The Wall 11-29

A remark was made to me a few weeks ago that has stuck with me. I wanted to respond at the time, but couldn’t formulate my scattered thoughts into words. It wasn’t necessarily shocking from the person that said it, but it made everything in me stand up and say, “No, No, don’t quit now!”

We were talking about ageing and health and my friend said how he has hit “the wall”. Meaning that he’s old, not feeling like he used to and that his time is up. He said I would understand when I was as old as he. He is in his late 60’s and I am 20 years younger.

All I heard was THE WALL!

His wall is the aging process, which we all face. What I want to say to him and to all with the same views, is how we go through the ageing process is all about ATTITIDE and our own thought processes.

This man is in good health, just the usual glitches; blood pressure and prostate trouble. He used to keep reasonably fit and watched what he ate, but he has let that go in response to his, “I am in the last few years of my life” attitude. He is right too, as long as he keeps believing that he WILL die in the next couple years, he will.

I wish I had thought to count how many references to “old” he had made in an hour and not just about himself but his wife too. He was starting to make ME give up!

I want to say to him that we hit walls all of our lives! Why are you letting this one stop you? We hit financial walls, health walls, death of loved ones walls, natural disaster walls, job loss walls, and walls of our own making.

What do we do? We stumble along the wall until we find the door and if not the door, at least the window to crawl through the wall. The strongest and most determined claw, cling and drag themselves right up and over the wall!

This person has had a great life and has overcome many obstacles to be where he is today. He is healthy and comfortable financially, two things a lot of younger people are lacking today. AND HE IS GIVING UP!

WHY is my question? Changing your mind about living your life isn’t an option in most people’s book.

I write this for myself as well as you. I want to be able to be this determined 20 years from now, 40 years from now and only through my OWN determination will I succeed. Who knows, I could be dead in 5 years and my friend will still be here moaning about being “old”. What a waste. Like the saying goes, old beats the alternative! So we aren’t as agile of body or mind, ADJUST!

This is my inspiration. This photo is of my Gram at 83 years playing on the monkey bars with my oldest daughter who was 3 at the time. My grandmother was still working and was ageless. She worked at staying healthy, active and informed.

When I compare her life to my friend’s of “THE WALL”, they both had their trials and their tribulations, but the difference between the two was attitude.

Gram was never an age. I’m amazed when I think back over my life with her and remember she was 59 when I was born, 12 years older than I am now. I never thought of her as “old”.

People would ask Gram her age and she wouldn’t tell them. She would say it was only a number. I understand her reasoning now that I am older and see how we love to put people in boxes. We are more patronizing and solicitous of older people and we do treat them differently if we know their age. We don’t even do it consciously, but it happens.

My Grandmother worked until she was 91 and even though she was diagnosed with liver cancer she stilled amazed her doctors and those around her with her “live life to the fullest” attitude right until the end.

Genetics had nothing to do with her longevity. She lived longer than anyone in her family and it was attitude and how she chose to live and view her life that got her that far.

So to my friend with the wall I am saying, “Find the window, turn around and change your perspective,…quit this defeatist attitude!”.

I have come to believe that negativity is the true devil in our lives and hell is of our own making. My Gram taught me not to dwell in the negative and that there is good in everything, we just have to be willing to see it!

Brrrrrrr 11-28

We are being subjected to an early, pre-winter freezing cold weather snap. Those of you in the south, quit looking so smug! It isn’t like we haven’t dealt with weather like this or worse even, but when you are tucked into a nice, insulated, foundationed home it isn’t hard to deal with. We are staying warm but the condensation of all the windows is a worry. Huge heat loss from the windows and worse with the blinds up, but I HAVE to have light during the day. We have seen some trailers/motorhomes that have their windows all insulated and closed all the time, I wouldn’t like living like that at all.

Really not to bad to deal with though when it means being closer to the kids! We have been having fun. Yesterday we drove through the snowy rain to the neighboring town to shop at Super Walmart.

Today we were busy getting our Son-in-laws truck towed out of the ditch he slid into early this morning. He was fine and got a ride to work and as we didn’t have anything much planned we went down and found the truck and waited for the tow truck. The tow truck yanked it up the hill pretty quickly, and other than the tail pipe being packed full of dirt from being drug backwards up the hill, the truck was fine. Once the blackberry vines were removed from it Larry drove it out of the highway.

