It’s official. 2024 is here to stay. I know that’s true because we made it through January 1st with no mishap. We were also invited to a friend’s home in Vancouver for brunch to start the year out properly. The first thing we had to do was pack a bag for the trip and find a sitter for Max because we were going to be gone for an extended time. Visiting Vancouver is like that. It’s really a long way away – 30-40-50 miles, or so. That’s just one way! Then we must go home. That makes it imperative that at least one of us stays sober so they can drive responsibly. Well, at least more responsible than those on the road that shouldn’t be there. It’s always a crapshoot in that regard but makes trips exciting no matter where we go because those guys are everywhere.

Talking like that makes me sound a little pompous, I know. Like I’m one of the most responsible drivers on the road and it’s true. I am. Just ask me. Diane makes that happen because she keeps me centered in whatever lane we’re in by letting me know when I’m crowding one line or the other. She, and Max, don’t like it when I make it all the way out to the rumble stips those road builder guys installed to wake people up when they start drifting. I think the rumble strips are there so those self-driving vehicles will know when to adjust their trajectory. We see on the news once in a while how well that’s going.

Rick & Jody, one of the participating couples in Vancouver, at Don & Linda’s abode, drove their Tesla all the way from Michigan and I was given a memorable ride by Rick. It was the first time I’ve ever been allowed inside a Tesla and it was quite pleasing. They can go very fast. It wasn’t Michigan. It was McMinnville, where Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose lives. That’s it. McMinnville. I knew it was an “M” word. It’s much closer than Michigan.

The group at this gathering was created 20 years ago when PT Cruisers were in vogue. All of us have one. Some had two. Throughout the PT craze, Diane owned 5 of them. They were fun little cars. We might get another one even though they quit making them in 2010, or somewhere around there.

Where was I? Somewhere in Vancouver, right?

I can’t remember the names of all the people at this gathering, but I recognized their faces. The fact that I couldn’t remember all their names didn’t keep me from hugging them, or from them letting me hug them.

That’s all of them. You would have thought I’d have taken more photos, wouldn’t you? But, I didn’t even take this one. It was magically done by a time one of the Jody’s activated from her wristwatch. I probably should have asked about that, but I didn’t. Pretty tricky. But, I didn’t even take of the vehicles in the parking lot. What a bummer.

I did, however, get a lead on a PT that might be for sale

We’ll see how that goes …

We had some great food at the party and we spent about 5 hours visiting with the gang, then Max called and suggested that we head home before everyone else in Oregon decided to clog up the roads. He was very insistent. It was really a surprise because neither of us knew Max could use the phone. It’s good to know that he can figure out stuff like that. I suppose next he’ll want a cell phone.

I was allowed to sleep until about 0730 this morning which is unusual. Normally my bladder gets me up about every 4 hours and I’ve given serious thought to getting a permanently installed catheter so I can extend my sleeping time. Diane, however, doesn’t think that would be a good idea. I’m sure she’s right. Doubling up a couple of depends might work. Haven’t tried that … yet.

Because Max is so good, I took him for a walk before getting my first coffee of the day. He was pretty happy about that and blessed me with two (2) partially filled hand warmers for the trash. Most times it’s only one.

Now we’re going to Lowe’s in Longview to get something. I’m not sure what it is but I’ll let you know later. Until then, Max the lap dog bids you adieu.

C’mon. Just a little taste. I’m pretty sure I like cocoa and toast.

He likes a lot of other stuff, too.

In spite of their dubious business practices, like raising their rates just for the fun of it, we’ve been a customer for years. Mainly for the internet. It’s been very reliable and the service hasn’t been all that bad.

Until last week.

Then things got interesting.

Apparently, the root cause of our newly acquired dislike of Xfinity is that we had two accounts. One at our old Hill House on the hill, and now one at the Cricket House. We inherited the Cricket House account when Diane’s Mom passed away last year but we didn’t change anything until this year. That’s when we had Xfinity remove Mom’s home phone # from her account and replace it with our house phone # from the Hill.

The was a bit of confusion that required a bit of explaining, more than a few times, which should have prepared us for the most recent incident.

To understand the process I’m compelled to do my best to explain how they can do that with phone numbers. I must take you back in time to 1989. That’s when we acquired our home phone number.

Back then we actually needed a home phone so we could communicate because cell phones weren’t widely used. They were big bulky things and really not all that convenient at the time. So, we signed up with Qwest, a phone company that’s now just a figment of most people’s imagination and were assigned 397-5701. Yes, it was that short because back then the area code wasn’t necessary. Each town was identified by the first three numbers; 397 was St. Helens, 543 was Scappoose, and 556 was Rainier. Pretty simple.

