Tag Archives: Western RV

Trees of Mystery & More… (Klamath, CA)

2014/09/22 davidhobden@mac.com

It was 2 PM on Sunday before we got away from the park today. We changed sites 3 more times before we solved our power problem that I described in yesterday’s post.

The camp host was very accommodating and moved me to another site, but it was just another 30 amp pedestal and I had the same problem as before. The Surge-Guard display toggled between “No Ground” and “Check Wiring” and wouldn’t stay connected to shore power. So the camp host found me another site but I had to wait for the current occupant to leave. It was also a 30 amp site and once I was able to pull in and plug in, I still had the same problem. At least this time, I didn’t put the jacks down or the slides out before I plugged in.

The camp host kept checking on me throughout the morning, as did several other overly-enthusiastic camp occupants… Nice folks here. I had just resigned myself to “boondocking it” for the rest of today and tonight (I even warned my neighbor about running my generator) when finally – a 50 amp site opened up unexpectedly, and the camp host moved me in. Everything worked fine on the 50 amp in site #1 🙂 I was really starting to worry that my problem was with the Coach and not the park power. Although, I’ve never had problems on 30 amp power before, that is – other than tripping the breaker because we forgot to turn off the coffee pot while we still had an AC running or the microwave.

It turns out that most of the tenants here at the Chinook RV Resort are long-term residents that stay for the entire summer fishing season or longer, and most have travel trailers or 5th wheels that are fine on 30 amp power. All the other big rigs (Motorhomes) here are parked at the limited number of 50 amp spaces. Of course, I won’t know for sure until I get to the next campground and I plug into 30 amp again, but I’m going to assume for now that my Surge-Guard was simply doing it’s job, and the park’s 30 amp wiring here needs an upgrade. All the pedestals and boxes here are pretty old and deteriorated. The first one I plugged into almost fell over, the wooden pole was so rotten.

With the power problem solved for now, Stilla put some more clothes in the washer/dryer combo while I got tips from the camp host and others on local sites to see. We left at 2 PM with a list of things to go see and do today, so follow along and enjoy the pics.

Our first tip was the Klamath River Overlook on Requa Road which is a loop that climbs the mountain, (hill), that overlooks the mouth of the Klamath River at 600 feet. It was only 1/2 mile from our campground. Here are the views.

We still didn’t see any whales 🙁

Our next tip, which is a place we had passed on the way into town the day before – and knew of already, was the Trees of Mystery and Sky Trail (Gondola) Ride. This was one cool place that has a lot of history. It was founded in the early ’30s right off Hwy 101 and is only 3.5 miles North of our campground. Many of the trees here have been seen in Ripleys Believe It or Not. I’m sure this is one of the most visited and photographed sites in Northern California.

Here’s a link to their website if you would like more information. http://www.treesofmystery.net Enjoy the pics… although, as usual – the pictures don’t do the place justice.

The entrance fee was $15 per person. Now this was definitely high on my personal value-meter. Well worth it!

We passed some folks on one of the trails that were fascinated with something on the ground and were taking pictures… it turns out this is a rarely seen banana slug that was crossing the trail. So, I followed suit and took a picture also. So enjoy.

Once again, I don’t know how Stilla does it, but she found some more Germans. There was a film crew from Germany climbing one of the trees. They were doing a documentary on the Redwoods. We watched them for a while, at one point they even put a camera drone up in the air to film the climbers.

We continued on with our tour after the climbers were out of sight.

A highlight of this Place of Wonder is the Sky Trail (Gondola). It was included in the entrance fee. We had a six-passenger gondola all to ourselves. It takes 8 – 10 minutes to make the 1570 ft trip up the mountain.

Here is the entrance at the bottom.

Going up…

and up…

Our obligatory selfie:

Here we are at the top.

Here you can see the Pacific Ocean in the background.

After our fantastic trip above the trees, we drove back to the Coach to get little Coach so we could go through a tree. Unfortunately, we had left him in the Coach because we assumed the Trees of Mystery park wouldn’t be dog-friendly – the opposite was true, they allow dogs on leashes everywhere in the park, even the gondolas! But it was too late for little Coach to make his mark on any of the greater than 2,000 year old trees. So anyway, we picked him up and continued 1.5 miles the other direction (South) from our RV site to the next tip we got from folks at the campground – The Tour-Thru Tree!

I had to pull the mirrors in, but we fit. Here’s a picture I took in the mirror after we passed through and I pushed the drivers-side mirror back out.

When I said we fit – it was with one caveat.. I had to loosen one of the bicycles on the rack because the tire was starting to rub on one side. But hey, we fit 🙂

That was worth the $5 entrance fee. The tree is approximately 785 years old and the opening is 7’4″ (2.23 m) wide and 9’6″ (2.90 m) high.

The next tip we got from the camp host was to take the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway which is a road that parallels Hwy 101 and goes through some more of the fantastically huge Coastal Redwoods.

But first we had to cross the Klamath River bridge.

This is the Klamath River.

After driving through some more of the scenic forest along the Newton B. Drury Parkway (which used to be part of the original Redwood Highway) to the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park we arrived at Elk Prairie and the Ranger Station. It closed at 5 PM and it was now 5:30, so we just toured the outside of the building, took pictures of Elk in and around the meadow there, and took a short walk in the woods to close out our evening.

