Some Days Are Just Harder Than Others

  The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.

That’s true.  Some days ARE just harder than others and Thursday was one of them.  It started off taking care of all the little mouths that come around here for a hand-out.  The three hummingbird feeders had to be cleaned and changed.  Next the squirrels were gathering around for their share.  Even a raccoon showed up.  Now he got shooed away.  Hopefully, no extra morsel for him.

Then, Mrs. Kitty, the feral cat who seems to have adopted us, brought her baby kittens to visit and get fed, of course.  We certainly enjoyed watching them running and playing.  However, I think she thinks she lives here now.  Oh oh.

Next Mrs. Deer brought her newborn twins to visit too.  They weren’t quite as playful as the kittens but they were there watching their mom get fed and trying to get fed too.  The babies are so cute.

Then, we forced ourselves to take the kayaks out on their maiden voyage.  Even though the day was a little cloudy, it was warm and the water was just like glass.  We had actually planned on going out much longer but had forgot to pick up an extra paddle for Sandi.  That meant we had to take turns.  Wait a minute … Terry and Sandi had to take turns.  I didn't want to take turns.  The new kayaks just glide through the water.  We're happy with our choice.

 

Since we didn’t paddle as long as we had thought we would, we decided to swim a few laps in the community pool. We had the whole pool to ourselves and that’s just the way we like it. I did discover I need a new swimsuit.  I just bought it a couple months ago but it doesn’t fit anymore since I’ve shrunk a tad.

Back at the cabin we removed the beef and the pork from the smoker. It was done and it was done perfectly. What we didn’t need for dinner was put in the freezer for another day.

That was it. I bet you can tell that it really was another hard day but it’s just what we like.  If we didn’t endure, someone else would have to.

‘Tis a good life on the road.

Whys of the “Do-Overs”

Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.

The Fourth of July is just around the corner.  Folks familiar with summer weather in the Pacific Northwest know that Independence Day usually marks the beginning of nice summer weather around these parts.  Summer comes later and usually hangs around a little later than what is normally considered “summer”.  It doesn’t look like this year is going to be much different than other years.  Temperatures are forecast to remain in the upper 80’s and 90’s for most of the week with no rain in the forecast.  Do I like that?  Not really.  I like the beautiful mid-70’s because there is no need for air conditioning and no need for heat.  I guess gone are the perfect, perfect days at  least for a while.

Since Rick asked, here are the whys of the “Do-Overs” on the kayaks.  When we bought our first kayaks, we went to all the big sporting good stores in the area to check out supply.  There wasn’t much difference in what one store had over another or what one store clerk knew over another.  I had remembered a kayaking event in the Caribbean where we had trouble keeping the kayak from turning over so I figured they might all be a little like that.  Perhaps, stability was important.  Well, it is but not so much as what I thought.  I had also been in a canoe.  A canoe takes a heck of a lot more effort to oar and get some place than a kayak takes with a paddle.

Check out the seat on this kayak – notice no thigh or knee pads.

We ended up buying kayaks with fairly flat bottoms, one layer polythene, no thigh pads and with  terribly uncomfortable seats.  We did buy some decent paddles though – good but not great -  Some of those paddles run upwards of $500!!!  I guess we just lucked out as ours come apart and can be set with the degree one prefers.  They also are curved to help us move across the water faster.  However, I'm also thinking maybe we should now do a little comparing with paddles.  After all, we really don't know what we could be missing.

We discovered there was a HUGE difference in kayaks after trying the ones Tammi and Robert bought.  We couldn’t believe the difference in the comfort level and ease of moving in their kayaks.  Since they had no interest in trading us, we had no choice but to replace ours with better ones.  I figured I wouldn’t be able to keep Terry interested in our new little sport if he didn’t have something much more comfortable.  I tried to talk him into a Sea Eagle to begin with and now am certainly glad that wasn’t his first experience.   However, I’d still like to try one of those out but I'm betting there is a huge difference.  There also is a difference when it comes to transporting. 

Check out the adjustable seats on the replacement kayaks. 

The shorter and wider the kayak the more you have to work to move it along the water.  Flatter bottom boats are more for recreational use and would be fantastic for fishing, photographing or hanging in one spot.   Some kayaks are designed to move faster and straighter across the water because they may have manual skegs or ones molded in. The kayaks we ended up with in our “do-over” were a little longer and a little narrower than the first ones for less paddle effort and straighter maneuverability.  They also had an adjustable air seat for comfort and were made of a much more durable material.  Plus they had great reviews.  Besides all of that …. my daughter told me that my kayak looked cheap.  Aargh!  Well, that’s not exactly how she worded it.  I actually made the comment in comparing my kayak to hers.  She just agreed.

