Busy Family Time- August 17

  

A fawn is enjoying the McKenzie Rive across from the Reim house.  

It's been a very busy few weeks.  As promised Joel finally finished most of the projects he started and amazingly, the Beaver fired up for a shake down run in Eugene for some transmission service.  On Friday we headed out with just the car, back to Portola. Since August 17, I think we have put 1600 miles on the Honda as follows.

 First,we made a mad dash to Portola, California to my son's Jeremy's house to drop off  Rio (Jeremy's dog)..more on that later. Then onto the Reno airport on Saturday to pick up my son Justin and his wife Liz who were arriving from Virginia for a weeks visit in the west.  We took them back to Portola for a family Bar-B-Q and nice visit, but not before visiting the Undercover Ale Brewery just a few miles up the road.

Sunday, Liz took Jeremy's car in to Reno to meet up with her friends and we visited with Justin a little longer before  taking him back to Reno to catch up with Liz.

Justin and Liz at the Undercover Brewery :

 Then, we swung by my house in Verdi to check out the minor roof damage my property manager had told me about.  The damage wasn't bad and Joel determined we could fix it while in town.  On the way to picking up some roofing shingles, Justin called and Jeremy's car had "died"..the one Liz had borrowed.  Well, Joel and I checked it out and determined it was the battery.  The car is ten years old and a typical "little old lady car" (it was  my mom's) and it had the original battery.  Fortunately, there was an auto supply place nearby and Justin was able to purchase a new battery and Joel helped him install it.  "Mr. Fix It" to the rescue again! We purchased the roofing shingles and returned back to the house and fixed the roof. What a long day.  I think we didn't get back to Portola until 8:00 that night.

Monday morning, Joel said goodbye to Rio.  I really think he is going to miss her.

Rio:" Hmm that bacon smells really good.  Will he give me some if I sit here patiently?"

 Joel: "if you are really nice I'll give you a treat".

 Rio: "Eh..I wasn't expecting an Eskimo kiss".

Before leaving, Leaburg, Joel found out his nephew was in the hospital in San Francisco and had had brain surgery the previous Friday.  Joel's brother was there and so we decided to make a detour to San Francisco before heading down to Pacific Grove to see my Mom. Monday morning we headed to SF only to find out that Joel's brother had to leave before we would arrive.

We went to the hospital anyway, and saw Paul (Joel's nephew) who was still in ICU. We didn't stay long as Paul was pretty sleepy. Then we  headed towards the downtown area looking for a place to crash and found  a "cheap" motel in the "Little Saigon" section of San Francisco which was pretty close to SF Medical Center.  The area wasn't too bad, except for "dodging" the homeless staking out their sleeping area for the night.

Tuesday, morning we heading back to the hospital and caught up with Joel's sister-in-law, Jane, (Paul's mother).  Joel had a brief reunion with Jane who lives in Arkansas and then we headed down to Pacific Grove to see Mom.

Wednesday, Justin and Liz arrived at Mom's and we all went out to dinner.  Joel and I left for our return trip to Leaburg, after dinner so we could get ahead start and not deal with the bay area traffic  in the morning.  We accomplished our mission and spent the night in Fairfield and continued onto Leaburg in the morning.

Thursday, we readied the motor home for travel.  Its been sitting since May and Joel really has hitch itch and Friday was departure day as planned! Whew I am ready for a vacation!
Stay tuned.  We are on the road again!!