September 28, 2014  Sunday From Newport, Oregon to Coos Bay, Oregon

First, some updates:

We have been “down” for a few days because we have been without Verizon signal, Wi-Fi, or TV!  That’s right the park does not have cable and it’s so wooded I can’t get my satellite dish to work.   Cannot get a clear shot through the trees in which we are embedded. More about that later on.  Just wanted our two readers to know why we haven’t been up lately. 

Since we were last online we have had several phone conversations.  We talked to Linda, Missie, French and Carolyn and The Puppies, Mike and Mary Hall.  Dennis and I email often.

We have called Mike and Mary “The Puppies” for the 25 years we've known them because they are much younger and in our boating days, they used to wake us up at anchor at midnight and want to go for a dinghy ride.  We couldn't get them to take “no” for an answer so we said “they are like puppies..they keep after you.”  Looking back, the dinghy rides were great.  Thank God we did them then!  Have you ever seen the fish running through phosphorous at midnight?  It was sparklers in the water.   As the kids now say, “Cool.”  After several years of caring for their aging parents, Mike and Mary have re-launched their 42 foot trawler, “What Daze It?,” in Demopolis.  We hope to join them this spring in Pensacola in some of our old anchorages.

Making our way down the Oregon coast.  I think I already mentioned that Henry Arnold and his wife, friends from Pensacola, brought their RV here and decided to stay a month!  They told us the Oregon Coast down 101 is a must.  So, we followed their advice.  They were right! It is beautiful!

Driving down 101

A few hours’ drive from Newport and we arrived at a state park recommended to us by another RVer in Oregon.  We listen to the locals!  Most of them have dogs and walk around the parks between 5 and 6.  We are trying to walk Maggie by that time but she is almost 90 in dog years and she “ain’t into walking very far.”  But, we try.  In the 200 feet we get Maggie, there and back, we run into a lot of dog walkers.  No cats, thus far.  The record for one RV was 7 Bichon’s.  I think I can safely say, the lady has issues. 

Labradoodles

Sunset State Park is absolutely gorgeous.  As our buddies, Wynn and Cindi Teasley, have taught us, the state parks are where it’s at.  The private parks are usually asphalt laden, pack em in as tight as you can, parks.  But, the privates do offer benefits. First, you can almost always make a reservation (exception is south Florida in winter, around any national park in summer and others I haven’t learned yet!).  Second, they almost all offer total hook ups (that means you have electricity, water and sewer).  State Parks offer these amenities but you have to reserve them well in advance.  Third, the State Parks typically are cheaper than the private parks. 

To give you an example, take a look at where we were in the private park at Port of Newport.

 Cream Puff in typical private park.  This is in Newport, Oregon

And the State Park at Sunset Park is awesome and about half the price.  You reserve spaces at both state and national parks through one common service at: reserveamerica.com.  It allows you to pick your spot and reserve it.  We are too new at this (never been to the same park twice) but the veterans know exactly which spot they want and reserve it months in advance.

 One of the empty RV sites in Sunset State Park.  Quite a difference in State Parks and Private Parks

Here is something that you may not know.  In these camps, you can RV, tent camp, some have log cabins and some have Yurts.  What is a Yurt?  Its something between a tent and a cabin.  You have canvas walls so you are protected from rain/sun.  Inside there is a couch/futon and a bunk bed.  The young couples with kids have a ball with these Yurts (or tents).  We were careful about taking pics of actual people because we respected their privacy. The Yurts are very popular.  We always see signs "No Yurts Available."  

A Yurt

Sunset Park is very pretty.  These huge trees are everywhere.

September 29 and 30^th, 2014  Monday and Tuesday

The RV Park experience has been just that, an experience.  We are veterans of marinas.  Cruising in sailboats for the last quarter century (Yikes!) with our buddies, Todd and Joy Greer, we can tell you about almost every marina between Pensacola and Georgetown, Bahamas.  We’ve found you run into interesting folk just like you do in marinas.  Most are out to have a good time so they are in a good mood and slightly plus on the gregarious scale (those that aren't are in their RV’s listening to Rush Limbaugh).  Opps..showing my bias again!

We’ve met folk in 1956 trailers that they have renovated from ground up and love to talk about all the travel trailer changes since!  Antique trailers are “in” now.  The older the better.  On the other extreme are the big A-Class, bus RV’s.  These are the huge RV’s you see at the football games with the big screen tv’s on the side and “big” everything.  The couple next to us have a home in Florida and St. Louis and they are traveling the country in their 31 foot Itasco A- Class RV.  They used to have a 40 footer but told us they are not allowed in many of the state parks where they like to go.  The largest RV you can have on the road is 44 feet.  But many of the state parks were built when the largest RV was about 35 feet so the big ones can’t go to the state parks.

And, we see a fair amount of Airstream trailers though they are a small percentage of the travel trailer RV market.  Most travel trailers are called “box trailers” due to their shape.   The next time you see a vehicle pulling a travel trailer, if it has a box shape, you are looking at a box trailer. 

Airstreams are a subdivision of travel trailer but are not box trailers.   They are just called “Airstreams.” They were designed by a guy who worked in an airplane factory who camped out with his family.  The first one was built 1931 and they are still built just like airplanes. We have a couple, just retired, from San Francisco in an Airstream 21 foot trailer just across from us.

Across the street neighbors at Sunset Park, Oregon

OK, enough about the parks and trailers.  Just thought the one or two of you who are reading this, may be interested in this.  By the way, I got my first interest in RV’s by reading “Rammer Jammer, Yeller Hammer” by Warren St. John.  I mentioned this to my University of Alabama buddy, Bob Douglass, and he said he had developed the same interest after reading the book.  But Bob and Marilyn are about to become grandparents so they have other interests now. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it especially if you like SEC football.  Doesn’t matter which team you pull for.  It’s a great story.

