Some Time in the Pacific Northwest

Hi there, welcome back. Our last chapter ended on Saturday, August 6th, when we left Newport, Oregon and traveled north along the coast to Tillamook, Oregon, and the Tillamook Bay City RV Park. We spent the rest of Saturday in the coach after getting set up. On Sunday we went out after lunch to do a little exploring and some geocaching. For the first time since we have been in Oregon we had a little bit of rain. Just sprinkles, and the promise of more dampness, but rain nonetheless. We have been in this area a couple of times in the past few years, so are somewhat familiar with it. We were able to get nine finds for the afternoon, as well as stopping at a couple of stores to do some shopping. There was no more rain since we left the coach this morning. We got back to the coach about 5:00, had dinner and watched TV the rest of the night.

Monday, August 8th, my late mother's birthday. She would have been 90 today. It was another rainy morning, with the promise of off and on sprinkles all day. We went out after lunch to do some shopping. We hit the two cheese places in town first. The Tillamook Country Creamery Association, better known as the Tillamook Cheese Factory, is a large campus on the north end of town. The association of local dairy farmers has been around since the turn of the century and makes world famous cheeses. We watched the packing line from the viewing deck for a while, then did some shopping. Fifty bucks later we were on to the Blue Heron French Cheese store just down the street. This place carries a lot of the more exotic cheeses, brie, bleu cheese, that sort of thing, that aren't made at the Tillamook factory. Almost another fifty dollars worth of stuff and we were on to Fred Meyers for basic groceries. After our shopping we headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening. Not surprisingly, we had grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, along with some great tomato and cheese soup we bought at the Blue Heron. Great dinner.

Tuesday, supposedly the last day with a big chance of rain. We left the coach after lunch and drove north along the 101, just sightseeing and enjoying the day. We stopped in a couple of the little coastal towns and went through some antique shops and other shops. We went about 25 miles north of Bay City before we turned around and started back. Along the way we stopped at a few geocaches, getting five new finds. At one of the geocaches we picked a bag full of blackberries. After we got back to the coach we stayed in the rest of the day. That night, while watching television, we had some ice cream with some blackberry syrup that we bought the other day at the cheese store, and the fresh blueberries we picked during the day. Yum!

Wednesday, August 10th, we left the coach after lunch and drove to the fairgrounds in Tillamook for the Tillamook County Fair, which opened today. It was a typical, small county fair with lots of local companies in the commercial area, arts and crafts exhibits, and lots of animals. We spent a couple of hours walking around, checking everything out. We don't do the rides, but we looked at everything

else. After fair we went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the day.

Thursday was another travel day. We left the park about 10:30, did a quick fuel stop in Tillamook, and then were on the road, headed north about 75 miles on 101. Towards the end of the trip we passed through Astoria, Oregon and crossed the Columbia River into the state of Washington. We arrived at the Thousand Trails Long Beach park about 1:30 or so and got checked in. This is a pick your own site park, as are most Thousand Trails, but we were able to finally find a site where we knew we could get satellite. All the 50 amp spots were taken, but it is cool enough to make 30 amp work. We got set up and then settled in for the rest of the day. The trips on 101 are tiring, what with the traffic, the hills, curves and rough roads. We will be in this park for a full week.

Friday, August 12th, we went out after lunch to do some exploring of the Long Beach Peninsula and some geocaching. The Long Beach Peninsula is an arm of land about 25 miles long, north to south, and five miles wide, east to west. It is located at the south-western corner of Washington state, with the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Columbia River on the south, and Willapa Bay on the east. The Long Beach Peninsula is known for its continuous sand beaches on the Pacific Ocean side, which run about 28 miles and are claimed by locals to be the longest beach in the United States. Because of the fine beaches, it is a popular vacation destination for people from around the country. U.S. 101 leads to the southern end of the arm before heading back towards the east and then north in mainland Washington. There is a single main road that runs north, dead ending at the north end of the peninsula. There are a couple of small touristy beach towns on the peninsula, including Long Beach and Seaview, the town in which our RV park is located. Long Beach is the largest town, at around 1,500 population.

The beach is open for much of it's length to vehicle traffic, the only beach in Washington open to motor vehicles. As part of our exploration we drove out on the beach and recreated a photo we took in 2007 when we took our old Jeep Cherokee on the beach. I also experimented and put our Jeep into four wheel low drive, just to see if it worked. In eight years we have never used the compound low. It did work. Yea! We did some geocaching and were able to get a dozen new finds, along with one DNF, for the af

ternoon. Since the last time we were here in 2007 was before we started caching, this is all “virgin” caching territory for us. After caching we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Saturday, August 13th, we were going to drive over to Astoria, Oregon, the large city on the other side of the Columbia River, but Jackie woke up feeling really bad after coughing all night. She doesn't have much of a temperature and is not sick to her stomach, so I think it's the same chest and head congestion she seems to get frequently. She spent the entire day on the coach feeling miserable. I was able to get some chores done that I have been waiting for time to do, a few repairs, some future trip planning, and just relaxing. We never left the park all day. Sunday Jackie was still feeling poorly, so after lunch I went into town and did the laundry. We had planned on doing it within the next day or two, so I thought I would use this down day and get it done. After laundry I went back home and we stayed in the rest of the day.

Monday, August 15th, we left the coach after lunch to go exploring. Jackie was feeling only a little better, but decided she needed to get out of the house after two days of laying on the couch. We drove south and crossed over the Columbia again, back to Astoria, Oregon. We drove around for a while, doing some sightseeing as well as a little geocaching. One of the stops was at the Astoria Column, located on top of one of the tallest hills in Astoria. The 125 foot tall tower was built in 1926 with financing by the Great Northern Railway and Vincent Astor, the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, in commemoration of the city's role in the family's business history. Patterned after the Trajan Column in Rome and the Place Vendôme Column in Paris, the Astoria Column was dedicated on July 22, 1926. In 1974, the column was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The column stands atop 600-foot Coxcomb Hill and includes an interior spiral staircase with 164 steps that leads to an observation deck at the top. The spiral graffito frieze on the exterior of the structure is almost seven feet wide, and 525 feet long. Painted by Electus Litchfield and Attilio Pusterla, the mural shows 14 significant events in the early history of Oregon with a focus on Astoria's role including Captain Gray's discovery of the Columbia River in 1792 and the Lewis & Clark Expedition. It was built at a cost of $27,133, which would be $362,840 in current dollars. Interestingly, Vincent Astor inherited the Astor fortune from his father, John Astor IV in 1912 when Astor senior died in the sinking of the Titanic.

The city of Astoria is the seat of Clatsop County lies near the mouth of the Columbia River. The city was named after the American investor, and one of the first U.S. millionaires, John Jacob Astor. His American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria at the site in 1811. Astoria was incorporated in 1876 and holds the distinction of being the first permanent United States settlement on the Pacific coast and for having the first U.S. post office west of the Rocky Mountains. The population of Astoria is about 10,000. While we were exploring the city we were able to get six new geocaches. After exploring we went to Fred Meyers for some groceries and then went back across the bridge and back to the coach. We stayed in for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, August 16th, we left the coach about noon and drove into Long Beach for lunch. We had lunch at Chen's Chinese restaurant, a place we had gone to when we were here nine years ago and liked. Although I didn't remember the interior of the place, we have been to a lot of Chinese places over the years, I was not disappointed by the food. We talked to the waitress and she told us that while the place has changed owners since 2007, they still have the same chef. The food was very good, the service was good and we left happy.

