This is it!

Well, this is it. The last day to get ready for the big trip. Cementine (that's the RV) is packed to the gills, well not really we try to travel as lite as possible. Shadow (that's the tow car) is just waiting in the wings to get attached.

Being away for six months requires a lot of thought. I always worry that I have not thought of everything. But, going a long way toward helping to alleviate those concerns are my good neighbors Doug and Joan Ann who will be looking after the place and making sure I didn't forget anything. Amongst the myriad of things I love about where I live is the sense of community and having good neighbors that look out for one another. As they say in the credit card ad "priceless".

So, today we do those last minute things. One last pass by the dump. We have no garbage pick up where we live you have to haul it to the dump. Actually, I like this because you don't have to remember to put the can out and pay for it once a year through property taxes. For about $80 a year we can dump as much as we want whenever we want. Of course, our first priority is to make as little waste as we can. But, even so, I think it's quite a good deal.

Next up is a last visit to the Post Office. We don't get mail delivery either so we must go to town to collect it. This is a bit of a pain in the patookie because it makes us have to go to town (about 8 miles) when we really don't otherwise need or want to. But, if we don't go regularly the Post Office gets mad and crams the box so full you can't pull it out with a pair of pliers.

A quick stop at the grocers for bananas and a quart of milk and back to the ranch for the final push which much to my chagrin includes getting bookkeeping up to date so we can file whist on the road. Yuck! You gotta do what you gotta do but boy I don't do it without a proportionate amount of kicking and screaming.

The above photo is of our rig on the road. As you can see we are diminutive. But, this outfit is really easy for me to handle by myself and we are easy on the environment. Clem has a Mercedes diesel and gets 18+mpg whilst towing Shadow. Shadow gets 35 mpg whilst we zip up and down those roads less traveled looking for natural marvels to photograph.

When I bot Clem I had envisioned short trips around the Rockies and into Canada. Never occurred to me that I would want to do anything like six month at a stretch. It was with great trepidation that we did our first long trip last year on the Pacific coast. As it turned out we were snug as bugs in a rug. Clem has every convenience you can imagine. In fact, it's quite remarkable. We could have a bigger rig for less money but this compact little unit suits us to a tee. It's easy on everybody.

The gods willing we will be in Dillon, Montana tomorrow night. Not this summer but the one before we spent a couple of weeks in and around Dillon. It's a great place to explore. There are ghost towns and all manner of interesting things to see. Here are just a few shots that we got on that trip. Great place to shoot old buildings and barns.

If you should see us rumbling down the road be sure and honk!

Ciao for now,

Koty & Kinsey

COUNTRY ROADS TAKE ME HOME

At last we are headed home! Mom is driving me nuts though because she cannot stop singing Country Roads and you outta hear her try and carry a tune! John Denver would have a heart attack. But, it's ok because my mountain mama is taking me home.

First I want to say how much we enjoyed our time in Florence and appreciate the new friends that we made. There was Paulie at the Pacific Pines RV park. If you are RV'ing through Florence, I highly recommend this park. It's like a home away from home for us now. Thank you Paulie!

Then there were Glen & Keith at the Dunham RV Service Center. These two guys were princes to work with and treated my mom really well and did great work. Believe me some of these RV places treat people like last weeks lunch. Thank you guys!

And a great big thanks to Virgie, Bill and Patrick at the Bill Roberts sign shop. They were the ones that did the sign work on Clementine and Shadow and made me look so handsome. Well, really they had a lot to work with! :)

And, last but certainly not least thank you to my friend Buddy. The little runt is a weenie dog and he bit me! Can you imagine? :) And a VERY special thanks to Buddy's mother Marilyn who drove us all over the place. It's that "blowing the coat" time of year and I left an incredible deposit of hair in the back of her SUV. She was extremely gracious about it! You don't know what shedding is until you see a husky blow its coat!

We left Florence a little late in the day and only got as far as The Locks along the Columbia River. We are headed for Spokane where we will wait for good weather and clear roads. Since our ranch is at nearly 4,000 ft. we may not be able to get all the way home. But, I don't care. We are headed in the right direction!

