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July 21, 2006

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Lately, it hasn't been Friday when I have posted my journal. We have been gone that day and so it is with this week.

We left last Thursday with steamboat in tow for Tenmile Lakes down on the southern Oregon coast near Reedsport. We were getting together with some other steamers for a mini-meet and they were expecting about five steamboats altogether. It was a beautiful drive along the ocean and we reach our destination in about four hours. The lake was gorgeous and has about 200 miles of shoreline. There are a lot of vacation homes along the shore and some are only accessible by boat. After launching our boat, Dave discovered another glitch, so we didn't get to steam around in our boat as much as we wanted to. Apparently the feedwater pump wasn't working properly and we weren't getting any water returned to the boiler. So we ended up riding along in the other boats that were there. It was really disappointing. We did not bring along our "owners manual" for the boat, so Dave had to wait until we got back home to try to find the problem. We only have three weeks until the annual steam meet over on the Columbia River, and we have a full schedule between now and then, so there isn't much time to solve the problem and get the boat in the water to check it out.

We had a nice relaxing stay at the Lakeshore Lodge while we were there. For once, Dave made a good choice for a place to stay. We had a great time visiting with the other steamboaters there and hopefully we will make this an annual event each year. We spent two full days steaming on the lake and boy did we get the attention. Not too many people had seen a steamboat before.

We came back home Monday afternoon and have been trying to get things in order before we have to leave again. We have to go into town on Thursday as Dave is getting together with all his old radio cronies for lunch and then we are having dinner with his Aunt Harriet that evening. We are driving separately as he is taking the motorhome in for the races and on Friday I am going to drop by to visit with my mother whom I haven not seen for a few weeks. Then I am heading back down to the coast as the weather is going to be hot in the valley - over 100 degrees. Dave unfortunately has to stick around as he has to announce American LeMans races all weekend.

The're baaack! It's that time of year again and the fishermen are starting to show up in front of our place once more. We haven't seen anyone land a salmon yet, but I have been too busy to pay that much attention anyway. From now on, it will get a lot busier. In another month, they'll need a traffic cop just to control the number of boats out there. I swear, at times they are so thick you can nearly walk across the river from boat to boat.