After lunch we drove north on the peninsula, sightseeing and doing a little geocaching. We stopped in Ocean Park, the northern most town on the peninsula, and spent some time in Jack's Country store, a huge general store that has groceries, hardware, sporting goods, household stuff, and just about anything you can imagine. This was another place we remembered from our trip to this area in 2007. we bought a few things, then continued to explore. The weather was pretty crappy, overcast, foggy and cool, but we did drive out to the beach on a couple of the access roads. The beaches on the north end are WAY less crowded that the ones down in Long Beach. Of course, it was not a good beach day anyway. The Long Beach International Kite Festival was going on in Long Beach, drawing a lot of people, even with the bad weather, but we didn't want to walk out on a cold beach to watch kites fly. Nice sunny day, maybe, but not today. After our touring around we went back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, August 17th, we had another stay at home day. Jackie still wasn't feeling well so we just stayed in, did a few chores and relaxed. Thursday was another travel day. We left Long Beach about 10:30 and started northeast towards Olympia, Washington, about 120 miles away. The trip was pretty much uneventful and we arrived at the Washington Land Yacht Harbor about 2:00. We quickly got registered and parked and began our setup. Our first chore was to acclimate to the high 80's temps when we just left low 60's. We only have 30 amp electric here, but eventually it cooled the coach down and we were comfortable again. We didn't go anywhere after we got set up. Jackie had ordered a new laptop computer a few days back and it was waiting for us when we checked in. We spent some time getting it running and starting to set it up the way we like it.

Friday, August 19th, we left the coach after lunch and took Jackie to an urgent care facility. We ended up being there almost four hours. They diagnosed her with a bronchial infection and gave her some prescriptions. We then spent another hour at Walmart while they filled the prescriptions. We finally got back to the coach about 7:00. The cats were angry, but got over it when we fed them. We spent the remainder of the evening in the coach.

Saturday was an errand day. We went out after lunch and Jackie got a haircut, then we went and she got a pedi, we went to the post office and we found one geocache. We wanted to get a cache today because it was International Geocaching Day and we got one of our virtual souvenirs for finding a cache. After errands we went back to the coach. I went out a little later and brought home some KFC for dinner. We relaxed with the TV the rest of the day.

Sunday, August 21st, we had a relaxing morning with the newspaper. After lunch we went out to do some exploring and geocaching. Jackie still wasn't feeling all that well, but she wanted to get out of the coach for a while. We drove down to the Washington State Capitol complex in Olympia first. We have been to Washington a couple times in the past, but never in Olympia. Like many state capitols, Olympia is not a large city, only about 50,000 population. It sets at the southern end of Puget Sound, which runs north past Seattle and eventually into the Pacific. We didn't go into the Capitol building, but walked around some of it and explored the grounds. Two of the three geocache finds for the day were on the capitol grounds. We then drove around some other parts of Olympia, stopping at the Farmer's Market in the waterfront district. We had a fun, but relaxing afternoon and then returned to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Monday, August 22nd was a stay at home day again. Did a few chores but mostly relaxed. Tuesday was another travel day. We were packed up and on the road about 10:30, heading about 70 miles north to Bothell, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. We arrived at the Lake Pleasant RV Resort about 1:00 or so and got settled in and set up. We had expected heavy traffic today, but for the most part it was pretty easy going. This is the same RV park we stayed in the last time we were here in Seattle in 2007. That time we left the RV in the park and went on a seven day Alaska cruise out of the Port of Seattle. This is a very nice but a bit expensive, park. We are parked backed up to the lake and, for the first time in a while, have everything, 50 amp, water, sewer, and satellite that works. Yea! We are here for a week so after we got set up we just stayed in the rest of the day.

Wednesday, August 24th, we left the RV park after lunch and went out to do some geocaching in the general area of Bothell. We had a pretty good afternoon, getting seven new finds. Unfortunately, our last two tries struck out, giving us a couple new DNFs. We also came across some other geocachers at one of the caches. After caching we stopped at a couple of stores to get some supplies before heading back to the coach. We made the mistake of being eight miles away from home at 5:00, so the rush hour traffic in the big city held us up for a while and it took us 45 minutes to get back. We then relaxed the rest of the evening. Thursday, we left coach kind of late after lunch after doing a few chores around the coach. I helped Jackie color her hair and did a couple other things. As a result we only got one new find, and one new DNF in our cache quest. We then went to Costco to stock up on supplies before returning to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Friday, August 26th, we left the coach about 10:30 and headed to downtown Seattle for some exploring and adventure. We parked right near the Pike Place Market and had lunch at a place called Seatown. I had a salmon patty sandwich and Jackie had a Caesar salad with salmon. The food was good, but VERY expensive, especially for lunch. We then spent an hour or so walking through Pike Place. This is the place where they have a couple of fish markets and they throw fish around among the employees just to entertain the tourists. We then bailed the car out of the eight dollar an hour parking garage and drove around a bit. The traffic in Seattle is the worst I have seen since we were in New York back in 1999.

We finally made it out of downtown, taking almost a half hour to go less than four miles, and arrived at the Groundspeak Corporate offices, home of Geocaching. Most cachers refer to Geocaching.com, but that is just the website for the sport. The owner of the site, and the people who make caching what it is, are employees of Groundspeak. This office was one of our “must do's” for a visit to the Seattle area. We had registered a few days ago for a “hosted visit” to Geocaching HQ as it is known to cachers. You really don't get a tour, they keep you in a big reception room, but there is a lot of neat stuff to look at. The hosts told some stories and showed some videos, but basically it wasn't much more than you would get if you just showed up during business hours. We did enjoy the hour long visit however and are very glad we went. We exchanged all of our travel bugs in the huge TB hotel they have in HQ. After the visit we got a couple geocaches that were just outside of the office building. We then began the journey home during rush hour, not a pleasant experience. We got back pretty quickly though and then had cocktails outside on the shore of the small lake in the campground. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach. Saturday we left the coach after lunch to do some more geocaching in the north Seattle area. We were able to get six new finds, one of which was our next milestone, number 8,200. After caching we went back to the coach and stayed in and watched TV the rest of the night.

Sunday, August 28th, we left the coach after lunch to do some “drive-by” sight-seeing of Seattle. I had no desire to go back to that traffic nightmare during the week, but on Sunday it was much easier to drive around downtown and check out the sights. We did the main part of Seattle and the area that borders Lake Washington to the east. We were on the west side of the lake, right across from Bill and Melissa Gates' 70 million dollar mansion. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see it. We had a little rain on and off all day, but it never really got bad.

After doing the area of Seattle proper we drove north to the little town of Mulkiteo, basically a small town were the Whidbey Island ferry docks. It's neighbor is the much larger town of Everett, and Paine Field, where all the Boeing jetliners are born. We drove around the field and looked at the many airplanes lined up on the ramps around the buildings. After we got there we found out they had tours. It was too late for us to take a 90 minute tour, but maybe next time. After Boeing we headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the night. We chatted with our neighbors for a while over cocktails. They are from Northern California and are just starting long term RVing. Not full timers, but long timers. We did manage to get three geocache finds while we were driving around today.

Monday, August 29th, we went out after lunch and spent a couple of hours walking around a little boutique mall that was just down the street from the RV park. After that we went home and relaxed for a while and then went back out about 6:00 to have dinner at a seafood place called Ivar's, which happened to be right across from the RV park. Ivar's is famous for their clam chowder, but everything they have is very good. After dinner we went back home and relaxed the rest of the night.

Tuesday was another travel day. We left Bothell about 10:30 and started east towards Moses Lake, Washington, about 180 miles away. We made a fuel stop and arrived at the Suncrest RV Resort about 2:30 or so. We quickly got set up for a three night stay. We had been to this RV park back in August of 2007 when we held a rally for the Hundred Percenters Chapter of FMCA. At the time I was the Vice President of the Chapter. It folded up a few years later because of lack of membership and duplication of mission with the Full Timer's Chapter. Since we had a long drive and were pretty beat, we didn't go anywhere after we got moved in.

