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.

Runnin' Around

Today was a day of running errands. When Auntie Violet had her oil changed last week at Cummins NW we discovered we were short one gallon of oil. Forry likes to use Schaeffer Oil (which he gets in Moses Lake) in his vehicles and had brought a case of six gallons to the appointment with him. He didn't realize she needed seven gallons!

Acting on a hunch that maybe there might be somewhere in Spokane to pick up the needed gallon, Forry called his dealer in Moses Lake and found out that the Napa stores were now carrying Schaeffer products. We went out to the store on Freya and sure enough they had the oil we needed --

Our next stop was at the new Camping World store in Liberty Lake. The picture murals on the lower windows are new since we were there last week. Forry needed to check with them about the tow bar set-up we had ordered for the new Suzuki (of course, the one that we had for the Liberty doesn't fit...).

Next we went to Home Depot where we purchased some 1 1/2 inch pipe to use to put up the new antenna at the ranch. It comes in 10 foot lengths. We had them cut two of them into five foot lengths and then put new threads on the ends so that we can couple them all together. We thought the five foot sections would be easier to handle when putting them up and down -- as well as hauling them.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon, so we stopped at a nearby Dairy Queen and got shrimp baskets for supper. But we needed to have Blizzards as well. We got back to Peaceful Pines RV Park just as the sun was setting. What a gorgeous sight!

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...