Blowhole at the waterfront of Xcaret Park near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Toluca on December 24th!

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Our package appears to be on its way this afternoon

We dropped off the part to be returned at the Fedex outlet near Oroville, WA. In the meantime, I was keeping an eye on the tracking details for the shipment we are waiting for.

The part had shipped from Seattle... so you would think it would not take long to get to Oroville! However... they shipped it to Oakland, California first! Then, it flew from Oakland to Spokane, where it is now awaiting delivery by truck to Oroville... scheduled to arrive before 4:30pm this afternoon!

Then, we went to say goodbye to George. There was no sighting of Boid yesterday, and Ruth and I walked the park yesterday morning, and still didn't hear him. We think Boid has moved on, and George was getting ready to do the same thing.

But, while we were searching for Boid, we came across this bald eagle, posing majestically for us!

It flew from this tree to another branch.

They sure do look wise, don't they? And mean!

Maybe mean is not the correct word. Intense, perhaps?

George came over for one of Ruth's brownies, and a glass of milk!

George is an interesting guy. And motivating. And inspirational. At least we think so. He is going to be 81 years old this fall (George and Ruth share the same birthday... November 27th!), and he is still living and traveling in an RV.  Anyhow, imagine that we could continue traveling the way we are now... until we are George's age. We have been traveling for 11 years now. If we continue until we are the age that George is now, we could still be doing this for another 24 years. 

Wow!

We said our goodbyes and we will hopefully meet up again at some point down the road.

We took the bikes off the back end, and went for a bike ride. 

Rode our bikes down to another park... the Deep Bay Park...

Nobody around but us.

Another beautiful day.

Us!

Riding back, we saw a shop beside an orchard. They had a lot of freshly picked fruits, so we stopped in to buy some. Have to be careful not to buy too much because they would not likely let us take them back into Canada.

Ruth, at the interesting market store.

Our purchases. $2.85 USD ($3.75 CAD).

The smaller fruit in between the grapes and the apples are called pluotes... a cross between an apricot and a plum!

Then, we drove into the mountains west of Oroville, towards a place called Palmer Lake. I had seen a free campground advertised at that location. It was only about 16 miles (25 kms), but it took quite a while because the road was very narrow and curvy. But at least it was paved, and not very busy.

Heading into the mountains west of Oroville. 
Looks a little cloudy up ahead!

Scenery along the way. 

Beautiful.

There were a few campsites along the river. 
Also, some BLM land where people were camping.

And some farmland as well.

I bet we could have camped down this road.

No guard rails!

More scenery.

Yep, this will do!
GPS 48.915308, -119.634639

Palmer Lake Campground isn't actually much of a campground. It's more of a roadside pulloff, but at least the road is not busy. The sites are free, however as we drove in the entrance there was a sign that said "Discovery Pass Required". Huh? What's that?

We didn't have any access to internet, so we couldn't find out what the Washington Discovery Pass was. And there were no signs explaining, and nowhere to buy one.

So we just stayed, figuring that nobody would be by mid-week to check!

It turns out that it's a Washington State Department of Natural Resources Pass. It costs $35 annually, or $11.50 for a single day use, and you're supposed to buy it online before you leave the city. Oh well, too late. No way I would have paid $11.50 to park in that particular campground anyhow.

The view was nice, but the sites were not.

Anyhow, we were up at 6:30am this morning and drove back to town for the internet. Our package appears to be on it's way this afternoon... we'll see! Of course then, it still has to be installed! Shouldn't be much more than a two hour job, so hopefully they can do it tomorrow!

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19 comments:

  1. What a lovely town and area. I wonder what the cost of living is there i.e. housing? Dreaming about cooler weather while I bake in Phoenix at 109 degree temps and low 80's at night. A/C running 24/7. Years ago my sister & I ate pluotes we bought near Vancouver, BC. We thought they were a different variety of plums like grapes...some red, purple or green. Anyway the pluotes were delicious. Sister brought back peaches, corn, squash from Utah from her weekend trip there. I made peach cobble right off cuz they were ripe and sweet and we roasted the corn and had it with ribeye steaks...for my birthday on Sept. 5th...a belated birthday dinner. I turned 73 which suits me fine. Too bad Boid wasn't found...the bird of prey close by left me a little nervous about Boid. Yikes.

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    1. BTW love the Marilyn Monroe dvds...think I'll order them. thank you.

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    2. I am sure you could "google" the cost of living and what the average temperature is for Oroville. The internet is full of wonderful and helpful information. :-)

      Happy Belated Birthday to you, it sounds like you had a special day.

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  2. We saw a lot of those eagles when we did an Elderhostel in the Courtenay - Comox region on Vancouver Island.

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    1. Yes, we would expect that there are quite a few in that area.

