Monthly Archives: August 2013

42-Oregon Coast, Places we Visit-Year 1

Our first view of the Oregon Coast

Yesterday it was a little less foggy than it’s been all week, so we took a drive south along the coast to see what we could see.  The coast along here in Oregon is rocky cliffs, but in several places there are beaches at the foot of the cliffs.

We saw rocks literally covered in cormorants, but no whales or seals or otters.  Otters used to be plentiful around here but no one sees them anymore.

We saw one area at low time where a lot of people were clamming, which was interesting to watch.

We stopped at the Yaquina Head lighthouse.  It’s not a working lighthouse, although I was surprised at that because of the heavy fog in this area.  You can’t go into the lighthouse except on a tour, but we were able to walk around it and look down at the water from the cliffs.  Thank goodness there were good fences along the edge, because it was a sheer drop-off!  As we walked back to our car from the lighthouse, the fog which had been a short distance out into the ocean moved in, by the time we pulled out of the parking lot you couldn’t even see the lighthouse anymore!

With the fog getting so heavy, we headed back home.  Hopefully in a day or two the fog will clear more and we’ll be able to see more of the coastline.  Here are some pictures:

Places we Visit-Year 1, RV Park Reviews

In Depoe Bay, OR we are staying very near to the beach!

We’re here in Depoe Bay, OR this week, which is right on the coast.  It’s a beautiful coast area, part beaches and part rocky cliffs.  We haven’t taken any pictures yet because we’re finding that it’s very foggy … all day the fog never lifts and we can barely see the treetops because of the heavy fog!  We’ve gotten our winter coats back out as it doesn’t get very warm either.

We’re hoping the skies clear in the next few days so we can drive the coast before we have to leave!  We did walk to one of the beaches the other day and while we were in coats, long pants and I had my gloves on, kids and people were in shorts and bathing suits!  It was in the 50s!  I guess to the locals it’s beach weather just because it’s August! LOL

The manager of the park said that it gets more foggy here when it’s warm in Eugene and Portland and they’ve been having a heat wave.  It’s supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow (Saturday) and he thinks that will cause it to clear up a bit.

Well, I am glad we’re here with cooler weather rather than in Ariz or Miss where it’s in the 90s and 100s!!  🙂

The RV Park where we’re staying is one I consider “rustic”.  It’s older and there are a lot of permanent trailers and a couple of small manufactured homes.  Of the 53 spaces, more than half are permanent people.  Many of them are older and the manager said they need a lot of assistance and checking up on.  We’re finding that happening in a lot of the older, “rustic” RV parks – people are moving in permanently!  Maybe we’ll end up doing that somewhere!

Here’s the link to the RV Park: http://www.fogartycreekrv.com/.

RV Park Reviews

We stayed at a golf course resort while in Chehalis

The RV park we found in Chehalis was at a golf course.  It was small with about 25 spaces, and was literally right next to the course.  The area where we were had a high net right behind the trailers in case of golf balls, and players often came right behind the trailer when they would hit into the rough on the hole there.

Jeff really enjoyed staying there as he could walk the dog along the course and lots of people would come up to pet Laddy and talk.  I enjoyed it as the road was very quiet – golf course on one side, small airport on the other and the road dead-ended about a 1/2 mile down.  So, I could walk along the road and rarely have cars pass!

The weekend that we were there they held a golf tournament, so the golf course was pretty busy, but it was fun to watch the activity.  We were planning to stay just one week but Jeff broke a tooth and we stayed a couple of extra days so he could get in to see a local dentist.  It didn’t hurt, he said, but we didn’t want to chance it breaking more or getting infected in the root.

Here’s the link to the RV park (golf resort): http://www.playriversidegolfrv.com/

Dog Park Reviews

Nice dog park in Centralia, WA (near Chehalis where we stayed)

While staying in Chehalis we looked for nearby dog parks, as we always do, and found a nice one in Centralia, just a few miles away.  The Fort Borst Park is heavily forested so the whole park is nice and cool and shady.  The dog park is in one of the few places with some sun but it still had plenty of shade.  Laddy enjoyed it!  We did have to leave early once as a guy showed up with a friendly German Shepard, but he kept jumping up on Laddy and Laddy really doesn’t like that and would get aggressive on the other dog.  We were a bit surprised at the aggressiveness in him and decided to leave.  Oh well, dogs will be dogs!  Here’s the link to the BringFIdo.com review I wrote: http://www.bringfido.com/attraction/2463/#reviews.

41-Washington Coast, Places we Visit-Year 1

What started as an easy travel day turned into a marathon!

Yesterday we travelled from Chehalis WA to Depoe Bay OR.  It should have been about 3.5 hours and we left at 9am, expecting to get to our destination and set up in time to have lunch before 1pm.

