Playin' With the Jello

We can stay at Ponderosa Falls RV Park for fourteen nights without charge due to our membership at Neskowin Creek, part of the K/M Resort chain. However, that means we would have to move when our time is up. We wanted to stay somewhere close to Spokane as I need to fly from the Spokane airport to New York for a Board meeting on September 12th.

We looked at a couple of lake spots nearby, but the only one that looked like a good choice turned out to be for military only. We thought about Peaceful Pines in Cheney where we have stayed before. We could also stay where we are by paying their monthly rate of $400 (plus electricity!). The more we discussed it, the more we figured we really didn't want to have to move.

We went down the hill to the office today (they were closed over the weekend) to tell them what we had decided. There were three rigs lined up outside waiting to get into the park. And wouldn't you know that all of them were workers who were looking for that monthly rate. And there is only one woman in the office that deals with the monthly rentals. So we waited.

When it was finally our turn, she told us we would most likely have to move to another site as they probably had our site rented after our initial two weeks. We reminded her that when we came, she had checked and said that the site we were going to (Site 100) would be available for a month. If we had to move, we might as well move to another park... But she double-checked and said that was right and we would not have to move if we stayed.

Then she said that she didn't have time to do the paperwork! And would we come back down tomorrow to take care of it? We have to run into Spokane in the morning to get some lab work done, so we told her we'd stop by when we came back. We walked back up the hill to Auntie Violet and I took the broom to all of the pine needles that dropped during last night's storm on our patio rug.

Finally!

We waited all morning without a call saying the paperwork was ready. Finally, about one o'clock Forry called the banker. He said he hoped to have all the paperwork ready by three o'clock and would give us a call... About three-thirty he finally called and said he'd meet us at the branch in Cheney at four o'clock.

Mike was very apologetic when we got to the bank. I got the impression that he doesn't often take care of the paperwork details himself -- and I think he missed a few steps that he had to go back and correct. But, anyway, everything was done and we got all of the papers signed. (Someday, I just know that all of the documents, reports, nursing notes, etc. that I have signed in my lifetime are going to catch up with me and drown me in a sea of paper!)

I had a chance to chat with Niece Daphne in Virginia this afternoon. She said they had had an incredible amount of wind and rain, but other than some flickering, didn't lose their power during Hurricane Sandy's brush with their state. She said they had lots of broken branches dangling up in the trees. There are some big trees around the house she'd like to see taken down before they come down on the house.

All day the television has been showing some incredible scenes of the damages from the storm. Many were scenes from places we visited during our tour of the East Coast this past year. It's hard to imagine what it must be like for the people back there!

Minimalist?

When we were in town yesterday, both in Spokane and Cheney, I couldn't help but notice all of the Halloween decorations. There are some pretty elaborately decorated houses -- with lots of colored lights and carved pumpkins. When our kids were little, we carved faces in pumpkins and I made lots of costumes for them and later for the grandkids. But, I don't recall ever really doing a great deal of decorating.

Now that we live in a motorhome, I still do very little decorating. Over the years, Granddaughter Claire has sent us a few funky decorations that just stick on the windows. There's this one with several bats for Halloween.

And this year she sent this set of harvest pumpkins --

But those five pumpkins are the extent of our Halloween decorations. When the day passes, they'll go back between their sheets of plastic and into the file folder for another year. I guess I enjoy enjoying other peoples decorating efforts, but am perfectly content to be a minimalist in my own home.

It rained pretty hard again last night. There are a few small puddles on the ground, nothing major.

What a day today for sports. San Francisco won the World Series in a four game sweep and the Bull Riding National Finals event title was won for a third year in a row by the Brazilian Robson Palermo. Asteroid won the World Champion Bull title and Brazilian Silvano Alves became the first back-to-back World Champion in the history of the PBR (Professional Bull Riders).

Peaceful Pines RV Park

There's another thing that fulltime RVers always talk about -- it's the criteria for an RV Park. We usually say that if it's not right by a highway and if a railroad track isn't within a half mile or so, it isn't a REAL RV Park! If that's the criteria, Peaceful Pines definitely qualifies. The railroad track runs right behind the RV park. And it's a VERY busy railroad track -- we've counted at least one train every half hour or so. The only saving grace is that the trains blow their obligatory whistle a mile or so back as they go through the cross roads in the main part of Cheney.

The first time we were here (back in 2007), we were in the front of the park over by the highway. Since we were last here, they have added more large sites in the very back, which is where we are presently parked.

We spent most of the day today out in the Spokane Valley. I'm not ready to talk about what we were doing -- maybe that will be tomorrow's post.

Gelatin Plans & Old Age?

There's a saying among RVers about plans -- the idea is that they should only be made in gelatin as they seem to get changed so often. That's exactly what happened to us today. We had stayed last night at one of the Cummins NW's RV spaces as it had gotten late. We just didn't want to continue on down to the ranch.

Then this morning, we had a couple of errands to run in downtown Spokane. The folks at Cummins NW told us we were welcome to leave Auntie Violet there while we did our running around. So that's what we did. When we headed back, we discussed whether we really wanted to go down to the ranch today since we don't really need to be there until towards the end of next week. We talked about it a bit more than decided we would instead go to stay at an RV Park in Cheney where we had stayed back in 2007 when we first started full-timing.

Rather than hook up the Toad, I just followed Forry in Auntie Violet over to Peaceful Pines RV Park. By four PM, we were all settled in and just being lazy.

At a little before 7 PM, I got a phone call from friends wanting to know where we were and if we were on our way. I had totally spaced a dinner invitation! Of course, we were a good hour and a half away! I don't know when I've been so embarrassed and ashamed of myself...

I'd blame old age, but...