October 31 - November 3, 2013 (Bend, OR)

Thursday
We got up early because my daughter Amber was going to stop by for a quick visit before we headed out for Bend.  We had a nice though very quick visit with Amber, she had never seen our home in person, so it was fun showing her around.  Amber has a birthday tomorrow, so before she left, I got to sing her "happy birthday" song in person instead of over the phone. 

After she left, we got things stowed away and were on the road to Bend.  Unfortunately for us, because of the long delays we had with the 5er repairs, we are now dealing with snow in the forecast over the weekend.  We hit rain going over the pass and because there is snow in the forecast they had deicer on the roads which is very hard on metal, so our 5er got covered in deicer - yuck. 

We had a uneventful drive, other than the rain and arrived at Crown Villa shortly after noon.  We stayed at Crown Villa after we sold our sticks and brick house last fall until we officially retired from ODOT April 1st of this year.  We had a very nice pull through site.  In all our travels to date, Crown Villa has been the nicest RV resort we have stayed in.

Crown Villa site 489

After we got set up, Rich had an appt with his barber of 36 years, so off we went.  After his haircut, the sun was still shining so we headed back to the 5er to wash all the deicer grime off.  It took us about an hour, Rich washes and I dry. 

After that chore was done, we decided that in "honor" of my dad, we would go out to eat at Chan's restaurant.  Three years ago today my dad passed away, I can't believe it's already been three years.  When my mom and dad would visit us in Bend, we always had to play a game of miniture golf and then go eat at Chan's restaurant.  If we wouldn't have had to wash the 5er, we might have been able to work that game of miniture golf in.  We had a very nice meal at Chan's and had fun remembering my dad and mom's visits.

Friday

Even Gracie remembers our time here at Crown Villa.  I took Gracie for a walk in the field behind Crown Villa this morning and she remembered that this was where she got her ball thrown for her.  She couldn't understand why she didn't get to play today, well it was because I had forgotten to bring her ball with us, oops.

Rich took the truck in for an oil change and then we made a Costco run for groceries and lunch.  We ran into one of our ODOT co-workers, Pat Creedican and spent a few minutes catching up before Pat had to leave for a hunting trip.  Hope you had a successful hunt Pat.  We also ran into two friends from our church at Westside and spent quite a bit of time catching up with them and news about the changes at Westside.  It's always fun to see who you will run into at Costco.

Later in the afternoon, we hiked Pilot Butte with Gracie which is a Bend tradition.  Coming down the Butte we ran into another friend from Westside and spent some time catching up.  It is always so invigorating to hike the Butte and the views are incredible.  

View from top of Pilot Butte

View from top of Pilot Butte

Saturday

We woke up and decided that breakfast at Jakes Diner was on the agenda.  After breakfast, we ran a few errands and then headed over to see our friend Burla who is 91 years old.  We spent about an hour visiting before we wore her out.  It is always good to visit with her, she definitely loves Jesus. 

When we sold the house, I took a lot of our books to a local used bookstore and still had a credit on file, so we had to make a stop and pick up some more books.  I plan on doing a lot of reading in the warm sunshine when we are down south.  I'm not one of those kind of people that can go in a bookstore and come out with only one book, it's usually an armful and hours later and this time was no exception.  I did try and keep to paperbacks to keep the weight down.  I know people suggest I try a Kindle, and I probably will sometime in the future, but there is nothing like having a good book in your hand and turning the actual pages.  

Gracie got another walk and then we just spent the rest of the evening relaxing at home in the 5er. 

Sunday

We were excited that we were going to be attending our home church, Westside this morning.  The one thing that Rich says he misses most about leaving Bend is not being able to attend church at Westside, and I would have to agree with him.  Westside has started an online web service that several people have suggested that we check out so we can stay connected.  We still want to attend the different churches each weekend in our travels, but the online service will be a nice supplement.  For those of you who don't like to attend an actual church, give it a try, you may enjoy it. 

As expected, we thoroughly enjoyed our morning at Westside, catching up with friends and worshiping at Westside is always a very uplifting experience, they have some incredibly talented musicians and the sermon was great.  

After church we headed to Starbucks for our traditional after church latte and ran into David & Cheryl who are watching over our hive of bees.  It was great chatting with them again.  Then we went and had lunch with two other couples from church - Sandy & Steve and Gina & Sean and Gina's beautiful little daughter Alena.    Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.  It sure was good to see and visit with everybody.

After lunch, we ran by and said a quick goodbye to Burla and then made a quick stop at Albertsons and ran into another co-worker from ODOT, David Brown.  We had fun catching up on some more ODOT news with David before heading back to the 5er as we had another friend from church, Armand coming for a visit.  Armand is our Paulina Lake fishing buddy.   He is amazing in the fact that he has "MS" and one side of his body doesn't work that well, yet he doesn't let it stop him from getting out and hunting and fishing and doing what he enjoys.  He has adapted different ways of doing things, like reeling in a fish for example, he doesn't let his MS stop him from doing what he loves.  We had a very nice visit.

Whew, that was a lot of visiting for us, but it sure was fun.  In the morning we are heading south and are praying for dry weather and no snow.