Bet you thought we sold Sadie!

It has been quite a while since we posted.  Between busyness at church and a few mechanical problems compounded by really wet weather all winter, we have just not done much RVing.

We did make a trip to Silverton to celebrate Jill's birthday.  We had taken Sadie to the shop in January, because we thought she might need a new exhaust system.  Turns out it was a small exhaust leak.  There was also a leak in the oil pan gasket.  Problems to be expected with a 24 year old coach! After they were fixed, we needed a Sadie fix, so we went to Silver Spur RV park and had a lovely time exploring Silverton.

This evening we are parked at a beautiful RV park on the shores of Foster Lake, near Sweet Home, OR.  The weather is expected to be sunny and warm for the next several days, and we are both suffering burnout from too many activities. So, we decided to get away for a few days.  This park is quite new and a first class accommodation.  The sites are level concrete pads with full services: water, electric (30A or 50A, depending on the site), sewer, cable TV, and wi-fi.  The grounds are nicely landscaped, although much of the shrubbery needs to grow up a bit.

We had a lovely walk along the edge of the lake this afternoon, followed by a pleasant evening with dinner prepared by my beautiful bride, and Fred and Ginger on the tube! We look forward to more exploring tomorrow.  Expect photos...if the wi-fi will co-operate.  Bandwidth is a bit limited.

Every person in America needs to see this video:

Motorcycles at midnight!

It was inevitable. After all it is late September. 

We went to bed last night after watching the Oregon Ducks defeat the Arizona Wildcats, 56-31.  As we nestled into Sadie's queen memory foam bed, ready for a good night's rest, we heard motorcycles roaring about the park.

At first I thought, "Well, somebody is coming home from an outing; they'll quit pretty soon."  But the racket continued.  Soon, we noticed that Sadie was doing a bit of a dance.  That's when we realized that what we thought were motorcycles was actually the sound of the wind howling over, under, and around Sadie's superstructure and the luggage rack and AC units on her roof. 

It had been windy in the evening, but it seemed to increase at bedtime. I actually slept pretty well, and when I awoke, I discovered that the rain had begun coming down pretty heavily.  When I got up, I checked the weather report and discovered that the winds had been 20-30 mph, with gusts to 45!  Thunderstorms are predicted this morning, and then the weather is expected to moderate, although rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days. 

As Jill pointed out, we have been incredibly blessed with good weather on this trip.  No rain dampened our spirits or our activities until now, and tomorrow we will be headed for home.  We thank the Lord for a safe, exciting, fun trip and excellent weather.

Hmmm... where are the map and the calendar?  When and where will we go next in our Travels with Sadie?

Destination: Yaquina Bay!

Click on the photo for a slide show.

Another travel day today, if you can call it that.  We moved a huge 47 miles, from Florence to Newport.  Oh, the agony.  Actually, our biggest concern on the trip was that we would arrive in Newport too early to check in to our RV park space.  We arrived at 12:08, just 8 minutes after check out time. In any case, we were checked in and found our space without difficulty.  I'm glad I made a reservation.  Newport is a zoo this weekend.  It is the last weekend before the state colleges start classes, and it is warm and sunny, so the people with kids in school are getting in one last trip to the beach. 

We drove to the bayside attractions and found that there was so much traffic that we couldn't find a parking space, and all the attractions were overrun with people. Hence, we opted for plan "B" and headed for Waldport.  On our way to Newport, we had passed through Waldport and decided it would be a destination for a visit during our stay in Newport.  It is a cute town.  When we got there, we discovered that the architecture is better than the businesses that line Hwy 101.  There were not enough "tourist" businesses to satisfy us, although we did find a second hand store that had an amazing collection of eclectic junk.  We came away with a DVD for me and some piano sheet music for Jill. 

On the way to Waldport, we stopped to look at some chainsaw carvings of bears.  There were a lot of cute ones to choose from, but we agreed that none of them was worthy of laying down our hard-earned cash. We have been thinking that a chainsaw bear would be a great addition to our backyard, by the waterfall.  On the other hand, we are not ready to settle for just anything.  

After we returned to Newport, we were feeling kind of hungry, so we went to a local eatery that is near our park.  We had a snack, because we had been planning to have the remainder of our Ahi tuna for dinner. Yes, we had a reprise of last night's dinner this evening.  But hey, if it's good it's good...know what I mean? And for dessert? Jill reprised her huckleberry crisp with the berries she picked yesterday evening and this morning before we departed Florence.  (I'm told we have enough more berries for huckleberry pancakes in the morning!! :-)

Jill had a hard time getting good pictures from the coach along the way today.  The road was narrow and winding, and the scenery was all on the left side of the coach.  Nevertheless, I think you will agree that the photos in the slide show are quite good.  I like the one that captures the driver...er, I mean the scenery on the far side of the driver.  

Alas, this is our last stop on this trip.  We will spend tomorrow exploring Newport (with luck, the weekend tourists will be leaving early!).  In particular, we hope to have some of the famed smoked salmon chowder at the Stephanie cafe.  Come back, and I will give you a report on that evolution!

Huckleberries and history

Click on photo for slide show.

Today we explored Florence a little. The Old Town area is charming, as you can see from some of the photos in the slide show.  The building above houses a couple of the local tourist-oriented businesses. It is one of many in the renovated harbor area..  You will also notice in the photos that there is a large river running alongside of Florence.  It is the Siuslaw.  It forms rather a large inlet  just on the western border of the city.  To the west of the river/inlet are some huge sand dunes.  

View Larger Map

While we were in Old Town, we bought another gift for yet another nameless individual.  Our breakfast began to wear off, so we stopped at the local coffee roasters for a small quiche, which we shared (Oh, wait! I'm a real man, so I didn't eat any.) and a couple of coffee drinks.  It was all quite delightful.

