Stuart Holiday Letter 2025

 Stuart Holiday Letter 2025 

Camping, camping and more camping! We managed to get in seven camping trips this year, almost all of them in Oregon, and we’ve only scratched the surface of the possibilities in this state. In April we met up with Charlie’s brother, Jim, at his home in Florence, Oregon, and drove down the coast to camp at Sunset Bay. In May we went by ourselves to nearby La Pine State Park for a few days. In June we camped at Stone Creek at Timothy Lake. Jim joined us, but not without an adventure by himself: He took a wrong turn onto a Forestry Service road and got lost. He was stuck in the woods overnight, but he drew a map of where he was. When he was unable to reach us on  his cell, he sent it to a friend in Florence. She forwarded the map to us, and we took it to the camp host, who shared it with the sheriff’s office. They found him and got him to the campground. (That’s the short version of the story.) In July we met Jim at Cove Palisades State Park, although we had to camp on opposite sides of the lake due to availability. In early August he and Peter’s family joined us at La Pine. Later in August we drove down to visit Madroña Vineyards, near Placerville, California. We’ve been participating in their pop-up Zoom meetings every two weeks, and we got to meet some of the people we’ve only met before online.

Finally, in October we  met up with Jim again, this time at Ochoco Lake, near the John Day Fossil Beds. Our little RPod makes camping quite comfortable for us and the pups.

Not all of our travel was with the RPod, though. In March we drove up to Portland and stayed with Peter’s family in Beaverton, so Peggy and our daughter-in-law Alexa could attend the Rose City Yarn Crawl, visiting yarn shops in the metropolitan area and spending some time with two of our grandkids.

In October we flew out to Wisconsin to spend a week with our daughter. Her husband has ALS and needs constant care. We helped out with what we could to give her a little time off to do other things until she was able to get a second care giver. We found a suitable boarding arrangement for the pups in Bend. We went back to Portland again in late November, so Charlie could see a doctor there about a treatment (high-intensity ultrasound brain surgery) for his tremors.  We’re going ahead with treatment for his right side in March. We got to spend the week with the kids and had Thanksgiving dinner with them and their extended family. 

In September we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary. We went out for lunch at a restaurant on the river, where the dogs could join us while we ate.

We participated with the dogs in four demonstrations in Bend during the year. Peggy sang in the chorus for the Independence Day “Sound Fourth” concert on July 4th and Bend’s Summer Choir. She finally finished Charlie’s T-shirt quilt, made from T-shirts accumulated during our years in Indonesia, and completed the hand-quilting on a whole-cloth quilt. (The top is made from one large piece of cloth, rather than being pieced. The decorative part is the quilting.) It has taken a long time. She has another new book, the sixth in the series.

This year was not without some challenges. In order to fly, we needed a real ID or a passport. Charlie was able to get a real ID with no problem, but Peggy couldn’t get one because the  name on her driver’s license and Social Security don’t match. However, it was possible to overcome that problem in getting a passport, because the application allows for reporting aliases. Then we lost our health insurance, because the company is pulling out of our county. There’s only one insurance company that will provide a Medicare Advantage plan here, and Peggy was able to get a suitable policy for 2026. Original Medicare seemed to be the best way to go for Charlie’s tremor procedure and other medical needs, so we will have separate health insurance plans, at least for 2026.

Best wishes for a great holiday season and a very  happy new year!