Crop circle......

 7:41 am - Tuesday - August 31st - Seal Rock, OR - 45° F, 100% humidity, wind - CALM.....crystal, clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 60° F......the air has the feel of Fall to it.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were sitting on the shores of Lake Tahoe at Baldwin Beach reading and enjoying the view.....↴

Fred and I parted work ways Monday.....he went about the campground putting a new coat of Hammerite (special rust inhibiting paint) on the metal electrical pedestal boxes, whilst I remined in the tent area scraping another picnic table.  There aren't that many picnic tables left which need painting......maybe four, or five....a sign that our year here is about finished.

TLE and took a walk down to Seal Rock Beach after work, and pretty much had the place to ourselves.....not too surprising as kids are pretty much back to school now.  I remember when the school year started the first Monday after Labor Day....

.....yup, finally bought a new 'Gilligan' hat.....my old beige one was quite the worse for wear.  This one has a slightly broader brim to it....

....for the first time in a while we crossed over the volcanic rocks to the next beach to the south, and found it totally deserted......

....about half way down the southern beach we found the beach/sand equivelant of a 'crop circle'.....

.....someone has too much time on their hands, but it provided some entertainment for us....I'm sure it was gone as soon as the incoming tide swept over it....

....on our way back to the beach path we came upon this gent making the most of a working vacation.....the ultimate outdoor work site......lol.....

.....the sun remained out all day long, and I'm sure there was a sunset, but I missed it.  I thought the sunset was just after 8 pm, but when I went out to get a picture I realized it had already set.....at 7:56 pm....it wasn't that long ago that sunset was at 9:04 pm.

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The celebration.....it was Golden.....

7:47 am - Monday - August 30th - Seal Rock, OR - 41° F, 100% humidity, wind - CALM....clear, sunny, blue skies today with a forecast high of 61° F. On this date we arrived at Cape Blanco for our second year of volunteering as docents at the lighthouse......↴

Sunday was, as I wrote yesterday, the 50th anniversary of our vows, but it was also a work day....only two hours of work, mind you, but a work day none the less.  Fred and I trimmed 5 hedges, and called it a day.  I was home by 12:20 pm, and settling in to watch the final round of the BMW Classic, the second of three tournaments which comprise the FedEx Cup.  At the end of regulation Patrick Cantlay, and Bryson DeChambeau were tied at 27 under par.  Little did we know they would play 6 playoff holes before Cantlay was declared the winner after making a birdie on that final playoff hole.....DeChambeau just missed his birdie attempt.  In fact he missed at least 4 putts over those 6 playoff holes which could have given him the win.  They finished just before sunset in Maryland.

TLE and I had reservations at Georgie's Beachside Grill (4 stars on 1001 reviews) in Newport for 7 pm....even though it has been mostly foggy, and overcast all week, we wanted to give ourselves a chance at a sunset dinner.  We left home around 6:40 pm, arriving at Georgie's in 10 minutes.  We were seated minutes later, and were pleased to find we had a good chance at a sunset.....

The obligatory 'usie'...

Toasting to another 50 years

Picture postcard sunset....how perfect is that?

.....it was just clear enough for us to see the sun set.  We ordered cocktails, then a bottle of Pino Noir.  TLE ordered their Seafood Stew, and I their 8 oz. Filet Mignon with sautéed mushrooms, and crusted bleu cheese.  I had a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, and nothing else the rest of the day in preparation for this dinner, and I'm glad....I had just enough room for everything.  We had one of those nice, leisurely dinners filled with laughter, and talk about the past, present and future lasting almost two hours....we didn't want it to end, but alas Georgie's closes at 9 pm.

There is construction ongoing just south of the Yaquina Bay Bridge, and we got caught in it on the way home, sitting for almost 15 minutes on the bridge, but it didn't matter....we continued our talk about this and that all the way home.  It was a truly memorable anniversary dinner, the memory of which I will cherish for years to come.

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Numero 50......

 8:00 am - Sunday - August 29th - Seal Rock, OR - 50° F, 100% humidity, wind - CALM....heavily overcast today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 1971 TLE and I were married......50 years ago today......↴

I'm taking a break from regularly scheduled programming today to focus on an amazing milestone in my life.  Fifty years ago today around 1 pm in the afternoon I married my best friend, and lover....Elaine Frances Houghtaling.  Our first date was in June of 1968.....

.....we were engaged in March of 1971 while I was home from college.  That summer we went to Manhattan Beach every Sunday.....

Engaged.....at the beach about a month before we were married

......soon we had our first child on August 31st, 1972.....here we are at Harrah's in Stateline, NV in 1974.......

With our 2 year old first born son, Christopher having dinner at Harrah's in Stateline, NV in 1974

.....for our 20th anniversary we flew to Kauai, Hawaii for 8 days....I still have that watch in the picture below (Casio Quartz diver watch).....

