We have arrived to our asphalt campground in Bellevue, Washington. The campground is definitely an asphalt jungle! No grass, but there are a few trees and bushes. It’s about fifteen minutes from Jared’s house and therefore very convenient.  It is also directly across the freeway from the Seattle Temple!  We’ll do a session there probably on Saturday morning. We drove past it this evening and it is a very beautiful building.

We decided to go to Mt. Rainier National Park on our way to Seattle today. That turned out to be a mistake. We drove to Yakima and then turned inland to drive to the park. A part of the road was closed and we were sent on a very, very long detour to go around where the road construction crews were blasting a hillside. It took about an hour to go around  large (and almost empty) reservoir and back to the main road. It was a twisty, narrow, windy road! When we finally got to the southeast entrance to the park, we found that all the roads in the park were closed. We drove all that way for nothing. That was quite disappointing. Despite that, we got to the campground at about 5 p.m.

We picked Jared and Arlene up for dinne and had a wonderful visit with them. We’re now back at the RV winding down for the night. We’ll pick them up at about 8 in the morning for our whale-watching-cruise-and-adventure. That should be a lot of fun.

We’re back at the RV from the Columbia River Temple. We struggled out of bed about 5:30 a.m. PDT this morning and were actually out of the RV driving to the temple at 6:24 a.m. this morning. It was about a ten minute drive from the campground to the temple. I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were there. We had thirteen sisters and ten brothers in the session meaning there were seventeen empty seats. The temple is small but very beautiful. The Celestial Room is gorgeous! We had a delightful session and the time was well worth it. In a few minutes we’ll unhook the utilities, hook up the car, and drive away. We think we’ll drive through the Mt. Rainier National Park on our way to Seattle.

For the past year one of the “hot” topics on the Internet has been Twitter.  I finally set up my account the other day. Apparently this setup allows one to send little “tweets” either as text messages or through the web browser or such to your Twitter account. Then anyone subscribed to this feed will receive those little “tweets” however they choose, such as on their cell phones or computer screens, or such. So, who has a Twitter account? It’d be interesting to see whether or not this has any value or usefulness.

Nina has an amazing amount of trouble with her Windows laptop, particularly trying to connect to wireless access points. My Macbook simple connects. No hassle, no fuss or bother. It finds the strongest, open signal and just connects. If there are no open access points, but secured access points are available, it’ll ask which one I want to connect to and lets me put in the key and it connects. This sure seems to be something that Dell needs to get figured out on their laptops. One of these days Nina will be ready for a new notebook computer. I think the next one will be a Mac based on our experience while traveling for the past couple of months.  Time to get moving!

We’re safely ensconced in a very nice RV park near Pasco, Washington. This is one of the nicer RV parks we’ve stayed in over the past few years. Very clean, well maintained, level sites, and WiFi. What more could a person want? We drove away from the house about 9 a.m. this morning after Nina put Bradica (the dog) in the kennel  (she probably thinks this is her second home, she’s been there rather regularly lately). The weather was cold and somewhat rainy in Pocatello, but an hour west on I-84 we were in sunshine with clear skies. It was a good day for driving. We arrived at the campground about 5:30 p.m. PDT, drove past the Columbia River Temple, had dinner at a nearby Applebees, did a little shopping at a local supermarket, and are now back in the RV checking email and whatever else is interesting on the Internet.

Tomorrow morning we’re doing a session at the Columbia River Temple at 7 a.m. After that we’ll wend our way into the Seattle area to our destination campground in Bellevue. It will be an easy driving day tomorow with some sightseeing along the way. Life continues to be good!

A cold front really blew in today and it is … COLD! The forecast says that there will be snow in the mountains. Oh joy. We’ve gone from summer to winter with no season in the middle. I’m definitely not ready.

I’ve spent some of the week working on an insert for the screen door to the deck. We have been leaving the screen partly open so Bradica (the dog) can go out to do her business. However, more often than not she does her business elsewhere. She doesn’t like going out as it’s now very hard for her to go up or down the steps. As it is, she has never really liked going out, ever. But, Thursday a bird flew in through the partially open screen door. Flying in was apparently easy, but flying back out again was not so very easy. After flying in circles for a couple of hours, the bird finally found the front screen door and tried to get out that way. The door was closed and locked, and as I tried to get there to open the door, the bird flew back into the family room. So, I unlocked the door in case the bird made her way back there again.

Sure enough, about a half-hour later, Nina called that the bird was hanging on the front screen door. I went out through the garage, slipped onto the front porch, opened the screen door, and the bird flew away! Success … except for cleaning up the leavings of a very frightened bird.

So, how to prevent that from happening again? There are hundreds of birds flocking around the back deck during the day feasting at the bird feeders all along the railing. It is probably a miracle we haven’t had more birds in the house entering through the partially-opened screen. I went to Lowes and bought some lumber and screen and have built a small insert to go into the screen door. It’ll leave a small opening at the bottom for Bradica (the dog) to go in and out but the rest will be covered with a screen. No more birds in the house (and far fewer flies and bees and wasps and such). I should have made this months ago. It’s not quite finished. I put the stain on this evening. I’ll attach the screen and put it in place when we get back.

