Monthly Archives: August 2021

160-Cannon Beach, OR

An overnight stay we would love to return to for a longer stay

As we headed up the coast towards Washington we had a little trouble getting reservations for the timeframes we wanted. We ended up staying 10 days in Florence, OR, then 1 night in Buxton, OR and 3 nights in Cannon Beach OR to fill up the time before our reservation in Chimacum, WA.

Cannon Beach is a cute little beach town and we wished we could have had more time there. But the real gem was the L.L. Stub Stewart State Park in Buxton, OR. It’s about 30 miles west of Portland, so not on the coast. But we were amazed at how beautiful the area and the parks campground were!!

The park is fabulous, in a forest of pine trees and rolling hills. The campground had huge sites, full hookups, and lots of trails to explore. We were only there one night so we didn’t get to do much exploring, but I did walk around the campground and one trail (Laddy didn’t go with me because of his heart condition).

It was a true campground instead of an RV Resort and there were lots of people with kids, bikes, skateboards, group campfires etc. Everyone was having a great time!

160-Cannon Beach, OR

Cannon Beach, Oregon and Haystack Rock

We spent just 3 days in the little beach town of Cannon Beach OR.  It’s a cute little town and full of tourists enjoying the beach even though the weather wasn’t good.

I actually joked that I thought our rig had turned into a time machine and had taken us back to February as it was barely 60 and raining the first two days we were there!

There are wonderful beaches here which is a big draw for folks from all over.  But the main attraction is a group of rock formation in the surf and beyond.  The largest rock is called “Haystack Rock” as it resembles an old fashioned haystack.  It’s HUGE!  I think it’s almost as big as Morro Rock down in California.

And the other rocks around it make it very interesting.  Another fairly large rock formation to the north and out past the surf is called “Lighthouse Rock” because there is a lighthouse on it!

The third day we took a little drive up to the next town called “Seaside”.  It’s another funky little beach town, small houses, lots of surfshops and all very cute!

This would be a great place to come back to when we have more time!

Here are some pictures:

159 - Florence, OR, Uncategorized

What! Three things failed on our rig at the same time?!?

As we hitched up to travel from Klamath CA to Florence OR the last thing I do is a walk around and brake check.  I make sure everything inside and outside is ready to travel, and I stand behind the rig and signal to Jeff that the brake and turn light are working.

Well, that morning the left side light worked but the right side did not.  As we had to hit the road early to get past the section of Hwy 101 that had suffered a rock slide and closed at 8am we just noted that right turns would not signal behind us and we took off.

A few miles into the trip we started getting warning messages that the trailer brake system was not working.  That’s not good! But again, on Hwy 101 there’s not much in the way of repair shops.  We did stop at one town and found a repair shop about to open.  We asked the owner if he could have someone take a quick look, but he declined as he had a lot of work and a quick look could turn into a longer repair.

Jeff did pop off the taillight cover and it looked like the bulb had burned out. It was black. But we didn’t have a spare.

Hm… so we kept going and got to the next RV park without incident.

So we checked in and got to our spot.  But… the leveling system wouldn’t work!  Not with the remote, not from the control panel.  That’s bad!  We can’t unhitch and get level without the leveling system.  We tried the slides… they wouldn’t work either!

So we sat in the truck and went online and found several articles on what could be wrong. The most common solution seemed to be a wiring problem in the harness at the king pin.  So Jeff started working on it and found a loose wire!  Yay! He was able to fix it so we could unhitch and get set up.

Then he went to a nearby auto parts store and got a new light bulb.  He installed it and we did a brake test.  Nope! Still didn’t work. Jeff tested the volts at the light and all the guards in the trailer but nothing looked amiss.

Next we went online and looked up why one brake/ turn light wouldn’t work.  Aha!  A fuse IN THE TRUCK! We have a trailering system and sure enough one of the fuses was blown. So back to the auto parts store for a fuse and finally all our problems are ended.  Whew!

159 - Florence, OR, Uncategorized

Thors Well and Heceta Head Lighthouse

While staying in Florence, OR, we drove up the coast to see two landmarks.

One is “Thors Well”, a rock formation that looks like a well hole right at the waters edge in a very rocky area. As the tide gets higher, water would rush into the well from the hole beneath and erupt into the air like a geyser!  And, when the tide gets even higher and flows over the rock above it drains into the hole like a sinkhole. There’s a walkway leading to the cliff edge with a viewing platform, and stairs going down to the rocky area where lots of people walk around on the rocks and get right up to the well.  We chose to stay on the viewing platform (slippery rocks and I don’t mix well) but got some great photos of the well in action.  Off to the side of Thors Well is another feature called the Spouting Horn.  That’s a small hole in the rock where the surf would shoot up out of the hole like a geyser.  We got some good photos of that too.

The other landmark is the Heceta Head Lighthouse.  It’s built right on the cliffs edge with two very large rock formation in the surf right below it.  There was a parking lot with a trail leading right up to the lighthouse but the lot was full, so we stopped at a couple of overlooks along Hwy 101 and got some photos.  Here they are:

158 - Klamath, CA, Uncategorized

Prairie Creek State Park and “the BIG Tree”

While we stayed in Klamath, we drove through a scenic drive in the Prairie Creek State Park.  It’s beautiful and has several VERY BIG redwood trees viewed on an easy trail.  There is a large meadow near the Visitor Center where a herd of elk often hangs out.  They were there when we visited, the males with huge antlers were sitting and laying in one meadow, and there were several females in a meadow close by. 

We walked a ways down the trail and got some good pictures of the big trees and of the elk too.  Here they are:

158 - Klamath, CA, Uncategorized

TMobile coverage at Klamath

We are staying for a week at Kamp Klamath right along the river in Klamath CA.  This is about 2 miles from the Pacific Coast.

We have found that we have absolutely NO TMobile coverage in this area.  No phone even except emergency calls.  The RV park does have wi-fi which is helpful but it’s not real reliable.  We checked the TMobile coverage map and found that there IS coverage right at the coast, so every day we are driving a few miles down a narrow road through the dark forest to get to a vista point on the coast.  From there we can walk a little ways to a picnic area where we do get coverage.  This is when we make any needed phone calls, check for messages and also check our email and whatever else we need to do online.

We stayed at another RV park just a ½ mile down the road a few years ago when we had Verizon and we had no problem with coverage.

So, TMobile – saying you have the best 5G coverage isn’t worth much when a customer hits an area that requires a drive and sitting at a picnic table just to make a phone call!!