This move from Seattle marks the beginning of the comings and goings of a couple of rallies for us, so it is a good time to publish this chapter. The next episode will detail our rally fun. Until the next time, I leave you with this question to ponder. Why do people say “no offense” right before they’re about to offend you? See ya soon.

Back in Beautiful Oregon Again

Hello again. Our last chapter concluded on Wednesday, July 20^th, when we arrived at the Valley of the Rogue State Park, midway between Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. This is a very nice park with full hookup, 50 amp sites in a woodsy setting, and we can make reservations for a specific site many months in advance. This is important with all the trees so as to ensure that we get some satellite reception. Our first day we didn't do anything after getting set up.

Thursday, July 21^st, I did a few chores in the morning, washing windows and putting on the sun shades. After lunch we drove the 15 miles back to Medford to do some shopping. We hit Walmart and Costco, which happened to be right next door to each other. After shopping we got a couple of geocaches, but it was a little too hot to spend too much time doing it. We drove back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the day. Friday was a stay at home day. We both got some chores done around the coach. It was still a nice, relaxing day.

Saturday, July 23^rd, we left the coach a little before noon and drove west to Grants Pass, Oregon, about 15 miles or so. We were meeting our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock there for lunch at one of our favorite local restaurants, Taprock Grill. We saw Ray and Suzie on Saturday at the Bullock wedding, but didn't get to spend too much time with them. After they left that area they went to the Seven Feathers Casino in Canyonville, about 50 miles north of Grants Pass. Since our time in the area overlapped, we decided to meet for lunch. We had a very nice lunch and were able to have some nice conversation and make some future plans. After lunch we stopped at Winco for a couple of things then headed back to the coach. We stayed in the rest of the day, getting some more chores done and relaxing.

Sunday we left the coach about 11:00 and took a drive to Crater Lake National Park, about 80 miles northeast of our current location. We first visited Crater Lake in 2005 on our very first year of full timing. At one time the spot where Crater Lake is was a 12,000 foot volcano called Mt. Mazama, or at least that's the name modern day geologists gave to the mountain. About 7,700 years ago it blew up, tossing most of the mountain around the surrounding landscape. Eventually the remaining caldera collapsed, creating a hole which filled up over the years with water. It is a very beautiful sight. We didn't spend too much time walking around since it is over 7,000 feet elevation and Jackie does not do well at those altitudes.

We wanted to have lunch at the lodge, which overlooks the lake, but when we got there it was full and they were not taking any more names for a list because they closed in an hour. We ended up with sandwiches from the cafe, but they were OK. We took some pictures and visited the visitor's center before heading back down to the Rogue River area. We also managed to get a couple of geocaches for the day. After we got back to the coach we relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 25^th, we went out after lunch and drove to Medford to see a movie. There were not a lot of choices, but we settled on a kid's movie, The Secret Life of Pets. It was an animated film and the theater was filled with kids. I actually enjoyed the movie a lot, as did Jackie. Most of these films have a few “adult” moments in the back story that keep it interesting. And, the kids were pretty well behaved too. After the movie we did a few caches, reaching our 8,100 finds milestone. Yea! We then headed home and relaxed with the TV the rest of the evening. Tuesday we left the park after lunch and drove into Grants Pass to do our laundry. Once the laundry was done we went back and stayed in the rest of the day.

Wednesday, July 27^th, another travel day. We were packed up and on the road by about 10:00 or so, today headed northwest to Bullard's Beach State Park, on the coast near Bandon, Oregon. The trip was about 160 miles, but took longer than normal for that distance because of the roads. We have spent quite a bit of time in Oregon in the last ten years we have been on the road. It is a very nice, beautiful state and we really enjoy being here. However, one downside is that to get almost anywhere in the state you have to travel on winding, sometimes narrow roads, going up and down through mountains. They are pretty drives, but tiring too, especially when handling 45 feet and 38,000 pounds of worth of vehicles.

We arrived at Bullard's Beach, a state park we have stayed in before, about 2:00. We had reservations, so we got in and set up fairly quickly. We chose a spot that only had 30 amp and water, no sewer, but it had good satellite sight lines. We can go five days without a sewer, not so much without a TV. The 30 amp shouldn't be a problem either as it is significantly cooler here on the coast, in the low 60's in fact. Probably not going to be running the A/C much, if at all. After we got set up we just chilled for the rest of the day.

Thursday we left the park about noon and drove into Old Town Bandon to sight-see and have lunch. Bandon is a smallish town, about 3,000 population, located on the Pacific at the mouth of the Coquille River. Old town is located along the banks of the river's estuary inland about a mile from the ocean. Today it is mostly shops and restaurants with a small harbor. We stopped at two harbor side restaurants for lunch, but both were very small with mostly outdoor seating. The wind was blowing and it was quite cold, low 60's, so we opted instead to eat at another place called the Broken Anchor, which also had high Yelp ratings, and had indoor seating.

To our surprise, there was not much seafood on the menu. I had fish and chips, Jackie had fish tacos, about the only items on the menu from the water. Also to our surprise, the food was terrible. It was not remotely hot, the fish was overcooked, and the service was slow. At the end of the meal we mentioned our concerns to the only waitress in the place, and were again surprised to learn that she was the owner. She apologized, told us her chef was off today, and ended up comping the entire meal, including my beer. So, we had mediocre food, but it was free. After eating we spent an hour or so walking through the shops on the two main streets of Old Town. We then did some caching, getting six new finds and one DNF. About 4:00 or so we quit and headed back to the coach where we spent the rest of the evening.

Friday, July 29^th, we went out after lunch to some geocaching. Our first stop was the cache we had DNFed yesterday. This morning I learned that someone else had found it yesterday, and I got an email from the cache owner telling us to look again. This time we did find it. Turns out we had made a bad assumption about the type of container and missed it yesterday. Fixed a DNF, Yea! We then went on to do some sightseeing and cacheing and ended up with a total of nine new finds for the day. Before heading back to the coach we stopped at a local grocery store. Shortly after we got back to the coach our friends Bob and Gloria Baron drove by the coach. Turns out they didn't like the heat in Rogue River, so they left early and are in a different RV park in Bandon. They were just out cruising, so they didn't stay. I made a pot of chilli for dinner and we stayed in the rest of the evening.

Saturday, we left the park after lunch and went out to do some geocaching. This time we headed north to the Coos Bay area. We did a few caches on the way to Coos Bay and then after we got there we made a few stops. We first went to a Verizon store and updated our account. Verizon has introduced some new plans and we were able to get an additional 10GB of data, now a total of 30GB per month, for about the same price as we had before. In addition, they threw in a new 8 inch tablet for less than a dollar. Yea, just what we needed was another computer. We also stopped at Fred Meyers and did some shopping.

Once we were done with our stops we continued caching. We had a pretty bad day, mostly because on one very evil, devious cache hider. He managed to fool us on four consecutive searches. We ended up with four new finds and five new DNFs, our worst showing in a while. Oh well, it keeps things interesting. After caching we headed back south to the park and stayed in the rest of the night.

Sunday, July 31^st, we headed out after lunch and drove back up to Coos Bay because Jackie needed to take the clothes she bought yesterday back and exchange them for a smaller size. Once our business at Fred Meyers was done we did a “Sunday Drive” of the back loop out of Coos Bay, a road that went on or close to the coast most of the way back south to Bandon. We also did a few geocaches, getting three new finds. After we got back to the coach we just relaxed the rest of the day.