20th - Kauai, Hawaii

.....fast forward 20 years.....we moved into our Newell to live full time on February 1, 2011, and celebrated our 40th anniversary in Riverside, CA.....a month later we both retired, and on February 1, 2012 we began our full time adventure.....

40th - Riverside, CA

41st - Twin Falls, ID - Snake River Gorge

42nd - Spokane, WA

43rd - South Lake Tahoe, CA - Taco Friday

44th - at Nephele's for dinner - South Lake Tahoe, CA

46th - Chico Hot Springs, MT - with workamper friends Roscoe, Geni and Dodge (Kristin)

47th - Southwest Harbor, ME

48th - Julian, CA

49th - Oak Harbor, WA - with life long friends, Bob and Karen Fenstermacher

......along the way we raised five children to majority, and now have 8 grand children, with one more on the way, as well as 2 great grand children.....life with The Lovely Elaine has been a great adventure that began back in 1968 on our first date.  She is my best friend, and lover.  Every day with her is a blessing....she is the best part of me.

Happy 50th wedding anniversary to us!

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A tale of two cities.....

 8:35 am - Saturday - August 28th - Seal Rock, OR - 50° F, 100% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 65° F.  On this date in 2017 we hiked 11 miles on the Hell Roaring Creek trail in Yellowstone.....there were bridges in most places to cross bodies of water, and in others there were not......

Friday was supposed to be one of those rarely seen, lately, bright, sun shinny days, but the sun did not peak out from behind the clouds until early afternoon.  I needed to refill a couple of prescriptions at Fred Meyers so TLE and I headed into Newport around 11 am to do just that, and do a little shopping.  When I was getting my prescriptions filled at Hi-School Pharmacy in Waldport my two prescriptions ran about $80 for 30 days....about 4 times higher than they were at COSTCO.  COSTCO is 90 minutes away, so I saw no point in keeping my prescriptions there while were are living at SRRVC.  I figured that was because we were in a more rural area.  Finally, after doing that for more months than I like to admit, I checked with Fred Meyers in Newport and found I could get a 90 day supply of each for under $22.....total combined price!  How is that possible?  Well, anyway I picked up another 90 day supply of each for that amazing price Friday Friday at Fred Meyers.  After paying for my refills I tracked down TLE in the meat section of the supermarket, helping her finish fill up her small shopping cart.  We were home a little after 12 pm.  

Since we have a 'burn ban' in effect for the entire state of Oregon it is obvious we will have no more sunset fires, so I decided to clean our stainless steel, portable fire pit and stow her in her travelling compartment....the right side of our engine bay.....

.....when we are travelling the fire pit is placed upside down over our pancake compressor, and strapped down with ratcheting cargo straps.  I then moved all of our firewood up to the concrete pad on the driver side of the coach.....

 

....we have enough firewood for a week's worth of sunset fires, but it will not be used this time around.

After that I washed 10 days of salt off the Beetle, and the front of the coach....mainly the windshield as the salt residue makes the window all streaky, and spoils the view.  Next up I turned off the water to our coach, and removed the heated fresh water hose since, we haven't had freezing temps at night in forever, and replaced it with our regular fresh water hose for the duration of our stay here at SRRVC.

With the sun in the afternoon we also were gifted another round of north winds.  They got so brisk we had to stow the patio awning for the first time in 10 days.  Of course, with the north wind come cooler temps....of course, cooler temps is a relative term here on the Oregon Coast in the summer.  The overnight lows get into the high 40's with a north wind, but the day time temps are in the mid 60's in the final few days of August.

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'Will it start?'

 8:48 am - Friday - August 28th - Seal Rock, OR - 59° F, 94% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 63° F.  On this date in 2016 TLE and rode our bikes to Baldwin Beach on the shores of Lake Tahoe......↴

Something happened Thursday which has not happened for months....we woke up to rain, and it continued raining until after 11 am.  My only work task for the day was to do 'site checks', so I reported for work at 11:30 am, and was home a little after 12 pm......who would think we would be rained out of work on August 27th?  There was no rain while I did site checks, but within an hour of returning home it began to rain again.....wait, what?  Yup, it rained all afternoon.  

To pass the time on a rainy afternoon I connected to the 'YouTube' channel on my Roku TV and watched some of those 'will it start?' videos.  You know, the ones where the guy heads out into the woods to see if he can start a bulldozer, or road grader, or backhoe which has been sitting for 20 years, is covered by vines, with trees growing up through it?  If you haven't watched any of those videos check them out.  I am fascinated by the resiliency of these old diesel engines.  Some particularly interesting channels are 'Andrew Camarata', Hamiltonville Farms, Salvage Workshop, Diesel Creek, and 'Marty T' just to name a few.  Then there are the ones where they are retrieving an excavator from the middle of a river, or lake, or is sunk in 20 feet of mud.....fascinating!

