Maintenance Day in Portland and Carl and Chiluly in Tacoma

Portland and Tacoma  Tuesday – Friday  June 18-21, 2013

After the relief of “crank day”… Wednesday was  “maintenance day”.  There was still enough small jobs to keep us busy all day.  So far we have only 2 “chronic” problems… the new brake system Dave bought for the truck while it is being towed has some electrical “issues”… He bought some MORE parts at an auto store today (Saturday) and is on a first name basis with the gal  at tech services. (I call her “Jake”.)  Hopefully he will get it fixed in the morning.  He definitely wants to have it working before we drive into the mountains next week.  My segway has gotten a “frowny face” several times right after I go down hill… we think it has something to do with the batteries but it is fairly inconsistent and we can’t quite diagnose the problem.  The result is I go very s-l-o-w-l-y…. just like  I walk!! 

The picnic table littered with Dave's tools!

For our friends in Charlotte and Greenville…. We’ve been delighted with the weather.  Though it has rained everyday, it has also been sunny.  And we are wearing sweaters and “spooning” to keep warm at night.  We finally broke out the heater on Friday.

 

We ended our time in Portland by driving into town and checking out the apartment Dave has rented for Clay's Bachelor Party.  The neighborhood looks great, but Dave is trying to figure out how he can avoid biking up the many hills!!  We revisited our favorite sour beer pub (for Deb) and then Clay suggested we walk across the street for great IPA's for David.  It's hard to find a bad pub/brewery in Portland!!

Dave calling Clay for IPA suggestions

Thursday morning we moved to a campground on Gig Harbor.  We were hoping for a quaint fishing village…. Ummmmm,   not so much.  But the campground was nice, though it lacked David’s coveted fire ring.  It was a good base for going into Tacoma and continuing to test out and clean out the RV.

Friday, we spent the day in Tacoma.  We went to revisit the Chihuly exhibits and got enthralled with an Eric Carle exhibit at the art museum.  It was similar to The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, except it was the “art art” of Eric Carle.  Deb could have spent hours there!  Though he is American, he was conscripted into Hitler’s army to dig trenches while living in Germany!  His explanations of his love of color and technique were fantastic.  Unfortunately we could not take any pictures in the exhibit.

As we walked around, Chihuly was everywhere.  We had fun rolling around Tacoma on our segways.  Unfortunately Deb’s didn’t like the  hills.

Chihuly's in Union Station