Monday, August 1^st, another moving day. We were packed up and on the road by about 11:00, heading north on Highway 101 for South Beach State Park, near Newport, Oregon. The trip was about 116 miles, but it took longer than expected due to traffic and some major road construction between Florence and Newport. The Oregon Coast Road, as Highway 101 is known, is mostly two lane and they are doing some repaving which ended up costing us almost an hour in delays. Oh well, we had reservations, so no big hurry. We finally got settled into our site at the State Park by 3:30 and got set up. It was a long day of driving, so we just stayed in and chilled the rest of the day.

Tuesday we left the coach after lunch and went to the nearby Oregon Coast Aquarium. This is a medium sized private, non-profit aquarium that opened in 1992. We spent about three hours walking around, looking at the tanks and exhibits and watching a variety of educational presentations and feedings. It is a very nice facility and we enjoyed our visit. After the aquarium we did some geocaching in the Newport area. We were able to get four new finds pretty quickly. We did stop by the Elks Lodge but they were not open despite a sign saying they should be. We may try again another day. We then went back to the coach and spent the rest of the evening there.

Wednesday, August 3^rd, we went out about noon and headed into Newport for lunch. We ended up at a place called Georgie's Beachside Grill after being unable to get into a couple of other places due to a shortage of parking. Good thing, because Georgie's turned out to be an outstanding choice. It is right on the beach with great ocean views. The service was good and we didn't even have to wait for a table because we sat in the bar. I had a seafood pasta that was one of the best I have had. Jackie had fish tacos which she said were great. All in all, a wonderful place to eat. After lunch we did some geocaching, getting four new finds. We then went shopping, both at Fred Meyers and at Walmart, before heading back to the coach for the rest of the day.

Thursday we left the coach about noon and headed south on U.S. 101 to the town of Yachats, about 25 miles or so. We are going to meet with Jackie's nephew John Perez. We last saw John a month or so ago in Pismo Beach. After we left Pismo he also went north to Florence, Oregon, to spend the summer up there with some friends. Yachats is about halfway between Florence and Newport, so we decided to meet there for lunch. We arrived at Ona, a very nice ocean front restaurant. John had suggested it because one of his friends worked there and said it was a great place to eat. It was a good recommendation. All three of us had the fish and chips with a cup of clam chowder. The chowder was very good, although thinner than we had the day before. The fish and chips was the best I have ever tasted. It was local rockfish, lightly breaded and then grilled, not fried. It was light, tasty, juicy and outstanding. We had a great lunch and spent about 90 minutes with John before we left. After lunch we did some geocachng on the way back to Newport, getting four new finds. We stopped at a big antique mall in Newport just to look around, and then headed back to the coach. We stayed in the rest of the night.

Friday, August 5^th, we left the coach after lunch and went out to do some more geocaching. We managed to get eleven new finds, along with three DNFs, for the afternoon. We also got in some sightseeing and shopping up in Depoe Bay, one of the beach communities north of Newport. As we were driving through Newport we noticed that traffic was terrible, more so than usual. When we got to the downtown area we saw that one of the big motels downtown, the Shilo Inn, had a huge fire. Nearly all of the two story hotel was destroyed. Checking with news sites later we learned that the fire started in a room just before 6:00 a.m. It was a multi-alarm fire and they called in help from other towns as far away as Florence and Lincoln City, both more than 50 miles distant. Three people were injured, one seriously, and we later learned that they have found four bodies in the wreckage so far, and are still looking. We had a great afternoon and after caching went back to the coach and chilled the rest of the evening.

Saturday, August 6^th, another moving day. We were packed up, dumped and on the road about 11:30. Today we going to Tillamook, Oregon, about 75 miles north of Newport. We have been to Tillamook before, last time a couple of years ago. It is a fun city and we are looking forward to our five day stay there. The traffic was terrible, I guess that's to be expected on a nice Saturday afternoon on the Oregon Coast. We finally made it to the Tillamook Bay City RV Park about 3:00 and quickly got settled into our spot. We have full hookups, 50 amps and satellite access here, yea! We will be here for another five day stay before moving north again.

This also marks a great place to close this chapter and get it published. Until next time, remember that There are three kinds of people in the world. People who make things happen, people who watch things happen and people who say “What happened?” See ya soon.

Visting Family and Friends in Central California

Hi there, welcome back. Our last chapter concluded on Friday, July 1^st, when we traveled from Santa Maria, California, on the cool Pacific coast, to Fresno, California, in the HOT San Joaquin Valley. On Saturday we went out after lunch and drove to the home of Jackie's 2^nd cousin, Stephanie Kopf, and her husband Ron. They also have three kids, Tyler, Bryce, and Madison. Stephanie's mom, Sue, with whom Jackie grew up, was up from the Torrance, California area to visit for the holiday. Shortly after arriving at Stephanie's house we went over to another home, a friend of Stephanie's, who's house they are taking care of while the family is on vacation. This house is a very big place in a gated community, but more important on this 100 plus weekend, it has a pool! I didn't bring my suit, but Madison and Ron were enjoying the pool. Everyone just sat around and visited. We brought some snacks, Stephanie had some, and later in the afternoon they ordered in some pizza and wings. We had a great time catching up and didn't leave until about 8:00. We headed back to the coach and stayed in for the rest of the evening.

Sunday, July 3^rd, we enjoyed the Sunday paper and talk shows before heading back over to see Stephanie and her family. We again spent the afternoon in the “borrowed” home, enjoying the pool and spending time with family. We had picked up some KFC for the group on the way over, so we had a great dinner. We left around 7:30 and went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 4^th, Happy 4th of July! We left the coach about 2:30 and drove over to Stephanie's house for the afternoon. This time we were actually at her house, not the one they are watching, the reason being that they are going to BBQ today. We sat around and talked with everyone, including Stephanie's oldest son Tyler, whom we hadn't yet seen this trip, and his girlfriend. For dinner Ron BBQed some nice tri-tips and we had that with beans, potato salad, and corn on the cob. A real all American meal for the Fourth of July. We stayed and talked until about 8:00 when we headed back to our place. After we got back to the coach we could hear a lot of personal fireworks going off in the surrounding neighborhoods, but when I looked outside I couldn't see any of the various public fireworks shows. I guess they were all more out in the suburbs. We watched TV until it was time for bed.

Tuesday we had a day on our own. Stephanie told us that she and the kids were doing stuff all day and wouldn't be home until late. It was still pretty hot, but we went out and did some geocaching anyway. We got five new finds and one DNF before we decided we were sweaty enough. We did some shopping at Sam's Club and then Walmart before heading back to the coach. About 6:00 we were craving some Mexican food, so we headed out to a local place called Toledo's that had good Yelp ratings. The food was very good and plentiful and the service was excellent. After dinner we went back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Wednesday, July 6^th was another travel day. We had the coach all packed up and ready to head north to Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. We had about 180 miles to drive. The electric is always the last thing to get unplugged and put away before we leave. I did that, got back in the coach, ready to drive and found that there was no electric in the coach at all, no 120 VAC and no 12 VDC, nothing. Normally when I pull the plug from shore power the inverter kicks in and provides 120 VAC to the outlets and the 12 VDC power never goes away. The engine started and ran fine, so there was nothing wrong with the engine batteries. I started doing some troubleshooting and one of the first things I did was take my multimeter and checked the house batteries. They were fine, right at a little over 12 volts. I then checked on the other side of the battery cutoff switch for the house batteries, no voltage at all. I found my culprit. I disconnected the house batteries and then took the switch off the wall. This is a small rotary switch that is there to allow you to cut all the 12 volt power. I have never had to use it in the ten plus years we have had the coach. Nonetheless, when I took it apart it was burned out. Some internal screws had worked loose over the years allowing the internal connector to not make good contact and the heat buildup burned out one of the contacts. Since the switch is only there if you want to cut the power, I just connected all the wires from the switch together on one bolt, put some electrical tape on it and yippee, we had power again. It's only a workaround fix, I will order a switch online and get it replaced soon, but I really don't need it for the short time we will be traveling.

