Well, we finally picked up our "new old" trailer, and have been on two outings since. For our "maiden voyage" we went to Sumpter (Oregon) and had a ball. The refrigerator worked on and off, but the freezer was steady, so I put water bottles in to freeze, then brought them down to the refrigerator compartment. That seemed to remind the thing how to do its job, so it worked for a while and then got warm again. The water pump does not work, so we just hook up to the tank on the truck and that works fine until we get a new pump installed. The beds are extremely comfortable and we both sleep very well. Sumpter was great: the old Dredge has been leveled and restored, and we took a train ride on the narrow gage steam engine train that runs for six miles through the devastated area - absolutely stunning!

I didn't take the 4-Runner, so the Ford got its work-out on several FS roads. We camped at Phillips Lake at a FS Campground, very quiet, and we had no TV and no Internet! A real vacation!

For our second trip we went to Blewett Pass and stayed at Swauk CG. Again, no TV, no Internet, but lot of excitement nevertheless. We checked out many back roads (with the Ford again), and well, on one of them we just happened to highcenter, ending up sitting right on the oil pan! Whooo hooo! We managed to get out of there after standing on our heads in the ruts and being pretzled around the tire to place the jack in the right spot.... And then I didn't even take ONE picture of it all! I tried to talk Carl into going back but he wouldn't go for it... But this time, the refrigerator worked constantly, so we won't have to get a new one right away. We saw elk and deer and a shepherd with a huge flock of sheep grazing in the middle of the woods! I can't wait for the next outing!

Ok, so I tried my pen at story writing! But the truth is, we DID watch the tall ships "fight" each other here at Tri-Cities in the Columbia River, then we got to tour one of them at the Pasco Harbor and we enjoyed it so much that we decided to take one of the 3-hour tours. All tours at Tri-Cities were sold out already so we booked out of The Dalles. It was well worth it and we plan to do it again next year.