Rainbirds 2021: Day One

Good morning my friends. We find ourselves at the Valley of the Rogue State Park this morning, just north of Medford, Oregon. It was after dark by the time we arrived at our destination, and so I'm recycling this picture from our last stay here...because there must be pictures.

It was intended to be a short day of driving, and it might have been except for the terrible weather we had all day. We unhappily shared this river of rain with our neighbor to the north in Seattle. It rained hard almost nonstop all the way. And let me just say we can only think there must be a lot of new truck drivers on the road these days. It makes sense if you think about it. If one is out of work, one can go to trucking school and have a pretty good-paying gig in a short period of time. And, goodness knows, COVID has been good for delivery services. I mention this because the truckers were weaving all over the road yesterday (wind was mild, by the way). One practically smashed us between his trailer and the barrier in the median. It puckered us up momentarily for sure. And with such crappy weather, I only took one barn picture on the drive down.

It was a momentary pause in the rain, and a little bit of light shone through the dense cloud cover.

The kitties were happy to be released from the bedroom upon arrival. Once they've had their kitty treats and their dinner, everything's jake in their world. 

Also, they score a new patch of wheat grass for every camping trip. They were all over that while I readied their dinner dishes. And we do have our priorities. Food first, then the catio.

And then, they relax on the quilts provided for their purrticular comfort.

So, I believe the river has run dry now, and we'll have a better day of driving today. We can see blue sky and sunshine. Smitty is taking the first shift on woofie patrol, although we haven't seen any woofies yet.

In about an hour, we'll head out again. We'll be just south of Corning, California, tonight and then on to Bakersfield tomorrow. Friday will see us at our final destination of Pahrump, Nevada, and we'll be there for two weeks.

My shoulder is feeling pretty good...more normal every day. I'm still only at about 75% of what I would expect for range of motion, and it's still uncomfortable most of the time. I brought along a small pillow to rest my elbow on while we're driving, and it turned out to be very helpful. This morning was the first morning I haven't run for the naproxen bottle first thing out of bed, and so I figure that's a good sign. The RV bed is comfortable for me, although it is recessed in the bedroom slide. That means I have to sort of scooch myself back to where the pillow is...difficult to do one-armed. Now that I've done it once, I'll plan my starting spot better in the future. 

I'm a little bummed because I forgot to bring the USB cords for my two Olympus DSLR cameras...the ones I need to take pictures off the cameras. My cameras are older models and so the plugs are not compatible with more modern devices. After checking Amazon this morning, we found we could order one for each camera (different plugs, of course) and have them delivered in Pahrump, so all is well. Also, I'll have an extra set that can live in the RV permanently. Since stitching and sight-seeing won't be given as much priority this trip, I'm hoping to do some photography challenges and I'll need those cords. More about that later.

So these driving days don't give me much news to report. With better weather today, I'll resume my barnstorming photos, and things will begin to seem RV normal.