Saturday June 18th

Morning Glory

Our hotel in the daylight

Sunrise

The breakfast room opened at 6:30 am so I was there then to get my morning coffee. 

Once both of us were ready we went to the breakfast room for breakfast. We had to tell the person in charge what we wanted.  There was a line for the waffles. George had raisin bran which was not in the picture.  Exciting breakfast.

 

It really was 7:58 am but the clock was missing a line.  It threw me off at first.

We wandered through Old Town.

We went in to a small art gallery.  The artist is closing up shop today. I am glad that we got to see her work. Very impressive. Laughing Spirits

Another potter had these baby yodas.

We headed to Steve and Jennifer at 11 am.

It is a very nice house.  We sat around and chatted for awhile.  Jennifer was able to lie down for a bit. Her Parkinson's is definitely worse. George and I drove over to Subway to pick up lunch for us all.  Subway was very close. 

Jennifer's dog Nipsy

Steve drove us over to Perry and Dan's home. Jennifer stayed home. 

Another very nice home.  Both Wyatt and Willa were sleeping when we got there.  

They tie milk jugs around their dogs to keep them from digging under the fence.  A very interesting solution. 

Willa woke up but Wyatt was still asleep when we left.  

Perry, Willa and Dan

Dan, Willa, Perry and Steve

We only stayed about an hour.  George and I headed back to the motel to give Steve and Jennifer a break.  It rained a little, but not very much.  We planned to meet at The Range (as in stove top not home on the ...) for dinner at 6:30 pm.  It had some very interesting decor.

There is chicken under the avocado.  It was yummy.

Jennifer had a hard time at the restaurant, she ate a little but then her back was bothering her so she was walking around. We headed back to the motel.

Albuquerque June 2022

 Rebecca dropped us off at the MAX station at noon.  We just missed the airport MAX but it was not a long wait for the next one.  It is pretty much an hour ride to the airport.  We waved at Nathan's apartment as we went by.  We got to the airport in plenty of time to go through security.  I had TSA Pre check.  I did not even need to show my boarding pass, just my driver's license.  Very slick.  No A concourse any more just B and C on one end and D and E on the other.  Also, they no longer have a connection between the two ends so you have to make sure that you go to the correct concourse. 

Still signs of construction and plans.  I don't know when they hope to have it all completed.  

We left about 15 minutes late which means that we got to Albuquerque late.  But everything moved smoothly.  It was an uneventful flight.  It also was not full.

Look at that rain cloud.  

Yesterday it was 99 degrees in Albuquerque and today when we landed it was 66 degrees and raining.  

Looks like a fun thing to do, as long as the pilot is not also drinking.

We took the shuttle to the rental car place and got our "compact" vehicle, our Ford Escape!! We headed off to the restaurant High Noon where we were meeting Steve and Jennifer. We were delayed slightly because we took a wrong turn and had to recalculate. Sometimes freeways are so confusing.  If you don't get in the correct lane you have to pay the consequences.  

They had appetizer waiting for us.  I guess they had been waiting a while.

My margarita was delicious

Jennifer and Steve

George and I split the Three Sisters Veggie Burrito (Wrapped in fresh flour tortilla.

Filled with zucchini, squash, beans, corn, sweet peppers, rice, and a 3-cheese blend.

Served with chips and guacamole on the side.)  It was yummy.

High Noon Restaurant and Saloon

Cool fireplace in the entryway

After dinner, we went to check in at the Econo Lodge.  We got there at 9 pm.  

Very nice room

I thought ahead and bought this wine in the Made in Oregon shop at the airport.  George forgot to bring his hot chocolate.

Good-bye to the Honda CR-V

 We were selling the Honda to our nephew, Robbie, in Chicago. At first, we thought maybe this would all happen in May.  I think that once Robbie and  Ice thought about it they decided that sooner was better than later.  We found out that it would be shipped sometime the week of the 14th but we did not know when and where we would take the car to be shipped. Monday night we found out that it would be sometime on Tuesday. We had already cleaned everything out of the car, so it was ready to go.  This morning we heard that it would be around noon but still, we did not know where.  Then around  12:30 pm, we got a  call that they would be at the Bi-Mart parking lot in half an hour.  As some of you know, the Bi-Mart parking lot is very close to us.  They would text us when they arrived.  We got the text and so we drove the car over.

I had liked this license plate.  Honoring the Oregon Trail.

The guy who was taking it took a bunch of pictures, I guess for insurance purposes. 

This is the vehicle that it was going to go on.  Ours was the last one he was picking up.

There it is, all ready to go.  

It is supposed to arrive in Chicago on Friday, the 18th. 

Bye, bye, Honda. 

The car arrived safely in Chicago on Friday. Not quite as clean as when it left here.  I hope it serves Robbie and Ice well.

Road Trip with My New Car

Well, it wasn't actually much of a road trip, but we did want to take my new car, Holly, out for a spin.  We picked up Nathan on our way to Gresham.  I hadn't explored downtown Gresham before. We were looking for a restaurant with outdoor seating.  We ate at Nicholas Lebanese. 

I should have taken a picture right away.  It was puffed up twice this size.  It was good food.  

Some cool art

Then we checked out the Japanese Garden and the city park.

Then we drove to the Leach Botanical Garden.  It had some interesting benches. 

Some early flowers

Then we drove home.  I drove out and then George drove back.  It was his first chance of driving my car. It used the electric feature (EV) the whole way there and then part of the way home before it switched to gas (HEV).  There are some little things we have been learning about the car.  George has spent some time researching little things. Like, why couldn't we get sound with the navigation system?  He fixed that, once we got home. 

PS. Cider is growing

New Car

 Our Honda CR-V is a "1997".  Our Honda Civic had been a "2000", but it was totaled in 2019.  We have been a one-car family for a while.  George usually rides his bike.  So, it has worked out fine.  I thought it was time to invest in a new car, which had more safety features and was better for the environment.  I don't like large cars but I thought that I should get something larger than the Civic. Our joints will only be getting older and stiffer.  Many of my friends have Subarus and have liked them so I was looking at the Subaru Crosstrek, a compact SUV.  When we got down to seriously looking we also looked at the hybrids.  On January 29th we actually started looking.  We looked at Subaru Crosstrek Limited and Hybrid, the Nissan Leaf, the Honda CR-V Hybrid, the Kia Niro Electric, Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV), and the Hybrid.  I LOVED the color of the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid but it was very uncomfortable and had almost no trunk. The Limited was also uncomfortable and did not get good gas mileage.  The Honda CR-V was way too big (it is larger than my current CR-V).  I am not quite ready to go completely electric so the Leaf was out plus it was even more uncomfortable than the Crosstrek.  That left the Niro. It was comfortable and the plug-in Hybrid gets better gas mileage.  So, we decided to go with that.  Sunday, we test-drove both Niros. I wanted some color that would stand out.  The only choice was red so we went with that.  There happened to be the only one available in the Northwest, but we had to plunk down the financial commitment right away.  Whew.  We bought the car on January 30th.  They had to drive down to Medford OR to go get it on the 31st.  We went to pick it up on February 1st.  So we got the car with 283 miles on it.  Donovan synced our phones and gave us a rundown of all the features.  I drove it around the parking lot a few times.  Then George followed me home.  

Kia Niro PHEV

They had not put much gas in it so I went and filled it up right away and then we plugged it in. Now I will have to learn how to use it.  Thank you Donovan and Jacob at Ron Tonkin Kia in Gladstone. 

It was a good sign on the day we came home with the car.

They both fit in the garage.  We plan to pass the CR-V on to Robbie.

My friends asked me what I was naming my car.  I haven't done that since my very first car, Limbu (which means lime in Marathi).  That was what color it was.  So, now I have a red car but it is good for the environment - so a "green" car, maybe a Christmas name.  I came up with Holly (red and green).  I tried, unsuccessfully, to think of some name with PHEV (plug-in electric vehicle) in the name.  One meaning of the name Niro is a green plant with red berries.  That would fit with Holly.  So, I guess, HOLLY it is.   

ADDENDUM: 8/19/2022 - I had been planning on seeing how long I could drive the car until we needed to get gas but then George read that that is not good for the vehicle.  The additives in the car can thicken and get gummy.  So we decided to get gas.  George put in 9.7 gallons.  It is an 11.9-gallon tank. I guess we do need to try to use the gas every once in a while. 

 ADDENDUM 9/12/2022 - On August 31st I went out to the car to go run an errand and I found that the battery was dead.  Argh. It took us a while to figure out what was going on.  When we called the Beaverton Kia and they said that they could get us in in October.  The Gladstone Kia could get us in in 2 weeks.  Ugh, but we needed the car now.  Finally, George got the neighbor to come over to jump the battery of the car.  That got it working.  Everything seemed ok.  But then on 9/12/2022, it did the same thing.  George had bought a portable charger so we got it working right away.  But now what.  Then we found a "Service Action IGPM Sleep Mode Operation Logic Improvement (SA 497)" The bulletin provides the procedure to update the software logic of the Integrated Gateway and Power System on vehicles produced between June 2, 2021 and March 8, 2022. It addresses the concern with parasitic battery draw when the vehicle is turned off which can lead to a discharged 12 Volt battery. When we called the Beaverton Kia back and told them about this Service Action they said that we could bring the car in tomorrow.!! I do hope that this works.