It won’t be long now and we’ll be on our way to Texas. Going to make that our winter home. At least for now. But the weather has been good here in the Willamette Valley. We have to turn on the furnace in the morning to get the chill off and run our little ceramic heater for awhile before we go to bed, but that’s about it. It’s one of the challenges of our lifestyle. It ain’t like living in a stick built house with gas, or electric that you can set and forget. We have to be attentive to our fuel levels and power usage or we’ll run out of propane or blow a fuse. Not that we’re willing to change with anybody. I just mention it in case you’re curious.
It’s been good here at Oregon Fish and Wildlife in Corvallis. We’ve done some painting and office work for our keep. Two OSU students are doing a wall mural and we painted the customer lobby to match. We have a nice spot near a pond all by ourselves. We’ve been feeding the birds and watching the bunnies. Jade, the cat, enjoys both. We get to hear all the animal stories of people who come into the office with problems or questions. It’s been interesting. One of our jobs was to log in deer teeth that hunters voluntarily sent in. We’ve seen lots of animals, unfortunately, most of them are dead. Cougars and deer mostly. Somebody brought in some kind of foreign deer, kind of albino looking. I get sad when cougars are brought in. But apparently they’re not endangered or on any kind of list out here. Richard, the biologist, says they are even expanding into previously lost territories. That’s why they come in dead. A big one was brought in last week. 120 pounds! Huge feet! The biologists check them all out and then cut them up to destroy them. We never know what we’re going to see in the dumpster or see laying around outside the labs.
We are staying on property that used to be Camp Adair. Camp Adair was a WWII US Army infantry training site. There are a few buildings left and we’re right next to a 100’-150’ smoke stack that was part of the incinerator. Rumor has it that the area is haunted! We haven’t been bothered yet. But then, Halloween is only a few days away. There were four Divisions that were trained here and all saw extensive action in Europe. I can’t recall all the numbers but all of the divisions were in action starting in 1944 and lasting maybe 180 days, give or take? I believe the lowest number of casualties I saw was 900+, but the average was 1500 or better. Anyway it would have been well over 3000 in 6 months. Funny how times change huh? Another little factoid. Camp Adair was built on a town called Wellton or Wellberg or something like that. It was one of two or three towns under consideration for training sites in late 1941. On December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, the US Army came to the schoolhouse in Wellton(?), and told the townspeople they had until noon to vacate the town because it had been chosen as a training site. I haven’t heard that children and grand-children of Wellton(?) were suing the government in attempts to become rich because of all the indignities heaped upon them. Times do change! My point is……………. Well I’ll let you figure it out. But I am proud to walk around old Camp Adair. I don’t know that it’s haunted, but if it is, I’m in real good company.
If I walk past the smoke stack and by the old supply room about a quarter of a mile I come to the Santiam Christian school football field. The last two Friday nights I’ve walked over to see the SC games. This is 3A high school football. Schools about the size of my Alma Mater, Grandview Heights, Ohio. That’s 400-500 students total in grades 9-12. But they’re pretty good. Last night I left at halftime when the score was 41 to 0. They played Creswell and I was talking to a pastor who had a son on Creswells team. He said they were a little short handed this week because two of the star players were off on hunting trips. I expressed my surprise and opinion. Another parent nearby had the same opinion as I. The pastor was a little more diplomatic. But I guess it’s Creswell. By their community standards, going hunting may be the proper choice. Maybe they need the meat? Maybe the “stars” were avoiding the humiliation? But from what I saw, it would have taken a whole ’nother team of stars to compete with SC. And they even had an invocation before the game! Shhhhhh! And really not fair!
So we’ll be in Texas for a while. Then back to Oregon in the spring. We have positions lined up. We’re going to a Corps of Engineers park near Texarkana and do some volunteer work. Then we have a job at Oregon State Parks in Goose lake in April. That’s on the California border in eastern Oregon. And then we go right next to home in Oregon at the Fish and Wildlife District Office in Clackamas. We took that so we could spend some time getting rid of all our stuff in storage. This looks like it will be our lifestyle for the foreseeable future and there’s no point in paying storage forever. In July we have Rally’s in Oregon. The big National Rally in Bend and a Fish and Wildlife thing somewhere to be determined. And then! We’ll head back east to pick up where we left off.
So remember! If you hear an unexpected knock. It might be us, extension cord in hand.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Ohio to the Fish Hatchery
You may have thought by now that we had fallen off the face of the earth. Not really, but, we can see one of the spots where you do from here. Let me explain.