This picture of the map on the ranger station wall shows our location. Sorry about the quality, but as always, if you click on any of the pictures you get an enlarged view.

We took the long way back along a rarely used coastal road.

For those interested in WWII trivia; we came upon a “farmhouse” that was really a radar station in disguise. It has been preserved here on the coast just south of the town of Klamath. The placard below provides some interesting information.

Here’s the roof of one of the disguised radar stations from WWII.

We finally got back to our campground just after dusk. Shore power was still working fine and we even have satellite TV through the rooftop dish at our latest spot. I worked on this blog post while we watched some TV. We’ll head on a little farther South tomorrow (Monday) before we start moving back East towards Colorado… at least that’s the plan for now 🙂

Site #1 at the Chinook RV Resort, Klamath, CA.

California, Oregon

Redwoods – Jedediah Smith State Park (Klamath, CA)

2014/09/21 davidhobden@mac.com

We got a somewhat late start on this lazy foggy Saturday morning. We didn’t leave the Elks Lodge in Brookings, OR until almost noon.

If it seems like we are moving along from place to place at a fast pace – it’s because we are. We want to be back in Colorado by October because our son William is coming in from Germany for a three week visit with his girlfriend. He intends to use our house in Colorado Springs as a jumping off point to visit the area.

Anyway, just South of town we crossed into sunny California – only it wasn’t very sunny today.

About 25 miles later, as we got close to Crescent City we spotted the signs for the Redwood National and State Forest Visitor Center, so we pulled into an empty lot out front and went inside for information on the Redwood Forests. We’ve never been here before and wanted to get the scoop on what is where – and more importantly, where we can go in the big rig.

The park rangers inside were very helpful and gave us a tip about the Jedediah Smith Redwoods which is part of the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. They told us about a nice drive on Howland Hill Road just outside of town here with a highly recommended “must-see” hike through the Stout Memorial Grove. And they were right – it was truly awe-inspiring! The intended destination was definitely not big-rig friendly, so we unhooked the truck and left the Urban Escape Vehicle in the parking lot behind the building.

Once on Howland Hill Road, the pavement quickly turned to dirt and it got very narrow. I kept wondering why they didn’t make this a one-way road through here, because we had to back up or pull off on the side more than a few times to let others pass, and vice versa.

Wow… these redwoods are awesome! They don’t grow trees like this in Colorado.

At one point, out in the middle of the forest, we met up with some other RV’ers from Colorado that we recognized from our stay at an Elks Lodge in Kelso/Longview some weeks ago. Small RV world 🙂 They told us they were staying in Klamath at the Chinook RV Resort, and recommended it to us for tonight’s destination. We thanked them and since we (surprisingly) had a cell-phone signal, I called and made a reservation for us to arrive later today. With that out of the way, we parted ways and continued our scenic drive.

Here are the pictures of our hike at Stout Grove. All I can say is WOW! The pictures don’t do justice to the magnificence of these redwoods.

After our tour of the redwoods here near Crescent City, we hooked the truck back up to the Coach and headed on South to Klamath. We felt lucky that we had a little sun while we were in the woods because the fog seemed to roll in just as we hit the Pacific Coast Highway again.

We arrived at our destination and decided to stay for two nights. Since this is a Passport America park, we only had to pay $15 per night. The camp host directed us to a 30amp hook-up spot next to the river, which we found out later wasn’t such a good thing… Stilla put a load of clothes into our Splendide washer/dryer combo and the motorhome’s Surge-Guard kept cycling on and off. The display for the Surge-Guard flashed the warning “Open Ground” and “Check Wiring” a few times, but it never popped the circuit breaker, it just kept switching power from the park pedestal to our inverter… back and forth. Since it was late and the office was closed, we just unplugged and ran the generator to finish our load of clothes. Once our clothes were done, I tried plugging into park power again and it kept doing the same thing, even when I had everything turned off , and I mean everything: no TV; no surround sound; no Direct-TV; no AC or heater; no Keurig coffee maker; nothing plugged into any outlets; etc., The only items drawing power would be the inverter/charger itself and the residential refrigerator, and I have to leave those on. So I unplugged again and we just boondocked for the night. I figured we would deal with it in the morning. More to follow on this.

Meanwhile, here are some pics of our current location.

We only went 45 miles today from Brookings to Klamath, but there is just so much to see here – so stay tuned!

California, Oregon

Lighthouse Celebrities & Sunsets (Brookings, OR)

2014/09/21 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

We started our Friday beach tour before 10 AM. We weren’t sure where we would end up at the end of the day, but we had another Elks Lodge in mind. We continued our route down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) through the picturesque town of Bandon.

We of course stopped at most of the pull-offs to enjoy the views. The weather was nice again, but a little windy.

We wanted to stop at Oregon’s westernmost lighthouse, so just South of the small town of Sixes, we turned West.

This is the road to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse. The lighthouse is a 5 mile side trip off the PCH.

Notice below how I utilized my keen photographic skills and managed to capture the lighthouse inside the hole at the top of this sign 🙂

We were able to park the Urban Escape Vehicle in the large turn-around parking area located a little ways from the lighthouse.

It was a decent hike from the parking area to the lighthouse as you can see from this photo with Stilla in the foreground.

