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Lebanon, Oregon, United States
We are Terry & Cathye Kinkelaar. If you've followed my blog in the past, you know that Lydia, my beautiful wife of 52 years, and I made the lifestyle choice to move to Oregon in 2017. You've seen my posts about losing her in May 2020 to cancer. Although I was left alone, I am pleased to say that I have found happiness again. In April 2021, I met Cathye, who also lost her longtime husband in 2020. Well, we fell in love and were married in April 2022. So, if folks are still interested, I will continue to post here as we move forward with our lives and adventures!

Friday, September 14, 2018

Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #120 – Birthday Wishes and RV Expenses


Tuesday, September 11th, 2018……  Today was a fun day for me. I received a ton of birthday wishes, via phone calls, texts and emails. Lydia even got some via her Facebook account. Thanks to everyone!!  Kirk came by today and he and Caleb worked more weeds along the driveway. They also finished the brush pile in the back of the rv garage. Later in the afternoon, Penny came over and took us to dinner at the Depot (my choice) in Albany. When we got there, it was raining pretty good but it was dry as a bone at home. We got the rain a few hours later and it rained lightly off and on for most of the night. It’s the first measurable rain of the season. Remember – it hasn’t rained up here for over 90 days – a record! It is supposed to last through Thursday. That’s good since we are planning on heading up to the Portland Zoo on Friday.

Wednesday, September 12th, 2018…... Today we had nothing planned. Truth be told, we are both still feeling the effects of the virus we had. We both have been drinking plenty of fluids and we’re taking it pretty slow until we get our strength back. Lydia stayed in her pjs most of the morning, just lounging around, watching tv. I took the white tornado out to give her some exercise but we stayed close to the house today. I’m still waiting to hear back about the rv. Last call was that I needed batteries (total of 6 x $150.00). They then will still have to run more tests to see if that got the 12v feed to the fridge up and running correctly and the cooling unit functions. Fingers crossed – that’s a $2000+ hit!  Lydia asked me to go get something for dinner and I chose Bigfoot for burgers. They have huge specialty burgers and they are really good! We just don’t go there that often for some reason. We ate them while catching up on the last three of the Shades of Blue episodes, including the series finale. We also watched America’s Got Talent so we’re caught up on that. We are also trying to catch up on Master Chef. Those are two hour shows and we are several weeks behind.  Earlier in the evening I got the call that I didn’t want – they put in the new batteries and ran their checks; the cooling unit fault code is still coming up. They have to get to and run through the next steps, but they think the cooling unit is going to be the problem. They are in the process of finding prices.  I didn’t tell them, but I already checked - rebuilt units go from $325.- $625., brand new from $700.- $1300. That’s just the cost to buy them. They will inflate that price plus add their shop/install rates ($55.00hr). Again, we are in wait and hold.  We do have another option - to go through a complete removal and install a residential fridge - but as much as we'd like that, we’re passing on that option. Simply because of the added expense and also they would likely have to temporarily remove and reinstall one of our slideouts because we don’t have a window (or door) big enough to get a fridge in of that size. And that doesn’t account for the fact that we may need to upgrade our batteries (unlikely) and/or the invertor. The major thing is we don’t think this little shop can pull that off without issues.           

Thursday, September 13th, 2018…...  I slept great last night – once I got all of the fridge issues out of my brain! I got up energized and ready for a day of doing stuff! Lydia hung around the house all day again but I got out and got breakfast then started in on working on some hanging storage for the rv garage. After I got that done, I got out the tractor and went over the recent area where Kirk removed the brush, trying to level it out and knock down the grass I couldn’t do before. I also picked some more grapes. They are really tasting good now! Tim told us to get picking just after a cold spell. Well, since the rains came in, the temps went down into the mid-forties last night and the night before (it’s been in the mid-sixties in June-July and then in the mid-fifties in Aug.-Sep. at night), so I did a test taste and they were ready! Now we need to start picking! I also spoke with Kirk today. I asked him if he could let Rylee out tomorrow mid-day when he comes to pick up our tractor (for his Monday mowing job). He will also feed her so we don’t have to hurry back from our Portland Zoo/Pittock Mansion tour tomorrow. Later in the day, we made a Walmart run and picked up a few things for dinner, which we ate early and then settled in for the night, watching tv until bedtime.

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