Roaming all over Montana

When we left Spokane, we stayed the night at my brother's in Kalispell.  Then we went on to Brady to Dad's.  He had a doctor's appt. in Kalispell, so off  we went back over the mountains to the west.  Dad is doing well.  We took my brother's patio boat out on Flathead lake for a spin and took out our new pontoon rafts.  I have never oared anything before in my life and went in circles.  Think I have one arm stronger than the other.  Tuesday we went east back over the mountains with the pontoon boats in tow only to find out that the river is too low to float.  Saturday is Brady Biker Days and an auction of an old museum/treasure chest of goodies, so it should be fun.  Jay helped put a new door on the church.  He should be in good graces for a little while.

Boardwalk at Fort Bragg, CA campground

Glass Beach in Fort Bragg

The drive thru tree in Legget, CA.  We followed this cool car in.  Our truck and camper were a bit too big.

Starfish at low tide in Oregon.

This is the trail to the beach at Katy and Steve's beach house.  Whenever anyone finds a float on the beach, they hang it here.

Jay on our new pontoon.

Relaxing on Mike's patio boat.

Portland, OR and Spokane, WA

After we  left Neskowin, (where I know want to purchase a vaca home) we went to Katy and Steve's home in Portland.  What a beautiful place all nestled in trees.  Another one of our classmates from Humboldt was in town for a wedding and the three of us met up at Katy's and caught up on life.  You know you have good friends when you haven't seen each other for 35 years and still can sit down and talk for hours.  Nancy retired from the Marines and lives near San Diego, so hopefully we will be able to see each other before another 35 years goes by.

After we left Portland, we went to Spokane and saw Don Kahl and his wife Patty.  What they did to their backyard is amazing.  It is a huge pond with a waterfall, tons of flowers and a wonderful garden.  Patty gave us a cabbage that is the size of a basketball!

The next day we went to my brother's in Kalispell, spent the night and now we are in beautiful downtown Brady.

I had to delete my app and reinstall it, so I am going to download what pictures I have in case I have troubles with it again.  Thanks Pam Martin for reminding me how to delete stuff of my ipad.

These are at Katy's beach house.

These are of Katy's Portland home.

Donny Kahl's garden in Spokane

The pond that takes up their entire backyard.  It was a koi pond, but they redid it for a wading  pool.

Donny and Jay BBQing and lying to each other.

Watching the sparrows and hummingbirds at my brother's house.

Okay I'm going to post this, hopefully I will be able to post pictures easily next time.

Neskowin, Oregon

Saturday we left Florence and traveled up the coast to see my college buddy, Katy, and met her husband Steve.  They bought a fixer-upper on the Oregon coast and Steve has been working on it for the last 14 months.  Wow what a wonderful job he did.  We got into the town of Neskowin around noon and took a stroll on the local beach.  They were having a minus tide which uncovers a petrified forest in the bay.  I didn't have my ipad, but I think I have some pictures on my camera.  I have pictures all over the place: phone, ipad, camera, mind's eye . . . .  It was pretty spectacular to see.  We then went up the beach house and spent the day. You know you have good friends when you haven't seen someone for 35 years and feel very comfortable with them.  Katy and Steve are wonderful hosts.

Florence Oregon

I have been trying to post pictures to this blog from my ipad and I have discovered an app, so I am going to try it here.  We spent our second night in a state park near Fort Bragg.  It was really pretty and full of kids and tents.  I was really surprised that there were more tents than anything else.  You could tell who the locals were because they had 10 blue tarps strung up over their entire campsites.  There is a reason everything is so green.  It's called rain!  We followed hwy. 1 up to Legget.  Found a few places that we want to come back to and stay for 3 or 4 days.  You would have to stay that long because the road is so slow and twisty.  I enjoyed it more than Jay because he was driving.  Just when he thought we were on our way I told Jay that I wanted to drive through the Ave. of the Giants, yet another slow, winding road.  It was really pretty there and he was in such a better mood after we ate lunch.  He hasn't been eating as much as usual.  Kinda scary.  We spent the night at the Elks'Lodge in Brookings, OR.  So far all of the Elks' Lodges have been really nice and cheap!  We continued up the coast and stopped at the Crazy Norwegian to have chowder and fish and chips.  I finally replaced my coffee cup that I bought here a few years back.  Last night we again stayed at the Elks in FlorenceOR. They have a really nice park outside of town.  Today we are going to go up to Cloverdale and meet up with a friend of mine from college, Katy Muldoon.  They have a beach house there, so we will take up a bit of driveway space.  We need to find an RV repair guy.  Our water heater is sounding like a shotgun when it ignites.  Obviously a gas and lighter mistiming.  Too much gas and a late ignition.  Going to try to get some pictures on this thing (again) someday it will happen.  I  hope.  Oh, thanks Pam for taking care of my fridge and goodies.  OMG it worked.  There is Jay setting up camp in the rain.  Then a picture of Arcata Square.  Where I went to college.  Saw two dread-headeds walking a yak down the street and didn't have my camera.  Not much has changed there since 1976!  Just the kids or grandkids of the orginals.  The next two are of our drive from Fort Bragg to Brookings.  Now that I can get pictures posted . . . you will see too many I'm sure. 

Lodi

I know there is a song about this place, I just can't think of it at the moment.  We left home early this morning.  The sun hadn't even decided to show his face.  Because of this, I forgot to put some perishables into the trash from my fridge.  So if any of you are by the house before Thursday, could you throw it away for me?  We are staying at the Elks lodge in Woodbridge near Lodi.  The lodge here is the old country club building which overlooks a wonderful golf course.  The country club built a new building and the Elks took this one over. We went out and hunted down the visitor's center.  It's not where the gps says it is, but we found it.  This little town is very cute and I think it has moved to a destination to explore for a few days on another trip.  I have been racking my brain, trying to figure out how to post pictures I took on my ipad onto this blog.  So if anyone knows how to do it, please send me a note.  We will be leaving tomorrow for Fort Bragg.  It is raining at the moment and I am loving life!~

Summer Vacation has started!

Well, school is finally out and we are planning our summer trip.  We are busy packing up the camper and figuring out exactly what we need because the camper has about 90% less room than the 5th wheel.  Not too many treasures for Mr. Lockwood to put in there.  We did, however, buy him a bike at Target for $99, so now we can tour the surrounding areas without taking the camper off.  I was given an ipad from school and told to take it home over the summer and play with it, so hopefully, I will learn how to take and post pictures with it.

Spring Break: Up the Coast 2013

Well, it's Spring Break for me and as I told Mr. L before he retired, he needed to leave the mountain once in a while.  We decided to go up the coast for a few days, but first, I had to go to my retirement counseling to see if I will be able to retire in a few years.  Good news, looks like it will happen.  Let me tell you, I truly love my husband. He was a really good sport about going wherever my heart desired this last week.  We went camping at Pt. Mugu, through San Simeon and ended up at Plaskett Creek campground in Big Sur.  It is really pretty, but with a truck and a huge camper on the back, it is very hard to get around on that windy, two lane road.  After a complete day of reading and putting together a jigsaw puzzle, I was done.  You can't ride your bike there, well you can, but you will see everything in 5 seconds.  The beach was dog friendly, but small and I didn't find any hiking trails.  Kinda boring. We stared at each other for a while, laughed that we needed to bring more people with us next time and went home a day early. What am I going to do when I retire?!?