Some R & R at Last!

Happy Independence Day! We are celebrating in Winchester Bay, Oregon, where all kinds of people (in addition to the fire department!) are shooting off airborne explosives out over the water right in front of our campground. Kinda special.

After “rushing” back to California, it’s been nice to slow things

down. We started off by getting to see our grandson, Casen (and his parents who are dear but not near as important!) where we spent a couple of days lounging, doing laundry (many thanks) and splashing with Casen in the pool. Yes, it was hot!

We were dreading getting back to the Central Valley heat wave, but lucky for us the worst of it was over, and it was actually ‘cooling down’ in the evenings at my daughter’s home because of the “Delta Breeze”. Not the case as we moved further south to see the rest of our kids. So we had to get hookups at a local KOA – the last place we stayed there was under water!

So a couple more days spent visiting with kids, kicking back – and running errands.

I had placed an online order and it was shipped to our old address in error, so the new homeowners called and we were able to go by there and pick it up – along with other mail they had received since we moved and kept for us (thanks so much). But it made me rather irritated with the good old government Postal Service, so we went to the local Kingsburg Post Office where I marched in to complain.

It was rather humorous as I encountered a young man at the counter (small town = one counter person) who told me he couldn’t help me because he didn’t have clearance to see records in Kingsburg. But he could look up records in Fresno he happily told me. The fact that we were not standing in Fresno was lost on him. So he gave me a local phone number to call, which I could only assume was for some manager in the back that he was unable to summon while I was standing there. Anyhow – just had to give props to our postal system – NOT!

So after getting things in order for our next departure, we went to our storage ‘unit’ and traded our toad (Jeep) for the RZR on a trailer and headed on our way up to Oregon. We were not in a hurry, but not wanting to linger in the heat. Our first stop had to have AC (i.e. electricity), so we stayed at our first RV “Resort” in Lodi. We took advantage of their pool and spa, but it was still an RV park (i.e. close neighbors).

From there we headed up to the  Mt. Shasta area and spent the night at a free campground at Lake Shastina. It was very nice (although a little hard to find).

The next day we met up with Tom’s brother in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and followed them over to Winchester Bay, just north of Coos Bay. We stayed at the same place as last year, Windy Cove Campground, where you can drive your (non-street-legal) ATV from there to the dunes area, so it was a great spot.

We didn’t even go ride the ATV’s the day we got there. Just relaxed and visited and enjoyed time around the campfire. It was nice to have so much time to visit with John and Becky, and John and Tom talked about a lot of childhood memories while we were there.

The cool coastal weather was such a relief after being in the valley heat. And the Oregon Dunes are phenomenal. If you have an ATV and have never been, I highly recommend it! Plus, the icing on the cake (for me) is that you don’t have to wear helmets in Oregon.

We had a great time riding around. And even though it was Fourth of July weekend, the area is so large, there was little danger of running into people. Plus, we mostly went out in the mornings and got back to camp before the winds and the people picked up too much.

When we leave tomorrow we will have stayed put for FIVE whole nights. Woo-hoo!

Happy Travels!

Peace & Love, Joy