Eat, Ride, Rain

Greetings Earthlings!  At last I have a few paltry photos to share, along with some narrative.  Monday we had dinner at Dave and Vicki's, with Kim and Jim.  KandJ are in the area for a couple of weeks.  It's been awhile since we've seen them, so it's good that they're back.  They were the first people we ever knew who lived in a motor home.  I never would have predicted that we would follow in their footsteps.  NO one saw that coming!
Kim brought a caesar salad bar.  Knowing that I have the palate of a three year old, she very kindly left the anchovies and capers on the side.

We were able to sit outside on the deck.  It was so pleasant.  We have excellent friends, all of whom cook better than I do.

Yesterday we rode out in Carnation Valley.  It was a beautiful day.  Not too hot, not too cold, just right.  This is the always lovely Sikes Lake.  If you look out into the distance, you can not see the mountains.  We had a lot of smoke from the fires.

Today it rained like heck.  Generally this area doesn't get heavy rain, it mists for weeks on end.  Today we had thunder, lightning and torrential rain.  We killed some time this morning playing on Google Earth.  This is the gravel pit down the street from us.  If you look at the top of the picture, you can see a corner of a housing development.  One wonders how close the boundaries of the digging will get to the Highlands area.

Then we looked at the RV park where we are staying.  This is a google street view from 2011.  See the man standing at the back of the pick up truck?  He was our neighbor in 2011.  He had an unfortunate habit of lighting cigars, laying them on the picnic table and then walking away.  Anyway, our 5th wheel is parked next to the 5th wheel on the end with the white van parked in front.  We weren't home when the picture was taken.

Eventually we had to go somewhere.  So we went to Bellevue Square, which is a covered mall.  We spent some time in the Microsoft store looking at Surface laptops and Windows 10.  People who are saying it's just like Windows 7 are, IMHO, mistaken.  It's different.  My hands are going to have to learn a lot of new stuff.  It was pouring.  There are many road closures in Bellevue, and this poor officer was having to stand there and direct traffic.

After the Microsoft store, there was the camera store.  My Lumix G2 has been obsoleted.  This is my new object of desire.  It's the Lumix G7. It's amazing how much smaller and lighter it is than the G2.  It feels very good in the hand.  Allegedly it shoots amazing good video, which is not something I do a lot of.

We left the mall just in time.  Traffic everywhere was unbelievable.  Ours was the only freeway direction that was not parked.  There's a football preseason game tonight.  Between that and the rain, the commuters are doomed.

In other news, are alla y'all keeping up on the progress of the Godzilla El Nino coming our way?  This winter the GPNW will be warm and dry, southern California and the general SW are going to be wet.  Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.