Back to Tumwater, Our "Hometown"

We arrived back in our "hometown" of Tumwater, Washington on Sunday afternoon. The drive from Moses Lake, WA to our park here was uneventful, but beautiful. Well, beautiful once we got past the dry prairie looking lands just west of Moses Lake. When you get to the Ellensburg area, the terrain begins to get much prettier. As you continue West, you can get a great view of the Cascade Mountain range. We don't take the interstate all the way into Seattle proper. We turn off, south, on Highway 18 before getting to Seattle.

Once we got to Tumwater, we took exit #102 off Interstate 5 to get to our local park of choice. We choose to stay at the Allimor Estates Mobile Home/RV Park. Putting "estates" into the name of the park makes it sound glamorous....and it ain't! Although, when we pulled into the park we did notice some changes had been made in our absence. The owner and manager had installed about 6 new RV spaces with gravel pads. They had also upgraded all the utility hookups, but did not change any to 50 amp. (darn it!) There are two very wonderful RV campgrounds in the next door town of Olympia, but their monthly rate is $200 greater than the Allimor Park, which is $395.00 per month. No question for us then...we stay at Allimor if they have a vacancy. The management here is very nice and helpful. We're happy enough here.

Here is our motorhome parked in space #114. The Safari motorhome parked next to us is the manager's and it is for sale as he bought one of the mobile homes in the park.
The spaces here are anything but large. They are big enough, though, for us to extend our patio awning if we want to do so. Technically, our car is supposed to park in the area out of our front door but there is nobody in the space to the driver side of the RV so we park it there.

Looking down our street you can see the older RV spaces to the right. One of these is where we stayed last winter in all of the snow, snow, snow! Across the street from the RV spaces are mobile homes. Since arriving, we've met a couple of our neighbors and they are very nice. One of the bigger headaches about being here in Tumwater is that you always have to drive out to get propane refills. Last winter we called several propane companies and they do not deliver unless it is a 100 gal. tank. We try to use our electric service as much as possible, but when winter arrives we will rely on the gas heater during the night time. We can use our space heater during the daytime. We have a basement heat pump unit, but when the outside temperatures get to freezing it doesn't operate and will automatically switch to the gas heat. We were here for 5 months last winter and we got our son's and son-in-laws BBQ tanks and set those up as auxiliary. There was too much snow last year to be able to drive out of here. That was very unusual because normally we only get a couple of inches of snow once or twice a year. We're hoping for better luck this coming winter. At this time, we plan to vacate the park and head south to Yuma around Dec. 27th.

Today was a busy day for us as we had medical appointments to keep up with, which was why we needed to get back here last weekend. First of all, we both went to the dentist for cleanings and check-ups. I was fine. :) Bruce was another story. Seems he has 2 teeth needing attention. One is cracked and chipped and needs a crown, and the other one needs a root canal I think he said. Oh, fantastic! Next stop was at the oncologist for Bruce. She wanted to check him again and do a blood test to see if his white and red blood cells had improved. (I originally posted about his condition last Jan. or Feb.) The good news was that his white cell count increased in numbers significantly. The bad news was that the red cells are still an abnormal shape and size and had actually grown a little larger in the past 6 months. The doctor wasn't unduly concerned at this point, but will continue to check him at least every 6 months for the foreseeable future. What this means is that he "could" be diagnosed with a condition known as Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). This is a blood disorder that usually leads to acute leukemia. Not a good thing for anyone, and certainly not a fulltime RVer. It would curtail that adventure in short order. In the meantime, we are living the life!

We need to be here by our kids and grandkids for a few months now. We enjoy a nice relationship with all of them and even though we fulltime it....I need my grandchildren fix every now and again. In the next few months I plan to take photos of our area in Washington and blog about our life here.

Plans for 2010 are:

* We will leave here on or around 12/27/09 and head south to Yuma. We want to get some more window screens and tire guards down there for the RV.

* After Yuma, we will probably go to Orange County for a few days to visit with Aunt Phyllis.

* After O.C. we will drive north to Pismo Beach, CA and stay there for about 5 weeks.

* We will drive back to Tumwater for the month of March.

* Around April 1, 2010 we will head out for Walt Disney World again (I can't believe I'm saying that, but it is true). We will only be there for 2 weeks this time with our son and his lady friend. It will be the 'adult tour'.

* After WDW we are planning to drive west on US-50 'The Loneliest Road' all the way from Maryland to California.

* After that we have no plans formulated. We'll just wing it like fulltimers like to do.

We are notorious for changing plans mid-stream so, really, anything goes with us!

So until next posting.....so long for now!