Seaside, Oregon

Yes! We are finally at the ocean! And it is beautiful! Our first stop for a week is at Seaside, Oregon. I should have taken a few pictures at our park, but I didn't. The ocean was too beautiful. It was hard to decide which pictures to post. We will be along the ocean now for about four weeks, so get ready to see a lot of water pictures. I will try to take more of our campgrounds from now on!
The seagulls are very plentiful in this area.

Here a a picture of a wonderful rock out in the middle of the ocean where the waves beat against it. It as called "Haystack Rock."

You can see Terry and his sister, Lolita and husband Bob, with the fancy hotels and condos of seaside in the background. I couldn't coax them any closer to the water. As you can see, I am standing in it as I am taking this picture.

Terry complains that I don't take enough pictures of myself and way too many of him. So, here is a picture of my fat feet, all covered in sand, which Terry made me wash before I could get back in the pick-up! I cannot handle being on the beach and not take my shoes off, no matter how cold it might be.

We went to eat clam chowder and shrimp at Moe's in Cannon Beach and then took some of our left-over bread outside on the beach next to the restaurant to feed the seagulls. We were with Lolita and Bob and their friends from Emmett, Jim and Opal. The seagulls were quite agressive. One got Terry pretty good on his thumb.

We walked to town one day and crossed the bridge where people were fishing and crabbing. We saw this man reeling in and thought he had a really big fish. It ended up being a seagull who nabbed the small fish the man had hooked and the duck ended up getting caught on the hook. He got the hook out and set the duck free. I think he earned his lunch!

There was an old-time car show in Seaside while we were there. This is Terry dreamily looking at a 1956 Chevy like the one he had just out of High School, except his was brown. It was fun looking at all of the old cars.

The Month of August/Emmett, McCormick, West Richland

I haven't updated the blog for a month. I kept thinking that we hadn't done much in August, mostly just hung around Emmett, waiting to hit the road again the first of September. But, when I got to looking at our pictures, we had lots of good times in August.

At the beginning of the month, we got a phone call from my brother Bill. He was on his way from Portland to Emmett to his 40th High School class reunion. He was pulling his boat because after the reunion he planned to go to McCormick Park on the Snake River in Hell's Canyon. Well, his old "trustworthy" pickup he has had for years decided it was ready to "give up the ghost." He broke down near LeGrande, OR. So, Terry and my brother Mike took off and rescued him. Bill keeps up on our blog, so I posted this picture he took of his truck and boat along side the road! He ended up getting a new/used pickup in Emmett.

After Bill's reunion, we followed him to McCormick for a few days. He usually puts up an old green canvas tent in his favorite corner of the park, but that spot was taken, so he pitched his "new' tent in our RV site next to us. His son, Bill, Jr., was camped just up the road with his in-laws and he came to visit. He almost couldn't find his dad -- new spot, new tent, and new truck!

One of the reasons we wanted to go back to McCormick was that the camp host, Lee, told us that if we came back in August, he would help us shine up the pontoons on our boat. He was true to his word and after about three hours, we had nice shiny pontoons. It sure made a difference in the way our boat looked. Thanks, Lee!

The blackberries were just coming on when we were at McCormick. Some grow along the river where you can only get to them in a boat. Bill took us in his boat and helped us pick three bucketfulls! Terry had to hold the boat to the side of the bank while Bill and I picked. I'm not sure who got the most scratches from the bushes, but you can be sure that we had fresh blackberries and milk that night for a snack! And, I put several sacks in the freezer.

The day we left McCormick, my brother Mike and his friend Charlie showed up to camp with Bill for a few days. And then the next day our sister Lorrie got there. We didn't want Bill to get lonely. He was planning on staying for two weeks and was kind of looking forward to the second week when he would have time to himself. But, he ended up leaving the next Tuesday morning because he decided it was pretty boring camping all by himself! He said there were only a couple of other campers in the whole campground. I think maybe he was anxious to try out the new pickup!

My sister Lorrie "housesits" for us. She has two cats, Mango and Kiwi. Terry loves to torment them. He found this snake slithering across the patio and out into the driveway. Kiwi spotted it, but every time she got close to it, it would curl up and not move. As she would walk away the snake would begin to move again, and then Kiwi would pounce on it again. Terry tried to help her out by stirring up the snake, but, it eventually got away into the irrigation ditch. It doesn't take much to keep Terry entertained!

Our daughter, Jill, had her 10th High School class reunion in August, also. She looked really cute in her new outfit. They (well, at least Jill) had a fun time at the reunion. I think Dan watched a football game with some of the other husbands while Jill and her friends reminisced and caught up on everyone's life.

