Well everyone, we finally “Got out of Dodge.” We were trying to tie up a dozen loose ends during our week in the Scappoose-Saint Helens area. The Outboard needed to be winterized and the lower unit repaired. The shop couldn’t get the seals until this week, so Neil and Renee will be helping us with that project. (An aside for Neil, The motor storage rack is in unit 19, not 18 as I told you earlier.) The other biggie was rolling our 401 K account into a rollover IRA. About half of our net worth is in that one account, and after the Enron deal I wanted that out of corporate hands, especially with the division being sold to a holding company. Well after making sure that they had our new address I ordered out the rollover check. Would you guess that they sent the check to our old address anyway, so the check became lost and had to be cancelled. This time I am going straight to the source. We are going to drop by Boise Corporate headquarters in Boise Idaho, so I can pick up the check direct from HR.
In the mean time we had our dental checkup and cleaning. We had the Arcturus warmed up and down off the jacks and ready to go when Judy split a corner off of a tooth. Al and Audrey graciously hosted us for another night while we did an emergency tooth repair. Friday morning we did the final trailer hookup, fueled up and then headed for the storage units one last time. This time it was to get the canoe to put on top of the trailer. We parked as close to the site as possible, behind JJ’s Market, and then we walked about two blocks to the storage yard. The canoe went over our shoulders and we portaged back to Arcturus. We probably looked a bit ridiculous hiking through Scappoose with a canoe over our heads, but it was easier than trying to work a 34 foot motor home and cargo trailer down a very narrow lane into the storage yard.
These last two days we have made our way to Fairfield Washington. This is a very small town about 25 miles south of Spokane and right on the Idaho border. Gary’s Father, Chester, lives here in a Good Samaritan Center. We have had several good visits and ate lunch with Chester today. After lunch Gary brought out his guitar and played oldies for about an hour. Gary’s Nephew, Carl Morgan and his new wife Melissa and her five year old son, Devin, were also on hand. Melissa joined the festivities by playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise on the piano. Devin has a three-quarters guitar that he likes to strum along to the beat of the music. He is into some rather odd harmonics, however.
Monday, October 11, will see us headed south to Boise Idaho and then over to Sun Valley Idaho for a big Jazz Festival. We are sincerely hoping that we don’t hear anything about that big four letter word, s – – w. After that we will really get into the spirit of heading south. We have to run the furnace way to much these cold mornings. Boy are we getting soft. Just a couple of months ago we were living in a tent and traveling in a Honda Civic.
Bye for now
Lots of Love from Gary and Judy