Good morning!

There's good news, and there's bad news. The bad news is that it's raining. The good news is that it's raining. Oregon has been suffering near drought conditions for nearly a year. The other good news is that we have found none of the rain coming in around the new skylight.

I awoke around 4 AM to the sound of rain pelting on Topper's metal roof. Immediately, of course, I began wondering if my recent repair would “hold water,” so to speak. Not wanting to disturb Jill, I lay there, trying to sleep, wanting to get up and see if there were any signs of leakage, not being able to sleep because of the sound of the rain pounding on the roof a couple of feet above my head. It was only after I did finally get up at 6 AM and put on my hearing aids that I realized how loud the rain really is on the metal roof!

We will wait and see how the weather pans out. If it continues to pour, we will go home. If it dries up a bit, I think we will stay another night. If we stay, it will be because we are able to get out and enjoy more of God's beautiful creation here at Champoeg. That would mean more photos. Stand by.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

When I was director of a sizable dental office, staffed by seven dentists and about twenty support staff, part of my duties included preparing a budget each year. Fortunately, I had a great deal of help from people who knew a great deal more about budgeting a multimillion dollar operation than I did. One of the things I learned during that season of my life was posted above my desk on a sign that read:

“Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it deals with matters of the future.”

I can only commiserate with the meteorologists among us, including the one who predicted sunny weather for today. In fact, we have had moments of sunshine, and perhaps, I was expecting too much. Here's what we got. FOG! Lots and lots of fog, until about 1:30PM, was followed by sunshine for about half an hour, followed by overcast skies.

In fairness, we did have sunshine. The temperature got to the forecast level, around 60 degrees, and we have had a wonderful time walking in the woods with the dogs, and enjoying Champoeg with a paucity of other campers. The dogs loved the hike, as evidenced by the fact that they are currently sacked out on the sofa, snoozing.

So here's what we saw: 

 Even in late October, God provides a few flowers to brighten our path. 

The old blogger needs to learn to do selfies well enough that he can remember to smile! That's the Willamette River in the background. 

Here's one of the little shacks that sit along the river's edge. 

Can you say "acer macrophyllum?" That's "big leaf maple" to most of us.

Don't know if this is a single family dwelling or some kind of lodge. Either way, it is impressive.

A cathedral like forest path.  We love this place. 

 My lovely bride said, "He looks like a fun guy [or was it fungi?]."

 Here's his cousin.

Come back again. I'll see if I can find more to share.

Time to try out the new goodies.

On Friday, I finished installing a new skylight to replace the one that leaked on our last outing to Cape Kiwanda. Now, several weeks have elapsed in between times, but it was all worth the wait.

When we returned from Cape Kiwanda, I did some online shopping for a new skylight. I finally found what appeared to be just the ticket at EZ Tops Worldwide. I placed an order for a new bronze-tone, lexan skylight...and then we waited...and waited...and waited. Notice I didn't say we waited patiently. It took three weeks for the skylight to be fabricated. I was beginning to wonder if the company had taken my money and gone to Tahiti.

Finally, I called and was told that the skylight would be shipped that very day. I figured, “OK, another week, and I will be able to install the thing.” The gentleman I spoke with in Maine, yes, you read right, Maine, said he was shipping the skylight via Priority Mail with good ol' USPS. That was on last Tuesday. The package arrived on Thursday, and as I mentioned, I installed it on Friday.

“Now, can we go camping?” queried my bride.

“Yes, Dear,” I replied. “Where would you like to go.”

We settled on Champoeg State Park, which is less than an hour from home, but one of our favorite camp grounds. There are miles of walking trails, a frisbee golf course, a dog park and a beautiful landscape, situated along the Willamette River, just a few miles south of Portland.

So, yesterday, we packed up our gear. I took a little time to reconfigure the wiring for the backup camera, so that I can see to back up the camper. Earlier this year, I installed a backup cam on Red Ryder. It works great, except when Topper is mounted, all the backup camera could see was the underside of Topper's back end. Not helpful for backing into a parking space.

When we got Topper, one of the first things I did was to install a rearview camera above the door on the backend. I have enjoyed having that camera, so I know what the drivers behind me are up to. So, before this trip, I figured out how to tap the rearview camera into the wiring for the backup camera. Now when I put Red Ryder in reverse, I see a commanding view of the area behind me, instead of Topper's underside.

