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New Beginnings June 21 to July 3, 2002
Thankfully, we got out of California quickly because I (Betsy) have been gung-ho every morning to get further and David has wanted to settle in and sleep in. Our schedules and agendas haven't matched well, but we seem to be compromising just fine. Our next night was near Ashland, Oregon. We had thought about taking in a play at the Shakespeare Festival, but it was standing room only on Sunday night and dark for Monday night. Next trip we will make it... The Glenyan Campground was our host. The owners had started a garden with their 4-year-old - looked like a great way to teach patience. We also tried to fill our propane tank for the first time here. Good thing there was an old timer to help us understand - our tanks were filled with air (not bled) and they were reading practically full. The process took about an hour when it should have taken 5 minutes - we didn't get them bled completely, next time should take a little long, but not like that. (This is just a shakedown cruise kind of thing.) At this point, David was getting tired of "one-nighters," but we had a service appointment at Valley RV in McMinnville, Oregon to fix some of the things that we've noticed were wrong with Tiny so we raced out of Ashland and further up I-5. We had a few battery problems the first couple days - Tiny would discharge both her house and car battery and we had to jump it a few times. We were a little scared to go "off the grid" because we weren't sure everything would start up again - until we realized that Amelia (our Honda) could jumpstart Tiny just fine. (Amelia is named after Amelia Earhart, because she's brave, but occasionally gets lost.) We spent the night before the appointment at Mulkey RV Park. A digression about picking places to stay for the night: We have been using our Trailer Life Guide (looks like a phone book) and picking places based on location and this rating system in the guidebook. The rating system is made up of 3 numbers so a score looks like 6/8/6. The last number is supposed to be visual appeal and environmental quality, a rating we thought was important as we don't really care about the cleanliness of the restrooms or the status of the facilities (don't have to use them) -- those are the first 2 numbers. We were quite excited to see that Mulkey RV Park had gotten a perfect 10 for the category that we thought would be a good way of finding campsites. So we pulled in with some anticipation at what a 10 looks like - we both started laughing as we drove down the long, elaborate driveway. There were potted plants everywhere, manicured lawns, carved wooden statutes and uhm - decorations over everything. It was tacky heaven. At least we understand the rating system a bit better now. One person's visual appeal may not be another's. We have since then picked up another guidebook (telephone book) with more honest descriptions called "The Unofficial Guidebook to Campsites." It looks less complete, but at least it gives you some heads-up on what you are getting into. We are looking forward to testing it out.
After our adventures in McMinnville we went back to reclaim Tiny, only to find out she wasn't quite ready. The service folks had found out that we had a bad battery that they recommended replacing, but the approval from the National RV manufacturing people had not come back yet. We were welcome to spend a night in their parking lot (a common thing for RVers at service centers) until the approval came back the next day. Many of our other minor complaints were met with "working as designed." Our translation of that is - if you don't like it, fix it yourself. It was hot (96 degrees) so I went off to find dinner and David tried to find ways to cool down the RV. Therefore, we spent the night on the lot - scenic! The next day we took off for the beach to cool down. We had a great run on the beach with the mutt. The strangest thing about this beach was that it squeaked! We were walking along and started hearing a strange sound, we kept trying to figure out what bird was making that strange sound (a bird that stopped every time we stopped walking). I know the source of sound should have been obvious, but it wasn't! Once we figured it out, we had lots of fun squeaking away. Then we ate at the fabulous Otis Cafe which we had found in another great used book purchase we found, "Eat Your Way across America." It lists unique diners and regional specialties around the country. It was our first try with the book and we were highly impressed. Our subsequent stops from the book continue to make the book well worth the $8.95. One last used book purchase we think we will enjoy is "Watch in Made in the USA" which lists factory tours in all of the states. We vastly enjoyed our first tour, the Tillamook Cheese Factory. The packaging area was amazing - watching all of the identical blocks of cheese whizzing by and getting checked through various conveyer belts was pretty darned cool. We even got free samples including cheese curds that squeak in your mouth. The Tillamook Ice Cream wasn't bad either.
