Terry and Cathye's Blog: Oregon Living 2026 – Blog #3 – Spending Money & Mid-Winter Dancing Festival!

Sunday, January 18^th., 2026…… Sunny today but still cold. We were lazy this morning but eventually got up and going.

Cathye walked and fed the pups while I went and got us breakfast. Janie had called so I was able to talk to her while I was heading out. She said they want to plan a trip up here but, after hearing about the 29° temperature here this morning, she said she will wait until it warms up! The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent just hanging around the house. Cathye is happy to wrap up in her blanket on the couch and veg for the day! I worked on my blog and watched motocross and football. Later, we dressed and headed over to the senior center for our class’s graduation party. We had pizza and played a few games with the new students. My dancer friends will know what this night entails!.... It was fun for all.

Monday, January 19^th., 2026…… This week we needed to start our planning for the upcoming Mid-Winter Square Dance Festival. It’s always at the Linn County Fairgrounds and we have had our ribbons for a while now. We also have made rv reservations months ago. We started getting our clothes together to take out later. They have a Rock around the Clock theme this time, so Cat bought a few things from Amazon. She packed her poodle skirt and Mary Jane shoes. As for me, it will be pretty tame. I wore levis and white t-shirts for most of my teen years! Later, we went out to dinner and talked more about the weekend plans. I had taped the college playoff championship and got to watch most of it before joining her in the living room for a couple of our taped programs. We started watching Best Medicine and found it hard to get into at the beginning. But after we saw more, we found it compelling and will watch the next one! we may have to get into it. We did like Will Smith’s new series Pole to Pole. It is very well done and very informational and entertaining. I have already got the series on my to recording list!

Tuesday, January 20^th., 2026…… Today we went out to do a few things on the coach. One thing I needed to do was wash the front windshield. There was junk on there from our last trip back in June. That also meant I wanted to test the batteries and the slideouts. Yep, one wouldn’t work! I went to bed thinking about what might be the problem. I came up with rationale that I would need to get new coach batteries. They were last replaced over 8 years ago and the coach hasn’t been used all that much since. So they are constantly in a maintenance level on the built-in charging system. That is not good. So, I started looking online for pricing for deep cycle rv batteries. About $800-900 for six of them! I also could have a motor issue on that slideout but at least I will have new batteries. I went out and pulled out the battery trays and took pics and got numbers of the existing batteries.

Wednesday, January 21^st., 2026 …… Today would be a very busy one! I was up and out early and walked the dogs then went out to look at batteries. I found what I wanted at O’Reilly Auto Parts here in town. They had a decent price plus I got a 10% military discount. He had to order two more and would have them all together around 12:30pm. That worked because I had to take my sister to Corvallis for her after surgery checkup. We got that done and stopped an got lunch and went back to her house. I helped with a couple of things then went back home. I had my cardiologist follow up appointment at 4:20pm back in Corvallis, so I had time to take the old batteries out of the two pull-out trays

and then go get the new ones. The bill was a little over $700.00! I got them installed pretty quickly and found that they had enough power to get the bedroom slide back in. It was slow so I still think I have a motor problem but at least it’s in so I can now drive it to the festival tomorrow. I know it was a pricey bill – but at least that task is done!

Thursday, January 22^nd., 2026…… This morning we were up and going early. Temperature got down to 27° last night and there Is more of the same expected through the weekend. It was rather chilly when we walked the dogs! After that, we fed them and then I went out and got the coach out of the garage so we could finish loading it. We would normally leave around noon with Cathye just driving the Buick with the dogs (no need to hook up the Honda for 15 miles!). But she got a notice that her medications were being delivered and they can’t be left outside for any length of time. So, we decided to just wait. It was after 2 when she said to just go ahead and go there and she would come later. That worked for me because this would be the best weather to set up the rig and everything. I got in and got parked pretty quickly. The slides went out fine but only put the bed slide out about 5-6 inches just to be careful. It would make it tighter in the room to get around the bed and Rylee would have a slightly smaller place to sleep on the floor back there but that would still work. I got the satellite dish up and going after a few minutes and got the heaters going. When we are hooked up to 50 amp electric service, I can push the electric aqua hot button to heat the water. But when we are only on 30 amps, like this weekend, I have to push the diesel aqua hot button which runs a separate burner and fan motor. I plugged in the little space heater to heat up the living area and I tried the furnace on top of that and it worked and I had the coach at 75° in no time! Cathye finally got there later in the afternoon (with the pups) and we were all set up. Tonight was the trail-in dance, which was an add on for $20. The caller is good but usually calls too fast for Cathye to enjoy, so we passed on going in for that. We walked the dogs and visited with our neighbors, Toni and Mo. There will be a total of 7 rigs of us from our club camping here together.

Friday, January 23^rd., 2026…… Last night it was a little cold in the bedroom! I will have to remember to turn the space heater towards the bedroom tonight! We had breakfast and were out early to explore the dance halls. I had a beef with one of the vendors – the club jacket guy. Last year we gave him a $50. deposit on two jackets and didn’t hear back from him. I didn’t have his contact info (duh!). So, I was ready for a fight! But he remembered me and apologized saying he was heavily medicated last year and just plain forgot! So, we started from scratch and I filled out another order form, noting that he has $50. already. I hope we are good now. We danced a little in the afternoon and then more in the evening. Our Club was partly responsible for getting them to have a new dancers room for recent graduates. It would only be on Friday evening, so we spent some time there helping out. I’m not sure if they got enough dancers so it probably won’t happen next year, but we tried. Later, we went to the registration booth to work our scheduled hour there. We were selling dance ribbons and giving out ribbons as will call. We ended up the evening dancing in the Mainstream hall where Cat can dance. I did get a chance to go over to the Plus hall and danced a couple of tips there before we called it a night.

Saturday, January 24^th., 2026…… We don’t work the booth again until 6:00pm tonight, so we had all day to play We went to dance a bit, then shopped at the vendors booths. I found a shirt that I liked but didn’t buy anything today. The ‘experienced clothing room is in another part of the complex but we didn’t go there last night when they opened because it’s super crowded. We did drop over there today and believe it or not, I found 6 shirts that fit me! Monkey arms and all! They were only $5. each so we were happy! We did go back to the vendor hall and Cathye and I both bought shirts from the one vendor we like so we supported both operations! Later, we fed the dogs and then headed off to Pop’s Branding Iron, in town for a group dinner. Our Club reserves the big room in the back and I think I counted over 40 there for dinner! After a quick tip to earn a pops badge dangle, we all left to come back. We had to make it in time for our stint at the booth but after that, we were done for the evening. Again, we hit both halls and danced a bit, and rested a bit. They will also be holding dances tomorrow morning so we didn’t overdo it tonight! Here are pics from both Friday and Saturday....