A Little Wet on the Oregon Coast

Hello again, welcome back to the story. Our last chapter ended when we arrived at the Paradise Cove RV Resort and Marina, near Wheeler, Oregon, on Sunday, June 9^th. The resort is on the Northern Oregon Coast, between Tillamook and Astoria. The resort actually sits on Nehalem Bay near where the river enters the Pacific. We can't see the ocean from our site, but we do look out across the bay to the coastal range of mountains to the north. Very pretty views. However, instead of the 80's we were getting used to inland, it is in the 50's and 60's here on the coast. Time to get out the warm pants and jackets again. We got into the resort a little after noon and after we got settled in we just spent the rest of the day in the coach.

Monday, June 10^th, we left the coach after lunch and drove south on Highway 101 to Tillamook, about 20 miles away. We were taking Jackie back to the urgent care at the local regional hospital. She had visited the urgent care in Grants Pass about a month ago with stomach pains. The folks there had diagnosed it as diverticulitis and given her some medication and diet advice. However, the pains have not abated and she was getting concerned. She got in quickly at the urgent care facility at the Tillamook Regional Medical Center and was in there for quite a while. When she came out she said that the doctor, and it was a real MD this time, not a PA, said he really didn't know what it was, but he knew it wasn't diverticulitis. He scheduled her for a CT scan at the hospital on Wednesday afternoon. Now I was concerned as well. No one likes to hear that kind of news about the one they love. I guess we will have to wait until Wednesday for something more definitive, but it will be a tough wait.

After we were done at the urgent care we stopped at the local Fred Meyers store to do some shopping. We also picked up a geocache in the parking lot near the store. After shopping we headed home and stayed in for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, June 11^th, we woke up and found that our great view across the bay was mostly gray clouds. It rained most of the night and the forecast was for rain on and off all day. Between the apprehension about the CT scan tomorrow and the rain, we decided that today was a good day to just stay in and play on the computers to keep our minds busy. I did a couple of minor chores and repairs, but for the most part we just relaxed as much as possible and enjoyed the rainy, cloudy and cold day.

Wednesday we drove back down to Tillamook again for Jackie's 1:00 CT scan appointment. We went into the main hospital and got her checked in and then waited in the out-patient area until they called her in. This is a small hospital, only 25 beds, but they seem well equipped and staffed, and the staff are exceptionally nice. It was also interesting that while we waited in the out-patient area, it seemed like everyone who came in knew everybody else, including staff. I guess that is a small town for you.

Jackie was finally called in and I went in with her for the exam. I got to stand and watch the computer display while the machine was taking pictures. Very interesting. It could have even been considered fun had it not been Jackie being looked at. I have a basic knowledge of anatomy, so I recognized most of the organs coming up on the screen during the scan. There was nothing that popped out to me as significant, but clearly I'm not the expert. The procedure didn't take long and Jackie said the contrast dye they injected didn't hurt at all, notwithstanding all the warnings the technician gave her about the stuff. The technician is not allowed to say anything about the results of the test, that only a doctor can do that. She said the radiologist would review the file sometime today and we would probably not hear from her doctor until tomorrow. We stopped at the urgent care and confirmed with the nurse there that the doctor would probably call tomorrow.

Once we were done at the hospital we left Tillamook and stopped at a restaurant in Bay City, the next town north on Highway 101. We stopped at the Pacific Oyster Company, which was located on a pier just south of town. It is a part of the Pacific Seafood Company, a large Northwestern seafood packer, and is part of a working oyster packing plant. The place had been highly rated on the review sites. I had a shrimp poboy, which was OK, but not great. It was really just a shrimp salad on a roll and the shrimp were the tiniest little bay shrimp I have ever seen. Not a lot of shrimp taste. Jackie had the fish tacos and said they were very good. The fries were excellent and both of us had a bowl of clam chowder which was exceptional. After lunch we drove back to the campground and stayed in the rest of the day since it was still raining pretty hard off and on.

Thursday, June 13^th, we packed up our laundry and left the coach after lunch to wash clothes. There is a laundry here at the resort, but it was small and not real clean, so we decided to just drive back into Tillamook to find a regular coin laundry. We were fairly certain that the doctor Jackie saw on Monday would call with the results of the CT scan and blood tests and figured that if he wanted to see us we would at least already be in town.