When we arrived at the gift shop/greeting area that is separate from the lighthouse, I immediately recognized Chris & Cherie from their full-timing RV blog, “Technomadia”. I have followed their blog for quite a while and especially enjoy their tips for staying connected on the road. They are volunteer hosts here at the lighthouse. And guess what – I found out that another couple is also volunteer hosting here at the same time – Paul & Nina from “Wheelingit”. I also follow their blog, they were up at the lighthouse whereas Chris & Cherie were down at the gift shop doing the meeting & greeting. Here I posed with Chris & Cherie in front of the lighthouse. It was neat to finally meet them in person after reading their blog all this time.. it’s like meeting celebrities!

Here is Chris & Cherie (above). Their website is: http://www.technomadia.com/2014/09/new-views-on-cape-blanco/Windy…. Check it out!

Dogs aren’t allowed in the lighthouse, so Stilla walked Coach around the grounds while I went up for the lighthouse tour.

This is the light at the top of the lighthouse. Cool pic eh?

I zoomed in on the Urban Escape Vehicle back at the parking area. Good to see it was still there.

Here’s Paul from “Wheelingit” explaining the inner workings of the lighthouse at the top.

And this is Nina from “Wheelingit” giving the tour in the downstairs area of the lighthouse.

Nina graciously posed with me for a pic. Must be nice to be a celebrity 🙂

Paul & Nina’s website is: http://www.wheelingit.us

Another view of the Cape Blanco Lighthouse which was built in 1870.

Here’s a view of where we are on the Rand-McNally.

We snacked in the Coach before we continued on down Hwy 101. It was nice to get out of the wind here. Then we motored on.

Here are some views down around the town of Port Orford.

Sometimes little Coach doesn’t want to get out of the Coach, he’d rather just watch us silly humans take pictures.

Sometimes there weren’t any pull-offs for pictures, so I just took pics from the cockpit.

Near the town of Gold Beach we pulled into the parking area for the Prehistoric Gardens.

Have you ever had this view outside your window?

They wanted too much for admission. $12 per person just didn’t register on my value-meter, so we passed. Coach was more interested in the chipmunks and bluejays anyway..

I took advantage of a photo-op along a wide pull-off just North of Gold Beach to get a possible new Cover Photo for the blog or maybe Facebook.

Another historical bridge leading into Gold Beach.

More over-the-road pics:

This was a nice rest area with a hiking trail – Arch Rock.

Located here:

A couple artists were using watercolors to capture the view.

Then, we drove over the highest bridge in Oregon – at least, that’s what the sign says.

We ended up at the Elks Lodge in Brookings, OR. Total distance traveled for the day was a little less that 90 miles. The Lodge RV Park, located in their parking lot, had full hook-ups with the exception of sewer. A dump station is on site. They had a suggested donation of $18 per night, and it was Friday which at most Lodges we’ve visited, means they serve dinner. Tonights menu included Fish & Chips or Hamburgers. Stilla had the fish and I had a cheeseburger that was undercooked. It must have been a bad day for the waitress, I think she quit while we were there. (Hopefully not because of my undercooked burger). Stilla played a little on the slots. I forgot to take pictures of our RV site and the lodge.

After our dinner, we drove around town and checked out the harbor and then decided to drive a couple miles South of town to a nice beach where we could enjoy the sunset. The beach happened to be just across the California border. So here’s the sunset from sunny California… it looked the same to me as the one in Oregon. What do you think?

Tune in tomorrow to see where we are…

Oregon

Lighthouses, Dunes, and RV Park Poles (Bullard State Park, OR)

2014/09/18 davidhobden@mac.com 1 Comment

We left the Three Rivers Casino RV parking lot by 10 AM on Thursday. It rained off and on all night. It was still overcast and a little foggy in the morning, but by the time we made our first stop in Reedsport, the sun was out again.

We wanted to check out the sand dunes that I had read and heard so much about. All the tourist guidebooks and pamphlets we picked up along our Hwy 101 travels, mention this “must-see” area when visiting the Oregon coast. Here’s my friend Wikipedia’s scoop on the place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Dunes_National_Recreation_Area

The only problem with visiting the 40 miles of dunes, is figuring out which areas I can get into – and more importantly, back out of – with a 38 1/2 ft Motorhome pulling a Silverado. So, my solution was to stop at the Oregon Dunes Visitor Center in Reedsport, OR. The nice power ranger, er, I mean park ranger behind the counter gave us maps and info flyers but she was unsure which access roads were big-rig friendly. So to be safe, I asked her if we could leave our motorhome in the parking lot while we unhooked our truck and drove on to check it out. She said no problem. Here’s a picture of the Visitor Center parking lot where we left the Urban Escape Vehicle for awhile.

Here are the informational placards in front of the Visitor Center for your viewing pleasure:

We chose the Umpqua Dunes & Beach Access Road for two reasons; 1) It was just South of town and therefore the closest, and 2) There was another lighthouse there.

Our first stop was at the beach. Here you can see the lighthouse in the background.

Little Coach had fun once again running around on the beach. He was as curious as I was about what all those floats (drums) were about in the water between the two jettys. I’m guessing they might have something to do with an oyster farm or some such thing. I forgot to ask someone.. so I guess, it’ll remain a mystery.

Here’s some pics of the dunes. Pretty impressive, sure wish I had my ATV. It also got me to wondering if my fine younger brother in Casa Grande, AZ is taking care of my Can Am. I left it at his 5-acre “dirt farm” (his term, not mine) back in January. I’ve heard a lot about sand storms and floods in that part of the country. HMMM?