Once that problem was solved we dumped the tanks, since the Fresno lodge didn't have sewer at the sites, and were on the road to Carmichael only about an hour later then our planned departure time. We had no further incidents and arrived at the Carmichael Elks Lodge about 3:30. There were plenty of open spots and we got parked and hooked up in short order. We will be here for a total of six days. After we got settled in we went to In and Out to pick up a quick dinner, our first meal for the day. We then watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday we went out after lunch to do some geocaching in the area. We were able to get six new finds, and on DNF, in a matter of hours. At one of the caches we actually ran into another cacher who walked up while we were searching. This happens rarely enough to merit a mention when it does. After caching we went back to the coach and spent the rest of the evening there.

Friday, July 8^th, we went out after lunch and did a few geocaches before heading to Costco for some supplies. We were able to get four new finds, and one DNF, before we stopped at the local Costco. We then headed back to the coach and put everything away. We relaxed in the coach for a while and at about 6:00 we walked over to the Carmichael Elks for drinks and dinner. While we were still having a cocktail our friend Curt Minard walked in. We met Curt and Sharon Minard about six years ago through Peggy and Vernon Bullock. Curt and Sharon are members of a Northern California RV travel club along with Peggy and Vernon. Curt and Sharon have a Monaco Knight with the same nice floor plan as ours, theirs is just one year newer. Sharon had gone to the State Fair with her daughter, so Curt came over to have dinner with us. They live in Carmichael and are members of this lodge. We had a very nice steak sandwich for dinner and enjoyed our time talking to Curt. We haven't seen them in a couple years, although we stay in contact through social media. We will be with Curt and Sharon again in just a few days when we all gather at the Bullock house for their fourth annual 50^th anniversary party. After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Saturday, July 9^th, we left the coach about 11:00 and headed for the California State Fair. The Elks Lodge is only about six or seven miles from the Cal Expo grounds and the State Fair started yesterday. We first made a quick stop at the Minard's house to pick up some tickets that Sharon had. She had called Jackie this morning and told her that she had two entry tickets and two monorail ride tickets left over from a booklet that Sharon's daughter had bought. Since entry into the fair was $10 even for seniors, this was a good savings. We then stopped at Denny's for a quick lunch. Experience had taught us that all you get at fairs of any kind is poor quality, yet highly overpriced, food.

We arrived at the fairgrounds about 12:30, paid our $10 to park and joined 50,000 or so other happy Californians at the State Fair. We have been to a lot of county fairs in our travels, and even the Arizona State Fair once, but this was the first here in California. We had a great time, checked out most of the exhibits and the commercial buildings. We ended up spending nearly five hours walking around the fairgrounds. We bought a few little things, but really didn't spend much money thanks to the free entry tickets. We left the fairgrounds about 5:00, went back home, bought a pizza and stayed in the rest of the evening resting our aching feet.

Sunday, July 10^th, we left the coach about 2:30 and went out to do some errands before going to visit some friends in the area. We went back to a geocache that we had DNFed a couple days ago to try again. We had gotten a hint from the cache owner and, sure enough, there was the cache, still in place after having not been found for over a year. Yea, fixed a DNF! We then stopped at Costco and picked up another six pack of vodka. We realized that in less than two weeks we will be going into Oregon for a couple of months. Oregon liquor laws are very restrictive, which makes liquor up there very expensive. We wanted to have as big a supply as we reasonably could.

After our errands we went over to Kathy Yarbrough's house in nearby Citrus Heights for a visit. Kathy and Jackie have been friends for decades, having met many years ago at work. Kathy and her husband Bill have a nice manufactured home in a 55+ community. Kathy was babysitting for her six year old granddaughter Bella, whom we have watched grow up over the years. We had a very nice visit and Kathy made dinner for the five of us. We visited until about 8:30 when we left to go back to the coach, where we spent the remainder of the evening watching TV.

Monday, July 11^th, we went out after lunch and did our laundry. After laundry we did a Walmart run, stocking up for our trip to the little mountain town of Mineral for the Bullock's annual party. Mineral has only 123 people and a small general store, so we wanted to be sure we had everything we needed for the six day stay. Once we had all our chores done we went home and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday we were packed up and ready to travel by about 10:30. Today we are going about 140 miles north to the town of Red Bluff, California. The trip was uneventful and we arrived at the Red Bluff Elks Lodge about 2:30. We are only staying for one night, so we unhooked the car and did the minimal setup necessary to stay overnight. We did leave the campground briefly to go get the car washed. It was so dirty we weren't even sure what the color was anymore. We also did one geocache, just so we could drop all our travel bugs off in a new location. After our errands we went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, July 13^th, we left the Elks about 10:30 and started the 42 mile trip east to the town of Mineral. Although it is only 42 miles, the elevation goes from only 300 feet in Red Bluff to nearly 5,000 in Mineral. Because of the climb we didn't tow the car. The first time we came up here, four years ago, we towed the car and the coach overheated badly. I had to stop several times to let it cool down. Since then we drive the coach and car separately. The coach still got hot on today's trip, but only for short periods before cooling down again. We arrived in Mineral about noon and got settled into the only RV park in the area.

It is a very rustic park, but does have full hookup sites, although with only 30 amp electric. The site we have is nice, but like all the sites, there is no way to get satellite reception with the coach roof mounted antenna. After we got everything else done I set up our spare outside dish so we would have some TV. It took me almost two hours to get everything working and find a signal, but we now have TV. It isn't HD because our little spare antenna doesn't do HD, but we get TV and can record our shows, so we can get by. While I was working on the TV Dave and Karen VanEgdon moved into the site two down from us. They are also here for the festivities this weekend.

About 5:00 we went over to Peggy and Vernon's “cabin” for dinner. I say cabin in quotes because it is actually about 4,000 square feet of two story house now. When they bought it years ago it actually was an old forest service cabin of less than 1,000 square feet, but they have really improved it into a very nice property. The reason we are here is that four years ago Peggy and Vernon had a 50^th Wedding Anniversary party here and it was so much fun their kids decided they needed to do it every year. This is the fourth annual 50^th party. In addition, on Saturday, Peggy and Vernon's son Larry is getting married at the house, so it is a wedding party too. We last saw Peggy and Vernon in April when we parted company in Apache Junction, Arizona after spending three months traveling with them. The group at the house was small today. In addition to us and the Bullock's there were Karen and Dave, and their 7 year old granddaughter Cherish, and Larry and his bride to be Dawn. Peggy cooked a ham and we brought some salad. There were also scalloped potatoes and cake. We had a great meal and sat and talked until almost 9:00 before we headed back to our coach for the evening.

Thursday, July 14^th, we went over to Peggy's house in the early afternoon. I brought in all the musical equipment I would need for the party and the wedding and started to get set up. We spent most of the afternoon at the house, talking and enjoying the great mountain weather. Another of our RVing friends, Curt and Sharon Minard came in today and parked right across from us in the RV park. Tonight we had a cook your own meat night and we had some nice steaks. Tonight there were probably 20 people who were at the house for dinner. We had another great evening and went back to the RV park about 8:30 or so where we relaxed the rest of the night.

