On the Road Again

January 15, 2007

We did get out of Steilacoom at 5 p.m. on Saturday and made it to the rest stop south of Portland. We fully expected a full house, but we were able to score our favorite site alongside a curb at the very back of the area. It is a great place to stop with Cooper, and he is now a happy camper to be on the road and away from the princess, Skyla. But he is never fully convinced that we aren’t going to go off and leave him someplace, so he spends most of the day on the sofa with his eyes only half closed until he can’t stay awake any longer.

Yesterday was a long day, and it began with Ken bounding out of bed at 5:30 am because he was concerned about getting through the Siskiyous before dark. We were under way by 6:30, made it through southern Oregon and northern California without incident and stayed last night at Rolling Hills Casino inear Corning. We made the mistake of going inside to eat, and it was somewhere between bad and terrible. The best part of my meal was the dinner roll and a piece of lemon meringue pie.

We have blue sky and sunshine this morning and have enjoyed looking at the thousands of snow geese that are wintering alongside the interstate in the rice fields. And just a mile down the road we came across a huge gathering of Canadian geese. A blue heron and a bunch of white egrets round out our morning’s quarry.

Craig, Cassie and Greta came for dinner on Friday night and to let Greta have yet another gift encounter. I think this is about number four by the time you count all her family. Ketih and Janet gave her a Gund puppy that she promptly named Peach and fashioned a leash for her from the ribbon from another gift – the Kon-nex (sp) toy that came from the Idaho Kirkwoods. Greta had made several creations with that before the evening was over.

The Baltimore Kirkwoods gave Ken satellite radio for Christmas, and we are thoroughly enjoying it. Between no commercials and constant reception, it is a delight. But then we managed to blow out one of the front speakers so there is a shopping project after we get to Arizona. I missed my Sunday night entertainment (Brothers and Sisters) because we were dry camping so I will have to see if I can resurrect it on the ABC website.

We aren’t sure how far we will get today; Bakersfield is too soon to stop, but the choices are far and few between after that. We doubt we will be in Casa Grande until sometime on Wednesday. In the meantime, we continue rolling down the road.

It is now Tuesday late afternoon, and we have decided to make a run for Casa Grande. Last night found us dry camping at Edwards AFB so we took advantage of the commissary and BX before leaving about noon today.. The drive into the San Bernardino/Redlands/Loma Linda area was all too familiar, but we arrived there this time in a different frame of mind. Actually, the area looked a bit less unappealing since a strong wind had blown most of the smog away and there seemed to be some green here and there.

The trip has been blissfully uneventful with no big scares or problems, and we are looking forward to getting set up and sitting still for a while.

Here we are on Wednesday afternoon with the sun streaming in the windows. We made very good time last night and arrived at Foothills West in Casa Grande before ten o’clock and got to bed about midnight. We are about 100 feet from where the Ouseys are, and I can see the back end of their rig with just a little walkway between us. We had coffee together this morning and caught up on each others’ news and Carolyn is cooking dinner for us tonight. Who could ask for more?

I need to get on with some much-needed housekeeping because there is black dog hair everywhere!! But Cooper seems unaffected by the turn of events and is in on the bedroom floor enjoying an afternoon snooze.

We don’t have an internet connection at our site, but I will save this to my memory stick and take it to Ouseys this evening to post. Ciao.