Author: sandcastle

Day 5 Pacific Coast

 

We entered California first thing this morning.  This time the Agricultural Inspector announced she needed to come on board.  We had no problem with that.  She checked our frig for contraband fruits and vegetables then sent us on our way.

We were barely into California when I noticed the air was already thicker.  Dave laughed at me but he couldn’t explain it away.

Dave’s sister is currently visiting friends in California and it would be great to see her while she is here but she is flying back out of San Francisco this afternoon and we can’t get there by then.  She’s a fun person to know so I am sorry to have missed her here.

The funky thing I am seeing today is ships on shore that have been turned into gift shops.  I wonder if several people had this idea about the same time?  If not, which one copied the other?

I saw an ad for a “shark petting tank.”  It also said, “Just for the thrill of it.”  I can see it now.  “Look, Mom, the shark ate my hand.  Isn’t that thrilling?!”  I also wonder how thrilled the shark is.  More thrilled if he gets a hand than if he doesn’t, I guess.

As we entered the redwood forest the sign said to turn our lights on for the next eight miles.  So much for our solar panels recharging during the day today.

There are lots of warning signs around here.  The next ones warned of a 7% downgrade the next 2 miles with a 30 m.p.h. truck speed limit.  There are lots of places for trucks to pull off and let other traffic pass.  For this application, we act like a truck.  We don’t like leading parades.

Another sign said “Beach Hours: Sunrise to Sunset”.  What happens to the beach at night?  Does someone turn it off?

It didn’t look like we were going to find any restaurants any time soon so we stopped at a pullout for lunch.  We pulled some South Beach Wrap kits from the frig but I still have lefse on my mind so I took the filling from mine and mixed it with the pasta salad from yesterday’s stop at The Crazy Norwegian then spread butter and sprinkled Splenda and cinnamon on my tortillas to make faux lefse.  Being a wheat tortilla made it a little weird but it was better than nothing.

We stopped for the night at Clam Beach County Park at exit 723 from Highway 101 just south of Trinidad, California.  We paid $10 for basic parking lot camping except it’s on the beach.  Here’s the view from our RV.

Tonight we get to figure out how to use our new batteries to power all our electrical needs.  Wish us luck.

TTYL,

Linda

Day 4 Pacific Coast

We were headed back to Highway 101 this morning with me using the GPS part of Dave’s iPhone to help us make the right turns when the phone rang. So I answered his phone. It was for me  Very weird. It turns out that Dave applying for Social Security triggered a mandate for them to call me to tell me I could apply under his and mine when my time comes. I thanked them and assured them I certainly plan to apply under his since I’m pretty sure half of his will be more than all of mine.

Back at Am Solar Deb had said she didn’t think Seven Devils Road was paved but a customer in the shop at the time said it was. Deb admitted it had been a few years since she’d been on it. So we decided to risk it rather than go north to go south. It turns out they were both right. It is paved as far south as the junction with Beaver Hill Road where we turned towards Highway 101. South of there it is not paved and there is a warning sign recommending motorhomes not go that way.

Once we got back on Highway 101 my phone rang. I tried answering Dave’s phone again before realizing it was mine this time. Our daughter and I were chatting away when we drove out of my coverage area. I’m having trouble getting used to that.

While I was still talking to her, Dave signaled to get my attention. Another Winnebago View was about to pass us. The copilot of that one and I waved to each other. It’s amazing to me how many Views we have being seeing along the west coast.  I think lots of people have decided smaller is better given the current fuel situation.

Another thing I am enjoying in these tourist towns is the names on some of the businesses. Today we saw “Jailhouse Rocks,” a jewelry shop, and a restaurant actually named “The Greasy Spoon.”

At Cape Blanco State Park, we stopped for an ocean view fix.  Here’s the lighthouse there.

The park has camping with water and electrical hookups for just $12 but the dump is closed due to failure of the drainage field and the only campsites with a view of the ocean have cabins on them. Oh, well. There are other places on the ocean to camp.

In Port Orford we stopped at The Crazy Norwegian for lunch. It felt like we were Up North in Minnesota. There were lots of signs about lutefisk and Uff Da and a sandwich named The Scandihovian. Small place but good food. No lefse, though.

The we stopped at Battle Rock City Park for another ocean view fix and to read the sign telling more of our nation’s embarrassing history.