OK, now you have the latest on all the updates I have done. We left the house today and had a gorgeous drive through Perrydale, Amity, Dayton, Dundee and Newberg and finally arrived at Champoeg. We had no reservation, so we were glad to see the “VACANCY” sign at the park entrance. We drove around both loops to find the perfect place to park. Here is the view from our campsite:

And the tree across the road from our campsite:

 

 Pogo loves camping, especially when it involves lying on the grass in the sunshine. 

Here we are, then. The camp host stopped by and we chatted with her for quite some time. She has a fascinating personal history to share. Tomorrow's weather is forecast to be splendid, so we will no doubt do some hiking with the doggies.

It doesn't get better than this!

Another crummy day in paradise.  As per my previous post, the day dawned with clear skies and a temperature that ranged from about 60 in the morning to 65 in the afternoon.  The beach was absolutely stunning.  We walked about a mile down the sand. 

 

Near the beginning of our walk, a gent with four dogs appeared on the beach. One of the dogs was a beagle, which came running toward us and had Lulu in a panic.  In case I haven't mentioned it before, Lulu was traumatized by some bigger dogs at a doggy daycare center when she was a puppy, and she suffers a good deal of anxiety when other dogs appear. 

I picked Lulu up, when I saw the beagle making a beeline for us. The owner showed up pretty soon with a leash and apologies. All of his dogs seemed rather friendly, so I gingerly introduced Lulu to them.  She got right in there with the sniffing that dogs like to do and had a great time. We had a similar experience with a dog in our neighborhood about a week ago.  We are beginning to think that Lulu can learn to control her fear of other dogs. Wouldn't that be great?

It appears that we missed a big event over the weekend. The best I can figure out (from banners on the light poles) is that it was a Long Board Surfing competition and beer fest. There were still a lot of surfers on the beach this morning, and there was a big tent set up near the dory launch parking lot.


At any rate, the weather couldn't have been more beautiful, and our beach walk was the highlight of the morning. When we got back to Topper, the dogs promptly crashed on the sofa. Taking advantage of the "kids' nap time" we walked back to the Stimulus Coffee shop and had a nice chat over some very good coffee.  This is really quite a lovely town for doing tourist things.

The afternoon was given over to reading that mystery I mentioned in my last post. It is a page turner for sure.  Jill is reading another mystery by the same author, so we were both quite content. Ahhhh...can't wait to find out what God has in store for us tomorrow.

Some days are harder than others...

It's September 21st. Is this the first day of Fall...haven't checked the official calendar? The weather forecast is for fair weather the next several days on the Oregon coast, so we packed up Topper, backed Red Ryder underneath and hit the road for Pacific City, and more specifically, Cape Kiwanda RV park. 

This is one of our favorite venues.  The Pacific Ocean is across the street; the park is beautifully landscaped and, for a private park, offers spacious campsites with all the amenities, including Turner Classic Movies on the cable; the Pelican Pub is across the street (between the park and the ocean, you understand); and today dawned cloudless, with a forecast of 65 degrees!

There was a 20% chance of rain predicted for last night.  I should probably pack up and head for a casino; even with those odds, we got rain and plenty of it. Into every sunny life a little rain must fall. And into Topper, too.  I was awakened in the night by a loud bang. I went out to investigate and found the awning had collapsed. Not sure whether it got a puddle of rain on it or a puff of wind, but I have made a note not to leave it out at bedtime ever again! I came back in and found that the skylight in Topper's kitchen was leaking large quantities of water.  Good! Another project to fill my otherwise dull and lonely (NOT) hours.

So, here we sit, contemplating our day.  My sweet wife is catching up on her Bible study. The dogs are snoozing on the sofa. But all I can think about is getting out for a romp on the beach. We haven't been to Pacific City all summer. That is mainly because we were everywhere else.  San Diego in May, Kona in June, Sunriver in July and back to San Diego in August to help repair the shower in dear daughter's master bath.

I don't have any photos to share in this post, but I suspect there will be some later today.  In the meantime, I think I will pour another cup of java and contemplate whether to walk on the beach first or start that new mystery novel.  Some days are harder than others...

A beautiful drive... but it is HOT!

Another travel day has come and gone. Today was not nearly as trying as yesterday.  We enjoyed our stay at San Lorenzo park, but the weather was a bit too warm for our taste.  We did stroll the grounds in the evening.  It is an interesting place with lots of historical displays, mainly of farm and mining machinery from the area.

We had a leisurely morning before we took care of housekeeping chores and packing.  Once we were ready to go, it was an easy drive to the 101, and traffic was blessedly light. We sailed on down the road through the agricultural marvel that is California.  Even with the drought at hand, the ag business is in full swing.

