We drove back into La Grande to get our mail (we'd checked it yesterday, but it hadn't arrived yet) and, while there, filled up an empty propane tank and got diesel ($4.839/gallon). Then we did some grocery shopping at Safeway.

When we first got to Hilgard Junction and I put our location on the Datastorm Users map like I always do, I noticed someone else in the area. I clicked on the link to their blog and discovered that they are not only Escapees, but also Boomers! I sent them an email, and this morning, Ken and Joanne Parsons stopped by for a brief visit with their motorhome...they're on their way to Washington.

It was nice to meet fellow Boomers!

We drove in to La Grande to visit Thunder RV, the local Arctic Fox and Eagle Cap dealer. We're looking at slide-in truck campers for the time when we get our lot in Sutherlin, Oregon, and can park the fifth wheel there. Then we can travel during the summer in the camper...maybe we'll even take it to the Southwest in the winter, if fuel keeps going up and up (or, we may be forced to stay around the Sutherlin area all year long...that would be a real bummer).

Although Arctic Fox makes a very nice slide-in camper, it's too heavy for our truck. The Eagle Cap campers, however, are lighter and will probably be the brand we'll buy, although we still want to look again at the Host and the Bigfoot 3000 series.

After looking at campers, we did grocery shopping at Wal Mart and had the oil changed in the truck.

Hilgard Junction State Park

We left Nyssa this morning and headed for Hilgard Junction State Park which is located off I-84 about 8 miles north of La Grande.

We stopped in Baker City and ate lunch at Sumpter Junction.

Miles driven: 137.6
GPS coordinates: N 45° 20.4685' / W 118° 13.8398'

Nyssa, OR

We arrived at Simpson's RV Park in Nyssa, OR just around lunchtime.


This is the RV park we've always stayed at every time we've come here to visit my Aunt Ilene. When we first started coming here, the cost was $12 per day or $72 per weeks. It's now $16 per day or $96 per week...still reasonable considering the price of other RV parks. The last time we were here, two years ago, this park was filled with highway workers. I guess the highway project must be still going on, because there were only two full hookup spaces left when we arrived. It looks like most of the people here are settled in pretty much permanently...not the kind of RV park at which we'd normally stay, but there's not much choice around here without driving a long way.

After having lunch at the local A&W, we went over to Ilene's house to visit and have dinner with her.

We originally planned on staying here just two nights, but the weather turned bad and the wind was blowing hard, so we decided to spring for a week's stay, hoping the weather -- and the wind -- would improve before we left.

During the week, we visited with Ilene, ordering takeout from the local Chinese restaurant, Wong's, having pizza one night, and Earl barbecued hamburgers another night. We also took a trip into Ontario, trying to find Earl some new slippers, but didn't have much luck (granted, we didn't look really hard).

On Sunday, we went to the cemetery with Ilene to put flowers on graves. My grandmother and grandfather (my mother's parents) are buried here, as well as their son, Marion (Ilene's husband). Another uncle, my grandmother's brother, is buried here, too, along with his son, both of whom were killed in tragic accidents. Ilene's grandparents are also buried here.

After we left the cemetery, we stopped by the gas station to fill up with diesel ($4.869/gallon).

More Snake River Pictures

Preparing to Leave

Tomorrow we'll leave my (Linda) brother's place and head for Nyssa, Oregon...a whole 50-some miles from here...to visit my aunt, Ilene. Of course, we'll make a slight detour tomorrow morning when we leave to dump tanks in Kuna.

We've had fun visiting with my brother and his family as well as my Mother. Andy took us out for a ride up the Snake River on his boat (he did some fishing, but we didn't have licenses, so just went along for a pleasant ride). We had lunch a couple of times at Mom's house, and we took her out to dinner for Mother's Day at Krung Thai, an excellent Thai restaurant in Nampa.

For most of the time that we've been here, the weather has been cool and windy. The past couple of days, however, have been hot (in the 90's), so we've given our two Honda 2000 generators a workout. It's the first time we've used them for running the air conditioner, but it's the reason we bought two of them, and they've been running our 15K air conditioner just fine.

New Recliners

We headed out this morning on an expedition to find new recliners.

Having looked up the locations of the La-Z-Boy stores in the Boise metropolitan area, our first stop was R.C. Willey in Eagle. While they had the chairs in their warehouse that we were interested in, they only had them in leather which were about $400 more than the fabric version.

So our next stop was the La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery in downtown Boise. They had the chairs we wanted, but didn't have the color in stock we wanted (burgundy). We were just about to leave when I asked the saleswoman if they had "any" recliners in stock in the color we wanted that were light. Yes, they did, as a matter of fact...some leather recliners that were on a close-out special! These leather recliners cost about the same as the fabric version of the other chairs we'd been looking for. So we bought them! We'll come back tomorrow to pick them up.

There was a Quiznos place right next door, so we stopped and had lunch before heading home.

When we got back, Earl and Andy took out the fifth wheel hitch from the truck, and Earl also took out the two generators so we'd have room to put the recliners.

Visiting Family in Melba

The wind was pretty much nonexistent when we got up this morning, so after breakfast, we headed out. We stopped in Kuna to dump tanks at their free dump located at the city park (they do ask for a $2 donation, which we were happy to provide).

We got to my brother's place shortly after lunch, parked the fifth wheel in their driveway and filled up our fresh water tank.

Andy and Kim live out in the country on 10 acres south of Melba. They have a beautiful house, which he built (Andy owns Timberstone Builders, a custom home builder).

Miles driven: 150.3
GPS coordinates: N 43° 19.487' / W 116° 31.965'

We had planned on leaving the Elks Lodge today, but the wind was still howling. I looked at the weather report online and it said that the winds would die down by tomorrow, so we've decided to wait an extra day before we get back on the road.

We went out to dinner at Maxie's Tomato's Italian Grill. We were originally going to try a Thai restaurant, but they hadn't opened for dinner yet. Next door to the Thai place was a La-Z-Boy store, so we went in to see what they had in the way of recliners (we've never really been happy with the ones that came with our fifth wheel).

What we had in mind were wall huggers in leather. The store only had one style of wall huggers in stock, and they were much too big. We did find a recliner that we liked, but the leather version was about $400 more than the fabric version, so we decided that the fabric version would be OK. We wrote down the model number and will look for it in the Boise area since we're going to be there for awhile.