We are home at last!!!!

We arrived in Portland in the early afternoon on Thursday. A couple of our motorcade club chapter members, Gary & Claire, were also in Portland visiting their new grandson so they stopped by to see our new coach. We hadn't seen them since last September when we attended the 2010 fall rally they hosted in SW Oregon which was the beginning of our long trip. Six months and a couple of weeks have gone by since then!

Friday morning, after a really great lunch at a Mongolian Grill we found by chance [we haven't had Mongolian food since we left and it is one of our favorites], Kris dropped me at Fabric Depot, the largest fabric store in America with over 20,000 fabrics according to their website. I browsed and touched as many of the fabrics as I possibly could for the next several hours. I even added several to my cart! Lucky for me they were having their anniversary sale and EVERYTHING in the store was on sale! I was pooped by the end of that day but I've had my fix for awhile. I think Kris was pretty tired too. He went to the Jeep dealer, Harbor Freight, Home Depot and who knows where else? I actually finished my shopping before him which doesn't usually happen when I'm in the fabric store, so I found a bench and parked myself until he was finished. We have a bit of a role reversal in that he likes to shop more than I do except when it comes to fabric, I can shop for hours. 

This is just one little section of the store...

We headed back to the coach to rest our weary bones. We thought we might wait and come home Sunday but the weather was looking good for Saturday so when we woke up Saturday morning, we decided to pack up and go. We rolled into our driveway around 1:00 and by 6:30, with an hour pizza break, we were unloaded except for the basement. The best part is it was sunny with no rain in sight!

The house, which looked fantastic when we got there, now looked like we had just moved in with everything but the kitchen sink! We had no energy left to care. Kris spent some time in his shop after parking the coach and the neighbors who had been watching our house for us, came by to welcome us home. Bill, Terri, CJ, Megan & Charles are the best neighbors you could want! Bill picked up Kris's oil every week while we were gone so Kris has plenty of oil to keep him busy making biodiesel for quite awhile. Bill also kept our pool chemicals current, and our lawn mowed ~ it looked fantastic when we got home. Teri and the kids [CJ & Megan] kept an eye on the house, picked up our mail, watered our plants and cared for our cat Rosie [who is now their cat]. They made sure the house was dusted and vacuumed before we got home. It smelled so good when we walked in. They also cleaned up our yard after a huge wind storm when we had several large trees blown down and we can't thank them enough!

I think Gabbi was as excited to get home as we were. She has the run of the house, a lot more space than the coach for sure.

After a good night's sleep in our big comfy bed, Kris was outside unloading the basement in the coach and I managed to put away everything that was brought into the house. Unfortunately, there was a lot of stuff in the basement so I'm back to square one.

It honestly already feels like we were never gone. If it wasn't for this blog as proof, I'd have to wonder . . . although, waking up in the dark this morning, I reached over the side of the bed to turn off the electric blanket and after fumbling around for awhile, realized the control was on the headboard, not the nightstand as it is in the coach. I had to literally stop and think because I thought we were still in the coach! We should have our land legs back within a couple of days.

I would like to say we are kicking back and relaxing for a few days, catching up on all the TV shows we recorded over the past six months, but today Kris is over at his folks' helping them with their tax return and I am getting the registration packet for the spring motorcade club rally ready to go in the mail. Being retired is a lot of work!

It's good to be home!