Of goats and toads

It is good to be out and about in Sadie again. We decided that, since it has been three months since our last outing, it is about time.

After a good deal of agonizing over where to go, we settled on the Devil's Lake RV Park in Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast. The reasons we chose this park are the following: 1) it is not a long drive, 2) we have not been to this park before, 3) we like Lincoln City for its many shops and nice beaches.

The caper began last week. I was grateful to be able just to go out in the garage and get to work on Sadie. After checking all of her mechanicals, I rolled her out on the driveway and gave her a bath. That led me to do some further cleaning and polishing. Sadie looked about as good as she ever has under the current management, when I was done.

Saturday was given over to cleaning up the interior and packing the necessaries for the trip. For reasons that neither Jill nor I can now remember, we pretty much took out of Sadie everything that we usually carry aboard, when we moved into the new house. So, we had not only to load everything, but also to remember what we needed.

This morning, we put a few last minute items aboard, hitched up Daisy Mae behind and departed for the coast. We had some light rain along our route, which of course, completely negated the exterior cleaning I had done. Nevertheless, Sadie purred along as if she was happy to be on the road again.

We arrived at the Devil's Lake RV Park and checked in. After reading RV Park Reviews' website, we weren't sure what to expect. To our delight, the park is quite lovely. The spaces are paved and reasonably level, although I did have to get out the leveling blocks to keep the left front wheel in contact with terra firma. The utilities are all functional and the wi-fi service is among the best we have encountered.

While I was hooking Sadie up to the utilities, a beautiful big Tiffin Phaeton coach stopped in the road behind our space. The husband and wife were fussing with their tow bar, and Jill overheard them saying something about needing a hammer. I offered to look and see if I had one aboard (which, of course, I didn't). Then, I looked at the problem they were having. One leg of their towbar had not extended when they started to move the coach. That meant that towing their Jeep was not going to work too well.

After sizing up the situation, I recommended that Harold (the husband) drive the coach down the slight incline behind us and make a right turn, which would extend the left arm of the tow bar to full length. He did so, and everything worked as expected. Harold thanked me profusely and said, "I'd buy you a beer, but I am going home." I told him, "What are RVers for, if not to help each other in a jam?"

After Mr. and Mrs. Harold were on their way, I finished hooking Sadie up to the utilities. Next came lunch with Perry (Mason). Then we had a short walk, loaded Pogo into Daisy Mae and went for a drive. We saw things we haven't seen before.

At one intersection we saw a sign advertising the Barking Dog Farm organic veggies. We decided to see what we could find out and headed up a road that follows the Siletz river. We never did find the farm, but we found a couple of RV parks. Both are right on the river, but one looked pretty nice and the other looked kind of crummy. The crummy one charges $40 a night for a waterfront site, with water and electricity, but no sewer or wi-fi. Cable TV is an additional $2 per night. Yikes! I think we will stay right where we are, for $27/night!

We took a drive through that spendy park and the best thing we saw was a pair of goats munching on the grass.

On the way back, we stopped at the popular Tanger Outlet Mall in Lincoln City. We looked at a lot of stuff, and Jill purchased a small plastic container in which to keep treats for Pogo in our end table at home. Otherwise, we weren't even tempted.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention that we have had blue skies and sunshine ever since we arrived here this morning. So far, it has been a marvelously enjoyable trip. Tomorrow, we will do some more exploring. I hope the weather holds, so we can take a walk on the beach. But if it doesn't, we will find some other way to enjoy ourselves!

Stay tuned for more travels with Sadie.