Heading Back to Portland

Boy we’ve been busy.  We’ve been running around at shopping centers and casinos with Terry’s mom.  We’ve also been visiting lots of different restaurants.  Since she lives alone we thought it best to get her out and run her ragged so she wouldn’t just sit at home waiting for her stitches to come out.  She had gotten pretty depressed.  The problem is that we haven’t been running her ragged.  It’s been the other way around.

Then, we were back at the casino after her stitches were out.  Aargh!  Terry doesn’t care if he ever sees the inside of another casino.  He thinks standing behind someone at the slot machine and watching for four hours is just two long.  He’s done that twice now and says … NO MORE. 

There are lots of fun Christmas toys out there.

We’ve also helped his mother finish up her Christmas shopping.  We were thankful that the gift wrapping tables were set up at the mall otherwise we knew we’d be wrapping them.  The malls aren’t so bad since she only visits a few stores like Pottery Barn, Nordstrom, Coldwater Creek and Godiva Chocolates.  It’s the time that’s spent in each store.  Now if it had been Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics, we might have been more enthusiastic about the shopping.

Yesterday we made a stop at the Tempe Outlet Mall and were surprised to see the huge JC Penney’s Outlet going out of business.  That store has always been packed with lots of good priced goodies!  The items really aren’t just Penney’s items.  You find items from Kohl’s and many other stores. In addition to it being an outlet, items have been marked down and marked down and then priced at 50% less than that.  I needed a swim suit.  I bought 4 without trying them on … just in case.  Two of them turned out to be perfect and two not at all.  However, each swim suit was $2.49 each, a reduction of about 97% each. 

Friday we had our six house batteries replaced in our motorhome. We had hoped to be able to pass the two fairly new ones along to others.  However, with a $30 per battery core charge, we figured others were better off buying new ones. It’ll be interesting to see if we can tell a difference in how long the new batteries hold a charge.

We all know plans tend to get changed more often than we like.  Friday night I got a call.  My brother’s not doing so well.  So … Saturday morning I’m back on my way to Portland. I’ve certainly discovered things rarely work out as planned.


‘Tis life on the road.

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.