The Magic Bus

The View from Mary in Springfield

First, I apologize for taking so long to blog. It won't happen again...I promise. We are fine. We didn't drive off a cliff (but got very close to the edge a few times).

We are in Oregon and as it is every time we come to Oregon we have been busy as bird dogs...or Border Collies. My family lives around the Portland area and we have several friends there as well so we spent a week attending parties, dinners, lunches, get togethers and a horse show. It was an eat-a-thon, lots of fun but not too good for the waistline. I surely didn't get to see all of the people that I wanted to but we will be back in Oregon before summer is out and I hope to be able to cover the rest of our list of very important people then.

Last Saturday we left the Singing Hills Stables and the hospitality of the van der Walts in Oregon City and moved down to Springfield to visit the Arcuris at their farm. At the moment Mary is parked in a pastoral setting with a view of green pastures, grazing yearlings and miles of white fences. And she is just a few miles from where she was made.

About two weeks ago (or was it three...I've totally lost track of time) we left Gilroy, California, the garlic capital of the world, and drove north through the hills around Oakland and on to the Siskiyou pass and Mt. Shasta. It was a day of ooo's, ahhh's and "Look at that!"-s. Through our last days of travel and our week parked at Singing Hills Stables in Oregon City we have discovered something about our Queen Mary. Every time we find a problem that we think will need attention from a Monaco technician and we say "Write it down," she fixes herself. Not only that, her magic powers seem to have transferred to the Camry. The words, "Write it down," translate to the vehicles as "Abracadabra!" and POOF! the things miraculously fix themselves. It worked on the door (the seal was working intermittently), it worked on the washer, it worked on the television, the satellite system, the brake light on the Camry and most miraculously it worked on the transmission monitor. Well to be truthful we figured out that if we remember to start the Camry in the morning and let it run until it is warm the transmission monitor stops howling at us and we begin the day sane. There were other magic things too but the point is that this is not only the smartest coach on the road...way smarter than her owners... she is a magic bus too. We had the opportunity to have dinner with the lady who was responsible for us owning Mary two nights ago. I'm sure we bored her to tears with our stories of life on the road and gushing over how much we have enjoyed our magic bus and how great the people at Monaco have been to us. All true.

I'm a little schizo when it comes to traveling in Mary. After we have been on the road for several days I look forward to stopping for a rest. It only takes five minutes to set up once we stop but making reservations at new places every night, finding those places (nearly always something of a hair raising event after Baytown, Texas) and worrying over whether we will be able to see American Idol or not wears on me a little bit after several days of travel. So when we stop and set up for a period of time I'm relieved. But then when we stop we are always busy...crazy busy. That's when I put on my business hat and go to work on collecting mail, paying bills, tracking everything and lately working more on coach paperwork issues. And there's the taxes. I'll spare you the soap box moment on what I think about how the government spends the obscene amount of money that they demand from us each year. It is safe to say that there is no high approval ratings for Uncle Sam. So after we have visited everyone, eaten our way into an additional size of clothing and I've whipped the paperwork back into its cage I'm ready to roll again. Once we folded up our camp at Singing Hills and we got on the road for the short two hour drive to Springfield John and I looked at each other and grinned. "It's great to be back on the road again isn't it?" he asks me. I'm looking down the road at the panoramic view, floating along in my leather reclining copilot's seat with my laptop and camera within reach and Breezy by my side and nod my head. "Yep! It's great!"

Tim and Jean set us up with a private spot on their 100 acre horse farm here in Springfield. It is beautiful and quiet. As she was at Singing Hills, Breezy is in dog heaven going to work every day at the barn with John and Tim and Ryan and hanging out with me in the afternoons while I work away on the computer. Breezy has her choice of several playmates, some of which are her breed, but she has fallen in love with the cutest Basset Hound on the face of the earth. His name is Buddy. They romp and play and he chases her while she works the round pen. It's pretty cute. Since we have been here the weather has been wonderful, cold in the mornings, warm in the afternoons and tons of sunshine. They have made us so comfortable that we think we might just stay here forever. Okay...I'm joking. Actually we are leaving to return to Kentucky tomorrow via Oklahoma City for the Oklahoma Centennial Horse Show. I got an email from Emily Lee yesterday and she said that Kentucky is in full spring bloom and the Keeneland race meet starts tomorrow so we are feeling the pull back to the bluegrass. I will be chronicling our trip back as we move along.

Okay...so I got sidetracked again. It is April 5 and we are on our way home and I have stories to tell. I just re-read this post and it is pretty boring but I promise the next one will be more interesting. Thanks so much to Gene and Annalize and Bill, Tim and Jean and Ryan and Brita for a lovely time and beautiful places to keep Mary while we were in Oregon. And Rickster, we're so happy that things went so well for you!