We watched some ATVs running up and down this hilltop for awhile, pretty awesome.

And then of course, we had to check out another lighthouse.

The museum near the lighthouse was pretty cool. We took a tour, but this time I’ll spare you the inside pictures.

Boat in front of the Umqua River Lighthouse Museum.

I made Stilla stop and turn around for a picture in front of the museum… she likes it when I do that.

RV parking at the Lighthouse Museum. I’m pretty sure they belong to volunteers. I’ve read a blog or two of some folks that do this sort of thing pretty often.

Here’s the view back to the beach over some dunes from a viewing platform in front of the lighthouse, which also doubles as a whale watching station… we didn’t see any whales 🙁

After our lighthouse, beach, and dune excursion… we went back to the Visitor Center where we had left the Motorhome and made ourselves lunch. Then we headed on South again. Here’s another one of those bridges designed and built by McCullough, this is the one over Coos Bay leading into North Bend.

Once through the towns of North Bend and then Coos Bay we motored on down towards Bandon. Our destination for the day is Bullards Beach State Park, and guess what… they have a lighthouse there! Here’s the Coquille River Lighthouse built in 1896.

We rode our bikes here from our RV site. We didn’t know that it was 3 miles, one way. Oh well, the exercise did us some good and the weather was perfect.

We also spent some time on the beach here as well. Coach always likes that!

And now, I saved the best for last… as I was pulling into our designated spot at the RV park, I tagged this pole with the Coach right behind the front passenger side tire.

When we arrived around 4:30 PM, we unhooked at the park entrance and Stilla followed me in the truck to our site. They only had a few sites left when we checked in and this was supposed to be the largest of those according to the power ranger at the gate that took my $28.

As you can (hopefully) see from this pic, our site is on the left where the Silverado is parked. It’s a back-in site, and the pole I hit is at the entrance to the site on the right. I guess I was so worried about clearing the tree and bushes on the left, that when I pulled partially into the site on the right to get positioned to back into our site, I overlooked the pole because I had already passed it and I was busy looking in my left mirror to make sure the rear cleared. When I turned the wheel left and backed up, I heard the sickening thump and screech. The bottom-line is that I should have waited for Stilla to ground guide me, which is our normal procedure. What a bone-head move.

Here’s the damage.

And here’s what it looks like now after a lot of frantic polishing. I found a (somewhat) appropriate sticker to put over the biggest scrape… So what do you think? Go ahead… I can take it 🙂

Total distance travelled for the day was 70 miles.

Stay tuned for more Urban Escape Vehicle adventures…

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Oregon

$$ Casino $$ (Florence, OR)

2014/09/18 davidhobden@mac.com

We decided to check out the Three Rivers Casino & Hotel on Wednesday. Website Link: http://threeriverscasino.com/hotel Parking is free, and Stilla had her casino itch, so we packed up and headed on over. Total travel distance for the day: 6 miles. We arrived around noon-time.

The casino simply asks that you register at the security desk so they can monitor the parking area and keep people from abusing the privilege.

It rained off and on all day. Nothing much, mostly drizzle, just enough to keep everything wet all day. I tucked the truck underneath the awning to help keep the Harley somewhat dry.

Here’s our view this morning (Thursday).

We didn’t spend the whole day in the casino. We took advantage of the buffet for $10 to do a late lunch / early dinner at around 3 PM and then did a little shopping in town. In the evening we went back in for a few hours and played the slots. We pretty much broke even, so that’s a good thing 🙂

I did some more research on destinations to our South, so check back in to see where we end up.

Oregon

Sea Lions & Lighthouses (Florence, OR)

2014/09/17 davidhobden@mac.com

Tuesday was very nice weather-wise. We left the AC(s) on in the Coach for the dog and headed back North on 101 a few miles to the Sea Lion Cave.

Here’s a picture of the building which doubles as the entrance point and gift shop. We took this pic yesterday at a pull-off on the way down to the RV Park.

This is as close as we got to Sea Lions for the day (pic below). We were told that at this time of year, they are all out in the ocean “fattening” themselves up for winter. They offered a discounted price and a “rain-check” if you come back within a year. And oh yeah, they gave me a free popcorn for being a veteran. Their discounted price was still rather high at $24 for the two of us. Since we’re only here once, and here now… we paid and walked down to the pathways behind the building. One of the two paths goes North down to a viewpoint and the other goes South to the elevator that takes you to the cave.

Lookout point along the pathway to the Sea Lion Cave elevator. No whales here today 🙁

One of the pathways and a lookout point behind the entrance of the Sea Lion Cave.

Looking back up at the Sea Lion Cave entrance building and gift shop from the North pathway.

Pathway to the Sea Lion Cave elevator with Lighthouse in the background.

Looking back up at the Sea Lion Cave entrance building and gift shop from the South pathway.

Here’s the elevator that takes you down to the cave.

Here’s the empty cave. Still impressive even without sea lions.

This answers one of the questions you always wondered about but were afraid to ask:

The Sea Lion Cave has a secondary lookout point with a view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

These next three pictures were taken with my camera instead of the iPhone. I was able to zoom in on the only “real” sea lions that we would see today.

Nice view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse as seen from the Sea Lion Cave that would be our next destination.

We toured through the gift shop at the entrance after going back up the elevator and long pathway.