Friday we were up early and over at Peggy's house by 9:00 for breakfast sandwiches. We had bacon and egg sandwiches, fruit and some sweet rolls and it was good. After breakfast we went back to the coach for a while, returning to Peggy's place about 4:00. Tonight was a heavy snack night with most people bringing some snack dish to share. Jackie made her taquito casserole which is always a big hit. After dinner I started doing some karaoke. We only had three other singers beside myself, Sharon, Pat, and Tara, but we had a great time and sang until about 8:30 or so when everyone started packing up to head to their own places. There were probably 30 people tonight. Some are in the RV park, some are in the only motel in town, some are locals, and some even pitched tents in the backyard. It is a busy place.

Saturday July 16th, I was up early to finish up preparations for the wedding music. Dawn, the bride, had some very specific requests for music before and during the ceremony. Normally that is not an issue with Amazon streaming music, but the internet at the house is terrible, so I am having to download hard copies of the songs and storing them on my tablet. If I had to rely on the internet at the house we wouldn't have much music. I finally did get everything setup and working right and we went over to the house about 1:00 or so to visit. Today they are expecting about 70 people, many of whom we have met over the years at the house, others that we have not. We had a fun time visiting with people. Most of the Bullock family was there. Their other son Matt and his wife Roxanne were there, as well as their daughter Trinity and son Troy. Troy is the Marine stationed in Yuma. He is on leave so he and his wife Makayla were also able to come. Peggy and Vernon's daughter Katie, the professional chef, was also there helping with the cooking for the party.  Larry's daughter Tara was also in attendance for the weekend.

At 4:00 the wedding took place in the backyard and it was very nice. The weather was gorgeous, the setting very nice, and the music came off without a hitch. I played sound man for the rest of the evening, with some easy listening music during the photo shoot and dinner, which was also served outside. It was a very Western wedding and the food was BBQ chicken and tri-tip, along with a lot of side dishes brought by guests. After dinner we did some dancing and everyone seemed to have a great time. I finally had to shut down the music about 9:15 when I couldn't see the computer keyboard or mixer controls any more. The backyard gets very dark when the sun goes down. We helped do a little cleanup and then headed back to our place.

Sunday, July 17^th, we were again up early, this time cooking biscuits at 8:00 for the breakfast. Peggy distributed the biscuit cooking among a number of the guests and we had 40 to make. We then went down to the house at 9:00 for a biscuits and gravy breakfast. Sharon Minard had made about three gallons of great sausage gravy and we had a great time. There were probably 30 people at breakfast, but today will be the day most of them leave. After breakfast I took Jackie home and then went back to the house to disassemble the audio equipment and bring it back to the coach to get packed up. No more music duties.

After I got everything put back in it's place in the coach we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. About 4:00 we went down to the house to have a leftovers dinner. Tonight it was only nine people and we had another good dinner, snacking on all the little bits of things left over from previous dinners. We had plenty to eat and had a great time. We left about 8:00 and went back to the coach where we watched TV the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 18^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down to the house. It is now just us and the Bullock's, so they got in our car and we drove to the town of Chester, about 35 miles east. Chester is one of the towns that sits on the shores of Lake Almanor, a pretty large mountain reservoir. We went to one of the local restaurants that sits on the lake shore and had a nice lunch out on the back patio. After lunch we drove around through town for a few minutes and then headed back to the hours. We did manage to pick up a couple of geocaches while we were out.

We dropped Peggy and Vernon off at the house and we went back to the coach and relaxed for an hour or so. About 3:30 we went back to the house and I helped Vernon load his pickup with a dozen bags of trash to take to the dump. We dropped off the trash and then came back and the four of us just sat around and talked. Later in the evening Jackie and Peggy made a chili relleno casserole and the four of us had dinner. We talked for a while longer and finally headed back to the coach about 7:30 where we watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday was another moving day. Today we are only going to Redding, about 75 miles northwest. We had everything packed up and ready to go by about 10:30. Peggy and Vernon came by to say goodbye, but also told us that they told us that they too were going to Redding sometime today to take Vernon to the doctor. He was complaining of chest pain yesterday and it was still bothering him this morning. He has had heart attacks in the past and just had a shunt put in a month or two ago. We were only on the road for a half hour or so when Peggy called and said that the doctor wanted him in the ER in Redding to be checked out ASAP. They were heading down the hill and wanted to ask us to stop so they could drop their dog Belle off with us while they went to the hospital. Peggy wasn't sure if Vernon would have to stay overnight, so she didn't want to leave Belle at home in case they didn't get back up there today. Belle and our cats get along fine, so we said sure and stopped at the bottom of the hill, before getting on the freeway, and waited for them.

They arrived in about ten minutes, dropped off Belle and we continued our trip to Redding. We arrived at the Redding Elks Lodge about 1:30 and quickly settled in for our one night stay here. Within a half hour the animals settled in too and just wandered around the coach ignoring each other. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach, except when we had the pleasure of walking the dog. Reminds me why we have cats. We heard from Peggy about 9:30 that they had given Vernon a whole bunch of tests and finally determined that it was not a heart issue, but was rather some sort of muscle strain in his chest. Weird, but good news. They came by about 10:00 and picked up Belle and we went to bed.

Wednesday, July 20^th, we were packed up and on the road about 9:30, heading north and leaving the People's Republic of Kalifornia, heading for southern Oregon. After a fuel stop, and a lunch stop we arrived at the Valley of the Rogue State Park about 2:30. This park is located about halfway between Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. It is right off of I-5 and on the shore of the Rogue River. We had reservations so we were able to check in and get set up quickly. We did the basic set up and then relaxed for the rest of the day. We will be here for seven days. Although there are a lot of trees I was able to get a spot that we had used before on other trips and I was able to get a good satellite signal. We have full hookup, 50 amp and good wifi. All is good.

Our arrival in Oregon makes a good closing for this episode. We will be traveling in Oregon for about a month, then up to Washington for a while. Until next time, remember the words of Mae West. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” See ya soon.

Visting Family and Friends in Central California

Hi there, welcome back. Our last chapter concluded on Friday, July 1^st, when we traveled from Santa Maria, California, on the cool Pacific coast, to Fresno, California, in the HOT San Joaquin Valley. On Saturday we went out after lunch and drove to the home of Jackie's 2^nd cousin, Stephanie Kopf, and her husband Ron. They also have three kids, Tyler, Bryce, and Madison. Stephanie's mom, Sue, with whom Jackie grew up, was up from the Torrance, California area to visit for the holiday. Shortly after arriving at Stephanie's house we went over to another home, a friend of Stephanie's, who's house they are taking care of while the family is on vacation. This house is a very big place in a gated community, but more important on this 100 plus weekend, it has a pool! I didn't bring my suit, but Madison and Ron were enjoying the pool. Everyone just sat around and visited. We brought some snacks, Stephanie had some, and later in the afternoon they ordered in some pizza and wings. We had a great time catching up and didn't leave until about 8:00. We headed back to the coach and stayed in for the rest of the evening.

Sunday, July 3^rd, we enjoyed the Sunday paper and talk shows before heading back over to see Stephanie and her family. We again spent the afternoon in the “borrowed” home, enjoying the pool and spending time with family. We had picked up some KFC for the group on the way over, so we had a great dinner. We left around 7:30 and went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 4^th, Happy 4th of July! We left the coach about 2:30 and drove over to Stephanie's house for the afternoon. This time we were actually at her house, not the one they are watching, the reason being that they are going to BBQ today. We sat around and talked with everyone, including Stephanie's oldest son Tyler, whom we hadn't yet seen this trip, and his girlfriend. For dinner Ron BBQed some nice tri-tips and we had that with beans, potato salad, and corn on the cob. A real all American meal for the Fourth of July. We stayed and talked until about 8:00 when we headed back to our place. After we got back to the coach we could hear a lot of personal fireworks going off in the surrounding neighborhoods, but when I looked outside I couldn't see any of the various public fireworks shows. I guess they were all more out in the suburbs. We watched TV until it was time for bed.

