Day 28

Last night was interesting.  There was heavy rain with thunder and lightning for much of the night.  The weather radio was going off all night - thunderstorm and flooding warnings.  The septic alarm went off about 3 AM.  All I could do was turn it off.

When we got up in the morning everything was very wet - standing water all over.  There was a new gully running down the driveway.  It's amazing how much rock the water moved.

Ellen called the septic people.  They said they'd come out, but we never saw them.  The alarm started making a funny noise about 9.  Then it quit and the light went out.  I'm not sure if there is a problem or not.

The storm had plugged the driveway drain and the one in the front of the house.  I cleaned them off.  I also checked the gutters - they were clean.

Then I went out and finished the garage cabinet.  They included two bags of parts, so I put two locks on it just for grins.  After I finished it I loaded it up with stuff we brought down.  Then I trimmed back the trellis plant and cut up a tree that had fallen in the back yard.  I just threw all of the debris over the fence.  Finally I started to make the closet shelf for the trailer.  The saw fucked up and I'll have to buy another piece of shelving.  That disgusted me, so I cut off the screws under the bed.

Cigna is planning on charging us $22K next year.  I hate that socialist, Muslim, son of a bitch.  So Ellen spent the day looking for another vendor.  It's still going to cost us a lot more than last year for less coverage.

I finished up the day putting away some more stuff we brought down.  We only have three more boxes and the photos to go.

Day 27

There won't be any mowing or edging for awhile.  It rained last night and a little this morning.  About dinner time we had a really wet thunderstorm.  The AC was out last night, so the temp in the house was 77 and it was raining.  Thank god for the ceiling fan.

We left in the morning to do some errands.  It was in the low 80's and humidity was in the 90's.  Miserable.  The forwarding is off, so there was mail in the PO box.  We went to Centex and set up shipping the 790.  I also bought a shield.  We went to the yuppie grocery store and bought a few items.  We stopped at Lowe's and Home Depot to get stuff to make shelves in the trailer and a cabinet in the garage.  On the way home we stopped at Tomlinson's for cat food and Wells Cargo to cash some checks.

When we got home we washed the dog.  She got in bed with us this morning and she was way too stinky to do that without a bath.

Then I went out to hang the garage cabinet.  The heat and humidity made it miserable.  I mad it worse be assembling it while it was attached to the wall.  I spent a couple of hours on it and I'm not finished yet.  I tried to go out after dinner at 7:30, but it was just too ugly.

The tech came back to fix the AC.  Apparently he left one of the wires loose, it vibrated off, and then it cooked the capacitor.  He fixed it and it seems to be working now.

Day 26

I got started on the yard work today.  I used the weedeater to clear the area from the trailer to the play house.  I also cleared out the area around the pump house.  Then I started weed eating around the rocks so that I could mow the areas in front of the house.  Finally I weed eated the area around the septic tanks.

That took a little over three hours.  By that time my back was killing me.  So I quit.  I still have to do the back yard and the side yard, probably tomorrow.  I might mow everything first.

The charger charged the car battery last night.  So I moved it to the mower battery.  It's charged tonight, but I'll need to get some gas before I can mow.

The guy came out to fix the AC.  He replaced a capacitor to the tune of $300.  The AC still isn't cooling the house, though.  I think it's probably time for a new system.

We went out in the evening to do a couple of errands.  We ate really late (8:30) at Cheddar's.  It was just as good as always.

Day 25

We're home.  The drive up was OK except for the intersection of 1604 and I35.  The northbound exit was closed.  The detour was badly marked, but we made it through.

Of course the pump didn't work when we got back.  The switch wouldn't close, so I turned off the power and messed with it.  Eventually I got it to close.  The pump still didn't work.  It blew the circuit breaker at the top of the well.  Fortunately I spent $150 last year to learn about that.  I reset it and everything seems to work now.

