I don’t know how this is going to work.  There are so many things that are not working at the moment.

Firstly, I have a crack in my screen.  Consequently one third of the screen has coloured lines and black blocks on it…making it seriously difficult to see parts of the screen.

Secondly, when I changed to the newest operating system, I lost ‘bean’, my go to, only go to actually, word processor.  I have no place now to write letters, lists and such.  You wouldn’t believe what I stole from my files, deleted off this page and am now using it to write my next blog post.

Thirdly, why am I writing my blog post here and not on blogspot like usual?  BECAUSE F##KING TELUS HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!!  I came home from the trip, settled in, switched on my tv and nope!!!Not working.  And not only that, neither is my internet.  Grrrrrrr!!!!!  (quadruple shovel list).  So I phoned telus.  And I was on hold for one and a half hours.  NINETY minutes!  I had no choice if I wanted things fixed.  But when I saw it hit an hour and a half I hung up.  And phoned Shaw.  They answered on first ring.  I ordered everything up, they come on Friday and install.  Telus can go eff themselves.  And I am NOT paying them one dime to pay out the contract.  They broke that contract repeatedly so I am not paying.  And I am not telling them.  They will have to phone me eventually when they get no money.  Ha!

Its nice to be home again.  I missed my bed and Wrangler.  I haven’t picked him up yet…I get him back tomorrow.  I love going and getting him.  He is always sooooo happy to see me.  Makes me feel wanted, said like a needy person!

  The house is spotless….actually not quite.  Alice came while I was gone.  Then after she left Kathy was here to let the plumbers in to replace the hot water tank.  She sat down at the piano to play and noticed a whole lot of dust all over the piano.  I pay Alice 65 bucks to clean and she hardly ever takes more than an hour.  Originally it was going to be three hours.  So instead of cutting the money back I cut the weekly cleaning to every two weeks.  But come on!  For sixty five bucks she could at least dust the piano.  I never noticed.  Typical.  sigh

So I will be texting her before Wednesday when she comes to tell her the piano needs a thorough dusting.  It will take a while.  I have a lot of stuff on that piano.  She won’t be happy so I think I will trot up to Kathy’s and use her internet for an hour or two while Alice is here.  I don’t want to get yelled at.  There, I just texted her.  I will see if she answers.

Well I have read a complete book since last night.  Its going to be a pretty quiet week.  Reminds me of when Monte and I moved up here from Langford.  We spent some weeks in a empty house before our stuff got moved up.  All we had was a chair for me to sleep in and a mattress on the floor in the other bedroom for Monte.  And a coffee pot in the kitchen.  That was it.  We went out every night to eat.  He and I both never ate through the day unless it was leftovers brought home the night before. We didn’t have a tv but we did have internet.  I sat in my chair and read hundreds of books.  It was awesome.  Totally quiet.  Monte would sleep late then go out til late.  I read read read.  This now is totally reminding me of that.

April and Myles are coming up this weekend!!!  I am so happy.  I miss all my kids.  And I am really hoping Aryn can make it up sometime soon.  So each day this week I have a project to get ready.  Alice keeps the house super clean, but I will need to stock the fridge, clean the bunk bed room, clean my tan purple room, the Steam Punk room is all ready for them already.  And I will make a little list of the heavy things I need help with moving so I can get that done while they are here.  

Well thats it for now.  I shall pop up to Kathy’s tomorrow and post this.  Have a good night!  TTYL

DOWN TO ONE OLD BLISTER AND HER TANK

Well we did it!  From Kamloops, Surrey all the way to California and back up again.  Cookie drove all the way home.  What a treat for me!  I could actually take my eyes off the road for two seconds without Tank heading for the rhubarb.

We left the lovely hotel about 8:35 am and headed for home.  Due to construction and closed ramps, the detours snaked us back and forth across the river over spectacular bridges through the middle of Portland.  It was pretty interesting and a great way to see the city.  Then we hit the I-5 and off we went.

The traffic was insane most of the way.  There were some breaks but a lot of it was bumper to bumper.  And we tried really hard, we truly tried to analyze, but we simply could not figure out why the traffic did what it did.  Did NOT make sense.