We’re parked at the Nehalem Fish hatchery near the Oregon Coast. We’re here because we had a change in plans between Ohio and Wyoming. I kind of wanted to get the tow car which is/was in Oregon. For the record, Jeaneane did not. But I did talk her in to coming back to get it. We had intended to resume our travels East. Enter gas prices, rumors of higher gas prices, and oil field problems. I don’t know how many of you have stopped every day to fill a 75 gallon tank? I know we can all do the math and look at it on paper and all. But to actually take it out of your wallet or more properly see the credit card balance spiraling (no), shooting upward is a different story. And remember, we’re on a fixed income. And it ain’t fixed real high. Anyway, we were paying $175-$200 at the pump with rumors that it was going higher. This was at the time the Prudhoe Bay thing happened so we were hearing $4 or $5 a gallon was possible. Near Chicago it was already $3.25 or so and the rural areas where we tend to be it was higher than average too. By the time we get this all figured out we’ve already spent a bunch and it takes a bunch more to get back; well, once again, you can do the math. So we’re here in Oregon.
But we did have a very nice stop at sister Sandy’s and we did some other neat things at cool places along the way.
It’s always good to see the family. It may be a little more frequent than it use to be, but it’s still nice to go to Columbus, Ohio; “The Heart of it All!” Sis and the whole family are fine. Jeaneane got to meet everybody. I guess for want of a better term she got her initiation into the Sines, Randolph, and Verrilli families. Speaking for me and on behalf of the all the family in central Ohio, we’re proud to have her. She just seems to fit right in.
Before leaving Ohio, Kat and I attended the Ohio State Samboree in Lima. (for clarification that’s pronounced like the bean, not the city in Peru) Samboree’s are kind of RV’ers conventions put on by the Good Sam Club, which is a National RV Club. This Samboree was held at the fairgrounds and 460 RV’s and owners attended. There’s hospitality with coffee and doughnuts, or hotdog feeds, games like beanbag baseball, Samgo, horseshoe tournaments and tractor pulls. I won’t go into explanations other that to say it my not be what it sounds like. Think senior citizen and it may get you close. There are also seminars on many RV and motor home topics, as well as product demonstrations and vendor displays. Plus nightly entertainment and lots of RV’ers just like us. Mostly it’s fun and informative and we met lot’s more nice people.
From Lima we went to see cousin Nancy near Chicago and stayed at The Empress Casino in Joliet IL. We had a tour of the area and a good visit with my cuz! She is doing well in her new digs. She and Kat hit it off real well right away. But then why wouldn’t they. We’re even committed to a camping trip sometime in the not to distant future.
From the Chicago area we went to Forest City, Iowa to attend the Winnebago Grand National Rally. Much like a Samboree but this one is put on yearly by Winnebago Industries. But the GNR is huge. There are as many as 1600 rigs at one of these. This year was down to 1400 probably because of gas prices? Winnebago and Forest City seem to go all out for this. Forest City had their yearly festival at the same time. I think maybe that’s the plan. Winnebago is the primary employer so it’s a natural. Anyway, if you picture a small Midwestern town where Dick, Jane, and Spot live, this would be it. On parade day there was a chicken feed and they had barbecues lined up ¾for 3/4s of a city block. It was small town, but it was neat to see. And as you probably had figured out, most of the parade was tractors. Oh! And RV’s. Winnebago works a lot of folks during the week so people can have things done on their RV’s. So we had a few things fixed that needed it. Also part of the plan and great customer service. I guess the most impressive part is to see 1400 RV’s in the same general area and everything working smoothly. Everybody had 30 amp power, water when you needed it, and a sewage truck too. And of course we met some nice people.
From there we(I finally) made it to the Corn Palace in Mitchell S.D. Been by there a few times and never made it inside. Not a destination certainly, but it was kind of cool. And if you don’t know what the Corn Palace is, I won’t spoil it for you. See somebody we sent a post card too. We also stopped at Wall S.D for a visit to Wall Drug. Now that’s a stop I just shouldn’t have to make again. But Kat hadn’t seen it, sooooooooooooo! But the same rule applies to Wall Drug as the rule for the Corn Palace.