I spotted these Cool refrigerator magnets in the gift shop that I probably would have purchased before we went full-timing in the RV. RV style refrigerators are generally not conducive to magnets. Although our refrigerator is a residential style Amana stainless model it still won’t hold magnets – besides, who would want to keep picking magnets up off the floor all the time after a road trip?

We were a little disappointed with not seeing sea lions, except for the couple we were able to see from a distance out at sea. But, the cave was definitely worth seeing.

We left the Sea Lion Cave and went up the road to the Heceta Head Lighthouse which was our next intended destination for the day. We drove through a tunnel and across a bridge and then looped back under the bridge to the parking lot.

And of course, we get to pay for this pleasure.

Here’s the tunnel and bridge we went through and crossed over then under to get to the parking lot.

A little interesting trivia on the bridge.

We pulled the folding chairs out of the back of the Silverado and sat on the beach awhile. We enjoyed the sandwiches we had made to take along with us today. Mine was peanut butter and jelly, made with the cranberry jam we bought while on Long Beach.

When we returned to our chairs after walking around on the beach, we found that this bird had pecked away at our plastic trash bag we left hanging on one of the chairs. He must like cranberry jam.

How about some more pics on the beach:

After our lunch on the beach, we hiked up the pathway to tour the lighthouse.

Informational placard on the pathway to the lighthouse.

And here it is! Another lighthouse… you haven’t seen enough of these in this blog yet, right?

The tour was free. They only take groups of 4-5 people at a time to limit the weight and vibration on the spiral staircase.

Picture of a picture – Lighthouse keepers and their families taken in 1904.

Out volunteer tour guide leading us up the spiral staircase.

Glass inserts in the floor, as seen from underneath, around the rotating light.

And of course, we had to do the selfie while we were at the lighthouse.

After our two tours for the day, we headed back to the Coach to get little Coach (our dog). Once again, he was just just fine.

We did some exploratory driving around the town of Florence. It turns out that it is only 1 about 1.5 miles South of the Elks RV Park where we are at.

There seem to be a lot of sand dunes around this area. Here’s a view across the channel below.

We walked around the “Old Town Florence” and stopped here for some calamari and liquid refreshments.

We toured through the little shops in the area and found a doggie carry bag. It’s like a backpack but for front use. I guess you could call it a frontpack, right? It should come in handy on the rare times we are allowed to take dogs on hikes in the future. So we bought it and put it to use right away.

We then drove over to the Elks Lodge in town to check it out. As I mentioned in a previous post, they also have RV parking with hook-ups – cost is $15. Here’s a pic.

View of the Lodge parking lot.

We went inside and ended up staying for Bingo. Yes, I said Bingo. It’s was kind of fun, although we didn’t win anything. We stayed until 9 PM. We were able to bring little Coach inside with us. He stayed in his new frontpack on my lap while we marked bingo cards.

The lodge also had burgers, dogs, and fries to order courtesy of the vets group. We shared some fries and Stilla had a kosher dog. After bingo, we left about $10 in the slots and then headed home.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we plan on packing up and driving over to a local casino parking lot that we scoped out while driving around town earlier. There were lots of motorhomes and RVs in the free parking area. Free sounds good for a day… so I’ll post from there tomorrow.

Oregon

Moving Day (Florence, OR)

2014/09/16 davidhobden@mac.com

We said goodbye to our neighbors, Orman & Susie Claxton on Monday morning and were on the road by noon. Our destination for the day was the Elks RV Park near Florence, Oregon. We got the tip for this park from Orman & Susie and it was also mentioned by Mary Langord (Alpine Coach Association) on Facebook. Thanks guys… and it was great seeing you again O&S!

The sky was overcast when we left Tillamook and after a few miles it got worse. It seemed like we drove straight into a fog bank that stayed with us for most of the drive.

We pulled into a rest area with a view of the ocean (picture above) but it was too foggy to see very much. I noticed a couple that had stopped in the rest area in their car and they were taking pictures of our rig. The guy walked over to ask about how we towed the truck. It turns out the couple was from Switzerland and the guy was fascinated by the set up. I answered his questions, he spoke pretty good English. Then Stilla jumped in and we were all talking German. The Swiss couple was doing a 3 week whirlwind tour, trying to see as much as possible of the West coast in the short time they had. We parted ways after exchanging pleasantries.

Here are some pictures we snapped while heading down the Pacific Coast Byway:

I caught a picture of the billboard for the Sea Lion Caves that we heard about. We intend to visit there on Tuesday.

The sun actually peeked out once or twice during the trip. I couldn’t help but notice that lots of the trees on the beach-side of the road were all permanently deformed from the constant wind from the ocean.

The shocks on the Coach sure got a good workout today! Many stretches of Hwy 101 were full of bumps and dips.

At one point – after missing a nice looking pull-off with a view because we were traveling too fast to get slowed down – a second pull-off came into view around a corner… I made a split-second decision to turn in. After I was already committed to the entrance, I saw the sign “Not Recommended for RVs or Trailers”. Now, I ask you, Why can’t they put those signs before the entrance? Anyway, we had to disconnect and jockey around to get back out of there, and darn it – the view wasn’t even worth it. This makes the second time in our travels over the last 4 months that we had to unhook the truck to get turned around somewhere. Oh well, Life is still Good 🙂

We did another stop later at this pull-off where we could look down the cliffs at the ocean. It remained foggy, cold, and sometimes drizzly all day.

