Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

We hated to leave Hannah and her family, but Jerry was anxious to drive the coach home. It has been a great feeling to be in it again. We never pictured having it again, but it happened and we are going to relish every moment we spend in it. We spotted this model in a Reno parking a lot years ago and said one day let’s get one. That day came in 1992 when we re-financed the house and bought our brand new ‘Jamboree Searcher’ motor home. It was a dream come true. We paid off the 89 Brono 2, the mortgage, and got lower monthly payments. But of course for a longer time. We never regretted it.

Our first stop was the ‘Lewis and Clark National Park’, one of the newest established in 2004. We have crossed their paths several times in our travels and always enjoyed the information we encountered. A remarkable endeavor spearheaded by Thomas Jefferson. The visitor centers at National Parks are always a wealth of information plus we always get a park medallion for Jerry’s walking stick and a postcard to stamp with the parks date for me.

I think we all have heard about Sacagawea and the role she played for Lewis and Clark in Washington. Amazing with baby on her back.

Seeing all these beautiful familiar sights again traveling down the Washington and Oregon coast reminded me of how hard is to get good photos from the windows in the coach.
The big side mirrors and front cab overhead are hard to get out of the shot, and ruins the picture. Example below⬇️ I wanted a picture of that fence to try and duplicate somewhere in our yard. Plus reflections of the sun on water wash out a shot.

Our next stop was Astoria, you cross from Washington over to Oregon on this bridge. We would always stop here to have dinner at the Rouge Brewery and restaurant, and camp right next door. There used to be a neat campground we would stay at right on the water that we could walk to the restaurant. But it’s now the site of a big Westin hotel. I guess that’s progress. Oh well, we found a campground across the bridge from Astoria with a nice view.

We don’t always stay that near to the water. The campsites in the trees are beautiful too.

I loved this campsite it was so peaceful. The electric post got in the way of the photo though.

So about the coach. Jerry thought we may have needed an alternator. It turned out we needed a new battery. So we got that and went on our way. When we were getting off the freeway for our destination, Dunsmuir, everything went dead. Luckily Jerry coasted to a safe place and we called triple A. Turned out we didn’t need them. Long story short a local repair shop gave us a jump, we got to his shop and he put on a new alternator belt and we went to our campground and breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a double nine game of dominos.

Today we will enjoy this little cute town

so stay tuned for that

💗jilly

Can you believe we have a 62 year old daughter and we’ve only been married 63 years.
November 2nd to September 28th is 11months and she was a month early, so we did not have to get married! We just wanted to get married and be together for the rest of our lives💘

some random pictures to share with you

Tracy was there for her first granddaughter Melody

on a very happy note

She got surprise guests for the occasion. Jessica and Hannah flew in to be there with her. How sweet is that?

the Wi-Fi has been spotty on this trip, so not posting much. Tonight we are at an auto repair shop waiting for them to open tomorrow to see why the battery is not charging. Oh well it’s a cheap campsite. The expense comes tomorrow.

we are having a good time in spite of it.

stay tuned

💗jilly

The train is a very enjoyable way to travel. It’s not the cheapest, but once in a while, it’s doable for us. We are getting the coach back, but that will be for shorter distance travels. No more four month coast to coast trips.

Since getting my knee surgery, we get the redcap service and are taken to the train on a vehicle. Actually anybody can get it, all you do is ask.

We enjoyed the time on the train as before, but this time we just got a ‘roomette’. It’s much smaller and doesn’t have its own bathroom, but that was right across the hall from us. The halls are so narrow on trains, which is good because they help you balance. It’s like a one lane road, someone has to back up to pass, which never seemed a problem. People are so polite and friendly on trains.

Our room was on the top floor so we didn’t have to go up those skinny stairs to get to the dining car. Remember those Martha?

But we still had to cross those plates between cars three times, four times to the observation car, we were the last car on the train. You press a button and the door will open and give you time to cross. Sometimes it’s pretty shaky but you get used to it. I’m sure you remember those too.

The dining car is the highlight of the trip. We met so many amazing people. One night we stayed until 9:00 when they closed. I wish I had my phone that night to get a picture. We were having so much fun with the remaining three couples. All the meals were included and good, but the same exact ones we had last trip.

We were scheduled to arrive in Tacoma at 6:38 Thursday night, but about 20 minutes out we made an abrupt stop. No one knew what happened. Or just wasn’t telling us. Jerry nosed around and found out a few things but didn’t know all the details. We were finally told the train had hit a woman on the tracks and was killed. They said the facts pointed to a probable suicide. Very sad. Every one was bummed. So we were an hour late getting to Hannah’s. The girls were already asleep.

The next morning Scarlett still wanted to check Jerry out. She wasn’t afraid, just curious like everyone else is about Jerry😂. Our last morning she even went over and got on his lap.

The pink around her neck is a skirt I bought for Melody but she chose to wear it that way.

Another dress for Melody, but she didn’t like it so Scarlett wore it.

Hannah was telling her she looked beautiful.

Daddy’s home, “look at our new clothes”. Melody is wearing the dress she liked. You have to go up stairs to their house and there’s a gate so they can’t go down. They have to set against the wall when someone is coming or leaving. Very good rules.

We said our tearful goodbyes and headed south in our very missed coach💗down the Washington, Oregon, and California coast.

more to come

stay tuned

💗jilly

We didn’t take many photos in Portland, we were having a good time, and a lot of our shots didn’t turn out. The weather was nice most of the time, but the afternoon after the gardens it was hot. Portland does get hot in the summer, it helps those hops grow, don’t ya know. We stopped at a farmers market and Jessica got some very interesting looking pasta to cook after we left. She sent a picture of the finished dish, looking very fancy.

Jerry wanted an afternoon nap so we went back to our place and Jessica and Carter got some free time before dinner. Jessica picked a great restaurant and we all loved our food and had a great time. No photos taken though.

Next day we drove by their new house they had just bought. We couldn’t go in since it hadn’t closed yet, missing it by a just few days before it was theirs. Darn.

It’s a beautiful house, I love the style and the color of the paint. We drove around a little more traveling along the Willamette river, seeing glimpses of it now and then. It runs through the city of Portland, which is, by the way, a complicated city. They use St,SW, and Ave all in the same address. There are little pocket neighborhoods, with shops and places to eat in every one, kind of like New York. They said one drawback to the new house it’s more in a suburb and won’t have all those close choices to choose from. I think they’re going to love the openness of their new neighborhood.

We ate at a bbq restaurant the night we got to Portland. It was in one of those pocket neighborhoods, just a few blocks from the Airbnb. We could have walked to it but chose not to. Unfortunately Jessica hadn’t picked it for us and it was so spicy we couldn’t eat it🥵very disappointing. The name ‘podnahs’ Jessica explained was slang for ‘pardners’ like “howdy pardner”😄

That final night we had another great meal at this really fun restaurant. We were buying all our meals the whole trip, just as we did for Hannah and Javier, so I encouraged them to eat well and experiment with cocktails. We all did that and enjoyed everything. It was fun meeting Carter, he’s such a cool, down to earth guy. Just right for Jessica. They drove us back, we hugged and said our goodbyes, hoping to see them again.

here’s a short side story~~~~

Around 2008 when Jessica was 13, she adopted a kitten from a litter of four kittens that found their way from the alley to our back yard. With help we were able to have them all fixed. Jessica was wanting a cat so she came and looked at them. I had names for all of them. One who had a two part crooked tail, I named Zorro. It looked like a z. That’s the one she picked. With help again, a long story, we found homes for the other three. We think Midas was a litter mate but he came to the front yard instead and adopted us. But he only wanted to live on the street, and he did for almost 17 years.💗

There were two with bent tails, I forget which one Zorro was, probably the one in between the two, trying to get to the food. She does like to eat.

Zorro today⬇️

She’s a house cat so doesn’t have to deal with the dangers Midas did. She wouldn’t come out from hiding while we were there but maybe next time. I love the color of her eyes, not as much as Midas’s gold eyes though 🤩

~~~~~~~~

The picture of the girls in the last post was actually at a birthday party. Hannah said they were having a good time but a friend snapped that picture at an odd moment.

I love Scarlett’s new haircut.

I’ll end with this photo all mothers know and have dealt with. Sorry Scarlett, this photo may be used to embarrass you in the future.

We have a new adventure coming up. We’re taking the train to Tacoma again September 17 arriving the 18th. We will be bringing the coach home again. It developed problems too expensive for Hannah and Javie to afford to fix.

So stay tuned for what develops.

💗jilly

We tried another Airbnb in Portland, one we had booked in advance before we left home. After the first one, we were now apprehensive about this one. It looked cute online, but it was much, much smaller than it looked on the website. The price wasn’t much lower than a hotel either. So we think we’ll stick to hotels from now on. Everything is at your fingertips, you don’t have to drive around. The record player was a nice touch, but there were no Cher albums.

We went from this at the ⬇️Oregon Garden resort to⬆️that.

We met with Jessica and Carter the next morning. They took us to their favorite donut shop, Pips. It draws a big crowd, so there was a long line when we got there, a good sign right? It was totally worth the wait. They were hot, made fresh delicious donuts, some with unusual flavors like rhurbarb? I favored the cinnamon sugar.

We had plans to go to the International Rose Test Garden afterwards. This is where I first saw the ‘Distant Drums’ rose back in 2010. I fell in love with it and just had to have one.

It wasn’t easy finding one though. This was before every business had a website so I had to make phone calls to every nursery in and around Long Beach, but no one had that rose and couldn’t even order one. Time passed and I finally found a nursery in Pasadena that could order one. Then the wait until we got the call come get it.

My brother Ted loved this rose. Never touching, never even smelling it, just from the emails I sent and blog posts he looked at.

Just as he loved Midas🐈‍⬛ never holding, petting, or hearing him purr. Again, only seeing the photos in emails and he especially loved the posts of Midas.

Now back to the gardens:

here’s one of the roses they thought they might like for their yard

so many beautiful roses but my photos unfortunately couldn’t capture that beauty

I guess that’s enough roses for one day for you guys. I could go on and on but you get the point, I love roses, I love those little ones below. What do you love? Tell me in your comments, which I love getting. All of you bless me in a special way with your words.

oh dear, what is that guilty look for girls?

stay tuned for the video, I hopefully will figure out 🤞🏻

💗jilly

After leaving the Oregon gardens, enjoying another fantastic complimentary breakfast, unfortunately those delicious potatoes weren’t being served that day. (I’ll show you how to make my potatoes and eggs again Thuy).

on the way to Portland we drove through the neighborhood of Silverton, where the gardens are located. Then to the charming little town. I found this store that I could have spent so much time and money in, but I kept my head on and walked out empty handed, but with many cool ideas instead.

Silverton is known for its murals displayed all over town. The one above is honoring a doctor while a lot are displaying the history of the town. But the one I wanted to see again was the one below.

I have posted this on the blog before, Norman Rockwell’s famous paintings reproduced as a mural in Silverton. It was one time we were here in August 2014. I felt compelled to post it again. It’s more important than ever to believe in these four freedoms. And of course I love Norman Rockwell’s work so this one especially spoke to me before and then again this trip. Does it speak to you?

It’s a rough time right now, but we’ve made it through those rough and tragic times before, and we can make it through again…can’t we?…will we?…let’s all believe we can and will.

It was a nice day as we headed towards Portland. We love traveling back roads, we especially enjoyed it in the coach. You could stop anywhere and have lunch, a potty break, take pictures, a nap, all comfortably.

We always stop for horses, this time they were too far away. So we stopped to see some sheep, they weren’t very interested in us as horses are. One sure kept his eye on us though. The lookout I guess.

Another time it was to take a picture of this strange plant. It was growing everywhere, miles and miles of it. Some of them were much taller, all growing on poles.

Google lens told me it was hops, the flowers(google photo) are used to give an IPA beer it’s distinctive taste. Those were short vines compared to the 25 feet they can reach, growing up to 12in. a day. The Willamette Valley is home to acres of land dedicated to growing this plant. There’s a rich history of over a century of farming hops in the Pacific Northwest, which has the perfect weather, on all counts for hops. There are countless breweries in Oregon, some of my favorites in fact. It was here the first IPA in America was introduced in 1975. An IPA is the only beer worth drinking in my opinion.🍺

Of course an espresso martini is above and beyond a beer any day😋

As we were getting closer to Portland, we got glimpses of Mount Hood. This isn’t a good picture, we were too far away, but it was beautiful that day to be sightseeing.

It’s in the Cascades mountain range. It’s an active volcano, but hasn’t erupted since 1866. It is considered a high risk volcano.

Mount Rainer being the second at risk in that range. I couldn’t get a picture of it but saw it through buildings, trees, freeways. It was beautiful too. We used it in one of our Christmas card as a backdrop in 2010.

Looks like the girls are having fun with their daddy

My how the have grown.

Portland is next

stay tuned

💗jilly

We didn’t do a lot of sight-seeing, again that getting kids ready thing, and toddlers not wanting to be cooped up in a car for long drives. We had been to Washington before and already seen a lot, Olympic National Park being one of our favorite places. So we more or less just hung out together catching up and spending time with the girls, and eating a lot of good take out food from their favorite places.

Scarlett is still keeping an eye on jerry

We did stop on the way home from breakfast to sight-see some big military ships on the water in Bremerton. We got out of the car to look and take pictures.

Our travels always included seeing ships and going on them if allowed. We even toured the submarine ‘Nautilus’ while in Connecticut.
It’s an engineering marvel that all these naval behemoths can get built, then the tons of metal stays afloat. Think of an aircraft carrier or a container ship. I know there’s science behind that, but it’s amazing and I love researching the ships we see, even though I won’t remember it🤔

It’s really hard to take photos of little kids. They’re smart enough to know what your phone can do and when you get it out and point it at them, they instantly want to see what’s on it and it ruins the pose you wanted to get.

So Javie corralled the girls up and I got this great shot of them being still.

Then Ryder, one of two dogs, comes moseying over to see what’s going on.

She gives the girls kisses, or licks their faces for food, or whatever, who knows.

And then ‘photo bombs’ the picture.

while Lola, their second dog, looks out the window falling asleep

and Harley, the cat, sleeps in the far corner away from it all

Eight days went by so fast. Melody has grown up to be this cute little girl. It was so great to be with her and see all the things she can do now, see her likes and dislikes, watch her play with her little sister, and hear her stories.

Scarlett turned one this month. I’m so happy we got to see her at this young age. Who knows when we will see her again. We did see her take her first step. I got a picture off the video. It was pretty wobbly and only one step, but it was so exciting🎉

It was hard to leave these precious little people that we learned to love even more in such a short amount of time. Thanks Hannah and Javie for hosting us and sharing your lives with us, and the use of your car💗We wish you all the best that the future holds for you.

We said our goodbyes and headed towards Portland to see Jessica and her boyfriend, but stopped first in Silverton to spend a couple of days at the Oregon Gardens.

stay tuned for that

💗jilly

but we were sure enjoying ourselves🥰

I forgot about the time it takes to get little children ready for an outing. Especially two very young children. But we made it and headed to their favorite restaurant to get pancakes for breakfast.

It was a beautiful 35 minute drive to Bremerton while Melody talked, asked questions, sang and kept us all entertained.

Meeting Melody for the first time in June 2023. We were listening to a young Andrea Bochelli sing to Elmo on Sesame Street. Google it, it’s lovely 🎶. Also google babies watching that video with Elmo in it, showing their heartfelt reactions on YouTube. Check that one out too.