Tuesday we had a day on our own. Stephanie told us that she and the kids were doing stuff all day and wouldn't be home until late. It was still pretty hot, but we went out and did some geocaching anyway. We got five new finds and one DNF before we decided we were sweaty enough. We did some shopping at Sam's Club and then Walmart before heading back to the coach. About 6:00 we were craving some Mexican food, so we headed out to a local place called Toledo's that had good Yelp ratings. The food was very good and plentiful and the service was excellent. After dinner we went back to the coach and watched TV the rest of the night.

Wednesday, July 6^th was another travel day. We had the coach all packed up and ready to head north to Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. We had about 180 miles to drive. The electric is always the last thing to get unplugged and put away before we leave. I did that, got back in the coach, ready to drive and found that there was no electric in the coach at all, no 120 VAC and no 12 VDC, nothing. Normally when I pull the plug from shore power the inverter kicks in and provides 120 VAC to the outlets and the 12 VDC power never goes away. The engine started and ran fine, so there was nothing wrong with the engine batteries. I started doing some troubleshooting and one of the first things I did was take my multimeter and checked the house batteries. They were fine, right at a little over 12 volts. I then checked on the other side of the battery cutoff switch for the house batteries, no voltage at all. I found my culprit. I disconnected the house batteries and then took the switch off the wall. This is a small rotary switch that is there to allow you to cut all the 12 volt power. I have never had to use it in the ten plus years we have had the coach. Nonetheless, when I took it apart it was burned out. Some internal screws had worked loose over the years allowing the internal connector to not make good contact and the heat buildup burned out one of the contacts. Since the switch is only there if you want to cut the power, I just connected all the wires from the switch together on one bolt, put some electrical tape on it and yippee, we had power again. It's only a workaround fix, I will order a switch online and get it replaced soon, but I really don't need it for the short time we will be traveling.

Once that problem was solved we dumped the tanks, since the Fresno lodge didn't have sewer at the sites, and were on the road to Carmichael only about an hour later then our planned departure time. We had no further incidents and arrived at the Carmichael Elks Lodge about 3:30. There were plenty of open spots and we got parked and hooked up in short order. We will be here for a total of six days. After we got settled in we went to In and Out to pick up a quick dinner, our first meal for the day. We then watched TV until bedtime.

Thursday we went out after lunch to do some geocaching in the area. We were able to get six new finds, and on DNF, in a matter of hours. At one of the caches we actually ran into another cacher who walked up while we were searching. This happens rarely enough to merit a mention when it does. After caching we went back to the coach and spent the rest of the evening there.

Friday, July 8^th, we went out after lunch and did a few geocaches before heading to Costco for some supplies. We were able to get four new finds, and one DNF, before we stopped at the local Costco. We then headed back to the coach and put everything away. We relaxed in the coach for a while and at about 6:00 we walked over to the Carmichael Elks for drinks and dinner. While we were still having a cocktail our friend Curt Minard walked in. We met Curt and Sharon Minard about six years ago through Peggy and Vernon Bullock. Curt and Sharon are members of a Northern California RV travel club along with Peggy and Vernon. Curt and Sharon have a Monaco Knight with the same nice floor plan as ours, theirs is just one year newer. Sharon had gone to the State Fair with her daughter, so Curt came over to have dinner with us. They live in Carmichael and are members of this lodge. We had a very nice steak sandwich for dinner and enjoyed our time talking to Curt. We haven't seen them in a couple years, although we stay in contact through social media. We will be with Curt and Sharon again in just a few days when we all gather at the Bullock house for their fourth annual 50^th anniversary party. After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Saturday, July 9^th, we left the coach about 11:00 and headed for the California State Fair. The Elks Lodge is only about six or seven miles from the Cal Expo grounds and the State Fair started yesterday. We first made a quick stop at the Minard's house to pick up some tickets that Sharon had. She had called Jackie this morning and told her that she had two entry tickets and two monorail ride tickets left over from a booklet that Sharon's daughter had bought. Since entry into the fair was $10 even for seniors, this was a good savings. We then stopped at Denny's for a quick lunch. Experience had taught us that all you get at fairs of any kind is poor quality, yet highly overpriced, food.

We arrived at the fairgrounds about 12:30, paid our $10 to park and joined 50,000 or so other happy Californians at the State Fair. We have been to a lot of county fairs in our travels, and even the Arizona State Fair once, but this was the first here in California. We had a great time, checked out most of the exhibits and the commercial buildings. We ended up spending nearly five hours walking around the fairgrounds. We bought a few little things, but really didn't spend much money thanks to the free entry tickets. We left the fairgrounds about 5:00, went back home, bought a pizza and stayed in the rest of the evening resting our aching feet.

Sunday, July 10^th, we left the coach about 2:30 and went out to do some errands before going to visit some friends in the area. We went back to a geocache that we had DNFed a couple days ago to try again. We had gotten a hint from the cache owner and, sure enough, there was the cache, still in place after having not been found for over a year. Yea, fixed a DNF! We then stopped at Costco and picked up another six pack of vodka. We realized that in less than two weeks we will be going into Oregon for a couple of months. Oregon liquor laws are very restrictive, which makes liquor up there very expensive. We wanted to have as big a supply as we reasonably could.

After our errands we went over to Kathy Yarbrough's house in nearby Citrus Heights for a visit. Kathy and Jackie have been friends for decades, having met many years ago at work. Kathy and her husband Bill have a nice manufactured home in a 55+ community. Kathy was babysitting for her six year old granddaughter Bella, whom we have watched grow up over the years. We had a very nice visit and Kathy made dinner for the five of us. We visited until about 8:30 when we left to go back to the coach, where we spent the remainder of the evening watching TV.

Monday, July 11^th, we went out after lunch and did our laundry. After laundry we did a Walmart run, stocking up for our trip to the little mountain town of Mineral for the Bullock's annual party. Mineral has only 123 people and a small general store, so we wanted to be sure we had everything we needed for the six day stay. Once we had all our chores done we went home and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday we were packed up and ready to travel by about 10:30. Today we are going about 140 miles north to the town of Red Bluff, California. The trip was uneventful and we arrived at the Red Bluff Elks Lodge about 2:30. We are only staying for one night, so we unhooked the car and did the minimal setup necessary to stay overnight. We did leave the campground briefly to go get the car washed. It was so dirty we weren't even sure what the color was anymore. We also did one geocache, just so we could drop all our travel bugs off in a new location. After our errands we went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, July 13^th, we left the Elks about 10:30 and started the 42 mile trip east to the town of Mineral. Although it is only 42 miles, the elevation goes from only 300 feet in Red Bluff to nearly 5,000 in Mineral. Because of the climb we didn't tow the car. The first time we came up here, four years ago, we towed the car and the coach overheated badly. I had to stop several times to let it cool down. Since then we drive the coach and car separately. The coach still got hot on today's trip, but only for short periods before cooling down again. We arrived in Mineral about noon and got settled into the only RV park in the area.

It is a very rustic park, but does have full hookup sites, although with only 30 amp electric. The site we have is nice, but like all the sites, there is no way to get satellite reception with the coach roof mounted antenna. After we got everything else done I set up our spare outside dish so we would have some TV. It took me almost two hours to get everything working and find a signal, but we now have TV. It isn't HD because our little spare antenna doesn't do HD, but we get TV and can record our shows, so we can get by. While I was working on the TV Dave and Karen VanEgdon moved into the site two down from us. They are also here for the festivities this weekend.

About 5:00 we went over to Peggy and Vernon's “cabin” for dinner. I say cabin in quotes because it is actually about 4,000 square feet of two story house now. When they bought it years ago it actually was an old forest service cabin of less than 1,000 square feet, but they have really improved it into a very nice property. The reason we are here is that four years ago Peggy and Vernon had a 50^th Wedding Anniversary party here and it was so much fun their kids decided they needed to do it every year. This is the fourth annual 50^th party. In addition, on Saturday, Peggy and Vernon's son Larry is getting married at the house, so it is a wedding party too. We last saw Peggy and Vernon in April when we parted company in Apache Junction, Arizona after spending three months traveling with them. The group at the house was small today. In addition to us and the Bullock's there were Karen and Dave, and their 7 year old granddaughter Cherish, and Larry and his bride to be Dawn. Peggy cooked a ham and we brought some salad. There were also scalloped potatoes and cake. We had a great meal and sat and talked until almost 9:00 before we headed back to our coach for the evening.

Thursday, July 14^th, we went over to Peggy's house in the early afternoon. I brought in all the musical equipment I would need for the party and the wedding and started to get set up. We spent most of the afternoon at the house, talking and enjoying the great mountain weather. Another of our RVing friends, Curt and Sharon Minard came in today and parked right across from us in the RV park. Tonight we had a cook your own meat night and we had some nice steaks. Tonight there were probably 20 people who were at the house for dinner. We had another great evening and went back to the RV park about 8:30 or so where we relaxed the rest of the night.

Friday we were up early and over at Peggy's house by 9:00 for breakfast sandwiches. We had bacon and egg sandwiches, fruit and some sweet rolls and it was good. After breakfast we went back to the coach for a while, returning to Peggy's place about 4:00. Tonight was a heavy snack night with most people bringing some snack dish to share. Jackie made her taquito casserole which is always a big hit. After dinner I started doing some karaoke. We only had three other singers beside myself, Sharon, Pat, and Tara, but we had a great time and sang until about 8:30 or so when everyone started packing up to head to their own places. There were probably 30 people tonight. Some are in the RV park, some are in the only motel in town, some are locals, and some even pitched tents in the backyard. It is a busy place.

Saturday July 16th, I was up early to finish up preparations for the wedding music. Dawn, the bride, had some very specific requests for music before and during the ceremony. Normally that is not an issue with Amazon streaming music, but the internet at the house is terrible, so I am having to download hard copies of the songs and storing them on my tablet. If I had to rely on the internet at the house we wouldn't have much music. I finally did get everything setup and working right and we went over to the house about 1:00 or so to visit. Today they are expecting about 70 people, many of whom we have met over the years at the house, others that we have not. We had a fun time visiting with people. Most of the Bullock family was there. Their other son Matt and his wife Roxanne were there, as well as their daughter Trinity and son Troy. Troy is the Marine stationed in Yuma. He is on leave so he and his wife Makayla were also able to come. Peggy and Vernon's daughter Katie, the professional chef, was also there helping with the cooking for the party.

At 4:00 the wedding took place in the backyard and it was very nice. The weather was gorgeous, the setting very nice, and the music came off without a hitch. I played sound man for the rest of the evening, with some easy listening music during the photo shoot and dinner, which was also served outside. It was a very Western wedding and the food was BBQ chicken and tri-tip, along with a lot of side dishes brought by guests. After dinner we did some dancing and everyone seemed to have a great time. I finally had to shut down the music about 9:15 when I couldn't see the computer keyboard or mixer controls any more. The backyard gets very dark when the sun goes down. We helped do a little cleanup and then headed back to our place.

Sunday, July 17^th, we were again up early, this time cooking biscuits at 8:00 for the breakfast. Peggy distributed the biscuit cooking among a number of the guests and we had 40 to make. We then went down to the house at 9:00 for a biscuits and gravy breakfast. Sharon Minard had made about three gallons of great sausage gravy and we had a great time. There were probably 30 people at breakfast, but today will be the day most of them leave. After breakfast I took Jackie home and then went back to the house to disassemble the audio equipment and bring it back to the coach to get packed up. No more music duties.

After I got everything put back in it's place in the coach we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. About 4:00 we went down to the house to have a leftovers dinner. Tonight it was only nine people and we had another good dinner, snacking on all the little bits of things left over from previous dinners. We had plenty to eat and had a great time. We left about 8:00 and went back to the coach where we watched TV the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 18^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove down to the house. It is now just us and the Bullock's, so they got in our car and we drove to the town of Chester, about 35 miles east. Chester is one of the towns that sits on the shores of Lake Almanor, a pretty large mountain reservoir. We went to one of the local restaurants that sits on the lake shore and had a nice lunch out on the back patio. After lunch we drove around through town for a few minutes and then headed back to the hours. We did manage to pick up a couple of geocaches while we were out.

We dropped Peggy and Vernon off at the house and we went back to the coach and relaxed for an hour or so. About 3:30 we went back to the house and I helped Vernon load his pickup with a dozen bags of trash to take to the dump. We dropped off the trash and then came back and the four of us just sat around and talked. Later in the evening Jackie and Peggy made a chili relleno casserole and the four of us had dinner. We talked for a while longer and finally headed back to the coach about 7:30 where we watched TV the rest of the night.

Tuesday was another moving day. Today we are only going to Redding, about 75 miles northwest. We had everything packed up and ready to go by about 10:30. Peggy and Vernon came by to say goodbye, but also told us that they told us that they too were going to Redding sometime today to take Vernon to the doctor. He was complaining of chest pain yesterday and it was still bothering him this morning. He has had heart attacks in the past and just had a shunt put in a month or two ago. We were only on the road for a half hour or so when Peggy called and said that the doctor wanted him in the ER in Redding to be checked out ASAP. They were heading down the hill and wanted to ask us to stop so they could drop their dog Belle off with us while they went to the hospital. Peggy wasn't sure if Vernon would have to stay overnight, so she didn't want to leave Belle at home in case they didn't get back up there today. Belle and our cats get along fine, so we said sure and stopped at the bottom of the hill, before getting on the freeway, and waited for them.

They arrived in about ten minutes, dropped off Belle and we continued our trip to Redding. We arrived at the Redding Elks Lodge about 1:30 and quickly settled in for our one night stay here. Within a half hour the animals settled in too and just wandered around the coach ignoring each other. We spent the rest of the evening in the coach, except when we had the pleasure of walking the dog. Reminds me why we have cats. We heard from Peggy about 9:30 that they had given Vernon a whole bunch of tests and finally determined that it was not a heart issue, but was rather some sort of muscle strain in his chest. Weird, but good news. They came by about 10:00 and picked up Belle and we went to bed.

Wednesday, July 20^th, we were packed up and on the road about 9:30, heading north and leaving the People's Republic of Kalifornia, heading for southern Oregon. After a fuel stop, and a lunch stop we arrived at the Valley of the Rogue State Park about 2:30. This park is located about halfway between Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. It is right off of I-5 and on the shore of the Rogue River. We had reservations so we were able to check in and get set up quickly. We did the basic set up and then relaxed for the rest of the day. We will be here for seven days. Although there are a lot of trees I was able to get a spot that we had used before on other trips and I was able to get a good satellite signal. We have full hookup, 50 amp and good wifi. All is good.

Our arrival in Oregon makes a good closing for this episode. We will be traveling in Oregon for about a month, then up to Washington for a while. Until next time, remember the words of Mae West. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” See ya soon.