The AC isn't working very good either.  I'll probably call someone out tomorrow to deal with it.  The car battery was dead.  I guess it wasn't like the other one which really turned off when you turned it off.  I've had the battery charger on it since about 1:00 and it still isn't charged.  One of the railroad ties that braces the dirt by the garage ramp came apart.  It was filled with ants.  Since it's the lowest one, the fix is probably a rebuild.  That seems to be the total extent of the fixit problems.

The place is overgrown.  It's going to take days to get it all cut.  Surprisingly the plant on the deck didn't grow near as much as it has in the other years.

All in all we spent 4 hours unloading the trailer.  It's amazing how much stuff we brought down.  It's all in the house now, but it will be awhile before it is all put away.  After that I was plain tired.  I collapsed in a chair for about an hour and then we went to an early dinner.  A stop at HEB for some items and then home to watch Monday night football.

Day 24

I got up relatively early so that I would have time to drain the tanks before going to the club.

We didn't shoot today, so we just hung around the vendors a little bit.  I left my barrel with Briley.  I think it's going to be expensive to fix because they are going to have to reblue it.  It was good that we got there fairly early.  By 11:00 most of the vendors were beginning to pack up.

It was boring up above, so we went down and talked to Dave for awhile.  Then we went to Steak and Shake and brought him back a milkshake. 

His five stand was done about the time we got back, so I helped him pack it up.  He wanted to help take down the Fitasc, so we drove over there.  It turned out that Fitasc was running late, so the take down didn't happen.  Instead we spent a couple of pleasant hours sitting under a tree at the middle skeet fields.  About 5:00 we went back up to the stadium.  Dave was helping set up the shoot off targets.

We waited until Dave was done and then we went to dinner at the Longhorn.  The food was really good, and we had a fun time talking.  Of course the club was a lot of the conversation.

Day 23

We shot the K cup today at 3:30.  That gave us most of the day to screw around.  We basically just walked around.  I talked a little w/Jason. 

We did talk to Ted.  He sounds like he wants to get a deal done w/Suzanne really soon.  We'll see.  I doubt that she'll come down to earth on the price.  Apparently she really didn't like the numbers that Jason gave her.

We went down and talked to Dave.  Same old same old, but at least he wasn't quite as bored.

I asked Briley if they could fix my barrel.  They said they could, so I'll probably leave it with them tomorrow.

I shot OK at the K cup.  I hit a lot of hard targets that I didn't think I could.  Unfortunately I missed a lot that I should have hit.  If I'd hit them I would have had a pretty good score.

Dinner was prime rib a long with an open bar.  It was pretty good.  Lucy got a small slice for herself.

They were having a bunch of shoot offs, but we didn't attend.  We didn't win one of the vendor signup prizes either.

Day 22

I shot the 28 ga today.  I started out doing really well, but I faded in the second half.  I ended up w/a 90, which was middle of the pack for AA.

We spent the rest of the day talking with different people.  We talked with Dory and Dave.  Nothing notable was said, but we had fun talking to them.  We also met some people from Oregon and talked to them.

We did some more shopping, but not a lot.  I got a case of the Italian shells that I wanted to try and a 28 ga choke.

They had an open bar starting at 5:30.  I had a couple of drinks.  Dinner was kind of finger food.  It was good, though and Lucy had her share.

We watched the stuff in the stadium with Dee and John.  The shooters put on a pretty good show.  Each person was supposed to put a ticket in the bucket of the shooter the y thought would win.  I picked Scotty and he won.  Not many people picked Scotty.  I should have had a good chance at a $500 drawing.  Unfortunately, since there weren't many people in the bucket, the combined it with the 2nd and 3rd place buckets.  I didn't win the money, but I did win a case of shells.

After the shooting they had a fireworks show.  It was really nice, with the shells going off really close to the stadium.

Day 21

Wow.  It's been 3 weeks since we left Salem.

We slept in a little bit this morning because it was only 70 miles to San Antonio.  The drive was fine, with only a little bit of traffic on 1604.

We set up and went to the club.  We saw Jason almost immediately.  We talked to him for awhile and then went off to find Dave.  We couldn't register until we found out his plans.  I won't go into details, but the search was heinous fuckery.  We finally found him at the ass end of the club, but he isn't going to be able to shoot with us.  Of course we talked for a bit about the stupidity of the business owner.

