The blessings continue!

September 10, 2013, a day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times, only "You Are There," (with apologies to Walter Cronkite). The sun rose with a few clouds to greet it. Then the clouds cleared away, although the wind that has been blowing steadily for the past six days continued unabated.

 

We had need of a few things aboard Topper, so we made a trip up to Walmart.  Jill decided it was time for her to try driving Silvie. She climbed into the driver's seat and said, "I can't do this. I can't see over the hood." Nevertheless, she wanted to try. Since the roads around Columbia Riverfront RV Park are very lightly traveled, it seemed to be a perfect opportunity. The bottom line is that she did fine. She drove us to Walmart, about three miles, and then proceeded to practice parking in several spots in the lot. By the time she was through, she said, "I can do this."                                                                  

We returned to the park and to Topper. One of the things that we purchased was a bicycle pump, so I could top off the air bags on Silvie's rear axle. With great anticipation, I unpacked the pump and went out to give it a try. It didn't work! The hose wouldn't stay attached to the valve stem.  I was pretty disappointed, but Jill fixed lunch, which lifted my spirits.

After lunch, I returned to Walmart and got a refund. I found another pump.  I bought it and went directly to the parking lot to try it out. Eureka!  It worked fine. I returned to Topper and my girls. 

We lounged about for a bit, and then we went for another walk along the river's edge. The dogs loved it, and so did we, although, I am feeling a bit cheated, since I found two baseball hats on the beach last year and have only found a few fishing tackle items this year.

When we returned, we decided it was time to put Topper on top of Silvie. Tomorrow, we are moving to another site in this park, where we will have a better view. It was a new world's record (or at least a new Tom and Jill record) for putting the camper in the truck. It only took us about 20 minutes!

So, now you are wondering about the ship pictures.  Well, the ships are what I come here for. Jill, on the other hand, always thought I was a little nuts for being so nuts about the ships.  But now, she is coming around. She is wanting to know about ship's lore and things nautical. There is hope for her yet. 

And yesterday, I sneaked behind the 42 footer next door and snapped this sunset. 

Please stay tuned for more reports from our new home tomorrow!

Another crummy day in paradise!

The morning was gray...and windy. The last forecast I had seen was for "drizzle" and 81 degrees.  Sounded miserable to me; hot and muggy and drizzly. The aspect of the sky bore out the prediction. The wind was howling around our door. But my sweet bride assured me that she had seen another forecast for sunny and warm. 

Around 10 AM, I noticed the clouds were breaking up and patches of blue were appearing. Hooray! I began to have other ideas for the day besides watching a movie or reading. Consulting the internet on my trusty laptop, I discovered that near Yacolt, there is a park called Moulton Falls Park. It looked as if we might find some good hiking there.

We packed up the dogs and a few odds and ends and hit the road.  Winding through beautiful countryside, first along the Lewis river and then along Cedar Creek, we traveled through the bucolic splendor of southwest Washington state at the end of summer. We passed through Amboy and then on to Yacolt and finally to Moulton Falls County Park.  I don't even know what county this is (Clark?).

Suffice to say that our travels were not in vain.  The park is gorgeous.  It is set in a canyon, through which flows the east fork of the Lewis river.  There are numerous stony outcroppings and a few waterfalls. The big attraction, though, for most of the other, obviously repeat, visitors, was the swimming holes.  There are several spots where the river becomes wide and deep, perfect for swimming.

We were neither in the mood nor equipped for swimming, so we simply hiked up the trail that first crosses the river via a beautiful bridge (of which I neglected to make a photo) and then parallels the stream. The trail was wide and sandy, and the dogs had a wonderful time sniffing and exploring. Lulu in particular would have explored every trail we came to, given a fighting chance. Alas, our time was limited, so we turned back and headed for home.

All in all, the day turned out much different than I had expected when I arose. Indeed, it was about as delightful a day as a fellow could ask for.

 Looking downstream from the Moulton Falls bridge at one of the swimming holes.

 And looking upstream.

Looking upstream from the trail along the south side of the river.

Playin' catch up (not to be confused with ketchup)

I have a few nice photos that I have not got around to posting yet.  One of the reasons we like this park so much is that we get to see a lot of river traffic.  As you may know, Portland is the biggest deep water, freshwater port on the west coast of the USA. It is popular with ship companies, because the freshwater tends to kill off some of the saltwater organisms that attach themselves to the hull of a ship, while it is at sea.

In addition, Portland is a terminal for most of the products of the Columbia River Basin. These include grain and forest products, among many others. Portland is also a port of entry for many products from foreign countries, including automobiles.  There are huge receiving lots for new cars at the port near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

So, we get to see a lot of ships going up and down the river, while we are vacationing here.  Below are a few shots of two of them:

The two ships in the above pictures passed more or less right in front of the park, although, thanks to the large class A motor home parked between us and the river, I was unable to get a photo of that. (Not that I am bitter.)

Last evening, as I was preparing to grill some pork ribs for dinner, I looked out the window and saw the scene below.