We found a laundry in downtown Tillamook and got all our clothes done by about 2:30 or so. The doctor had still not called, so we decided to just drive back to the urgent care and at least talk to his nurse. We didn't want another restless night wondering what the results of the scan were. The doctor was not available, but his nurse came out and gave Jackie copies of the results of both the CT and the blood tests. The bottom line on the CT was the radiologist found “nothing remarkable” on any of the images. All the blood findings were similarly unremarkable. The nurse was very nice and explained that this was good, in that we know she probably doesn't have a tumor or other major issue, but not good in that it does nothing to explain the continuing pain. The nurse told us the doctor was still mystified as to the source of the pain and suggested that she consult a gastrointestinal specialist. Basically the nurse was telling us, in a nice way, that this particular doctor didn't think he could help any further – time to move on.

I suggested to Jackie that we see if we could get a copy of the actual CT scans on disk, in case we needed them for future doctor visits in another city. We had the written reports, but the actual scans wold be more useful to a new doctor. We walked back to the hospital, right next door, and went up to medical records and talked to a very nice clerk. She told us that they would provide us with a disk of the CT scans, but that it took 24 hours to fulfill the request. She said there was no charge and we could pick it up any time after tomorrow.

Jackie just happened to mention to her that we were trying to find out how we could find a gastrointestinal specialist to see, since we were new in town, and the woman told us that in addition to the urgent care, there was also a medical practice center attached to the hospital. She told us she would get us some literature and jumped up, left the office and headed down the hall. She came back a few minutes later with some papers but also told us that she had talked to the director of medical services for the medical center suggested that two of their staff doctors had training in that specialty and that, if we wanted, she could get us an appointment today with one of them.

We told her that would be great and she jumped up and ran down the hall again! She came back in about five minutes with an appointment slip for us to see one of the doctors in about a half hour. This has got to be one of the best medical practice experiences we have ever had. This hospital and it's staff are fantastic. This gal we were working with was just a medical clerk and she could have very easily said, “not my job,” as I think would happen in any big hospital in a big city. Instead, she went out of her way to take care of our needs. I can't say enough about the people here.

We walked back across the parking lot, checked in with the clerks, and within 20 minutes were in with another doctor. He took a lot of time talking to Jackie, getting medical history, and doing an external exam of her lower abdomen. He wouldn't, or couldn't say exactly what the problem might be, but suggested that the prudent course of action would be to perform a colonoscopy. Jackie had one about seven or eight years ago that was completely clean, but he said it was pretty close to the normal time for another anyway, and it would go far to help narrow down the diagnosis. When we explained our time constraints, that we would probably only be in the area another week or so, he told us that he could get her in next Wednesday for the procedure. Again, great service. He got Jackie to sign all the paperwork, gave her the necessary prescriptions and instructions, and we were on our way.

The only issue we had is that he likes to have a follow up appointment a week after the procedure. I told Jackie that this would not be a problem because I had just discovered yesterday, while poking around the Internet, that the Tillamook Elks Lodge had a big campground, with full hookup sites, just outside of town. The only change we would have to make to our plans was to go to the Tillamook Elks campground when we leave Wheeler instead of going back to the Kiezer Elks, which had been our original plan. With that we were able to make the followup appointment with the doctor for the Thursday following the procedure. On the way out Jackie asked the nurse to ask the doctor, who was already with another patient, if he could prescribe some light pain meds to hold her over until next week. She said she would check with him and, if he approved, would phone it in to Fred Meyers when she phoned in the other prescriptions.

We left the Tillamook Regional Medical Center feeling much better than we did when we arrived. Jackie still has the pain, but we are relieved that it doesn't appear to be anything serious, like a big tumor. Yea! We took a quick drive south out of town to check out the Elks campground that I had read about. It's about five miles south of town and is very nice. It sits out in a meadow, surrounded by wildflowers. There are a mix of pull through and back in sites and everything has 50 amp, water, sewer, and wifi. All for $20 a night. We were going to try and make reservations while we were there, but the camp host was not at home. I will have to call tomorrow to make a reservation to be sure we have a spot.

We drove back up through town on our way back home and decided at the last minute to stop at the Elks Lodge for a cocktail. It was pretty close to happy hour and we had things to be happy about. There were quite a few people in the bar and they were very nice. We had a cocktail, got a lodge pin, and decided to play the slot machines for a few minutes. Lucky us again, Jackie hits four deuces and wins $250. Yea again! We left the Lodge and drove back towards Wheeler. We decided that since we were having such a nice day, and it was getting close to dinner time, we would try and find a decent place to eat in Wheeler. It is a very small town, only about 400 population, so we weren't sure what we would end up with. However, an Internet search found a place called Tsunami Bar and Grill that had very good ratings on the ratings sites. It was right in Wheeler, on the waterfront, within sight of our campground.

We were again lucky that we found a hidden gem of a restaurant. It was a little on the pricy side, but the food was outstanding. We had calamari first and it was some of the best we have ever had. The seafood chowder was great, and our entree's were wonderful. Jackie had seafood fettuccine and I had fish and chips. We both walked out with to go boxes and very full tummies. I don't know if you will ever find yourself in Wheeler, Oregon, or even FIND Wheeler, Oregon, but if you do, stop at the Tsunami Bar and Grill. The food is fantastic. After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the night with the TV.

Friday, June 14^th, we finally had a nice day, mostly sun, no rain, and we didn't have to address any medical issues. We left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching. Since we got here on Sunday we have only scored one new cache. All of the caches were on or near Highway 101 north of our resort. We cached until about 3:30 and ended up with a dozen new finds and one DNF. On the way back to the RV park we stopped in the little town of Nehelam Bay, population 250, at a local gift shop that was going out of business and selling everything at 50% off. I ended up with a tee shirt and Jackie got some decorative flowers for the coach. We also stopped at one of the three antique stores on main street in Wheeler. We spent almost an hour in that shop, they had a lot of really neat things. They specialized in Art Deco era stuff, especially light fixtures and lamps and had some of the prettiest, most unique pieces I think I have ever seen. Almost made me wish I had a house again. Almost. Once we done with that shop it was almost cocktail hour, so we headed back to the coach. The other two shops will have to wait for another day. Once back it was cocktails, dinner and TV for the rest of the night.

Saturday we again went out after lunch for some geocaching. Yesterday we did north of the RV park, today we went south. Within a couple hours we had captured another ten finds, along with another DNF. We were already pretty close to Tillamook when we stopped caching, so we drove down to town and stopped at the hospital, hoping to pick up Jackie's CT scan CD. Unfortunately, this is a small town hospital and most of the non-emergency or in-patient services are closed on the weekend, so we couldn't get it. We stopped at Fred Meyers for fuel and some groceries before heading back north to the RV park. Once we got home we stayed in for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  At one point during our caching we were on the highway between Garibaldi and Rockaway Beach and saw the excursion train running down the tracks.  The train does daily runs between the two towns during the summer.  About every six weeks they do a dinner train run all the way up to Wheeler.

Sunday, June 16^th, my oldest daughter Tye's birthday. Happy Birthday baby girl! Also, coincidentally, it's Father's Day today too. We left the coach after lunch to go out and do some more geocaching. The day was overcast, but the forecast didn't call for any measurable rain and temps in the low 60's. Today we went north again on Highway 101, a bit further than we went a couple of days ago. Our first cache was in the little beach town of Cannon Beach. The cache was just off of a parking area for public beach area known as Hug Point. We pulled into the parking lot, parked and headed out of the parking lot on a trail. After a few yards we evaluated what our GPS units were telling us and decided that it would be easier to get the cache from the beach, so we started walking down towards the beach.

When we got to the bottom of the parking lot, just before walking onto the beach, we ran into what was clearly a family group, a man, woman and four kids, all wearing identical turquoise tee shirts. As we approached them one of the kids, a boy of about twelve or so asked, “did you find it?” We were shocked and said, “so you know what we were doing?” It turns out they are a family from Washington State on vacation and they are geocachers also. We chatted with them for a bit, helped them take some family pics, and then they told us that we had been on the right path after all and that the cache was not accessible from the beach.

We walked back up to the path and eventually found the cache. The family had walked up with us too, to make sure that we got the find, and we spent a few minutes chatting with them. Turns out they actually have six kids, the two older girls not so much interested in caching as the younger ones. They were more into hanging out on the beach. They were a very nice family and it is good to see them using it as a way to have an interesting family outing.

We drove into Cannon Beach and found a couple more caches. The second cache of the day we ran into yet another couple that was looking for the same cache. They are still in the thinking about it stage and don't have a caching name, but they were staying in the hotel across the street and knew that there was a cache near that location. We had found the cache and they had noticed, so we chatted with them for a while. This is the third encounter we have had with cachers in a couple of weeks. Normally you rarely run into other cachers.

