy day of working on our new coach.  First off I need to eat breakfast before a hard day of work.  At least that is my reason for eating a big breakfast.  Now that breakfast is over, it is time to get busy on the surge protector installation.
First I have to empty the storage bay so I can get to the compartment where I will be installing the surge protector.  After looking at what tools I would need I went in to start taking it a part.  Wait a minute got to disconnect the power first, so crawl out and do that now.  OK that is one trip in and out, do I have everything before heading under their one more time.  After about 30 minutes of taking things apart and putting them back together I crawled out and went and turn the power on.  The breaker didn't pop, so must of did something right.  Yep, another good job if I say so myself.  Now all I have to do is cut down some wood to make the storage area a little bit bigger in the storage compartment.  I don't know why they didn't use that space but we will.  I figure the Christmas stuff can be but in there.
Now on to the next project, as you may remember we had just got a new mattress that both of us just love.  So when we got this rig it had a king size bed in it, they took that mattress out and put ours in.  The only problem is the plywood frame is a little bigger than our mattress.  So time to cut it down, with Cyndy's help we got that project done with know problems.  Cyndy cleaned up all the dust and I took the tools back out.
Two down and one to go, we ordered a new cabinet to put the printer in.  With Cyndy's help we put it together in just over and hour.  Looks pretty good and the printer even fits in it.

The color matches the rig really good, this will work real good for our printer and computer stuff.

As you can see the printer fits real good.  The both of us are beat and just looking forward to sitting back and relaxing tonight.  Tomorrow we might go out Geocaching for something different to do.

May 1st

We have been having some great weather here in Longbeach.  Cyndy and I have been very busy getting use to the new coach.  She has been busy going through cabinets and looking at what we have and more stuff is going out.  She is doing a great job.  I have been busy putting up a couple of towel hangers in the bathroom.  I have also been staying out of Cyndy;s hair when she is emptying cabinets and reloading them.  A lot safer for me, but there when she needs me.
Yesterday with the sun out Turbo even wanted to be out of the rig when Cyndy was busy.

I got this picture of him soaking up the sun shine.

I got that look from him, what are you doing?  I was busy out side getting some things done, don't know what but it must of been importance.
About 3:00 PM yesterday I asked Cyndy with the sun out so nice you want to go for a ride in the RZR.  We can head down the beach and kind of enjoy the sun shine and sights.

 As you can see the sun was out but it was still a little cool.  Cyndy is all bundled up!!!!

Oh you want a picture of me, how is this, I am looking at you now.  The beach was great and not to many cars out on it.  We are hoping to make a few more trips out in the weeks to come.

We seen a few eagles as we drove up and back on the beach.

Turbo likes sitting up on the couch and enjoying the sun that comes through the windows.  This is our sun dog.
Tomorrow I will install the surge protector that I took out of the other coach.  I took a good look at it the other day and it should be about an hour or two job.  Depending on how many trips in and out of the compartment I make.  Cyndy will be busy working on her kitchen.  Turbo will be enjoy the sun if he can find a place to lay and stay out of every ones way.