Seeing Some Light?

We had a recommendation from Barb, the camp manager, to contact Larry's Mobile RV Service. He lives near here. He said he would stop by on his way back from a job in Royal City. It was so neat to find someone who knew exactly what our electrical problem was. The guy definitely seemed to know his business. He recommended that we go into Moses Lake and see his son Chris who runs C&C RV to see about getting the inverter replaced - or perhaps rebuilt. (He also refused to charge anything for making his diagnostic service call!)

We had been wanting to take the old portable dishwasher to the Moses Lake Transfer Recycling Station. So we loaded it up into the back of Toad II and headed for town. They have an interesting setup at the transfer station. You pull up on a long scale where your rig is weighed and you are given a numbered tag. The attendant directs you to an area where you drop off your load, then you come around to a scale on the other side, getting weighed again. You give your tag back to the lady and she tells you the charge. The minimum charge is $6 which is what we paid.

From the Transfer Station, we went back to the junction of Highway 17 and I-90 where Chris's shop is located. I had to chuckle. When I tiold him his Dad had sent us, he said, "what did he not want to deal with this time?!" When we asked about inverters, he right away asked if it was a Xantrex? He said he had several in stock AND volunteered to come out to the rig so that we wouldn't have to bring it into town. He said he was going to be pretty busy until after the Labor Day holiday. We're going to be in Spokane the first part of that week for our friend's birthday party and Forry's second cataract surgery, so we settled on him coming out on Thursday, the 8th. I guess we can live with our jury rigged system until then. At least it sounds like there is hope!

Quiet Day

The maintenance fellows came over this morning and installed a new 110 plug-in on the pedestal. While they were there they redid the 50 amp plug-in that had been installed upside down. They thought whoever had installed it in the first place ran short of wire. They figured he was probably too lazy, or too tired, to get more, so installed it the way the wire he had could reach..!

We enjoyed half of one of the yellow watermelons I got at the fruit stand the other day this afternoon. They are so juicy and sweet. Just the nice cold thing for a hot afternoon.

I cut up some cucumber, purple onion and little orange cherry tomatoes into a bowl of orzo pasta. With a lime juice, rice vinegar, garlic and avocado oil dressing, the salad went well with hamburger patties for supper - and there is some left for breakfast tomorrow.

The Electrical Saga Continues...

Forry has been plugging in and using the microwave without any difficulties, but evidently using it as an oven is more than our jerry-rigged electric cords could handle. I was going to bake orange rolls with some of Brother Pat's walnuts for breakfast, but preheating the oven blew the power...

So fresh pears for breakfast it was!

We went over to Mike's at the nearby golf course for supper. Forry had a cheeseburger while I had my usual BLT. I continue to have to ask that they use butter to make the toast, not mayo, but these guys are good about it. (Mayo belongs in salads, NOT sandwiches!)

We went over to the clubhouse to charge our phones and the iPads. I don't understand it, but during the hour we were there, three different guys came in, used the restroom and left. I can understand if you are at a park without sewer, but every site here has a sewer hookup! And one of the fellows said he lived in one of the mobile homes?!

An Evening Out

At what seems to have become an almost annual event, we went tonight to Kay and Dennis' house for BBQ dinner. The dinner was one they had bid for at an auction benefitting the Christian school in Moses Lake their grandsons attend. I didn't count, but there must have been twenty or more people there plus four young boys.

Some of the people there are ones we only see at this event, so it's always fun to catch up on what folks are doing, who's getting new grand babies, etc. the food was good and the company even better. It was fairly late when we got home, but we had a good time.

And Life Goes On

Life goes on no matter where you live. Today I got started on the laundry, Forry drained the tanks and put the cases of water and Pepsi we got the other day away in the shed. I moved the new dishwasher back into the corner where the old one had been. I had thought maybe I'd like it over on the edge, but I decided I missed that foot of counter space too much.

