2 1/2 YEARS ON THE ROAD - WHEE!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

As of 12/1/09 we have been living in our motor home for two and a half years and we are still talking to each other....well most of the time.

A lot has happened since our last update on August 1st. We continued to work at Sage Hills and play golf, lots of it. Kathy worked in the pro shop and I did things like wash windows, marshall on the golf course, do the food and booze runs to beautiful downtown Othello, pool boy duty, etc. Kathy played in a tournament on 8/9 and won $30. On 8/16 she won another $10. Watch out Michelle Wie! Of course I won some prizes too. Here are examples and I didn't include pictures of the black golf balls I received for screwing up the rules during one of the first tournaments I entered:

Here are a couple of pictures of us doing pool duty.

On August 11th, Jason, Kelly, Logan and Peyton came and tent camped next to our motor home for 2 nights. The 1st night they were here it rained for the first time since we'd arrived here. On the same day, Pat, Traci, Andrew, Nathan and Sydney showed up on their way home from Lake Chelan. We had a big cook out with hamburgers, brots cooked in beer, corn on the cob and watermelon. It was fun having them all here to see what we were up to. The next 2 days we played golf with Jason and I beat him in a skins game. Not bad for an "old coot."

We also experienced many great sunsets while sitting in our motor home having cocktails.

On the weekend of 8/29 we went to Seattle to a Mariners game as guests in a sky box with Diane and Gary Cooper. Diane and Kathy have been friends since seventh grade. David's sister, Kathy and her husband, Al went with us. We stayed in Kathy and Al's luxury condo overlooking Puget Sound in Des Moines. Both the game and the stay were treats.

The Grant County Fair left us with very little to say about it. Here is a picture of the Suffragets, we should never have given them the vote.

Most of September was spent working and playing golf. Sage Hills has a TGIF tournament almost every Friday and tournaments on many Sundays. I was given a new driver from our fellow workamper "Bogey Bob" and then another friend, Ken, put a senior flex shaft on the driver. It really has helped me get more distance on my drives. Ken also gave me a new 5 wood and that was a big help. All in all, I have lowered my handicap from a 40 to a 30 and when we go back next year, I hope to lower it some more. Ken gave us lessons on chipping and we had another lesson in Moses Lake from another pro. Kathy's game is significantly better. She isn't calling her clubs really bad names any more. The "horse race" game was a hoot with everyone on the greens at the same time and of course Ken had a couple of bad lies.

We took the motor home to Spokane near the end of September for a 3 day trip and stayed out in the suburb of Deer Park in a really nice and quiet RV Park. We played golf at the beautiful Indian Canyon course and spent 2 days touring Spokane. It was a nice break and we had a couple of good meals at Anthony's overlooking the Spokane Falls. We also found a good Mexican restaurant the first night we were there. Spokane is a nice city.

We started October off by flying to Vicksburg, MS to our semi-annual Air Force reunion. We had a really good time lying about all of the things we did when we were young. Othel & Caroline Mendrop did a wonderful job of hosting the reunion. We dined on catfish, hushpuppies, okra, and watermelon - true Southern fare. We toured grand old mansions and a Civil War battlefield . We also toured one of the 10 largest computer centers in the world. It is operated by the Corps of Engineers and they are doing amazing things, a lot of which are for the various branches of the armed forces and highly classified. There were 14 of us (plus spouses) in attendance and there were a number who were sorely missed. All of us are either approaching 80 or are already there. It's hard to believe that it's almost 60 years since we met in Waco & Biloxi.

Kathy & I also spent an overnight in Leavenworth, WA in our Worldmark timeshare. It is a wonderful little town that looks and feels like an old Bavarian town in the mountains. I had never been there before and we plan on going back next year during Octoberfest. We had a true German dinner at King Ludwig's and met the Mineo's from the Seattle area. They were there in the area looking for specialty mushrooms. Sal happens to be the cousin of the actor Sal Mineo. We hope to get together with them when we return to Washington in the Spring.

The rest of October was spent partying with our friends and preparing to leave Sage Hills for the winter. We have been invited back next year. We had a lot of fun there, met a number of good people and are looking forward to returning. A few of them are planning on going to Laughlin, NV for New Year's and we hope to be able to join them. We felt a little sad leaving but it was on to Puyallup where we made it in time for Hallowe'en with all of the grandchildren there. It was fun.

One of the things we enjoyed was all of the fresh produce grown locally. Here is a picture of some apples given to us by Martin (the golf course head groundskeeper) who does a wonderful job taking care of the golf course. The big one on the left was part of the bag of 10 we received -- huge!! We kept only four as that's all we could get in our refrigerator - and shared the rest with others. They were delicious.

By the time we arrived in the Seattle area a number of things had gone wrong with the motor home. Earlier in the summer our inverter/converter had failed and it took a few weeks to get it fixed. We were able to borrow a battery charger from Sage Hills as we were running off the house batteries. Then while we were in Mississippi our living room furnace failed so we started using the heat pump. That failed as well, and on our way to Puyallup the windshield wipers only worked in the high speed mode. Anyway, we were able to get the motor home to a repair facility nearby but they had to order parts that would come in a week. They were able to fix the furnace right away so we went on down to Portland to visit Larry, Megan, Jackson, Ann & Chris and drove back to Seattle and had the rest of the things fixed. On our way to California, the ice maker quit working (a major disaster), the water pump stopped working, and our Garmin GPS quit. When one is dependent on the systems working in our "rolling home" it becomes quite a challenge to get things fixed while we're still living in it! Anyway, we had a great visit with Kathy's clan in Puyallup and mine in Portland and then we headed south to Ashland.

We spent 3 nights there with Roy & Mary and their new dog, Buddy. We had the pleasure of meeting Mary's two daughters who were up visiting from California as well. It is a very fun place to visit and Roy and I are very quiet when we get together. I don't know why the wives nag at us so much.



We hurried out of there before the snow came and next stopped in Orland, CA for a night. Lo and behold our living room slide-out wasn't working. I crawled under the motor home and found a broken bolt. ACE Hardware had one so I repaired that and the next day we ended up in Half Moon Bay on 11/14.

We are here for 6 weeks to see daughter, Julie, Allan, India and Meilani and to do doctor visits.

On Monday I met with my eye surgeon and the day before Thanksgiving I had cataract surgery on my right eye. The next morning at 9:00AM I had my 1st post op meeting and the surgery went wonderfully well. My last appointment is on 12/28. On the 29th we will head for Laughlin, NV to celebrate New Year's.

In the meantime we are having fun with Julie and family, and trying to see as many friends in the area as possible. I spent 1 day as the photographer where Allan was Santa, giving presents to low income residents at the Half Moon Bay Community Center. We took close to 200 pictures. Here is Allan in his Santa outfit with India (age 15) on the left and Meilani (age 8) on the right!

We also spent a day with Julie, India, Meilani and India's best friend Fizzy at the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park. It is a very green facility with wonderful displays.

We spent two delightful Sunday afternoons playing golf with Kathy's former boss, Glenna and her husband, Frank. The Old Course is adjacent to the Ritz Carlton here in Half Moon Bay, and is within walking distance of our RV park. We have a lovely view of the golf course and the Pacific Ocean. Glenna and Frank are pictured below. They have two huge Maine Coon cats named Marco and Polo!

One of the other not-so-fun things about owning a motor home is when the day/night window shades strings break. We have had them "fail" three times since we've owned our coach so have been spending a number of hours restringing them ourselves. Each shade takes us about two hours, and we've done five so far! Three more to go ...

Kathy helped serve the employee holiday meal at Sequoia Hospital on December 18th. This is the place she worked last ... and she loved seeing many of her work buddies there. She's also had a chance to catch up with several of her girlfriends in the area.

We have our dashboard "decorated" for Christmas - complete with a tree, wreath, Santa, a Nativity scene, and a "Grinch" figurine. Festive! Our stockings are hung (thanks to Linda and Maynard) on a nearby picture frame. Hope Santa can find us!

We spent one Sunday with Julie and family helping them find a Christmas tree. It turned into a bit of a long journey (most of the day) as the tree farm they'd gone to last year (about 30 miles south of Half Moon Bay) was out of decent trees, and they couldn't find the other tree farm they'd been to a number of years ago. We rode in the back of their Honda Odessey for what seeemed like the steepest, twistiest, narrowest roads in the whole Bay area ... for many hours ... and ended up back in HMB with no tree. They were able to find a beautiful tree the next day -- at a local farm about two miles from their home!! Life is full of exciting adventures!!

One of my previous bosses from AT & T, Dick Moore and his wife, Linda, trekked over to see us and we spent a fun afternoon with them which ended with good Mexican food. Dick recently retired, and is enjoying a life of leisure.

