On Tuesday, my to-do list went out the window and was replaced by a new one. Charlie said he had found us two nights at La Pine State Park Campground. For Wednesday and Thursday nights. There were only two sites open, and for two nights only, so he grabbed them.
I had been really looking forward to going camping this summer, so I was excited to go, but a lot had to be done in very little time. Menus needed planning. Secretly (or openly) I was hoping we could stay another night, so I wanted to plan for that, just in case. We loaded up the Pod on Wednesday morning, but we had to wait to leave, because it's only about 30 miles from our house to the campground, and check-in is after 4:00 PM, so we had plenty of time to get ready.
While we were driving, the dogs expressed their excitement. Here's Sandy, being excited.
Dusty doesn't enjoy the ride as much, but when he realized where we were going, he started whining and yelping. Here's Dusty, being bored with the trip, before he realized where we were headed.
After the camping season last year, we bought a frog thermometer. It attaches to the window with suction cups. You can read it from inside, although it's hard to see if sun is coming through the window. Then we use a flashlight, so we can still see what the temperature is outside. We take the frog off when we move the Pod. I think it's cute. The frog theme represents the Forest River company, maker of the r·pod, FROG being an acronym for Forest River Owners Group. (You can see the frog mascot in the decal above the window. He's looking through a telescope.)
After our two nights in North Loop, we were able to find a spot for one more night, but it meant moving to South Loop, much denser, but with full hookups.
We call this our shakedown cruise, the first trip of the year. It's when you find out what you need to take but forgot or when you find issues with your equipment that need fixing. Last year, I couldn't get the preheat function for the convection microwave to work. When we got home, I decided to call the company to get help. We plugged in the Pod, so it would have power to run the oven while I talked with the company. I ran through the steps, just to refresh my memory about what was wrong before calling. It worked! We decided that it just needed to reboot, which happens when you disconnect the power. I read that some people were upset that it was hard to get to the outlet behind the oven where it plugs in and went to great lengths to get into the cabinet to unplug the thing. I realized (perhaps because of the way I discovered the solution to the problem), that all you have to do is unplug the entire Pod (or trailer) from the power source. Much easier! (Even if it's raining.)
All this was preamble to our lovely meal Friday night: Salmon burgers with salad and olives. The preheat program worked flawlessly.
While we were still in North Loop, we saw another r·pod, an RP-180, a couple of sites down from us. We had a nice chat with the people who owned this one. (r·pod owners call it sPodding, when you see or spot another r·pod.)
We sPodded another one when we moved to South Loop. It's a newer one, about the age of ours, but I'm not sure of the model; perhaps another RP-180?
We had put up some shelves a couple of weeks ago, but we decided they needed brackets to rest the tension rods on, because the cornices over the windows were not the same height. I would need a wide-angle lens to show the other end, to the left. That end of the shelf rests right above the cornice, where the one on the right is a couple of inches above. We wanted the shelf to be level, not sloped, of course, so we decided we needed brackets.
Charlie ordered some, and we took the shelves down for now. I think that will solve most of our storage problems, but we want to do something with this wall. That "hat rack" is really a TV. We don't use it much as a TV, because we rarely have reception, although I think we could plug the laptop into it to watch our DVDs. I think a couple of hooks above the TV would be good for hats, and then some kind of shoe organizer below it, you know, the kind with a pocket for each shoe.
The campground location lived up to its reputation with the pups for being a great place to have fun, which explains why Dusty was so vocal about his excitement when we took the turnoff to go to the campground. We spent some time daily at the dog exercise area, which is huge, throwing the ball and chasing it, but what Sandy really, really loved was getting to the beach on the Deschutes River. There's one spot where the current is broken by a downed log, creating sort of an eddy where the dogs can play and Sandy can swim. Both of them like to chase sticks, but Dusty won't go out far enough to swim.
On a hot day, there's nothing like cold river water to drink when you're thirsty.
If Daddy throws sticks out into the water, it's even better.
Sandy is a real water dog, just like Rocky. He's still learning the proper dog paddle, but he loves it!
There's nothing like a long hike and a good swim to make dogs (and people) ready for a nap.
Another hike, another nap.
While we were at the beach on Thursday, we met a woman with four kids, who were swimming in the river. They didn't mind sharing the beach with us and the dogs. We chatted, and I offered her a copy of each of my books, if she would come by our site after we moved the next day. She was especially excited about Emil, the second book, because that's her husband's name. They were also staying in South Loop. I told her Site 20, and she said she would stop by. When she came on Saturday morning, she brought me this lovely keychain fob. She and her family have a huge 5th Wheel, and she brings her embroidery machine along when they travel. I gave her the books, and now I have this lovely keychain fob.
When we were getting ready to go camping, I wanted to bring my knitting project, of course. I was just at the point where the next step was grafting the shoulders and cutting the armhole steek, then pick up stitches for the sleeve. I brought my special shears along, and on Friday, I finally had the time, quiet and guts to do it.
I got as far as picking up the stitches around the armhole before we moved to South Loop. Now I'm several rounds into the sleeve. I had brought my 6" dpns along to use, but when I realized they were a bit too short for this many stitches, I switched back to my circular needles and Magic Loop.
For most of the project, I struggled to read the chart, because our printer only prints in black and white. Many of the colors and symbols for the different yarns used are barely any different from each other, and the resolution of my copy isn't great anyway. Finally, I decided to go into Stitch Fiddle (an online free chart maker for knitting) and make a new copy of it. Here you can see the difference. The arrow points to one really difficult section, where the symbols are the same, but the background of the square is either red or blue. It's indistinguishable. It's going better now.
It made it easier, and it was nice to get some knitting in, especially when it was very hot on Friday, and we had air conditoning.
We used the Walk for a Dog app from Woof Trax when we hiked. This was Thursday's hike, our only full day with no moving the trailer. We hiked a total of about 8 miles during our camping trip, or about 2.67 miles/day. We didn't cover the ground very fast, because we spent a lot of time either at the Exercise Area (shown on the screen shot of the app) or at the beach, which is located at the lowest part of this map. I'm sure the dogs put in more miles than we did.
Each evening we watched a movie, using my laptop and the small separate DVD player. Power wasn't an issue, because we were connected. We watched Sideways, The Dish and The Contender over the course of the three nights. All three were great.
I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: In this rerun, Veronika is planning to take a cruise to the Bahamas, but the cruise is canceled because of a hurricane. The dolls learn about hurricanes and the damage they can cause, as well as how to deal with disappointment in The Cruise that Didn't Happen.
<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7365001/?claim=kkvctsdtf4n">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>
