Yes Virginia, There Is a Columbia River Gorge

Columbia River Gorge from Vista House

We have had another mostly sunny and dry week here in Orey-Gone.  Something like thirty three days without measurable rain at the Portland Airport.  We need the rain badly, but then again we need more dry weather until we get the shed roof shingled.  We shall see what happens first.

Aunt Virgina at Multnomah Falls

We have Virginia Reidt, Pamela's cousin from South Dakota staying with us for several days before the wedding of Seth Finney's oldest son Samuel to his bride Lindsay.  That happens tomorrow (Saturday) so Neil will have to wear something other than shorts for the first time in a long time.

Today, we took Virginia up the Columbia River Gorge.  The weather was just about perfect, with sunshine and temperatures in the low to mid 70's.  We took the historic Columbia River Highway up to Vista House (or as Neil's Dad likes to call it, the "Million Dollar Shit House") where there are great views and some interpretive displays.  We used the facilities and took some pictures before driving on past some waterfalls and a stop at Multnomah Falls where Pamela used to work at the US Forest Service visitor's center there.

We had a good visit (along with a bunch of other people) at Multnomah Falls and then drove further up the Gorge to Cascade Locks.  That is where the first navigation locks for Columbia River navigation was before they built the Bonneville Dam.

Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks

We had a good drive back towards home, had a little bit of traffic, but got home after a wonderful day driving.  Tomorrow is the wedding, and on Monday we are taking off to the Oregon Coast for a week in our new RV.  We hope that you are having a good week.

Neil and Pamela at Multnomah Falls

Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

Keeping Cool in the Heat

Wow!  This has been a hot week in West Linn.  Temperatures hit over 100 degrees near here and our thermometer on the deck showed 102 degrees during the hottest day.  When we were looking for homes, air conditioning was one of the top criteria.  The heat pump/AC has been working hard, but it has kept the temperatures down during the heat of the day and cool enough to sleep at night.

We have been working on getting the RV ready for a trip to the coast for a week after a wedding next weekend, and Neil has been working on some small projects on the shed.  He put in a second window and got nearly all of the bird blocks and soffit vents installed.  It has been so hot that he hasn't yet begun work on finishing the roof  nailing and some other tasks, but the weekend is supposed to be at least fifteen degrees colder than it has been, so he will gear up to get more work done this weekend and the coming week.

We also are getting ready for a house guest in mid week, as Pamela's cousin Virginia is coming in for Samuel and Lindsay's weeding next Saturday.  She will be staying with us and going with us to the Oregon Coast for a few days after the wedding.  We hope to squeeze in a trip up the Columbia River Gorge while she is here.

We are looking forward to a productive week of cooler temperatures.  Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

Our Shed Now Has a Roof!

Neil and Seth Setting Rafters on "The Shed"

Today was another dry day, with it being cloudy in the morning and turning into a sunny and hot day in the afternoon.  The cooler morning actually turned into a good day to put up the rafters and roof sheathing on the garden shed.

Seth Finney came over early (0830 is early for us retirees), and Neil and Seth worked for about five hours putting up the rafters and roof sheathing.  There is still a lot of work to be done (roofing, painting, sliding entry door, trim, etc), but at least it now looks like a building, and Neil can work on some of that himself.

Neil Fastening a Rafter to the Top Plate

Pamela helped Neil and Seth for several hours, and after Seth had to leave, we worked on getting the RV organized and tried to find room for more of the stuff we took out of the larger trailer.  Pamela says that we are building a "bivet" which is what Neil's Dad called when you tried to put ten pounds of "stuff" into a five pound bag.  There are actually two other definitions--see below.

"Blivet" Used by the Military for Aviation Fuel

The illustration below is an optical illusion that is also called a blivet.  Why, I have no idea.

Any Idea of Why This Optical Illusion is Called a Blivet?

Neil and Seth Tacking Down the Roof Sheathing

Putting Up One of the Last Sheets of Roof Sheathing

Neil will be working on putting in the bird blocks and soffit vents along the sides, putting in another window, and working on a sliding door.  He hopes to get some help with the roofing, since he hasn't shingled a roof by himself before.  This may be his chance to learn.

Weather here in Oregon has been warm to hot for us transplanted Alaskans, but it has been great weather for building things outdoors.  We have not seen rain in nearly two weeks, and there is none in the long term forecast.  As soon as we get the shed weather tight, we hope that we will have some good soaking rains, as the landscape sure needs it.

Well, that is what has been keeping us busy lately.  We hope you are doing well and we look forward to hearing from you.  Thanks for visiting.

Neil and Pamela

West Linn Farmers Market and Compulsive Gardening

Willamette Market Place and Fair Today

We had a good day today, running errands, stocking the RV and visiting the West Linn Farmers Market.  It is held in Old Town Willamette every Wednesday from about 1700 to 2000.  The weather was just about perfect with sunshine and temperatures in the mid 70's.  We got a close parking space to the market place, and Neil picked up a couple of small bags of filbert shells for mulch in the garden while Pamela did some shopping for veggies.

Who Needs a Veggie Garden?  Not Us this Year

We even decided to have dinner at the market at a couple of the food vendors.  Pamela had Hawaiian chicken and Neil had beef brisket.  We washed it down with wine from King's Raven winery that is near Oregon City.  There was even some live country music from Shorty and the Mustangs.

