31 October ‘07

Wednesday

Here we sit at the fairgrounds in Eureka and watching the little “witches and goblins” head around the corner to one of the buildings that has been set up for “Trick or Treating”.  It has been a real “treat” for Louise and me.  Today we drove into town and walked the “Old Town” of Eureka.  They have some absolutely incredible Victorian homes and especially one that was built for a lumber magnate in the late 1880’s.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera with us…NUTS !!!  I hope that I can go back in the morning and get a couple of shots.

  Our stop for lunch today was really a treat.  We drove out to Samoa Island to have lunch at the Cookhouse Restaurant and Museum.  This is the same “cookhouse” that was used in the late 1800’s to feed the loggers that worked the redwood forests of the area.  They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner but offer only one main course.   Today it was fried chicken (all you can eat) and served family style.  For $10 each, we were served meatball soup, salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, 7 bean salad, corn, coffee, and a great spice cake.  I’m wondering if we shouldn’t go back again tomorrow…

30 October ‘07

Tuesday

What do you do when traveling through Redwood country?  Well Louise and I took a hike.  It has been quite awhile since we’ve been to the Redwood’s and getting back was well worth the wait.  These TREES are amazing, not only in size, but in age as well.  As we see pictures showing the logging during the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s showing the cutting of these mammoth trees I get a little sad.  I know that the times were different, but these giants in the world are lost now forever…  Ok, let’s get back to our hike.  I had no longer parked our car, headed up the trail, and we came upon a beautiful stream.  The hills all around us gave it the natural drop to form one waterfall after another.  Not only were the falls beautiful, the sounds were magnificent.  The large rocks and downed branches were all covered with moss and new fallen leaves of the forests to show us some of Natures most beautiful.  Our hike was rated as moderate (which gave us a nice workout) and covered just over 2 miles.  We’ll look forward to more of these as we head down the California coast.  We drove down to Crescent City on Tuesday to see what was available for us to do.  The Redwood forests were still all around us to enjoy, but we opted to take a walk out to see their most prominent and oldest lighthouse.  The Battery Street Lighthouse was built in1856 on a point that separates from the mainland at mid to high tides.  Just adjacent to the lighthouse is the north breakwater for Crescent City.  It was made in the early 1940’s and extends out into the bay over ¾ of a mile.  To continue getting the huge rocks out that far, they concreted a drive so that the trucks could go out the full distance to deliver their loads, and thus created a great area to walk.  At the end of the breakwater we found these large concrete “anchors”.  They were called Dolo’s.  With a shape like a large “T” and an opposing cross member, they were able to hold the huge wave action that the seas would throw at them. 

26 October ‘07

Friday

Hwy 101 has always inspired something special in my mind, and our venture down this 2 lane road hasn’t disappointed me yet.  If not passing through the many little towns and villages of the coast, you’re enjoying the passing hills, rivers, and more incredible lakes than I had remembered from past trips here.  All of this, and with the weather pattern we have finally found, is making it very memorable.  We made it as far as Gold Beach today. 

A half dozen stops along the way to look out over the Pacific and a couple of the larger lakes on the other side of the road, and having lunch on the bank of one of the Pacific lookouts, our trip took us just over 4 hours…slow was the word for the day… We even stopped by a couple of old light houses that still shine bright over the seas.  When we pulled into our campground here at Gold Beach, it was amazing how warm it was.  I’ve been in shorts and golf shirts for the last 5 days and today I finally felt like I was dressed for the weather.  It had to be in the low 70’s at least.  At 4 we headed down to walk on the beach.  It couldn’t have been better.  Louise with her eyes scouring the sand for that “special” rock and me just tagging along as company and not having a worry in the world.  Now this is what “full timing” is all about…  This campground is owned and managed by a German couple.  It was almost evident the moment you drive into the park by the manicured look of all the sites and the little more that you pay for the privilege of being here.  They also have a very nice German restaurant here on the grounds.  The menu was made up of only 2 options…Roasted chicken or Sauerbraten.  Unfortunately, we had already made plans for our dinner tonight (staying home and barbecuing our chicken).  Oh yes, they also had a German band playing through dinner…quite the place.   Having a German restaurant/beer hall here is making me crazy…I still haven’t been able to have a glass of beer, wine, or any other indulgence like that since contacting that damn virus…Hep B.  This is got to come to a stop !!!  A good German beer wouldn’t hurt anyone. 

