Once we convinced American Airlines to issue the necessary paper to begin the trip in Rochester, baggage check, boarding passes, everything went smoothly. We picked up our luggage in Madrid and had a Whatsapp message from our group  that they they would be waiting for us at the “Meeting Point” and we joined up with the TBK Jews in Spain Trip. We will be with them until my birthday.

Today We toured Cordoba with three major stops. After an excellent overview of Old Cordoba and the Jewish Quarter both on bus and on foot we entered the Mezquita Cathedral Mosque. I would fill the page with pictures and still not give an idea of the complexity of a building where people go to church at the mosque. It was built as a mosque, eventually expanded to over 22,000 square meters with hundreds of columns, into which a later Cardinal built a Cathedral entirely contained inside, taking down ‘only” 240 columns to achieve the completion.  

From there we broke for lunch before reconvening  in a courtyard for a presentation on the history of the great Jewish poets of Cordoba followed by a walk – concluding with a group picture at  a statue of Moses Maimonides, The Rambam, who was born in Cordoba but did most of his writing elsewhere. From there we proceeded to Casa De Sefard, a private museum where we were treated to acapella solo of Sephardi music from various parts and time of the Sephardic world and then a talk about the prominent women of the Jew Sephardic world (many fewer than the men). 

From there to dinner and exhaustion. 

We have been immersing ourselves in music and time with friends as the brief time of our visit in Rochester is winding down. We have had breakfasts, lunches and dinners with friends and many visits with grandson Josh and Rohma. We have seen Rochester weather deteriorate from balmy warm days not expected this late into September, to chill and rain, more expected, but less wonderful. The view out our windows to the north and west today is grey, but it isn’t so cold we couldn’t walk to a concert nor so wet as to require more than a light jacket.

Speaking of concert; we were at a program at Kilbourn Hall last night where Ossia was performing. This is a student run group that has been around for years.  They focus on new music that can be a challenge to listen to. It was a wonderful 2 hours of very interesting music extraordinarily well performed. When looking up the performance information we came across a program called Tuesday Pipes at noon on Tuesdays. It takes place at Christ Church, across from Eastman School of Music. If you have read any of my blogs from Jazz Fest ,you  might remember that this is one of venues. The Organ Department of ESM has installed an organ there, and it is one of two in the church. We had never heard a performance on either of the them. This was our chance to here both in one concert. We will certainly return to this church for Tuesday Pipes when we are back in Rochester.

We are headed off to another concert tonight in Kilbourn in the Faculty Artist Series. We have also attended two Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concerts. The opener featured Yfim Bronfman playing Prokofiev and concluding with Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Expected to be bored by “yet another performance” of the New World, but I was entranced  by the beauty of the performance. It was as if I had not heard it in a very long time.

I have been making maps of the main routes of our coming travels in Spain and Portugal. If you have any interest, here are the links to the maps  https://goo.gl/maps/E8NApEcLKEC2 for first 10 days with Temple B’rith Kodesh group and https://goo.gl/maps/b9NaThmx6EF2 for the OAT trip to Portugal and Spain. That last strip continues on to Ovieda where we eventually fly back to Madrid to fly home.

The prime departure ritual for all kinds of departures is a couple of sleepless night trying to remember what I’m forgetting. This is often accompanied by a trip to wherever the critical item is stored and placing it on an open surface for the morning. Since we are making a departure for at least a double if not triple trip the loss of sleep has been more extensive than usual. We are leaving the coach and car on the site which adds storage to the normal stress. 

Although I dug out the suitcases a few days ago, we didn’t get around to bring them into the coach to inventory the contents and prepare to add “stuff.” In my case my travel clothes remain packed after washing from the last trip, I only wear them when we are traveling. After wearing for 3 to 6 weeks, I really don’t want to see them, or be seen in them, until the next trip. Carol has a harder time buying clothes so she has a more serious packing job. She can’t dedicate clothing to travel only like I can.

Our first stop is our Rochester apartment which is fully stocked with everything but food so the suitcases will not be unpacked while we are there. Or at least that is the plan. So departure from Rochester to Spain should be relatively easy just requiring closing the apartment for another indeterminate absence. We plan to be there for 5 weeks, our shortest stay in Rochester ever. 

If all goes as planned we will be on tour for 10 days in Spain seeing Jewish sights or sights from a Jewish perspective. Then we will have 7 days in Barcelona in an apartment before flying to Porto, Portugal to join our 10th OAT trip. 

As we have been preparing for this we have used our unplanned time in Jojoba Hills to “enjoy” dry heat – no rain and day time temps in the mid 90’s to low 100’s. As noted in the previous post, lots of projects have been completed. Yesterday the last little bit of carpet was installed and we closed the checkbook for the year – I hope.

I have also been working with the rest of the family to make a year end gathering happen. I did lots of planning for  a stay on the Texas Gulf Coast only to find the drive from Hungry Town Hollow Rd would severely limit the time together. We have moved the location to the Alabama Coast and it took some doing to find a place for 3 rigs over New years Eve at this late date. Fortunately for us Rainbow Plantations an Escapee park found room for us. More on that later, Much later.

I have been playing Bridge several days a week. I think I am getting more consistently mediocre than I used to be. I have been placing well firsts and seconds so I cannot complain. Over the past month two couples that we have gotten to know well have made the decision to move out of the park because one of the couple was losing mental capacity. This is tied to the Bridge paragraph because Sheila, an immediate neighbor and regular player and a friend of Carol’s  is leaving soon since her husband can no longer be left alone for an extended period. She has posted on FaceBook so I am not writing out of turn here.  Carol and I are very sad.  

We both seem to be doing well and our doctors and therapists are inclined to agree. Damn this aging thing gets annoying at times and downright scary at others.  

Since we returned to Jojoba Hills daytime temperatures have been in the 90’s and low hundreds. Evenings were cooling off to low 80’s now dropping into the 70’s. We can turn off the AC after dark. Between medical appointments for Carol and physical therapy for me (my wrist) I have been playing Bridge and working at staying cool. 

We have undertaken just a few projects in the unexpected time we have here. We have been talking about putting up a sight line stopper on the edge of our site that we look out on from our patio. The design has shifted from welded steel in the shape of the mountains above to every kind of wood barrier we have seen in catalogs and on other sites in the park. We settled on this simple formation of wood slats, less for privacy than to just stop the eye. 

We had the coach washed and detailed:

Two more projects are in motion. We will be replacing the minimal amount of carpeting, which is badly worn, over the next week and Carol has just received a shipment of 3 new photos from Bay Photo that she had printed on metal which we plan to hang on the shed when we return we return from our Spain and Portugal trip in November.

Lest you get the idea we are sitting around, we have visited the LA family, driven to the top of Palomar and toured the 200″ Hale Telescope Dome – the 200″ mirror blank was cast at Corning where we have seen the blank that cracked during manufacture. We have entertained friends here on the coach for Happy Hour and for dinner. Whew, I would say we are looking forward to relaxing in Rochester,  but I doubt that will happen 🙂 We had best rest on the plane flight to prepare for activity we already know about there.

In the rush to get back to Jojoba Hills I stopped documenting the trip in this blog. I will just fill in some of the detail for those who are interested and for my own record. This post has been gathering dust for a couple of weeks now. Carol is done doctoring for the time being and we are preparing for our next adventures, to be posted soon.

Our first stop after leaving the Mannings was Evergreen Coho SKP Coop in Chimicum WA on the peninsula. We had been looking forward to visiting this northernmost SKP park for some time. However when I entered the address in the Garmin it offered Anderson Hill Road rather than Anderson Lake Road. The difference was Port Orchard rather than Chimicum. We were really enjoying our audio book and didn’t pay close attention when it directed us off 101. We eventually entered the correct address were able to forge on to the park. It is very lovely and quite a contrast to Jojoba Hills being flat and sites being neatly lined up in even rows. The people were all very pleasant and we were made to feel welcome. We ended up in a site with water, but no electric. There was electric on the site but the box was locked! We explored the area going to Port Angeles where we wandered around the town and drifted in and out of shops.

While there I started looking for our next stop. We found ourselves in the high season and it was not getting any easier to get a camping spot. I went to North Whidby Island RV Park and entered their availability search with combined length of 56′ (coach plus Jeep) and turned up nothing available. I tried again with just the 36′ and sure enough found a campsite. Upon arrival I discovered an oops. There was no place on the chosen site for the Jeep 🙁  for a small ($10) extra fee there was parking in a nearby lot.  We drove over to the state park across the street and took a half mile hike to see the bridge from Whidby Island to Fidalgo Island where Anacortes is.

Upon returning from the hike it was clear we needed to get Carol to the ER in Anacortes. We decided to stay put one more day before rolling south to Jojoba Hills.