So we went back up and registered.  We got numbers 2263 and 2264.  Then we hit the vendors.  We bought shirts, a gun case, some lenses for Ellen's glasses, ear plugs for Ellen, and some gun cleaning fluid.  We also got those vendor signup forms signed. Along the way we talked to several of the people that we knew.  I saw Ted, but he didn't see me and I ignored him.

Somehow we forgot to get lunch.  So by 4 o'clock Ellen was really hungry.  So we went home and had an early dinner.  Then we sort of vegg'ed out for the rest of the evening.

Day 20

We had a fun time today walking around Fredericksburg.  We didn't get any presents for anyone except Patsy, but we had fun looking at things.  We did get a couple of things for ourselves, including the pizza stone we've been looking for for awhile.

We had lunch at one patio restaurant and later had a drink at another.  I'm sure happy we're back where things are sunny and warm.

We spent the whole day in town.  When I got home I fixed the kitchen fan that failed a few days ago.  I took it apart then and figured out that this weird inline fuse had blown.  Of course it wasn't replaceable.  So I bought a fuse holder yesterday.  Today I cut out the blown fuse and put in the fuse holder.  It's all working good tonight.

Two other things broke when we were traveling.  One was the trim ring on the cat box entry and the other was the bottom of the magazine rack (go figure).  I glued both of them together with glue I bought today.  We'll see if it works over the next couple of days.

I'm going to have Ellen cut off the screws that were pulled out when she wrecked the slideout trim.  Hopefully that will allow me to pound it back into place.  Then I'll get some black screws and reattach it.  It won't look good, but at least it will look better than it does now.

Day 19

This is the last long drive day.  I'm really glad because today seemed really, really long.

There was one exciting point.  A deer ran across the highway on a collision course with us.  I had to come to almost a complete stop to miss it.

There was a lot of truck traffic, but almost no cars.  In places the right lane was so torn up that I drove in the left lane.

When we got to the park, we did the laundry (it's Tuesday).  Then we went over to AutoZone to get a fuse for the fan.  We stopped at a restaurant for dinner.  They were out of potatoes and some meat.  I ended up spending $8 for a hamburger and fries that I could have gotten for half as much down the street at Sonic.  We won't be back.

The last stop was HEB.  I'm glad we're back.  We replenished our food before going to Nationals.

Day 18

This was another long day on the road.  Southern New Mexico and west Texas have nothing to recommend themselves.  We did pretty good on the mileage, even with the gain in altitude.  The lowest was 11.

When we were setting up, Ellen decided to channel her inner dumbass and wrecked the trim on one of the slideouts.  I'd told her that she was going to have to check carefully before opening them, but of course she didn't.  The trim is truly wrecked and can't be fixed, only replaced.

Day 17

Today was an 8 hour, 440 mile, drive to Benson AZ.  Mileage wasn't spectacular, because there was a lot of up and down.  In the first leg we got 10.8.  That wasn't bad considering that there was a 2500 foot gain in elevation.

The other two legs were over 12, even though one had a regen.

We went around Phoenix on loop 303.  It was much improved over what we saw last time.  Most of it is now freeway except for a couple of miles of construction.  Getting on to I10 was a bit of a pain because the intersection isn't finished yet.  It still beat hell out of going in to Phoenix.  We'll go this way from now on.

The park that we are staying at is really nice.

Day 16

We went to the breakfast buffet with Dee and John.  Then we went to Pro Gun Club and shot sporting clays.  We had a lot of fun shooting the targets the way we wanted to.

After we were finished shooting we went over to their house.  It's really nice, with a great view and four decks.  We spent the afternoon talking and watching football.  John had money on the game, and he won.

We then went back to the Station Casino for dinner.  After dinner they went off to gamble.  We drove towards Las Vegas to the Fiesta Casino.  At first we were disappointed.  We lost $15 on two machines  that provided absolutely no entertainment.  We were going to leave when we played two others that paid back about half of what we had lost.