We drove over to the fruit stand, loading up on peaches, a few apples and melons. We really like the little yellow watermelons - so sweet! There are lots of semis with loads of apple boxes going up and down the roads as the early harvest begins. We also passed trucks with the large square bales of straw and some of hay.

The Mariners were playing the White Sox and Felix pitched a masterful game with Diaz finishing it off for him. Very nice!

I Meet the Ladies

With my hair still a bit damp from my shower, I walked over to the Clubhouse for the Thursday morning Ladies Coffee. It's my understanding that they meet there (the men meet over at Mike's at the same time) every Thursday morning about nine for coffee and just to chat. There were a dozen women there sitting around a double table. I introduced myself  and met most of them - though I'll never remember all the names. Though we've been here three weeks, this is the first Thursday morning I've been free.

Some of the ladies were long-timers, I think one of them said she had been here since 1999. A couple were getting ready to close up their mobile homes and head south for the winter. It sounded like a few of them sort of used the park as a home base while they traveled around to various time shares - I heard mention of Hawaii, Whistler and Idaho. It was just kinda nice to be around a group of women for a change.

The clubhouse is very nice. It's not real large, but it is one of the nicer ones I've been in. The usual kitchen, a library, nice sitting area with a large TV and several tables and chairs. The laundry facilities are in a small room off to the side.

Spokane -- AGAIN!

Ugh, Forry's appointment for the last left eye visit to the ophthalmologist was at 10:30, so we got a fairly early start this morning. The cataract surgery done on his left eye two weeks ago appears to be healing well. While we were at the Eye Clinic, Forry signed the consent forms for the surgery on his right eye which they will do on September 6th. Today we dropped one application of the eye drops and will only be doing them twice a day for the next week. After that they drop to once a day for one more week. At that point it will almost be time to start the eye drop routine for the right eye!

We were done at the Clinic a little after eleven. Since we had just been in Spokane on Monday, we had no further errands, so decided to just head home. We badly needed groceries, so stopped at Safeway in Moses Lake to shop and get gas as well. Since it had been a while, I needed quite a few staples. Which meant a lot of carrying stuff in and putting it away - not the favorite activity of either of us!

I did find the key to Lockbox 10A sitting on Auntie Violet's front step when we arrived home...

Columbia National Wildlife Refuge

We wanted to get a mailbox here at Desert Sun for things we might want to order while we are here. I called the manager to see what we had to do (there is a bank of locked mailboxes at the top end of the campground.). She said we'd need to go into the Post Office in Othello to fill out the paperwork. When we got to the Post Office, it turned out that if we didn't want to change our address by filling out a Change of Address form, we didn't need to do anything at the Post Office, just get a key to Box A10 from the manager. We definitely do not want to change our permanent mailing address in Mount Vernon! We did get a chance to meet Kelly who is the mail delivery person for the area. She told us there are over a hundred houses on that hill behind Mardon Resort.

On our way home, we went by the Headquarters Building of the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge and decided to stop in. We picked up a nice booklet with a map and a history of the geology and decided to drive through the Refuge. Although it was a washboardy gravel road, it took us through some incredible scenery. The basalt cliffs and seep lakes along the Crab Creek Coulee are incredibly gorgeous. The road brought us past Soda Lake and then out at O'Sullivan Dam. It is going to be fun to drive it again when the Fall bird migration begins. We both lamented that neither of us had brought our cameras.

Spokane Again

Life with Forry this summer means lots of trips to Spokane. Today it was the annual visit to Dr. Elmer, the pulmonologist who started him on a CPAP machine two years ago. His appointment wasn't until two, so we didn't have to leave terribly early. After a stop in Ritzville for gas tank fill up and Frappucinos, we still had time to stop by the Group Health pharmacy to pick up a couple of prescriptions.

Dr. Elmer's office is in the Fifth and Browne Medical Building that is slated to be torn down soon and replaced by a new 100 bed psychiatric hospital. You could tell staff was in a bit of a frenzy about it as they were already packing up for next week's move. The visit with Dr Elmer was a routine review of how Forry was sleeping that didn't take long at all.