	First kayaks  --  We're keeping them in our "family pool" of kayaks for a while.

There are actually kayaks for specific purposes. Some are constructed mainly for whitewater, some for flat water, others for touring and even more yet for sea going usage. Ours are kind of a crossover between flat water and touring. We’ll see how much we use these over the next year or so. Maybe this will be good enough or maybe it’ll just be another stepping stone.

Replacement kayaks --

 Hmmmm.  Wonder if we should think about replacement paddles?

 

Remember this air seat I posted the other day.  I bought it for kayak #1 because there was no padding on the seat and I certainly don't have the padding I used to have!  Besides that I bruised my tailbone last week and this seat has come in handy more places than just in a kayak.  Ever bruise a tailbone? 

The picture of Terry and I in the current header photo shows us in in Tammi's and Robert's kayaks. Not ours.  However, I am still color coordinated with my new one  ... kayak, PFD and paddle all match!  I knew you'd want to know that.

That's it ... that's all I know for now.  There you go, Rick.

‘Tis life on the road.

Do Overs – Change Is Always In The Air

“How come I have too many things to do all the time...??”

Sometimes it’s really difficult to blog. I just don’t understand how folks can find things to blog each and every day when they aren’t on the road traveling.  I guess you have to make it a priority. I have no problem blogging daily when we’re going places.  We may be busy during the day then but when the evening rolls around we usually have time to  write about the day’s activities and I want to remember where we’ve been and when.

One piece of really good news I have to share is that Jordan received a soccer scholarship.  That’s not just good news.  That’s great news!

We haven’t been moving from place to place for a bit now and what we’re doing is what other folks do from the time we get up in the morning to eating our meals, watching time fly and finally call it a day when it’s time to fall into the sack at night.   I don’t want to blog about that. Have we been busy?  You bet’cha we have.  We’ve been adding finishing touches to quite a few things plus we’ve been doing some do overs.

You know what “do overs” are.  They are the things you did to begin with and then you changed your mind and wished you had done it differently ... so you do.  Well, we’ve had plenty do overs in our life.  This time it’s mainly about kayaking.  Yep .. as you might expect.  We didn’t do it right the first time.

How would we know that every kayak isn’t the same?  How would we know that different kayaks are designed for different purposes?   Well, we didn’t.  Thus, we’ve had to revisit that first decision.  You know the one …. the one where we actually purchased them.  Now we’ve done do overs again.

Anyone want to buy a really stable kayak and one with fishing pole holders?  That’s right.  We don’t need it anymore.  We’ll eventually put this in Craigslist .. eventually.

The second time around I was going accumulate a few stats before we made another purchase. I do stats on spreadsheets for almost everything.  Microsoft Excel is perfect for all my charts, graphs and information gathering tasks.  We had narrowed our search down to two companies.  Our next kayak would be either a Wilderness or a Dagger.  Then, guess what?  Terry even found one of our top choices on Craigslist!  Actually, we found two identical ones on Craigslist but by the time we got to Portland only one was still available.  Shucks.  The one we found was so new in fact that it still had the tags on.  The savings?  Several hundred dollars.

Terry’s replacement

My replacement ended up being the same model as Terry’s except a different the color.  I drug my feet a lot more and weighed the differences before the decision.

Of course this meant more fixes to the Jeep, more hooks on the kayaks and so on.  Now that school is out Sandi has been staying with us.  Papa’s put her to work as the agility expert.  She’s been upside down in the kayaks helping install new rigging.  The good thing is she has relieved me from doing all that work!!  Thursday is the planned maiden voyage so everything has to be finished before then. 

Besides the do-overs, I’ve been swamped with emails and stats on my DNA stuff, Terry’s DNA stuff and both of my brothers’ DNA.  Chromosomes on new found relatives are also charted on Microsoft Excel.  What did we ever do without spreadsheets?  However am I going to find more time?  I have four more cousins who have submitted their DNA too.  

We’ll be back on the road --- well, kind of – on Monday.  We’re taking an R & R in the motorhome and I’m really looking forward to it.  We’re not going far but we’re going and the kayaks are going with us.  The plan is to fire up that smoker and start cooking some more meat to put in the refrigerator before we do.  We even bought a meat slicer to make sure it’s even sliced perfectly and easy to freeze.

