Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #29 – Mowing & Heading off to the Rally

 

Monday, July 15^th., 2024……  We slept in this morning. The temps are creeping back up again!  We were lucky to catch a break when the kids were here last week. But it is supposed to be 91° today and will hit 99° tomorrow. The plan was to go to the gym, go to breakfast, then go pick up the last of my yard sale tables from Penny. But since we had leftover breakfast casserole, we changed it up a bit and ate at home. We got the tables and I got them put away. The rest of the plan was to mow today. I had turned off the sprinklers so the grass only needed a couple of hours to dry out. We started in around 9:30 and, with Penny helping, we were done by 10:30. I hosed off all three mowers and came in to rest. I will still have to go out and put them away but that will be later. I worked on last week’s blog and got that posted. We pretty much stayed in the rest of the day. I think tomorrow I will plan on starting in on sanding the bar but that will be early in the morning when it’s still cooler outside.  Later, we munched on leftovers and watched tv until spa and then bed.   

Tuesday, July 16^th., 2024……  We have a few things to do today. After we were up and had the dogs out and fed, we started in on getting the trailer hooked up and loaded. We leave tomorrow so we wanted to get everything going today so we could leave bright and early.  We managed to get everything in and the only thing we have left are the groceries and ice, which we will get later today. Later, Cathye made sure to give her deck plants an extra watering. One of us will be coming back during the outing and will take care of that again. We had a light dinner and settled in to watch tv and then hit the spa for a bit before calling it a night.     

Wednesday, July 17^th., 2024…… We were up and going early. I had loaded up my truck and all we had to do was add ice to the ice chest which we would do later. Cathye took off in her truck with the trailer and I followed. The plan was for her to continue on to town to get propane for the trailer and then meet me at our spot, which I would try to save ahead of the crowd. They told us they wouldn’t be letting anyone in before 8:00am this morning, but when I got there just before 8:00am, there was a nice check-in line (which I bypassed) and headed for our spot. Turns out they let folks in yesterday afternoon so the pickings were slim. I did pull in to our usual area and backed into the spot we had last year. But after I did this, I was approached by guy in the trailer I cut in front of who said I took his spot!  No worries, I moved over a few spaces and that turned out to be the best move!  This spot was level and would have more shade than the one we originally wanted. Cat came in and I backed her trailer in and we set up camp. I had already unloaded my truck and since her truck was loaded as well, we started in on that one. When we had everything out, we found we probably have more chairs and tables, etc. than anyone else could haul in with them. It took a while to get everything set up the way we wanted and we rested for a bit before tackling the lights. I had previously bought three 100’ strings of mini yellow lights. We ran them around the trailer and the awning and then everywhere else we could think of to use up just one of the rolls! Wow!  After we had everything done, we headed back home. We weren’t going to stay tonight since there were no activities planned for Wed. except for the ‘night glow’ when all trailers turned on their lights. We rested at home for a while, then drove back to check out the park. We turned on our lights…

 

then walked around the park to check out the other trailers. We heard later from folks saying we had the best light setup in the park!  Imagine if we had used the other 2 100’ rolls!  After a bit, we headed home for the night.

Thursday, July 18^th., 2024…… Another hot day!  After breakfast and watering again, we loaded up the dogs in the Buick and headed down for the weekend. During the day, we took the girls down to the river, visited with our neighbors, and watched the remaining trailers come in to squeeze in to the remaining spaces around the area. You can park anywhere you want but unless you have a vintage tow vehicle, you must remove your trucks and cars from your sites. We managed to get two parking spaces right across the street. Cat’s truck would stay put all weekend and we would put out a lawn chair every time we left so we could keep the spot, which was at a premium. After lounging around a while, we took the dogs out for a walk around the park. They have so many nice trailers and you could see some folks went to the extreme to restore their toys! Our favorites were the pontoon boat trailer and the woody with matching painted trailer!

 

I spoke with the ‘boat people’ a bit. The guy claimed to just be a fabricator but we all thought he was a fantastic engineer as well. He had solely designed and built the front of the trailer to hydraulically lift up and become a covered patio! It was brilliant!

Tonight they provided hot dogs and watermelon in the pavilion and we took advantage of that. We walked around and checked out more of the trailers. They had games for the kids and I think tonight they painted rocks and decorated their bikes for the parade tomorrow. We hung around our campfire and had a few drinks. Cathye had this package of mixes for rum – which we brought! – so we had to sample all of those. Yep, we killed them all before calling it a night. At home, Jama sleeps right up next to me and Rylee stays at Cat’s feet for a bit before getting too hot. But here, it was reversed. I had to share my tiny bed with Butthead for most of the night! But we made it work and I got a good night’s sleep. Maybe the rum helped! Cathye had Jama and said she slept well too!       

Friday, July 19^th., 2024…… This morning we were up and going early. We walked and fed the dogs then went to the pavilion where they had pancakes, sausage, orange juice, and coffee for breakfast. When we paid our fees, they included all amenities so that was nice. I had two helpings! But the coffee was terrible!  After that, I left and went back home to shower and get coffee to bring back. I made a run around town to the place where we heard the Hermiston watermelon truck was, but no luck! When I got back to the rally, we relaxed and visited a bit. Later, Cathye visited one of the two food trucks and brought us back Hawaiian pulled pork and rice for dinner. In the late morning, they started the Clue game. Folks had to go around from marked trailers and get clues as to who did the murder, where it happened, and with what weapon. We were Ellie Mae, the 64 Shasta. I think there were 10 groups trying to figure out the murder. It was a fun game and later, we went to see the results. It was Professor Heinz, with a trailer stabilizer bar, in the 69 Guardian. Prizes were handed out. Later, we went back to the trailer and hung around the campfire and visited with neighbors and had another round of drinks before calling it a night.       

Saturday, July 20^th., 2024…… I was up early again. This time I would come back to the house and water the plants (which I forgot yesterday!) and then get us breakfast and coffee. I went by and saw the watermelon truck was there so I bought one to take back to camp. It was my turn to go find us lunch and my choice was limited. They had the Hawaiian truck and a waffle/dessert truck. So, this time I chose the chicken teriyaki which was just as good as the pork. Watermelon for later. Today was open house at the park. If you wanted to let folks take a peek inside, you put up your ‘open’ sign. We had ours out and saw many people come through. They also had a car club come in for the day. Nice cars!

We had Cat's girls show up for a nice visit. Some from her church came by as well as a few folks from our square dance club who found us too!  Later, Lynn and Mike and Cheryl came over for chili dogs. I brought my propane bbq - but when I opened it I saw that a couple of the critical parts weren’t in there!  So, we cooked the dogs on the fire! After pie for  dessert, we had a nice visit, and before long, everyone left. 

Today was the bike parade and later the karaoke party on the lawn. They had some talented folks and some maybe not so much, but it was fun anyway! Our favorite was a group who called themselves The Saggy Bottom Boys. They were fun! 

Later, we headed back and had a nice visit around the campfire with our neighbors, John and Tammy, and turns out they were interested in the floor model radios we still have from Jim’s collection. We talked about them swinging by our place tomorrow after we break camp to get a look at them before they head back to Washington. We’ll see… We loaded up a few things in the truck to help prep for our departure tomorrow and then called it a night.

It was a fun few days.