Into Oregon

Hi all–I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with friends and family.  We sure had a jam-packed agenda with ours!  My sister, especially, kept us hoppin’.  I’m including a foto of Cisco that probably reflects all of us at the end of the holiday.  What a warm and special time.

We left Kelso/Longview today and followed the Columbia River on the Oregon side along Hwy 30.  We passed dozens upon dozens of sawmills, paper mills and lumber related industries.  It surely doesn’t seem like the industry is waining.  Plumes of smoke from the mills fill the Columbia River gorge along this stretch, as they have for 150 years, providing living wage jobs for thousands of workers.

Once we reached Astoria, the rain began to spit, and we are now cozily encamped in Cannon Beach for 3 days.  The forecast says sun tomorrow, so wait for the update, and if so, some awesome fotos.  Cheers!

Finally under way!!

After a busy weekend of packing Lucille (our clothes, food, Cisco’s gear, John’s tools, etc, etc), we pulled out of our driveway at 959 Marine Drive and took I-5 south to visit my sister and her kids in Kelso for the Christmas holidays.  December 23 is definitely a time to avoid interstate travel, but hey, we made it by 5 p.m.  last night.  This morning my niece and her husband stopped by to pick up Cisco for an hour run, giving us some needed time to shower, organize and get that 3rd cup of coffee.  John’s scurrying around the airstream this morning hanging Christmas lights while I work on this mini-blog.  Merry Christmas, everyone.  I’m excited that some of you are planning to come south and join us in some S. California and Arizona sunshine!!

We are 9 days away from hitching up “Lucille”  to the truck an heading out on our 3 month adventure down the California coast, across Arizona and New Mexico and then back up the Rocky mountain states and home the end of March.  I’ll be posting as we go along, hopefully to help other intrepid travelers avoid the pitfalls we are sure to encounter.

I loaded up the freezer with several salmon filets, halibut, 3 bags of shelled crab and 3 bags of raspberries.  I know which coats I’ll need, but haven’t quite figured out the shoe ‘thing’ yet.  I do change shoes about 3 times a day!

I’m posting a picture of the trailer waiting for us to take her along.  John had a real challenge keeping her thawed out last week with our sub freezing weather, but this week we are back up to 50, so should be fine as we head over to the ocean.  Generally, we are planning to take most of January for California, most of February for Arizona, and March for the mountain states.  We’ll see how that goes!

Lucille ready to go