Another Couple Weeks in Oregon

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter concluded on Sunday, June 23^rd, when we left the Oregon coastal town of Wheeler and drove 27 miles south to Tillamook, home of the world famous Tillamook Cheese factory. We actually drove five miles south of the town to the Tillamook Elks Lodge's RV park, which is out in a meadow about a half mile off of Highway 101. The actual lodge is located right in downtown, however they own this 20 acre park south of town and have turned it into a first class RV park. Full hookup, 50 amps sites, gazebo for group activities, and located in a picturesque meadow full of wildflowers. Very nice.

We drove here from Wheeler in the rain, got settled into our site and set up in the rain, and after lunch drove back into Tillamook to do some shopping, in the rain. As desert rats, we are both getting a little weary of the rain. After we got back from the store we just watched TV the rest of the night.

Monday, June 24^th, the weather still called for rain, but what we were getting was very spotty. It would rain, fairly hard, for five minutes, then clear up for a couple hours, and then a light sprinkle. Nothing serious at all. After lunch we decided we needed to get out and do some caching during the non-rain periods and we actually went for almost three hours with no rain. We managed to get ten new finds with no DNF's. In addition, one of the finds was number 5,400, a new milestone. Yea! After caching we headed back to the RV park and relaxed in the coach the rest of the evening.

Tuesday the weather looked like it was going to be more of the same. Off and on light rain. When we were here in Tillamook in 2005, on our first trip through Oregon, we visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory and had a great time. We decided to go see it again, so we drove to the factory, which is just across the bridge on the north side of town. They have a free self guided tour, which is actually just a large balcony with windows that overlook various areas of the factory. You can see the vats where they turn the milk into cheese, and on the other side you can see the packing line where the cheese is cut into blocks and wrapped.

They also have a couple of gift shops, one with mostly cheeses and cheese related gifts, and another with a little bit of everything you might find in a beach gift shop. We ended up being in the factory for a little over an hour and we did buy several small blocks of cheese as well as a couple of souvenirs. One of them was a key chain with a depiction of one of their “Baby Loaf” VW buses. The company has a number of old 70's model VW buses that they have cut down in length to about the same wheelbase as a regular VW bug. They are painted bright yellow and have Tillamook Cheese logos all over them. They call them Baby Loafs and take them to parades, fairs and such around the area. We are going to use the key chain as a travel bug to put out in geocaches.

We found a geocache that was hidden in the parking lot of the factory and then moved a little south towards town and stopped at the Blue Heron French Cheese and Wine store. This is just a store and tourist attraction, with a petting zoo and some old farming equipment on the grounds. They don't have a factory here, just a gift shop and wine and cheese store. We spent a while in the store, sampling cheeses and ended up buying a bunch of cheese and other fancy foods there too.

After that store we found a geocache that was hidden in their parking lot and then went out to do some more caching in the area. The rains had stopped for a while and, although there were still a lot of clouds, it actually cleared a little. We did a couple of caches in town and then took a drive out towards Cape Meares, which is one of the three capes, or ocean peninsulas, that jut out from the coast in this area. Tillamook is actually about ten miles inland from the ocean, on a large bay that is formed by the Tillamook River just before it goes into the ocean. You can't see the ocean from Tillamook. We drove all the way out to the cape and watched the ocean for a while. The waves were pretty stormy and it was very pretty, overcast with the waves and all the driftwood on the beach. We also did some caching on the way out, and back and ended up with a total of five new finds for the day.

One of the caches was hidden inside of a small cave in a bay side cliff face. I had to use a flashlight to go into this cave, about six feet into the mountain. In a small hole in the wall, near the floor of the cave was a large, rubber rat. It looked very real except the rat's eyes didn't glow and he didn't move. The cache was hidden inside of the rat's body. Very cleaver hide. After our caching we headed back to the coach for cocktails, dinner and some TV.

Wednesday, June 26^th, we again left the coach after lunch under cloudy skies, however, as with yesterday, they did not appear to threaten any appreciable rain. Today we went to the Tillamook Airport, also known as a part of the Port of Tillamook and under the jurisdiction of the city's Port Authority. We went to the airport to visit the Tillamook Air Museum, which is housed inside of one of the largest aircraft hangers in the world. Although located about a mile east of Highway 101, the giant hanger, with equally giant letters spelling out “Air Museum,” is easy to see.