One thing I didn't mention in these posts was that on every menu in the USofA, and we saw a crapload of them, every single bleeping thing on the menu has the calories listed beside it.  What the hell?  Do you know how discouraging that is to fun delicious eating?  "Yes I would like to order the tater tots covered in bacon and cheese and sauce.  Just the ten piece one please." "Oh!!!  Wait a minute!!  Umm 2,000 calories???  Seriously???  Jesus H!!  Okay give me the frigging house salad, hold the dressing and NO KALE!"

Well we got hungry somewhere along the way and started to read those food signs along the highway.  We had managed to not go to a fast food place even once on the whole trip except once to at McD's to get a coffee and an ice cream cone.  We finally saw a sign for a Denny's.  Thank goodness both of us are not elitists and we were quite happy to eat at a Denny's.

In we went and Cook mentioned that she had planned on having one meal of pancakes on this trip.  We accidentally found a hidden value menu which Cookie availed herself of.  Two eggs, two bacon and two pancakes. 1000 calories.  Four bucks. Perfect!  Me?  Ten tater tots, bacon, cheese, sauce.  2000 calories.  Eight bucks.  It was so damned good and I even ate about 300 calories worth of Cookie's pancakes.

We stopped at the PacCan duty free and each bought a forty pounder of rum...Captain Morgan for her and Krakken for me.  I can't drink Captain Morgan.  When Cook and I went to our graduation (well actually hers, I'm a loser and didn't graduate) gradrinkas (bush party for drunk girls), my good old dad bought me a 26'er of Captain Morgan, which I drank straight in half an hour and proceeded to pass out and barf all at once.  I was sick for over a week.  I thought I was going to die!  I really did!

The next day I was sleeping at Cookie's family home, she had gone to school believe it or not, and mid morning Mamma Sidhu came and woke me up.  She was doing home sales of bras and I had agreed to buy one.  I was big and hard to fit and apparently these bras were the cats ass.  So I stumbled upstairs for a measuring.  OMG!!  I could barely stand!  I can't imagine how I smelled.  

So she hauls out a measuring tape and measures around my ribs, nipple to underarm, nipple to nipple, nipple to rib cage, nipple to mid back.....I don't remember anything after that.  All I know is six weeks later a bra, labelled 38 tripple K, arrived in the Sidhu house.  I went and tried it on.  Do you remember the Madonna bra?  Extreme cone-age!  One time I had the bra on and a white t-shirt and I was under my brother's car helping mount an engine. I had done this lots of times.  When I came out from under the tips of my...well nipple area, of the shirt were black.  Just the tips.  But I digress......

The trip through the border went without a hitch and soon we were in Cookie's driveway.  Brian welcomed us and helped carry stuff in.  We had a peaceful relaxing evening.  Now this morning the highway was closed due to a fatal accident.  Cookie and Brian had a busy day so they have gone and I am just waiting for the highway to open and the traffic to dissipate. I shall head home soon back to my awesome little home and my doggie.  I have super missed him!  TTYL

AS USUAL I AM HORRIBLE A SELFIES

MY HAIR IS PRETTY BAD BUT TAKE A LOOK AT THE PIC BELOW

WHO GAVE HIMSELF A BUZZ CUT?  HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

TWO BROADS AND A JEEP #8

Why me, why not the neighbours?  That was something Anne used to always curse when something happened.

Well I am using it today.  I am sick. Stomach again and 'other' things...again.  Constantly happening.  I'm beginning to think I actually have something wrong with my digestive system.  All I really know is its frigging annoying.  (shovel list).  I had to take a gravol a while ago, consequently I am not quite with it.  My apologies for any confusion in the post today.

We had a wonderful adventurous day today.  We just took off east and didn't even take a map.  We wanted to see what we would end up seeing.

We left the freeway to go see a park, Rooster Rock Park.  It was a pay place but we went to the wooden shed and asked the girl how much and what was this place.  Basically it was just a place to launch boats and picnic and swim, there was a small beach, and enjoy the summer day.  It was massive.  It could accommodate well over two hundred vehicles.  There were maybe only about twenty there, it was early.  She let us in for free to just drive to the end and see the rooster rock.  Yeah.  Maybe.  Reminded me of China...eking out the importance of a place due to some insignificant thing.  I put a pic of rooster rock below..you can make your own mind up about it.

We then took the 30 road and drove up to a veiwpoint.  I hiked the loop twice so I did a mile.  Cookie hiked up or down to a waterfall...apparently a disappointing one.  Keep in mind the heat was excruciatingly killing. 

