People

Kermit’s Wisdom

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Mineral, WA

“You learn a lot about someone during a road trip.” Kermit the Frog

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I always knew that Rich was smart. He’s one of the smartest people I know.

He’s also very talented and can fix almost anything.

Those are good skills to have when you own a motor home. There’s always something to fix or make better.

For example, Rich just swapped the switches for the engine break and the mirror heaters. Turning the engine break off and on required a huge reach. Turning the motor heaters on is near the armrest. Didn’t make sense because drivers use the engine breaks way more often.

I have been amazed at how well he drives and operates all of Homer’s mechanics and electronics. I have also been amazed at how much and how deeply he read the manuals.

So those are some new things I’ve learned about him. 

But there’s one more thing I learned that really surprised me…

We were watching TV and a commercial for bras came on. The sizes went from 32 AAA to 48G.

We, of course, discussed how large a 42G is. (Obviously something I find hard to imagine… Not the 42 part but the G part.) That led to a discussion of how to measure bra sizes.

Rich shocked me when he knew that cup size is measured over the boobs and uses a calculation between that and another measurement. I had no idea that he had any clue about the complexity of women’s undergarments!

Kermit is correct. You certainly can learn a lot about someone on a road trip. 🙂

Places

Land of Plenty

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Richland, WA

We drove through some amazing farm country today on our way from McCall, Idaho, to Richland, Washington.

It will never cease to amaze me how fertile some dirt is!

Along the drive we saw everything from blueberries to wine grapes…

The picture below is very near the Idaho-Washington border. Wheat and other grain fields as far as the eye can see…

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Most of the farms use dry land farming, but a few of the bigger ones use pivots to irrigate.

What fascinated us was that they farmed right up to the highway’s edge.

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The combines that harvest the grains are HUGE. We passed a trio on the highway outside of Pasco,  Washington.

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We followed the combines for almost ten miles on a two lane road at their warp speed of 18 miles per hour.

I had to giggle at the other drivers who were frustrated. They were probably eating cookies made with flour harvested by a combine somewhere and never connected the cookie with the combine let alone the wheat field…

Places

This Feels Weird…

McCall, ID

We are leaving Boise this morning, and we won’t be back for three months.

It feels very different leaving this time than it did three weeks ago.

By the time we come back, summer will be long gone and fall, my favorite season, will be in full bloom.

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But more importantly, when we come back in October, we will be visitors and not residents.

We’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last eight years since we moved to Boise. It sometimes seemed like we spent more time on the drive to and from Fallon than we did exploring Idaho.

And because of all that happened both in Boise and in Fallon, it took us way too long to feel ‘home’ in Boise.

Now that we’re leaving, we are realizing how much we love it here.

When our wanderlust fades and we are ready to settle down again, we will happily come home to Boise.

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PS Not my images…

Wow!

Homer’s a Home

Boise, ID

Slowly but surely, we are creating a home.

We’ve given the motor home a name. It’s just too formal to keep saying ‘motor home’. So we are calling our new home ‘Homer’. HOME + Roaming = HOMER.

Rummaged through the storage sheds to find some stuff to make Homer feel more mine.

Found a few things that helped.

There was a picture in the bathroom when we bought the RV. The mat and frame were nice, but the picture didn’t fit.

I found some unfinished quilt blocks, sewed four together, and, viola, a nice new picture.

0708141941Next I took a table runner I had made and placed it across the foot of our bed. The colors and design compliment the bedspread that came with the bed.

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And finally I harvested a whole cloth quilt I made and used it as a cover for the couch.  That’s the place Sophie and I take our afternoon siesta. And the quilt is ever so comfy.

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Homer’s happier and so am I.

Wow!

Foot Heaven

Boise, ID

While we’re in Boise for a bit, we’re both catching up on a few things.

Rich is outfitting the motor home with supplies, tools and equipment. All that important stuff for our journey.

My focus is a bit different.  I’m outfitting myself with important stuff for my journey… 🙂

I recently started running again, and I needed new running shoes.

I went shopping and found the best shoes ever!

For years, I’ve stayed with one style: Nike Air Pegasus. They have worked well for both trail and street running.

nike-air-pegasusBut I don’t think I’m going to have as much opportunity to trail run while we tour, so I was in the market for street running shoes.