Another fun evening was spent with John Anderson - a friend I worked with at Vadic many years ago.

Another Vadic friend, Deane Judd and his wife drove over to see us from nearby Hollister. They were going to fly but the weather was questionable and we spent the day with lunch at the harbor and catching up with them.

We had lunch with my old, he's a lot younger than me, boss from Vadic where we sold modems of all things. Had a great time reminising about the good times we had and all of the friends we made during those years. Tom & Biruta still look great and we met their daughter Allison who works with them. The calendar pictured below is a Vadic one that was done in 1982 by David's best friend, Larry Courtney. It featured spoofs on "Ma Bell" ads...

We had another nice lunch with Hal and Geni Sundquist - they were our next door neighbors in Sunnyvale. It was fun visiting our old neighborhood again.

We had a delightful dinner with Ken & Elaine Krechmer at their home in Palo Alto and Ken made delicious lasagna. Ken and I worked together at Vadic back in the mid 70's.

We hope this brings you up-to-date on our travel and activities. We've been pretty busy! We both wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and peace to all. We are grateful for your love and friendship and hope the next year brings good health and happiness to you and yours.

With love,

Dave & Kathy

Sage Hills RV & Golf Resort

Today is Saturday, August 1st. It's hard to believe we've been here in Warden three months! The time is flying by! Sorry we've not updated the Blog more regularly ... but between working, playing lots of free golf and touring the area we've been pretty busy!

Right after we arrived we took a tour of the golf course and discovered there are thousands of ground squirrels living on the course and they are a pest. Unbfortunately the state believes they are an animal of interest and don't want them eliminated. The locals don't pay a lot of attention to what they say. Since it turned hot they have gone under ground and disappeared. At least for now.

In May (our first month here) we got used to working two or three days a week - 12 hour days! The hardest part is getting up at O-Dark-Thirty (5:00 AM) to be to work before 7. We found if we work together in the Pro Shop/RV Office that we can spell each other off and take breaks back at the motor home. We really love our jobs, and enjoy all the people we work with. There are five Workamping couples who do everything from mowing, maintaining the pool, coordinating tournaments, restroom cleaning, electrical work, washing and servicing golf carts, working in the restaurant, to working in the Pro Shop/RV Office.

One of the things we like about this place is the birds. There are all kinds of them . A robin built a nest on top of our engine battery and laid 4 beautiful eggs and they hatched.

We also have been following the progress of a killdeer who laid the eggs on the ground right next to a cart path. Here are pictures and if you look closely you'll see 4 little birds that stayed in the nest for one day and then they were out running. Note the mother trying to lead us away from them.

All the "locals" are welcoming and fun to be with. It's quite a social community -- and it all centers around golf. There are approximately twenty homes along the lower part of the golf course - most all golfers. There is a men's group called the "Gangsome" (the Gang and then some) who play golf every morning at 8:00 AM. The ladie's group is not quite so crazy - they only play on Thursday mornings. There are a number of tournaments here on the weekends - and many folks come in their RV's to "stay and play."

The RV park itself has about 45 spaces - and over 25 of them are filled with people who live here full time and work in the area. There are several large companies that employ them - some seed companies, some food processing, and another company working on solar energy. The "live heres" are like a family, and, once again, have welcomed us Workampers with open arms. There are spur-of-the moment potlucks, Friday night TGIF golf and partying in the restaurant/bar and Sunday afternoon tournaments. We have a very nice site with great views and wonderful sunsets.

Sage Hills is about three miles from the small community of Warden. Warden doesn't have much going for it - so we don't go there unless absolutely necessary. The next nearby town, Othello, is about 8 miles south of us - and we go there to Wal-Mart. Moses Lake (bigger than Othello) is 12 miles north - and it has Safeway, Ace Hardware, car parts stores, another Wal-Mart and Walgreen. If we need anything "major" we have to drive to the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick & Richland) - it's an hour's drive south.

In May we experienced a major problem with our motor home. The power inverter/converter quit working. This is the fixture that converts power from the power pole outside to our power inside. At first we thought we needed to replace our house batteries, as they kept getting low and not recharging -- so we spent $300 on new batteries. But, alas, it was the inverter/converter. Fortunately, there's an RV repair facility nearby and they quickly diagnosed that we needed to replace the "fried" part - but it had to be ordered in -- and it took over two weeks! EEEK!! So we kept power coming into the motor home by borrowing a big battery charger - and lived off our house batteries. $1,000 later (most of it covered by our extended warranty) we had a new inverter/converter installed and all is working perfectly.

