On the last day of July, Jan Miller a friend who worked with us in Westport in 2013 came for a short visit. We had lunch and spent a couple hours catching up, she lives a couple of hours away.

It was finally August!! Donna and Brian left August 12, I will miss Donna, she was a Southern gal, we ate Boiled Peanuts together.
Maggie was drinking more and more water and  not eating that well, her stomach made noise, decided we should take her in and get some bloodwork done. The results were devastating.....she has age related kidney disease! The doctor wasn't positive, but thought she might have a UTI and put her on an antibiotic and told us to change her food to kidney disease food. We did and she wouldn't eat it.  I was texting Jacob everyday about Maggie, he told me to cook her some brown rice with chix breast, she ate it, but threw it up during the night.  We were worried!
Marlee turned 11 on August 18, Maggie was very sick. On the 21st we took her back to the veterinarian, she saw Dr. Bruce, he gave her fluids and a nausea shot. She still wouldn't eat....I cooked her everything I could think of....she would just turn her head away. It was a very difficult time, she wouldn't eat, I would cry. and pray. I could hardly eat myself, I knew she was suffering, but we weren't ready to let her go.

CELEBRATING 53 YEARS TOGETHER

Our anniversary was Sunday, July 8, so we planned on celebrating Monday by going to Olive Garden for  lunch.

It had been a while since we have eaten at Olive......Yuma this winter.....it was very good!
Afterwards we went to Sutton RV in Eugene and looked at 2018 Landmarks......we were just kicking a can, but of course, we fell in love with one.....the Madison. It has a large  front living room.

It has a nice kitchen with resdential refrigerator. 

The bathroom is  larger than ours, and we loved the seats in the shower.

Storage was a real problem, because the living room is in the front, you lose quite a bit of storage in the Underbelly. We were going home to measure! We liked it that much. 

On Tuesday, our second day off, we went to Camping World and Best Buy to look at new Garmins. We ate lunch at Sizzler, it was very good. We were surprised to find a Cabelas near the Sizzler.

On Wednesday we went to Cabelas and Kohls and I got Panda for lunch. Darrell bought me a pair of Zirconium earrings at Kohls.

Went back to work Thursday, two months and we will be done here. We are counting the days!

Happy to say it has finally warmed up here, in the 90's and if feels good.

We bought a Roku stick and started streaming with Direct TV Now, we enjoyed that a lot, because local TV is  not very good here, it keeps fading in and out.
On Sunday, after the Rangers, Christie and Teresa, walked through the campground, they brought me these flowers....so sweet! The note says, "Found this in Site # 20, might have been left on purpose. Enjoy"

One of our campers here told us about Ken's Sidewalk Cafe in Canyonville. She says they have the best burgers, french fries and  fresh berry shakes. We decided to drive over and see for ourselves.

Our campers were right! It was delicious!! We drove to a small park in Canyonville and had lunch. Maggie and Marlee enjoyed their little outing!

GET TOGETHERS, FOURTH OF JULY

Bill and Penny are the volunteers who take care of the Park on our days off.  There are  seven couples living in the Park who do various volunteer jobs.

PENNY

BILL

We weren't able to spend much time with the volunteers, because when we were off they were working and when they were off we were  working. One evening while Bill and Penny's grandchildren were visiting, we got together for a marshmellow roast.

Carl and Mary were leaving in July so they had us all over for scones and donuts one morning before we all went to work.

Before we went back to work and before Brian left for work, he's a Tugboat Captain, Donna and Brian  had us all over for Burgers.

We did a little decorating on the booth for the Fourth of July weekend.

It was a busy 4th of July weekend, we posted our "Campground Full" sign for the first time.

Mark retired July 6, but just as Mark promised, we were full every weekend for the rest of the summer.
Blackberries grow wild in Oregon, and the park is full of blackberry bushes, Everyone says they are delicious, they are in bloom now. You have to be very careful picking though, the Poison Oak is also everywhere in the park.