We found a couple of new fun machines - John Wayne and a fishing machine.

Then we went home about 7.  I watched TV for a couple of hours and then took the antenna down.  Getting the stakes out was quite a bit of work.

Day 15

We got up this morning and went to Las Vegas.  We had breakfast at the Station.  There was lots more than I could eat, so the dog got a big carton of ham steak and eggs.  We decided to park at the Aria and ride the tram up and down the strip.  It was a very good decision.

We toured the Aria looking at all of the sites.  The garden was really cool, with an animated display and a cool fountain that shot 1/2 inch in diameter, 10 foot, water arcs.  I wish I'd brought my camera.  We also spent some time gazing at the chocolate fountain.

Over the day we won over $50 in slot machines at the Aria and other casinos.  That was our best day ever.

We ate a late lunch at the Cheescake Factory.  Again it was more than I could eat.  I was planning on a dessert, but I was just too full.

We also went to the Monte Carlo, Belagio, and Cesare's Palace.  We had fun and saw cool things at all of them.  At one point I bought a 20 oz Mojito for $15.  It was OK.  Of course I was drunk when I finished it.


About 5:00 we were ready to go home.  Only it was rush hour so we found a Starbucks and surfed for about an hour before going home.  The dog was very glad to see us.  She was also glad about the ham and eggs.

Day 14

We spent the morning on the 150 mile trip to Boulder City.  Boulder City and ST. George are at about the same elevation.  However, the road between then transitions fro 1600 to 2500 ft. at least twice.  Even at that we got 13.4 mpg.

Yesterday I read on a plaque that Jedidiah Smith went down the Virgin River (along I-15) once, and then went out of his way to avoid it a second time.  I can see why.  Back in those days it would have been so rough as to be almost impassable.  Walking along the rocky, twisting river bed would have been about the only way.

After we got set up in Boulder we went over to Fiocchi.  Jackie was the only one there.  We talked with her for awhile.  Then we fueled up, got a new TV cable ($32 !), and another dowel to prop up the bed.  Then we took the dog swimming.  The place was open (the Republicans caved), and it was free.  The dog had a great time doing water retrieves for an hour.

After that we took the dog home and went back to Fiocchi to see Dee.  We talked with her for awhile and made a date to go shooting on Sat.  Then we went over to a casino.  We played a couple of machines for an hour and broke even.

Then it was home because Ellen needed to dial into a board meeting.  Apparently it went well.  The judge read Ted the riot act.  Apparently his use of an executive meeting is questionable and his use of an out of state attorney is illegal.  I wish I'd been there.

Day 13

We went to Purgatory today.  There were lots of people there because the Senior Games were still going on.  There weren't any people on the sporting clays course, though. 

The course was really nice.  There weren't any menus, so we shot things the way we wanted to.  It was fun.  The targets were pretty good.  The dog had fun because she was off lead.

We didn't see the folks that run it.  One was working in Las Vegas.  The other was playing grandmother.

After shooting we went to the second old style hamburger joint.  It was just as good as the first.  When we were finished eating we went to the grocery store and then filled up the truck for tomorrow.  On the way back we stopped at a Halloween store and picked up a prisoner's costume for the Western.

We spent the late afternoon and the evening just chilling out.

Day 12

We decided to make today a dog day.  We would have gone to Zion, except that national parks don't like dogs.

There are two dog parks in St. George.  We decided to go to the bigger one.  We looked it up on Google and found a back way from the trailer park to the dog park.  The route was a good choice.  It wound around the red rock to the north of St. George.

As we got near the dog park we saw a trailhead just off the road.  We stopped there and let the dog out.  She had to be on a leash, but there was plenty of lizards to keep her attention.  We climbed the rocks near the trailhead and walked around on top for quite awhile.  There were people down below using ropes to rock climb up the steep faces.  There was even one guy taking his little rug rat climbing up some pretty steep rocks.

After the trailhead we went to the dog park.  It was a bust.  It was a relatively small fenced area.  Lucy wouldn't do any retrieves.  I think she thought it was too hot.

After that we went to one of the old style hamburger joints we saw yesterday.  It's been there since 1960.  The burgers were really good.  I ordered a shake.  When I got it it was more a blizzard than a shake.  I had to eat it with a spoon, not a straw.  It was so big I couldn't eat all of it.

After that it was more dog stuff.  We went to a park by the Virgin river.  We would have let the dog swim, but the water seemed very dirty.  After a short walk we got back in the car and went up the road to a visitor center.  The center was in an expo center.  That's when we found out that the Senior Games was going on.  We hung around there for awhile looking at the exhibits.  They had a sporting clays, trap, and skeet competition, but it was over today.

There was another trailhead near the visitor center.  We stopped and took the dog for a walk along the river.  Again the water was too dirty for her to swim.  I only got about 1/2 mile out before my ankle started hurting so much that I couldn't put much weight on it.  So we turned around.

As the final thing we finally found a PetSmart.  We stopped and took Lucy in.  Of course we bought her a treat.

Then it was home for the rest of the evening.

Day 11

Today was another long drive day.  It was about 8 hours.  About 100 miles of it was through Salt Lake traffic.  Some of the traffic was quite a pain.  There was almost no construction, so that was nice.

The gas mileage was great.  On the flat through SLC we got 13.8.  It would have been 14, but I had to idle while I waited to fill up.  Going up the passes (4700 to 6100, 6500, and 5800) we got 12.1.  Going down to St. George (6000 to 2800) we got 15.6.  That's as good as I get in town.

When we got to St. George we set up and then hit the road.  We went to Camping World, another RV parts place, the Grocery store, and ACE hardware.  When we were finished we had new tire chocks, a sink strainer, some velcro, and a bunch of groceries.  We got some fish for tonight, which was really good.

I forgot to mention something about yesterday.  While I was in the car, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't taken the fitbit out of my jeans when they were washed last week.  In the evening when I looked, it was still there.  Even better, it still worked.  It even gave me credit for 1000 steps while it was hanging in the shower.

Day 10

Today was a travel day.  We got up at 7 and were on the road by 8.  The trip was totally uneventful.  That's the way I like it.

The one notable thing was the gas mileage.  All the way from Baker to Twin Falls I averaged over 13 mpg.  Of course there was a significant tail wind.  The mileage went down to 12 coming up the hill from Twin Falls to Snowville, but that's still damn good.  I'm happy.

I took 7.5 hours to get to Snowville.  It would have been a little shorter except for two unscheduled stops.  One was to check a slideout (no problem) and the other was to piss.  With the gas mileage we were getting I could have cut out one fuel stop and made it even faster.

Its cold and raining in Snowville.  I hope the rain doesn't turn into snow.  After dinner Lucy was really antsy.  So I took her out for retrieves.  She did a whole bunch, almost like the old days.

We lost an hour today, so getting up is going to be difficult.  I left the truck hooked up.  That should save us some time tomorrow.

Day 9

This was the last day in Richland.  We started out by washing and waxing the truck.  It was filthy, covered with dust from driving the dirt roads around here.  I had meant to wash/wax it before we left, but it rained so hard the last 10 days we were there that it wasn't possible.  I did want to wax it before we started to Texas.

After that we spent most of the day watching football.  I'm not even sure what games we watched, except that Oregon beat Washington.  The only time we left Dan's place was to take the dogs to run.  Lucy really liked it.  In fact she was trying to get us to go most of the afternoon.

Unfortunately for her, she got a bath when we got back.  A clean truck and a clean dog.  How nice.

We stayed fairly late - until 9.  Then we said our goodbyes. 

I put away some of the stuff in prep for leaving, but I decided to leave the antenna until tomorrow.  I'll set the alarm for 7 and hope to get out around 8.  It's 400 miles to Snowville, and we'll lose an hour along the way.

Day 8

It was cold again this morning.  We were surfing when Dan called with a surprise.  The TV had been delivered.  So we went over there immediately.

