October 7, 2000, Part I
We'd pretty much hot-footed it from Yellowstone back to the Pacific Northwest. Our original plan had been to spend several weeks back in the "home" area. We'd re-visit the storage locker and play put-'n-take with it, visit casually with friends, keep some Dr. appointments, and just generally hang out in some of our "home" parks which we can live in for up to 21 days each at $1 per day. But what with the excitement of Sturgis, and our general enjoyment of South Dakota and then Yellowstone, we blew the plan all apart. We left Fishing Bridge RV park in Yellowstone on the 16th of August, and arrived at one of our home parks, Pier 9 RV park, Moses Lake, WA, on the 17th. Figured we'd hang out and skip the weekend freeway traffic before going over the pass to Western Washington.
The night of the 16th, we'd stayed in a Wal Mart parking lot. It was the night of the Democratic convention and we kinda wanted to watch. When a knock on the door interrupted it and some guy asked if he and his film crew could interview us, we were only mildly irritated at not being able to vegg out the rest of the evening. Seems that these guys from the Montana Public Television were doing a piece on the people who parked in Wal Mart's parking lot for the night. They'd been on the project for several months, had interviewed several couples before us, and we had a blast. They spent somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours filming the rig and us and asking all kinds of questions while filming our responses. The next morning they'd met us at 7 AM so they could get shots of us leaving the parking lot and getting on the freeway. Great fun. They promised to send us a copy of the tape in exchange for our time. It'll be fun to see if it airs.
We had called friends Steve and Sharon Wilkins to see if they'd like to join us at Moses Lake as we both belong to the same camping club. To our mutual surprise, they already were planning on being in Moses Lake for the weekend as Steve had a wedding to perform on the 19th. All went well except for my parking job.
Yup. That color paint doesn't belong to us. I first spotted it while hooking up the utilities, and had no idea where it had come from. Barb and I couldn't remember anything hitting us, and I sure didn't remember hitting anything. About an hour or so later as I was sitting in the shade resting, I happened to look across the street and there was a pickup that seemed to match my new color. Well, now we know that Newmar builds better trailers then Ford does it's fenders. Major crunch for him, a minor scrubbing job for me. Insurance sure is handy! I'd gotten a little close to the truck before I'd started my swing into our space, and the tail of the trailer nicked the truck pretty good. Lesson learned.
Well, what with the heat, sun and wind, I guess it's OK if Barb closes her eyes, eh? That's Steve she's with, and next there's Steve earning our supper. The wedding couple are friends of Steve's daughter, and we were friends of the preacher, so we tagged along and had a good time and good eats besides.
Didn't take him long to shed his jacket! And Sharon looked lovely as usual in spite of the heat and wind. Steve and I have known each other since 1982 or so, and have had some great times together. Even if I can drive a go-kart a tiny bit faster than he can! When I get around to writing about our spiritual side, you'll learn more about him.
From Moses Lake we headed to Lake Sawyer (our home park) and the Federal Way scene. The first night there, we scrambled over to Al and Eva Kilcup's house to crash their bible study potluck. They knew we were coming, but several of the others didn't and it was fun for us to see everybody again even if it hadn't really been all that long since we'd left. I really like potluck dinners, particularly at their house because Eva always goes beyond expectations with her efforts. Barb visited her office, I visited mine, we made our appointments on time and had an enjoyable dinner with Steve and Karen Pribnow who'd invited Bill and Vicky Mast to join us at their home. We swapped lies about the potlucks we used to have after the pistol matches years ago, and generally enjoyed excellent food and even better friends. Why I didn't take the camera out of the truck is beyond me.
Then it was off to Vernonia, OR, where we spent the night with Ray and Nancy Santoro who had been our neighbors in Anchorage, 1977-1981. They have a motorhome by the same manufacturer as our trailer and we've been trying to get together for some camping for a very long time. We stayed in their driveway, parked behind their motorhome, but that's as close as we got. Again, my camera stayed in the truck. I'm so ashamed of myself. These are really special, neat people and I know you'd just love to meet them.