Phone + Water = Delay

At sister’s house, Citrus Heights, CA

Got up this morning at 6:55 to let the dogs out and feed them.  After the ritual of barking, Arny giving them a treat, them doing their business, they come back in for their morning breakfast.  I put the dry food into their respective bowls, reach for the spoon in a small plastic bowl soaking in water in order to dish out the canned food to mix with the dry food, and to my horror I find Marcia’s flip phone sitting in the bowl next to the spoon in about a 1/2 inch of water!

After getting the dogs their food, I immediately got on Amazon and ordered another flip phone.  $40 later, with delivery sometime tomorrow, and a quick trip to a Verizon Store and she will be back in business.  In the meantime, laundry is done, the car is packed, and we are ready to leave…it will just be Wednesday instead of Tuesday (or late Tuesday afternoon if it comes that quick).

Friday Sandy and Arny left for the Bodega Bay area for two nights, three days of not having to care for Arny’s mom.  Monday through Friday a caregiver, Debbie, comes in for 5 hours, then she lays down for a 2-3 hour nap, and by the time she gets up my sister is home from work.  While they were gone, I helped out Friday morning through Sunday afternoon.  My sister Patti arrived around 3 on Friday and did much of the caregiving from then through Sunday evening.  Me?  Well, I am the muscles…picking her up, moving her, and keeping her company as needed.  Marcia also sat with her and talked and visited for a number of hours too.  It is just so hard to imagine being so dependent on others…can’t do anything on her own.  Ninety five years old…good, long life that just keeps hanging on.

Went over to the grocery store over the weekend too, and saw this Model A with a Cadillac engine sitting in the parking lot…what a nice looking car.  Don’t know which is older, the car of Arny’s mother…my bet is on his mother…and I am sure she has more original parts than this car does.

Anyway, we will be on the road to Oregon either late Tuesday or first thing Wednesday morning.  Will need to adjust our stops a little, but that’s ok, plans are made to be changed…. 

Six Week Trip to Southern Oregon + a Wedding

At Sister’s House in Citrus Heights, CA

So we came to California this year, as we have each year since 2012, to visit family.  This year, there have been a few special events that went along with it…dad’s 90th birthday, mom’s 88th birthday, and mom and dad’s 70th wedding anniversary…all of which have taken place.  In July, there is another special event, my oldest son Michael is getting married to his longtime girlfriend Anna.  That takes place west of Santa Rosa near the end of July…so we have nearly six weeks from now until then.  This weekend Arny and Sandy, at the urging of my sister Patti and myself, and headed out for the weekend…destination “Who Cares, because we are GETTING AWAY for the first time in many, many months”.  Patti, Marcia and I will be taking care of Arny’s mother Euleda.  Monday will be laundry day, packing day, and on Tuesday we are headed northwest back to southwestern Oregon.

Our first stop Tuesday night will be at a National Forest campground along the Trinity River in what we think will be in a cool location…at least we “hope” that is where we can stay because it is a first come, first serve campground.  I hope to pull in there around 3 pm, no later than 4 pm…if it is full, there are some other alternatives westward, but I don’t think we will have any problems.  By-the-way…the little balloons on the map are different colors…blue for campgrounds, gold for gas stations, black for dump stations, red for laundromats, purple for campgrounds that we will use more than once, grey for possible stop at a commercial campground in Gold Beach, and a dark purple for wedding locations.  I put down the price of campgrounds, dates we will probably stay, etc, and furnish a link to Marcia so she has a map and agenda too.  It works for us.

However, our plans are made of “Jello”, they can easily change and conform to the situation at hand.  We MUST get into a park a week before the 4th of July so that we are sure to have a spot over this very busy weekend.  Nearly all of the places we are planning to stay at are ones we stayed at last year, except for this first stop, and the last stop where we have a commercial RV park near the wedding venue.  We really enjoyed our trip to southwest Oregon last year, and look forward to visiting the area again this year…only difference, we will have our car with us this time.

   

The average high in Sacramento for July and August is around 94 degrees.  Nine of the ten hottest days in Sacramento recorded history have been in July…but 100 degrees can be reached on any given day in Sacramento from May to October.  So when we come back in late July, it most likely will only be for around two weeks.  Then we head back east, with a lot of time spent in Colorado.  That trip will be on another map, and in another blog.  And we are lucky, local temps will be under 90 until Monday, and we will be out of the valley on Tuesday morning when temps are forecasted to by 100 degrees by 4 pm.