The airport and the surrounding grounds are what used to be Naval Air Station Tillamook, or NAST in the ubiquitous jargon of the U.S. Navy. NAST had a short-lived history as a military base being commissioned in 1942 and decommissioned in 1948. The base was one of 10 lighter than air aircraft bases commissioned and built in the early 1940's as a result of concerns about German and Japanese submarines operating off the coasts of the United States. The air ships used for submarine patrol during WW-II were true “blimps” in that they were helium filled fabric envelopes, very different from the older and usually much larger rigid dirigables. Blimps made ideal anti-submarine platforms because they were slow, usually flying less than 50 mph, and could stay out on patrol for 48 hours or longer.

At the end of work in 1942 there were two huge, wooden framed hangers, A and B, on the site. The hangers, which were identical, were 1,072 feet long, 296 feet wide, and 192 feet high at the center. The floor encompassed over seven acres and they were designed to comfortably hold nine fully inflated K-Class blimps, which were themselves nearly 300 feet long. By comparison, the Goodyear Blimp is less than 200 feet long. The sliding doors at either end of the hanger were made up of six 40 ton wood and steel panels, each of which were 120 feet tall and 50 feet wide. The hangers were made entirely of wood with the exception of steel sheathing on the roof. It took over 2 million board feet of lumber for each of the two hangers. The first hanger took about six months to build as it was designed “on the fly” however the second hanger was finished in just 27 days.

After the end of WW-II the need for blimp submarine patrols ended and all of the blimp squadrons were decommissioned and those bases that were built only for the blimp squadrons were closed. Of the 17 gigantic blimp hangers built, Hanger B at Tillamook is one of seven that remain standing. There are two in New Jersey, two in Santa Ana, California and two in Sunnyvale, California just south of San Francisco. Hanger A at the former NAST was destroyed by fire in 1992 when hay being stored inside ignited. The four huge concrete door supports that mark the four corners of the old hanger are still visible not far from the remaining hanger. There are still a couple of other buildings from the NAST days on the site, including the headquarters building, however, none are preserved except for the hanger, which is a designated National Landmark.

The Tillamook Air Museum currently leases space inside of Hanger B and takes up about two thirds of the floor space. They have a couple dozen aircraft, mostly WW-II era military, most of which they say are flyable. Except for two planes, all of the displays are inside of the huge hanger. Unfortunately, the lighting inside the hanger is not the best, so we found it hard to really appreciate the beauty of the old warbirds. We spent about 90 minutes walking around, looking at the aircraft, as well as some of the very nice historical displays they had set up. One exception to the mostly WW-II theme was a nicely restored F-14 Tomcat jet. It was a nice air museum, not the best, but pretty good. At least most everything they had was in great condition.

After our visit to the air museum we drove into town and got fuel for the Jeep and did some shopping. Along the way we also did two geocaches on the grounds of the airport. We also got one new DNF. After shopping we headed back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Thursday, June 27^th, we left the RV park a little after 1:00 pm. and drove to the Tillamook Hospital for Jackie's followup appointment with the doctor. As we sort of expected, the doctor repeated what he told us last Wednesday, that the colonoscopy was, for the most part, clean and he found no issues that would explain Jackie's abdominal pain. He did say that the lab found that the two small pollups he snipped out were per-cancerous, which is not an immediate problem, those pollups are gone. However, it does mean she will have to go in for another colonoscopy in about four years instead of the usual ten years they give you if they don't find anything.

He gave her another physical exam and we talked for a while, but the bottom line is he does not know what is causing the pain. He is able to exclude almost everything based on the various tests and symptoms, but what she DOES have remains a mystery. He again suggested we consult with a specialist when we get to a bigger city. We got copies of the various reports for our files and left.

After the doctor's visit we stopped at the laundry in town and washed clothes. We had exactly two weeks worth of dirty clothes. By the time we finished laundry it was about 3:30 so we did a few geocaches in town and one on the way back to the RV park. We ended up with five new finds for the day. We got back to the coach in time for cocktails and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Friday, June 28^th, about 10:30 or so some friends of our arrived at the RV park with their coach. Steve and Gail Schmidt are friends of ours from our time before full timing when we still had the house in Indio. Steve and Gail were members of the Indio Elks Lodge, our home lodge at the time, and were also members of the lodge's RV club, the Desert Drifters. We used to travel with the Drifters on four or five outings a year, sometimes more, and I was even the President of the club for a few years. When we went full time we made a couple of outings with the club the first couple years, but for the last five or six years we just haven't been able to align our schedule with theirs, so we have dropped out of the club and haven't done any outings. We last saw Steve and Gail in person probably about five or six years ago. We are in occasional contact through email and facebook, however, and it was through those connections that we learned that our travel plans were finally going to put us in close proximity, at least for a few days. They were spending time in Pacific City, Oregon, which is on the coast only about 30 miles or so south of Tillamook.

