The rain: After a long and full life, my Mom passed away on Sunday morning, August 16th. She celebrated her 96th birthday in June, and had been healthy her whole life. Her body just finely wore out and she had a slow steady decline over the past year, finally become too weak to walk over the past month. As I posted earlier, I was able to spend two weeks with her earlier in the month and I felt we had said our goodbyes. She was completely at peace and was sure she would soon join my Dad.
Erin and Jenn spend Saturday night with her so that Bill could get some sleep. He had been staying with her around the clock because the care home attendants weren't allowed to give her oral morphine and valium which were essential to keeping her calm and comfortable.
I am so proud of them for their loving, supportive care. The last 12 hours were rough and Bill said he would have been overwhelmed without them. My Mom was so proud that she had two granddaughters who were doctors, and I know she must have been beaming on the inside knowing they had her full attention. I was feeling guilty about not being there myself, and the girls kept texting me reassuring me that Mom was comfortable and that they would not leave her. That is a gift that no amount of money can buy.
My oldest daughter Kris arrived just after she passed, and the three girls stayed with her for several hours until the mortuary attendants arrived. They fixed her hair and put on some makeup and then just stayed with her.
We are planning to all be at the gravesite in Oct. to bury her ashes with my Dad.
The sunshine: We absolutely love being campground hosts at Champoeg State Park. The work is not hard and we share days on with a very nice couple, Bruce and Janell, who are from Phoenix. We have met some very interesting characters in the park, and can honestly say there hasn't been anything negative about the experience. We haven't had any TV since we are surrounded by trees and our roof mounted satellite dish can't pick up the signal. We really haven't missed it at all. We have several DVDs...3 seasons of Homeland and 2 seasons of Justified....that we bought to keep us entertained if we didn't have satellite reception, but we just haven't wanted to watch even that.
The weather has been nice; only a few hot days, but mostly in the low 80s during the day and cool in the evenings. We haven't had any rain since we've been here and that is a disaster for the state. There are multiple wildfires throughout Oregon, and we had very smoky air for a couple of days but that too has cleared out too.
We both agree that we are so glad we decided to make this our lifestyle. Living in the 5th wheel is truly having the best of both worlds. Our RV is homey and has all the amenities we had in our house, lacking only square footage. Keeping it clean and organized is the secret...at least for me...of being comfortable and content. We both hate clutter, and we work at keeping the inside tidy. I guess if I have to complain about something, it's that there are usually 3 or 4 pairs of shoes by the door...we just haven't figured out yet how to deal with them.
We have signed up to host again here next July and August and so have Bruce and Janell. We will have our same spaces and I already have plans to plant a little flower bed around the camp host sign. I have one tiny little planter filled with pansies....someone before us had obviously planted flowers in it but they were scraggly and way past their prime.
My Mini was delivered on schedule from Sacramento with it's brand new engine. The driver brought it up after a 9 hour drive and then turned around and returned the loaner the same day. I was amazed that he was comfortable driving 18 hours straight but he said he was a retired fire fighter and was used to working 24hrs and it didn't bother him. He told me he works for the Niello company and they keep 8 drivers busy full-time. He drives all the luxury vehicles to buyers all over the western US. That sounds like a pretty fun job except for the extremely long hours.
Speaking of Mini.....drum roll please....we have a new one!!! Here she is:
I had been looking for a 2014 with low miles for several reasons. Obviously I adore Minis but I wanted one with more horsepower. I originally bought the base model and then wished I had spent a little more and gotten the S, which has 50 more horsepower and sport seats, which are so much more comfortable. I also wanted a navigation system, since we are driving in locations we have no familiarity with. We have been using my car for all our local driving and saving the diesel and the wear and tear on our truck, which is a 2008. We want that truck to last us as long as possible since it would be REALLY expensive to replace.
Whereas my white Mini was pretty bare bones, this Mini has almost all the upgrades that Mini offers, including a very cool rear view camera which comes on whenever you put the car in reverse.
Oh, and one more thing, the Grandma LOVES to drive and so I got a 6 speed manual transmission. I would never have gotten that when I was driving around Sacramento in traffic and rarely on the highway, but it's the opposite now, and we take lots of road trips to sight see on our days off. Even John, who loves muscle cars, says this is one fun car to drive. I figure it's probably the last car I will ever purchase so I might as well get what I wanted. And the icing on the cake...it only had 500 miles on it, and because we are now residents of South Dakota (technically) we registered it there and only had to pay 3% sales tax. Of course, Oregon has no sales tax but they added it on and then sent the registration paperwork to the South Dakota DMV.
We will be leaving a week from today and heading south east to The Cove at Palisades State Park. We have heard lots of good things about the park and look forward to a new view outside our windows. We won't have cell service there, so no Internet, but I'll try and post at least one. It seems we either have TV or Internet but never both!
