3 March ‘08
Monday
Coffee is brewing, Louise is in the shower, and I’ve just got to get something written this morning. We left Pomona on Saturday morning after getting in line with the coach for our scheduled weighing. It is very important to have the coach weighed at each wheel so that we have a good idea as to how much weight is at the corners…too much weight and it puts a heck of a strain on that tire or tires and it also lets us know if we are carrying a heavier overall cargo as well. Our report card showed us that we passed with flying colors…we were under our maximum gross weight by quite a lot and our balance was within 5lbs. from the left to the right side…we got high praise. Unfortunately this kind of weighing isn’t available just everywhere, so we jumped at the chance when we found it available at the rally. Well now we are on our way to Casa Grande, Arizona for a couple of weeks. We pulled onto Hwy 10 and headed east as far as Ehrenburg, Arizona, which gave us a run of about 200 miles and a familiar campground to stay at for a couple of days. In 1965, Louise and I moved into a new house in Alderwood Manor, which is a suburb of Seattle, and met another couple that had just moved into their new home as well…that was Karl and Nicki Ostrom. In 1969 Louise and I left the neighborhood as I was transferred to Portland, Oregon and unfortunately we had only seen Karl and Nicki once since and that was in 1986. Well we remedied that by finding out that they had a winter home in Lake Havasu, Arizona and try as we could, we finally got together Saturday. We met in Parker and enjoyed a lunch together and exchanged a lot of our past experiences since we last saw each other, family, and old memories of the neighborhood…it was great to see them again. Yesterday was our checkout day, but the winds came ripping across the desert and we opted to stay one more day to let them blow themselves out. This morning the sun is again with us, the temp is going to be in the low to mid 70’s, and “we’re ready”…Casa Grande, here we come.