We’re also thinking this winter will be all about being close to rivers, lakes or bays.  We definitely have some ideas in mind so may not go as far as we had originally thought we might.  Change is always in the air with us.

‘Tis life off the road.

Cousins and Other Visitors

One that would have the fruit must climb the tree.

It was time to fire that smoker back up.  We hadn’t been hanging around the cabin too much as we had other things on our mind so the smoker didn’t get the usage last week as it did the week before..  However, we had cousins  who were spending the day with us on Thursday so thought that might be a good day to get that smoker going again.  What did we decide to smoke?  Well, it’s been awfully hard for me to just smoke one item. We decided to do beef and salmon.  A meat slicer would certainly come in handy!

The weather on Thursday had originally been predicted to be another nice day with little rain.  We thought we might be out kayaking with them but that wasn’t to be.  Maybe it’s that Murphy’s Law thing.  I don’t know but the new prediction started off with a 20% chance of rain and I think we had 20%  of sunshine.

We had other visitors along with the cousins.  This nice buck stopped by for dinner. 

In addition to the buck a new neighbor, Mrs. Raccoon, decided to try to get the seed from the bird feeders and the corn from the squirrel feeders.  We weren’t too happy about that.

On Friday we picked up the other two bars for our Jeep rack.  Now it’s ready to go and finished.  However, I am rethinking my kayak purchase.  I thought they were all alike but not so.  Only time will tell what I do about that.

Another outing on Friday was at Taste of Asia, a local Chinese buffet, where steamed clams are a big attraction.  Well, the crab legs are too.  Both my brothers and Sandi joined us and certainly put a big dent in that restaurant’s seafood supply.  However, I didn’t eat  much.  Heck … I don’t eat much of anything anymore but must admit I did have a couple tastes.  It’s an amazing restaurant.  Eventually, I plan on going back and pigging out on the seafood there … eventually.

We are definitely ready to get on the road again and are talking about it.  Hopefully, this next week the motorhome will be prepared and we can head out after that.  We just need to pick a spot to go.  Only time will tell where and when.


‘Tis life on the road.

A Clothes Horse? Me?

 

Clothes make the man (or woman).  Naked people have little or no influence on society.

It was time.  Terry had been telling me it was time for a while now.  Over the last couple of months I’ve been making a tuck here and making a tuck there on clothes.  Then, instead of actually putting them away I put them in a tub because I knew I didn’t want to keep them but I also knew I might need to wear them over the next couple of months.  The option was to buy new clothes that fit.  I certainly didn’t want to do that until I was through with this “stupid” diet.  Speaking of diet …. I’m getting mighty tired of being on a diet.

Wednesday was the day. I was finally going to start a Goodwill pile.  Having just finished it I’m almost embarrassed to post how many articles of clothing made up that pile.  Why?  I have a friend (Linda) who posted a blog a while back about having less than 100 items in her motorhome?  Remember that article?  That was EVERYTHING.

Today’s toss is in the picture above.  There are 27 pairs of pants and 27 tops in that stack.  Now if the new clothes I eventually replace all of them with end up shrinking again, I'll still be glad I finally cleaned out the older ones.  I needed to do this a long, long time ago.

I didn’t throw away any vests and I didn’t throw away any jackets. I have plenty of those I like. Most were not so cheap so I might be able to have a few tailored. 

Will I tell you how many articles I have left?  Absolutely not.   The lucky thing is I did keep a few of the better items from pre-RV days so I am definitely not without. Next sort place … the motorhome but thank goodness I have very few items there.

With all the kayaking we’ve been doing, I have discovered something.  I no longer have all the padding I once had.  Thus, I desperately needed this:





‘Tis a lighter load on the road!

A Kayaking Fool

In every conceivable manner family is our link to the past and our bridge to the future.

It’s hard to believe that I just posted a blog Sunday morning and now I have several hundred more photos that have been taken on either my camera or my phone.  Just going through them takes forever and that isn’t even all.  They need to be sorted and edited.  I’m definitely overwhelmed with pictures to sort.  When you’re busy (I mean really, really busy) you just don’t have time to sort pictures.  Well, I guess I could just give up sleep.  Since I’ve already given up food, I’m not too keen on the idea of giving up sleep.

