Rike's Pages

Wow, I’m almost 3 months late! Do I say I was busy? Of course!

September was my last month working for the Corps, and we went camping again on my off days , first to the Hell’s Canyon area and next time to Little Goose Dam. We found many places we plan to revisit next year.

We left Hood Park on October 2d and made it all the way to Mt. Vernon, OR. We had planned to meet with friends at French Glen the next day, but the weather took a turn for the worse and we traveled through sleet and snow and ice to Winnemucca, NV to catch up. From there, the weather was more cooperative and though cold at night, the days were sunny and fair. We arrived at Overton, NV on October 9th, via Rachel and the Extraterrestrial Highway – a quite faster trip than we had planned. We spent a week exploring the Virgin River back country before going home to Hummingbird.

Now we’ve been here one month, went shopping in Kingman and Las Vegas and I am typing this on my brand new Windows 7 computer which I’ve been setting up for the last 2 days! So all I have to do now is add 3 months’ worth of photos and I will be caught up. Make sure you’ll check the new album.

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.

We have been here at Hood Park for a month now. The weather has improved, but we do have rainy days - to keep the grass green... When we came, the trees were bare; now the leaves are out, almost from one day to the next. We've settled into the 5-days-on-5-days-off routine, though it still takes me at least 2 days to "recover" from five early-morning get-ups! I'm no Spring Chick any more!

Carl's 75th birthday was on April 26th. We went out for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Ahtanum (just west of Yakima), the "Ranch House". Besides regular good food (Carl's choice: Prime Rib), they feature a Chicken Gizzard Plate (ah,yes, I know) which is my favorite. Also for his birthday, Carl bought me a new Camera. Now I'm trying to take pictures of any of the red squirrels that we have quite a few families of here at the park. There are several pairs of Canada geese that just had chicks, and the cherry and dogwood trees in the park and surrounding area make for good photo ops. Check out my "Hood Park" album, and come back occasionally since I will be adding photos to it throughout the Summer.