TLE had a potato/veggie soup cooking in her Vita Clay cooker most of the day, and how great was it to have a great 'winter' soup in the fourth week of August and think how amazingly appropriate, and timely it was.  This has been a strange year on the Oregon Coast....we went from Winter to a very brief Spring, and then right back to Fall/Winter type weather.  Summer was completely missing in action this year....not that I'm complaining, or anything.

Since we finished the 3rd and final season of  'Absentia' last Thursday night I have been looking for something else to binge watch, and I found it on Netflix.....'Hit and Run'....I watched all nine 45 minute episodes of Season 1 Thursday evening/night.  Totally fascinating.

Well that's it for Thursday....on to Friday!  Thanks for stopping by!

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It's a picnic......

 7:42 am - Thursday - August 26th - Seal Rock, OR - 55° F, 100% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the south.....overcast, raining today with a forecast high of 66° F.  This is the first sustained rain in a month.  Started raining last night around 8:30 pm, and rained all night.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were enjoying the morning view at the home of long time friends Bob and Karen near Coupeville, WA.....Harrington Lagoon is in the foreground.....↴

Wednesday began with heavy overcast, which cleared for about 5 hours, and then rolled back in, and by 8:30 pm we had rain.  During the winter rain was so ubiquitous the moments without the sound of rain upon our aluminum roof were rare, but the last few months the pitter patter of rain has become extremely rare....so rare that we are under a burn ban now.  So what happened during the sunny part of Wednesday?

I work by my self Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Wednesday I returned to picnic table duty.  I left off last week beginning to scrape another table in preparation for painting. I managed to finish scraping that table, and then painted it taking me up to 11:45 am.  I spent the next 1/2 hour doing site checks, then returned to the tent area to begin scraping the final of five tables, but left it unfinished as 1 pm arrived all too quickly....time to head for home.  TLE is back to one 9 am to 12 pm shift on Wednesdays, and then the same split shift on Thursdays she has been working for some time.

As I have been doing for several days now I spent time in the trailer putting things away.  I'm just kind of chipping around the edges right now.  The big stuff (table with three tool bags, the Black & Decker Workmate with bench grinder, fire place, bicycles, etc.) will be dealt with around the middle of September as our departure day draws ever closer.

Here in the People's Republic of Oregon Gov. Brown has mandated that everyone, including the vaccinated, wear masks indoors and OUTDOORS for the foreseeable future....wait, what?  We are also being told that many previously completely vaccinated folks will need periodic booster shots as the 'vaccine' loses its efficacy over time.  I guess that is one of the many unknowns about the numerous 'vaccines' on the market today, which are not really vaccines as we have known them.  They are, in fact, technically, gene therapy drugs.  If being 'vaccinated' doesn't protect you from the Wuhan Flu, then what is the point?  I've lost track of people who have been completely vaccinated, and subsequently being diagnosed with COVID-19.  John Rahm, the number one professional golfer in the world, has come down with COVID-19 twice since being completely vaccinated.  Eric Clapton (who doesn't know who he is, right?) was completely vaccinated and still got COVID....he lost feeling in his arms, hands, and legs for weeks, and wondered if he would ever play guitar again.  Was that from COVID, or the 'vaccine'?  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, TLE and I continue to be asymptomatic....we wear masks as little as possible, and spend the rest of our time breathing free air indoors and outdoors.

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The domicile debate.....

 7:48 am - Wednesday - August 25th - Seal Rock, OR - 52° F, 94% humidity, wind - CALM....heavy overcast, but sun later today with a forecast high of 63° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were camped on the shores of the Snake River in eastern Oregon......↴

Tuesday was WDS day......you know, one of those clean those septic filters every other Tuesday days.  As is most always the case we finished within 30 minutes, and were on to more appetizing endeavors.  More appetizing, that is, if you enjoy trimming hedges for almost two hours.  Fred and I have hedge trimming down to a science.  I handle the higher stuff as I am taller, and he handles the stuff closer to the ground, and then we both rake up the clippings.  Raking up the clippings is really the hardest part of the task if you are working alone, but done in tandem is not hard at all.  After hauling another trailer full of clippings to the 'burn pile' we spent the last 15 minutes doing sites checks.....just five customers arriving on this day, with one departure....piece of cake.  I was home about 12:15 pm, and by 12:50 pm TLE was heading off to a three hour stint in the office.

We've been discussing our exit plan at the end of September and right now this is the plan.....return to our friends' (Bob and Karen) home near Coupeville, WA (Whidbey Island) for a couple of weeks, then head to Spokane to see my sister and brother-in-law (Hilary and Bob) for one, or two weeks, then depending on the weather forecast head to Sioux Falls, SD to investigate changing our domicile from California to South Dakota.  After that begin heading south to revisit some of our favorite boon docking sites during the winter.  If we happen to find a cool place to spend the winter and work, we may do that, but it will have to be a much warmer climate.