After we did that, we picked Seth up from daycare and spent the afternoon with him. That boy is talking and moving at all times! He invents games just so he doesn’t have to slow down.

Larry will be busy scanning photos for the next year or so. Its kinda scary thinking about 32 years worth of photos and all the work involved in digitizing them all. Not to mention the years that I was really into photography so we have more photos than the average person AND I have my Mother’s. Whew. Just grateful that we have the time to do it.

Supposed to get colder tonight and the next couple days! Think warm thoughts for us!!!

Sunny Day Chores 11-25

Today we had SUN! We took a walk to get our dose of Vitamin D. It was cold, but the sun was nice. The county fairgrounds are across the road from us and we go past it to get to the park. Today there were lots of horse trailers packed in. We didn’t check it out because we had to get back for our morning toast and peanut butter.

After breakfast it was time for sunny day chores. I cracked opened the vents and windows so they could dry out. Lots of condensation in the winter. Larry worked on fixing a leak we have in our bedroom slideout and washing the vent covers. Then it was back to pulling photos out of albums, editing, and then scanning. I worked on finishing xmas gifts that I have been crocheting.

As the sun stayed out we took another walk, we were heading to the park but we decided to go into the stadium and see what the horses were up too. It was a big barrel racing event. We watched that for over an hour and then the cold and our growling stomachs said it was time to head back home for lunch.

That was pretty much our day.

Thanksgiving week 11-24

We had a lovely Thanksgiving week. It was gray and rainy all week so we were all pretty much house bound. On Wednesday Andrea, Michelle and I did some Christmas shopping. Granpa Larry watched the boys, they are both house broken which he was very happy about. We were gone about 4 hours and we all got most of our shopping done. Being the day before Thanksgiving the traffic heading out of town towards the highway was bumper to bumper so it took us awhile to get home from shopping. Granpa was in one piece when we got back. Michelle lives in Corvallis and we are in Albany which is 25 minutes from Corvallis. Our trip home was slow going. The 5 miles we had to travel up I-5 took us 20 minutes, crazy traffic and heavy rain.

Yesterday we had a wonderful dinner and today was recovery day. Andrea and Ian headed back home today before the next bad storm came in and to beat the traffic. She beat both and after 10 hours was back home. We all had a good time, but I am sure they are both glad to get back home.

I just noticed that Andrea eluded being photographed yesterday, she was busy taking pictures too, the only reason I'm showing up here is because Michelle picked up my camera.

Hanging with the kids 11-20

I thought I would pop in today. Sorry I haven’t been blogging, been busy with a couple of handsome, short guys.

Last week we settled into our new home for the next month and explored around to get our bearings and find all the important stuff, you know, Costco, the Mall, the coffee places…. We’ve walked a few mornings now, which means we had a few where it wasn’t raining. Shocking. We found a really nice park to walk through with a stream running through it and lots of ducks.

Andrea and Ian got to Michelle’s on Saturday, so we have been over there most everyday. The boys get along for the most part, so do their Mom’s, for the most part…smile.

Larry has started the arduous task of scanning our photos into the computer. Some of them have been stored with Michelle and the bulk is stored at Andrea’s. Larry figures he might burn out a couple of scanners in the process…I have thousands and thousands of photos.

I’ll try and check in more, but hanging with the kids and shopping just doesn’t seem exciting enough to share, maybe I’ll make something up.

Albany, OR 11-13

It was a wild ride last night and we were parked! It was gusty winds and heavy rain for most of the evening. Quiet for the rest of the night so we were able to get our beauty rest!

We were on the road by 9:30. We had clouds, fog and rain off and on all day. The drive went well, we stopped a couple times and found our home for the next month around 1:30. We had traveled 219 miles today. We are at Knox Butte RV Park in Albany, Oregon. There were only a couple sites available so we were glad we had made reservations. We noticed that a lot a RV parks up here in Oregon are pretty full with permanents. The owner here had three that were going to go south for the winter but changed their minds…fuel costs. We are in an end site and we back up to a swift little creek…which we hope stays within its banks! I forgot to take pictures of our site today, so maybe tomorrow.