We drive on, up and up and up and up! The road super reminded us of the banana bread trail in Maui.  Very windy and narrow and green green green. We finally came to the oddest sight.  It was called Vista House.  The stone and marble building was built 100 years ago.  Originally it was built in 1916-18 as a comfort station for travellers.  Now its a museum of sorts honouring the Oregon explorers and pioneers.  The views up there were crazy!

From there we found a lavender farm.  It was beautiful, full of bees, seriously full of bees, and smelled divine   I bought a couple of sachets.  Tank will be smelling girly by tomorrow!

From there we headed back to Troutdale.  Oh, speaking of which we did start the day at the outlet mall...a bust for sure.  Didn't take us long to get out of there.  But we did find a ridiculous sad pub for a beer and a salad.  Then I got sick.  Poof!  Just like that.  So home we went, I popped a strong gravol and passed out til sixish. We went across the parking lot to a restaurant for a light supper and now in our room reading and blogging.  Thats it folks!  Home tomorrow night.  TTYL

THE INSIDE OF VISTA HOUSE....PICS ARE OUT OF ORDER AS PER USUAL

ODD ROCK FORMATIONS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF COLUMBIA RIVER

A HAUNTED HOUSE WE FOUND

AN OLD WORK HORSE

A BARBIE POST...WHY NOT

ROOSTER ROCK....YES? NO?

IVY COVERED...BUT I MISSED THAT PART

COLUMBIA RIVER EAST

COLUMBIA RIVER WEST

TANK

VISTA HOUSE

A BURST OF LAVENDER

TWO BROADS AND A JEEP #7

Today was a very long day...but a good one.  After spending a night in that horrific awful motel room, we couldn't wait to get out of there.  We hit the road before nine this morning.  Cottage Grove isn't as cute as its name.  Nice.  But not cute.

We decided to take the secondary road, the 99 west, all the way to Portland today.  And we did take a few side trips looking for exciting stuff.  I spent a great deal of time going from john to john. Poor Cookie.  She is so patient and kind about it.  Me?  I'm just pissed off.  I am glugging pepto bismal but of course it comes with its own set of trouble.  Sigh.  (Shovel list)

We stopped in at a lovely little park under a bridge and along a creek.  It was so flipping hot though we couldn't really get out and enjoy it.  I took a couple of pics then got back in the jeep and the air conditioning.

We also took a trip down a country road and in the distance saw some cows with babies, not their babies though.  I have no idea where the mothers were.  We got out to take pics and I warned Cookie that they would likely come running as cows are super curious.  There was a fence so we weren't too worried.  And sure enough.  They came barrelling toward us.  But when they were still a little ways away, the head white cow stopped, turned around and mooed really loud at them.  They all stopped right there and waited.  Then she came right over to the fence and sniffed and looked and now and then would check to make sure the others were not coming too close.  It was amazing!!!  She was protecting them!  It really was quite something to see.

We mozied on down the road, stopping at various gas station bathrooms along the way...some nice and some not so much.  And no matter what the time, or what the road, someone was always riding up my ass.  Jeez!!!  I pulled over a lot to let people by.

One place we sought out was a wildlife refuge.  What an awful sad place that was.  Cages of pigeons, pheasants, squab, quail etc...  And a fake elk that had been shot up, in the worst way.  It was creepy and weird.

We finally, after battling terrible traffic for about an hour, got through Portland going east to Troutdale.  We wanted to stay in a nicer hotel tonight and I know that with all the outlet stores in the huge mall there should be hotels around.  Plus we are near the airport.

We picked the Holiday Inn.  And it was full, as was all the local hotels around Troutdale.  Damn!! The girls in the Holiday Inn got on the blower and found us hotel of similar ilk thirteen miles away in Gresham.  So off we went and sure enough there was room at the inn.  Its quite a lovely place with a fantastic pool.  I didn't bring a swimsuit so I am going to see if I can find one tomorrow at the mall.  We are so enjoying this treat of a nice room...so much we have decided to stay another night.