From there we took a quick trip out to Apria Healthcare to pick up a new memory card for Forry's machine. We also ran out to RnR RV in Airway Heights to see if we could talk to someone in their Service Department about our electrical problem. But they are in the process of getting ready to move their operations out to a new site on Francis and no one was available to talk with us.

We thought about staying in town to take Son Sean out to dinner, but decided since it was only 4 o'clock, we should just head on home. We stopped in Moses Lake at the new Denny's for dinner and arrived home in time to listen to the Mariners game against the Yankees.

Tired Today

You can tell we're getting old. We just don't bounce back like we used to. After two late nights in a row, we just couldn't get going this morning. I thought about heading into Menno for church, but we definitely were not up in time.

The wind started blowing mid-morning. The winds since we've been here have been from the east, but these gusts came from the west. It has blown all day, sometimes in hard gusts that shake Auntie Violet. The big willow trees all around the property have been dancing - they look like they are possessed. Kind of remind me of the "Whomping Willow" in the Harry Potter books.

The clouds began moving in towards evening and made an absolutely gorgeous sunset. I put a couple of pictures up on my Facebook page. (I sure wish I could figure out how to add my iPad pictures to my blog...!)

Some of the sweet peppers I got the other day are flat and pumpkin shaped. They are a perfect size for stuffed peppers for us. We had those for dinner along with cucumber sticks and of course, peaches and ice cream for dessert.

Rodeo!

It's late and we just got home from another night at the Moses Lake Roundup. We sat with Brother Pat and Cindy AND our two handsome nephews, their ladies and our Great Niece Ellie and GNephew Ryan! It was a fun night.

We're home for a bowl of fresh peaches and ice cream and now it's definitely time for bed!

Veggies and the Rodeo

We took my now weekly trip over to Tonnemaker's Fruit Stand this morning. Forry came along as I wanted him to see all of the goodies they have. The peppers are coming on strong now - they must have at least fifteen varieties of sweet peppers and eight of the hot ones! I bought a mixed bag of the sweet ones. I want to make some stuffed peppers.

I also got lemon cucumbers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, some Big Boys and a few heirloom tomatoes. Then came some grapes, peaches and three kinds of melons. I ended up with two boxes of goodies - the melons took up a lot of room! I think we are set for a while.

This evening we went into Moses Lake for the Roundup. Our accountant had texted and invited us to come sit in his company, Clifton, Allen Larson, box. They were great seats - right above the calf chutes. It was a great place to watch the cowboys get ready. And it was good to spend a bit of time with Cle and Elizabeth as well.

Toes and a Lunch Date

I had been chatting with Niece Becky about the line of cosmetics she is now selling. Having used the same branch of cosmetics for over forty years, I was curious about hers, Rodan + Fields. She invited me over for lunch today to check it out. Her Mom Cindy came over as well, so we all had a chance to visit. The best time of my visit, however, was spending a bit of time with my Great Niece Kiera. She's gotten so big this summer - babies just grow up too fast!

Becky and David have a lovely home - with a huge yard. David has done some interesting landscaping and has even more "in process." They have a row of espaliered fruit trees along one side of the yard. I came home with both peaches and some Honey Crisp apples. Oh yeah, we tried the make-up as well. I'm going to give it a try. We'll see how it goes.

I had a few errands to run before I drove out to Becky's. I mailed the memory card from Forry's CPAP machine to Apria in preparation for next week's doctor visit, stopped by our accountant's, AND finally got a much needed pedicure! I now have pretty blue toe nails. I wasn't very impressed with the place I went to. There are a couple others in Moses Lake that I'll check out next time.