Well!  about 9:30am as we were driving along, a car pulled alongside Jeff and the passenger pointed repeatedly to the trailer.  Hm…?  Her actions were rather frantic, so we pulled to the shoulder on I-5 and Jeff got out to take a look.  One of the trailer tires was flat!…not only flat, it was shredded to the point where there was a little rubber and some cording and we were driving on the rim!

Luckily our trailer has 2 axels and four tires but that was a large load on that remaining tire on that side.  Our trailer weighs about 10,000 pounds!!

Luckily the bad tire was on the outside, cause we couldn’t drive any longer on that rim, even to the next exit about a mile further.

So, Jeff pulled out the spare tire and the jack that came with the trailer, and  started working to change the tire.  That jack was useless!!  It was way underpowered to left a fully loaded trailer!  So, our next idea was to call AAA – we pay for it after all and our trailer is included in the services.  They said it would be an hour till a towtruck arrived with tools to change the tire.

Just as I hung up the phone a towtruck pulled up!  Wow – that was fast!  Not really, it was the WSDOT (Washington State Dept of Transportation) that has trucks driving around looking for road hazards and people in trouble.  He said he knew we were up ahead as he had stopped to pick up the remains of our tire about a mile back.

His jack couldn’t even lift the trailer!  I told him we had already called AAA, so he left and we waited.  A state trooper stopped to see if we were okay and we chatted for a few minutes.

While we were waiting I gingerly stepped up into the trailer and fixed a couple of sandwiches and some fruit for lunch – no way we were going to make it to our destination by lunchtime!

Ok, the tow truck arrived about 11:15 and got the tire changed out in about 15 minutes.  Their jack made it look easy!  There were two guys, one was being trained and both were very nice!  Once the spare tire was on, both tires on that side looked a bit low and when he checked the pressure, yep, both were under-pressure about 20 pounds each.  They offered to drive with us following to a Les Schwab dealer about 14 miles down the road, and we took them up on that offer!

So, at Les Schwab they looked at all our tires and all were cracking and in pretty bad shape!  So, we decided to buy 4 new tires and avoid more problems.  We were there about 1.5 hours and by the time we left it was 2pm.

The guy at Les Schwab suggested an alternative route to our destination so we could avoid Portland, although he said we’d be through there by about 3pm and should miss most of rush hour.

So, we get on the road again and within just a few miles see a LED sign indicating “Wreck ahead – prepare to stop”.  Traffic inched along for about an hour and we only got a few miles.  Ok, it’s now 3pm and we’re not even close to Portland yet.

We hit the major rush hour through Portland!  Then we had 2 more hours to go to get to our destination so we ended up stopped at a Subway for a quick dinner.

We finally arrived at our destination RV park at 8pm, right on the Oregon coast although we couldn’t tell because it was very foggy!  Got set up and finally in the comfort of our home as it was getting dark.

Whew!  We don’t like to travel with the trailer for more than 6 hours, but this one ended up being an 11 hour day, which much of it sitting in slow traffic or on the side of the road or in a waiting room at Les Schwab.  Hopefully we don’t repeat this experience anytime soon!

RV Parks We Stayed At

Our Travels – Year 1 (August 2012 through July 2013)

We’ll update this map with all the places we’ve visited.  Cick on the map to see it enlarged.

41-Washington Coast, Places we Visit-Year 1

Jeff took a ride on a steam locomotive!

Jeff writes: August 3, I finally got to ( a sixty year wait) ride on a steam locomotive, something I wanted to do since first seeing one in 1954 when we moved to Long Island. We are in Chehalis, Washington, about 75 miles south of Seattle.

We went to the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum. They have a 1916 Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotive. The engine uses recycled crank case oil as fuel. It takes about 1000 gallons for the 1-1/4 hours ride. It also carries 4000 gallons of water to create steam using about 1000 gallons for the ride. This engine was used to haul timber in the area. I actually got to ride in the cab with the engineers and learned about the propulsion system and brakes. As we were about to get going, they ran into a problem that took 2 hours to repair. We finally got going.  Boy, what a bumpy ride but exciting.

I got some really good pictures of the engine at rest and along the track (see below) . I also got a short video as we started out.  Here’s the link to the video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8pEikxFeXc

Just Photos

Wildflowers on Mount St. Helens – beautiful variety

There was a huge area around the north side of Mount St. Helens that is still devastated even after 34 years because of the depth of the ash.  But a little further away the ash wasn’t as deep and the area became renewed after just a few years.

The wildflowers is a good example of this.  There were a LOT of varieties of flowers on the hillsides and mountain.  Beautiful!  Here are some pictures: