Road Trip!

1300 miles, 27 hours of driving, 130 gallons of gas......that is what it took us to get from Klamath Falls to Salt Lake City and back to Oregon in just three days. Forrest and I went on a road trip to Salt Lake City to empty out the storage unit they have had for the past two years containing what little they did keep before going on the road. 

Most of the stuff was Forrest’s hunting equipment and tools. Throw in a bed, a couple of mounted animals, a TV and a bunch of sentimental items and you have a 10 x 10 area crammed full of stuff. When Somer’s work offered to pay for this trip as well as the U-Haul rental we jumped on it and headed to Salt Lake before they changed their mind! It was 12 hours there and 12 hours back with 2 nights in a hotel. Although it was a long way and a lot of driving, it was nice to spend the time with Forrest. 

The first day we drove almost 10 hours and arrived in Wendover Nevada about 5:30pm. Just in time to hit the buffet and do a little gambling. The buffet was average at best and the gambling was not very kind to me. Although my belly was full I still had a bad feeling in my stomach from the money I dropped into some of the machines.

The next morning we drove the remaining two hours to Salt Lake and went directly to a U-Haul place. They recommend a 20’ truck to empty our a 10’x10’ storage unit but we did not want a truck and settled on a 12’x6’ enclosed trailer in the hopes that we could fit everything in the trailer, bed of the truck and back seat of the truck.   

Of course it started raining right as we arrived at the storage unit but it was light enough not to deter us. We tackled the two heaviest items first; a 900# gun safe and a 400# tool chest. The tool chest was on wheels so we were able to roll it right up to the trailer where we lifted one side in and then lifted the other end in and rolled it in place. The gun safe was a little more challenging as it had no wheels. For that we tipped it on edge and slipped a blanket under it then Forrest pulled the blanket while I pushed from the back side 1 foot at a time. We eventually made it to the trailer.Tthere was no way we were going to lift it in so we slowly tipped it into the trailer on its side and slid it into place. The rest of the load went pretty well as we loaded everything around those two items. 

Of course we ran into snow on the way back, just what you want while towing a U-Haul trailer for 12 hours.

Fun winter driving conditions

Nice to have that chore crossed off our list and move onto other projects. Somer has been busy sanding a lot of the pine for refinishing and Forrest and I have been sheetrocking, taping and mudding the area upstairs where we took out the closet.

Did I mention I hate mudding?

But our biggest and most complicated project was moving a large shed that extended onto the neighbor’s property by about 3 feet. The neighbors want to finish the fence around their property so we set about bracing the heck out of it to hold it together while we move it.

All braced up and ready to move!

Next up was cutting each of the 10 posts sunk into the ground and creating some skids for it to slide on when we pulled it.

Digging out and cutting the posts

The property  line hit about 3' in on the shed on this side

And only a few inches on this side

After digging out, cutting all the posts, bracing it and putting it on skids it was time to try and move it. We put a strap around two of the posts and used a come along attached to a tree for one side.

And another strap on two more posts for the other side and moved it inch by inch checking each of the posts to make sure they were following along like they should. A hour or so later we had it moved over enough to make the neighbors happy!

Easy does it!

Success!

While all this is fun, it is not fun enough so one day Forrest and I went out fishing on the infamous Klamath River. This part of Oregon is known for its trout fishing with some absolute giants roaming some of the area rivers.

Although we did not catch any giants we had a great day. Total we caught 16 fish. The weather was beautiful and it was great to get out fishing again, it had been too long. 

Fun day on the river!

Forrest with one in the net!

We have also been shooting our bows almost every day in preparation for the upcoming turkey season. Forrest has a turkey tag for here in Oregon while Barb and I plan on getting out when we return to SD in a couple of weeks.  

Bring on the turkeys!

Although Barb's birthday was a couple of weeks ago we really did not get a chance to properly celebrate it as we were busy moving the kids in and then she flew to Minnesota. So to make up for it we had a celebration this past week. We found both ribeyes and king crab legs on sale at Fred Meyer and did it up right!

Barb and Lily getting their party on!

Remember last post where we set up the trail camera to try and capture some of the local deer on camera? Well we did end up getting a couple on that camera location but it ends up we did not need to have it as far away from the house as we thought as we had a herd of 9 within feet of the house the other day. 

Right outside the back window!

I did move the trail camera however and was able to capture a rare photo of these creatures wandering the property! 

Sasquatch!

On one of our escapades into town Barb and I stopped by the Klamath Falls Brewery where we shared a flight of beer. My favorite was the Hard Hat Hefeweizen while Barb's was the Backroad Vanilla Porter.

Time has been flying by. Hard to believe it has already been three weeks and we only have a week  left!