When Jackie and Gail figured this out a week or so ago, they changed their plans slightly and said they would come join us at the Tillamook Elks for a couple of days. They are retired and still own a house in Sun City Palm Desert, but they travel during the warm months, about five or six months out of the year. They have a 37 foot diesel pusher coach.

After they got parked they went out to do some exploring in the area, so after our lunch we went out to do a couple of geocaches. We are trying to improve on our current caching record regarding the number of consecutive days finding a geocache. Although we have been caching for over eight years, and have over 5,400 finds, our records show our longest “streak” for consecutive days is six! I guess that does demonstrate that, while we really enjoy caching, we don't let it completely rule our lives, but I think we can do better than six days. We ended up finding six new caches in less than an hour, which was good for the day.

When we got back to the coach Steve and Gail were back home, so we went over to their coach and spent some time with them talking and catching up. Steve is an avid cyclist and rides his bike everywhere they go. He is looking forward to doing some riding here in this area. About 4:30 or so we went back to our coach to get ready for dinner. We left the park at 5:30, with Steve and Gail in our car, and drove into town to the Elks for their Friday night dinner. They had a pretty good menu, prime rib, steak, chicken and fish. Jackie and I both had the prime rib. It was good, not the best ever, but not too bad. Steve had the steak, which he thought was very good, and Gail said her chicken was so-so. All in all it was a nice meal, a couple of cocktails and some nice conversation with old friends. We also gamed a little on the slot machines, but we all lost. After dinner we drove back to the park, dropped off Steve and Gail and spent the rest of the night with the telly.

Saturday, June 29^th, we loaded Steve and Gail into our car after lunch to go out and do some geocaching. Steve had already gone for a 50 mile bike ride in the morning, but was still ready to go out and do some caching. This morning they had to move from the full hookup spot they were in over to the dry camping area. The park was expecting a big group, which had reservations, and since the Schmidt's didn't have reservations they had to give up their spot.

Because they were unsure how good their batteries were, we knew we couldn't stay out too long, but Gail was really curious about the sport and wanted to go out for a little while. She is on Facebook with Jackie, so she knows how much we enjoy the activity, so she was really interested in trying it. We were only out for less than two hours, but we got a dozen new finds. Most of them were simple guard rail caches that were easy to find, so they didn't see a big variety, but they did get a feel for the sport. Gail still seemed interested so we suggested they do some reading online to learn more and see if it would be anything they might want to do.

After our caching we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while in the afternoon. Around 5:30 Steve and Gail came over to our coach for cocktails and dinner. Gail had made a crock pot full of chicken chili and it was excellent. We sat and talked after dinner for a while before they went back to their coach and we spent the rest of the night with the TV.

Sunday, June 30^th, yet another moving day. We left the Tillamook Elks RV park right around 10:00 and started our 126 mile drive back southeast towards Harrisburg, Oregon. Before we left we went out and grabbed one quick geocache which was just across the highway from the RV park. We wanted to make sure we tried to keep our new streak going. The first half of the drive was on the secondary roads that run from the coastal part of the state to the freeway. These roads are two lane, generally twisty with a lot of hills and are not especially wide either. They are passable, but you really need to pay attention when you are driving a big motorhome on them. They also seem to not believe in shoulders in Oregon either. Most of the roads have a couple feet of gravel and then drop off into a ditch or a forest. Very few places to go if you have a problem on the roadway. Another reason to pay attention.

We did have one hiccup that could have been serious. About 20 miles west of Salem, still on the secondary road, but out of the mountains, we came up on an intersection where it was clear there had just been an accident. Someone on the main road had hit someone pulling out onto the highway from a side road, or turning onto the side road. There was a little car sitting in the middle of the intersection, front end crushed with a guy lying on the road behind the car. He was moving around and being attended to by passers by, so he wasn't too bad off. There were no visible serious injuries. There were no police or medical people on scene yet and traffic hadn't even backed up too far, so it was very recent.

We got up to the intersection about the time the police arrived and we were able to get around the wreck and continue down the road. I had just gotten up to speed, about 50 mph or so, going downhill, when an ambulance appeared coming from the other direction, probably going to the accident scene. There were two cars in front of me and the one in the lead pulled off the road, completely on the shoulder, which was fairly wide at this spot because we were on a main road, but it was still just two lanes. The guy between me and the first car pulled over, but only part way. There was no way I could get past him without going into the oncoming lane, and the ambulance was nearly on us, so I had to jump on the brakes really hard to avoid running into the car. Had he gotten completely off the road I could have slowed down for the emergency vehicle without having to slam on my brakes because I could have gotten by the stopped cars without being in the way.