Kings Raven Wines--a Raven Holding Bottles of Wine

One the way home, we stopped by a small, seven acre park right on the Willamette.  It is called Maddux Woods, and was the location of a boat building yard and private residence for many years.  It was a neat little place that we will go back to visit.

Maddux Woods Park in West Linn

We have always enjoyed gardening, but like to describe it as "occasional, compulsive gardening", because we don't do it all the time, and when we do, we tend to over do it.  When we got home tonight, it was nice and cool (about 70 degrees) and we had a couple of hostas to put into the ground.  Of course, that meant that we had to dig the holes, prune some trees, adjust some sprinklers, do some weeding, and cut back some ground cover.  Long story short, within an hour we wound up with a full garbage can of yard waste, a half a garbage can of soil to be spread around (as it was full of clay and not good to plant in), and Neil was soaked from adjusting the sprinklers.

Anyway, we had a great day and the rest of the week and weekend look to be sunny and warm, so Neil hopes to get more done on the garden shed as he has taken a few days off from it as he has been working on the RV.  We have replaced all of the very hot halogen bulbs with cool, energy efficient LED lights and have begun to find places for some the stuff that came out of the big fifth wheel trailer.

Neil has a few more items for the garden shed, so he will borrow Seth Finney's pickup and make one last (we hope) trip to Canby Building Supply.  We have been buying our lumber from them as they are a locally owned business, and the prices are better than Home Depot.  We still spend too much time and money at Home Depot, but it has been good to support a small business when we can.

We hope that you are enjoying whatever weather you have where you are at, and thanks for visiting.

Neil and Pamela

"Hotter Than the Hinges of Hades"

This post title is a term Neil's Dad used when it was hot--darn hot.  We think that he would agree that 102 degrees is hot!  That is what it was yesterday in Portland--here on our deck in West Linn we recorded 103 degrees.  Thank God for air conditioning, and relatively low humidity on Friday and Saturday, as those are the days we picked to do some  major work on the garden shed we are building.  We should have gone to the beach instead.

Pamela had the wisdom to leave town and go to Minneapolis, where it was only in the 80's.  Neil is trying to figure out how we can trade ten or fifteen degrees with Juneau.  That way we would both be in the 70's.

Sunday is a little bit cooler (only mid to high 90's) but the humidity is forecast to be higher.  Neil has decided to work on mostly inside projects until it cools down.  He did get a lot of work done on the shed thanks to Seth Finney and Gordon Kelly.  They got all four walls up, a window installed and all of the rafters made.  The next step is setting up the rafters and putting on roof sheathing but that will probably have to wait until next weekend when Neil can get some more help.  He will be doing some caulking, building a door, and maybe painting this week.

Here is a few photos of the garden shed so far:

Two Walls Up and Laid Out for Third Wall (Friday)

Inside View of Completed Walls with Rafters

Garden Shed Progress to Date

We hope that you are keeping cool where ever you are.  Thanks for visiting.

Neil and Pamela

Hot August! RV Info and Shed Prep

It continues to be a good weather summer here in Oregon--maybe a little bit too good as it has been in the 80's and will get into the mid to high 90's this weekend.  95 degrees is hotter than we like, but we survived 95 degrees and 95 percent humidity when we were stationed in Washington, DC so we know that we can survive an Oregon summer.  And since Juneau hasn't had much of a summer this year, we aren't going to complain.

This weekend, Pamela is in Minneapolis for a Creative Memories meeting, so Neil is working on some RV projects and taking the next big step on the garden shed.  Unfortunately, the work comes during a very hot weekend, but thankfully he is getting help from Gordon Kelly and Seth Finney.  We hope that we can get the walls and roof rafters up this weekend, and maybe more.

A Pickup Full of Shed Lumber

Neil went to Canby Lumber today with Seth Finney's pickup (remember he traded in his GMC pickup for the RV.  He got all of the 2x4 lumber, the siding and the roof sheathing, so about 90 percent of the lumber is at the house.

On the RV side, we were able to park the Winnebago RV beside the house where we used to park the pickup truck.  We are able to plug it in easily and it is easy to get access to for stocking the rig and doing the improvements that we are making.  Speaking of improvements, we are replacing as many of the hot halogen light bulbs with LEDs as we can afford.  Neil was able to find them pretty cheaply on the internet with free shipping, so many are being replaced.  He is a big fan of LED lights, and has even put some into the house recessed fixtures to save energy.  In the RV, the big thing is that the lights are cool and they burn about one tenth the energy for the same lumens output.

This is a LED Backup Light for the Winnebago VIA

Since we found a burned out back up light on the RV, Neil decided to order two of these to replace the stock lights.  We will have to wait until night time to see how they work, but think that they will work great.

This Bulb Replaces the Hot Halogen Bulbs

We had to remove one of the halogen lights from the ceiling fixture because if you forgot and left the cabinet door up, it would have burned the finish on the cabinet.  In the new RV's of this model, they have installed LED bulbs, so we are having to do the upgrade ourselves.  Of course a newer RV is a LOT more than we paid for our used RV, so we are OK with that.

In closing of this post, we are enclosing a few pictures of a Winnebago VIA 25T.  This is not our coach, but it is our floor plan.

Looking Aft from the Front of the Coach

Rear Beds in Twin Configuration

Front Captain Seats Turned to Face Aft

Stay tuned to see if Neil survives shed building in ninety plus degree weather.  Many thanks for visiting.

Neil and Pamela