The interesting thing about the photo is not the tug pushing a couple of barges, although that is more of the commercial river traffic I referred to above. Notice the bright light on the hill in the right hand side of the photo.  This is apparently a reflection of the setting sun off of the window of a building. Although I don't like to have to offer disclaimers for my work, I have to tell you that the light from that reflection was much more intense (almost blinding) than it appears in the photo.

There's no place like home (heels clicking), there's no place like home!

It was inevitable.  In fact, we expected it.  Yesterday, a 42 foot Class A motor home (i.e., bus) moved into the space next to us.  Now ordinarily, they would have been welcome as the buds in May, BUT they stole our view of the river!! Rude, I say, rude, rude, rude!

Actually, when we made the reservation to stay here, I asked for one of the view sites, but our favorites (#1-10) were all reserved already. The host offered me site #75, because it is closer to the river than all but one other. I quipped, "I hope you don't have a 45 footer scheduled into #76."  He told me that a 40 footer would be there for 2 days. So, I agreed to take it. 

When the very nice folks from Montana arrived yesterday, Ken (the owner) apologized for taking our view.  I told him I was expecting him, and that since he was only there for two days, I would forgive him.  But then he told me that he had just made the reservation the day before.  There had been no place for him to stay for a week, until "guess who" cancelled.

So, we are suffering mightily ;-) due to lack of view. 

Our original plan was to stay here for five to seven days and then move on to another park, as yet to be determined.  I looked on the internet for  a nice park near Mossyrock, WA.  Some RVing friends have raved about the area, but we have never made it there.  So, today, since Topper is standing on her own four feet, we took Silvie and headed for Mossyrock, about 45 miles up the road, to scope it out. Here are our findings:

1. Seaquest State Park:  a beautiful park with 16 full hookup (electricity, water, sewer) campsites, all of which are arranged like a parking lot and as of today surrounded by mud. Lots of hiking trails and a beautiful wooded park.
2. Silver Lake Motel and RV park: a very tired motel with, perhaps 8 RV sites, which appear to be just a matter of parking on the lawn. I couldn't tell what they had for conveniences.  In their favor, there is lake frontage with a dock and boats for rent. Overall, the "feel" of the place was what might come to mind if you learned we were living in a "trailer park."
3. Silver Cove "An upscale RV Resort": The facilities are nice enough, and the park is well maintained.  It is fairly new, built on a series of canals that were apparently dug in order to offer waterfront RV sites to most of the guests. As we looked around, we were impressed by how unimpressed we were and with the fact that there appeared to be no activities available except walking around the park. 

In a desperate endeavor to do better, I turned down S. Silver Lake Rd.  It sounds promising, no? We drove up and up, ever higher into the mountains until, at last, we came to a T.  To the left was a dead end road (in 1 1/2 miles) that headed downhill toward what I guessed might be the lake.  We drove for what felt like 3 or 4 miles and came to the end of the county road, although the pavement continued. At the end of the county road, there is a little turnout. 

We pulled into the turnout and decided to enjoy our picnic lunch. After all, the scenery was pretty enough, and we had long since despaired of finding the perfect RV park on Silver Lake.  While we were eating, we noticed some blackberry bushes.  That was all it took. Jill was out of the truck and filling her sandwich bag with blackberries.  I wasn't far behind, and after a very few minutes, we had a couple of cups of berries; enough for dessert tonight.

It seemed like a good time to head for home.  When we returned to the T, where we had gone to the end of the county road, we continued on what became Headquarters Road.  The drive was spectacular, and in a short time, we found ourselves back at I-5.  I turned the truck onto the freeway and we came back to Woodland. After a quick stop at Wally World for some ears of corn and some pork spare ribs for dinner, we made our way back to site #75, Columbia River Front RV Park.

I went up to the office and asked if, perchance, they had a space available in the view sites beginning on Wednesday.  Bingo! Wednesday, we will be moving to site #5, where we can park Topper with an unobstructed view of the river.  So, we won't be staying in the Silver Lake area; at least not on this trip.

Genesis 6

Can you say, "Noah?"  Last night it rained so hard ALL NIGHT LONG that I told Jill, "I think we should have bought an Ark, instead of a camper."  The good news is that the thunder and lightning all happened before bedtime, so Pogo was able to settle down and sleep all night.

This morning, the rain continued, until about 11 AM.  We off-loaded Topper from Silvie (the Silverado pickup) and made a trip into town for some supplies, but also because we were having a little cabin fever, after 2 days of rainy weather. We had lunch at a nice little Mexican restaurant called Guadalajara.  It was quite good.

After we returned, we did a load of laundry at the coin-op here in the park. The old blogger took a nap, and then we took the dogs for a little romp on the grass. We sat out under the awning, where we met our new neighbors who are from just up the road at Mossyrock.

Here's our little patio area.

Dinner was a bit late, because we were just enjoying being out and about.  So, now it is time to settle in for the night.  More adventures are expected tomorrow, because the weather is forecast to improve.

Look for another report soon.

Oh what a beautiful morning... oh, what an interesting night.

We had a lovely day yesterday, as I reported in my previous post.  Around, 9 PM, having watched the Boston Red Sox slaughter the Detroit Tigers 20-4, and after a lovely dinner, we decided it was time to climb into our "upper berth."

We took the dogs out for their evening duty, and then got ourselves ready for a long repose. We craweled into bed.  Lulu spent some time loving us up, and then she crawled into her little bed which is next to my side of the bed.  Pogo, as always, snuggled up between us.  Soon, the old blogger was in dreamland.

The next thing I knew, Pogo was sitting on my head, shaking like one of those old time spot reducing machines and panting as if she had just run a marathon. I must have made some comment, because Jill said, "Poor Pogo, the thunder is worrying her." I didn't even know there was thunder, and then there was a brilliant flash through the overhead hatch. A few moments later, a long, rolling rumble passed over us, and Pogo turned the spot reducer up to "High."

For several minutes, Pogo panted and shook. Soon, I noticed a puddle on the top cover of the bed from her drooling. After several minutes of trying to calm her down, we heard a crash, followed by the sound of running water. 

OK, that's it, I'm getting up.  Jill turned on the overhead light and I leapt out of bed (as best I could, given that getting out of bed means slithering down to the end and stepping down a couple of feet). I went to the galley, where I found that the cutting board, which had been standing on edge next to the sink, had fallen over, hit the water tap and turned on the hot water. OK, that was easy to fix.  I got back into bed; we turned out the light, and tried to go back to sleep.

I think it was about that time that the rain began falling in earnest (and also in Woodland).  Pogo was a basket case. After a while, Jill had had it.  She took Pogo down to the dinette berth and they proceeded to settle in there. 

I began to doze again.  Then my phone rang. Now, to me, a phone call at 2 AM is never good news.  This one turned out to be a cheerful man with a distinctly British accent.  After a moment of my trying to make sense of who this was, and why he was calling in the middle of the night, he said, "I'm calling about your RV." I told him the RV has already been sold, and he said, "Right, then, cheeri-o." When we got up this morning, I looked at the phone number. The call had come from Isle of Man.  For those of you who are geographically challenged, like your old blogger, Isle of Man is in the middle of the Irish Sea! I guess I had better check Craig's List to make sure I cancelled the ad for Sadie!

OK.  Now for some real sleep.  I began to doze again. Then I awakened to the following: a low rumble (a ship going up the river?), a train whistle (on the far side of the river), a shudder (Topper was being jostled), and the sound of a sail flapping wildly in the wind ( I knew I should have rolled up the awning before going to bed.)  I lay there trying to ignore all this stuff, but eventually visions of a shredded awning flapping along behind us as we tootle down the highway to our next destination overcame my desire for sleep. 

I got up and went out in the wind and the rain and rolled up said awning (for only the second time since we have had Topper) with a bit of difficulty. Jill thanked me, for she, too, was concerned, and I returned to my bed. At long last I fell into the arms of Morpheus not to awaken again until 7:30! Surprisingly cheerful, I got up and discovered that Jill was in the same condition: tired, but not exhausted or grumpy. 

Jill made some coffee, and then we took the girls out for their morning business, a very successful venture.  And here I sit writing to you, gentle reader, while my bride is in the kitchen preparing something that features a heavenly aroma for my breakfast.

Sweet dreams!

The second time is the charm

With a great deal of anticipation, we departed on our annual fall getaway.  We have been anticipating the trip for several weeks and making improvements and personalizing Topper. Jill did a fantastic job of packing up the camper, as usual, and I fussed with the technical stuff. 

Finally, we were ready.  We put the dogs in the truck did a final check on door locks and hit the road.  Things were going swimmingly until we got to Salem, about 15 miles from home. That's when the old blogger realized that his wallet was sitting on top of his dresser...at home!

We made an about face and headed for home. Along the way, Jill remembered that she hadn't packed Pogo's medicines. So, to save face, I declared that we were going home for dog meds...oh, and while we are there, we'll pick up my wallet, too.

Once we were back on the road again, we had no further trouble.  The traffic in Portland was bearable (barely), and we made fairly good time, although I don't push things, when we are RVing. It's supposed to be relaxing, you know.

By the time we reached Hazel Dell, we realized that we were getting hungry.  Jill said she wanted a bacon, cheese Whopper Jr.  We found Burger King and enjoyed the fact that it was so easy to pull in the parking lot, park the truck and get lunch.  That was not the case with the motor home, especially when we were towing the little car behind.

After lunch we continued to our destination, to wit: Columbia Riverside RV Park, in Woodland, WA.  We love this place, and we have stayed here many times in the past. We are parked where we can see the Columbia River from our dinette window. There is one space between us and the view, but it is empty.  Jill said, "Even if we only get this one night without somebody parked between us and the river, it will be totally worth it." 

Here's what she was talking about: