October 2008

Eugene, OR latitude N 44°01′28″ longitude W 123°08′55″ elevation 787’

This is my last invitation to read a post for a while. We met our initial goal of finding a place in Colorado but can’t purchase that place until we sell our Oregon home. Susan could not bear the thought of spending another winter in the RV. We are back in Oregon until we sell the house. We left the RV and our ATV’s in Colorado Storage. This blog is to become an online journal allowing you to view periodic post at your convenience at http://johnandsusanretirement.blogspot.com/.

Thank you to all who supported our family through the long and arduous adoption process. I sent out a special notification just after the final hearing October 9th Diamond is now officially part of our family. I love the picture of her applying the court seal on the final adoption papers.





The RV Park where we spent most of October is right on the Arkansas River. I finally got to use that non resident fishing license I bought several months ago. We ate a couple of really nice brown trout after my first outing. By my own accounting these trout cost much more than $100 a pound with the license, waders, boots, tube, and etcetera. On my second outing I decided to try out a new inner tube floater I bought to fish these small waters. I pulled it up on some rocks while fishing a shallow hole only to turn around and see it floating down the river a quarter mile away. I couldn’t catch it so I walked back to the truck driving down the river in hope of catching it. I met two guys who had retrieved the tube and got it back. I now have a rope to secure it when I’m out of it.

I was forced to re evaluate my personal grooming habits this month. My hair was at least two months with out a cut and it may have been that long sense I had trimmed my beard. While metal detecting in a Salida city park a teen age boy approached me. This happens a lot, as many people want to know what I’m looking for or what I’ve found. This young man surprised me when he held out a hand full of change. When I ask if he had found it, he replied no, it was his, but he wanted to give it to me. I accepted it and thanked him, not wanting to embarrass him. I got a hair cut and trimmed my beard the next day.

Susan spent her birthday in a Salida hospital with Labyrinthitis. Labyrinthitis is an inflammatory disorder of the inner ear or labyrinth. Clinically, this condition produces disturbances of balance and hearing to varying degrees and may affect one or both ears. Bacteria or viruses can cause acute inflammation of the labyrinth in conjunction with either local or systemic infection. What all this really means is she threw up every time she moved. She is now well and not much the worse for wear.

Much Love,

John and Susan