I mentioned on Sunday that we had planned a kayak outing for Father’s Day with Tammi, Robert, Mike and Sandi.  The plan was to have just ONE kayak outing.  We ended up visiting several different nice sites and we had to finally choose.  We couldn’t fit everything in one day. We discovered lots of nice places.  We also discovered a riverfront RV park  that is looking for a summer camp host.  Actually, that’s not quite right.  They are looking for a year-round camp host but would be more than willing to have one for just two or three months.  There’s not much work and a super site is offered in return.  Any interest?  

One place we stopped at was Elochoman Marina along the Columbia.  We debated about taking off from there. That route would have taken us next to a wild life refuge and some waterfalls.  We liked the area but decided to check out Skamakawa before we unloaded the kayaks.  Skamokawa is a very popular place for kayaks.  There are sloughs, rivers and a gorgeous sunny beach to enjoy in the area.  It was a perfect place to “waste” a few hours, kayak a bit and enjoy lunch.  That’s what we did.

That wasn’t the only place we went kayaking. After the 30 mile trek back into town we decided to try one more place. This time it was just Tammi, Robert and I. We went to the Upper Kalama River. It was an absolutely gorgeous spot. The only thing we did discover is that it is very, very difficult to go upstream over rapids … even if the rapids are very small. Yep, we learned that alright. Tammi had her little fishing pole with her. The water was clear and she was going to catch a fish …. or so she thought. She could see them swimming under her kayak but they just weren’t hungry enough to bite.

It was a fun day.  We spent lots of time on the water.  One of these days I’m going to get good at this… one of these days.

That was Sunday …… Monday wasn’t much different.  We had a few errands to run in the morning but the afternoon was clear.  It seems every place we drive from our little cabin is a long, long ways.  That’s the toll you pay for not being in the city.  We figure we fill up our gas tank at least every other day.  Ouch!!

About noon we showed up again with kayaks and a new location.  This time we decided to check out the Lower Kalama River and Lee was going with us.  The water was as crystal clear as the upper Kalama. It was a marvelous place to put the kayaks in and check out the river.  Just like the day before, we again discovered that rapids are difficult to go over unless going with the direction of the flow.  We got around these though and not by using our oars.  We beached the kayaks and walked around the rapids.  That worked for us!

It was another amazing day on the water.  I’m wondering how many calories I’ve burned over the last few days.  I can tell you one thing … it better be a lot because I can certainly feel it.

 

That’s it … it’s been busy and I’m thinking it’ll continue to be that way.  We already have plans filling in this week too.  Time to look at those pictures but I doubt I’m going to be doing much sorting tonight.

‘Tis life on the road.

It’s Graduation Time

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.

 

Just like all our days seem to be, we have been very busy.  It’s not that we’ve been kayaking.  However, that’s on the agenda for Sunday.  We’ve been busy being entertained by Jordie.  It’s graduation time!

Friday started the festivities with a barbecue at her house.  Her grandparents from Texas were there as well as her great grandparents from Colorado.  Graduation is a big deal and everyone was celebrating.

Of course, Jordie had to do the obligatory modeling for all of us while we took dozens of pictures.

It definitely was an evening all about Jordan even down to the cookie dessert.

Check out these heels ……….. this is what she had decided to wear to the graduation ceremony!   

The most important event was the graduation itself. 

Once it was over and Jordie had that diploma in her hands, her folks started celebrating!  Both their kids were now out of high school.    Justin was their first to graduate and Jordan was their last.  I’m sure they partied all night … well, at least until 10:00!  They’re not late nighters and I doubt that will change.

The next day was another celebration.  This one I had a little trouble controlling myself with the food.  The barbecue was easy because salmon was on the menu.  The lunch on Saturday was at a Chinese buffet with lots of seafood including all you can eat steamed clams  -- one of my very favorite foods.  Thank goodness that’s one of Jordie’s favorite foods too.  I’m dreading getting on the scale Sunday morning but my fingers are crossed the increase won’t be too much.

Later we had work to do to get ready for the next day’s kayak outing.  We are going kayaking on the Columbia River …..  Here’s Sandi helping Papa put some more riggings on my kayak.  She's hard to recognize in that postion.

Next we loaded the kayaks on the Jeep. (Thanks, Bonnie, for the hint!)

(Toni – check out your reserved RV spot. Of course, the cars won’t be there when you are)

It was a nice day.  We ended it with a little fire in the “fireplace”.

Jordan, Sabrina, her mother and her mother are working on a generation picture.  Here’s the start of this picture.  The next one would be the mother holding the picture and then of her mother.








Sunday’s another busy day …..




‘Tis life on the road.