4th of July Recap

The weather forecast for the 4th of July was predicting unpleasant high winds for the weekend in Coos Bay. Keri and I had not left the area since January, so we decided that a mini vacation was in order, and off to Redding California we went. We also wanted to test out the dog's life jackets in warmer water. We skipped town late thursday afternoon and headed south.

Earlier that day, unknown to us, my parents were having an interesting afternoon. Scott had sliced the skin on his knee open using a hooked razor knife. Because the wound was on the bendy part of the knee he decided it was best to get stitches so that it wouldn't split open every time he flexed his knee. After returning from the work site on the mountain, Barb took him to the clinic to get stitches. While Scott was waiting to be seen at the clinic, Barb dashd off to do some errands. Before she could get out of the clinic parking lot the her van broke down. Not knowing exactly what was wrong and Scott being tied up in the waiting room at the clinic, she called Tripple "A" to have to car towed home.

After being dropped of at home by the tow truck, she quickly took off in Scott's pickup, making a quick stop at the store before returning to the clinic in time to pick up Scott, who had just received seven stitches to the knee.

We arrived late in the evening and an were soon to bed. (Its amazing how much smaller a full size bed is compared to a queen when there are 4 occupants. 2 People AND 2 space hogging puppies!)

It turned out that the van had sprung a leak in the radiator causing coolant to spray onto the belts which caused them to slip of the pulleys, causing the power steering, air conditioning, and alternator to stop working, which caused the calling of the tow truck. Fortunately the nearby repair shop had a similar totaled mini-van from which we were able to salvage the radiator and repair the van. I always seem to get suckered into working when I go on vacation.

On Friday while waiting for the replacement radiator to be removed from the donor vehicle we went to the house of some family friends who were out of town for the weekend to use their pool.

The water was just the right temperature to offset the 100+ degree temps. Coaly and Zephy had swimming lessons from Keri. They both swam well, but were not very enthusiastic about getting into the pool (though I think they enjoyed being wet and cool afterwords in the heat).



We had reservations for dinner in Dunsmuir at a railroad themed park. We ate dinner in a renovated railcar. Keri and Barb stayed at the resort in a renovated caboose, while Scott and I returned to Redding to care for the dogs and cats.

On Saturday got up early in Dunsmuir to take a few photos and to head for Shasta City where Barb had signed up to do a Five Mile “fun run”. Luckily for Keri they elected to do the two mile fun walk.



After Scott and I finished replacing the radiator we spent the afternoon and evening looking at ALL of the family photo albums.



On Sunday we had a leasurly morning before heading back to Coos Bay.