24 October ‘07

Wednesday

An overcast morning deep in the woods is soooo dark that you don’t believe your clock when it tells you it’s time to get up.  Besides being dark, it was so silent that I began to think we were the only camper here.  All that said, I did force myself up, got coffee on, took a shower, and ventured out for a little conversation with another camper before Louise pulled herself up on one elbow.  I’m proud of myself discipline…  After excusing myself from my neighbor I ventured back into the coach and started our breakfast (now don’t get this all wrong, I don’t always make breakfast for us).  I purchased some breakfast sausage last week and I thought it was time for it to hit the frying pan, and if it were to hit that pan, I was going to have to put it there.  Well if you start something like that you had better finish it with frying up some eggs and putting some toast in for both of us as well   Man, a pot of coffee, a sausage patty, toast, and 2 eggs sunnyside up…  With breakfast dishes we were off to see some of the local sites.  Yesterday we hiked to the top of the sand dunes, and around a part of the lake, but today it was off to see the “Old Town” of Florence.  Florence is like a lot of the seaside towns of Oregon and Washington, lots of gift shoppes, restaurants, and bars all trying to entice you into their establishment.  We did enjoy our Old Town walk and we did enjoy a very good lunch there as well.  After a visit to their visitor center we found we should head north up the coast and explore some additional secrets of the Oregon coast.  Unfortunately today’s weather wasn’t like yesterdays.  Today we had a light rain and some light fog over the ocean. 

We tried to make the most of it and I think we did.  We ventured north as far as Waldport and stopped at least a dozen times up and back to see some different views of the ocean, old bridges, rock formations, and the natural beauty of Oregon.  Tomorrow we will head further south on Hwy 101. 

23 October ‘07

Tuesday

The Monaco mfg area was even more than I had expected…  Fact is, I could only cruise through one of their parking areas and happily gaze through the fence.  On the other side of the fence were parked the most beautiful coaches you could ever imagine.  On one side of the street were the Marathon group, and one the other…Monaco.  Marathon’s price out well over $600,000 to over $1 M, and the Monaco’s from $4 to 600,000…anyone want to give me one???  Well it was nice to look anyway, so we did for a few minutes…nose pressed tight on the wire fencing and drooling hard enough to start a flower garden below us.  I had given thought to finding a campground there but changed plans as my mind started thinking of a way for us to get into one of these fine coaches (what a laugh that is…).   Instead we changed course and headed west on Hwy 126 and Florence.  It was a nice drive along a 2 lane road that kept us entertained with small villages along the Suluslaw River, a couple of small lakes, and hills on both sides that were recently painted with Fall colors.  All this for 54 miles and then…Hwy 101, the Pacific Ocean, and Florence.  It was getting late in the day so our first thought was to find a campground for the night.  Digging through our many campground membership books we found one that sounded great for the night.  On our way there we came upon a state campground right on the edge of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.  Besides being about 3 miles closer to Florence, the call of the sand dunes called.  Pulling off of 101 and down a tree lined road we came upon a beautiful lake, and surrounding it on 3 sides were the glistening and softly rounded sand dunes.  A little deeper into the tall fir and pine trees we found a site that had all the hookups.  Now the big problem was “how do we get ourselves into it”?  We’re only 4 feet longer than we were but those 4 feet are sometimes like a mile and this was one of those times.  Well now that we’re in, they tell us that “what goes in can go out as well”…OK, we’ll see. 

22 October ‘07

Monday

Well I must tell you, we have finally found the sun.  We awoke this morning to 67 degrees and a bright light in the sky…it was wonderful.  With the sun shining it gave me a chance to pull some things out of the basement to let them dry out (patio carpet and mats) and also rearrange some other things down there.  We also went down to an RV remodel’er store to get a quote on new carpeting and recliner.  They gave us a good price on installing the carpeting but we would have to wait 10-12 days to get the carpet and another 5 days to get it installed.  With all the “waiting” we’ve done in the last 2 plus months, we passed… This will be a job we can do when we get further into the trip.  Today we are heading to Coburn Oregon and then we’ll continue out to the coast.  We have been watching the reports on the “fire storm” in California and pray that they get it under control soon.  The damage must be devastating and heart breaking for those in the middle of it.  At this time we are watching and waiting, but will most likely change course prior to LA.