Michelle and Seth stopped by for a couple of hours, so I got to kiss and hug on one of the boys! He talks up a storm and is completely boy! I am going to have to get tougher teddy bears, mine are too delicate. I’ll have to get pics of Michelle, she looks real good and is keeping busy with school and being a wife and Mom.

Andrea and Ian will be up here next weekend for the week of Thanksgiving so that will be lots of fun. This month will go by really fast. We have shopping to do and then we have photos that we have stored at Michelle’s to go through and start scanning into the computer. And lots of spoiling of Grandsons! Who needs sun?

We are done traversing the country for awhile now that we have done it. For the next couple years we just plan on running around between the girls and friends and family and taking little exploration forays when we feel like it. Don’t worry Lori, we’ll make a trip out to Ohio somewhere in there!

Talent, OR 11-12-06

First off I want to say to our friends and family that we are skimming by on our way north, we will catch up with you next spring or summer! We are pushing the envelope with the weather and I badly wanted to stop in Cassel today and visit with our friends there and we will be going past my Aunt and Uncle’s tomorrow, but we are dodging storms!

This morning we pulled out of Genesee at 9:30. Easier getting out, than getting in! The low this morning was 26 and it was barely 33 when we pulled out. Water was frozen all over the truck and pine needles and leaves were frozen to the tops of the slide-outs…brrrrrr. The first pictures are of frozen Indian Valley.

We headed north on highway 89 to 147 north around the east side of Lake Almanor. Mount Lassen had a nice coating of snow, it was mostly bare when we saw it day before yesterday! Then we headed east on highway 36. Snow on the ground and on the trees, but the roads were bare. From Westwood we took A-21 north, then 44 north and then back on 89 north. They have been re-paving and widening the shoulders along much of 89 north of Burney Falls. They have cleared the trees and brush way back and have paved shoulders instead of dirt. It will be nice when it is all finished. It was 35 degrees most of the day until we hit I-5 south of Weed. I think we might have hit 40 for a bit. We stopped at the rest area north of Weed and had a sandwich. We hit Oregon at 3:25 and it was cloudy, foggy and dim. We were heading over the Ashland Grade at 3:30 and it was starting to snow and it was very windy and back down to 32 degrees. It was slow going, but always important when you want to be safe! People all just seem to be in such a hurry…doesn’t do them much good if they end up in the hospital or dead!

As we got to our destination in Talent, Oregon it was raining pretty hard with gusty wind. There was just one site left available, this park is full of “permanents”. American RV Resort is its name and definitely a misnomer! But we are happy…we have electricity and cable, so we are warm and entertained. We traveled 260 miles.

We are also thankful we got over the mountains when we did. By 7:00 there were chain controls over Ashland Grade and multiple vehicle slide-outs!

This last picture is of Mount Shasta in California from highway 89, regal as ever but hiding out in the clouds!

Last day in paradise 11-11

Good thing we are leaving tomorrow, as this first picture shows, it is time to go! This white stuff showed up on the mountain tops all around us.

Today was more visiting, eating and laundry. Larry helped do some winterizing. I helped Vickie bring some firewood down to the porch. The day flew by.

Vickie showed us her property’s resident bear. Cute isn’t he? Orick is about 3.5 feet tall and carved from a piece of redwood. He was found in Orick, CA and transplanted here to be the guardian. His facial expression is precious.

We got some rain last night and today and as it tries to clear off it is getting colder. I guess we need to get used to it.

My friend Vickie's in CA 11-10

I have been incommunicado because we have been busy yammering and catching up with friends. We are at my friend Vickie’s. We got in on Wednesday afternoon. She lives in Genesee Valley east of Taylorsville, CA. way out in the woods on a creek. Lots of oak trees and pines and firs. It is gorgeous here. Larry being the backer of trailers-guru, he was able to back the trailer down her driveway, barely clearing trees and rocks and got us right where we wanted to be. It took awhile but he got it. It will probably take as long getting us back out, but there’s no hurry so no problem. We were up late visiting…after midnight, so no blog.

We are in our old stomping grounds so we are catching up with our friends. Last night we were up late visiting, so no blog.

