Sunday 9-24-23 Visiting Ashley & Chase

 

Larry, me, Ashley and Chase

We had another rainy day. 

We started the day by getting the Minnie ready to leave Anderson Park. Once everything was securely in place we left. It was about 8:15 am. Today we were making a special stop, we were going to visit my niece Ashley and her husband Chase. They lived 35 miles from where we were, it was down a curvy road and took about 45 minutes to get there.

We haven't seen Ashley in many years and we had never met Chase or her dogs and cat. Ashley and Larry had communicated back and forth via e-mail on the time to meet. We arrived at their home about 9:15. Their dogs greeted us at the door with a bark. Ashley and Chase made us waffles and bacon for brunch. My birthday is tomorrow so Ashley said this could be my birthday brunch. They have a very nice home right off a golf course. It's a townhouse and you're very close to your neighbors. They have a deep garage. Part of it is Chase studio for his work. He works for X-Ray FM, which is a radio station.  Their dogs are very cute and the cat is very laid back. Ashley said she was about 10 years old but she looks more like a kitten. Ashley gave me a loaf of sour dough bread that was made by a friend of hers and she gave me a bunch of flowers along with a card for my birthday. When we had our waffles she put a few candles on it and Chase lit them. I blew them out. We visited with them until about 1:00. Larry wanted to get through Portland before it got too busy. We had a super visit. Thank you Ashley and Chase for the bread and flowers. Ashley thank your friend for the delicious bread.

Homemade sour dough bread

 

Birthday flowers

 

 

 

Birthday brunch

 

 

Blowing out my candles

 

Larry, me and Ashley

After saying our good-byes we were back on the road. We had 86 miles to go to get to our home for the night. It rained all the way through Portland to Waterloo. In Portland the traffic was heavy and slowed down in areas but it could have been worse. We stopped at a county park before Waterloo, they had an available site but the host wasn't there so we moved down the road a few miles to Waterloo. There was plenty of sites available and the host was there. He told Larry he was going to town and would be back in an hour if we needed anything. Larry made the right decision to come here because it was a bigger park and no one was here. 

Larry found a site right next to the bathroom. They have showers available. You can walk to see Waterloo Falls but it was raining so we didn't go see them. Maybe tomorrow. The sites have power and water. We parked the Minnie and paid for a night. They only take cash. Larry looked at the forecast for tomorrow and thinks we will probably be here another night. 

While staying dry in the Minnie Larry researched where to go next. He had planned to stay around Oregon for a couple of weeks but in some areas the rain is suppose to stay around awhile and in areas where there are lower chances of rain the air quality is poor due to forest fires. Even with all the rain we can smell smoke. Larry decided we would go to California. He went online and found one available site this weekend in the Redwood Forest National Park and State Park. We have never been there so this is exciting. We have a reservation for Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

I only did 2,000 steps so I ended up coming in 4th place in my group for the week with 87,000 steps. I am now in the 90,000 step challenge. 

We spent the rest of the day reading.