We got to the park shortly before 4 PM. Travel distance for the day was about 110 miles.

It’s $20 per night for full hook-ups but no sewer. We can dump on the way out. We paid for two nights and made sure we had the option to extend if we wanted without having to move sites.

Our site at the Elks Lodge RV Park near Florence, OR

I’m starting to see a theme here on the West coast with these Elks Lodges and their RV Parks… this will be the second RV Park we’ve visited that is not physically located at the Elks Lodge itself. However, I understand that the Florence Elks Lodge that owns this park does in fact have more RV parking at their lodge in town. This park is really nice! Maybe even nicer than the one we just left in Tillamook.

For the rest of the day, we just chilled out and mostly stayed inside. I heated up some of those pre-cooked pork ribs for dinner by putting them in a pan on the stove… it worked out pretty well. It was just too chilly outside to break out the grill. Plus, who really likes to clean the grill up after all that BBQ sauce gets everywhere?

Well, that’s all for now folks… check back in to hear how our Tuesday sight-seeing goes… Stilla is still on the look out for whales, and we hope to check sea lions off our list if we visit the caves as planned.

Oregon

Day 2, Tillamook, OR

2014/09/14 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

Welcome to another hot and sunny day (Sunday, 14 Sept) in Tillamook, Oregon. Today we wanted to get out and see the Air Museum and the local cheese factory… and we did! Follow along on our fun-filled day with lots of pictures 🙂

Stilla did the Skype thing to Germany with her brother and sister-in-law, Stefan & Annerose while I finished up the previous days blog post and had breakfast. We got a late start, but finally got on the road around 11 AM. We set the thermostat for 72 degrees and left the air conditioners on for little Coach since we knew he wouldn’t be allowed into any of our proposed destinations for the day.

Our site on Sunday morning at the Tillamook RV Park

Our first stop was the Tillamook Air Museum. We had stopped by there yesterday to check on rates, hours, and dog-friendliness so you may remember these next two pictures I posted already.

Signage for the Air Museum at the corner of Hwy 101 and Long Prairie Rd.

Here’s the giant hangar as viewed from Hwy 101 aka The Pacific Coast Highway.

My friend Wikipedia provides more information on the museum. If you are as interested as I am about this stuff, go to this Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_Air_Museum

The Air Museum also has it’s own website which is a great source for specific aircraft information: http://www.tillamookair.com/aircraft/ Go ahead, click on the link… don’t be afraid.

Here is the hangar door as viewed from the inside.

I noticed this basketball hoop mounted above the hangar door. Someone had a good sense of humor, it’s probably 200 feet from the ground. I’d like to see the person that could make that jump shot.

Interior view of the massive hangar.

The museum offered a discount for military and veterans, so we got in for $7 each. We went into their theater and viewed the 16 minute video on the history of this unique structure. After watching the film, we spent a long time in the adjoining room that was loaded with dioramas, models, picture boards, and display cases of historical stuff that was related to the hangar and/or WWII. Sorry, no pictures here… I had to limit the size of today’s post somehow, right?

Here is a picture of a picture depicting what it looked like back in the day when the blimps were inside.

Although you can’t tell from this picture… This was a HUGE billboard mounted on an inside wall of the hangar depicting the varied sizes of blimps. This hangar was originally built for the K-Class.

There were originally two of these hangars here. We learned that the other hangar was destroyed in a spectacular fire. It was being used to store hay from the adjacent farms at the time.

The following pictures are of some of the aircraft we viewed:

We met up again with our neighbor’s from the RV Park… Orman and Susie Claxton! I mentioned in an earlier post, that we know them from the Alpine Coach Association Group and recent Redmond FMCA Rally that we attended together. We noticed their coach, a Beaver, when we first pulled into the park so we made sure to park next to them. We kept bumping into them throughout the day… not a bad thing.

One interesting tidbit we discovered while walking through the museum hangar, is that they have RV’s stored here in the back half. I figured it must be a way to increase their income. Wouldn’t it be cool if they let you camp there with hook-ups?

We then walked outside to view the funny looking plane… it was like the proverbial elephant in the room. Behold a Mini-Guppy.

For you mechanical techno-geeks out there, they had some cool engine displays… some of them cut-outs. These were really cool.

How about an old V8? Neat, huh?

Here’s proof that you can put anything on a trailer these days.

We visited the snack bar for an espresso.

And then wandered through the gift shop. Didn’t find anything I couldn’t live without.

Neat picture of a picture again… this guy flew through the hangar back in 1950 as part of an air show stunt.

After we got our fill of all things aviation related – we headed over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory on the other side of town. It was certainly a popular place as evidenced by the overflowing parking lot. There were even a few rows of Motorhomes parked on the outside edges.

I just had to join others in getting my picture taken in the VW bus that was part of the lobby display.

View of the inner workings at the cheese factory… pics didn’t take so well through the glass panes. I remember thinking it’s a good thing we weren’t looking at a sausage factory 🙂

The upstairs hallway with the factory viewing windows on both sides.

There was a long line at the cheese sampling stations.

As a matter of fact, there were long lines everywhere here, in the lobby store, the cafe, the snack bar, the ice cream counter, etc., What a popular tourist trap, er, I mean, attraction.

I bought one of these Oregon Coast 101 stickers to add to my collection on the inside of the basement doors of the Urban Escape Vehicle.

We saw Orman & Susie Claxton again with ice-cream in hand while we were here, but no picture this time.