Today we had lunch with some other friends and are having dinner with different friends tonight, so I am sneaking in a blog while I am baking brownies for dessert. It is cold here, 27 this morning, low 40’s for the high. Our bones are screeching, “WHY, WHY?”
The trees are all golden and loosing their leaves and all our four-legged and feathered friends are on the move. These turkeys and deer are our neighbors. Haven’t seen any bear yet. Gotta go have some more fabulous food! I might be back tomorrow, I might not, so if I’m not…sorry! I am probably visiting and eating.
The first picture is of Indian creek on the way to Taylorsville. It is one of the prettiest places in Plumas County. We had lunch there on our way in.

Dull in Fallon 11-7

Today is a dull day for all of you to read about. No pictures and nothing exciting. We had a business appointment which took a couple hours. As we had nothing else planned Larry got a way overdue haircut. It went through a couple of weird transitions before I finished, but at least he still has hair!

Nevada 11-6

We had a restful night. Highway 6 isn’t very busy so it was nice and quiet. This OLD guy that I live with needs sleep as he goes into his last year before he hits the top of the hill…tee hee. Sadly I don’t have any of his baby pictures with us, so I guess I’ll have to make up for it next year! Happy 49th Larry!

We left Tonopah around 9:30, actually we left the RV park then, we fueled up…$100 worth (fuel is not as high in the eastern US) and then hit the road. We took 95 to Fallon. Yesterday I must have sniffed too much sand or something…waxing poetic about the beauty of the Nevada desert…NOT…it is so BORING, puts me to sleep. You have to slow down when you go through one of its teeny towns and that is about it. Miles and miles of hills and flats covered in brush and rocks and sand. The little towns might have some cottonwoods, which are a stunning yellow right now, but that is it. In other states you see old barns, in Nevada you see old abandoned mines and around homes tons of old rusted cars, machinery, and appliances all in varying states of decay.

We landed in Fallon around 1:30. We are staying at the Churchill County Fairgrounds, only 3 rigs in here. Not sure what the price is, we just have electric, the water is shut off and we don’t have sewer. We traveled 170 miles. We have some business to take care of tomorrow and then we head to Plumas County in California on Wednesday. We are on our way up to Michelle’s in Oregon.

The two pictures of water are of Walker Lake along highway 95. It is a big lake with a couple of campgrounds along side of it.

Tonopah, NV 11-5

Here I am, back in the world of satellite internet! We had a lovely, restful week in Mesquite, NV. It was nice to be within walls and sit on real furniture. Soaking up the sun on the patio like a lizard was a big plus too! It was fun visiting with Larry’s Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Gene. Uncle Gene is fun to tease and Auntie is a SAINT. These first pictures are of the Virgin River Canyon between St. George, Utah and Mesquite, Nevada.





Tomorrow Larry turns 49 and we celebrated with Auntie and Uncle on Friday evening. They surprised him with one of his favorite cakes and decorations.

We were up early this morning, it gets light earlier now and with this latest time change we have had a little trouble catching up. We got all our stuff put away in the trailer and then had a nice breakfast with Auntie and Uncle. We were hooked up and on the road around 9:35.





We were heading to Tonopah, NV. We headed west on 15 from Mesquite and then northish on 168 to 93 to 375 to 6. Nevada is just huge expanses of mountains, rocks and scrub. No trees or cactus or yuccas in the central part. It has its own expansive beauty against the endless sky.



We landed on the eastern-most side of Tonopah at the Joy-Land RV Park. It is $14 with Good Sam for full hook-ups and cable. We are right next to highway 6, but it isn’t very busy and we haven’t heard a single semi-truck yet. We traveled 264 miles and got in around 3:00. Tomorrow we will be heading on into Fallon, NV.














I had hoped to get a good picture of a Road Runner. One had gone through the backyard while we were sitting out on the patio, me without my camera of course. Uncle said he sees one most every morning. So a couple days later Uncle and I are sitting on the patio and he says look, look and up on the wall were TWO road runners. They ran along the patio roof boards above our heads and then flew down into the yard. I figured as soon as I went into the house to get my camera they would be gone. So they of course zigged and zagged all over the yard. I went inside to get my camera and here comes the road runner waltzing right up to the glass door. As usual here is my typical photo of wildlife!