It took quite awhile to mount the new TV.  Part of it was my failure to figure out how to attach it to the new TV.  I spent a lot of time doing a modification that we didn't need to do.  We did finally get it up.

Of course the picture wasn't really good because they don't have a HD receiver.  Patsy called up Directv and talked with them for 45 minutes.  She threatened to quit and they started dealing.  Apparently they are going to get a free upgrade and a $200 gift card.  Only they have to wait until the 15th to sign up.  With the need to do another antenna install, it will probably be late in the month before they get the new stuff up and running.

Since the TV came in, we decided to leave on Sunday.  That will give up two days in St. George and 2 in Las Vegas.  With solid driving on the other days we should get to Nationals, although maybe not all of them.

Tonight we did a little prepacking - putting some stuff away so that we don't have to do it tomorrow.

Day 7

The day started out cold, so we stayed in the trailer.  Ellen worked and I surfed.  About 11 we decided to go over to Dan's.

Don and Cynthia wanted to go to the Post Office, Mercantile, and Thorny's.  I tagged along.  When we got to the Mercantile we got hot chocolate and and a maple bar.  Then we gabbed.  Ellen joined us and we gabbed some more.  I happened to look out of the window and saw Lucy running down the street.  Ellen hadn't taken care of her and she was looking for us.  She'd tracked Ellen's scent from Dan's to the Mercantile.  I took her home.

After Thorny's we went back to Dan's and yacked some more.  It turned out that the TV won't be here until Monday.  Dan got cabin fever so we all went up Eagle Creek.  We stopped at the campground and then did a short hike up a trail.  I think Dan was a little disappointed.  I think he wanted to sit in the quite and enjoy the place.  Don, Cynthia and us just yacked.

After we got back we took the dogs for a run.  Then it was time to go to dinner at Dave's.  It was great.  Spaghetti and meatballs and lasagna.  We sat on their deck around a fire pit and yacked and ate.  About 8 we said our good byes.  We also said good bye to Don and Cynthia.  They are leaving at 7 tomorrow morning.

Day 6

We spent the day waiting for a TV that never came.

That sounds worse than it really was.  We went to breakfast at Bert's with Dan and Don and Cynthia.  We had a great time talking.  When that was finished Don went to see Lawrence, Dan went to run the dogs and the rest of us went to Dan's place.  We talked for hours.

At lunch time we decided to go to the Shorthorn and do more talking.  So we did.  After lunch the talking died down while we all read or took naps.

I went with Dan to run the dogs in the afternoon.  We went to the sportsman's access.  We saw some quail on the road.  When we got there the dogs scared up four pheasants, all hens.  They also scared up a covey of quail down by the river.

Then it was back to Dan's place for more conversation and dinner.

All in all I thought it was a fine day.

Day 5

The morning was spent doing the wash.  I also did a couple of small things around the trailer.  The idiot California people who moved in next door made us move the antenna.  It didn't take very long at all to get it working again.

After the wash we went over to Lawrence's to pay for the new pole.  He'd already ordered the parts.

Then it was over to Dan's where we talked with Don and Cynthia for a couple of hours.  Dan wanted to take me to one of his friends to hunt a field for pheasants.  The whole crew went.  Unfortunately, so did Sassy.  She flushed two coveys of quail  way ahead of us.  Those were the only birds we saw.

I even walked along the sportsman's access.  All of the cover was gone, it looked like it had been mowed (it hadn't).

When we got back, everyone drove to Halfway for Mexican night.  The food wasn't all that good.  After dinner we just went back to the trailer and watched TV.

Day 4

We had fun today.

Lucy has very sore feet.  She barely wanted to walk all day long.  So it was good that we didn't plan to hunt.

Instead we went to Halfway and spent money.  We went to a gift shop and bought a Christmas gift.  We went to the hardware store and bought some stuff for the trailer.  We went to both grocery stores and bought food.  We went to the bakery and bought bread.  Finally we went to the restaurant and bought lunch.