Having used up our tourist shopping energy, we headed back to Sadie.  Along the way, we stopped at the Krab Kettle, which is a small fish market right on Hwy 101.  We purchased some Ahi tuna for dinner and some teriyaki smoked tuna for a snack. Next we stopped at Grocery Outlet for a few veggies and fruits, and then we headed homeward.

Before we got home, however, I spied a sign for the Harbor Vista (Lane) County Park, which I had explored online some months ago.  I decided we needed to see what it looks like in person.  It is now on our list of must visit RV Parks.  Winding through the adjacent roads we came upon a State Park which fronts on the ocean...never did find out the name of it.

At last we were home. Pogo was glad to have a stretch of the legs and a drink of water.  We relaxed for a bit, and then Jill decided she needed some more huckleberries.  After she was done picking, we decided to visit a nursery we had seen that advertised native plants.  It had occurred to us that we could plant some huckleberries at home for future gleaning! We were in luck and found a couple of bushes for sale at a reasonable price.  We know just where we will plant them, when we get home.

Meanwhile, back at the RV park, we decided to take Pogo for a romp on the beach.  The weather had turned sunny, and we were anxious to see what Heceta Beach looks like, since it had been so foggy yesterday.  As you will remember from the slide show above, we were surprised to find the beach quite more densely fogged in than yesterday.  It was amazing.  When we returned to the road, the sunshine reappeared.  At any rate, Pogo got a good run, and we returned to the coach in time for Jill to pick a few more huckleberries.  Give her a berry bush with ripe fruit, and she is unstoppable.

This evening, we are planning to have grilled Ahi and grilled vegetables along with some brown rice for our evening repast. Of course, dessert will be left over huckleberry crisp...Oh how we do suffer. 

Fog and huckleberries

 

 A little fog never hurt anyone!  We had a lovely walk on the beach in the afternoon fog of Florence, OR.

As I mentioned in my last post, we have arrived at the Heceta Beach RV Park in Florence, OR.  It is a real delight.   I chose this park from the description on the park website and after consulting RV Park Reveiws dot com.  I chose it because it got acceptable reviews, and it is the closest to the beach of all the RV parks in Florence. 

To  my delight, it is a real treasure. The folks are friendly, the sites are reasonably level, even if they are gravel covered.  There is enough privacy provided by plant life, but not so much that we couldn't connect with the satellite dish. 

The bonus is that the plant life between the camp sites includes mountain huckleberry plants.  We were able to pick enough berries for a huckleberry crisp, which Jill made for our dessert.  With a little vanilla ice cream on top, obtained at the onsite mini-mart, it is to die for.  Of course, no dessert is complete without dinner.  Ours consisted of vegetables marinated in Italian dressing and cooked on the grill, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts grilled with a mesquite rub and Italian dressing marinade. I have never had a better meal in any restaurant.

Another bonus is that this park is only about three blocks from the beach.  We took Pogo for a romp on the beach and found that there was one other couple on the beach on Thursday afternoon.  In the semi foggy state of the afternoon, it appeared that the beach went on for miles in either direction.  What fun we had. Tomorrow, we will explore Florence. In the meantime, we are thoroughly enjoying our little piece of paradise on Heceta Beach Road.

At long last...wi-fi...

Click the photo for a slide show. 

I have missed a couple of days of blogging due to unacceptable wi-fi connections in the last couple of parks we visited.  Now we have a great connection, so I will attempt to catch up.  

We spent the last two days and nights in Bandon-by-the-Sea, OR, commonly known as Bandon.  Originally the town was named Averill, after one of its leading families, but later an Irishman, whose name I can't remember (after all it has been a couple of days!), renamed the town after his hometown in County Cork, Ireland. 

The history of Bandon is well documented in the local historical museum, which we visited. That was, perhaps, the best $2 we spent on the trip!  Bandon has been around since the 1880s.  It has been home to such diverse industries as fishing, dairy farming, cheese manufacturing, coal mining, logging, lumber milling and others that I am sure I missed.  

The town was wiped out by fire on two occasions; once in 1914 (a kitchen fire gone wild) and again in 1936 (forest fire that could not be contained). Logically, it now has one of the biggest fire stations I have ever seen.  The Old Town section of the city is lots of fun with many shops and eateries.  We shopped there, but were able to resist the temptation to come home with typical tourist stuff.  We did make one purchase of a gift for a person who shall remain nameless in this blog.  

We stayed at the Beach Loop Village, which is an RV park with several park model trailers that are rental cottages.  They are also for sale for around $110,000.  The park is not remarkable, except for its quiet nature, friendly staff and the sound of the ocean surf coming through the trees. 

The highlight of the stay in Bandon was, of course, the food.  We had clam chowder for dinner on our first night and then went back to the waterfront yesterday for what we agreed was the best fish and chips meal we've ever had.  

There are numerous parks to explore in and around Bandon.  The ones we visited were Face Rock State Wayside, which has beautiful 180 views of the rocky coast line; The Devil's Kitchen State Park, which has access to the beautiful rock-studded, sandy beach south of town; Bullard's Beach State Park, which has a large campground, boat launch in the Coquille River; and is home to the Coquille River Lighthouse, the newest of the remaining lighthouses on the Oregon coast, dating to 1896.  

We were  a little sad to leave Bandon this morning, but we had a lovely drive through Coos Bay, North Bend, Reedsport and ended up in Florence at the Heceta Beach RV Park.  The Park is lovely (pictures to come) with lots of native plants dividing the spaces.  Jill has been out picking huckleberries from the bushes between our site and the next one!  Mmmmm... huckleberry pie...mmmmm!

So, stay in touch, there will be more stuff to come.