  There is lots to do around here...lavender farm, the gorge, Columbia dam, Mt. Hood etc...  Then we shall skedaddle home.  Had a lovely dinner at Heidi's Restaurant right near....chicken pot pie for Cookie, meat loaf for me, both off the senior menu and we still couldn't finish it!  Anyhoo we is tired tonite.  I shall tune in tomorrow....TTYL

A MELTING ICECREAM BREAK

THERE THEY ARE...WAY OVER THERE, THIS IS WHERE I WARNED COOKIE THAT THEY WOULD COME RUNNING

THAT MAMMA KEPT THEM ALL BACK TO KEEP THEM SAFE UNTIL SHE CHECKED US OUT.

SHE STOOD HERE AT THE FENCE AND SNIFFED AND LOOKED AT US...CHECKING BEHIND HER FREQUENTLY

AND THEY STAYED THERE...AMAZING

CREEPY SHOT UP FAKE ELK

ALL THE BIRDS IN AWFUL HOT DRY CAGES

THE MUDDY CREEK UNDER THE BRIDGE

FINALLY...PORTLAND

BIRD POOP ON THE WINDSHIELD....ENDLESS TRAFFIC

OUR LOVELY ROOM

JUST ONE OF THE MANY GAS STATION BATHROOMS I WAS IN TODAY

I WANTED IT TO HIT FORTY BUT IT DIDN'T.  IT STAYED HERE A LONG TIME THOUGH

TWO BROADS AND A JEEP #6

Well we started off the day with a bang..literally.We packed up the jeep, smiled at the neighbour sitting out in front of his unit sipping coffee, climbed in, reversed out of the parking spot and BANG!!!  I backed right smack into a tree.  "Didn't you look?' Cookie asks.  Clearly not. I did but I didn't see it for whatever reason.  It was a pretty hard hit.  But due to people watching, we just casually said, " its a jeep...its supposed to be beat up" and drove away.  Later when we checked it there wasn't a dint....on the tire that is mounted on the back.  Thank god it wasn't a vehicle.

We decided to stay off the I-5 and take the secondary road, route 99.  It was so much more relaxing and we saw things.  A beautiful river...the Umpqua, covered bridges, an almost kind of homeless dude in a park who was super talkative and gave us lots of info.  He could have been a tour guide.  His name was Raymond.  We talked with him for quite a while actually.

We went through a number of little towns that were very iffy and rundown and dogpatchy.  In the midst of one of them we sailed past a quilt shop out in the middle of nowhere.  So we screeched to a halt, turned around and went back.

It was the best quilt shop.  All her material was interesting and amazing and not the run of the mill.  I used her bathroom and Cookie shopped.  Loved it!  A real find.

Somewhere along the way we were travelling beside the river and there was a pull off to take a look.  It was absolutely stunning.  I put a couple pics of it below.  Things you see when you aren't flying along the freeway.

And now, here we are in a room that, to me, is way worse than last night.  Cookie doesn't think so, even though I am looking at her footprint on the wall on a squashed spider.

  The place is just odd, micky moused together, and missing things.  There is a coffee pot but no coffee or trimmings.  There are just two thread bare towels.  The bathroom door doesn't shut.  Neither of us wanted to place our luggage on the icky carpeted floor.  And get this.  Cookie, being kind of anal I thought, started to take the bed apart to check the sheets to see if they were clean, not something I have ever done and I have been in at least a million hotels, and I started to give her the gears about it.  And then guess what?  She found two huge stains...one on the top sheet and a matching one on the bottom sheet!  Seriously?  I couldn't

THE FIRST COVERED BRIDGE

OUT OF ORDER....THE ROOM TONIGHT

UMPQUA RIVER

TWO TONED RIVER

WE THINK THAT MIGHT BE A HOLLY TREE

STUPID PICS TOTALLY MIXED UP...WHY?

DEAD HUMMING BIRD....OKAY WITH ME...I DON'T LIKE THEM....MEAN LITTLE BLIGHTERS

THE LOVELY RAYMOND...HE WAS SO COOL

BACK TO THE ROOM...HORRIBLE CURTAINS

COOKIE'S SHEETS...HAHAHAHA

believe it!

She went and got the lady hotel keeper and made her come and change the sheets.  This place is dirty, and a dump in my estimation.  We have decided to stay in a nice place tomorrow night.  We may be in Portland so that shouldn't be too hard.

Well its off to bed.  Cookie gets up at the crack of dawn.  (hee hee hee...she will be reading this.)  Then these two old broads will be hitting the pavement, heading north.  TTYL

TWO BROADS AND A JEEP #5

Well we changed our mind!  We decided we should really finish the Oregon Coast, afterall thats what we came to do.