So, why change our domicile after almost 10 years of being 'Vagabonders Supreme'?  Well, within the next 1-3 years California will outlaw our Detroit Diesel 6v92.  Up to this point we have been exempt from emissions requirements, but now that they have punished everyone else they can they are turning their attention to RV's.  It would cost us $25-30,000 to repower the Newell, and that is definitely not in the cards.  The other issue is having to return to California every other year to pass the smog test for the VW, or anther other car we may own, which is a pain in the rear end as our most recent experience bears mute testimony.  Every other year we have to plan our travels based upon the need for a smog test...we do not like allowing outside influences to dictate our travel itinerary.

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Bye, bye summer......

 7:42 am - Tuesday - August 24th - Seal Rock, OR - 45° F, 100% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the east......sunny today with a forecast high of 63° F.  On this date in 2012 we had just arrived in Arlington, OR (on the Columbia River) and snagged the last spot in their river front, first come, first served RV park.....just 141 miles east of Portland, and you are in high desert.....↴

Monday was a very straight forward day for Fred and I.  We were assigned to trim the hedge which separates sites 35 and 36.  It was quite high (not our highest by any means) and Terry wanted us to cut a foot off the top, and a foot off the site 36 side.  We spent about 90 minutes on that task, and then headed off to do site checks at 11:30 am finishing right at 12 pm.  TLE worked a 9-11 am shift, and was there to greet me upon my arrival home.  Another two hour 'grind' in the books.....lol.

The final round of the PGA Northern Trust Tournament (first of three post season tournments to determine this years FedEx Playoff champion out of the top 125 golfers in 2021) was postponed from Sunday to Monday due to Hurricane Henri, which was pounding the New England coast.  The Northern Trust Tournament is held in Jersey City, which is not far from the open ocean, so the rainfall was significant on Sunday.  I had that playing in the background as I continued to organize the trailer in anticipation of VW insertion, just 5 short weeks away now.  It was also time to dump our black tank again, so I took care of that in short order before heading back inside to watch the final holes of the tournament.  At end of the regulation 72 holes there was a two way tie for first place so they went to sudden death, again.  I think this is like the third, or fourth tournament in a row this has happened.  This time, after just one playoff hole, the winner was determined, and now the remaining top 70 golfers play in the BMW Championship next weekend.

It appears 'summer' has passed us by with nary a whimper.  The overnight lows are dipping into the mid to high 40's again, something we have not seen for weeks.  The 15 day forecast, which takes us to the end of the first week in September, has highs in the low to mid 60's.  I think we'll have to turn on our A/C units one day just to exercise them, because it does not appear we will ever need them here in Coastal Oregon.

We were hoping to BBQ outside, but the wind came up around 3 pm nixing that idea.  TLE grilled, indoors, her famous Cilantro Salmon, and was it ever delicious!  The marine layer managed to remain in abeyance enabling me to get a nice sunset picture.....

by the way, I'm having to walk half way down NW Cross Street to get sunset pictures again.

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Plugging along.....

 7:31 am - Monday - August 23rd - Seal Rock, OR - 45° F, 92% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the east by northeast......crystal clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were relaxing at our site in Tahoe Valley Campground after a day of work....↴

For the first time in a long time I went to work at 2 pm on a Sunday.  Since I had all this extra morning time I decided to cross another item off my never ending 'TO DO' list....replace the 50 amp plug on my shore power cord.  The ground post on the plug came out a number of months ago when we arrived back from our one month hiatus.  I was able to reinsert it, and it made contact, so I decided to live with that, but immediately ordered a replacement.....

Detached ground pole

......the replacement has been sitting on my work bench for months.  I first cut off the old plug.....

.....then prepared the four wires by stripping about 1/4" of insulation the end of each wire.  Next up was to wire up the new plug.  The manufacturer made it easy to know which color wire went to which terminal, so the process was easy in that respect, but cutting each wire to the proper length based on its terminal location was a little more difficult.  Nevertheless, I prevailed in the end......

.....and soon electrical power was restored to the Newell....no small animals, old men, or children were hurt during this process

The new pug has finger holes making it easier to extract from the surge protector

.....TLE and I reported for work at 2 pm, and I headed directly to the tent area to continue painting picnic tables.  I finished the table on the right (picture below), which I had begun to paint last week, in about 30 minutes then proceeded to paint the one on the left.  Each table takes about one hour to paint.....

.....so when I finished the table on the left I proceeded to begin scraping a new table.  I got about half the table scraped in 30 minutes before it was 4 pm, and time to head for home.....

Before and after

.....its kind of weird getting home from work at 4 pm, but it was actually a nice day, and the elusive sun was present most of the day.

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