Toes and a Lunch Date

I had been chatting with Niece Becky about the line of cosmetics she is now selling. Having used the same branch of cosmetics for over forty years, I was curious about hers, Rodan + Fields. She invited me over for lunch today to check it out. Her Mom Cindy came over as well, so we all had a chance to visit. The best time of my visit, however, was spending a bit of time with my Great Niece Kiera. She's gotten so big this summer - babies just grow up too fast!

Becky and David have a lovely home - with a huge yard. David has done some interesting landscaping and has even more "in process." They have a row of espaliered fruit trees along one side of the yard. I came home with both peaches and some Honey Crisp apples. Oh yeah, we tried the make-up as well. I'm going to give it a try. We'll see how it goes.

I had a few errands to run before I drove out to Becky's. I mailed the memory card from Forry's CPAP machine to Apria in preparation for next week's doctor visit, stopped by our accountant's, AND finally got a much needed pedicure! I now have pretty blue toe nails. I wasn't very impressed with the place I went to. There are a couple others in Moses Lake that I'll check out next time.

That Man!

It was hot still when we went to bed last night. It was tolerable with windows  on both sides of the bedroom open and my lovely overhead fan turning. But early this morning, about 5 AM, it cooled off nicely. Enough that Forry got cold. But instead of reaching down to the bottom of the bed to pull up the sheet and blanket, he rolls over and tries to cuddle. And those cold hands immediately wake me up!

I reached down, covered him up, but in the process I got a nasty cramp deep in my left thigh. I get up and try, unsuccessfully, to walk it off. Darn, it hurts! By then, I was truly wide awake. So much for sleeping in after our busy day yesterday.

It was another very hot day today. The weatherman is forecasting a cold front coming through tomorrow and predicting high winds for the Columbia Basin. I certainly hope they are wrong about the winds.

To Spokane and Back

It was another "get up early" day. Forry had a follow up post- op checkup at his regular optometrist at Group Health at 9:30. Evidently, the doctor told him everything was looking good and normal for a week post surgery. Tomorrow, we drop down to two kinds of eye drops instead of three (the antibiotic one is done) and only have to do it three times per day instead of four.

After running some.errands out in the Valley, I found a Great Clips near by and we went and got haircuts. The last time Forry had his cut, the gal left it long on top and it's been getting in his eyes so he uses goop and combs it straight back, which I dislike. So this time, if anything, the gal cut it quite short on top. We'll have to see how it looks after he gets it washed again.

I have gotten very tired of having hair in my face. I've kept it clipped back, but... I decided today to have it cut shoulder length. She cut a good six inches off and did a little bit of layering. It feels good off my neck and surprisingly has a little wave in it.

We made one more stop at Hav's Western Store and bought Forry two new pairs of jeans and a half dozen new handkerchiefs. Pink and blue and red and two shades of purple.

We stopped for gas in Moses Lake and debated going out to eat, but decided to just come on home. I cut up some raw garden vegetables and fried some shrimp for supper.

It's Hot!

I was outside watering my two pots of flowers when I saw our across the road neighbor come outside. I hollered a "good morning" to her and she came over and introduced herself. she said her name was Zola, after her Grandmother Zoe.  A widow, she goes away to spend winters with one of her two daughters. Now I have met two of the ladies who live here, Zola and Barb.

It was another really hot day. I know today was entry day for the Grant County Fair. I bet it was a bit miserable for my great-nephews entering their garden produce.

I found some boneless chicken thighs in the freezer when I was thinking about what to make for supper. I had a small part of a bag of egg noodles left in the cupboard, so went ahead , chopped up an onion and some celery, and made chicken noodle soup for supper. Maybe not the best choice for a it day, but it was good.

Church and Mariners

We were up and organized and off to Menno by 8:45. That seems to be good timing as we pulled into Menno just about an hour later, a few minutes before church started. Church was pretty full this morning, many people are done harvesting and others are back from vacation.

We returned home just in time to turn the radio on to listen to the Mariners game. They won their rubber match against the Angels while Texas lost their game. That should move them up in the standings of the West Division  of the American League.

