September 4, 2009 – McMinnville, OR

Pulled a good one on Don this morning. He got up at his normal six o’clock, while I, as a result of two strenuous days in a row, decided to sleep in. By eight, he couldn’t bear it without my company and he got the phony paper to toss out on the ground. By the time he had the door open, I was at his side, and I scampered down the steps as he threw the fake news. I put on a little act, went over to the grass, relieved my bladder, and showed total disinterest in retrieving his rolled-up little piece of litter. Instead, I sauntered back toward the steps, stopped, inserted a paw under the lower step, and fished out the real, true, newspaper that had been delivered by the Park people. Picking it up gingerly, not to cause any damage, I raced up the steps to make my presentation. He was choking and gasping. I was afraid that I had done real damage to him. But he actually was laughing as he took the paper from me, and gave me one more cookie than usual. Made my day.

Once Geri arose, most of the rest of the morning was spent cleaning up the rig and getting ready to depart. We were hooking up the truck near the office, when a lady with another Goldie came along to talk to us. The Goldie was a nice guy, and very friendly, but I was wondering why he hadn’t called the SPCA to report that he was being starved! The poor dog couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds, a little more than half what I do. Well, he wasn’t quite as tall as I am, either, and he certainly didn’t have my manly chest. Or my graceful tail plume, though it doesn’t weigh all that much. Maybe he was the runt of the litter. Well, I’m not going to lose nap time over it.

We headed up 101 until we hit the 18 highway, headed for McMinnville, just maybe forty miles away. Didn’t take long to get there, nice road, little traffic. Don had programmed our replacement Garmie to guide us to this fairly easy location, and she passed the test easily. Just after noon, we pulled into Olde Stone Village RV Resort and got assigned to a very nice pull-through site. This is a really nice RV Park, with grass at every site, and all of the sites are really big, so you’re not cheek-to-cheek with your neighbor. We have a Monaco Signature next to us, a huge silver colored beast with the license plate “TINKAN”. Their toad is a big GMC SUV. They have two satellite antennas, one in the front and one in the back. Don pointed this out to Geri, and asked why she thought they needed two antennas. Geri responded that obviously they didn’t like watching the same programs. Don had to admit that she was probably right.

We spent a lot of time reorganizing the basement area, and tossing out some stuff that was no longer useful. Don got Geri’s bike out, but it needed air in the tires, and he had already dumped the air in the tanks, so they have to take it to a service station. They were looking for the corner tabs that hold down the front window covers, but they were very elusive. We still don’t know where they are, so we may have try to buy some new ones. I really like this Park, the grass is super, the weather is great, and I’m just really happy here. We took a ride to downtown McMinnville, and were surprised to find a really attractive, historic main street area, very alive with shops and restaurants under the shade of some beautiful old trees. I think we’re going to enjoy our weekend here. We have a Fly-In at the airport across the road tomorrow, the Evergreen Aircraft Museum next door to us, and Don’s cousin Jan is coming down tomorrow to spend the day with us. Sounds like fun to me!