When I read this book, several years ago, I started thinking about an RV which, before this, was about as interesting to me as spending my retirement years learning the U.S. tax code.  As I recall I said the same thing about sailboats when I was in my 20’s!  The lesson: watch out!  You never know what you will be doing around the corner!

Coos Bay is a commercial fishing town.  These people know how to fish and to cook fish!  We went into the fishing village, Charleston, and bought some smoked Chinook Salmon and Albacore Tuna.  Talk about fantastic!  We had a lunch of grilled Halibut and Lib got some of their homemade chowder.  Delicious!  All these Oregon towns boast their local micro-brewed beers so we succumbed and had a glass of beer at lunch.  The nap after lunch was great too. I have discovered there is a positive correlation between a beer at lunch and desire for an afternoon nap (r=.99, alpha .0001).  I do like being retired; the naps are great!

We got up early and Lib wanted to go for a walk on the beach.  The waterfront is a short walk from the RV Park.  First, the trees are enormous and beautiful.  I suppose we don’t have the rainfall to support this size of tree in the south.  Even though we have some big ones in the south (and boy did we miss them when we lived in Arizona in the early 70’s), these trees dwarf most of our trees.  Of course, we go to the Redwood National Park tomorrow so more to come on big trees, I’m sure!

Sunset Bay is a very small inlet off the Pacific Ocean.  It has diurnal tides (2 highs and 2 lows a day) so the tide is always changing.  When we walked early in the am the tide was out but when we came by again a few hours later, the tide was up.

And, as usual, there is much bird life around.

  

A short drive from the park is Cape Arago. This is a part of the state park system and people go and walk their dogs, picnic and just sit and ponder the beauty of the ocean.  The seals and sea lions are easy to see and, if you watch closely, you will see a whale blowing.

Sea lions and seals are abundant.

Look closely; that's sea lions and seals in front of the rock on the beach!

We did some hiking along the coast line; seals were everywhere in the water

One nice thing about Sunset Park is that it adjoins a golf course.  There is a small, 9 hole, privately owned golf course literally next door to the park.  We played the course twice but only 9 holes each time.  We enjoyed the serenity of the golf course.  The scenery is beautiful.  It was about 65 degrees and very dry air.  We had sweaters but that was all we needed. 

We are still in Elk country but we only saw this horse wandering through the course.  We took the picture because my sister, Linda, asked us to take a picture of a horse.  Too bad we didn’t get any photos of the horses as we passed through the Indian reservations in Wyoming and Montana.  Each house had several horses and sometimes the horses would be standing on the front porch of the house.   We still have some miles to travel so we will be looking for some good horse pics.

Playing golf again was refreshing.  We haven’t played in a few weeks…since we were in Colorado.  I miss playing good golf but I still enjoy the game a lot.  Every now and then I get off a good shot.  Today I had a 270 yard drive and then missed the green with a gap wedge!  I enjoy watching Lib’s game improve and she is getting better all the time.  Playing made me want to go back and play a round with Wynn Teasley in Pensacola or Ken Longcrier in Montgomery.  Will have to remedy that soon!

 "Slammin Sansabelt Ron"

She smoked this one!

Back to Rving.  One of the things you must do is plan ahead for reservations in the parks.  Unless there is some sort of event like a football game, concert, or holiday, you can get in most RV parks on short notice.  But, you may not get the type of site you want.  For example, you may get a site where you’ve got to back in and you have no water, electricity or sewer.  Now, most RV’s can cope with this.  Cream Puff has a 40 gallon fresh water tank and a 33 gallon holding tank.  We also have a generator but have yet to use it on this trip as we’ve had electricity everywhere.  We are not exactly “roughing it” as some campers do.  Some just drive off-road..out in the boondocks..and stop.  This is called “off road” camping.  Obviously, this is for the younger campers.

For reservations at the National Parks like Yellowstone, Glacier or Rocky Mountain, during the summer when school is out, you need reservations several months in advance.  We made reservations to all these parks four months in advance and that was when school was back in session!   Bottom line, we devote some hours every other day or so to planning where we are going.  It really helps to have Wi-Fi.  By using Google Maps and finding the area in which you are interested and then searching for “RV Parks” you get the parks located on the map.  Then we use a directory published by Good Sam that rates all the parks.  The online reviews are very helpful as well.  You have to take them with a grain of salt but you can get a good feel if you read several of the reviews. 

Today we went into Coos Bay to visit a shop we saw on the way in, “Portland Bagels.”  We were hoping to buy some real bagels so we went back to check it out.  But, alas, they don’t know how to make bagels at Portland Bagels either.  The last real bagel we had was from a Safeway in Estes Park, CO.  They must have had a baker that transferred from Queens.  For all we’ve seen and liked about the west, they can’t make a bagel.   Surely, we’ve had ‘em when we were in San Francisco before.  We shall see as our visit with our niece, nephew and family in the Bay Area is coming up this weekend.  But, bagel-less as we were, we had a Verizon signal and using our Jet Pak, we could access the Internet and make reservations for the next couple of weeks. Ahead…north California Redwoods, San Fran and the kids, Yosemite National Park, Las Vegas (where Missie joins us), Zion National Park, Bryce National Park, Grand Canyon National Park and then on to Phoenix to visit where we used to live and see some old friends.

Time to retire.  Lib reading her book and listening to Starlight Express, one of my favorite plays.  (At my age, I feel a kinship with Rusty).  Maggie asleep.   We are off to the Redwood National Park tomorrow.  Trees, here we come!