We tried to Skype with Granddaughter Havela and Ben and Kahlyn late this afternoon, but the connection was so bad we finally gave up. We did find out the heavy rains in Illinois had stopped. Ben said that a big tree was hit by lightening not 300 feet from where they were sandbagging. He said it was pretty scary.

I used the last of the peaches I got the other day from Tonnemaker's sliced with ice cream tonight. So good!

Quiet Day

It was another quiet hot day. We turned the A/C on about noon and pretty much stayed inside. We got showers and did a bit of cleanup - not that the bathroom needed it or anything! I finally figured out that it is Saturday. Somewhere this week, I have lost a day! Must have been our stay in Spokane with Forry's eye surgery...

I cooked some orzo pasta and made a salad for tomorrow with lemon cucumbers, red onions and little orange cherry tomatoes. If nothing else, it's colorful. I made a dressing for it with lime juice and avocado oil. Should be good nice and cold.

Forry did go outside long enough to bring in some water and Pepsi to put in the refrigerator. It seems to be working well storing the cases in the storage shed. It certainly makes more room inside the RV.

Tonnemoker's Fruit Stand

I drove over to Tonnemakers Fruit Stand this afternoon to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. I got some corn, cucumbers, tomatoes (regular and heirloom and some orange cherry ones), a couple of peppers, three kinds of peaches and three different melons. I think we'll eat good for a while. I took some of the peaches over to Barb, the campground manager, as payback for the potatoes and onions she had given us. I ended up staying and visiting with her for over an hour. She's led an interesting life and is fun to talk with.

Meanwhile, while I was gone, the electrician came back. He replaced the GFI he thought was bad, but said he didn't really know why we had no electricity in any of the outlets and recommended we take the rig up to Spokane to have it worked on...

So we are still without power in the outlets. We have been using a heavy extension cord plugged into the outside pedestal and threaded through a window. It ran Forry's CPAP last night and I was able to charge the phones and my iPad. Forry even figured out how to plug in the microwave for his breakfast sandwich this morning - and the coffee pot!

We continue the three kinds of eye drops four times per day. His eye is no longer dilated and looks really normal. He says he can see well with it, so that's good.

Power Troubles

Our power problem did not magically disappear while we were in Spokane. We still have no power in any of the outlets. Fortunately, the main coach things are working - therefore the refrigerator/freezer and the air conditioner all work. We did some more checking over possibilities we thought of while we were gone, but couldn't get it working. Finally, I found a Mobile RV Repair service in Moses Lake with a Google search. Gene said he was on a job in Ephrata, but would come over when he was done - probably in the late afternoon. He finally got here about five and started checking things out. He was sure it might be a GFI somewhere in the coach. The Ground Fault Interrupters "pop" out when something shorts or sparks. He's also thinking the inverter may have gotten wet during our little flood which happened about the same time frame that we lost power... He's going to research it tonight and be back early in the morning.

In the meantime, we had our first company today. Pastor Yoder and his family came by for a visit. Shawna took the kids over to the state park while we visited with Pastor. When she came back, we took the kids on a tour of the RV and then shared some of Forry's Popsicles with them. It was a fun visit. We aren't around children that much any more and it always tickles me how curious they always are about our "house."

Back to Desert Sun

We were a little slow getting going this morning. We had to be at the Eye Clinic at 8:30 for Forry's post-op eye check. We got everything packed, checked out of Madison Inn and made it on time. Dr. Ranson said the eye looked "very good" and sent us on our way.

We had a couple of hours to kill until Forry's follow-up appointment for his hearing aids, so I went ahead and drove out Sprague to a McDonalds. We ate breakfast there and used their internet to read the morning news, then went to Costco. Since Forry's been wearing hearing aids for many years, he didn't really have any questions for the tech about his new ones, so that was a quick visit as well.