Then everyone started moving out of California to Oregon, and other places, and the phone companies started running out of numbers. I have to admit that the info I’m sharing may only be partially true because I’m relying on things that happened 30 years ago, just so you know.

Once our number was made available at our first home after retiring from the Navy turned out to be quite popular with folks from all over the United States and some foreign countries. It previously belonged to a gentleman who was well known in the cock fighting circles so we got all these calls looking for the guy. It took a long time to let all his old friends know that he was no longer among the living and they would have to find another source of information like they used to get from the deceased.

Things were fine for a long time then we moved from Columbia City to St. Helens and Qwest sent a guy to make sure 397-5701 would ring at our new home. It worked the first time and continued working for the next 15 years, or so. During that time we got cable TV from Comcast, might of had internet from them, too. but Quest and CenturyLink showed up in there somewhere. I remember when we had Quest my email address was jerrie@q.com. I thought that was pretty cool, but things change.

Then we moved to the Hill House and having faster internet seemed to be necessary. Since CenturyLink’s internet was slow, we got Comcast. It served us well in spite of unplanned outages and unexplained rate hikes.

If anyone reading this can figure out what went on with my narrative, please let me know because I’m not going to reread this to verify. I think I would find it very confusing. Also, if you took the time to read this far, thank you very much.

It’s been a few days since I’ve done this. For reasons I don’t understand I feel like I need to keep everyone apprised of what’s going on in Jerrie’s life. In truth, I find it amazing that people spend time reading this. I’m humbled by the attention. Thank you.

I know that’s a bit of a broken record coming from me because I’ve said it before,

Now I need to remember what’s been happening during the past 9 days. Time passed at the speed of 86400 seconds a day. That’s 60x60x24, in case you were wondering. That’s true so you don’t have to double-check. Unless you want to, of course.

“Why,” you might ask, “do you know something weird like that?”

I found that little formula very useful while writing reports for the IT department of a company I worked for. Doesn’t make sense, does it? At this time in my life, it doesn’t make sense at all and I’m baffled how I used that information. So, why am I talking about it now? I don’t know that, either.

Today when Diane and I were returning home we were flagged down by a little girl with a plate of cupcakes. She was walking down the street giving them to all her neighbors, many of whom she’d never met. I suspect she’s around 8 years old. When Diane stopped the truck she climbed on the running board and insisted that we each take one of her cakes and eat it right then. However, we convinced her we would enjoy them more if we saved them for dessert after supper.

She scrunched her eyes and said, “supper?” Diane explained that it’s also like dinner and she was good with that. She bounced off happy, spreading goodwill up and down our block. We were impressed that someone that young took it upon herself to do this. Alone.

I apologize to those who actually continued reading this far. I didn’t have a plan and actually tried to end it far sooner. But, the jibberish just kept coming. But now, I’m stopping.

Perhaps the next one will be better. No guarantees.

I’ve been remiss in not keeping everyone informed of our whereabouts which, I’m sure, has become a concern for many of you who use your valuable time to read this stuff. Rest easy. We’re home, now. Actually, we’ve been home since Tuesday or Wednesday. I can’t remember because immediately upon arrival in St. Helens my mind shifted from vacation to mode to not-vacation mode. If you don’t understand what I’m by that, make something up.

We spent Monday night in Armitage Park near Eugene. It was very peaceful there. The RV spaces are about 40-50 feet apart, in some areas, and there are lots of trees but none obscure a good view of the southern sky. So, the satellite worked great just sitting on a picnic table. Didn’t have to climb on the RV roof which is a huge win. I’m pretty certain that one of these days I’m going to tumble off the roof and break something important. That’s one reason I like spaces not cluttered with bushes and trees because it ensures I have a clear shot at the ground should I fall.

We got up Tuesday and got on the road home in record time. The plan was to leave around 0900 and we left about 1030, right on time. The drive to St. Helens, through Portland, was uneventful and we made it without any near mishaps for which I was thankful.

Once home, Max jumped out of the RV, looked around a bit, then took off. He can run about 50 mph, I’m sure, and there’s absolutely no way I’m going to catch him. He just as to run until he gets it all out of his system, then he comes back. His route seems to always take him across our neighbor’s back yard, sometimes around their house, then down along the creek, into our yard, around our house, then finally he returns and flops on the ground with his back feet sticking straight out behind him. It was pretty evident that he was happy to be home, as were we.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent doing stuff. Some of it I can remember, like our trip to Longview to get a new ceiling fixture for the laundry room. It was on the blink, literally, and was causing Diane to twitch a little while doing the laundry. Nothing worse than a twitch while folding clothes. Regarding laundry … I know Diane changed her clothes every day but I chose to make it easy on the environment by wearing the same clothes every day. I took about ten pairs of jeans on the trip but only wore two. I switched out my boxers and socks whenever Diane suggested that I do that, but only then. Doing that eliminated my need to bend over, open a couple of drawers to get replacements, open my tiny closet for a pair of jeans, pull my belt out of the possibly soiled jeans, thread my belt into the known clean jeans, then take Max for a walk to break in all those new clothes. Also, this is all done in the dark most of the time so I won’t wake Diane up. It’s really not easy.

So, we got the new light at Lowes and had lunch at Stuffy’s, one of our favorite places. One of these days I’m going to take Suffy’s challenge to eat one of their 10 1/2 pound cinnamon rolls. Seriously. The other challenge is the 7-pound 12-egg omelet with all the trimmings. Skipping the challenge for this visit, Diane just had a hamburger and I had fish and chips.

One of the things Diane did was go grocery shopping. After bringing all the food in from the RV she noticed that the fridge had a lot of empty space and they needed to be filled. So, she filled them.

Now it’s Friday morning and I’ve been up for a couple of hours. Had breakfast, escorted Max around the block letting him take all the time he wanted to sniff stuff, and had my two cups of coffee. Now I must get myself ready to flirt with danger and install Diane’s new light up so she can get to work.

Until next time I hope all remains well with everyone,

Yesterday we left Bullards State Park and drove to Honeyman State Park. Considering all the “State Park” entries you may sense a theme in our travels. We made the trip without incident and drove right into our designated space. Honeyman is a huge park with around 400 camping spaces so I was totally gratified that I was able to drive right to the one Diane reserved.

I backed into the space just right the first time, then nudged it back just a little further because it was a short space and we needed room for the truck. Doing the nudge resulted in the rear wheels dropping off the paved space and landing against the cement stop bumper that had apparently been pushed off the paved area. The rig was essentially stuck and I could not get it back on the paved area. But, there was room to park the truck crossways in front of the RV so, I guess, mission accomplished.

I got out the big blocks Jeff made me and placed them under the rear jacks hoping they wouldn’t get jammed into the soil too far before they got the rear wheels off the ground. I started the leveling process and then went back to watch the results and was gratified when the rear wheels left the ground. My plan was to get some pieces of wood to slide under the wheels to keep them elevated when the jacks were retracted. Not having wood, I rediscovered the plastic leveling pads that look like large legos and used them instead. I wouldn’t know how effective they would be until this morning when we broke camp. I’m happy to report that they worked great. There was a little hesitation getting the umph to regain the paved area, but it made it.

Once on solid ground, I proceeded to break camp. The only thing remaining by then was the power cord. Max didn’t care. He just wanted to leave. But first, he had to wander a bit and visit all the puddles caused by the overnight rain.

Then we pulled the plug and left. But we changed our destination from Devil’s Lake in Lincoln City to Armitage Park in Eugene. It was an easy drive and we have total TV access with Dish. Nothing in the way. Now we’re going to be home tomorrow instead of next Friday. We’ve been gone long enough.

In addition to excellent TV access, there’s a wonderful dog park here at Armitage, and Max spent a memorable 30 minutes racing and mowing down a number of regular attendees at the park. They will remember him. He really did mow them down. Ran right over them no matter how big. Once he started doing his zoomies, they all joined him but they couldn’t keep up. Sadly, I have no video evidence of his prowess so you’ll just have to take my word for it. He had a lot of fun.

I had to revert to simple journaling to get my thoughts out of my head because there is no internet where we are, so we’ve been using the personal hot spots on our phones. Turns out there’s a limit to how much we can do that. AT&T doesn’t terminate after a certain amount of time, they just turn the speed way down to a point where it’s basically useless.

So, I’m doing this using MS Word then I’ll transfer it to my blog thing when Wi-Fi is available. That won’t be until Sunday when we move to Honeyman State Park in Florence. I’m pretty sure that’s the plan.

… you can relax now because my hot spot is functional once again and I’ve transferred my efforts in Word. Thanks for your patience.