The minute I put Nike’s Free running shoe on, my feet felt like they had gone to foot heaven. The shoes are incredibly light, yet comfortably structured. I jogged a bit around the store, and they felt even better.

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They’re pricey, but I new that if I bought them I would run more often because I spent so much money on them.

So I bought them and went for a five miler today.

My feet, my heart, and my soul were in heaven!

Wow!

A New Kind of Marathon

Boise, ID

Another 100+ degree day in Boise.

I must be getting smarter as I get older… I am letting the heat win today. No jogging. No bicycling. No nothing outside…

Today the dogs and I are having a Netflix marathon.

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We can’t stream video in the RV parks because of the bandwidth limitations. So this is my last chance to Netflix for awhile.

I decided to watch the third season of Scandal. Melissa had told me it was intense and it certainly was. Lots of WOW moments!

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We learned more of the backstory of the main character, and it helped me understand more of the choices she made in the prior two seasons.

The dogs and I loved it.

Thanks!

Things My Granddog Taught Me

Boise, ID

The main reason we are back in Boise for a bit is to watch our daughter’s dog Olive while Melissa is on a vacation with her best friend Kassi. They are going to watch some professional soccer and to visit Richie in Seattle.

Olive is a lovable, albeit slightly neurotic, Schnauzer who has yet to realize that she’s a dog. She thinks she’s human… And in lots of ways she’s pretty gosh darned close.

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She’s very sensitive to any kind of stimuli. I have seen Olive refuse to walk another step because a tiny willow leaf is stuck on her leg.

Unfortunately for Olive, fireworks are legal in Idaho. And many of Melissa’s neighbors exercise their legal right to try to blow things up and cause wildfires on Independence Day.

I have never seen as much fear in an animal as Olive showed last night. Poor sweetie was terrified.

But what surprised me the most was that Olive remembered it all the next morning. She cautiously went outside this morning and looked for the residual chaff from the night before.

Sophie doesn’t remember five minutes ago let alone the previous night. I told Melissa that I was surprised that Olive remembered. She said, “Olive remembers EVERYTHING!”

Olive taught me to never assume what someone (or something) will remember.

It’s better to operate on the assumption that all of my words and deeds have impacts and consequences that I am responsible for.

Now if only Melissa’s neighbors would realize this and clean up all the chaff in the street and Melissa’s front yard left over from their revelries.

UPDATE: The neighbors cleaned up!

Places

The Ranch Run

Boise, ID

Got a bit nostalgic today about our old neighborhood today…

I called my favorite running trail The Ranch Run because it ended at remnants of an old ranch house. It was four miles from our house, and there were times I used to run and/or hike it a couple of times per week.

There was a wildfire on it today. Thankfully the crews got it out quickly, so not too much damage was done.

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I love this picture because it shows most of the three mile trail along the water’s edge.

Sophie loved doing the Ranch Run! When she was young, she found every fresh dung dropping and would roll endlessly in the poop de jour… One day eau de deer, essence of elk the next, and her personal favorite of coyote cologne as often as possible.

Help!

Effective Deterrent?

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Boise, ID

The RV park we’re in right now is ‘nice’, but there’s lot of people going in and out all the time.

So we are locking the doors and chaining the bikes.

We only have one chain, and it’s not very long. Way too short to go around the frames of the bikes and attach to the table.

Rich got creative and chained the back tire from one bike to the front tire of the other bike.

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If thieves remove the tires and take the bikes with the remaining two tires, they will only get one complete bike once they combine parts.

He hopes they are smart enough to figure that out and leave our cheap battered bikes alone.

Wow!

Wish Came True

1 Comment

Boise, ID

I always said that if Rich and I moved into town that my wish would be to live within one-quarter mile of the Greenbelt.

The Boise River Greenbelt is a recreational and alternate transportation trail along the banks of the Boise River. It’s more than 30 miles long and is a wonderful walking, biking, jogging path–most paved but some on dirt. 

BRG

The RV park we are staying at right now is less than 50 steps to the Greenbelt.

In three days, I’ve already ridden my bike about 10 miles and jogged about 3. Sophie doesn’t know it yet, but we’re getting up early tomorrow morning and jogging five miles before it gets too hot.

I LOVE the Greenbelt.