So about face and we headed for Brookings and the California border.  We were told that this final part of the trip was by far the best...majestic and wild and the road stuck to the coastline...enabling us to actually see the ocean.

Well, maybe.  We didn't really find that we were able to see the ocean all that much more and what we saw in Bandon was actually much better.  But we were still happy we completed the coast.  We came to the California border, and as we both were eating an apple, he asked if we had any fruit with us.  Hahaha!  But apples he didn't care about.  He was looking for mangos and blueberries (?).

We decided to head down towards Crescent City Calif. then cut up towards Grants Pass.  Half way along was a place called Cave Junction.  I looked it up and it had eight hotels/motels.  Sounded good so we decided we would stay there.  We wound our way through the redwood forest and as we left the coast the balmy 70 degree temperature turned to 100 degrees.  Seriously!  38 degrees.

We eventually arrived in Cave Junction.  It seemed like a fairly typical small town with a main strip full of little restaurants, businesses, saloons and nail and tattoo salons.  We started looking for hotels immediately.  And guess what?  There weren't any.  Dammit!!!  I did not feel like travelling further to Grants Pass, about fifty miles and for sure by the time we got there all their hotels would be full. And we would have no choice but to SLEEP IN THE JEEP.

 So we asked a girl at a gas station for hotel advice.  She told us to NOT stay at the one motel that we had not seen and driven past but to go to another one a further two miles down the road in a suburb (hahaha) called Kirby.

Off we went.  Found it.  Followed about ten signs that said "office" with arrows around buildings and houses and down lanes until we came to the actual office.  A young lady came out and said sorry but they were renovating and had no rooms.  But we should go back a mile to the Holiday Motel.  We had passed it and it had looked a little dicey so we didn't consider it.  But she added, "Under no circumstances stay in Cave Junction.  Its a bed of drug dealers and they deal them at that first motel."  Well gee!

While we were dining on lovely (read sloppy) mexican food in a mexican cantina, I tried to make reservations at the Motel 6 in Grants Pass by phone.  Clearly we were going to have to drive there tonight.  Yeah well that wasn't going to happen.  Grants Pass is full.  So back to the Holiday Motel and hope for the best.

They had room!  (not surprised)  85 bucks.  The guy who signed us in lives here with his wife and nine, count em, nine foster kids! There is really only one word for this whole dog and pony show...dogpatch.  They actually have a video store in town and each room here has a dvd player.  I know what kind of videos they are mainstreaming.

The room is roomy, as old motels are.  But boy can you say sixties?  The room is a dull tan.  The tv is huge, no flat screen here.  The headboards are not attached to the beds so every time you move they bang the wall, and yes, we do have neighbours...they are looking at us strangely and coming to WRONG conclusions.  The room is full of flies, annoying, cloying, cheeky little buggers.  I have already killed one and have left it lying close to me to warn the others.  Little bastards.

But ironically, they have put a keurig in here.  Out of all the places we have stayed this one has the most modern coffee maker.  I thought for sure there would be a ring element and a pot and coffee grounds.  I haven't looked in the bathroom yet.

It was actually a really nice day.  Not much to report and didn't take too many pics.  Its been kind of fun watching poor Cookie get a little dirty.  She just isn't the type that that sits well with.  But when you picnic on bread, butter, mayo, sliced tomato, roast beef and cheese, its gonna happen.  But she is a real sport and takes the teasing.  

Well tomorrow we are off to Roseburg.  We plan to get a room by four.  Hopefully the jeep won't be violated tonight, and I mean violated.  People here are odd and different.  No wonder the couple that work here ended up fostering nine kids.  I think there are only nine kids in this town and they have them all.

Gotta bounce.  Cookie is showing me funny videos about farts.  Way more fun than writing.  And I have a  Plethora of sky raisons to kill.  TTYL   (oops....forgot to hit post last night)

STOPPING FOR A LOOK

THIS STUPID BLOGSPOT DOES NOT PUT THE PICTURES IN ORDER...I MEAN HOW HARD CAN IT BE?

BEAUTIFUL PEAVINE

THAT RED DOT IS COOKIE

THIS IS WHAT WE STOPPED TO LOOK AT

THIS IS WHAT WE WERE CROSSING

THE LITTLE BASTARD I KILLED AND KEEPING CLOSE

TALKING TO THE FAMILY