We took the next day, Saturday, to go into Anacortes where we encountered Shipwreck Day. There were 10 blocks of vendors, many of them from the shops supplying commercial fishing,  selling off surplus, antiquated, new goods for fishing. Also there were vendors with everything else you might imagine. We got so distracted we never made it to the Farmers market on a side street until it was closed. We finished the day with a trip to the Local maritime museum and their paddle wheel snag puller.

This brings us up to the previous post. . . 

If you have followed Carol or me on Facebook you know we turned south a few weeks early. Carol has written a review of her excellent experience at Island Hospital ER Anacortes. After a series of walks and hikes it became clear that she needed to see a doctor which lead to our visit to Island Hospital ER in Anacortes. Since we had almost reached the northernmost point of our plan we decided to turn south and get back to Jojoba Hills so we could deal with doctors we know and who know us. 

I have been doing all the driving for this run, unlike out normal routine of 2 hour shifts. As we sit in Sommerville RV Park in Coalinga CA. there is one more 6 hour day ahead of me. We finished our great audio book “Roosevelt’s Confidante: A Maggie Hope Mystery” by Susan Elia MacNeal and will pick out something else for tomorrow.

Today had its ups and downs. We had an easy early departure from the Elks Lodge in Redding CA and rolled on south at a steady 57 to 60 mph. Late in the afternoon we pulled into yet another Rest Area for a bathroom break and walk to stretch the legs. As I was returning from the restroom a trucker accosted me with a tale about a really lucky man who I had to meet. A group of truckers were gathered behind a truck and I was told that one of them had won an unimaginable sum at a casino in Toronto and was handing out $100 bills. I noticed a game of Three Card Monte going on in the group and decided that $100 would cost a lot more. I tried to excuse myself gently, but one of the group was really aggressive and would not take no thank you for an answer. When he laid a hand on my arm I merely stared at his hand and then at him and he released me and began to swear at me and tell me I didn’t belong in the country.  Obviously a full red blooded Trumpista. I hustled Carol on to the coach and rolled before we even had our seat belts done.  

An hour further down the road my TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) sounded an alarm.  Instead of the expected signal loss from a sensor it reported that a tire on the Jeep was losing pressure. A stop on the shoulder of I5 is never an occasion for joy. In this case I determined that the tire had indeed lost 20% of expected pressure. I ran the pressure hose from the front of the coach to the front of the Jeep and reinflated the tire for the remaining 50 mile run to the campground we were headed for in Coalinga CA. On arrival it was already down a couple of PSI. A call to Coach-net, my road service company, resulted in the arrival of a local tire repair guy an hour later. He found a long brad in the tire and was able to remove it and plug the tire. In the mean time one of our Air Conditioners had failed. I located the circuit breaker and reset it and that fixed that for now. Then I tried to wash my hands and determined the water pump was not working. A brief round of trouble shooting located the disconnected power lead. It is still disconnected as I can’t see how to restore it without removing the pump, the connection is on the back side. I connected the hose and we are good for now. 

A sizable glass of Gin over ice led to the beginning of recovery from my trouble shooting efforts. It was followed by a wonderful omelette stuffed with Brussels Sprouts and other goodies and corn bread prepared by Carol, the best RV chef on the road. 

The following was written a week ago. We have been on the move pretty much ever since. I  will fill in details in the next post.

We left the very busy campground at Fort Stevens with sites barely big enough for our coach and more kids per site than I could imagine for an easy drive to Kay and John Harrison’s 20 acres of serenity on the Tilton River which they share with 7 other families.

Without specific directions it would be very difficult to locate this place 8 miles west of Morton WA. Once there we settled in to one of the sites that was temporarily vacant with the river mere steps from the coach door.

We were welcomed by the Harrisons and their neighbor Kathy and made to feel at home immediately. The quiet is impressive dominated by the sound of the river flowing over rocks and the birds calling. The Bald Eagle regaled us with flights up and down the river seeking readily available meals.

During our stay we had two adventures away from the campsite. We made an all day drive to Mount Rainier NP

entering from the southwest traversing the park to the southeast exit stopping at Longmere Inn for a lovely lunch and not stopping at Paradise Lodge as the parking for a mile in every direction was full. We returned after Happy Hour and made our own and had dinner in the coach. The next day after breakfast we joined Kay and John in their truck to venture even further to Mount St Helens NP.

This is the site of the 1980 eruption which devastated the area to the north of the mountain and killed 8 people. The views from the Johnston Lookout are incredible and it the dome growing the in center of the crater is plain to see. We stopped at River View Inn (?) for a late lunch on our way back to the coaches. As we entered the driveway we were pleased to note that the pasture had been mowed in preparation for haying. We said our goodbyes to John as he was heading off to play golf early in the morning and waited for the morning to bid Kay and Kathy farewell.

Friday the 13^th saw us on the road by mid morning and we took a slight detour to avoid the very narrow one lane bridge – maximum width 9 feet – which we had driven over on our way in. Our arrival at the Mannings was delayed as there was some trouble with communications. After a bit of chasing around we got together and Carol backed the coach up and around into their RV spot where we had water and 30 amp. Our stay included fun time with their daughter and granddaughters and friend Lorna. We had boat rides on Lake Cushman and swimming – refreshing – and I had a delightful time in one of their kayaks.

We drove out to the Olympia National Park where we took a hike on the Staircase Trail.

 The traffic on the narrow dirt road was incredible even into the mid afternoon as hundreds of cars were headed out to spots along the lake. It seemed there were far more vehicles then available parking. We were happy to get tucked back into the house by the lake where Dick and I took a sunset boat ride while others relaxed following dinner.

As I write we are preparing to head out to the town of Chimacum where Evergreen Coho SKP Coop has a spot reserved for us for the next two nights.

Along the way to our reservation in Fort Stevens State Park we needed three nights to vamp. Using Campendium.com I located a “city” park in Skamokawa WA that had just had a cancellation for one of their prime spots for the nights we needed. That was for July 5,6,7! 

This very nice park is both a large day use park and an the Columbia River with the main shipping channel just offshore. We explored to Longview WA to the east which has most of the big block stores and very little else to attract us. Getting there we took a bridge and a ferry across the river then proceeded east on the Oregon side crossing back on a bridge to Longview.

Eventually we returned  west on the Washington side of the river. We spotted a tiny museum and pulled in to find one of the volunteers just leaving. We only spent 30 minutes or so learning the history of this tiny niche along the road. Then continued on to the coach.  Back in the park we noted a sign for The Road Kill Saloon across the street so of course we had to walk over and take a look.

We pulled up the jacks on the 8th to take the very long 49 mile drive to Fort Stevens for the site we had been so lucky to get last minute. We stopped at “Dismal Nitch” so named by Lewis and Clarke because here less than a mile upriver from their goal of reaching the Pacific they were held captive by the weather for 6 days. 

Once set up we immediately headed over to the military site to meet up with Diana and George Ruelens who are spending  their summer volunteering giving tours on this 5 Ton Deuce 

I’m not quite sure where they found this driver. 

We have moved on since this post was written and will work on a “catch up” post in the next day or two. 

As I post we are in Evergreen Coho SKP park in Chimacum WA.

Our stay at Bend continued on until Madelyn and Geoff arrived on Friday and we had dinner together at Patrice and Norms place. Great fun, many tales, some tall, were told and we finally left and turned in with plans for more fun on Saturday. 

Saturday we continued to enjoy Deschutes Brewing’s 30th birthday  with a couple of groups in Drake Park – leaving with 4 more hours of music being offered, but we headed out to Sunriver Resort for different music – 60’s Rock in honor of the resorts 50th anniversary. 

Sunday we moved on having scored a site at Port of Newport Marina and RV Park for two nights. Getting there we completed a drive on a new to us section of US 20 from Bend to Newport. This leaves Bend to Yellowstone and Illinois sections of US 20 for us to complete driving the entire route. We have already driven US 1, 15 and US 90 completely. We find this is a way to explore areas we might never otherwise see if we just were going from destination to destination. I have not included any Interstates in the theme as most do not provide easy access to the smaller places off the beaten path. As others have said (including Charles Kuralt) you could drive across the country on any of those roads and at every exit you have to read a sign to figure out where you are, the chains are all lined up across the country at every junction. 

We have been in Newport before and have taken time to catch up with shopping and clean up after a week with no water or sewer hookups. This morning we had an unwanted excitement when the water heater failed. I immediately called Gary at Precision Temp and while waiting for his response the heater resumed working. His diagnoses, when he called, was a glitch that caused a lockout which was unlocked when shutting off the water.  I asked Gary how much longer I could rely on his being there he said through 2019.  And so it goes. We moved to another site in the park for 2 more nights.

We have just secured a place for 2 nights at Fort Stevens where the Ruelens, also from Jojoba Hills, are volunteering giving tours. We are looking forward to seeing them. This trip is beginning to look like visits with friends as we go. Still have a couple of friends to see further along and then family in Vancouver BC.