PACKED UP AND READY TO ROLL

We had an incredible storm overnight with thunder and lightning, hail and very heavy rain. The streets were just awash when I peeked out. I also got a face full of water when I opened the door. It rained steady all morning then tapered off after lunch. We’re getting a little sun now in mid afternoon. The forecast is for sun all week with mid 70sF temperatures. I guess we’ll benefit from that for the first couple of days but looking at the forecast for Northern California and Oregon says cooler and showery.

Yesterday, I took our friend Ken, from Colorado, out to the turquoise mines. He was happy with the pieces he found. Lunch was at Ken and Marie’s with their friends Marty and Marlene from Saskatchewan. We all played SkipBo later and had lots of fun and laughs. Then it was back to work packing and loading. It took two tries loading the ATV as the first time I had a tote in the way so I couldn’t slide the ramps up underneath the ATV. The tote had to go, but we managed to get everything in. We purchased a cover for the ATV for traveling to try to keep the road crud off it when we get to the northern areas so installing that was next on the agenda. Aileen had been picking away at moving stuff out to the Arctic Fox and this morning we hit it hard even though the rain continued and we had to walk through it each trip. We had most things completed by lunch time so were quite receptive when Wendy came over to ask if we wanted to go to town for a bite of lunch. Her house is in disarray as the living room carpet was removed this morning in preparation for new flooring. I hadn’t been looking forward to summerizing (that’s the opposite to winterizing!)the park model but it went better than I thought. We’ve had several friends stop by and give us good wishes, sad to see you leave etc.

I think we are going to work our way over to Bakersfield, California then take 99 and I 5 up to Weed. If conditions remain suitable, we’ll take Hwy 97 up through central Oregon and Washington to Salmon Arm. I would like to have gone up through Nevada which is about 260 kms shorter but it is also much higher with one pass at 7700 feet and much of the road over 6000 feet. We just think it will be way colder when stopping.