Friends and More Friends!

Today we finally got together with our friends Tom and Donna, who spend summers at Fairview RV Park in Portland. We haven't seen them in some time, but we keep in touch via email and the blog. It was great to have a chance to see them again and to show off our new home.

Tom brought some delicious cocktail wienies in his special recipe sauce to share, and they brought us a nice bottle of Yellowtail Shiraz. We haven't had that before, so of course we had to open and try it out--it was delicious. The conversation flowed and time passed before we knew it. We're hoping to have a chance to see their new (to us) Excel, which they named "Charm." It's a 2012 model, but they got it in April 2011, and we've been eager to see it ever since they posted the first pictures on their blog.

Today is our good friend Judy Pottinger's birthday, so of course I called to wish her a happy birthday. It was later in the day because we were busy earlier with Tom and Donna's visit, so I caught her at dinner. When I asked where she was, she said "having dinner at the Nite Hawk Cafe in Portland." Yup, she was sitting not 20 miles away! Last we heard she and Hardy were in Montana. They are spending the night at Jantzen Beach RV Park on an island in the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver.

Of course we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to wish Judy a happy birthday in person, so we drove over and spent a couple of hours catching up. What an unexpected pleasure! They'll be passing by our park on their way tomorrow, so we invited them to stop by for a visit. They'll be the first of our RGV friends to see our new home.

We had considered staying at Jantzen Beach when we first researched the Portland area. It's a nice park and very convenient to downtown, but it's right under the flight path for planes landing at PDX. All conversation comes to a screeching halt when the planes pass overhead. It might be an okay place for us to spend a night or two, but we really prefer quieter parks, so we're glad we found Sandy Riverfront.

We put the rear window awning out today. It's very helpful in shading the rear in the afternoons, but it means taking the ladder down. That wouldn't be a problem, except that we have a ladder mounted laundry drying rack. What to do? Ken suggested hooking the ladder over the side arm of the awning, which seems to work just fine. Problem solved.