Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #16 – A Fun Campout & then Some Scary News

 

Sunday, April 14^th., 2024…… The weather is on and off today. We had clouds early and it was in the 40s when we walked the dogs but the sun came out and it was a great day until mid-afternoon. The rains came in but didn’t last too long. After breakfast, Cathye headed off to church and I worked on cleaning up the lower storage compartments in the motorhome. We will be leaving on Friday for our square dance weekend at Camp Koinonia  (Koy-o-nea) and although we won’t have any amenities, I wanted to make sure I had what we needed in there. After that, I was in the house for the rest of the afternoon watching my races. Cathye worked in the garden and in her shed then came in to relax too.  Later, we went to the Beginner’s class in Sweet Home to help out there, then we went to the senior center where I helped at the last night of our Club’s Plus class. Our Club will sponsor our own Beginner’s class again this year, but that won‘t start until September. Our last Club dance will be in June where we culminate the season when we have our Strawberry Festival Weekend. Most all of the square dance clubs in the state here only dance from September to June. They say there are two main reasons. One is that the summer crops come in and they lose a lot of those members for the harvest. The other is that most of the facilities up here are older and do not have AC. So it’s too hot to dance during the summer nights. Either way, we are bummed!  But they say there are clubs around the area who will have special dances and we hope to find those to help keep Cathye’s skills on point.       

Monday, April 15^th., 2024…… Typical Monday for us – Walk and feed the dogs, then head out to the gym and then breakfast. They are doing a special retirement party for Frank at the campout. Frank, a beloved long time member of the Lebanon Square Circlers, is retiring from Pape´ Machinery, who sells and services farm equipment. He also runs his family’s farm. All of the Club members have been asked to dress up in ‘farmer’s outfits’ for the Friday night dance. We also have a skit planned and we are part of that, so, I made sure we had those outfits loaded up in the coach. I also like to get my other clothes out there early so I don’t forget. I got everything packed and went out to the shop to work on our Club badges. The folks up here are big on ‘dangles’ on their club badge. When we got them, we hung them one under the other from the badges. That got too long and they got in the way when we dance. We saw someone who had a bar under their badge to hang multiple dangles. Great idea - so, I found some aluminum binder posts for computer books out in my old boxes in the garage. I was able to modify them and drill them out to hang under the badge. We can now add more and more dangles as we get them. I went back into my old badge boxes and found some that meant something to me (like dancing at Disneyland) and added them to my badge.

Later, we went out to dinner and then came back to try to catch up on more of our taped shows. Spa then bed.

Tuesday, April 16^th., 2024…… More nice weather. We don’t have rain in the forecast until this weekend. I guess I have to think about mowing again! We did our regular senior center sponsored square dance workshop today.  Charlotte tells us that even though she’s retiring, that as long as she has folks show up, she will continue these Tuesday workshops all year. There are folks who only come on Tuesdays and don’t go anywhere else dancing so they don’t get too much floor time but still like to come out with us.  She loves to help them!  

Wednesday, April 17^th., 2024…… After our walk and breakfast, we went Walmart for more items for the casseroles we are planning for breakfast at the outing this weekend. Later in the morning, when the sun was out and it was nice and warm, I pulled out the motorhome and we washed it. I have always had a process and it’s even easier here in the Northwest. In Calif. we would always have to rinse off the rig with de-ionized water and dry off everything quickly because the water would spot. Nasty!  Since we have clean, soft water with not a lot of oxidants, we do not have to dry off anything! So we were done quickly and after an hour or so, I was able to back it in the garage. Another job done!

Thursday, April 18^th., 2024…… Both Judy and Lynn are coming over this morning. They are helping Cat get six casseroles cooked up. I pretty much stayed out of their way. They sent me off to the store (again). I would go back yet again later after I dropped the dogs off at the groomers. We are also making a large bowl of cut up fruit for the Saturday morning breakfast and we needed more fruit variety.  Well, I went in and went crazy! We already had strawberries, blueberries, apples and pears. I bought tangerines, grapes, a cantaloupe and a pineapple. I also bought whipped cream but later, we would decide not to use that. It would be just fresh fruit. I cut up and bagged the fruit while they cooked. While things were in the oven, I showed them the videos I have from the 2007 Rustler Christmas Party and the 1989 Rustler Talent show. Some of us guys dressed up and did a ‘Square Dance Ladies Of the Night’ fashion show skit for that party.  Between that and the ‘If I were Not a Square Dancee’ skit we did in 89, I had a hard time deciding which one I had more fun doing!  Everyone laughed through both videos. Once we had everything cooked, the girls went home and later we wrapped everything in foil and got them in the fridge, ready to take out to the motorhome tomorrow. I went and got the pups and we all rested from the day.      

