Click the photo for a slide show of our trip to Nehalem Bay State Park. Don't ask me why there are no pictures of Jill...(she has become the family photographer!)


It has been rather strange not to post on this blog for a month. Today I reached that landmark. We arrived home on June 5th and now it is July 5th, the traditional "first day of summer" in Portland. It has been hot for the past week, which seems unusual for the end of June/beginning of July. My sense is that it usually rains through the Independence Day holiday, and then summer begins.

We were able to get away to the Oregon coast for three days last week. We stayed at Nehalem Bay State Park, which is located next door to Manzanita, OR, one of our favorite towns. This is a large and wonderful park. There are lots of level, paved trails for walking or biking. We didn't take our bikes, but we wished we had.

The weather was pretty good. It was warm on the beach, and we had sun until the morning we left. In the afternoons it got very windy, which is pretty normal, given that the weather inland was so hot. But of a morning, the weather was perfect for walks on the beach, one of the prettiest on the Oregon coast.

On our second day, we walked to Manzanita, where we bought a bottle of wine and some crackers to enjoy in the afternoon. Jill and I agreed that having a glass of wine at the beach is somehow not only imperative but completely natural.

While we were in Manzanita, we went to the sweet shop and had ice cream cones. There we met a trio of young people in their 20s. It turns out they were two sisters and a brother who have been coming to Manzanita every summer for twenty years. They were delightful conversationalists, and we were glad to make their acquaintance.

Pogo was delighted to have numerous walks while we were at NBSP. In fact, her primary activity when we were not walking was sleeping to get rested up for the next walk. We also met a group from Vancouver, B.C. They were camping in three coaches across the road from us. They had been as far south as Florence, and they were quite taken with Sadie.

My only regret about the trip was that we had no internet connectivity, so I was unable to blog the trip while it was happening. Well, the other regret was that we had to leave and come home after only three days. We look forward to our next outing. Life with Sadie is always a joy.

Home again, home again, jiggity jog...

Jill loves the Columbia River Gorge. Click on the photo to see why. The two dams are The Dalles Dam and Bonneville Dam.


We are home! It is hard to believe that these past four weeks are gone, kaput, history. We got up this morning and realized that this was the final leg of our journey. The wicked weather of yesterday afternoon had abated, but it was still overcast and breezy.

I checked Weather Bonk to see what the wind forecasts for the gorge might be. The prediction was for 23 mph in The Dalles, 15 in Hood River and 10 in Troutdale. I decided we could tolerate such winds, although not without some trepidation.

We secured the coach. It occurred to me that there was no reason to make up the bed. That made me a little sad. Jill secured the inside of the coach, while I did my usual "pre-flight" inspection: checking tire pressures, checking oil and coolant levels, visually inspecting the coach and the toad, cleaning the windshield.

We hit the road about 8:35 AM, and although the winds were troublesome at times, we had no real difficulties. As the winds decreased, the weather became grayer and damper the closer to home we got. We finally arrived at our driveway at about 11:55 AM.

Reflecting on the trip, I have a few observations:

1) Sadie performed like a champ. She didn't give us one lick of trouble along the way. Every problem we had with Sadie was one I created; to wit, accidentally switching off the house power on the second day out, wearing out the light cord for the toad, because I neglected to check what "that noise" was all about when we bottomed out in Fillmore. Other than those two episodes, we did not have any problems with Sadie. She didn't even use a quart of oil in 3,000+ miles!

2) Towing a car is not as problem free as one might think. I am very glad we took Daisy Mae along, but after we blew out the right rear tire, I was less enthusiastic about towing. All things considered, having her along made the trip more enjoyable.

3) Living with your soul mate in a 240 square foot space is not only doable, but quite enjoyable. Jill and I never had a conflict during the trip. We were both sad when it was over, and we wonder what to do with all this space at home!!

4) This is a wonderful way to see the countryside. I think we both realized that we tried to cram a lot of sightseeing into a month. We agreed that we would like to make a trip to a destination, park Sadie for a week or two and just enjoy the serenity of a simple existence. Our trip to Hood Canal in August should be more like that.

5) Apparently, we spend more money at home than I thought we did. We actually did not withdraw any money from savings to cover our expenses on the road. It all came out of our day to day living money, even the fuel expenditures. I conclude that living this way, is pretty economical.

