Home Resting

Most women think that men are wimps when it comes to pain. I hereby raise my hand. I'm a wimp when I hurt. All this is leading up to a rather poor excuse for sulking around the last couple of months and for not updating the blog. After I hurt my back during the trip down south, I really wasn't having any fun and decided to head home. It might have been just as good to stay down there in the sun, even in my small motor home, since here in North Idaho it's been mainly snowing and now raining.

For the last week or so I've been feeling much better so here's a little bit about what's going on.

Before heading home I decided to rest up for a while since I didn't think the old back could take long days driving. I ended up staying in a "Long Term Visitors Area", LTVA, just north of Yuma. It's an area set aside in the desert where people can spend the winter in the sun. In most National Forests and BLM lands you can only camp for two weeks and then you have to move on. The exception is several LTVAs in southern Arizona and California. You can stay in an LTVA all winter for a $180 fee. The fee gets you a spot in the desert, access to water, a dump station and garbage service. They're like retirement communities with RV's instead of prefab houses. Most folks are from British Columbia, Alberta, and the northern tier states. The majority are Canadians though. A pretty sweet deal actually. About the only drawback is some of the local year round residents like to come visiting for a handout.

Another of the local residents visiting my campsite. Most creatures don't bother me and maybe it's part of my wimpyness, but spiders give me the creeps.... Especially BIG ones!!! And there are some big ones in the desert.

Encounter #1

I did have a couple of rather interest encounters while in the area. When I first entered the Anza-Borrego State Park I stopped at the visitor's center where this nice lady gave me recommendations for camping. You know how sometimes you see someone and they look familiar? That's the way we were with each other. After a bit I had to ask if I knew her. Turns out she was the campground host in Denali when Christine and I were there this summer. We talked with her several times and she helped us out a couple of times while we were there. If I had seen her again in Alaska I would have recognized her right off, but in the desert in California?

Encounter #2

So, I'm doing laundry at a laundromat in Yuma and decided that the donuts shop next door was calling. It seemed to be operated by Mennonites since the women running the place all had black scarfs on their heads and wore prairie dresses. There was quite a line of retired folks waiting to be served. The lady in front of me in line turns around and asks "Are you from Seattle". I said "yes". Then she asks "Is you last name Avakian". OK, now this is getting weird. The only Avakian's in Seattle beside me are my brother and my kids. I replied "Yes, but I don't have any idea who you are". Turns out she used to work with Gail, my wife and remembered seeing me come into the office at times. She has a great memory because we had never spoken before. It was really nice though to be able to eat breakfast with her husband and friends and to share some memories of Gail.

To return home I decided to head up the Oregon Coast and avoid the predicted snow for the other routes north. I again stayed at one of my favorite campgrounds near Yachats.

I bought myself one of those little wildlife or spy cameras a couple of weeks ago. I had a Cabela's gift card that I needed to use. Thanks Donna. The camera is the kind that you set up in the woods and it takes pictures of whatever passes by. There is a spot, just a short distance up the hill from the house, where I've seen lots of Elk "sign" ie, skat, so I thought I'd set it there first. I wasn't expecting much, but this is what the camera caught. Pretty cool, Huh! I haven't gotten any pictures since, but hey, it's bound to happen again.

This is one of the walls in my master bedroom. The door on the left leads to the bathroom. It used to have a folding door like the one on the right. Before I left for sunnier weather in January, I had started to replace the folding bathroom door with a "pocket door" that slides into the wall to the left. It took a lot longer and was more work than what I expected since I pretty much had to completely rebuild that part of the wall. I really like the results, with the knotty alder door, molding and paint job. If your wondering, the desk to the left is for the computer and paperwork. The desk to the right is my amateur radio station. Imagine that, an amateur radio station in the master bedroom! You can tell that I'm not married.