17-31MAY09 - Monroe, WA

On Monday, 18MAY, Dan left on a two day business in Santa Rosa, CA. This allowed him to drive by “our” old house in Novato, CA, located on the abandoned Hamilton Air Force Base. Unfortunately it looks like half the beautiful Spanish style houses, with all oak floors, hand tiled fireplaces, tile roofs, wrought iron fixtures, are empty and slowly falling apart.

Upon Dan’s return the Seattle area began to experience some great weather. The month of May demonstrated the fickleness of Seattle weather. The rain that fell in the first half of May made it the 3rd wettest May on record; even though the second half of the month was completely dry and set records for high temperatures on some days. In fact, Memorial Day was the first dry one in 12 years! But remember some Seattleites call June, “Junuary”.

Since we are often the only ones in Monroe State Fairgrounds RV Park, we hang out with camp hosts Bob & Karrie when not working on our property. One day they brought home a new puppy, Beasley a Papillion terrier. Beasley thought Gumbo was just one big chew toy, and wouldn’t leave him alone. Gumbo would tolerate Beasley’s antics for several minutes and then snap at the puppy. This would send Beasley running and hiding for about five minutes, only to come back and start aggravating Gumbo again. One day a million dollar Prevost custom RV showed up at the campground. We have seen a few of these in our journeys (and we are not impressed), but this one was truly different in that it had custom “spinner” wheels on all six tires! Proof once again that having money doesn’t equal good taste.

Saturday of Memorial Day weekend cousin Paul Peters, Shannon & the boys, Spenser & Ryan, dropped by the RV before the big races right next door at the Evergreen Speedway. We’re talking monster trucks, figure 8s races with school busses, boat demo derby, roll over contest, Mr Dizzy jumps a RV in a RV, and fireworks! It sounded so good, that after snacking on brats, chips & dip, Dan joined them at the races. Memorial Day Monday we headed over to their place for a relaxing and enjoyable BBQ. During this time we continue to do maintenance work on the property. The latest lethal farm machine we are using is called a bush hog (aka rotary cutter).