Cannon Beach is a very nice little town, about 1,700 population, that is a typical touristy beach town. Today being Sunday, and Father's Day, the town was packed. We had to bypass a couple of caches because we simply couldn't find anywhere to park close to the cache. One interesting fact about Cannon Beach is the way the town was named. Back in 1846 the U.S. Navy survey ship, the USS Shark, ran aground and wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia River, some fifty miles north of the current Cannon Beach. A few weeks later a piece of the decking of the ship, with a small cannon still attached, washed up on the beach near the current town site. The cannon is still mounted on a monument alongside Highway 101 just outside of town.

We also drove up to the next town north, Seaside, and did some caching. Seaside is a little bigger, just under 6,500 population and is also a beach resort town. Seaside has a number of large condo and time share complexes near downtown. We were still having trouble getting to caches because of the crowds of people and traffic, so we stopped caching with seven finds and one DNF. We were going to drive around a little in Seaside and noticed the Elks Lodge, so we stopped in there for a drink. We didn't remember if we had ever visited the lodge before and it didn't look familiar. We had a cocktail, gambled a little on the slots and lost, got a lodge pin and then hit the road for the 26 mile drive back to the coach. After we got back to the coach we discovered that we had been to the lodge back in 2005 on our first trip through Oregon with the coach. We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and relaxing. By the way, I did get messages from all three of my kids on Father's Day. Made me feel good.

Monday, June 17^th, another nice day, but the last for a few days according to the weather report. Not to worry, we will be tied up Tuesday and Wednesday with Jackie's procedure. Tuesday is a prep day, and those who have had a colonoscopy know you DON'T leave the immediate vicinity of a bathroom during prep day. Wednesday is the procedure, which is done under full anesthesia, so we probably won't do too much that day either.  We left the coach after lunch and did the last few caches we had fairly close to the RV park. These were on the road that leads inland, northeast from Wheeler. We ended up finding all five caches within about an hour. After caching we drove back down to Wheeler and spent another hour or so walking around the antique stores before going back to the coach. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the coach.

Tuesday, June 18^th, we had a stay at home day because tomorrow Jackie has her colonoscopy. Today is prep day and I don't need to go into any more detail than that. Not a day you want to be too far from a bathroom. I got a few chores done, but mostly we just relaxed in the coach, or at least Jackie did her best to relax.

Wednesday morning we were up and out of the coach by 7:30 so we could get Jackie down to Tillamook General Hospital by 8:15 for her procedure. They got her into the out patient center pretty quickly and I just waited out in the waiting room. As we have found in days past, the staff was great. One of the volunteers came around and brought me some coffee and showed me how to check the status board. They have a TV out in the waiting room with the status for each patient. The patient ID number is there along with a status, waiting, pre-op, in process, or in recovery. Kind of like the boards at an airport with the flight info.

After about 90 minutes Jackie was in recovery and they came and got me and took me back for a quick conference with the doctor. He said the procedure went fine, nothing remarkable or bad found except for two very small pollups, which he snipped out and sent to the lab. Like the CT scan, this is good news and bad news. Good news, nothing seriously wrong, bad news, still don't know why her abdomen hurts. Within fifteen minutes they wheeled her out and we loaded up in the car. She was alert, but still a little groggy, but also hungry.

We stopped at a cafe in Garibaldi, the next town north of Tillamook, and she had a nice chicken fried steak breakfast. She hadn't eaten in about 36 hours, so she was hungry. The food was OK, nothing special, certainly nothing worth mentioning or recommending, so I won't even ID the cafe. After lunch we went back to the coach and Jackie spent most of the rest of the afternoon sleeping. She hadn't slept well the night before and we got up early, so that, combined with the residual effects of the anesthesia kind of had her zonked out. She kind of woke up for dinner and we watched TV until bedtime. We have one more appointment with this doctor next week, so maybe we will have some answers then about the pain.

