Saturday, July 20, already!  Last night we had a wonderful dinner with several of the cousins AND Aunt LeOra.  Again one heck of a meal put on by Helen…All the fixins…potato salad, fresh steamed veggies, Salt rubbed roast, deviled eggs, and some delicious dessert treats.  And of course all the laughter that comes when this gang gets together.

Aunt LeOra isn’t in the best of health right now, but she hung in there until the end.  At one point she said we were going to have to stop with all the funny stuff…but how do you do that?  It’s impossible with a gang like this one.  One comment leads to another to another and the laughter just build and keeps building.

Aunt LeOra is looking good, but she has to use a walking cane and she shakes pretty badly.  You can tell she is having problems with her eyes as well, as when she looks at you she keeps closing one or the other of her eyes.  But for a 99 (almost 100) year old person she is in pretty good shape if you ask me.

We sure had a great time and the food was wonderful!  Thank you big time Helen and Manard.

So, what is in store for today?  They want to take us to some site around here, but we just want to have a day to kick back.  That will be a hard sell for us as Helen and Manard are pretty determined people.  With tomorrow being a day that we are to pack up and move to Kathies for our next Sunday party and sleep over, I have a couple of things to fix on the coach.  Something that I discovered yesterday.

I’m not a coach or travel trailer “put togetherer” so I don’t know what they use to get the glass to stick to the hinges of the windows, but during our hot travel through the desert areas, we had the windows partially open to give us some air and during one of those runs, the rear window came out of the hinge and is now impeading its opening and closing.  I have it parially open right now and when a car goes past quickly it flops.  I need to get it fixed today.  Also, we have been tagged by the local Marin, drive by egg patrol…Mike pointed that out to me as they were leaving last night…little A-holes!  Manard said they got him a couple of nights ago. That has to be cleaned off today.

Also, we had a visit by the local police last night.  I don’t know if someone turned in the egging or if they were just up in this area patrolling, but they turned around so that the lights would shine on the side of the coach.  They stopped as if looking at the egg splatter…perhaps one of the neighbors has told them we have stayed past our 72 hour window for parking on the street…who knows!

People are funny out here or at least not like people back home…They all drive Caddy’s, Mercedies (sp) or very new looking other brands.  The least expensive vehicle we have seen is our own.  But I must say, at least in this neighborhood, they look out for each other (and the rules of the home owners association).  We were sprucing up the back yard yesterday, an area outside the fence and on city property, and when we were putting it in the truck a guy pulled up to snoop to find out if we were picking up trash or dumping it…that’s ok I guess.  Concerned for sure.

Speaking of trash, we heard a bunch of coyotes the night before up on an “open space” hill very close by. They howled and carried on for several minutes, and to be in the city like this I was quite in awe that they would be living here.  I asked Manard about them and his explaination was that the local “animal rights people” have them protected and even if they come into your yard and snatch your cat or dog off his leash, you can not do anything about it…they were here first!

I told him that if MaPa’s was to be a victim of a coyote, I’d sure be trying to find a way to take that coyote and every other one I could find out!  He said that in this area alone, they have seen coyotes, bobcats, cougars, turkeys, deer and every other concievable wild animal around here and every one has been seen during the day.  That tells me first off there are too many of them roaming around, and secondly they have become too accustomed to being around humans.  It’s no wonder we read about joggers being taken out by cougars in California, my hopes on that is that the one getting taken out just got out of a “do gooder” meeting.

So, this morning I, me, myself, get to cook our breakfast. Helen has done nothing but stand in the kitchen the whole time we have been here, either cooking or cleaning up the dishes.  This morning it’s my turn.  Eblskeivers, eggs to order, hash browns and bacon.  None of this “kieshie” sort of stuff, although I must admit yesterdays breakfast was very, very good, today we are going down home with the meal.  Meat and potatoes and pretty much all you can eat.  Kathies two kids, Zach(16) and Alish(12) are here to help clean up whatever I put together and neither one (I think) have had eblskeivers.

Gotta go!  Vacation times flies when you’re having fun!

Bears Butt

July 20, 2013