Monday, Rich took the truck in to Coachmasters to get a Banks Power kit installed. Rich assures me that as well as increased fuel economy it will give us more power when towing our home up any steep inclines. So Rich rode his bike back from Coachmasters and we spent the day puttering around and going for a nice long walk out back of Crown Villa. Out back is a huge piece of vacant property that the locals as well as the park residents walk their dogs. While on our walk, we saw around 16 deer, that's a lot of deer. Once back from our walk we got the call that our truck was ready to be picked up.
Tuesday, we got up and got around and headed out to my mom's after a stop at Home Depot and Starbucks. What's a road trip without a good cup of coffee to start out with? One of the projects we will be completing at my mom's is to install a locking mailbox. We will be using her address and wanted the additional security. We got to try out our new Banks Power kit, it definitely has more power, especially when not towing and we are still checking the mileage. One negative thing, but I guess it's actually a good thing, is that we found out that the engine braking was no longer working and this is something we have to have working when towing our fiver. Is it coincidence with all the work we've had done lately or did it just wear out? Something else we will have to look into before we head out but I'm glad we found it now rather than when we were going down a steep hill with the fiver behind and no engine braking. Other than that we had an uneventful drive to my mom's. It sure is good to see my mom.
Wednesday, we woke up to cloudy rainy skies. The electrical power was scheduled to be down from 9-3 for some scheduled maintenance on the lines, so it was a good day to plan an adventure away from the house. The plan for the day was for Rich to work removing our super hitch from the truck and my mom and I to go visit my aunt and uncle in Scio. My aunt and uncle have a antique/junque store called J/J's and they had just added on a new shop room. Wow, my mom had tried to describe the shop before, but you have to see it to believe it. It's gigantic....my aunt lives in the country on a farm and has taken several of the outbuildings and turned them into different rooms of her shop. It takes hours and hours to go through everything and we went at a pretty fast pace, you could spend a couple of days easily. My aunt told me to pick out three items to take with me, but being short on space I had to be choosy. With so much to choose from, it was almost overwhelming, but I walked away with a wire basket (to use by the kitchen stove to hold the kitchen utensils) and a small picture. Thanks auntie. My aunt invited us back the next day for lunch to celebrate my cousins birthday. When we got home, Rich was still having fun in my dad's shop, removing the big heavy super hitch and installing the factory hitch. You ask, how did he get that big heavy hitch off by himself, well he's very resourceful and in looking around my dad's shop, he saw this little wood cart that my dad had made out of an old lawn mower that fit underneath the truck which would help hold the hitch up while he removed the bolts.
Thursday, was another cloudy day. My mom goes for a walk every day around the creek and old landing road that is on her property, so I got up early and joined her. What a great way to start the day. We decided to take my aunt up on her invite to lunch since we had an errand to run in Stayton anyway and it would be good to see my cousins. Rich stayed behind and worked on installing the post for the new mailbox. My dad had a bunch of locust posts that were much prettier than the treated post we had brought from Bend, so the plan was to use the locust post instead which would be much more whimsical than the treated post. So off we went back to Scio. It was fun visiting with my cousins. My cousin Bonnie is a month and a day older than me and we spent a lot of time together when we were younger. My other two cousins, Carol and Peggy were there also. The cousins are always good to share a lot of good laughs together. It was an enjoyable time, and no I did not go shopping again in my aunt's store, though it was tempting. Yesterday, I saw the cutest little outdoor metal folding table and chair set and was trying to figure out how to explain to Rich how we just had to drag this around the country, well my good sense finally won out, and I didn't succumb to the temptation of purchasing it. When mom and I got home, the post for the mailbox was set and looked wonderful. I have to tell you about the previous mailbox setup. My dad and mom didn't throw much away and instead of running to the store to buy what you needed for a project, you made do with what you had. Well apparently, my parents had a time where their mailbox was being backed into quite often and my dad had enough of that, so he fashioned this indestructible setup. He had taken an old leaf spring for the base and welded two pieces of angle iron for the posts and then had a piece of thick fiberglass that rocked back and forth, so if the mailbox was hit, it would just rock back and forth, it wouldn't snap off. You had to see it to really understand how it really worked, my dad was very creative, you ask where is the picture, well there isn't one, our camera battery was dead. Well why didn't we just use that post setup, we tried, but our new mailbox was too heavy and it made the rocking part of the setup rock forward too far. So we had to pull my dad's setup out of the ground using the truck, on a steep hillside, thank goodness for automatic transmission, since I was the one driving the truck. I have some stories for another day about me and manual transmissions on a hillside, my brothers still get a good laugh at me when that story is retold. In the evening, we watched a movie and had my mom's famous and yummy popcorn. My mom makes this combination of butter/olive oil/coconut oil to put on top of it and it is so good.
Friday, started with another early morning walk with my mom. What a peaceful and relaxing way to start the day, walking along side the rushing waters of the creek and looking at all the spring wildflowers blooming along the way, very beautiful. Rich and I spent some time going through and sorting some of our things we have stored in the shop. Then Rich finished up the mailbox installation, it looks great. I spent time with mom in the garden/flowerbeds working on weeding and clipping. I get a lot of pleasure working in the yard/garden and don't mind the weeding. It's a great way to let your mind wander all over a lot of different subjects and thoughts. We met my youngest brother and his family up in Mill City at Giovanni's for pizza that evening. If you are driving through Mill City and want some good pizza, it's the place to stop. We had a nice visit and ate way too much yummy pizza.
Saturday was the day we were headed back to Bend. After saying our "see you later's" to my mom we headed home via Lebanon with a bunch of goodies from my mom. She always sends us off with cookies, carmel popcorn and yogurt covered pretzels. We stopped for a quick visit with Rich's oldest sister Kathryn. It was good to see her and catch up. We also stopped and checked out a couple of RV parks in the area thinking that when we finally do head out of Bend, we might stop for a night or two on our way to the Southern Oregon coast. Rich has some other relation in the area that we want to visit before we head out on our adventure. We had a pleasant drive home, though a bit curvy since we went on Hwy 20, but it is a very beautiful drive. It was good to be back on the sunny side of the mountains and it felt good to be back in our home and our own bed.
Sunday we went to church and then did our normal routine of stopping for a visit to our adopted "mom" who isn't able to make it to church much any more. Burla or "mom" is 90 and has recently taken a nasty fall which has left her with a huge gash on her head and an amazingly colorful black eye. I'm glad to report that she was looking much better. After our visit we headed to Starbucks for our usual latte and then ran a few errands. After a nice long walk with Gracie we were back in our nice warm home for a nice cozy evening in front of the fireplace watching a movie.
See you next week and yes we are still loving the "retired lifestyle".
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