SHERRY'S VISIT

My friend, Sherry, lives in Tacoma, Washington, about a five hour drive from here, when I told her we would be here for the summer, she promised to visit....and she did!  She just got a new Cooper, Daisy,  and was anxious to get it out on the road. We played tourist in Cottage Grove, walked around the town and went into a few shops. We got a kick out of this sign with their hours listed, loved the "ish", wonder if that would work for the COE.

Cottage Grove has earned the title the "Covered Bridge Capital of the West". There are six beautiful covered bridges within a few minutes of downtown. We went to find them.....

All that bridge finding made us hungry.....we headed to Eugene to find a burger and beer. Sherry isn't much of a beer drinker, but she was willing to give it a  try.  Steelhead Brewery had the best burgers, beer and wild mushroom soup!!

The next day we visited the Cascades Raptor Center in Eugene, a raptor rehabilitation center and wildlife hospital in Eugene.  There are 50 permanent  inhabitants, it was interesting!

It was great to have some "girl time" with Sherry! We had a ball driving around in her mini Cooper! We would see other Coopers and call them Daisy's cousins.

TRAINING ..........STARTING WORK

Training started Monday May 14.  We met the Gate Attendants from Pine Meadows and the Rovers.  The meeting was held at the Forest Service building,  just a few miles down the road. We met more Rangers and met Cody, who will take over for Mark when he retires in July.  We met at 9:00 and finished at 2:00.  We will have one-on-one training with Mark, Tuesday through Thursday and  our first day will be Friday, May 18. Mark is an awesome trainer and although there is a lot to remember and learn, we are feeling confident. The software is very user friendly.
In visiting with my neighbor, Donna, I found out we can get Century Link for our Internet here. I called and got it set up. We put our Dish account on vacation.
On Friday, our first day, Mark came over and we opened the Vault, there were 32 envelopes in it, the most Mark has seen in the ten years he's been doing this. He and I processed them on the computer. At the end of the day we balanced.......only 71 more days!!

We must have done OK that first weekend, Donna, the Ranger wrote this in the Log on Sunday.

I planted a few pots full of annuals. 

I wasn't sure how the plants would do, we don't get alot of sun in this tall forest.

The Rhododendrons are blooming!

I forgot how beautiful they are!!

It took us about a week to realize we are in a  sap dripping forest! Our truck was covered in sap, you could hardly see out the windshield. Our neighbors told us this is a Douglas Fir Forest and it leaks sap all summer. We washed the truck and was surprised the sap washed off fairly easily. The RV was the same, so guess we will spend part of our summer washing the truck and RV.

We met June and David along with Randolph and Diesel, their two Great Danes, they sold their house quicker than they thought, so were looking to buy another,  they stayed with us intermittently 

throughout the summer.

Beautiful dogs!

We work Thursday through Sunday with a two hour lunch....we like that!!

The job is somewhat stressful, we have a lot of homeless folks living in the park, some are very nice and want to follow the rules, others are  a little "OFF"  and do not think the rules apply to them. We were always glad to be able to turn the sign back to "OFF DUTY".

Eugene, a larger city is only a 20 minute drive.....on the way over we noticed this sign.....

We found this seafood restaurant in Eugene, this little restautant was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

I tasted clam chowder for the first time.....it was delicious!

COTTAGE GROVE.......SCHWARZ CAMPGROUND

We would be meeting Mark, the  Head Ranger, who had been our Contact Person for this job. at Walmart, it took about 3 hours to get to Cottage Grove.

Mark  was very nice, but nothing like I expected!  We have had many conversations over the last two years, and I felt like I sorta knew him.  He led us out to what would be our new home for the summer. He also told us he will be retiring in July.

This is the Gate Attendants Booth, where we will be working.

Our Large Site.......

As large as this site is, it took Darrell  quite a while to get the RV into it's space.

We met a few of the Volunteers, they seemed friendly and nice.

The next day Mark came out  showed us around the Booth, gave us our Training Manual  and we get our two sets of keys.  We are on the Row River, the Dam is above us. Mark drove us around  Dorena Lake. We also met three more Rangers. As  hard as Darrell tried we could not get a Dish signal and only one bar on my phone, we had Internet, but it was soooo slow. We had a few days off before starting training on Monday.