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  3. Photos are really nice, showing beautiful landscapes/scenery. However, your eagle photo reminds me of a bald eagle I watched everyday, while shrimping in South Louisiana bayous. It was only bald eagle I'd seen there. Eagle lived in lone tree on very small swampy island, near the bayou I would shrimp in. 4pm EVERY day - set your watch - this eagle would leave tree & fly over bayou. Then, it would quickly swoop down into dark, murky water, (you can NOT see past 2 inches). Using it's BIG claws, eagle would quickly soar off with a BIG red fish. Guess, that's where term "eagle eyed" came from. Amazing, that eagle would catch it's supper in just couple minutes. Never saw it catch anything other than BIG red fish! Strangely, watched many fisherman anchor their lil boats, try their luck catching fish, with fishing pole. After couple hrs, they'd leave WITHOUT catching a fish! NO problem for eagle! There was also a BIG 12 ft alligator in same bayou, that came out from a nearby canal (near land) each evening & as I "pushed" my shrimp nets up/down bayou, alligator would swim beside my boat. If I speeded up, he speeded up. He slowed down when I slowed down. He looked like a BIG log floating in bayou. Think maybe, he was checking me out for his "catch of the day", LOL! Glad I did NOT need to jump overboard to cut obstruction out from under wheel! Nature is very INTERESTING & Entertaining! Once, while overboard, in a diff bayou, I knew big gator swam by, bc he SLAPPED me hard on leg w/his tail. I hurried finished cutting junk/rope out & got out water! AND...I had watched water for over 2 hrs BEFORE entering for bubbles, signs of gator in water! But, he WAS there for sure! Just glad, he was not hungry! Hope you get CORRECT part, repairs finished soon! Beautiful area, but sounds like you're ready to move on! At least, you're not STUCK in repair garage - still mobile. Sorry about George's Boyd. Hade SAME thing happen to our bird, yrs ago. He was happy free...but only for short while ;( Thanks, for blog - enjoy reading & pics!

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    1. Thank you Pat! Nice that you got to see the bald eagle on a regular basis. Apparently fish is their main go to food, so that must make them good "fisherman". :-)

      I don't think either of us would be in water that contained alligators, you are much braver than us. It is interesting to watch alligators though, and we would happily do that from a distance.

      We are sad about Boid's escape as well, and the fact that we couldn't get him to return to his cage. We really feel bad for George that his lost his travel mate and that even after sticking around all that time at the park that he was still not able to get Boid to return. We hope that Boid finds his way to someone's house that will feed him.

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    2. A few years ago I was at work when I heard a tapping on my window and it was a budgie! I got a box and went outside even though I had slim hopes that I would be able to catch it. But, it immediately flew down and perched on my finger and I was easily able to put it in the box. I then took it to the Humane Society. I guess it had had its fill of freedom! Hopefully Boid will do the same.

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    3. That is encouraging Elaine. You never know if Boid gets desperate enough maybe he will go to someone for help. George left his details at the park and we know that there were people around that had heard about the escape, so if Boid does show up and gets captured then hopefully they can contact George, who said it doesn't matter where he is he will return for Boid.

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  4. I'm going to look into that Washington discovery pass. That's not a bad deal annually if you use it a few times. We're good to go now with the solar panel and the 4 Costco batteries. No hookups required! It'll be pretty thirsty work tomorrow golfing in the blazing sun but I'll be back here at the car wash Friday and Saturday. Hope to see you then. Cheers.

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    1. Our package arrived and it looks like we'll be out of here by noon if everything goes according to plan. Can we park at your carwash tomorrow (Thursday) night?

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    2. Yep no problem. Be there at noon.

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    3. Sorry for holding you up a bit. It sure was nice to meet you at last. :-)

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  5. I have that eagle's look. It's called a scowl. :)

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    1. Lol, you don't scowl Chris, more like a look of deep in thought! :-)

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  6. Wow. 81? What is the average age of people RV'ing for any extended length of time that you have met over the years? We would like to do it in the future when we are not needed for babysitting our grandchild. That would put us in our 70's and I know travel medical insurance for us (from BC) will be expensive due to existing medical conditions.

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    1. Yep, he is 81 and still going, maybe not strong but he is still out there searching for adventure and loving his life.

      That would be a hard question to answer, we have met all kinds of people RVing long term from people in their 20's right up to their 80's. I guess if we had to put an average age we would say 60's to maybe early 70's.

      I think that when the travel insurance gets expensive many people stick to staying in Canada, mostly in British Columbia where they would find the mildest temperatures during the winter.

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  7. So glad that you two are enjoying your "new" bikes! Hiking is great, but it's nice to cover more ground at a faster clip sometimes, right? I really hope George's bird will be returned to him somehow, someway. I feel really bad about that. It is hard to lose a friend, whether four pawed or feathered, I suppose. :-(

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    1. We love our new bikes and yes, you can cover way more miles on the bike. We noticed the other day when we did a hike along a hike and bike path that we should have taken the bikes instead of hiking but we had done a long bike ride the day before and wanted to give our bums a break.

      We really felt bad about George's bird flying away too. I would have my doubts about Boid being captured and returned to George but you never know.

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