Klamath Falls

Cheeky Kid – Part One

First some background. We live on a street that has 2 one way lanes separated by a 30 foot section of grass. In New Orleans where Donna grew up this grassy section between the pavement was called a Neutral Ground. In downtown Aiken, SC where we lived for 30 years, when this style road happened we just called it a median. Here in Klamath Falls we don’t know what they call it because it is the only street in town constructed in this manner.

In the other two places mentioned above the city took care of these grassy areas between the streets, here who knows. There is a sprinkler system in place up and down the street and the grass gets plenty of water, so in the summer it needs mowing once every couple weeks and somebody does do it. We have lived here for two years and the first year I don’t remember who did it, I think somebody from the next block up. This last summer the kid who lives across mowed it. Yesterday we got a letter in the mail from him:

December 30, 2021

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Bogardus,

My name is John Doe and I mow the center divide for all residents in the 1000 block of Pacific Terrace. The fee for 2021 is $49.50 per homeowner, which includes my fee of $400 and a Spray & Grow Fee for $95.00.

Please remit payment to me for the 2021 upkeep of the center divide in the amount of $49.50.

Thank you.

John Doe
1098 Pacific Terrace
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
541-555-9999

To be continued…

8 mile ice cream run.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 4

 

Another Moore Park Monday

Like last Monday, and most others, we went to Moore Park to go for a walk along the paved trails. Today was nice enough to take the Miata again. After walking, we drove down to the main drag through town to visit our favorite Greek restaurant to pick up gyros for dinner to eat while watching Monday Night Football1. And with the nice weather and in town speeds after Arby’s, we even dropped the top for the last couple miles home.

11 mile trip around town.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 3

 

Moore Park Monday

We try and go for a walk everyday and we usually shoot for 2 or 3 miles, but sometimes when it is really cold we might just get a mile in. There are a couple of different walks we like to every week and one of them is to drive over to Moore Park to do a loop of the paved interior road on winter days like today (other times of the year we use the extensive park trail system.)

Today it was not too cold, but we had to limit our loop because of the snow cover still on the park roads, so we ended up only walking a mile and two thirds. The regular surface streets in town are free of snow, so we drove over in the CTBNL.

7 miles, Moore Park and back for our afternoon walk.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 2

 

Konquer Kovid in Klamath Kounty Kontest

A couple weeks ago while NFL football on a Sunday I saw a local commercial for something called Conquer Covid in Klamath. I know after places around the country and the world are offering prizes as inducement to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but didn’t realize they were doing it here too. So I signed both Donna and I up to be in the contest.

I have no idea when the contest started and there are weekly drawings for the “smaller” prizes and a Grand Prize of a new Dodge Ram or Durango at the end. We both were vaccinated back in March, so who knows how many weekly drawings we have missed out on. Unless of course the weekly drawing is for just those entered during that week, and in that case, we didn’t win a prize.

I guess there is always a chance on the grand prize or one of the 3 runner up prizes, a hot tub, a Disneyland family vacation and $3k. Of course who knows when the contest ends because, like the start date, there is no mention of it in the rules. If they are waiting until every one in the county gets a shot, they are never going to have to give away the “big” prizes, right now the county is at 55% for one dose and 49% fully vaccinated.

My favorite aspect of this contest is a little link at the bottom of the main page:

I’m not vaccinated and want to enter.

 

It is Winter Time

While still technically a couple weeks away, it is winter here in Klamath Falls. It has been highs of 40s and lows of 20s for a while now and we even had freezing fog Thanksgiving weekend that covered everything in our neighborhood with a thin blanket of white that lasted most of the day. Starting today, for the next 5 days, there is a chance of snow. We even got a brief glimpse of the flaky white stuff on the end of our afternoon walk today, zero accumulation, but still…

Last year when we first got here, both in the AirBnB and our house, we treated the winter as an exciting, fun event. We would go for a walk or drive in it only if we had to. This year we have come to the realization that we really do have to prepare for living in the here and now of the season called winter.

Last year when driving around in the Mini we did OK on it’s all-season tires, but we were locked into staying pretty close to home because going in any direction, within 30 miles, we were greeted with elevation gains and the requirement of chains or some Severe Snow and Winter Traction tires. Yesterday we ordered a winter tire/wheel package from Tire Rack. Any day now the Mini will be rockin’ some 195/60 Bridgestone Blizzak WS90s on 15X6 MSW Type 22T wheels in Silver.

Last year when walking about we just made do with our hiking boots, mine were water resistant and Donna’s had no protection from wet. This year we have decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy some dedicated winter boots. So, yesterday we ordered some and any day now our feet will be rockin’ in waterproof style. For him, the Men’s Firecamp Boot in Madder Brown/Red Jasper, and for her, Women’s Ice Maiden II Boot in Cordovan/Siberia.

2020 Klamath Basin Scavenger Hunt

This was a week long event, put on by Friends of the Children where teams had to go all around Klamath Falls and take a selfie at various interesting or historic places. The entry fee was a $25 donation to a good cause (generational childhood poverty) and it sounded like a fun thing to do. There were daily door prizes and three Grand Prizes at the end, but they didn’t really matter to us*, because most of them were not our style prizes.

There were 42 challenges and we submitted pictures for all of them. On day one, Friday, we captured one, it was the farthest away at a place called Lake of the Woods about 35 miles northwest of us. While we were there we also walked a couple miles along the High Lakes Trail and back to find 4 geocaches. Saturday we walked downtown and back and picked up three more. Sunday was a very cold day, so in between NFL games in the afternoon we walked just a few blocks to get a couple of very local challenges. Monday was a short loop walk to grab three more that were close by. Tuesday we got in the Mini and travelled to the 9 that were really too far away to walk to. Wednesday we did a 5 mile walk all over downtown to capture 18 objectives, almost half of the overall total challenges. We finished up on Thursday by taking 3 at home, 3 by driving around in the Miata and one by walking up the hill behind our house.

You can see all our photos in the gallery I have created here on my page or if you are so inclined you could always go to the event Facebook page to see ours and everyone else’s who participated in the fun.

The picture above is probably our favorite of all we took, but we didn’t use it because the challenge said “A Blue Zones-approved restaurant and take a selfie eating there!”

*Good thing too, because we didn’t win any of the prizes…

Sunday Crossword

We still get the local paper delivered to our house. It is a small town paper that publishes 4 times a week (down from 5 from when we first got here.) Most of the national news content in there is old by the time we get the paper and some of the local news as well, but we like supporting the local businesses. It is cool to know where the for sale open Houses are and who is having a Yard Sale, although we usually will only go to them if we can walk there. Plus, I’m old school in that I like to read my comics printed on a piece of paper I can hold in my hand. Donna likes it so she can do the crossword puzzle, the Jumble and & Little Words (sometimes I get to help.)

As with most newspapers, and practically anything, you occasionally get some random weird errors. Perhaps because of times we are going through now the errors seem a bit more frequent. Reprinting the same comics pages, puzzles or articles on consecutive days, announcing events on the day after they are available and mis-aligned color printing so that every picture seems fuzzy.

<━ This past Sunday’s we got a new error. The crossword puzzle was printed already filled in! Guess who had to scan the puzzle, erase every letter (about 450) and then hand number where the answers went for her. ━>