And I almost bought this T-shirt, but decided it wasn’t in the budget.

Next, we drove back into town to check out the Blue Heron Cheese Company. We had seen an advertisement for free wine and cheese tasting.

There were a couple of cool vehicles on display outside the building.

We met up with Orman & Susie again! We sampled some wines together and ended up buying a bottle called “Blue Heron Riesling”.

We got back to the RV Park with plenty of time left to enjoy the sunshine and walk Coach through the campground. He was VERY happy to see us again after being cooped up all alone for the day 🙁 Everything was fine with him and there were no “surprises” in the Motorhome. Good dog.

View of the lower picnic grounds area at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.

View of the BBQ grill shelter in the lower picnic area at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.

View of the lower picnic grounds at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.

This park has the biggest set of horseshoe pits I’ve ever seen. Or are these possibly grave sites? HMMM.

View of the horseshoe pits on the lower picnic grounds at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.

View between the two rows of RVs at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.

View of the community multi-use house at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.

We spent a little time talking to Orman & Susie as the sun went down. We got a few tips from them on future places to visit and recommendations on RV Parks. Thanks Orman & Susie! Hope to see you down the road again soon. It got cold pretty quick after the sun went down, so we retired to our respective Coaches to call it a night.

I did some research, and called ahead to the Elks Lodge in Florence, OR to reserve a spot for tomorrow. So another moving day is on tap for Monday. See you tomorrow.

Oregon

Day 1, Tillamook, OR

2014/09/14 davidhobden@mac.com

Another hot, sunny day here on Saturday (13 Sept) in Tillamook, OR. We’ve been told that this nice weather is highly unusual for this time of year. We decided to get out and enjoy it for most of the day.

But first, here’s a morning picture of our RV site at the Elks RV Park. It’s nice having full hook-ups and a good internet connection for a change. We have WiFi through the park and also have good AT&T 4G signal on the iPhones. We haven’t even turned on the MiFi JetPack with Verizon.

The RV Park hostess provided a map yesterday at check-in that was chock full of tourist attractions and activities, so with map in hand, we headed out for another day-trip.

We decided to take a loop (tip was courtesy of our neighbor Susie Claxton) by going South from the RV Park which is just off Hwy 101 and then turning West to skirt along the coast going North again on Three Capes Road. We left the park at 10 AM. Shortly after driving South, we saw a sign for Munson Creek Falls to the East. We decided to check it out… you can never get enough falls, right? It was only 1-1/2 miles off our intended route on a mostly bumpy dirt road. Once in the turn-around parking lot, we saw that it was a 1/4 mile hike. We felt up to that.

The trail was nice and reminded us of being back in the Hoh Rainforest again. We were the first people there, but it was short-lived. As soon as we got on the trail we saw about 4 other vehicles pull into the parking area too.

The trail was closed just a little ways before the bottom of the falls. This is as close as we could get (pic below). We said, “Ooh, Aah”, took a picture, and headed back. We passed the many other folks along the trail that were coming in while stopping to answer the common question: “What kind of dog is that?”

After the falls, we got back on Hwy 101 for a short distance before turning West as planned. We skirted the coast on the unusually wavy and bumpy road in dire need of repair. We passed the seemingly popular Whiskey Creek Fish Hatchery, there were absolutely no parking spots left, even the sides of the road were full of cars, so we drove on.

We kept our eyes open for a place to stop and eat breakfast, but found nothing. We didn’t eat before we left this morning 🙁

We stopped at this nice beach that was being enjoyed by lots of folks out for the weekend. There were signs posted that said not to approach the sea lions, but we didn’t see any.

We then drove to Cape Meares. It turns out the road past this point was closed, so we would have to double back a ways to get to Tillamook… still no sign of a restaurant or cafe to get breakfast at.

But, here’s a sign that describes Cape Meares:

And a highly ornate informational kiosk in the parking area for the Cape Meares Lighthouse.

We walked down to the lighthouse and took pictures of the scenery along the way.

Here I tried to zoom in on some sea lions or other such related critters that were hanging out on the rocky coastline below.

View from near the lighthouse.

We took turns taking the free tour through the lighthouse. They didn’t allow dogs.

I took some pictures inside the lighthouse:

The floor above that surrounds the light had glass inserts in the floor.

View from inside the lighthouse at the top.

We took a different trail back up to the parking lot.

We looked real hard… but didn’t get to see any whales, Stilla was disappointed.

Back at the parking lot, there was a relatively short path that led up the hill to an Octopus Tree. Here’s the informational placard.

Pretty cool in a weird kind of way.

We then took the long way around to get back to Hwy 101 because of the road closure… still didn’t see a place to get breakfast! So when we got into the town of Tillamook, we spotted a Pancake House that served breakfast all day. We found a spot out front, put up the sun-visors, and cracked the windows for Coach while we went in and got a late breakfast finally.

After breakfast, er lunch, we debated on whether to go to the Cheese Factory or the Air Museum. We figured the Cheese Factory definitely didn’t allow dogs, so we drove to the Air Museum to see if they were dog-friendly. They weren’t. But we found out they have a nice cafe just inside their doorway and it’s only a $7 entrance fee for veterans. But it was too hot to leave Coach in the Silverado so we headed back to the RV Park with the thought we could leave Coach in the air-conditioned Motorhome. But, I think we were both feeling tired and lethargic from the big breakfast, so we just hung out at the Park the rest of the day instead of going back. There’s always tomorrow, right?