Then we were off to the city. Well, to Portland at least. We have now stayed at 3 different RV parks in Portland - all with very urban settings. We keep moving as the lots are full with 4th of July visitors, but at least we have had several nights in each place giving David a break. A group of our friends came up from the Bay Area to be with us. Dusty, Cookie, Shaham, and Vadim traveled up to further check out Portland where we are all considering moving. They all stayed with the fabulous hostess, Melissa, who hosted an all-Oregon Pinot Noir tasting and took us to some happening places (Imbrie Roadhouse - a McMenamin's restaurant was awesome). We toured the zoo (amazing live butterflies), hung out at Powells, saw a Japanese art exhibit at PAM (Portland Art Museum), wandered the waterfront, checked out a few Portland neighborhoods, and experienced beautiful weather.
Click to hear the world premier of the new David song written and performed by Cookie Vadim stayed over another day and a half and jumped in as our de facto tour leader. Vadim is a seasoned traveler, so within 30 minutes of setting foot in Portland he had a great agenda assembled - a long list of things he wanted to see. We went to the Rose Garden, the Chinese Garden, the artistic Pearl District, a concert by Jim Creggan (from Barenaked Ladies), a good breakfast dive and an informative set of exhibits at the Forestry Center. So, now we will sleep late a few days, do the laundry and see a few more things like Hippo Hardware, OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), Milwaukee (a local suburb that www.findyourspot.com recommended for me), and the fireworks in Vancouver, Washington. The fireworks there are reported the biggest west of the Mississippi! Then we will head off to Seattle. We hope to see a Minnesota Twins baseball game when we are the
We hope that you are enjoying your summer. If you have any suggestions of things we should be seeing between Portland and Minnesota, please E-mail us. We are always looking for suggestions. Just FYI: our web site is not up yet. We hope to get some pictures and our itinerary up soon. To get off the list, send a message to ptak-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. To join the list, send a message to ptak-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Left: David getting comfortable in Portland Right: One last shot of the amazing Portland Rose Garden (This is almost 1/2 of it)
07/02/02 by Betsy |
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Our first week on the road has ended. As interesting as it has been, I'm not sure it was a standard week. We made the drive quickly through California (forget the blue highways - we went up I-5) on a mad dash through the state. We sort of felt like our adventures wouldn't start until we hit the state line. We did have a nice night in Woodsen Bridge State Recreation Area near Corning, CA (where all of our belongings are stored). We got to learn about English Walnuts and why they are grafted onto Black Walnut trees when they are young (Black Walnuts are hardy, but too tough to crack). Pluto had fun playing in a big grove of these walnut trees. We had our first "hey, this RV thing has some advantages" day when we stopped at a side of the road fruit stand, bought some local delicacies, drove another hour, found a stream, pulled down a dirt road, parked, cooked lunch with our fresh produce, took our chairs and sat by the stream watching the world go by.
8 AM found us explaining our laundry list of mostly small, but annoying problems that Tiny had been experiencing. We waved goodbye to Tiny, and took off to see McMinnville. One of the big claims to fame of McMinnville is that it is the home of the Spruce Goose, the Howard Hughes aircraft originally envisioned to solve the problem of avoiding German submarines. It's the largest plane ever with a wingspan of over 300 feet (think football field), but only flew once - 1 mile at 70 feet with Howard Hughes at the controls. The plane used to be in Long Beach with the Queen Mary, but when Disney purchased the area, they didn't "want" the Spruce Goose. The McMinnville folks put together a proposal and "won" the plane. The journey of the plane from California to McMinnville is almost as interesting as the plane. Think 6 months to go the last 20 miles on a barge up the river (waiting on tides to rise and fall as it passed under bridges).
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