Mallard Creek Golf and RV Resort

Mallard Creek is one of our favorite RV parks.  It is located 7 miles outside of the small city of Lebanon, Oregon.  The views from the park are pastoral and serene.  We always enjoy our stays there.  This time we were there from Thursday until today, Monday.  The first night there were only four rigs at the park, including us.  By Saturday and Sunday, there were still only ten rigs.  The rainy weather forecast probably had something to do with the lack of RVs. 

The view from our site at Mallard Creek

Site #19

Our frustrations with our motorhome don't seem quite as dire as they did Saturday night.  We have some things to fix, but it's nothing we can't handle.  We are committed to this lifestyle and hope to continue to be part-time RVers for as long as we can manage.

While Dave was playing golf on Friday and Saturday, I went for a bike ride each day.  One of my favorite areas to ride around is Waterloo County Park.  It's one of Linn County's excellent parks.  The park has partial hookups, not full hookups, but it doesn't stop the people that camp there.  The rates are $24 for partial hookups, with a discount price for seniors 62 and over of $17 per night.  The Santiam River runs along the east side of the park.

The Santiam River on a dark, cloudy morning

I recently bought a new bicycle from Camping World.  It's a full-size folding cruiser (1 speed) bike.  I was having trouble with the hand brakes on my old bike, and determined that they contributed to my carpal tunnel problems.  My new bike has old-fashioned coaster brakes, and so far, I've had no carpal tunnel pain. 

My new bicycle parked at Waterloo County Park, OR

On Sunday afternoon, Dave and I drove to Albany, OR, parked at Grand Prairie Park, and rode our bicycles on the bike path along Periwinkle Creek and around the surrounding neighborhood. 

Periwinkle Creek 

We saw this sign at a house in the neighborhood.  Clever, huh?

Tonight we are at Champoeg State Park, southwest of Wilsonville, OR.  We have reservations here for the next three nights. 

A Frustrating Evening

Saturday was a frustrating day.  It started out fine, however.  A couple of Dave's friends came out to Mallard Creek Golf and RV Park to play golf with him, which meant he was a happy camper and a happy golfer. 

That meant I had some time to myself in the RV, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Finally around noon took my bike to town (Lebanon, OR), parked at the library, and rode my bicycle around town.  Very enjoyable, and even though the sky threatened rain, the thunderstorm held off until later in the afternoon.

I usually leave a load of laundry going in my Splendide washer/dryer when I go out.  This time, however, when I got back from the bike ride, the laundry had stopped just before the spin cycle.  I know how to do the process of opening the door when there's still water (and clothes) inside the machine, and I took out some of the clothes and washed the two loads separately.  No problem, right?

Wrong! Those two loads worked fine, but when I started another load around 7 pm, I decided to wash and dry the load in two separate steps.  Nothing wrong with that, except that the operator (me) forgot to turn off the "easy iron" button.  Well that small operator error mucked things up until about 11 pm.  I finally got online to read the Splendide Support Center site and discovered my mistake.  Today the Splendide is working flawlessly.

To add to the confusion and frustration last night, we had trouble closing one of our day-night shades.  The blind came down sideways and the fabric on the day shade is crooked and bunching up.  Luckily the string didn't break (yet).  After spending several hours last night trying to fix things, we've decided to let a professional help us with this task.

One other random problem that we've been having this trip is that our toilet (which was just fixed because it wasn't holding water) is now occasionally leaking water out somewhere on the bottom of the toilet.  This is not something we can fix ourselves, so when we get home again we'll be giving our mobile RV guy some more income.  It wasn't our plan to give the local economy so much support, but hey, it's for a good cause, right?  We didn't think so last night, but things were brighter this morning, as things usually are in the morning.  Last night we were ready to sell the RV and find another less frustrating and less expensive hobby!

End Times

The kooky Christians just end up making the rest of us Christians look foolish.  Has Christianity now been disproved, as some atheists are saying?  Not at all.  This recent debacle just proves that we all are sinners and need the forgiveness of Jesus.

Finally, a Beautiful Spring Day!

The last two days have been gorgeous with temperatures in the low 70s, sunshine, and not too much wind.  Dave and I went for a bike ride each day and it felt so good to be outside soaking up Vitamin D.  This was the first bike ride we've been able to go on since we got home from our trip to Wenatchee.

For seven days, I didn't do much because I came down with a bad cold.  All I was able to do was sleep, sleep, sleep.  But now I'm feeling much better, just in time for the sunshine.  Beginning on Saturday we're supposed to get some more rain, but at least we've had a dose of sun!

Because of my cold, I had to miss the big WHL hockey game between the Portland Winterhawks and the Kootenay Ice.  But Dave was able to attend, and was able to sell my ticket to a scalper.  Alas, the Winterhawks lost, so their championship season came to an end. 

I took a few pictures of some of the flowers in our yard.  What a difference a bit of sun makes!

Our very own lilac bush! 

A few lilies of the valley--they smell so good!

Our mini-rhody bush--the one that survived

Hockey, Lilacs, and Tulips--all for Mother's Day!

What a great weekend we have had.  On Friday night and Saturday night we watched the WHL Western Champions Portland Winterhawks play the Eastern Champions Kootenay Ice at Portland's Rose Garden arena.  Both teams won their conference championship and are now competing in a best of seven series.  Portland won in overtime Friday night, and Kootenay won on Saturday.  On Tuesday and Wednesday the teams will play each other in Kootenay, B.C., then next Friday, the 13th of May, they will meet again in Portland to play at the Rose Garden.  We are going to try and get tickets for that game.  Our 3-week old granddaughter, Sophie, slept contentedly in her mother's arms through both games. 

To celebrate Mother's Day, Tim and Kiersten (and Sophie) took Dave and me out for dinner at Stanford's at Lloyd Center before Saturday's game. 

Today was a mixed weather day--a bit of sun, lots of rain, and some hail.  Dave and I drove 20 miles north on I-5 to Woodland, WA and went to the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens and the Holland America Tulip Festival.  Both the gardens and the festival had been extended for another week because of the wet, gloomy weather in April.

We took a tour of the inside of the Hulda Klager's  house and learned more about her and her lilac gardens.  She was born in 1863 and lived for 97 years. 

This house was built by Hulda Klager's father in 1903.

One of the many lilac bushes

Then, it was on to the Tulip Festival, which was a treat because we thought it had ended on 4-30-11.

These large yellow tulips were my favorites.

Who is this handsome, smiling gentleman?  If it weren't him, I wouldn't be celebrating Mother's Day today!

This picture was taken of the fields across from the festival.  Note the ominous sky over over the hills in the background.

You know I never miss a chance to take a picture of an American flag!

To cap off this fine day, after we got home our younger son, Jonathan, called to wish me a happy Mother's Day.  It's always good to hear from him!

 GO HAWKS!

Cashmere, WA

My pictures are of the historic Pioneer Village Museum in Cashmere, a town on Highway 2 between Leavenworth and Wenatchee.  For a small town, there are several places to visit there.  The Cider Mill Tasting Room is located just south of town, the Aplets and Cotlets factory tour is right in town and has a gift shop featuring all their goodies, and Pioneer Village is located at the east end of town.   Dogs are not permitted inside the grounds of the pionner village, but RV parking is available.  Admission was $5.50 which included the fairly large museum plus the outdoor grounds which contained all the cabin buildings.

The museum housed a wide variety of displays.

Tomorrow morning we head back home.  We've had a enjoyable time visiting the Wenatchee area!  Thanks for following along!