I spent time in the afternoon-evening to catch up on my blog post for the trip down here. And here I am again this morning (Sunday) catching up on this blog post for Saturday. Time to close this post and head out for more adventures…

C U tomorrow!

Oregon

Moving Day (Tillamook, OR)

2014/09/14 davidhobden@mac.com 1 Comment

It’s time to move on again today, Friday (12 Sept). We’ve really enjoyed this state park. Would definitely come here again to Cape Disappointment if the opportunity arises in the future.

We met a nice couple that was camped next to us, they come here every year from Eatonville, WA. My neighbor’s name was Brian, but I don’t think I caught his wife’s name. Brian was interested in tips on diesel pushers and was full of questions. He was thinking of getting a Class A in the future. I tried to be as informative as I could without seeming biased… hard for us Alpine Coach owners, eh? Anyway, safe travels Brian – good luck with your search and I hope I was able to help.

Before we packed up, we took another morning walk. I noticed a little-used trail behind our camping circle, so we followed it through the woods towards the cliffs as we swatted away spider webs across the path.

We ended up finding a couple of hidden caves.

And then, I’m convinced we found the remains of an old ship wreck hidden in the trees near the cliffs. The remaining wood is covered with moss and pine needles… What do you think? Stilla won’t believe me.

We continued on the hidden path and came out onto the beach again.

Once on the beach, we came upon someone’s idea of a beach fort. They must have spent some time on this… it even had a “garden” in the front “yard”.

After our morning’s exploits, we finished packing up and then drove the Coach to the park entrance, Stilla followed in the Silverado. We connected the truck up to the Coach once we were at a wide, straight section in the road. We successfully navigated under all the low-hanging branches and came through unscathed again.

We headed South on Hwy 101 again after exiting the park. Then we crossed over the Columbia River into Oregon via the Astoria-Megler Bridge that I posted about yesterday. After going through Astoria we started looking on-line for RV Parks. We didn’t have cell service for the last two days at Cape Disappointment on either the iPhones with AT&T or the MiFi Jetpack with Verizon so I hadn’t done any prior planning. I quickly determined that Tillamook had an Elks Lodge so I called their number to ask if they had RV parking and it turns out that they have their own RV park just South of town that is separate from their downtown Lodge. Wow! Who knew? So I called ahead to make sure they had room. Dixie, the camp-hostess said, “Come on in!”

Our first rest stop was above Smugglers Cove after the town of Cannon Beach. We enjoyed the views and took a couple pictures.

And here’s the obligatory “selfie”.

Here’s a few pictures of our second and final rest stop for the day. Nice views, eh? I think it was overlooking Devils Cauldron, also not far South of Cannon Beach.

Here’s the entrance to the Elks Park, located ~5 miles South of Tillamook. Total travel distance for the day was just under 90 miles.

View of the rigs in the Elks RV Park.

As soon as we pulled in, we met the Camp Hostess, Dixie. She rolled up in her golf cart to greet us. She told us to pick a spot and stop by once we got settled to pay the $20 per day donation. However, before I parked the Coach for the next couple days, I wanted to get fuel – I was on 1/4 tank. It’s always best to keep the tank as full as possible at all times to prevent moisture from condensation building up in the tank and possibly even causing algae to grow. This can wreak havoc on your fuel system and especially filters. I had been on the look out for a decent fuel station the entire trip today that would accommodate the Coach while I was still towing the truck, but only saw one place back in Tillamook. But, naturally I was already past it before I realized it would have worked for us. I mentioned my need to get fuel to Dixie, and she recommended a place just back up the road that I must have missed. So we disconnected the truck and parked it in the spot we wanted and headed back out to fuel up. We found the country store / gas station alright and topped off. Diesel was $3.99 a gallon! Here in Oregon, a gas station attendant has to pump your fuel by state law. The attendant said this was the first time he pumped so much into one vehicle.

After returning to the RV Park and setting up. We turned on the AC(s) so we could leave little Coach in the Coach in order to go into town and partake of the Elks Lodge Friday dinner. One thing about Elks lodges across the country is that they all seem to offer a good meal every Friday for a good price and we heard from Dixie, that tonight’s specialty was a fish platter. This park has full hook-ups with 50amp service, so we could leave both air conditioners on… and it was so hot, we needed it. We also took the bicycles off the Silverado so we wouldn’t have any trouble in town finding a parking spot to fit into. And also, as I think I’ve mentioned before, the bike rack sticks out pretty far with the tailgate down and I don’t want to get a ticket from the local police.

BTW – We chose the RV site next to Orman and Susie Claxton who we know from the Alpine SoCal Association and Redmond FMCA Rally we recently attended. It’s a small RV world out here 🙂

Here’s a couple pics of the downtown Tillamook Elks Lodge #1437. The food was great! But I didn’t like the slot machines in the bar area we frequented before dinner… they didn’t give me any money! 🙂

For tomorrow (Saturday) we already got a lot of tips on things to do and see in the area: Munson Creek Falls; Tillamook Cheese Factory tour; Air Museum; 3 Capes; Octopus Tree; Cape Meares and Lighthouse… so stay tuned for our next adventure…

Urban Escape Vehicle .com

Tag Archives: Western RV

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Moving Day (Tillamook, OR)

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