The Poi Boys

One of the great things about living and traveling from city to city in a motor home is that you come across old friends. Last week in Seattle, I contacted 2 of my favorite people; Glen Martin and Jeff "Boogie Bear" Kauffer who live there. In 1974, Glen and Jeff were 2 of my DJ's when I was PD of KPOI in Hawaii. We haven't seen each other since the middle 70's! Today, Glen is a financial advisor and Jeff is an airline pilot for U.S. Air...if you've ever flown U.S. Air, "Boogie Bear" could have been your pilot! We worked really hard at KPOI and developed a great sounding radio station. In that one year we had more fun than the average person has in a lifetime!
Last Wednesday night, we all got together at Glen's beautiful home in Woodinville and had a few pops! Well, maybe more than just a few. That Blue Agave Glen's wife Kim brought out at the end was awesome. They had brought it back from their last trip to Mexico. It was the real thing!

The kings of the barbeque!

We're in Birch Bay, Washington about 100 miles north of Seattle right now but, in 2 weeks when we head for Santa Cruz, California for the holidays with family, we hope to stop by Jeff's house for a day or two! I am very proud of these guys and the personal success they are now enjoying as "adults." We were just kids in our 20's in 1974!

Seaside

Well, we made it to Seasidee, Oregon last week....nice little town with a Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk kinda feel,,,surf shops...a small amout of rides...bumper cars...bo roller coaster...TONS of restaurants....

Of course one strong earthquake in Japan & it could all get washed away....the signs says "Tsunami Evacuation Route"...that's comforting.... Everywhere you look in Seaside, hundreds of these hanging plants...they're huge, healthy and beautiful.....

I can't even imagine how many people it must take to keep them lookinh good....
We got our hands on some fresh, right off the boat Chinook King Salmon the other day....there's a reason why they call it KING salmon!

Sunday, I get to white knuckle the motorhome over the Astoria Bridge which crosses the mouth of the Columbia River in to Washington State!

Farmers Market-Portland

Last Saturday, July 30th, we went to the downtown Portland farmers market....Whoa! It was HUGE! Hundreds of booths, over flowing with fresh, locally grown fruits & vegetables!

There had to be 20 berry grower booths. Goosberries, Raspberrys, Lingonberrys, Currants, strawberrys & of course, Oregon blueberrys! The blueberrys & raspberrys were the sweetest we've ever had....and Ranier cherrys at their peak of perfection were only $2.99 a pound!
There were literally THOUSANDS of people in attendance to buy fresh produce and listen to live jazz.

Lisa was in heaven. SUNFLOWERS!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the Chinook salmon booth! We bought a salmon roast, a large  hunk of king salmon that the seller said  to wrap in aluminum foil along with garlic, onion and dill and cook 30 minutes at 350 & that it would be a religious experience. IT WAS! We roasted fresh sliced carrots, fennel & onions to have with the salmon.

Yesterday, we left Portland for a Thousand Trails in Seaside, Oregon, just below the border of Washington. Their little downtown area is like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk but without the thrill rides and plenty of restaurants. They had bumper cars and a carosel plus games but everything was inside. Tomorrow, we'll go downtown and shoot pore pictures!

On March 30th of this year, we took a day trip from our campsite in Columbus, Texas to La Grange, Texas. Yes, the same La Grange ZZ Top immortilized back in the 70's....you know, where the "best little ho'  house in Texas" was? Texas wildflowers seemed to crop up everywhere

Just as we were entered the southern edge of town, we came upon an incredibly old cemetary! It reminded us of some of the scenes in the Haunted House at Disneyland. Some of the headstones dated back to the early 1700's.Here's a few of them that I monochromed & processed for effect:

The town of around 7,000 people had a quaint little town square with the center of attraction a court house with classic architecture:

Just after we spent a month readying our home in Sierra Vista, Arizona for the new owners...painting, repairing, sprucing up, cleaning....having held 5 garage sales, made 6 trips to the dump, many, many trips to Goodwill Industries, shuttling "stuff" to a small 10 by 10 storage unit & finally driving away, we drove directly to Suprise, Arizona to do the same on behalf of Lisa's mother who had just passed away. After two weeks of struggling to disperse of the possessions the siblings didn't or couldn't take, in 110 degree Arizona heat everyday, I wrote this:

8-31-2010

Today, we drove away from Suprise, Arizona. and headed to California. With Tundra in tow, an over loaded motor home (from too many belongings we'll eventually leave with our kids and grandkids), two happy doggies and the dreams we've accumulated in the last 15 years of "going full time", we drove west on Bell, headed to the 303 loop to California. As usual, I didn't completely read the directions (and hadn't had Lisa read them either), I missed a crucial turn and wound up on some lonesome highway to nowhere that had NO SIGNS WHATSOEVER to tell you which road we were on! Sensing we were not going in the right direction, Lisa reviewed the directions and discovered we had missed a left turn on the

Bob Stumph Memorial Highway

, which was the so called 303 loop. So, we flipped a uey and back tracked to where we had seen a teeny tiny sign that had said "303 1/4 mile ahead. So in a quarter mile, we turned right on a street with NO STREET SIGN WHATSOEVER to, once again tell you which road you just ventured on to. Well, it turns out they were doing construction at that intersection (they were doing road construction on 90% of the intersections in Suprise!) and to our suprise, we had actually turned on to the Bob Stumph Memorial Highway which would eventually lead us to Blythe, California. There we pulled in to a lovely KOA Campsite in Blythe   Arizona (see attached pix!)

on the Colorado River, set up shop and had a great evening!

Deep Sea Fishing on the Oregon Coast

On August 6th, 2010, my wife Lisa & I departed Sierra Vista, Arizona in our 40 Country Coach Class A motor home. We sold everything...the house, nearly every stick of furniture & blew out of there! Since then, so many good and bad things have happened & it would take me a month just to include in this blog so, I'll start right about last week. (I will later go to my journal and copy/paste some of what happened since last August to this blog)
We spent the past 2 weeks at a Thousand Trails campsite in Pacific City, Oregon. It was very enjoyable. Last Saturday, I went deep sea fishing on the Eagle Dory.

 A Dory is a flat bottomed fishing boat...thgere were going to be several customers on the boat but all but myself cancelled out. So I would up going out at 5am with Captain Dave Stiles and his 2 crew members George and Bob. When you go fishing on the Eagle, you get the royal treatment. They supply everything including bait & tackle plus they bait your hook and hand you the pole. Then, it's your job to reel in anything you catch but when it gets close enough to the boat, the crew takes it off the hook and does what must be done to a fish when you catch one. (I hate doing that part!)
During that 6 hours of fishing, all 4 of us maxed out with 7 sea bass each!

 I also caught a quillback (look it up; one ugly fish but they taste good I'm told...I'll find out later this week when I thaw it and grill it up!),  Then, I reeled in 2 Ling Cod (they're pretty ugly too!); one 10 pounds

the other 8 pounds. THEN, I caught a 50 to 60 pound halibut! Check it out!:

 Unfortunately, they're not in season and there are strict rules thatcould send you to jail if you bring one in! We had to release it! It took me a half hour to drag it in! Oh well! Then, when we all gathered afterward at Dave's he fileted ALL the fish

and gave it to me; including the fish they caught! It was probably 30 pounds of fish!

(I vaccuumed seal all of it in protions and stuffed the freezer in the mnotorhome and will be giving a lot of it away as we travel and meet new people) But wait! That's not all! On the way back to shore, Dave stopped by his 4 crab pots and dragged out 20 crabs

which he proceeded to cook and GIVE TO ME! ALL of it!

Yesterday Lisa & I completely cleaned all of them and are having crab Louie tonight! We ended up with 4 pounds of crab meat most of which I portioned and vaccuum sealed for later. We had Ling Cod tacos last night. But wait again! Dave also threw in a 2 pound elk steak

from one he bagged in January! It was absolutely melt in your mouth tender.
Yesterday, Sunday, we relocated to Portland where we now are.