Week 37 - Sept 1 - Sept 7, 2025 Oregon City and places to the east as we travel to Michigan

My birthday was on Monday which was labor Day....coincidentally I was actually born on Labor Day in 1946, a bit of trivia my mother always liked to bring up.

The Sunday before Sept 1, the whole family sang happy birthday to me while we were at dinner at Jessica's.  Warren had made me a lemon cake which had a lemon pie imbedded in it.  The story behind this cake is at follows;  sometime in my childhood my favorite dessert was Lemon Merengue pie.  Prior to one of my birthdays, my mom asked me what kind of cake I wanted.  I said I wanted a lemon pie.....what I meant was I wanted a lemon meringue pie, but I was little and said cake instead of pie.  Mom said she was puzzled because she'd never made a lemon cake....but....whatever my little princess wants, she gets.  At the moment of bringing out the pie/cake my face fell and I burst into tears.  "I want the other thing"  Anyway that is the story.  So Warren made one of each!!

MONDAY - my birthday.  My mother always joked that I was born on an actual Labor Day while she was in labor with me. 

To begin the festivities we went for a little urban hike in Oregon city's own Newell Creek Park.  It is a nice place with easy trails  we walked to the waterfall which is about 1.3 miles.

We'd planned to go to Busters because I like to eat the brisket there...............but, surprise, it was closed because it was Labor Day.   Finally ended up at Gladstone's in Gladstone which turned out to be a perfect place as there was room for everyone and something to please everyone.

TUESDAY - I got the second half of my root canal done!  I was very thankful that Terry Isom did it for me.

We wanted to leave  as soo as I got back from the endodontist.  But I happened to hear a weird sound coming from the camper.  Dad checked it out and realized that the propane was not getting into the camper so the refrigerator did not work.  He went to the RV place on 82nd and they told him he could get an appointment in mid October.  Well, that was no help.  We looked and looked and found a mobile RV Repairperson who would come "just as soon as he finished up a job at Silver falls State Park.  The guy did come about 8:00pm and he determined that our battery was dead and not allowing the "spark" to ignite and cause the refrigerator to work.  At least we knew what was needed.

WEDNESDAY - at the crack of dawn Dad was at Batteries+ when it opened for the day.  He bought a VERY good battery, brought it home, installed it, and we finally took off, headed for Orem and Ivan.

Somewhere, as we neared Utah, Dad figured that truckers were flashing their lights at us.  So we stopped at a rest top, raised the camper, wiggled the wires....and miraculously the lights started working.  Dad is so resourceful.   We took off the camper so he could wiggle the wires on the big cable that hooks up to the truck, and bingo, the lights worked.

We didn't get to Ivan's until....maybe midnight, drove into the driveway and crashed.

THURSDAY - we were up early...honestly I needed Ivan's help with my photos and my ability to click and paste them into this blog.  After we had to update the laptop, the photo feature in the laptop stopped working, and I had to source the photos in a very complicated way.  I was not happy...but I knew Ivan could fix up.  Took my laptop in and set it up while explaining to Ivan my problem.  for some reason, my laptop and photos and blog and everything worked perfectly!!!  I will accept a miracle or a tender mercy or whatever!

Then is was lunchtime - time to celebrate.  We went to Super Chix - good choice.

We got the chicken sandwich with avocado slices.

And got the custard (ice cream)

Soooo-it was time to leave and let the Utah family carry on with their lives.  We (well me) want to get to Colorado a different way than we have used before.  So, we headed up Provo Canyon to Heber and got on US Highway 40 and headed all the way to Colorado.  We got as far as Craig or maybe Hayden when found the only rest area in northern Colorado and spent the  night.

  FRIDAY - we headed to Boulder, Colorado to visit with my brother.  We drove through Steamboat Springs, and I would have taken a photo of the Big Agnes headquarters, but I never saw it.  The town looks like a combination of Lake Tahoe, Lake Oswego, or a mountainous village when people with a lot of money have a second home.  The drive was beautiful - through high mountains over passes 

and into the valley of Denver with a cloud of haze hovering over the vast city.  It was almost like driving in LA, but I could see mountains in the distance.  

Finally got to Jan's.  The lake is still in his backyard.

We had snacks on his back porch and talked and reminisced but mostly wished we had asked more questions about our parent's lives or that they had shared more info with us.

Here are the Lund siblings...ready for Memories on Family Search.

Time to go -to head to Nebraska where we waned to visit Scottsbluff Natl Monument and Chimney Rock Natl Mon.  I was a relative uneventful drive.  Lots of farm land, with sunflowers on the sides of the roads.  We crossed the border near Kimball, Neb and looked for the rest area which on the AAA map was noted as a green triangle surrounded by a green circle which means it should have been a Rest Area on an interstate highway with full facilities. Hmmmmm- turns out there was only a sign that said Truck Parking.  We took it and spent the night in a huge graveled lot with a bunch of semi.  We counted 16 big trucks in the morning.

FRIDAY - we were up early and headed to Scottsbluff, Nebraska - gotta see the bluffs and chimney.  

As we were peacefully driving north, an emergency engine light cam on the dashboard.  DANG!  got to Scottsbluff and to a AutoZone store where they read the readout.  Something nasty wrong with the transmission...I guess.  So now I sitting in the "Parts Lounge" updating this blog.  We'll probably be spending the night in the Chevy Team parking lot.

Just down the road is a sugar beet factor which makes sugar from sugar beets.  When whenever we open the door, we SMELL BEETS!

             

Come dinnertime I didn't have the energy to cook anything.  So...we walked down the main highway, past the factory, to this little Mexican restaurant           

      

The food was pretty good.  We got a mixed combination and sopapillas and sodas.

   

                       

On the way back to the parking lot we saw this sign for a body shop.  Apparently there is a lot of damage done by hailstorms.  We also noticed that ALL the new cars, in the parking lot where we are camping, are under permanent open air canopies - not going to dent those new cars.

!

Paintless dent repair, also known as paintless dent removal, describes a method of removing small dents, dings, and minor collision damage dents from the body of a motor vehicle. A wide range of damage can be repaired using paintless dent repair as long as the paint surface is intact.

SUNDAY - a long day awaited us.....waiting in the camper.  I read, knit, practiced, read, knit, practiced.....played on phone.  eventually we decided to go on a walk.  Online, Dad found an ice cream shop which sounded really good....about 1.3 miles away...so off we went.  Turned out it was awful.  Open 2:00 to 6:00.  Finally the proprietor came,,,a little old man (and we know old) who was nearly totally deaf.  Service was only drive through ...actually it was walk through through an open window on the gravel/dirt.  There was a photo on an old chart of a banana split with bananas and three scoops of ice cream.  I ordered that with my three choices of flavors.  "No banana", he said.  Ok, then I'll take a sundae, three scoops in a bowl.  "Sundaes are only one scoop".  Ok, then I'll take Rocky Road.  In a bit he came back with a styrofoam cup with my Rocky Road.  Dad was luckier he got two scoops in a cup.  There was no place to eat it, so we went to the back of the building and sat in the shade, leaning back on the building, next to the dumpster.  It worked, but really, the ice cream was not all that good.

Still disastisfied we noticed a little tienda across the street...yep a Mexican grocery  store and bakery.

There was food and bakery items and frozen ice cream treats, and a complete supply of cowboy boots.  Reminded us of the little stores in Kazakhstan.

The ice bars were pretty good -better that the ice cream shoppe -but the baked goods were....hmm...we should have known, we've been to Mexico before.

Another long day waiting for the truck is over.  Tomorrow, I'm sure the transmission on the truck will have been repaired.