21 October ‘07

Sunday

After having dinner and saying our goodbyes with our daughter and her family, the Chouinards Friday night, the day finally came…  We are finally back on our “journey”.  Saturday we checked out of the Tall Chief Campground and headed north to Marysville.  We had an appointment Freightliner to have the oil and filters changed and go through a 13 point chassis/engine/transmission check.  While the work was being done on the coach, we were invited to spend the night at the Rohrer’s.  We took in a great movie and had a late dinner before heading back to their home.  The movie was “Into The Wild”…we would highly recommend that you take a date, grab a bag of popcorn, a coke and watch a movie you will both love.  Sunday morning we picked up the coach and headed down Interstate 5 heading south.  We stopped in Vancouver Washington for our first night and to see if we could get together with Ricardo and Susie in Gresham.  Ricardo told us that he had just purchased some Chicken Parmesan from Costco and wanted us to join them for dinner.  Hell, it was just what the doctor had ordered…it was a great dinner with some great friends.  They will be heading to Cabo San Lucas on the 26^th of December for the season and it would be great to join them.  Unfortunately we’ve got to pass this year. 

11 October ‘07

Thursday

We spent Tuesday afternoon at the hospital so that Louise could have surgery on her neck.  She has had a growth that started to look pretty ugly, so we set up an appointment for her at the dermatologist to see just what she might have.  It turned out to be a basal-cell carcinoma.  Then on Wednesday I had my last appointment on this damn Hepatitis B virus before leaving the Seattle area. 

Well there was one more thing we did this week…we bought ourselves a new (used) motor home.  We’ve had a little too many problems with our Hurricane motor home so we decided to move on, and while we were doing so, we went from a gas unit to a diesel, and from 34 to 38 feet.  We did trade down in age, from 2006 to 2002 with 33,000 miles.  Our new home is a Holiday Rambler Endeavor that is much different from the Hurricane.  First it has 2 slides instead of 3 and it is 4 years older so it has a few years of “use” in it.  Yesterday we went to IKEA and bought some moveable shelves for which I made a large pantry.  It turned out really well.  Now we’ve got to continue stowing all the gear that we brought with us and making it fit even better than it was before. 

8 October ‘07

Monday

The first weekend of October has always brought to mind the fun and wonders we’ve enjoyed over the years at the “Issaquah Salmon Days”.  We were very lucky to have picked Saturday to go, as Sunday was pretty wet with all the rain.  Salmon Days is so named because of all the spanning Salmon coming up Issaquah Creek.  Along with the salmon the day is filled with a huge market selling hand made goods, paintings and pictures, tasty foods, and great music.  I would guess that there were over 300 different booths to visit not counting the food and music areas…it was as much fun as always !!! 

On Sunday Louise and I drove up to Snoqualmie Falls to see how much water was flowing over the rocks.  With all the rain that we’ve had over the last few weeks we weren’t surprised to see the huge flow that awaited us.  With the changing of the leaves, the coolness of the day, the spray flying up the rocks from the pool below, and the thunder that shakes the ground from the water hitting the bottom of the falls….my gawd what a sight and experience, it was awesome !!!

1 October ‘07

Monday

First off…HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOUISE !!!  I’m a little surprised that we are still here in the Seattle area to celebrate it, but at least we can celebrate it with family around.  I’ve had my last doctor’s appointment now.  The only thing that she wants from me now is another follow-up blood test at the end of November and I will have to fax the results to her then.  My “anti-bodies” are still down so that is why the test in November…let’s hope they get back up there by then.  Louise is still seeing her doctors too.  We both saw a dermatologist last week.  I had a small scaly area cut off and Louise had a bad looking mole cut off.  Unfortunately, Louise will have to go back in to have a little more work done on her mole…it was found to be Basel-cell carcinoma and will have to be taken care of before we pull out. 

Ric and Drew (son in law and grandson) treated me to the final game of the Seattle Mariners last night.  It’s unfortunate that they fell out of the play offs because they sure showed that they had what it would take (before falling 12 straight towards the end).  We really enjoyed the game and it was great to see they finish with a win.  Safeco field is one beautiful stadium.  We enjoyed a ton of very expensive food and with a special parking pass, we enjoyed getting back on the highway and back home in record time. 

Louise and I have gone out a number of times in the last 3 or 4 weeks to see what motor homes were on the market that we might enjoy.  Let’s see what happens…