By the time we got back to Ritzville, it was time for the next round of eye drops. So we stopped at Starbucks, got ourselves frappacinos and went to the City Park. Ritzville has a lovely small park with lots of mature trees. When I was a very little girl, my parents lived right across the street from the park. I can remember when the big trees were cut down and these now mature trees were planted.  Hmm, gives you a clue to how ancient I'm getting...

Since we were in the neighborhood, we drove around by Al and Marge's house (we were curious to see if they were going to sell it as they recently have re-located to Monroe House in Moses Lake.) Bill happened to be working in the yard and when we stopped to visit, he invited us in. His Sister Sally was there with their folks, helping them sort. We had a nice unexpected visit with Marge. The house they live in was one of the few in the neighborhood that was there when I was a child.

Then on our way out of town, we saw Gary, one of Forry's high school classmates, sitting on his front porch. So we stopped and visited with him a bit as well. What a pleasant afternoon we had before we headed on out to Desert Sun and home.

Big, Busy Day

We showered last night so that we could get an early start this morning. We were up at 5:30, downstairs for breakfast a few minutes after six, and out the door by 6:30 in order to be at Spokane Eye Clinic by Forry's scheduled time of 6:45 for his cataract surgery. We paid the $200 co-pay, then waited a few minutes before they called him back to the surgery area. I got some coffee and settled in with my iPad to wait.

A couple of hours later, they called me back and I found him sitting in the surgery chair, with a patch on his left eye, sipping a cup of coffee. We got a new set of instructions, some tape for a night shield, some dark glasses and a schedule of eye drops for the next four weeks. We drove back to Madison Inn and spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon resting and watching the Olympics on TV.

My former colleague and friend Helen sent me a message saying she had an appointment at the Eye Clinic at one. Since she was going to have her eyes dilated, Jerry was coming along to drive her home. They stopped at Starbucks, picked up frappacinos and stopped by for a visit. What a treat! We sat in the lobby, enjoying our drinks and chatting for over an hour! It was so good to see them and have a nice visit.

After they left, it was finally five o'clock and we could take Forry's eye patch off and re-start the eye drop routine. Only now, it was three different drops instead of two. With a five minute wait between each one, it takes a good fifteen minutes each time. He's supposed to get three doses in today before bed, then tomorrow we'll go to a four times a day schedule.

Back to Spokane

If it could go wrong today, it did. The counter-top dishwasher we bought several years ago as been acting up. Usually, I have been able to jolly it along and get it to work. But today it totally rebelled and started leaking water all over the place. I was doing laundry at the time and I thought the washer/dryer had sprung a leak. Thank goodness, that wasn't the case at least.

Then we lost power on the driver's side of the coach. One of the maintenance guys came over to make sure it wasn't something at the pedestal. We checked everything out, checking fuses and breakers, but didn't find the problem. We finally just had to let it go as we needed to leave for Spokane.

Forry has an early appointment tomorrow morning at the Spokane Eye Clinic to have his first cataract  removed. We started his eye drop regimen today. We had made reservations at the Madison Inn in Spokane for tonight and tomorrow night as they have incredible discounts for people with medical procedures scheduled.

We went down to Frank's Diner for dinner. We were waiting for our dinners when when of my former colleagues from the AHEC came in with her family. So neat to see Kaarin and her girls. They were celebrating her hubby Derrick's birthday with a "breakfast" dinner.

Sunday Rest

I growled at the alarm when it went off this morning. I was NOT ready to get up! (One of the disadvantages of not being a morning person...) But, if we were going to get to Menno in time for church, we had to get up and get going. A quick breakfast, hair comb and we were off.

We wanted to see how much time we needed to allow to get from here to Menno. It took us exactly fifty-five minutes. So, I think we are going to have to allow at least an hour and fifteen minutes, to give ourselves a little leeway in case something goes wrong.

The Mariners played at one this afternoon and we were home to watch the game. They won again today, sweeping the Angels and moving up to second place in the Western division. I managed to stay awake long enough to watch the game, then gave in and took a two hour nap.

