Archive for August, 2009

Girls visit

Monday, August 24th, 2009
California Delta, Bethel Island

California Delta, Bethel Island

The Delta is a very interesting place.  I have been coming to the Delta since I was about 12 years old and it still surprises me.  This view was where we had dinner on Friday night right here at our RV park.  The food is not fancy but the service is always friendly and you meet some of the most interesting people. 

Good friends, ok food

Good friends, ok food

Eating on the patio may not be fancy but you can not beat the view and how relaxing it is here.  We are so close to the Bay Area yet it seems so far cause everyone is in a slower lane. 

My girlfriends, Diana, Marianne & Vikki visited Saturday night.  Our accommodations are not plentiful so they brought their own bedroom and linens – tent & sleeping bags!  We had a great visit and Sunday was to be another day on the river but it was pretty cold so we opted to take a drive in the car instead – Paul was happy cause he got to stay home and take a nap.  He hasn’t been getting too many naps so he was pretty excited!

Isleton

We found this cute little park in Isleton.  Isleton is a very small river town between Rio Vista and Walnut Grove.  The park was a tribute to the Chinese Culture that built these levees in the Delta.

Kids?

Kids?

 

Isleton3

The park had this nice little pavilion with these dragon heads as points on the roof.  Each of the horns are different as they were found in the region.  The play equipment just could not stand there. 

Coming back to California has turned out to be so much fun with our friends visiting; our girls being so close and the weather has been great however I can already feel Fall in the air – boo!

A’s Baseball

Thursday, August 20th, 2009
View from our $6 seats

View from our $6 seats

 

Fans?

Fans?

The great American pastime – Baseball.  There is nothing better than going to the game and having a hot dog and a beer!  Wednesday night was $1 hot dog night so we rode BART to Oakland and took in a game.  I rode from Pittsburg meeting up with Paul & the girls coming from Fremont.  I had to make a train change and was nervous about which stop to make my transfer – no problem!  As soon as I got on the train in Pittsburg, Yankee fans started boarding the train at each stop until we made the transfer in Oakland, so I just followed the blue hats!

There were at least as many Yankee fans at the game as A’s fans which made it fun to watch the interaction in the stands.  We thought things were pretty friendly however right near the end we were not sure they were going to stay friendly.  The good news is the game ended without any incidents.  A’s put up a fight and only lost 3-2 so it was a pretty good game. We saw a couple of really good catches in the center field where we were sitting high in the stands.

The most interesting thing that happened was this large group of about 15 showed up in the 5th inning and had to climb over us to get to their seats and immediately starting filing out a few at a time until one guy who was pretty drunk fell on me and then on Stephanie!  We moved to the row behind so these people would have a clear line to move in and out of the stands as that is what there were going to do anyway!  Not sure why they sat down cause I am not sure any of them were watching even a little of the game.  The drunk guy passed out in the seat infront of me!  Yelling, cheering and not a move?

The hot dogs were $1 each and everyone was buying at least 5, most were buying the limit, 10 per trip!  We had 2 each and Paul wanted to know if he paid extra could his be warmed!  Ah, baseball!

Learning new stuff

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

I started to learn about quilting from my girlfriend Peggy while we were in Oregon.  We spent many days at the quilt store and lots of time sewing when we were tired of the mosquitos at Diamond Lake.  I finally finished my Rag Quilt and now I am ready to make something more difficult!

1st Quilt

1st Quilt

Thanks Peggy for helping me get hooked on this amazing craft!  I am off to the quilt store.

Family

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Thursday I left Paul & Duke at home and went to San Jose to spend some time with the girls.  They both are working and have very busy social lives so it reminded me of old times and we just take whatever moments we can when we can.  Schedules suck! 

Thursday I spent some time with Amy looking at apartments so she can find a place to live, finally!  There are some really nice apartments in Mountain View and expensive! 

Amy, Stephanie & Emily (Annie’s daughter) all went out to dinner with me.   The girls are really fun to hang out with although after dinner I was ready for a nap and that is when they are all ready to go out and Party!  The nap won!

Friday was a day for me to get to do some shopping in San Jose while the girls worked.  Everything was going great.  I had a list and I was starting down it quite nicely when I tried to purchase a pair of shorts in Macy’s and realized I no longer had my wallet!  PANIC!  I retraced my steps to each store, dressing room leaving my name and number!  I knew I had left it in a shopping cart near Costco – not good!  I left the mall and drove to the store I had been in, went up to the cashier and asked “Where is lost & found?”  Cashier asks “what did you lose?”  Yep, they had my wallet!  Yeah!  Nothing missing.  Very lucky day however I didn’t feel lucky and decided the list could wait I needed to relax!

That is the best part about this new lifestyle I am having, I am not learning  to let the small stuff gather but I am learning to take the time to relax after and I think that is progress.

The Delta

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Lifestyles are hard to break.  We have settled in here at Sugar Barge RV Resort and not thinking about cool stuff again, hence no photos!  I need to start carrying the camera again or you are all going to get bored!  The Delta is not known as an AHHHH but there are some cool things that go on in the Delta so I will get better and post some photos soon. I promise.

I worked my volunteer hours as did Paul. He is definitely the one working hard this time. The hardest part of my job is figuring out if I have written each task down the correct number of times!

We had friends visit on Wednesday and we rented a patio boat and went out for a 3 hour cruise.  No one was out on the water so it was very relaxing.  We stopped for me to swim and then stopped at a small beach so Duke could relieve himself.  Wait, that was Paul!  The exciting part is the Delta is made up of many different paths and it is easy to get lost.  We didn’t as we didn’t travel far and we could mostly see where we needed to go to get back but sometimes seeing is not all there is to a trip.  We had a hard time finding just the right combination of tulies to get around to get into the slough that we needed to return to the docks.  We ended up going through an area that I am sure we were not suppose to as there was so much seaweed growing that the prop was in a complete tangle and we had to manuever forward and back to remove it – The next choice was for someone to get down in back and remove it – Yuck!  We made it home safely and no rescues had to be sent out!

Paul’s first day at Sugarbarge

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I start at 8:00 and work till 5:00 with an hour for lunch. I have to get the pool vacumned and skimmed by 9:00 because a group of local ladies uses it for water aerobics Monday thru Thursday.  I got done about 8:55. I should get faster each time I do it. I also have to check the chlorine and acid level each day and record it in the log.

Next I tow the “Public Launch Ramp” sign out to the main road with the golf cart. While I am there, I water the palm trees with a couple 5 gallon buckets.  It’s a quarter mile and the golf cart is not very fast so it take 20 minutes or so.

After that I test the chlorine at the well every day. I also test the water at one remote point on the system each day. One day we do it at the west bathrooms, one day at the east bathrooms, one day at the main office, etc.

Next on the list is to drive past each site that has someone checking in that day. I make sure the site is ready for them. No trash, prune the tree branches back, mow the site if needed, etc. Pretty basic stuff, but the customers appreciate it. By now it’s about 10:30 or so.

We irrigate from the river and we have to water a lot to keep the grass green. A big part of my job is setting sprinklers where ever I can and letting them run 4 or 5 hours each.

Around 11:30, I do a drive thru and mark the occupied spaces so the girls in the office can make sure everyone who was supposed to leave has in fact left.

We had a boat going to the dump, so the boss asked me to help load it with as much trash as we could. It apparantly costs the same to dump an emty boat as it does to dump one full of junk!

After lunch, we picked up a bunch of tree trimmings that one of the other guys cut this morning. Then it was time to go collect the sprinklers I had set out this morning.

Bethel Island California

Monday, August 10th, 2009

It has been a very busy week; we enjoyed a few more days at Diamond Lake OR with our friends, drove back to California and settled in at Sugar Barge RV Resort in the Delta.  We got here on Friday August 7 shortly before our two daughters arrived to spend the night with us.  They were only here until Saturday and we attended our neighbors wedding Saturday before both girls had to return to jobs in San Jose.  We came back to the Bay Area so that we could spend some time with both girls and now finding time is really difficult between our volunteer hours and their jobs but we will make the most of the rest of the summer. Stephanie returns to Fresno in 2 short weeks for her Senior year of college.

The wedding on Saturday was for Katie Lawry who is Stephanie’s age and we have known the family longer than we lived across the street so it was fun to see her so beautiful as a bride.  I still vision the girls playing dress up in the front yard but then I look at them and they are all beautiful grown ups looking forward to great things as adults.  Congratulations Katie and her mom & dad too!

Sugar Barge RV Resort is located on Bethel Island in the Delta.  The closest town (5 miles) is Brentwood.  We are enjoying the Delta breezes that keep the mosquitos down and the heat lower.  Today was unbelievably hot until about 6 pm when the breeze finally kicked in.  If you want to escape the heat please give us a call and come visit us on the Delta – we might even be able to rent a boat or kayak or pedal boat and enjoy the river a little.

I almost forgot – our trip back to California from Oregon took us through a nice little town that had one tourist shop, The Weed store!  Weed, CA is a real place and they are enjoying the name as they have signs, shirts, shot glasses, etc.  all with Weed on them!  The most popular shirt was “I love WEED, CA”  I got a different one that refered to “WEED Brownie Company” cause we all know how much I like Brownies!

We will be at Sugar Barge until November 1st so put us back on your call schedule for fun times in the Bay Area!

Crater Lake National Park

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
Crater Lake NP

Crater Lake NP

Crater Lake NP is as blue as any picture you have ever seen of the lake.  We drove all the way around and took so many pictures cause I just could not believe how blue the water was and how blue the sky was.  No smog here!  Even the smoke from the fires were not able to obscure the view.  The water was so perfect that I really wanted to get on it and ski.

Crater 3

Here I am standing on the edge of the cliff with Wizard Island in the background.  Wizard Island is the one of 2 places where you can get near the water and swim.  No one swims for long cause the water is so cold.

Capturing the shoreline

Capturing the shoreline

Thru the trees

Thru the trees

Wizard Island

Wizard Island

Phantom Ship

Phantom Ship

Wizard Island and Phantom Ship are the only land masses across the whole lake.  There were two boats on the lake that are tour boats and they were so small compared to the size of the lake and you are up so high from the water surface that you could barely see them and their wakes hardly rippled the water.

Puffy white clouds

Puffy white clouds

I was very impressed with the landscape around the lake and the blue of the sky was so crisp until you looked at the lake – that is blue!  The puffy white clouds offered a contrast to the sky and their reflection on the lake was very cool.

Enough beautiful pictures.  We also do other things besides tour around.  One of the men in our group likes to roast  others in our crowd on campouts so this time it was the guys!  He actually teased a bit but then he presented each guy with a beautiful fire stick that he handcrafted.  The other guys got sticks with an agate from Port Orford beach that he had found on the beach and polished into a beautiful rock that he put on the tip of the stick – Paul got a river rock cause we kept talking about Missiouri!  It is a very cool stick and if you ever come camping with us you will get to see Paul using his stick!

Paulsstick

Hail, Hail, Hail

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

Right after we decided that our group dinner would be at 5:30 pm Mother Nature decided it would be a good time to open up the skies.   We had 1/2 inch hail for more than 20 minutes and then the rain started along with beautiful lightening and thunder.  Paul got out the umbrella and went out into the storm.

1/2 inch hail

1/2 inch hail

The picture doesn’t quite show well but it was really fun.  We spent 3 months in Branson Missiouri and with every storm they tell us that we were going to get golf ball sized hail and we never did so we were so excited to get this storm.  There are more storms in the forecast so we will be sitting on our porch watching.

Oregon to California and Back to Oregon!

Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Smith River in California

Smith River in California

We moved from Port Orford Oregon to Diamond Lake Oregon yesterday via California!  Our original plan fell through when the high road to Diamond Lake got closed down due to a forest fire!  Everyone else in our group found a nice 2 lane highway through Oregon and left around 10 am.  Paul and I needed to wait for a UPS deliver to get our sign!  The sign finally arrived around 2 pm but while waiting we were using all the technology available to us; internet, mapping programs, gps & RV forums!  Way too much information.   We decided we wanted to go by way of CA and along the Smith River into Grants Pass Oregon because we thought the grocery store would be better – NOT!  They do not sell Sour Dough loaves of bread here in Oregon and we needed 5 loaves! 
The road is beautiful, goes through Jedediah Smith Redwoods SP and along the Smith River which has spectacular views for the passenger – the driver needs to keep himself in his 8.5 wide lane, avoiding oncoming RV’s and the guardrail protecting the vehicle from the cliff into the river!  Paul did great and only slowed to 15 miles per hour twice (I think, I was spending all my time enjoying the river below!).  We made a couple stops along the road to let cars pass and then we had to stop and enjoy the views.  When we stopped we got a bonus- there was a couple skinny dipping in the pool below.  Paul wanted pictures so I zoomed in and tried to focus while he ran to get the binoculars cause he was sure he would see some female skin!  I appeared to be a couple however it was a couple of guys!
                                                                                                
Below the pool

Below the pool

The pool

The pool

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finally made it to Diamond Lake Oregon about 8 pm which is closing time for check in!  We got settled and went to meet our friends who were providing us a fabulous meal of hot dogs, polish, baked beans & saurkraut.  It was perfect for a late night supper after a long day!  Paul did down 2 gin & tonic’s that he stole from someones elses booze stash!

The drive to Diamond Lake is beautiful and the RV park is very nice with lots of trees and sites not too close together however the mosquitos are brutal!  We are here for a week and I am sure my body will be covered in welts.  We all carry our own personal local perfume – BUG SPRAY or whatever concoction each individual dreams up to combat the critters!  Me, I think I will just stay inside!