But then sometimes the wandering life is less exciting. Sometimes we spend a couple of months working for a living in which case the blog is put aside. October and November turned out to be a couple of those months. It's hard to spend extra hours at the computer editing pictures and writing blog entries after writing code all day.
As those on Facebook may have heard there will soon be a new family member. I am using her impending arrival (due January 19th) for an excuse to knit. The soon-to-be parents are our son Jamie and daughter-in-law Catherine.
We were presented with this book back in June as an annoucement.
We relocated back to Oregon on September 21st. Our first night was at Farewell Bend State Recreation area on the Snake River north of Ontario. We had driven by the park before but never stayed there.
We had a pretty site overlooking the river.
Then onward for a few days and back to the Umatilla Marina RV Park. This will most likely continue to be an annual spot as we attend the Northwest Cardigan Fanciers regional specialty each year.
One of the best parts of staying here: the sunsets over the Columbia.
Another plus that we discovered by accident when visiting a local laundromat:
Fiesta Foods in Hermiston. For those like us who enjoy Hispanic cuisine this was a great find. I highly recommend the market.
Then over the border to Columbia Park in Richland Washington for the shows.
This is what dog show camping looks like.
GCH C-Myste Baledwr Free to Disagree HT
Pilot's old friend Dixie Rae took the end of his leash and was awarded Best Veteran in Sweepstakes.
You can see more show pictures here. Many Alice grandkids and great-grandkids were among the winners, as well as a couple of Huxley's grandkids.
After the show weekend we spent one more night back in Umatilla and this happened:
One year almost to the day from the previous failure our slide started making popping noises and not extending and retracting evenly. We opted to contact Thor and not to risk putting it out again until we could get it repaired. Tom says that it takes three sasquatches to put it in manually if it gets stuck out, and as I believe them to be mythical beasts I did not think it in our best interest to tempt fate.
We don't think that La Mesa RV did the greatest job on the repair last year. They didn't even put all of the screws back into the braces.
Several e-mails to the factory later and Thor was good to us. An appointment was scheduled with Carrier RV in Eugene for a repair and upgrade from a two-track to a three-track system at no charge to us. There was some time required to get the parts from Schwintek to Carrier and for the shop time to be scheduled so we lived another three weeks in a skinny house.
So we decided to hang around western Oregon for a while.
The Columbia River Gorge, heading west on I-84.
We spent a few days back at Portland Woodburn RV Park and then headed down to the Rogue Valley. This time rather than staying out at the stick house we opted for a lovely setting on the Rogue River at Valley of the Rogue State Park.
We enjoyed the beginning of fall colors though the park was very dry.
The dogs enjoyed being at Valley of the Rogue with its good walking trails.
Especially our number one river lover Dora.
The only detriments for walking: start thistle and goats head thistle (puncture vine). These did not make Huxley happy.
We had a good reason for our trip back to the Rogue Valley. We needed to see some puppies at Spyrock in Grants Pass!
The sire of is our breeding, and I co-own him with Trenton Sponsler in California. Morgan is Kady's nephew.
GCH C-Myste Baledwr SN Getting Away with It
The dam of the litter is Huxley's granddaughter Naveen so it was a family affair.
October 1st, the day before we left Woodburn for Southern Oregon was the day of the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg. Our return trip north led us through Roseburg just as President Obama's helicopter was landing for his visit on October 9th.
We were fortunate to get through just before traffic was stopped.
I'm not going off onto a political anti-gun rant here and now but I will say that many things about our current gun culture upset me.
Back to Woodburn and fall colors and the first days of morning fog. It was Jamie and Catherine who talked us into going back. You see the RV park is just behind the Woodburn Outlet Mall where we could meet and go baby shopping.
Sunset at the park.
Signs in the laundry room. Someone there understands dogs.
Signs in the laundry room. Someone there understands dogs.
After shopping we took an evening drive east in the Willamette Valley out to the town of Mt Angel.
Where we enjoyed a delicious German dinner at the Glockenspiel Restaurant. Side note: I played a real glockenspiel in high school marching band. That was many years ago.
I wonder if there are any old pictures around?
While in Woodburn waiting for the slide repair we decided to have the annual service done on the house's engine. We made an appointment at the nearest Freightliner shop. We used the day to visit a couple of Applied Solutions clients, returning in the early afternoon when it should have been time to pick it up. But guess what.
They were out of the correct fuel filter. Someone had to drive to Portland to pick up more. Then they got stuck in rush hour traffic.
The job that should have taken an hour or two had us in the shop for 10.5 hours. On the plus side, they gave us a substantial discount in hope of us giving them another chance next year.
We missed the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta this year, but did get to see one balloon while we were in Woodburn.
One afternoon we visited this store in Portland: Clever Cycles.
We had been trying to decide what to do about bicycles. We couldn't come up with an easy way to carry our Terratrikes: neither lifting them up to the top of the jeep nor putting them behind on a giant rack seemed like a viable option. They will remain in Molalla.
Instead, we now have two Brompton folding bikes. They fit easily into the jeep.
Finally it was time to take the house to Carrier RV in Eugene. We spent Sunday and Monday nights in their yard as our slide was repaired and a new (better) satellite dish was installed.
We had to leave during the day on Monday and Tuesday but were able to work at one of our client's places nearby: Norwest Safety. We appreciated their hospitality and repaid it with several weeks of program changes (see "working for a living" above).
Leaving the shop, we spent a couple of nights at Armitage Park (Lane County park) just north of Eugene.
Pretty sites, a trail along the McKenzie River and even an off leash dog park.
A huge off leash dog park.
Dora checks out the gate to the nature trail.
Huxley ad Kady exploring.
Leaving Eugene, a few more days at Valley of the Rogue. Switched some stuff in and out of storage, setup forwarding from the PO box.
Or at least we tried to set up forwarding. We have used a single PO box for both business and personal mail, but it was originally rented in the business name. The US Post Office in their infinite wisdom will forward the business mail to the new address but not the personal mail. Why? So we are laboriously changing our address one thing at a time.
And finally now we have flown south for the winter.