  

We stopped at Humbug Mountain State Park to check out their campground. It’s in a shady valley with a trail at the end of C loop leading under the highway to the beach. Dave estimates it’s about 1,000 feet to the beach. Their dump was also closed also but I don’t know if it’s permanently so here.

We stopped at lots of scenic overlooks where Dave took lots of pictures of the ocean. He now has several of them cycling on his desktop since he couldn’t decide which to use.

We didn’t stop at Ophir State Beach. We could see it is a paved wayside with restrooms, overlooking the ocean, and somewhat sheltered from the highway but we don’t know if camping is allowed there.

We had intended to buy diesel in Port Orford but didn’t do so. We were glad when we got to Gold Beach to discover it was 10 cents a gallon cheaper than it had been in Port Orford.

In Gold Beach there are RV parks on the ocean. We may stop at one of them someday but not today.

One of the interesting things I learned with all these ocean view stops is that I need to be able to see the beach not just the water. Without the waves lapping the shore the ocean just looks like a big lake to me.

We crossed Bruce’s Bone Creek. I decided not to speculate about that name.

We camped at Harris Beach State Recreation Area. We paid an extra $1 for a site with cable TV even though we don’t watch TV because the only sites with a view of the ocean had cable connections and you pay for what the site offers, not what you plan to use. Much of life is like that.

TTYL,

Linda

Back to the Coast

We made it out of camp this morning with about 10 minutes to spare before the 11 a.m. checkout time. The weather is heavily overcast but there’s promise of sunshine ahead.

Wow! The sun is now reflecting off the clouds as brightly as it does off snow in Minnesota at this time of year.  We miss our friends and family back there but I sure don’t miss snow!

We just passed a sign warning us it is illegal for vehicles like ours to drive in the left lane when we we saw another sign warning, “Right Lane Closed.” I bet you didn’t know we are driving a hovercraft. Neither did we. Let’s see, which law shall we break?

Today we got caught in a new definition of stop and go travel. Those who get queasy easily should probably stop reading now and skip ahead to the next paragraph. Not long after we left camp, my system got upset and I developed diarrhea. Every time I needed to go, Dave tried to find a place to stop. None of the places he found could be long term places. I found myself wishing our toilet had a seat belt so I could just stay there awhile. We made at least three of those emergency stops before the medicine I take when this happens kicked in. I hate have such a vulnerable digestive system. It has been giving me trouble all my life so I’m sure it will continue to do so but I sure wish it would only act up when we are parked for the night rather than when we are out on the road or in some other public place. If I’m ever with you and suddenly ask directions to a restroom, please answer quickly. Thanks.

Dave and our daughter have a different problem. I call it the head banging, feet hanging syndrome. They are both so tall they have trouble fitting into a lot of the small RVs we prefer to drive or the beds those RVs contain. Dave is pleased to have found the Winnebago View since he now has no side effects of this syndrome.

We passed a sheep farm with a llama standing guard. Our daughter’s former in-laws tried that once. Supposedly, llamas will protect sheep from predators. The llamas they got, though, were afraid of the sheep! It was interesting to me to see this llama looking like he was doing his job.

Oregon Highway 38 rocks! The sign said so: “Rocks”

Today’s interesting street name was Lutsinger Creek Road. I had images in my head of being at the Renaissance Fair and listening to a performer play the lute while singing. Do you suppose this street was named after someone whose ancestor did just that?

We stopped at the Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area. Guess what we saw there? You got it in one!

By the way, that picture was taken with Dave’s new camera. It was a lot better than the ones from my camera.

We stopped at the DQ in Reedsport for lunch. Dave bought the food and brought it back to the RV to eat since I was still not sure I felt like going far from home. I like their chicken strips basket because they offer gravy as one of their dip options. Dave eats his chicken strips plain so I get lots of gravy. I also get his toast. He gets my French fries although he seldom eats them.  

I could live on bread and meat. Fruits and vegetables are optional as long as I have bread and meat. Which is part of why I’m fat. Salty, crunchy snacks and lack of exercise are the rest of the reasons. I tried to blame it on heredity too since my grandparents and their siblings were not skinny people. But when you look at my parents that theory gets blown out of the water.

The Safeway here has a sign saying “Serving Reedsport since 1935.” I hadn’t realized that grocery chain had been around that long. I guess I really wouldn’t know that since *I* haven’t been around that long!

