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Leavin' the freeways and lovin' the backroads

Thursday, 11/25/04

Happy Thanksgiving. We're giving thanks for our health (and our health insurance) today. Lois had major surgery in early October and is recovering happily. I'm returning to work tomorrow after being off for four weeks with a bum rotator cuff.

So we decided to hop in the Jeep and head out for a ride. There's been a lot of rain this week and the usual areas are being flooded along the Tolt and Snoqualmie Rivers, particularly near Carnation, about ten miles away. We thought we'd take a look.

And it was destined to be a special day for Yeep as well.

We drove out through Fall City to Carnation and then out to Duvall and Cherry Valley, then doubled back and cruised in through North Bend. There were some flooded fields, but we didn't see any homes or other buildings under water.

It was nearly dinner time, so home we went. Half a mile from home, Yeep reached a milestone, as you can see here:

Tuesday, 03/28/06

And the milestones just keep on rolling by every sixteen months or so.

Thursday, 10/5/06

I'm on vacation for two weeks and we're taking a trip. I'll be doing a daily recap of our adventures whenever we can find a wi-fi network and get on line.

Since we haven't driven Brownie (our 1998 Fleetwood Bounder) for months, and haven't taken a real trip for a few years, we decided to have everything checked out by Horizon Ford before leaving on our trip to, at this point, we don't even know where. Brownie is built on a 1999 Ford F-53 chassis with the V-10 engine. The Ford part of our motorhome is a great product and we've received good service from Horizon (formerly Sea-Tac Ford). Brownie has been serviced nowhere else.

The whole thing took a couple of days. New brakes, two new tires, oil change, drain, check and refill transmission and rear end, some new parts including a starter relay (intermittent failure to start), a headlight housing (cracked and full of water), a parking light (worked about half the time), four-way light switch (working on one side only), and some other stuff that escapes me right now. The brakes and tires weren't worn out by a long shot with only 33,000 miles, but they deteriorate with time.

We also had the motorhome's exterior steam cleaned about a month ago. Brownie's looking pretty good.

Friday, 10/6/06

Well, it's raining this morning. Guess that means vacation has officially begun. No big deal, just the basic Pacific Northwest drip and drizzle. Since Brownie and Yeep both have good or new tires, nothing to worry about.

One thing's for sure, as much as we love going to Canada, not this trip. It's getting back that's the problem. Someone came into the park this morning with quite a tale of trying to return to the U. S. this week. U. S. Customs held them for about six hours and went through every cabinet, every drawer, every nook and cranny. Guess who had to clean everything up? But at least the search was fruitful. Two limes were confiscated. I'm considering contracting Max out to Homeland Security as a lime sniffer. He's the only dog I know who eats citrus fruit.

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