Thursday, June 20^th, the forecast called for a fifty percent chance of rain, but the skies didn't look that bad. We decided to go out after lunch and just do some exploring in some of the small towns. We have pretty much run out of geocaches to find that are reasonably close by. We first went into Wheeler and finished checking out the antique stores there. Then we drove down to Rockaway Beach and spent an hour or so going through the shops there. In one of the gift shops I found a neon pink flamingo just like the one I used to have. I have a couple of small, neon lights that I put up on the dashboard for decorations. I used to have four, a multicolor Corona parrot, a blue martini glass, a red, white and blue USA, and a pink flamingo. A couple of years ago the USA and the flamingo got broken in separate accidents, so I only have the two now. The signs are hard to find and I was surprised to one of the flamingos, identical to the one I had, on display at the gift shop. It was $36, but I wanted it. They didn't have one in a box, so they gave me the display one for $32. Yea! Now all I have to do is find the USA one again.

After checking out the Rockaway Beach stores we drove a little further south and went to a couple places in Garibaldi. We also found one geocache in Garibaldi, and DNF'd another one. By this time it was after 4:00, so we started back to the RV park. We had a fun day, didn't spend too much money, and after we got back to the coach we had some nice chicken fajitas cooked on the BBQ and then watched TV until bed.

Friday was a stay at home day. Jackie worked pretty hard most of the afternoon, cleaning out cabinets and doing some rearranging of stuff. I got up on the roof and tried to find the source of a small water leak we have near the front of the coach. I didn't find anything conclusive, but did seal up a couple of possible suspect spots. Now we'll just have to wait until the next rain.  I did manage to get some pictures of the dinner train as it left Wheeler late in the afternoon, headed back to Garibaldi.  The tracks were only a few yards behind our coach.  The trailer you see in the photo was in the row right behind our coach.  Thank goodness the trains didn't come through often because they would be pretty loud.

Saturday, June 22^nd, our last full day here in Wheeler. We were running out of things to do in this somewhat remote corner of Oregon, but we still had a handful of geocaches within 20 miles or so that we could go after. We left the coach after lunch, on an overcast but dry afternoon and did out caches. It took us about two and a half hours to get seven new finds, and one DNF, mostly because the caches were widespread, most about five to eight miles distant from each other. That's what happens when you are down to the dregs in a given caching area.

Our next to last cache was in Bay City, not too far north of Tillamook, and it was located in the parking lot of the Tillamook Country Smoker factory and outlet store. They make beef jerky and beef sausage. Tillamook is mostly known for their cheese and the big Tillamook Cheese factory down closer to town. I guess the jerky factory is where all the dairy cows end up when their milk days are done. They had flavored beef stick bites on sale, so I bought a few packages. Jackie doesn't like them, but I like them for an evening snack sometimes. They're really kind of gross when you think about them too much, but they are tasty.

After our caching we went back to the coach for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I spent a half hour or so before dinner putting things away outside. We were both in a little bit of a funk because we had talked to our good friends Barry and Colleen Cohen today and Colleen's cancer was not improving and she told Jackie she figured she had four to six weeks left. Jackie said she sounded resigned to the fact she was going to die soon and was pretty upbeat, but Jackie took it really hard.

Sunday, June 23^rd, moving day again. We woke up after a night of almost continuous light rain and it was still raining. We left about 10:20 or so and got on Highway 101 for the short, 27 mile trip from Wheeler to the Tillamook Elks Lodge RV camp, about five miles south of Tillamook. The trip took almost an hour because the roads are winding and narrow, and it was raining for most of the trip. I just took my time and we got there before noon. We didn't even hook up the car, Jackie just drove behind me.

We got checked into the park, which is very nice, and got the basics set up. It is still raining and the forecast calls for rain the next three days, so we didn't set anything up outside. Unfortunately, we still have the leaks in the coach, including the one that the guys at Elite were supposed to have fixed a few weeks back. I guess we will have to have someone else look at them when we get back to a drier part of the country. The leak in the front that I tried to fix was also still there. We are not flooding inside, but it is annoying and I know it's not good for the coach to have any water in the walls or cabinets.

The Elks campground here is very nice. It is about a half mile off the highway in the middle of a big meadow. The entire campground is surrounded by a riot of colorful wildflowers, very nice to look at. They have about 20 full hookup, 50 amp sites, and only $20 a night. Yea! After we got everything set up we drove back into Tillamook, which is now only a five mile trip instead of 25 miles, and did some shopping at Fred Meyers and Safeway.

Since it has been two weeks since we published, I am going to close this episode out and get it on line. We will be here at the Elks for a week and then moving inland again, back down to the Grants Pass area, for a week or so. We will publish again in a couple of weeks. Until the next time remember that life is for living, not watching. You never known what's around the corner, so pay attention to where you are now and enjoy every moment to it's greatest extent. See ya.