We went through the Black Hills and stopped at Mt. Rushmore. Jeaneane thought that was awesome. She liked the Avenue of the Flags and the whole thing. I would say that Rushmore is always worth a stop. It’s just that kind of a place. We passed by the Crazy Horse Memorial. Maybe we’ll get it next time, but it just didn’t look like much progress had been made since Heidi and I went through there some years ago. Although it’s still being worked on, just very slow it seems. I know it’s taking a long time because Janene and I went through there back in my flight school days in the late 60’s before Whatshisface even started carving on the mountain.
In the Big Horns of Wyoming we spent a few days at Prune Creek campground just relaxing and doing what we do. It was U.S. Forest Service land so we did a little fishing. I managed to catch a couple of small Brook trout. But they went back. Not worth the hassle of keeping. At first Jeaneane liked the Big Horns better than Yellowstone, but I think that was before we saw the geyser basin right near Old Faithful. I don’t know that we were there at any more active time than normal but the geysers sure caught Kat’s eye when we were there. By the time we had driven through most of the park and were leaving she was committed to coming back sometime soon and spending more time. We also got lucky and were able to stay at one of the campgrounds for a couple of days. I say ’lucky’ because it was Yellowstone in August and we had no reservations.
In Mountain Home, Idaho, Jeaneane found an old friend from her youth that she had not seen for 40 years. Roberta and Jeaneane had one of those visits that just excludes everyone else. Like the kind you have after 40 years not seeing someone. I let them catch up while I washed the motor home. We did meet Ivan and had dinner and saw their place. Ivan makes wagons and has the best chuck wagon you can imagine. He happens to have one for sale, so if any of you out there are interested we can put you in touch. But I should warn you! Chuck wagons aren’t cheap. Think five figures.
We made it back to see all the kids. All of our people are OK. They be doin’ what they been doin! No significant changes that we could detect. We hung around for a while and got our medical checkups and prescriptions renewed and stuff. Went to DMV, checked on insurance and renewed or changed this or that and then it was time to move on. Well, first we got a cat!
If you are reminded often enough, that you don’t have a cat; told often enough, that you really should have a cat; asked often enough, if you think a cat would be a good idea?; persuaded often enough, to just go ahead and do it; well then, in time you begin to think a cat wouldn’t be so bad. When you finally concede that point, there is no going back. You get to that point and you’re going to be getting a cat! We got a cat! We went to the Humane Society and got a cute little gray cat named “Green Eyes”. She quickly became “Jade”, and then “Bago Jade”. We were going for something with a traveling theme. We have a “Winnebago” motor home so it was a natural. So she’s Jade or Bago that is of course when she’s not that “darn cat”, or if it’s really bad, that “little feral b&%#!” But she’s a good cat and travels very well. At first she hid under the couch, but now she lays on it. She does get big green eyes when it gets a little to rough or noisy. She is already trained to a leash. Well, she walks on it some, but she is OK when we put her out on the leash. Except of course for the ever present entanglements. Chairs and picnic tables are hard with leashes. But she is entertaining and company and a darn good bug catcher. She can get from one place to another really quickly and is two parts insanity.
So we’re at the fish hatchery because we wanted to do some volunteer work for a free site. One of the things us RV’ers do. We work 4 hours a day 5 days a week for full hook-ups. It’s an Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife hatchery. The work is easy but for the fact we’re not so young as we use to be. We do some light cleaning and landscaping and some fish culture stuff. They raise salmon, steelhead and trout here. We feed the fish occasionally and always get to “pick morts”. That is, net the dead fish in the morning. We’re dealing mostly with fingerlings and there are always some mortalities. There are 20 ponds (12 active right now) that have between 25 and 50 thousand fish in them. There will be as many as 30 “morts” per pond every day. But right now they are battling end of summer heat and low water. So the fish have a little “Ich” and are being treated. Because of that the mortality rate is up more than usual. We work with a crew of 4 but mostly we are left to our own and they don’t worry about us much. We are volunteers. I suspect they don’t want to mistreat us. And all the guys here are easy. We have a very nice spot in a great setting. We’re on a concrete slab bordered by flowers and surrounded by lawn and trees in the middle of the Pacific Coast Mountain range. We’re about 12 miles from Nehalem and the ocean. The down side is we are very isolated. No cell service, no TV, 2 very suspect FM radio stations and that’s it. I couldn’t even find out if the Buckeyes beat Texas until Monday. I still don’t know any details. I guess they did put a pretty good whuppin on’em.
And I think it’s time to wrap this up. But I wanted to catch up. We’re heading into town to the Cyber Café to have breakfast and to get this off and then take a walk on the beach.
