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March 18, 2022

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Here it is the middle of March all ready! Spring will be officially here next week and I am so glad. Now, if the rain would just stop, so I can get outdoors and do some work out in the yard.

We had quite the road trip last week. Wouldn't you know that we had planned this trip for over a month and then the price of gasoline skyrockets! Anyway, we drove into Portland on Wednesday evening and stayed in a motel on the east side so we could get a start up the Columbia River Gorge to be in White Salmon before 11:00 a.m. We hadn't been up that way for years and the Gorge was beautiful, no wind and the sun was out so we could see the mountains. We stopped in White Salmon to pick up our original wills and Dave's parents wills at the attorney's office before we headed north to visit Dave's cousins. Pat has a cattle ranch and she had fixed us some lunch. Her sister, Connie and her husband Gene met us up there too, so we had a nice visit with all of them.
On the way, Dave stopped to take a photo of where he had his car accident when he was much younger. So many memories of when we would go up to the ranch and visit with his aunt and uncle and cousins. Now, the parents are gone and our generation is the older one.

On Friday, Dave had his next chemotherapy treatment at the VA, so we spent the night in town again. Dr. Graff was there and she talked to Dave about his progress and his prognosis. His PSA has slowly been receding and he is half-way through his chemo treatment. She has another option for us to think about. It's something the FDA has yet to approve but it should be out for the public to use soon. We will see.

After our trip to the VA, we headed over to Lara's as we wanted to go visit with Jaysa. She is still in the "Eating Disorder" home and family visiting is every Friday afternoon. She is half-way through her treatment and seems to have learned a lot about eating habits. She was so glad to see us and we enjoyed seeing her too. After that, we drove down to Salem to see Leslie and her family. We had a nice visit with them and then drove back to our hotel in Beaverton.

We spent that night in town because - early the next morning - we were taking the train to Seattle for the Northwest Steam Society annual lunch and meeting. We left the car parked at the Sunset Park and Ride in Beaverton and caught the MAX train for downtown Portland. Unfortunately, we didn't transfer to another train when we should have and we had to get off several blocks from the Amtrak station. So, we had to walk about six blocks to the train depot, walking through "tent city" (homeless camps) to get to the depot! It was quite an experience and I am glad it was early in the morning as not many people were up yet.

We made it to the train depot with time to spare, vowing to take the correct MAX train back to our car when we returned. On the Amtrak, we had our breakfast of an egg and cheese sandwich which was nothing to write home about. The sandwich had been ready-made and microwaved, so all the cheese melted and stuck to the paper it was wrapped in! Otherwise, our trip was pleasant and we got to Seattle and flagged a taxi to get us to our destination in time for our meeting.

On the way home, we had to wait at the Seattle Amtrak station for a couple of hours before our return trip to Portland. It was dark when we arrived and I wasn't looking forward to walking among the Tent City residents while we were waiting for the MAX train to get us back to our car. But, we didn't have to walk as far as we did the first time and we caught the correct MAX. We did have to transfer once we got into down Portland but that didn't take long. By the time we got back to our car it was 10:30 (or 11:30, depending on whether clocks had been set to daylight time) and we still had to drive to Forest Grove where we had made reservations to spend the night in yet another hotel. When we arrived at our destination in Forest Grove, the doors to the motel were locked and the lady on the other side of the glass would not let us in without a reservation (which we said we had. She said we didn't). After arguing back and forth, we decided to just forget about it and drive home. It was 1:00 a.m. before we got home! Of course, we lost that hour because of Daylight Saving Time. What an adventure it was but we were so glad to be home.

Other than that, this week has been relatively quiet. We have been on the phone with the TurboTax people because we got a letter from the IRS saying we owed them money for our 2019 taxes! We filed them through TurboTax and the IRS should have taken the money out of our checking account, but we can't prove that TurboTax even received them, although we do have a letter from them that sort of indicates that they did get them. We're just trying to get them to pay us for the penalty and interest that the IRS charged us and of course TT doesn't want to pay it. So, round and round we go!

And finally, a few weeks ago, I hinted that Dave had something up his sleeve regarding a train. Well, it's model train and he has finished the project and posted the video on YouTube. It's one minute long and here's the link if you care to watch it.

Well, I hope everyone had a nice St. Patrick's Day and you wore your green so you didn't get pinched!