Down the Rabbit Hole One of the reasons we sold our house and moved into a motorhome was to have more time to do exactly what we want to do - rather than taking care of a house. Well, there is just NEVER enough time! Not when computers are involved. I decided to redesign an old website yesterday and it's like I disappeared into a black hole. I'm coming up for air for a moment here to post to this blog. The bad part is, you can never tell by looking at it how much time it takes. Here's the old and the new side-by-side. As soon as I finish this post, I'm going back to it. ooops, not yet ... Jim says I really MUST take a shower! Hurricane update: Thankfully, Frances lost a lot of power before it hit Florida - so, it wasn't as life-threatening as it originally appeared. But, it's still huge with lots of wind and rain. Most people we know have been without power for several hours now. My Mom had a tree fall over and take out half her deck - luckily it fell away from the house. I find it interesting to note how RVs can be good in a storm ... our friends who live in their motorhome packed up and left Melbourne on Thursday and just kept driving. So they, and their home, were well out of harm's way when the storm hit the RV park full force. My Dad, who lives in northern Florida escaped the last storm in his camper-van but decided to stick this one out. He will use the camper's generator to keep refrigerators and fans working when they lose electricity. Then there's us ... we, and our home, are 3,000 miles away from Florida. :-) Nice day huh?

Turtle Rock That's the name of the RV Park we're in at the moment, but it's named after a real rock that looks like a Turtle. Whaddaya think? We went for a walk on the beach this morning Then we gave a seminar Then I went to get a haircut while Jim did some more troubleshooting and helping folks in the park get connected. Getting haircuts on the road is a problem. It's a girl thing. Jim always looks the same whenever he gets a haircut ... wherever he gets a haircut. I don't think he's ever had the same person cut his hair more than once. I look completely different every time I get a haircut. Sometimes the way I look makes me feel good, sometimes I want to go crawl under the covers and not come out. Even when you go to the same person and they learn to understand your hair and they learn to understand what you want each haircut can be different. So, I am always reluctant to get a haircut. When we're on the road and you have no idea where to go, I'm doubly reluctant. So, I have now waited until that point where I just scream, "cut it all off, I don't care what it looks like, I just CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!" All I really care about is that I have a pleasant experience. And today I did. Jim got the name of a hair salon from Dee while he was helping her install a new Wi-Fi adapter ... is that a nice husband or what? always thinking of me! So, I followed the directions to KJs Hair House and entered a small room full of laughter. I was instantly at ease. A man about 65 named Jim cut my hair while his wife was giving a perm to someone else and at least a dozen people stopped by to say hi during the half hour I was there. This was the quintessential small town chatterbox type of hair salon and I learned a lot about Gold Beach, Oregon. Apparently this had been a boomtown during the days of logging. Jim worked in the lumber industry. When he got laid off for the 2d time he decided to find another line of work. His wife was a hairdresser, so he went to beauty school to learn about the business and join his wife. From Lumberjack to Hairdresser! There's gotta be a movie in there somewhere!?! I also learned that they plan to move to South Carolina because it's getting too expensive to live around here. People retiring from San Franciso Bay area are selling their homes for 750,000 and thinking that 200,000 for a cottage here is a bargain. Well, that $200,000 home was considered a $50,000 home by those who have lived here a while and they're getting priced right out of the area. Oh Yeah ... and I got my hair cut! It's a lot shorter than I'm used to but I think he did a good job. Hey! What do I care?!? It's out of my way and I don't have to do it again for a while! Next task is to find a dog groomer. Odie and I usually get haircuts about the same time!

Weather We're on the Oregon coast and its a little windy. We're keeping our awnings in. But, this is nothing compared to what is going to hit Florida in another day. Hurricane Frances is HUGE! We lived in Florida for over 20 year and I know we never saw anything like this ... not even Andrew in '92. Check out weather.com for the latest. I'm so glad we're not there and don't own a house there now. And, I'm so worried about all our family and friends who are there. Many of them have been thinking about evacuating - but - where do you go? Unless this turns north real soon now, it's going to cover the whole state. I loved the story from Lynne during the last hurricane - they took refuge in a bar that declared itself a 'hurricane shelter'. And, had a special on hurricane drinks! Here's the bar we took refuge in last night: Today we gave our Wi-Fi seminar to the staff here at Turtle Rock (I didn't take any photos .. oh no!) It was very well received. We were told that the amount of information was 'just right'. we try to give solid information about how all this works without overwhelming them with technical details. We'll do some more tomorrow. We're thinking about all of you in Florida! We love you!

Greetings from Gold Beach Oregon God! I love this. We started today with a walk by the Coquille Lighthouse in Bullards Beach. then we drive a while down the spectacular Oregon coast ... We're getting close when we cross the Rogue River. And, here we are at Turtle Rock RV park - a member of the Coach Connect Wi-Fi system. Within a half-hour someone walks up saying that she is interested in using her laptop on the Internet and the staff at the office told her to come talk to us! Jim trots off with her and installs a Wi-Fi adapter in her computer. She's off and running and the RVer next to us now wants to know how we did that! This is such cool stuff! On a sour note ... we paid 2.149/gallon for gas today! A cool $100 bill to fill our tank! Well, you might say, I'm sure you have a big tank ... that will get you far. Well, we do have a big tank ... but at 8 mpg it still won't get us very far. We'll get a little over 400 miles on that.

Movin' On We said our goodbyes and headed back down the coast. Now here's a sign you don't see in Idaho! We stopped at an overlook of the Oregon Dunes. What a gorgeous day! We crossed lots of bridges - here's the one at North Bend. We decided to stay at a State Park tonight ... Bullards Beach. State Parks are usually very nice with lots of trees ... uh oh .. lots of trees - we might not be able to get Internet. Oh well, we can live without it for one night .. y'never know it might even be fun. Whaddaya know, the Datastorm dish found the satellite right thru the trees! We still decided to partake of the evening's educational presentation. It was about the history of the area and it was held in a Yurt! These round tent-like structures descended from Mongolia are apparently quite popular in campgrounds these days. Inside the Yurt: Hey Lynne! Did you know that the original name of the town of Bandon was Averill?!? Anyone you know? G'night. We're off to Gold Beach and Turtle Rock RV Resort tomorrow for some more Wi-Fi stuff.