Back? We just got back! We are leaving again and I’m quite excited to be going. We’re heading for Seattle on Monday. We’ll drive as far as Richland, Washington (southeast corner of the state … near Pasco and Kenewick) on Monday and spend the night in a RV campground. We’ll do a session at the Columbia River Temple at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, perhaps a little sightseeing, and then drive the rest of the way to Bellevue, Washington. We’ll stay there through Sunday and spend the time playing with Jared, Arlene, Kendra, Wendy, Aaron, and Aiden. We’ll kick it off with a whale-watching cruise on Wednesday. Then the following week we’ll wend our way down the Washington coast and get home on Friday, October 5th. I’m almost packed … I’m ready to be on the road again!

I’ve spent some of the day in San Diego. I flew down for an interview (whch seems to have gone well, but we’ll see). The weather here is nice, but a bit humid. The traffic, however, is lousy! Many of the streets around the airport are under construction and there is no way to get to the airport except over city streets. It feels like really bad traffic planning, actually.

The bad news is that Robert Jordan, my most favorite author, died yesterday afternoon without having finished the twelfth and last book in the World of Time series. Oh bad karma! There’s definitely no joy in Mudville today! Rest in Peace RJ and my sincere sympathy to his family and to the millions of fans worldwide.

I was talking on the phone with grandson Michael today when, in answer to my question, he said that “school was fantastic … brilliant!” I responded that he should write about it in his blog. Then I thought about how I haven’t been all that regular about writing either! So, Michael, I’m repenting…. Tag, you’re it!

The past several days have been occupied with cleaning out the closet in the office/computer room. I’m about half way through one side of the closet and haven’t really gotten to the difficult part. There are so many “treasures” in there that I’m going to have to make a decision about. They got tossed in there because it was then easier to procrastinate the decision, but now the closet is full and the weeding out has begun. But what do I do with all the foreign electrical adapters that I have? I’ve got them for England, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines. I can probably go anywhere in the world and be able to plug into electricity. Throwing them away is such a final thing. If I make room for them in the storage room downstairs, I’m probably just postponing the decision once again.  I think I’ll just move the pile. Who knows, I may be back in those parts of the world once again! The employment possibilities are starting to come to fruition. It looks like I’ll just have to make space in my life once again to go to work…. But not just yet. On Monday the 24th we’re headed to Seattle to spend a few days with Jared and Arlene as well as Wendy, Aaron, Kendra, and family. While there we’re going on a six to seven hour whale watching cruise. The trip back will include a couple of days on the Oregon beach. So, in August we were on the beach on the east coast. In September we’re on the beach on the west coast. Life is good.

I’m pretty late to the eBay selling experience but I’ll have to say it was pretty darn amazing. I had a battery charger and two batteries from my Konica-Minolta digital camera that was stolen on my last trip to the Philippines. Neither work for the new Sony digital camera I bought as a replacement so I decided to sell them. I’ve had an eBay account for years and have occasionally bought something on eBay so I set up a seller account and listed the charger and batteries.

The listing process was very straightforward. I was able to look up the model number of the charger in their database and see what others like it had sold for. There were some small fees for listing, all of which were clear and very reasonable. In total I paid much less for selling on eBay than I would have for a newspaper advertisement (which probably wouldn’t have sold these items, anyway).

The standard selling period is seven days. I might choose a shorter period next time, depending on where the weekend falls. The first bid appeared on the first day. The last day saw several bids and the final bid was at a very reasonable price … more than I had expected for a used battery charger and two batteries for a digital camera that isn’t manufactured anymore! Then the amazing part happened. They buyer (from Los Angeles, California) sent the money through PayPal about a half-hour after the bidding period closed! Nina and I were in Idaho Falls when the bidding closed and the money was in my PayPal account before I even knew what the final selling price was.

Shipping turns out to be simple as well. In PayPal I was able to print a shipping label and pay for shipping at the same time. All I have to do is put the items in a box, attach the label, and drop it off at the post office (or call them and they’ll pick it up!). Voila! Done. Amazing! What else can I sell….

So, I wonder how it is that I ever had time to be working? I probably will start a new adventure in the next few weeks, so I’ll need to get a little bit less busy so I can work that in! I needed to do some rearranging in the computer room so we would have a bit more space and less clutter so I built a couple of tables to go into the room to replace an outsized card table and a computer rack that wasn’t being used anymore. The yard work that I started before the Big Road Trip needs to get finished and it takes me about five hours to mow the yard. I’ve been working on a couple of things in the motorhome that I should be able to finish today. We spent Wednesday in Soda Springs and yesterday in Idaho Falls. What should have been a routine dental hygiene visit turns out to mean several more trips to the dentist as a crown has a cavity underneath it and another bridge has come loose. Being in a dentist chair is a significantly unfavorite activity. The crown will be worked on next Tuesday with several possible outcomes: (1) everything works out OK, the cavity isn’t too big and the crown can be replaced, or (2) the tooth requires a root canal but then can be salvaged and the crown replaced, or (3) the tooth has to be removed and then the bridge expanded to include this tooth. While we have good dental insurance, the options all have a price and the third option would be rather expensive even with insurance. So that’s the option that I’m expecting to happen.

Nina got the canning bug (see her blog) and we now have a delicious two-year supply of canned peaches. I am very happy. Life is very good!

I’ve listed my first item on eBay for sale … a Minolta battery charger and two batteries. eBay created a widget for this that I can put on my blog (but it doesn’t work!!). Anyhow, I’ve a number of other items to sell and this seems like an easy way to make it happen.