Friday, April 19^th., 2024…… We were up early and going 90 miles an hour. We are on the campout committee so we were allowed to come in at noon with the rv.  Cathye and I loaded up the rest of our clothes and we got the food transferred to the rv fridge. She ran over to a plant sale just around the corner from us. The local Future Farmers of America (like the 4H club) is close by and they had a fund raiser. Cat ended up making two trips and surely added to their funds! She got back in time for us to head out and check in to Camp Koinonia just after 12:30pm. Mike was there and got me parked right next to the buildings. There aren’t too many hookups anywhere and this was the best spot for our coach. I was able to run a cord to the building and we would have (limited) power. The other rvs came in later. I think the final count was 9 rigs. They also have cabins and rooms for those who want to stay. I think they had 6 or 7 rooms with bunks in use for this weekend. We helped stage the hall with tables and chairs and got the fireplace going for those who were chilly. We personally took our chairs outside and soon there were 12-15 folks out there with their chairs, enjoying the wonderful sunshiny day! Later, we changed into our outfits and got Cathye’s cherry crumble out to for the potluck. Turns out she did not have the brown sugar for the crumbles so she used a ribbon crust instead. Naomi made a peach cobbler and they both got great reviews! We had tons of food. It’s true – square dancers are great cooks!

 

The dance was fun!  We had three squares tonight. Later in the evening, we did a skit using ‘Farmer in the Dell’ as the song. I started it inside a circle and took a wife and she took a child, and a dog, cat, rat, and cheese as the song goes. It ended when the cheese turned out to be Frank and he stood alone! Then we sang him the Happy birthday song except it was Happy Retirement to you! He blushed a lot! A lot of fun. Thanks, Cheryl for coming up with this one!

More pics from the day and evening….

 

After the dance, many stayed to play games. The next morning I heard they were up until past midnight! 

We went out to go to bed. But we got a call around 11:00pm from Jamie, who was in the ER in Lebanon and wanted a ride home. He said they brought him in because he couldn’t breathe. They checked out his vitals and found no issues and eventually he wanted to come home. We told him to call for an Uber which would be faster since we weren’t around. It was a long day and both of us fell asleep quickly.

Saturday, April 20^th., 2024…… We were up early – thanks to a call from the kitchen coordinator, Grace – asking me to get out the butter from the fridge. I got the coffee going and then Lynn and Cat got the casseroles in the warmer and I got the fruit out and ready in time for the 8:30am start time. We set up two lines in the kitchen and had signs for each. (2 sausage, 2 bacon, 1 ham, and 1 veggie).  

People came and went but in the end, I think we fed 38 people! Of course we had plenty of food. We cut the portions at 8 per dish (x6) and they were big enough that most folks cut them again so they could try all types. So, we had plenty of food. The leftovers would remain in the kitchen and get pulled out to get reheated for lunch as they chose. Later, we went off to the fish hatchery for a tour. We are camped on the Santiam River and the facility is only  a ¼ north of us, at the base of the Foster Lake dam. The hatchery incubates and raises spring Chinook Salmon and Summer Steelhead as well as rainbow trout. Once released, the salmon head to sea and will return to the gates and holding ponds of the hatchery, where they are captured and used for broodstock for the cycle. The kids in the group were fascinated and got to feed what fish they had at that time. 

After that tour, we headed down to the holding pond to have a short square dance to earn our ‘fish dangles’. 

Once we walked back to camp, we rested and got ready for the bbq and Saturday night dance. Oh yeah, we got teepee'd !

After dinner, Mike and Cheryl’s family came and they set up and mc’d a special presentation to celebrate mom and dad’s 50^th anniversary. At the end of the video, both Mike and Cheryl were wiping their eyes!  It was super fun. We had previously helped them celebrate last month when we took them to breakfast on their actual anniversary, but this was such a nice surprise for them. I only got one pic from the presentation but here they are after 50 years together!….    

We hung around the dance for most of the night but a little later we heard from Jamie’s home that he had another bout and this one was more serious. He had major anxiety and actually hurt himself enough that paramedics saw he needed immediate medical attention and also some deeper psycho evaluation so they transported him to Corvallis. We later talked to the folks and they said it wasn’t life threatening but they would keep him there and he would be watched. Cat called his brother in AZ, who called their aunt so all were informed. So, we adjusted our plans for tomorrow before calling it a night. She would take the car and head off directly to the hospital in the morning and I would help the ladies set up for the oatmeal breakfast and then later, do the required cleanup of the hall and then break camp and take the motorhome back to the house. A long fun day and we were now both stressed as well as tired!  

Sunday, April 21^st., 2024…… I wanted to continue today as a follow up from Jamie’s situation. As stated, I stayed and helped out and Cathye drove over to Corvallis to see Jamie. He is stable but the doctors want to do more psychiatric tests on him. The doctors spent time with Cat and she explained his history (he has had these issues before) and that his doctor has recently changed his meds and she thinks that is causing this behavioral pattern to emerge again. I don’t have all of the details and I don’t want to get too detailed since this is their personal family business, but she and I are hoping that they will get his meds straightened out. More as I can share as this progresses….

I did get everything put away and when she came home, we relaxed and tried to unwind from the day.