Unfortunately, Jackie had just gotten up and gone to the back of the coach to turn on the A/C because it was getting very hot now that we were away from the coast, and she was caught by surprise. She ended up flying down the length of the coach, finally going down to the floor just behind the front seats. Fortunately, she was only bumped and bruised a little, but it could have been serious.

After that little adventure the rest of the trip was routine and we pulled into the River Bend RV park in Harrisburg about 2:00. It was not our original plan to come back to Harrisburg, which is where Elite Repair and Remodel, the company that did our remodel work is located. However, during our three weeks on the coast we had a lot of rain and we had a couple of leaks into the coach, one of which we thought that Elite was supposed to have already fixed. For that reason we had called them and told them we would be in on Monday for one day so they could try to fix the leaks.

When we got to the park we were parked in a space right next to our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock. Ray was the one that had told us about Elite in the first place, and they had stopped here on their way back from the FMCA rally series in Wyoming to have some minor repairs done as well. We last saw Ray and Suzie in Yuma back in April. They, along with most of the rest of our coaching friends, had gone to the Wyoming events. We got the coach set up and then got together with Ray and Suzie for cocktails. Later in the evening Ray fixed his Firehouse Taco Salad for dinner and we all enjoyed a great meal and some more chatting. We finally went back to our coach about 8:30 and rested the remainder of the night.

Monday, July 1^st, the “official” middle of the year. We were up early and had the coach packed up and over to Elite's shop, which is only a half mile away, by a little after 9:00. We talked to the guys there, explained what we needed to have done, and set the cats up in the bedroom for the day. They have their food, water and litter box back there and none of the work that needs to be done involves anything in the back. The A/C was on and they were good to go. We drove back over to the RV park and then Jackie and I rode with Ray and Suzie and we went out on an all-day shopping excursion. We started with a stop in nearby Coburg, Oregon at the Monaco Customer Service facility there so I could buy some parts I needed. The cabinet hinges they used on our coach are very odd and can only be purchased through Monaco. They break after time, so I needed to buy some to keep on hand for replacements.

After the Monaco stop we went down towards Eugene and stopped at Northwest RV supply. You may remember from a couple months ago I wrote about this place being a huge warehouse full of RV parts, many of which were bought at auction when the original Monaco went bankrupt back in 2009. We wandered around for a while, but didn't buy anything there. Then we drove to their other location in downtown Eugene. Ray bought a few things, but we came out empty handed again. By this time it was almost 1:00 so we stopped for lunch.

We had lunch at a BJ's Brewhouse restaurant near the Eugene Mall. The place had only been open a week, so there were a few hiccups. The service was a little off and some of the food came cold. They are still in the growing stages, training staff and such, so it is understandable. The manager came to the table, apologized and picked up half the tab, so that took the sting out of the experience. We also picked up one geocache in the parking lot of the mall. Still trying to keep a new consecutive caching days streak alive. On the way back to the RV park we stopped at a home improvement store so Ray could get a couple things and then went back to the RV park.

When we got back to the park we saw that some other friends of ours, Jerry and Bev King, had arrived at the park and were in a site just one down from us. Bev and Jerry were also there for a quick visit with the Elite guys and were also on their way home to California from the Wyoming rallies. Small world. Jackie and I drove over to the shop and found that they were pretty much done with the coach. They have supposedly now fixed both leaks, and the only thing left is a cabinet repair that they will do in the morning as we are leaving. Erik still has to build the bigger flip up extension that Jackie wanted, but he promised to finish it tonight so he could install it in the morning. We drove the coach back over to the RV park and got it hooked up again.

Not too long after the six of us drove into Junction City, just a few miles down the road, for dinner. We went to a place called the Rodeo Steakhouse. Food was so-so, as was the service. Ray had a steak that was the size of a hamburger pattie pretty poor for a place that calls itself a steakhouse. We still had an enjoyable dinner though, chatting with friends and hearing their stories from the rallies. After dinner we went back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

I do need to relate some extremely sad news we received late this afternoon. Our dear friend Colleen Cohen passed away in Indio today. My friend Barry called and said that they had made a decision to transfer her from home to the hospice facility as a result of her inability to fight off the widespread cancer and within minutes after their arrival at the facility Colleen died. Barry and her children were there with her at the time. Sadly, she survived only nine weeks from the time she was diagnosed to the time of her passing, despite aggressive treatment. Rest in peace Colleen, you will be missed.

Tuesday, July 2^nd, we again had the coach packed up and were out of the park by 9:00. We made a stop at the Elite shop where Erik installed the new counter extension, which made Jackie very happy, and then we hooked up the car and started down the road to our next destination. We are headed back to the Valley of Rogue State Park, between Medford and Grants Pass. This is one of our favorite places in Oregon to stay and we were there a couple months ago on our way up this way. We were supposed to have been there yesterday, but our repair detour forced us to delay one day. I did call them to ensure we wouldn't lose our reservation, especially since it is a holiday week with the 4^th of July in a couple of days. The trip was mostly freeway and other than a stop for fuel and lunch was a steady, easy drive. We arrived at the park by 2:30 and got setup in our reserved spot very quickly. The temperature was over 100 degrees, so we just stayed in the coach in the air conditioning for the rest of the day, except for a quick ten minute dash for a nearby geocache, still holding our streak, no at nine days. Yea!

Wednesday we left the coach after lunch on another hot day and headed for nearby Medford. Our first stop was a Supercuts so Jackie could get a haircut. We then made a stop at the craft store in the same strip mall so Jackie could get some supplies. When we were done there we did some geocaching, finding three new caches, as well as getting another DNF. Since it was 99 degrees, we decided to take a break from caching and go to Costco. We hadn't been to a Costco in a while and needed quite a bit of stuff to refill our freezer. Even though we will be at another Costco in Redding, California in about a week, we decided to do as much as we could here in Oregon because there is no sales tax. The down side is they don't sell liquor in grocery stores here in Oregon, hence the reason we know we will be at the first Costco we find in California.

As it turns out, they also don't sell the sourdough pretzels I like, nor the tennis shoes, so there are a few other things we will need in California as well. After we finished at Costco we did three more quick geocaches in the area, bringing our total for the day to six and our consecutive days streak to ten days. Once we got everything done we drove back to the campground and settled in for the rest of the night.

Thursday, July 4^th, Happy independence Day! Checked the skies, no alien space invaders today, so that's good. We had thought that we would spend the day in Ashland, watching the parade and enjoying the street fair as we have twice before. However, when we checked the web site we found that the parade started at 10:15, which meant we would have had to leave the RV park by 8:00 to get to Ashland, which is 25 miles south, find parking and get to the Elks Lodge to watch the parade. We decided we really didn't want to start that early. It seems to us that it wasn't that early in past years. Grants Pass wasn't having any celebrations other than evening fireworks, so we decided to just make it a stay in day.

Both Jackie and I got a few minor things done around the coach, and we did go out for ten minutes to capture one nearby geocache to keep our consecutive caching days streak going. Other than that we just enjoyed the slightly cooler weather and had a relaxing day.

Friday, July 5^th, we went out after lunch to do some geocaching in Grants Pass. After a couple of hours we had eleven new finds under our belt, as well as one DNF. After caching we stopped at Walmart for a few things, one of which was ice, and then headed home. Our ice maker in the coach refrigerator has a tendency to go on “vacation” from time to time. It will stop working for a few days or weeks, and then just spontaneously start back up and work fine for months. Must be a loose wire or something, I haven't been able to figure it out. Once we got back to the coach we relaxed for the rest of the night with the TV.

Saturday was another travel day. We had the coach packed up and the slides in by 10:30 and were on the road headed south on I-5. Tod

ay we are returning to California, Redding, California to be precise. It was a fairly long trip, about 170 miles, and went pretty well. Although it was hot, there wasn't much wind and the coach didn't do too bad on the long grade up to the top of the Siskiyou Pass, the mountain range that is near the border of Oregon and California. We stopped once to top off the fuel and propane, and once for a quick lunch, but we got into the Redding Elks Lodge RV park about 2:30. It was over 100 degrees when we got to the lodge, so we set up the coach with minimal work outside. We did venture out for a brief foray to find a nearby geocache to keep our consecutive days streak working. We found the one cache, near a local Chinese restaurant, then returned to the coach to stay out of the heat.

We normally wouldn't be back to California this early in the summer, but we are coming back to Northern California to attend the 50^th Anniversary party for our good friends, Peggy and Vernon Bullock. They live in Mineral, a small mountain town not too far from Redding, and we, along with a lot of our other motorhoming friends are planning to attend. There is one RV park in Mineral, and we will be filling it up.

This marks an excellent place to close out this chapter. We will be here in Redding for a few days before moving on to Mineral for a week of fun with friends. Until the next time, remember to love, live and laugh as often and as hard as possible. See ya next time.