Now we are camped for the night at Bastendorff Beach County Park near Charleston, Oregon. This place was recommended to us by Deb at AM Solar. I’m glad she told us about it. Here’s the view from our campsite.

Not bad, huh?

TTYL,

Linda

Not Leaving Town

We got up this morning knowing we had finished at AM Solar and it was time to leave Eugene, Oregon. But we had a few things to do first.

Greg stopped by our RV on his way into the shop to be sure everything was working right and we visited awhile. Then Deb joined us to take pictures in case we decide to write a testimonial for them once we figure out how all this works for us.  

After breakfast when we went into the office to say goodby to the rest of them we mentioned we had errands to run before we left. When Deb learned one of them was to buy packing tape so we could mail back the seat we will not be using on the Segway she insisted she should help us do that. So she packed it and weighed it and checked rates and told us she could send it by UPS cheaper than we could do that or mail it. So we gave her the postage money and let her do her thing.  She really likes to help people.

We finally left AM Solar about 11 a.m.

And went, of course, to WalMart. It’s amazing to me how quickly we run out of stuff. We are going to have to learn to plan our food supplies better if we are going to be able to park out in the boonies for extended periods of time.

That done we went to the gas station to get diesel and propane. It’s still weird to me to have station attendants fill our gas tank for us. I think Oregon is the only state doing that.

Then we went to the post office to pick up our mail. We don’t get a lot of mail since we do everything we can online but we do try to remember to have mail forwarded to us whenever we know where we are going to be at least four days in advance. Since we tend to make our plans by the hour instead of the week that can be challenging.

Then we went to the local Social Security office. Dave will be 62 next month so he spent part of last evening on the computer applying for social security. But they need to actually see certain documents. So we took those documents into the local office today and finished the application process. Sometime early next year money will start magically showing up in our bank. It will be nice to have some coming in instead of it all going out.

Then we went shopping for a book. At AM Solar I discovered one called Adventures on America’s Public Lands describing all the Bureau of Land Management Lands and what they have to offer. Since we can camp free or cheap on those lands we want to own this book. Border’s said they could order it for us but we won’t be here when it comes in. Barnes and Noble said they could order it for us but… REI didn’t have it listed on their website so we didn’t even try their store. I guess we’ll have to order it online when we know where we are going to be far enough in advance to get it there.

As we began discussing what we’d like to do for lunch we saw a Red Robin restaurant. We really like their burgers so we decided to go there. Their parking lot was too small for us to get into so I directed Dave into a lot next door.  

I really must learn to look up when choosing parking places. We broke some branches off some low hanging trees. Dave actually had to climb up the ladder on the back of our RV and pull the branches off our rig. Oops.

We’ve been using Google Maps on Dave’s iPhone to help us find places. We needed to buy a couple of small file boxes so Dave entered Staples into the search box and it found three of them not far away. So we drove to the closest one but it didn’t look like an area where there would a Staples store. So we stopped at a curb and Dave looked at the details of this one. It’s a place that sells nails, wire, staples, etc. So he looked at the details of the next one and it was a real Staples office supply place.

But on the way there we passed an Office Depot so we turned into the next driveway which connected with Office Depot’s parking lot. That meant we were able to buy file boxes that match the one we bought at Office Depot before we left Minneapolis. I guess some wrong turns become right ones.

Now it was late afternoon and we were finally ready to leave town. So we drove four miles south on I-5 and stopped at Deerwood RV Park. At least we are now on the correct side of town for leaving tomorrow.

TTYL,

Linda

Solar System

The people at AM Solar are wonderful people. Greg, Deb, Kathy, Michael, & Josh care about their customers and the world we live in. I could tell that before we even walked inside their office. Check it out.

Their driveway is covered with these pavers that are designed to let the rain go through into the earth rather than run off into the nearby slough.

When you walk up to their front door you see this rain chain which helps direct the rain to the ground much more gently than gutters do.

And this car belongs to Deb. Look closely and you can see the extension cord by the garage door that is being used to charge the car’s battery.

Those things made me trust even more than I already did that these people would do right by us as they installed our new RV solar system.  

  

I’m so glad Dave persuaded me to come to Oregon to have this done.  Even in December.

TTYL,

Linda