Let’s see … the day before yesterday we wandered around in Bandon just looking at stuff until we decided we were hungry. Sometimes we get lost in the moment and forget that food is required. When this need presented itself, we were on the pier downtown. We’ve eaten there before so after Diane parked us, I walked over to our favorite fish place just in time to be their first customer to show up after they closed. That was a bummer because we were both needing fish and chips. So, I took a short jaunt down the pier to Pete’s Crab Shack thinking we would get something good there.

It’s not a very big place but they were doing a lot of business and folks were eating outside even though it was cold and windy. I checked the menu and spied grilled cod which appealed so ordered two of them at $17.50 each. Not a bad price, I thought, until I got them and learned they were cod sandwiches.

Now, I’m not totally against fish sandwiches but as a rule, don’t normally order them knowingly. It’s my belief that fish shouldn’t be in either tacos or sandwiches. In my head, it’s just wrong but I did my best and gave it a shot. Turns out my beliefs were correct in this case because the sandwiches were soggy and didn’t have enough tartar sauce, making them very bland. We both took the fish out and ate it alone, which was good, but all the rest was a waste. In this case, Diane was totally on my side about how wrong it is to waste perfectly good bread by wrapping it around a piece of fish. I suppose I could have avoided that if I’d only read the menu. However, we were hungry, and it was late.

Yesterday we drove to Coos Bay for a hamburger which is what Diane was craving yesterday. It’s been on her mind for a few days now. When we got to town, we stopped at the first place that advertised Burgers. Its name was actually “Burgers and Shakes” so we were confident they had hamburgers.

They did and I got two with one side of fries. We drove into town thinking we’d eat on the waterfront picnic tables in Coos Bay, but it was still chilly. Instead, Diane parked in a bank lot between First and Broadway. They were tasty, and Max liked the fries. He got a few nibbles of hamburger, too but earlier he had subtly let us know he’d rather have seafood.

After lunch, we cruised by DQ and got dessert. I had my normal chocolate malt, and Diane had a peanut buster parfait. She planned to keep it until we got ‘home’ but decided to eat it while driving. She did an excellent job. Didn’t wreck the truck even one time. Made me proud.

It was a very nice afternoon when we got back to Bandon, so we went down to the docks and watched the pelicans dive for dinner. They were fishing close to the pier, so it was a lot of fun watching them dive. There’s an art show on display all around the railings, too. Must be a couple hundred paintings and drawings by people of all ages. Most are from schools in the area, but some are by adults – maybe teachers. We strolled along and looked at every one of them. Max looked, too.

With Max in tow, wherever we go, he’s the focal point and is serving us well as a conversation starter. We get to talk with a lot of folks we would normally just say “Hi” to then mosey on down the road. With Max, however, the Hi turns into a conversation that most times results in trading lots of information about each other with people we just met. Funny how many new friends we’ve made since this little dog entered our lives. It’s a lot of fun and we treasure each moment.

We met some folks near the end of our tour of the posted artwork who were from the Bay Area in California. You can assume, as did I, that they were from San Francisco. We learned that they are planning to move to Bandon. Nice people who would make good Oregon residents.

Now it’s the next day, probably Saturday. I lose track but it really doesn’t matter, does it?

It’s Saturday and we chose to spend the day scouting around Coos Bay instead of watching college football. It was a struggle for Diane to pass up the ball games, but she agreed to come with Max and me to see what was going on in town.

The first destination was the closest thrift shop we could find. Diane loves those places and finds some interesting stuff. Good thing we have a pickup. Max and I normally stay in the truck, talking, while she searches for treasures. Occasionally, we find a store where dogs are welcome. I put Max in a cart and do some shopping myself while he gets to know everyone we pass. It’s fun. I hardly ever buy anything. This time she found a Lions Thrift Store and we waited in the truck. He stared at the door the entire time she was in there.

Once the thrift store itch was scratched, we headed back to the Bandon docks to get fish and chips from our favorite place. I’m sure it has a name, but I have no idea what it is. We just know where it is which is the important part.

As usual, the place was packed, and orders were stacking up, so I braced myself for a lengthy wait to get our order. During a lull at the cash register, Nora greeted me as I rested against the front counter, out of the way of hungry patrons. I was wearing my Navy hat, like normal, and she asked me if I’d ever been to Japan. I had, so we had a friendly conversation about life overseas. She and her husband were stationed in Yokosuka, Japan for a couple of years and loved it. I countered that with 2 years in Okinawa with my new bride. We visited until she had to get back to work. It’s nice to encounter folks like that and make new friends.

When the order was ready, I made my way out of the small facility and passed their outside tables just as one was being vacated. I promptly plopped our order on it and went to get Diane and Max to join me.

I got Diane halibut fish and chips, and I got a crab salad. It’s a lot like a crab Louie without a boiled egg. Really good. Dungeness crab, of course. It was a great lunch and Max got to eat a few french fries.

Then we went home and Diane made chicken caciatore for supper while I just played couch potato with Max lying on me. It was a valid reason to just lay there and do nothing. So that’s what I did.

Tomorrow we break camp and head north to Florence where we have reservations at Honeyman State Park.

See you there.

Yesterday’s journey to Bullards Beach, near Bandon, Oregon, was mostly pleasant and just a little frustrating. Again, we drove separately in a continuing effort to find out if we are better off apart than we are together. I know, some of you are shaking your heads, wondering where that’s coming from, and I understand. Diane does, too. We’ve discussed this at great length over the years and we always come up with the same answer.

Now, back to the trip . . .

Diane led us on using the GPS in the pickup, confident that I’d follow behind without worrying about the GPS in the RV which she programmed just in case I got curious about our progress. Normally I’m not too curious about that because I spend most of my time just looking around as we sail down the road at 65 mph.

Then we got to Coos Bay when she pulled off Highway 101 into a dead-end road leading into a sawmill. Having paid more attention to my GPS than normal, I detected a problem when she went off Highway 42 just 7 miles before Coos Bay and took us on at least a 30-mile detour on backroads, taking right turns instead of the left turns directed by my GPS.

Not knowing the reason for these interesting changes, Max and I followed along to see what was going to happen, ignoring our left turns and quietly making her right turns. I’m sure Max was confused, too, just from the way he looked at me. You know, eyebrows raised, and head cocked a little to the left? He’s good at that.

After Diane pulled into the sawmill, we had a little chat about what to do. She was rightfully angry with her GPS and had, I later learned, turned it off. It was unanimous that I lead for a while and see where we wound up. Turns out my GPS knew exactly where to go so there we went without one wrong turn. In Diane’s defense, she programmed both units so the ultimate address was the same on both. One difference I think she missed is that the truck unit has a little check mark by “avoid highways”, or something similar. We both like back roads more than freeways and avoid them when possible. Anyway, we made it to the park and I drove right to our designated spot, B-36, and ended this leg of the trip.

After plugging everything in the next order of business was to connect the satellite dish. Since we’re pretty much surrounded by trees, I had little hope of making it work, but climbed on the roof, pulling the antenna after me, anyway. I knew the general direction of south even though my phone compass was pointing directly at the setting sun. I knew that wasn’t right. Plopping the antenna down in a likely spot I went into the RV to see what happened. Oddly enough, it worked, but it didn’t give us our local channels. That’s what we watch most, so I had to go on the roof again to rectify that situation. I did that 3 times before I gave up and called Dish to see what they could do. The problem was that I could only align with one of the two satellites and the one missing was where the locals were.

I did some searching on the internet looking for a satellite finder and finally found one that’s specific to Dish. There is only one tall tree in the way of both satellites and I have enough room on the RV roof to “see” one satellite either wide, but not both together. So, I set it for locals and called it a night. The problem is that I didn’t get it done in time for Diane to watch Dancing With The Stars. But, she forgave me because I really did try.

Now it’s the next day, we’ve had lunch (street tacos), Diane’s finishing the dishes, and Max is waiting at the door, tapping his foot while waiting to go to the beach.

Later . . .

The beach was a huge hit with Max. There were only a few people where we went, down by the Coquille River Light House, so I turned him loose to see what happened. He really stretched his legs, running for all he was worth like he does in our backyard. The difference at the beach was he could run a lot further. Like hundreds of of feet further. There were a couple of moments when I thought he was just going to keep on running when he got about 500 feet from us. But, he came back. He also liked running in the surf, too. At one point he went out and just laid down in the water, like he does in the creek at home. Of course, we were never ready with the camera during those moments. There are other photos but they are in limbo somewhere in the cloud. They’ll show up eventually.

In addition to the water, Max loves to chase birds. In this case, seagulls. He doesn’t care how high they are, either. He’s going to catch them. He also chases the shadows they make on the ground when they fly over. Fun to watch.

The weather couldn’t be nicer here in the park. The temp is about 62, still a little chilly for us, but still very nice. On the beach, it was probably the same temp, but the wind was blowing about a hundred mph. Very brisk. Had to cinch up my hoody to keep my hat from blowing away.

Winding down now in preparation for giving Max a bath. He’s a mess.

Until then, he’ll be on guard.