We got to babysit the kids, so I put Kamber to work vacuuming the 5th Wheel. I love the central vacuum. (I know that I am really spoiled!) Kamber thought it was a really fun way to vacuum.
Kamber wanted to take a picture of me working because I took a picture of her working, so this is the picture she took. I was busy getting some of our paperwork done before we leave Emmett at the end of the month. Most things I do on the computer, but there are a few things I have to the "old fashioned" way!

We had a chicken for dinner with Kamber and Boe. We saved the wishbone for them After it was dried, they each made a wish (which they couldn't tell anyone what it was), and then pulled the wishbone. As you can see, Kamber won and I told her that her wish should come true. Boe lost, but he was a good sport about it. We really enjoyed having Jill and her family visit us. We may not see them again now until next summer, unless they happen to come to Arizona for Christmas or Spring Break. It is really hard to be away from grandkids (oh, and their parents) for months at a time. Our lifestyle of being fulltime RV'ers has helped us spend more time with our kids and grandkids (17 of them), but we sure miss them sometimes.

We left Emmett on the last day of August to spend Labor Day weekend with my brother, Ron's, family in West Richland, WA before we go on down the coast of Oregon. It was great. We just pulled the Condo in front of their house and he plugged us in with electricity. We could only put out one slide because the other two would have stuck out in the road too far. So, we got a taste of what it would be like to live in the Condo if it only had one slide. It was quite comfortable, but it will be nice to have a little more room when we get to our first campground in Seaside.

Ron and Kathy live in a really nice home. They built an apartment on one end for Kathy's mom. That is great that they have a place for her to live right next to them. They were very good hosts and fed us barbecued hamburgers and salmon. Kathy was on crutches because she had broken her leg the week before, but it didn't keep her down too much.

One day we went to Leavenworth where there is a Bavarian village with all kinds of little shops. It is in the middle of the trees and makes you feel like you are really in a different country.

Kathy and their daughter each bought a purse in the leather shop. Ron really wanted to buy a hat. This is one he tried on, which was way big for him. He actually bought a different one, which I thought looked a lot better on him than this one. I hope he wears it once in a while. It looked really good on him.

There was a common area where a man played an accordion and these men were dressed in costume. They posed for a picture with Ron, Kathy, and Destiney

The word "Willkommen" means "welcome." Terry and I are standing in front of a replica of a Bohemian beer wagon. We enjoyed being at Ron & Kathy's. I especially enjoyed the motorcycle ride Ron took me on along the river and through West Richland. We went to a really nice potluck picnic with the Church members in their Ward, and Kathy helped me bind our Church Relief Society/Priesthood manuals. Thanks, Ron, Kathy, and Destiney!

St Maries ID, July 26-31

St. Maries is in northern Idaho, close to Coeur d'Alene. My family moved there when I was three years old and we moved from there when I was 13 and going into the 7th grade. The Satterlee family moved there with us and the Odekirks followed, all from Ogden, Utah. I have been back several times and it always feels like I am "going home."

This is Dutch Odekirk's home where we usually park our camper or 5th wheel when we go to St. Maries. It is a nice home and the third one that he has had on his property in St. Maries. It is on a mountain in the middle of the timber about ten miles out of St. Maries.

There is a meadow in front of his home and every evening we see deer crossing it. We didn't get very good pictures of them this year.

We took our camper on our pick-up to St. Maries this year, so we could take our pontoon boat. We took it out on the Benewah and Chatcolet lakes fishing a couple of times. This day, Terry caught a 25" Northern Pike. He has never caught a Northern Pike before. They are kind of a strange looking fish and they have very sharp teeth, so you have to be careful how you take them off of the hook. We took him home and barbequed him.

Dutch's granddaughter Melanie and her boyfriend Zack came with us fishing one day. They didn't fish much, but they jumped off the boat swimming, after I showed them how!

There were lots of osprey birds nested on poles and in trees around the lake. They would squawk at you if you got too close to their nest.

One day we went fishing with Dutch in his boat and we ended up in Coeur d'Alene Lake. Benewah Lake goes under a trestle and becomes Chacolet lake, and Chacolet Lake goes under a trestle and becomes Coeur d'Alene Lake. The St. Joe River, with actual banks on both sides, flows through the Benewah and Chatcolet Lakes and empties into the Coeur d'Alene Lake. It is quite a site to see. There is a Rails to Trails path that follows the old railroad line and goes over the trestle between Chatcolet Lake and Coeur d'Alene Lake. They have built the trestle up where it used to turn sideways for the boats to go through. Now the boats can go under it.

This Rails to Trails is about 60 miles long and would be really fun to ride some day on our tandem bike. It is one of our goals. It is supposed to be a really beautiful tail.

This is a log house that Dutch built on his property years ago when they first moved to St. Maries. I remember my Grandpa Fisher and Great Grandma Fisher living in it one summer. We kids would take turns staying for a week to help them because Great Grandma Fisher was almost blind. Dutch has wanted to tear down the "cabin" but his grandkids won't let him do it. I am sure glad he hasn't because it has a lot of memories for me.

As a kid, we would leave the house to go play and Mom wouldn't see us for hours later. We wouldn't get hungry because there were always so many berries to eat. They were all ripe when we were there--thimble berries, sarvice berries, and blackcaps.

There is an old school bus on Dutch's property. Dutch said that Gene Fisher (my Dad) brought it over one day and asked to park it there. He said he would be back in a few days to get it, and he still hasn't showed up! That must have been over 50 years ago.

We took a ride on the Benewah Road to where I lived most of the time we were in St. Maries. This is an old gravel pit that my brothers and I would go play on. We called it the "Rock Candy Mountain." For some reason, it seemed a little bigger when I was a kid.

When I was in the 4th grade, our house burnt to the ground. No one was home at the time and we lost everything we had but the clothes we were wearing. We went back to the old home site and could see no signs of the house, but we did find the well. We didn't have running water in the house until just before it burnt down, and we never had an indoor bathroom. Mom had to walk down a steep little hill to haul water up to the house. I remember always having a bucket of water sitting in the kitchen with a communal dipper to get a drink. The rule was that you had to drink all of the water you took in the dipper before you put the dipper back in the bucket. We took baths on Saturday nights in a big wash tub in the kitchen. Mom got the first bath, I got the second because I was the only girl, and then the my five brothers, followed by my Dad, as more hot water was added. We also had a chamber pot in our upstairs bedroom so we wouldn't have to go outside at night to the outhouse.

We had a hard time finding where the old house sat until we spotted these three old cedar trees (there is a third tree behind the one on the right in the first picture.) They were in our front yard. How we determined this was that in the middle picture it shows some metal sheets that were put on the trees, for what reason, I don't know. But here in the third picture are the same trees 50 years before, with the same metal attached. It was kind of neat to be able to see and touch those trees, knowing that they were the same ones in our yard and my Dad had put those very metal pieces on them! (Kind of soupy sentimentality!)

This is right in front of the trees where our house used to be. It burned down 50 years ago, this year.

Dad had taken our family album to his logging camp the week the house burnt down, to show these before and after pictures of our house, as he remodeled it. I am so thankful he had most all of our family pictures with him, or they would have burnt with the house! This is my brother Bill standing on the hill that went up to the Benewah road that we had to climb each day to get the mail and to catch the school bus.

This picture, with my brothers Ron, Frank, and Mike, was taken just a month or two before our house burnt down.

Here is my Dad and all of us kids: Roy, Dad, Mike, Frank, Me, Ron, and Bill--quite a group!

I couldn't resist putting in this picture of my Mom milking the goat, taken soon after we moved into the house. We always had goats. We drank their milk and ate their meat. They were never fenced in. There was a nanny who had a bell on her so we could always hear where they were. We would feed them grain when we milked them in the morning, they would go out on the hillsides all day, and then come back at night for their grain and milking. Sometimes we kids would go out where they were laying in the yard and squirt milk into our mouths straight from the goat's udder.

After our house burnt down, Dad built another house on our property. He used logs from off of our land to build the house. It was really nice and had running water from a spring down below it, but it still never had an indoor bathroom with a toilet because we never had a septic system. Dad sold our place and we moved from St. Maries when I was was 13 years old and just going into the 7th grade. The house was there for many years and then the owners torched it and put in a mobile home. My brother Frank went to St. Maries and when he went to see the house he was really disappointed because they had just burnt it down a couple of days before and it was still smoldering. So, this picture is especially for him!

This is what the knoll looks like today where our house sat.

There is a bridge over the Benewah Creek up the Benewah Road where Mom would drop us off to go swimming. Under the bridge it was usually over our heads, but there was a ledge we could walk on under the bridge, if we were brave enough. My brother Frank remembers walking on the ledge, falling off, and me saving his life! I guess he owes me one! The bridge still looks the same as I remembered it.

Dad sold some of our property to Art Satterlee and his family, who moved from Ogden to St. Maries with us. The "White House" was built (the one in the picture) and we were all impressed because it was fully plumbed. Art was a plumber by profession. Now his son Butch (Art, Jr.) lives in a little house across the Benewah road from the "White House" and the "White House" belongs to his sister Barbara (I was told, anyways). This is a picture of him and me. We are the same age and have kept in touch when we visit St. Maries.

We took a tour into town. There are a lot of things that are pretty much the same. This is the grade school that all of us kids went to, with a Lumberjack mascot. It was fun going to St. Maries and reminiscing. Terry was a good sport and just put up with me and all of my stories! I hope my brothers enjoy seeing some of the old pics.

We are now headed back home to Emmett for the rest of August, with one more trip to McCormick with my brother Bill. Then we will leave Idaho until next year.