After I got myself somewhat awake (napping makes me groggy), I took my new hose and nozzle out and washed down the little storage shed and the cement patio. The block patio is going to need some work to get rid of the dry weeds and fix the drainage. By the time I was done, I had managed to splatter myself almost as much as the shed.

A Very Different Day

It was really smokey today. I saw on Facebook where the Grant County Sheriff had ordered an evacuation of Smyrna, west of us thirty miles or so. The fire is burning up into the Saddle Mountains.

I had just changed into my "more respectable" clothes as we were getting ready to head into town when there was a knock at the door. Jose', with his Wash and Wax business cards, had to talked with us when we were at the Pier 4 RV Resort in Moses Lake a few weeks ago. He had asked about washing and waxing Auntie Violet at that time, but I told him we wanted to wait and get it done after we moved to Desert Sun in August. Well, it's August, we are at Desert Sun, and he was ready to get to work!

So, instead of heading for town, we closed all the windows, turned on the A/C, and Jose' went to work! He used the kind of Wash and Wax product that we used to use back in the days when we did the job ourselves. It's a big difference from the crew in Arizona that actually use a buffable wax. But, Auntie Violet looks nice - and her windows are nice and clean again. Jose' did the whole job by himself in just a few hours. He's a really hard worker. Then he went ahead and did Toad II as well. And when he left, he told me to be sure and call him when the car needed washing again!

Much later than we had planned, we headed for Moses Lake. Our first stop was at Skaug's True Value hardware when we purchased an extra short hose and a nozzle so I can have enough hose to wash the patio and water my flowers. They didn't have any heated hoses or heat tapes out yet - said they wouldn't be getting them out until late September. As I was coming out the door, I saw my Sister-in-law Cindy, who was shopping in the garden section. Kinda nice to have a quick unplanned visit!

Next was the grocery store. I think I badly need an attitude adjustment about grocery shopping! It really tires me out - and I find myself getting cranky by the time I'm done. I was in line behind Stan at the check-stand. Quite a switch from Arizona where I didn't know anyone! (I think I've seen someone I know every time I've gone to the grocery store here!)

Cranes?

It was nice this morning. It was already getting warm when we got up. I took my cup of coffee outside to enjoy the nice breeze. Forry soon joined me and we were just chatting and enjoying the morning when a large flock of birds flew over. My first thought was geese, but hey weren't honking and they were white with black trailing edges on their wings. There must have been over a hundred of them!

We quickly went for our binos, trying to identify them. They climbed high, then sort of swarmed around each other, making large circles high in the sky. Through the binos, we could clearly see the black wing edges and the long legs trailing behind them as they flew. We had never seen birds act in this manner. We got the bird books and decided they were definitely cranes, but what kind? There are large groups of Sandhill Cranes around here (Othello even has a Sandhill Crane Festival.), but these birds were bright white, not tan. Could they be Whooping Cranes? They sure looked like it, but they're not supposed to be in this part of the country...

We did a bit more work outside, putting stuff away from the car. I straightened out the metal peacock from MM which had gotten a bit bent down in Arizona and Forry found a spot for it on the edge of the patio. We looked for the hose nozzle we were sure was in one of the basement bays, but never did find it. I'm sure it will show up as soon as we buy a replacement...

Bills!

Forry slept in this morning, but I was up early. It's that time of the month again and I used the quiet early morning time to go on-line and get the bills paid. I do like Billpay at our credit union. I am able to check statements on-line and take care of getting stuff paid. It's amazing how much faster I can get it done when Forry's not around...

We did some work outside this afternoon, emptying out some of the stuff from in back of Toad II. It was nice to set up our lawn chairs and the little table out on our patio area. I hung our silver plate wind chimes from Autie Violet's mirrors and set out the "gossiping crows" and the metal javelina we got in Arizona last winter.