Okay, Scarlett is now ready to eat. She had pancakes for the first time. I wish I would have gotten a picture.

We had a wonderful feast but didn’t get pictures of it. Missed that opportunity too. Darn. At least we got the group photo. You all probably all know what the table looked like anyway, don’t you? Right, controlled chaos 😅but oh, so much fun. I ended up getting the Liver and Onions. I couldn’t pass it up, and it was really good. Do you know how hard is to find that on the menu?The Prospector had the best and then they closed. Then I found Norms and it was pretty good but they discontinued it. Spires has it on their “senior menu”, but it’s hit and miss. Do any of you know someplace? Let me know, not than any of you would’ve been looking for it.😂I had some of the pancakes too and I see why they make that drive to get them.

It’s music to my ears.🎶

thank you all for your comments, I look forward to them and enjoy them tremendously. This post went a little smoother, but I’ll still take that offer Tony, and yours too Tracy 😘

stay tuned

💗jilly

I seem to have come to a ‘writers block’🤔

when I lapse posting on the blog, WordPress changes the rules. I get a little confused, intimidated, and then mad 🤬(where are you Ray?) if I start on my tablet, save it, and then go to the computer to work on it everything is gone. It’s easier to put text in on the computer but it won’t insert pictures now. So I have to do that on the tablet. I guess I have some studying to do.

Anyway, I have enjoyed every minute of showing some of our travels over the past years. We traveled the whole United States, west coast to east coast several times including the northern border and southern border, and everything in between. Jerry kept the coach running and I kept the ideas flowing. It was a hard decision to pass the keys down to Hannah and Javie. But time marches on, and we must embrace the changes.

We’ve taken Amtrak on a few local trips when a company with three restored 1950’s rail cars, a lounge, a sleeper, and a dining car, were allowed to hook up their trains to Amtrak. We loved it. When a trip came up going to New York to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Grand Central Station we immediately booked the lounge car that had a bedroom for us. The group of people that took that trip was small and we all got along great. It was so much fun. Too bad that post got deleted from the blog😢and too bad Amtrak won’t allow that anymore.

Another trip with Martha and Ray to New York, this time in an Amtrak room, was so enjoyable traveling with our cousins that we called dear friends. Their son who lived there treated us like royalty showing us all the sites and favorite restaurants. We had a blast. A trip of a lifetime. That post is still up😉September 25-October 11, 2018. (I need to get those labeled as to what they are)

Train travel is a nice alternative to the coach, if you get a room that is. All meals are included and are really pretty good. You can even have them delivered to your room, but it’s more fun to eat in the dining car. You sit four people to a table, so you get to sit with and meet new people every meal. Kind of like a Bed and Breakfast which we like.

We had six meals going up and six meals coming home so we got to sample the whole menu. One of the highlights was the butter cake for dessert at dinner.

The train gives Jerry a chance to see the scenery, instead of keeping his eyes on the road for a change. The observation car is a good place to do that. We sit, relax, have a beer as the world goes by.

I didn’t get a lot of pictures while relaxing on the trip up. It’s hard to take pictures from a speeding train. I took a video of our walk to the dining car, bumping into walls, opening doors, but couldn’t post them here. I have to get an upgrade which I will do when I finish this post. I can’t take any chances of losing this now.

Javie’s mom picked us up from the train station and took us up to our Airbnb when we reached Tacoma. It was our first experience using one. It was really nice but probably too big for us. We have a lot to learn or maybe just stay in hotels.

And finally we got to see the great granddaughters the next day. What a delight!

Melody, what a smart little cookie, and so cute. She can talk your ear off at 2 1/2. Hannah and Javie had to interpret some of her words for us though.

and Scarlett, so smart and sweet, this is literally her first look at Jerry. She was quiet and very inquisitive as she checked us out that day.

and this one of Melody meeting Jerry

I hope I can figure this out so it doesn’t take so long to get one posted

so stay tuned

💗jilly