We’re parked at the Nehalem Fish hatchery near the Oregon Coast. We’re here because we had a change in plans between Ohio and Wyoming. I kind of wanted to get the tow car which is/was in Oregon. For the record, Jeaneane did not. But I did talk her in to coming back to get it. We had intended to resume our travels East. Enter gas prices, rumors of higher gas prices, and oil field problems. I don’t know how many of you have stopped every day to fill a 75 gallon tank? I know we can all do the math and look at it on paper and all. But to actually take it out of your wallet or more properly see the credit card balance spiraling (no), shooting upward is a different story. And remember, we’re on a fixed income. And it ain’t fixed real high. Anyway, we were paying $175-$200 at the pump with rumors that it was going higher. This was at the time the Prudhoe Bay thing happened so we were hearing $4 or $5 a gallon was possible. Near Chicago it was already $3.25 or so and the rural areas where we tend to be it was higher than average too. By the time we get this all figured out we’ve already spent a bunch and it takes a bunch more to get back; well, once again, you can do the math. So we’re here in Oregon.
But we did have a very nice stop at sister Sandy’s and we did some other neat things at cool places along the way.
It’s always good to see the family. It may be a little more frequent than it use to be, but it’s still nice to go to Columbus, Ohio; “The Heart of it All!” Sis and the whole family are fine. Jeaneane got to meet everybody. I guess for want of a better term she got her initiation into the Sines, Randolph, and Verrilli families. Speaking for me and on behalf of the all the family in central Ohio, we’re proud to have her. She just seems to fit right in.
Before leaving Ohio, Kat and I attended the Ohio State Samboree in Lima. (for clarification that’s pronounced like the bean, not the city in Peru) Samboree’s are kind of RV’ers conventions put on by the Good Sam Club, which is a National RV Club. This Samboree was held at the fairgrounds and 460 RV’s and owners attended. There’s hospitality with coffee and doughnuts, or hotdog feeds, games like beanbag baseball, Samgo, horseshoe tournaments and tractor pulls. I won’t go into explanations other that to say it my not be what it sounds like. Think senior citizen and it may get you close. There are also seminars on many RV and motor home topics, as well as product demonstrations and vendor displays. Plus nightly entertainment and lots of RV’ers just like us. Mostly it’s fun and informative and we met lot’s more nice people.
From Lima we went to see cousin Nancy near Chicago and stayed at The Empress Casino in Joliet IL. We had a tour of the area and a good visit with my cuz! She is doing well in her new digs. She and Kat hit it off real well right away. But then why wouldn’t they. We’re even committed to a camping trip sometime in the not to distant future.
From the Chicago area we went to Forest City, Iowa to attend the Winnebago Grand National Rally. Much like a Samboree but this one is put on yearly by Winnebago Industries. But the GNR is huge. There are as many as 1600 rigs at one of these. This year was down to 1400 probably because of gas prices? Winnebago and Forest City seem to go all out for this. Forest City had their yearly festival at the same time. I think maybe that’s the plan. Winnebago is the primary employer so it’s a natural. Anyway, if you picture a small Midwestern town where Dick, Jane, and Spot live, this would be it. On parade day there was a chicken feed and they had barbecues lined up ¾for 3/4s of a city block. It was small town, but it was neat to see. And as you probably had figured out, most of the parade was tractors. Oh! And RV’s. Winnebago works a lot of folks during the week so people can have things done on their RV’s. So we had a few things fixed that needed it. Also part of the plan and great customer service. I guess the most impressive part is to see 1400 RV’s in the same general area and everything working smoothly. Everybody had 30 amp power, water when you needed it, and a sewage truck too. And of course we met some nice people.
From there we(I finally) made it to the Corn Palace in Mitchell S.D. Been by there a few times and never made it inside. Not a destination certainly, but it was kind of cool. And if you don’t know what the Corn Palace is, I won’t spoil it for you. See somebody we sent a post card too. We also stopped at Wall S.D for a visit to Wall Drug. Now that’s a stop I just shouldn’t have to make again. But Kat hadn’t seen it, sooooooooooooo! But the same rule applies to Wall Drug as the rule for the Corn Palace.