I tried to organize some of the stuff we keep in the car: the bagful of old blankets, the jumper cables, the bag of bungee cables (though we threw out a bunch of old rotten ones), the seat cushions for baseball games, etc. Forry still has two air compressors, a couple of fire extinguishers, a case of oil for the RV and some other miscellaneous stuff back there.

I'm afraid my whirling peacock from the girls has seen better days and may have to be retired. It's taken quite a beating from the sun and the wind.

Settling In

We are gradually starting to get settled in a bit. Forry spent some time sweeping all the leaves out of the storage shed. He came back in looking for something to spray spiders. Seems like one corner has quite a population of them.

My two new pots of plants took quite a beating from the wind yesterday. I guess I should have moved them inside. The hyacinth had a pretty purple double pot that disappeared somewhere with the wind. There was no sign of it this morning.

At least the wind was quiet today. It sounds like it did a number on the fires yesterday. It's pretty scary to hear about all the evacuations.

WIND!

It was nice when we woke up this morning - a bit cooler after a very hot night. Then the wind started to blow. And blow! And blow!

The storm was supposed to come through tomorrow. I hope it was just early, and we won't be getting another one tomorrow...

I mentioned that we were backed into the very back of the site so that we could get to the electrical stand without hitting our slide-outs. Well, it turned out that the hard wind and that big willow tree were not a good thing for poor Auntie Violet. Forry had a chat with the manager and soon there were two fellows here doing some tree trimming. They took a whole branch off! But now, the tree branches aren't beating up on the RV.

This morning we took a quick run into Moses Lake to the post office to pick up the box of mail Daughter MM had sent over. We got our ballots for the Primary Election, sat in the car in front of the post office and voted. Then I took them back into the PO and got them mailed! Fastest turnaround ever!

We came back home the long way, taking I90 to Dodson Road, then up the Frenchman Hills Road to Tonnemoker's Fruit Stand. As Jeff had told us, it truly is a gem. I ended up with three kinds of tomatoes, some peaches, cucumbers and summer squash. All in a delightfully landscaped yard. There were roses there that would have made my mother proud!

Movin' Day

Today was again Movin' Day. Maybe the last one for a while. I went ahead and paid for a three month stay...

We didn't do much prep yesterday, and we didn't get a very early start this morning, so it was a bit after noon when we pulled out of Ponderosa Falls today. We needed diesel, so went back towards Spokane to the Flying J near the Geiger Exit. This is an older station - only two truck lines and you have to go inside to get the pump turned on. The cashier looked at my discount card with some surprise and said that was one she didn't see very often. She was very sweet when I went back in to get the receipt and said she wished they would get more RVs there. It's just a little too far out of the way for most.

It was a pretty quick trip down to Moses Lake. I was actually surprised when Forry slowed to turn off the freeway, heading for Road M. (Grant County roads are all letters of the alphabet  - or double letters - the way they handled naming all the new roads that came in with irrigation in the fifties.) We drove to the end, then turned on Hwy 206 and went across the dam, driving along the Potholes Reservoir. The Desert Sun RV Park is a mile or so past Mardon Resort. You drive through a small community of mobile homes, then into the park.

Our site was waiting for us. The actual gravel parking area is a bit narrow and we jockeyed a bit to keep our coach wheels off of the patio and to avoid the electrical box with our slide-outs. We are backed pretty far into the site, to avoid a long run for the sewer hose. Our rear end is right up against the big willow tree behind us.

Due to our late start, it was late afternoon when we were setting up, right in the heat of the day. It was hot! My first act was to run a hose over to the little patio to water my plants that had had a hot ride down in the car - and hadn't been watered this morning as I didn't want them dripping water in the Toad.

When we checked in, we ended up coming home with sweet corn, new potatoes and some red onions. (Sounds like the manager has a connection with a local gardener as she offered us veggies when we toured the park a couple of weeks ago as well.) Add that to the ham I had in the freezer and we had a nice supper.