As we were returning Dan called and asked Ellen to come over top fix his computer.  After the fix we went to Lawrence's and picked out the parts for Hooch's pole.  It's going to be a very cool green one.  Just as we finished Dan showed up with Don.  We talked for awhile while Don looked at his new poles.

Then we returned to Dan's for surfing, conversation, dinner, and watching football.

Day 3

We went up behind Dave's house today.  We saw two coveys of quail, that's all.  Hooch shot one.  I missed all the shots that I took.  We walked all the way to the top of the hill behind his house.  When we got up there, we ran into snakes.  Hooch killed a bull snake.  A short time later I killed one.  I shouldn't have, but it was making to strike at Lucy. 

We decided that it was too snakey up there, so we started down.  We'd only gotten a little way down when Jeff and Ellen came across a rattle snake in the rocks.  That was it.  There weren't any birds and too many snakes.  So we just went down.  Of course going down was as much work as going up.  The area above his house is very steep and covered with loose rock.

We got down a little after noon.  We went back to the park and Hooch packed up and left.  It must have been close to 2 when he left.  That means he'll probably get home just in time for bed.

We've decided to buy him a pole.  It's really to give Lawrence some money.  I wanted Hooch to go over and talk with Lawrence, but Lawrence was out fishing.

The rest of the day and evening was spent at Dan's place watching football.

Day 2

Today was mostly a take it easy day.  We walked around town some, just killing time.  We stopped at Thorny's and talked with him for awhile.  Then we stopped at Bert's so Ellen could have breakfast and I could have a cinnamon roll.

Then we went over to Dan and Patsy's.  We talked for quite awhile, mainly about the club.  Then we went to lunch at Bert's.  We went there because he had a clam chowder and cheese sandwich special that I told him we'd be back for.  After that Dan left for Baker and we went over to see Lawrence and get our poles.

The poles are just great.  Ellen's is red and mine is blue.  They both really shine in the sun.  The reel seat in mine is silver and blue with inset blue metal.  It's very cool.  We talked with Lawrence for about an hour.  He told us the story of his grandson breaking into a house while he was visiting here this summer.

Then we went home and I set up the dish.  For the first time ever, the tripod was essentially level.  This must be the key.  It only took Ellen a couple of minutes to tune it in with 95% signal strength.  I think that's better than the one we have at home.

Hooch showed up about 6.  We helped him set up and then we went to dinner at the Shorthorn.  It was actually pretty good.

Dan is actually being civilized about hunting.  We're going to have breakfast at Bert's at 8 tomorrow and then go hunt behind Bud's.  Later we may drive up Dan Fossie's road.  On Sunday he plans to hunt an alfalfa field.

Day 1

Well, the summer sucked.  Stephen died.  Mother broke her back.  Suzanne wants to take over the club, and the board is a bunch of pansies.  Ted is a piece of shit.  We had to move everything out because we're not sure what's going to happen at the club.  The dog ate a $450 garbage can meal.  We got a new trailer.  It's great, except the grey water tank was cracked.  As we're leaving the batteries in the big trailer failed and we almost didn't get the slideouts closed.

On the bright side we had a great time with Dave.  Working the state shoot with him made the shoot worthwhile.  Still, I'm glad to be leaving.

The trip over was uneventful.  We're carrying a very heavy load.  The truck bed is full of heavy stuff, and so is the trailer.  I'm a little concerned because the trailer tires are load range D.  They seem to be holding up though.

Fuel mileage has been great.  The first leg was 12.8, the second was 11.8, and the third over immigrant hill was 10.8.  That's much better than the old trailer.  The truck is running fine, too.  I cleaned out the radiators like Joe said to do.  It was too cold yesterday to see if it did any good, but the temperature stayed pretty low.

When we got to Richland Dan and Patsy were gone.  So we went to the store for hot chocolate and a maple bar.  Then we went back to the trailer.  I spent hours writing emails to Denny and Gerry about the club.  Looking up all of the ORS 65 references is a pain in the ass.  I hope it does some good.

By the time I was finished it was 8:00.  So we'll see Dan and Patsy tomorrow.