The weather continued its hot tendency.  The highest we actually registered on Red Ryder’s temperature monitor was 101 degrees.  Then again, when we got to Pismo beach, it was 76.  Jill kept checking the weather for places that were yet to come on the route. Some reports were frightening, especially when she read that Simi Valley, our destination for today, was expected to hit 104. 

Well, there is no one who likes to exaggerate like someone with the ear of the public.  In this case, that was the weather forecaster.  Upon arrival at Oak Park in Simi Valley, we found the temperature a toasty 95, but NOT 104. Thank you, Lord.

The park is a county park and is not stellar.  We have a site with water and electricity, which is fine, but it is far from level and required some engineering with leveling blocks to get close enough to level that I don’t worry (much) about the refrigerator being in jeopardy.  It seems that evaporative refrigerators require being pretty near level, or they can suffer some damage to their internal components.

We are grateful again for the AC unit which keeps our little home comfy in spite of the heat. In fact, I have always read that AC is capable of lowering the temperature about 20 degrees below the ambient.  In our case, the AC has been bringing the temp down 25-30 degrees. We have had to back off on the settings a couple of times to keep it WARM enough inside!  The current temperature outside is 84, so we are confident we can endure the weather.

Again we have no pictures to share.  Jill took one when we were in stop and go traffic coming through Santa Barbara, but if you’ve ever been in a traffic jam, you can imagine what that looked like. 

I expect we will saunter around the park to see what all it has to offer, and then we will probably settle in with a movie. Perhaps, another Boston Blackie mystery!?

Washboards and white knuckles

“Today," I told my blushing bride, "will be a much easier day than yesterday.  Yesterday was the longest drive of the trip. Today is a good 50 miles shorter, and we don’t have the winding roads of the redwoods to negotiate.” And so began a day that will live in infamy!

We checked out from the Aurora RV Park with some regret. The place is beautiful, and Elena, the “helper” was delightful and wonderfully accommodating. But we have a reservation in King City for a space at the San Lorenzo Regional Park.  We pulled out about 9:00 an headed back to US 101 at Calpella, having learned from Elena that the southern route to Hopland is tortuous and narrow. I quickly remembered last year’s adventure going up and down a “direct route” that had 16% grades!! Yikes. 

When we got on US 101, we were cruising along quite nicely, although I was reminded, once again, of how bad the pavement is from Ukiah south.  We made it as far as Santa Rosa, where the traffic began to back up. I turned on the GPS, which I had programmed before we left, to help guide us through the awful maze that is the San Francisco Bay area.

Well, I don’t know what I told that GPS but she took us way to the east on I580, before depositing us back on I680 headed west to US 101 again. I’m pretty much convinced she did this in order to get me to write a letter to the California DOT about their amazingly terrible freeways. The pavement is buckled and reminiscent of a washboard and there are huge discrepancies between the trajectory of the pavement and the trajectory of the surface of every bridge we crossed. I thought we were going to break Red Ryder’s suspension.

The traffic was pretty much bumper to bumper from north of Oakland all the way to the Cal 156 exit to the Monterey Peninsula. And of course there are the California darters, some of whom missed my front fenders by inches, weaving in and out of the lanes. They were only to be topped by all the care free drivers who wander up the on ramp at 45 mph and only look over their shoulder or in the rear view mirror when they are about to merge with my vehicle, instead of the flow of traffic.

Once we got past the 156, traffic thinned out and the pavement was smoother in most places. So, the weather decided to heat up to 107 degrees! Thank God for a good AC unit in Red Ryder. My recently installed transmission temperature gauge was a comfort.  Even in the heat and stop and go traffic, the tranny never topped 185 degrees, and when we got moving again, the temp fell back to 175.  I do love my transmission cooler.

At long last the “easy day” of driving ended at San Lorenzo Regional Park campground, which is lovely, has many large eucalyptus trees to shade us and best of all, full hookups! For you non RVers, that means we have water (for showers!!), electricity (for Air Conditioning!!!) and a sewer hook up (so we can dump all that shower water, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, knowwhatImean?). 

When the cool of the evening comes (it’s already down to 96), I will go for a stroll and investigate all the interesting things in this park. Until then, I am content to sip a cold drink under the AC…and listen to my lovely wife praise me for adding it (the AC, not the drink), when we bought the camper.

Sorry, no pictures today. It is hard to click the shutter with white knuckles. Perhaps, tomorrow. Do come back.