MOTHER NATURE'S swamp cooler

We are parked at the Event Center – fairgrounds in Redmond OR.   I just snapped some photos of the Three Sisters and Mount Batchelor,  part of the Cascade Mountain Range.  They are still snow covered providing a cool breeze on an 80+ degree day!!   Boise Idaho is blessed with the same configuration of population to mountain ranges, being surrounded on three sides by mountains.  Pretty smart those early settlers.  They needed water and protection through every season, therefore built their settlements near mountains and their rivers. 

 

As most RV PARKS this one is near a rail line and the airport.  Hasn’t bothered us until yesterday when we waited for a train full of Washington State lumber to pass before we could go to the hardware store and the “quicky?” oil change place.   I never realized that once you were IN LINE it was not possible to change your mind about the wait time and exit the line!!   So we visited my cousin and his wife AFTER supper instead of BEFORE,  and supper was ready right on time.   It is really strange being the OLDER GENERATION now on both sides of our family.  All of my aunts and uncles have passed while Tom has one aunt, his dad’s baby sister still alive, even after a bout with COVID last fall. 

 

Being “in business” a vacation business even, we never really had the opportunity to visit with aunts and uncles on our various trips back and forth to COLORADO.  Now that we have no schedule to adher to we are enjoying “finding” some of my first cousins.  So far we have connected with THREE Link cousins and FOUR Ainsworth cousins.   Also a couple of McKee cousins – Lucy in Kansas, and Lyndi in Redding CA.

 

We all seem to have kids scattered all around the country, although our boys are in the County they were raised in and Kathleen seems settled in Boise Idaho.  Maybe that is what happens when the kids go off to college, they meet up with young people from all over, even oversees students!  It is a good thing that we have access to computers and the various tools we can access there – Zoom, Facetime, and other “social media”  if we schedule the time to DO THAT.  Kinda like scheduling vacations for relaxing and establishing contacts that are important to our relationships.  Hopefully the road runs both ways.  I know that I was REALLY AMAZED to see all three of our children show up to break me out / welcome me HOME from the hospital back in January,  and two granddaughters made the effort as well!!  I felt well loved and the power of prayer since everything went so smoothly.  Thank you whomever you are,  I really appreciated those prayers!!

 

“So what is you favorite place so far? “  is a popular question.  And the ANSWER IS – THE NEXT ONE!!  But wherever we travel we meet interesting people.  Lady in the Laundry yesterday was a second generation TRAVELER – her parents had traveled in their towable trailer until her dad died,  then Mom sold the trailer and pickup and bought a Lazy Daze RV and kept going for seven more years.  So the fact that she had been on the road for FIFTEEN was not surprising!   She said she has friends here in OR who let her have water and power and stay as long as she needs to,  then when she visits her children she has her own bed, kitchen and bathroom no matter whose drive she is parked in.  What a life!!  ONE DAY AT A TIME, sweet Jesus, one day at a time!