We went through the Black Hills and stopped at Mt. Rushmore. Jeaneane thought that was awesome. She liked the Avenue of the Flags and the whole thing. I would say that Rushmore is always worth a stop. It’s just that kind of a place. We passed by the Crazy Horse Memorial. Maybe we’ll get it next time, but it just didn’t look like much progress had been made since Heidi and I went through there some years ago. Although it’s still being worked on, just very slow it seems. I know it’s taking a long time because Janene and I went through there back in my flight school days in the late 60’s before Whatshisface even started carving on the mountain.
In the Big Horns of Wyoming we spent a few days at Prune Creek campground just relaxing and doing what we do. It was U.S. Forest Service land so we did a little fishing. I managed to catch a couple of small Brook trout. But they went back. Not worth the hassle of keeping. At first Jeaneane liked the Big Horns better than Yellowstone, but I think that was before we saw the geyser basin right near Old Faithful. I don’t know that we were there at any more active time than normal but the geysers sure caught Kat’s eye when we were there. By the time we had driven through most of the park and were leaving she was committed to coming back sometime soon and spending more time. We also got lucky and were able to stay at one of the campgrounds for a couple of days. I say ’lucky’ because it was Yellowstone in August and we had no reservations.
In Mountain Home, Idaho, Jeaneane found an old friend from her youth that she had not seen for 40 years. Roberta and Jeaneane had one of those visits that just excludes everyone else. Like the kind you have after 40 years not seeing someone. I let them catch up while I washed the motor home. We did meet Ivan and had dinner and saw their place. Ivan makes wagons and has the best chuck wagon you can imagine. He happens to have one for sale, so if any of you out there are interested we can put you in touch. But I should warn you! Chuck wagons aren’t cheap. Think five figures.
We made it back to see all the kids. All of our people are OK. They be doin’ what they been doin! No significant changes that we could detect. We hung around for a while and got our medical checkups and prescriptions renewed and stuff. Went to DMV, checked on insurance and renewed or changed this or that and then it was time to move on. Well, first we got a cat!
If you are reminded often enough, that you don’t have a cat; told often enough, that you really should have a cat; asked often enough, if you think a cat would be a good idea?; persuaded often enough, to just go ahead and do it; well then, in time you begin to think a cat wouldn’t be so bad. When you finally concede that point, there is no going back. You get to that point and you’re going to be getting a cat! We got a cat! We went to the Humane Society and got a cute little gray cat named “Green Eyes”. She quickly became “Jade”, and then “Bago Jade”. We were going for something with a traveling theme. We have a “Winnebago” motor home so it was a natural. So she’s Jade or Bago that is of course when she’s not that “darn cat”, or if it’s really bad, that “little feral b&%#!” But she’s a good cat and travels very well. At first she hid under the couch, but now she lays on it. She does get big green eyes when it gets a little to rough or noisy. She is already trained to a leash. Well, she walks on it some, but she is OK when we put her out on the leash. Except of course for the ever present entanglements. Chairs and picnic tables are hard with leashes. But she is entertaining and company and a darn good bug catcher. She can get from one place to another really quickly and is two parts insanity.
So we’re at the fish hatchery because we wanted to do some volunteer work for a free site. One of the things us RV’ers do. We work 4 hours a day 5 days a week for full hook-ups. It’s an Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife hatchery. The work is easy but for the fact we’re not so young as we use to be. We do some light cleaning and landscaping and some fish culture stuff. They raise salmon, steelhead and trout here. We feed the fish occasionally and always get to “pick morts”. That is, net the dead fish in the morning. We’re dealing mostly with fingerlings and there are always some mortalities. There are 20 ponds (12 active right now) that have between 25 and 50 thousand fish in them. There will be as many as 30 “morts” per pond every day. But right now they are battling end of summer heat and low water. So the fish have a little “Ich” and are being treated. Because of that the mortality rate is up more than usual. We work with a crew of 4 but mostly we are left to our own and they don’t worry about us much. We are volunteers. I suspect they don’t want to mistreat us. And all the guys here are easy. We have a very nice spot in a great setting. We’re on a concrete slab bordered by flowers and surrounded by lawn and trees in the middle of the Pacific Coast Mountain range. We’re about 12 miles from Nehalem and the ocean. The down side is we are very isolated. No cell service, no TV, 2 very suspect FM radio stations and that’s it. I couldn’t even find out if the Buckeyes beat Texas until Monday. I still don’t know any details. I guess they did put a pretty good whuppin on’em.
And I think it’s time to wrap this up. But I wanted to catch up. We’re heading into town to the Cyber Café to have breakfast and to get this off and then take a walk on the beach.
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