Sunday, August 27, we are now in Harrisburg Oregon. We are in a lovely park here, NOT, only rocks and dirt, the only reason we are here is because this is where the manufacturer of our motor home is. Since the RV Peddler, in Bakersfield, couldn't or wouldn't or didn't fix the problems we had with it Dave called Monaco and made an appointment for them to fix the stuff that needs to be done. We have an appointment for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow for them to start doing the repairs that need to be done. We actually got here yesterday morning and set up camp. Wouldn't you know it when we get to the shitty camp grounds is when we find the friendly and talkative people. The next door neighbor is originally from California, San Jose, but now have a house in Casa Grande Arizona. They go full time RVing half the year and stay home the other half. Next to them is more Californians and across the road is Californians. I guess that just says that the Californians only know about the shitty campsites.
My brother, Mike, called me yesterday and told me Bob Miller was driving thru Albany Oregon and there were a lot of hot air balloons, so when Dave got the computers working I looked them up on the web. Sure enough they were having a hot air balloon festival, kind of, with food, crafts and of course about 30 hot air balloons. The balloons lift off at 6:00 a.m. so Dave and I (Valley too) got up at 4:15 a.m. this morning to drive out to Albany to see them. Albany is only about 24 miles away from Harrisburg, we got there about 5:45 a.m. and walked around. Dave got to talking to one of the guys with a balloon and they asked him if he wanted to help them get set up. Valley and I watched them set up and everyone else too, when they started shooting those flames in the balloon Valley almost jumped out of her skin. After awhile she got used to it, boy does it throw off the heat, which felt nice because it was kind of cold out at that time of the morning. After Dave helped them set up they asked him if he wanted a ride, I told him go ahead and I would be one of the chase cars.

He was up about 45 min. and I followed down the freeway then off to some side roads. When the pilot landed in the field and dropped Dave off they asked me if I wanted to go, but I declined not in the mood I guess. Anyway, the pilot wanted to take his crew chief up and give him more flying lessons, and Dave and I said we would still follow and help them put the balloon away when they were done. By the way, the pilot had another chase vehicle that I had caught up with right before they had let Dave off. After they were done flying we helped them put everything away and talked to them about hot air balloons. They will be in Reno in 2 weeks they said we should come but definitely we should go in October to New Mexico for those balloons. They said there will be 800 balloons then, today was pretty neat with only 30 balloons can't imagine 800 balloons. We told them that we were on a waiting list with Holiday Rambler for a spot in October. Bill, the pilot, said if we come and don't have a spot he has contacts and can get us a parking place. So now we are back to looking at going to New Mexico October 6th thru the 15th, which we really think we should go.
When we got back to the motor home we moved the box that we keep the satellite dish in and there was a snake under it, great, Dave said it's just a little garter snake, great. From now on when I walk Valley around my eyes will be looking all around, and not just for dog shit this time, I sure as hell don't need to run into any snakes.
I think I'll end this blog for now and start another one with the wrap up of leaving Ferndale and making our way here to Harrisburg.
Bye for now.