6) My wife is a magician when it comes to packing the coach, especially where food is concerned. We ate out of the food she stowed for most of the trip, only replenishing perishable items and some naughty little snacks. I can count the restaurant meals we ate on the fingers of one hand.

7) Would I do this again? I think we can be repacked by tomorrow afternoon!

Calm and rainy now

The wind is now dead calm. The rain is coming down steadily. It appears the front went through, bringing with it a spate of rainy weather. Tom and Jill have done it again. We had been looking forward to arriving home tomorrow to warm, dry weather, since we have had thunderstorms since we arrived in Flagstaff, two weeks ago. Now it appears that we have brought the bad weather home with us. Sorry folks.

I just checked the temperature and the barometer. The temperature has dropped about 25 degrees from the high before the front went through. The barometer had dropped quite low, too, but it is now rising again. I'm sure all of that means something earth-shaking to meteorologists. To me it means the we had a cold front come through, but now things are stabilizing.

Weather update

The anemometer on the top of the neighbors' coach has slowed to countable revolutions now, whereas it was a blur, when the front was going though. The rain has lessened, and we haven't heard any thunder in a while. The sky to the west does not look as threatening as it did.

Weather update

The wind has decreased a bit now, but the rain is coming down harder and harder. We now hear thunder, although we have not seen any lightning flashes, so we don't know how far away the strikes are.

Weather watch

Jill was just reading on the KPTV weather blog that a storm is due to pass through Oregon. The blog said that there is a thunderstorm powerful enough to spawn a tornado passing through the Detroit/Lyons/Silver Falls area of the state. A tornado watch has been posted and the people are being told to hide in a closet until the danger passes.

We have been parked on a hillside, overlooking the Columbia River at Rufus for about 3 hours. The weather has gone from hot (90s) and dead calm to a blow that is rocking the coach (even though we have the stabilizer jacks down) and huge rain drops pelting the weather side of the coach. The temperature has probably dropped about 15 degrees, although I don't have a reliable outdoor thermometer.

We had our awnings out on the sunny side of the coach, which is now the rainy and windy side of the coach. It took both of us and two neighbors to get the large awning rolled up.

I spoke to Patrick, our son, to wish him happy birthday. He said he heard on the radio that Portland could get quarter-sized hail today. Ooohhh, my poor plants at home! I will continue to post on the developments here in Rufus.

From conestogas to the mighty Columbia

Click the wagon to see our slide show for the day. The old timey buildings and such were at our RV Park in Baker City. There are several photos that Jill took along our way today.


This will be our last night on the road. We are currently parked in the Rufus (OR) RV Park. Now, if there was ever a fly-by-night operation... We pulled in and went to the office, only to learn that this is a do-it-yourself park. You pick out your campsite, put the money in an envelope and drop it in the slot provided. Having done that, we wondered how to get WiFi, so I could post yesterday's blog post. If you read the previous entry, you will know that I did not post yesterday, due to the inability to upload Jill's photos from the previous park.

Once we got settled here, I tried to log on to the WiFi network. I was able to get as far as the log on page, but then I needed password and user name. There was a phone number for the park host, so I called and got the necessary credentials and logged right on. So did Jill. This rather podunky-looking park has far superior WiFi to the park we stayed in last night. So, don't judge a book by it's cover, you know!!

We had a lovely drive today from Baker City. We climbed to 4,600 feet from the 4,000 foot elevation of Baker City and then descended to our current elevation of about 500 feet. Rufus is situated across I 84 from the Columbia River. If we crane our necks we have a view of the river from the campground, but not from our site.

The most interesting part of today's drive was crossing the Blue Mountains. The road is not as steep as the hills we found in the Rockies. That fact coupled with the lower elevation helped Sadie actually to pass several semis today, both going up and coming down from the summit. She just purred along. The climax of the Blue Mountain crossing was coming down the 6 mile 6% grade of Cabbage Hill, just east of Pendleton. That required downshifting and running on compression most of the way.

It seemed good to catch up with the Columbia River again at Boardman. It really is an impressive sight. We have thoroughly enjoyed the scenery on every inch of this trip, but there is something pretty exciting about seeing familiar terrain. So, tomorrow, we will drive the Columbia River Gorge highway on into Portland and then home to Clackamas.