Then, as if we were headed down that "three strikes" road, the mother board died on our computer. We found we had to have all the data taken off the hard drive in order to send it to HP for the new board. So we got to drive to Kennewick, get the data transferred to another external hard drive, ship the laptop off to HP by Fed Ex and wait for it to be returned. Fortunately they got it back to us in just a few days (and $400 for the repair) and the data was saved on our hard drive. Big relief! One of the reasons we decided to Workamp for six months was to save some money. HA! Next joke!!

David's brother-in-law, Al Isaac, came over to see us and have dinner one evening. We think he just wanted to see if we were behaving! Thanks for make the trip, Al!

On June 13th, we attended the Annual Combine Demolition Derby in the small farming community of Lind. What a hoot! The combines had to be at least 25 years old in order to participate. Attached are some pictures of the rigs. It got pretty loud and funny to watch those huge machines crash and bang into each other. There were about 17 combines that participated and the winner, of course, was the "last one still able to move around the ring." During half-time, there were wheat truck races and pick-up races! Talk about another great experience of "Americana" - we loved it! Note our red Saturn - and the dust it incurred in the parking lot!!

Farming is a huge industry here in the Columbia Basin part of Central Washington. Fields of wheat, alfalfa, hay, corn, , asparagus, potatoes, peppermint, and soybeans are everywhere. Unfortunately, there are also a number of cattle feed lots, which adds a not-so-nice odor if the wind sends the smell our way. We have enjoyed fresh asparagus in May/June, and are now feasting on corn from Walla Walla and cherries from the Wenatchee area. We also saw some watermelons being harvested about 30 miles from here. Fishing is also popular - and David is accumulating some gear so he can fish some of the local lakes and streams. He had bought some waders at LL Bean's mother store in Maine, and hasn't had the chance yet to use them. Then a couple of weeks ago he and Al went to Cabela's sporting goods store over west of the mountains and equipped themselves with new fishing line (David's old line was 45 years old!), "Wooley Buggers" and "Poppers." Now they just need a couple of float tubes and they're ready. I'm looking forward to eating some fresh trout or salmon, or Walleyes. David has his fishing license and is ready to go!

On June 20th we took a day trip up to Grand Coulee Dam. There are about 13 dams along the mighty Columbia River, and Grand Coulee is the largest. The terrain, as we drove along, changed from farm land to buttes and sage brush with numerous lakes. It was spectacular. We stopped by Sun Lakes Resort to see their RV facilities and hope to go over there for a stay sometime.

It was a great day and the scenery was well worth the trip.

On June 26th, we decided to pull a surprise on some of our family and drive over to Puyallup. It was the cancer Relay for Life in Puyallup that evening, and we knew Logan (our 7 year old grandson who had cancer) was going to be participating. We showed up at the school yard where it was being held -- a fun surprise! Logan, his cousin Sydney, and Logan's friend Chloe got to lead off the survivors lap - and Logan had a cool green super hero cape to wear. We all were so proud and he was thrilled to be there! Logan is missing a few teeth (as are Sydney and Chloe) so we have attached a couple of cute pictures. We spent the weekend with Jason and family, Pat and family, Kristi and family - and then an overnight at Kathy and Al's lovely condo before heading back here. Thanks, everyone, for spending time with us!!

Logan had his quarterly scans at Children's Hospital July 9th and 10th, and we're thrilled to report the scans are clear and the cancer is still in remission! Thank you, God for this wonderful gift of Logan!

We spent another enjoyable afternoon with Kathy and Al when they met us in Ellensburg for lunch a few days ago. Ellensburg is only about a 70 mile drive for us - and we saw more beautiful farmland and vineyards as well as the Columbia River.

Last weekend we went to the Tri Cities to watch the Hydroplane races on the Columbia River. They were spectacular and we had seats right at the turn and no more than a few hundred yards from the action. They were getting speeds of over 160 mph and we've added a few pictures so you can see the action. Part of the festivities was an air show and a B25 flying over along with an F16 next to a WWII P51.

Well, enough of our rambling for now. We hope to do more day trips this month and next and also have an invitation to a Mariners game in Seattle with friends, Diane and Gary Cooper, at the end of August. Hope this finds all of you enjoying your summer! We'd like to send some sunshine your way ... our temps have been hovering in the 90's lately and are expected to be over 100 next week. Thank heavens for air conditioning and a nice pool nearby!