Outside my window

I don’t know if I mentioned that I am working in downtown Portland now and I am able to do all kinds of “People Watching”.  Our office is right on the sidewalk behind City Hall, and there are floor to ceiling windows, not only completely around our office (including out to the lobby), but also all across the lobby entrance.  So what do I see? Continue reading

Hannibal, MO

I haven’t written for several days because we’ve been working on an inspection of our RV, but this afternoon we took some time off to drive into Hannibal, Missouri from our campground in Monroe City.  There is so much more we would have liked to see, such as the home of the “Unsinkable Molly Brown”, but we only had an hour to look around after having lunch at the Mark Twain Dinette, famous for their Mark Twain fried chicken and homemade root beer.  We went to the historic area where Mark Twain’s home and those of his friends are located. Continue reading

They let me out of the cage!

We got slammed last weekend (Black Friday through Cyber Monday) to the point where I was wondering if I could do this.  At least half the trees we had set up disappeared.  We had a couple employees knocking them out as fast as they could, but unfortunately they were setting them up crooked.  Mark finally took over cutting and drilling and setting up trees, along with flocking.  There was no way he could catch up by himself. Continue reading

From Bartlesville, OK

Last night we slept with the windows open all night, and this morning we kept hearing an occasional Thwok! sound.  We figured out it was a bird trying to get in our window, but we couldn’t actually see him till we sat down for breakfast.  He came right up and sat on our window ledge for probably half a minute or so, having a good look at us as though we were animals in the zoo.  We said hello to him and he flew into the tree next to our window. Continue reading

Still getting in gear

This morning when I first arrived in the office there was a flurry of activity.  People were buying gifts before checking out.  One couple bought nine Ulu knives, the traditional knives that were used by the tribes who lived in the north.  Interestingly, the first time I had seen such a knife was at a Subway sandwich shop in Whitehorse when they used it for chopping salads.  It has a curved blade with a wooden handle at the top. Continue reading

Getting ready to take my act on the road

Mark helped me get my new laptop set up, and he’s working on taking files off our old computer.  Today we had the first garage sale for the summer.  We are in the process of moving into our RV and getting rid of everything that won’t fit.  After today there will be 22 days till we leave, and we are still looking for a home for our cats. Continue reading