©Kinsey Barnard Photography

Oscar Meyer Wienermobile & Christmas

Well, things haven't improved much weather wise and boredom reigns supreme, as can be surmised by the photos!

Since we are experiencing RV fever mom has started talking about going bigger. So, Wednesday mom, Marilyn and I took a trip to over to Junction City where there is a dealer that sells Forest River, Lexingtons. Mom has narrowed down the field to two. The Forest River Lexington and the Dynamax Isata.

The dealer we visited, Guaranty RV, just had the Lexington. A very nice salesman, Lance, showed us some different models. Pretty darned nice those. Mom was partial to the 28 footer. The only short coming she could find was not much outside storage. I wish she would buy a bigger rig cause I don't have any space in Clementine to call my own. I hang out under the dinette but that's where mom does all her work and I get kicked around all the time. The Lexington has it's own bedroom and I could hang out in there. The big consideration is the engine and mileage. Clementine has a Mercedes diesel and gets 19 mph. The Lexington has a gas engine and gets 10! I'm crossing my paws......

On the way back to Florence we saw the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. This meant little to nothing to me but mom and Marilyn seemed to think it was a big deal. I gathered it was a childhood thing. Or, you know, "You had to be there!".

A little farther down the road we stopped at this old abandoned house that looked like it could be haunted. Mom had to get out and explore around. It was all grown up with berry bushes. Thank goodness she left me in the car. Being thankful is not my usual reaction to being left in the car but I really was this time. A little ways down the road mom went to scratch something on her leg and let out a yelp. She had pulled off a big old tick! You know how hard it would be to find a tick in my coat? We don't have a problem with ticks and fleas where we live in Montana. Thank goodness mom had presence of mind to get me started on some K9 Advantix. "There may be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain't no bugs on me!!!!!":)

Yesterday we thought the weather was going to break so we headed back to Shore Acres and Sunset Beach, hoping to see some good waves. Well, by the time we got there the rain was back and that was that for the waves.

Driving along 101 we saw lotsa Christmas cheer. Oregonians seem to really fancy these blow up decorations. They are everywhere.

This morning it's raining again. Mom neglected to tell me that November and December are the wettest months in Oregon. Oh, well!

THE JOURNEY BEGINS: TO LAKE LOUISE

September 05, 2007

We got off to a little later start then we had planned. Don’t tell her I said so but mom is still pretty green when it comes to this RV stuff. We were pretty much on time until it came to hooking up Shadow. Mom cut her finger trying to get one of the safety cables hooked up. There was blood flying everywhere. The problem turned out to be that you have to hook the cable up before the lights or the hook won’t fit past the lock on the hitch pin. Guess she knows now!

Shadow can be a real pain in the rump, as troubles with her were not done for the day. Shadow has to have this braking system (Even Brake) and it never seems to work right. We got just inside Kootenay National Park and pulled over by a nice creek for a quick bite. As soon as we did the braking light came on but we were already stopped. Form this point on it is a pretty good grade. We definitely didn’t want to be pulling Shadow up hill with her brakes on! Mom fiddle round with the thing but couldn’t find anything wrong. We took off but the brake light was still on so we pulled in at Radium Hot Springs. Mom ended up disconnecting the whole thing and going through the connect sequence from scratch. That seemed to get us back on track. Away we went. The drive from Radium Hot Springs to the 93 and 1 junction is really beautiful. There are lots of hiking trails I would sure like to take but we didn’t get to stop for any today, darn. Mom’s biggest regret was that we didn’t stop at Hectors Gorge for a photo.

We just highballed it straight to Lake Louise. All together the trip took us 6 hours. We got some diesel and headed for the campground. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of a line so we got right in. I could tell mom was a little on the tired side as it took her three tries to figure out the right way to park in our slot. She had forgotten that in this campground you have to throw your electrical cord under the rig in order to have things right. And, of course, Shadow’s braking light was on again. But, we got set up, had a little chow and headed off for a walk along the Bow River.

The Lake Louise RV campground is really nice and is situated right along the Bow River. We took the nature trail goes along the river. It’s very nice for strolling. Course, I don’t give a fig for strolling but that’s all I got today.

Things probably won’t be that much better tomorrow as we high tail it straight for Jasper.

Until next time ....

©Kinsey Barnard