Waiting It Out/No White Knuckles Allowed

Today was going to be our big travel day, heading to Salt Lake City, to await the arrival of our grand baby! Mother Nature wins again; the remains of a typhoon in China, that hit the jet stream and traveled through the northwest, changed our plans. So we will wait out the wind and storm for a calmer day and smoother RV adventures along the way. Luckily our expecting Momma (our daughter Jen) thinks little “Cricket” will be late for her grand arrival! Expecting Grandparents have Huey and will travel! On the bright side, we have been enjoying a longer stay with our lovely older Daughter Chenin. We’ve been hitting some of our favorite Bend restaurants, know for their great microbrews and staying up late playing board games and our new found favorite card game “Quiddler”. All is good!

RV Lifestyle / Yes

So we are in our 5th month and have decided to pull out everything in storage and sell it! We can always replace it or buy it again if we ever go back to a stick built. We are now in full mode if it doesn’t fit in Huey it doesn’t belong. Some lucky charities are going to be happy with what doesn’t sell!

Bryce and Chenin treat us to Dinner

Chenin and Bryce took us to dinner tonight in Sunriver, Oregon to the Meadows at the Lodge.

The shrimp appetizer was great, but by far the bone in 20 ounce rib eye was killer!

Michelle enjoyed a Halibut dish that she said was great! I should have tried it but didn’t get the chance.

Paddling Hosmer Lake

Today Michelle, Bryce, Chenin, our fabulous little loyal dog Calle, and myself decided to go paddle Hosmer Lake up on Cascade Drive. We had many goals for this outing which included trying out my shoulder from the major rotator cuff surgery a year ago, retrieving a geocache we planted back on August 19 of 2008, and to just have a great time at one of our favorite high desert lakes outside of Bend, Oregon. These lakes up on the Cascade Highway are what we love most about Bend, well that and the numerous microbrews in the area!

Here are a few of the pictures taken up on the lake today. I couldn’t get clear pictures of the fish swimming in the canals that connect the two main bodies of water of the Lake. The water is clear and you can see all the way to the bottom, which is only ten feet or so; it’s just darn hard to get the fish to show up in pictures.

Michelle made friends with some pesky birds. They are a persistent bunch who like to be fed. They aren’t shy either.

Calle and I climbed the 300 foot incline to where the Geocache was placed and luckily it was still in the exact place I put it a few years ago. There weren’t any leaks in the container, which is amazing, considering it is covered in the winter with 10 feet of snow. This hill looked like what you would think Mount St Helen looked like after the eruption, only with living trees mixed in. The walk down should have been more enjoyable, but Calle and I stepped right into a yellow jacket nest and boy were those little suckers PO’d about that! Calle hauled butt out of there, I wasn’t as lucky. I was stung 10 times on the lower left leg before I escaped. I spent the rest of the picnic with my legs in the ice cold water for relief!

Here are some pics from today, I hope you enjoy them and if you get a chance, go see this magnificent lake for yourself!

Maybe those pesky birds were the ones eating the mushroom. Something spent a bunch of time eating on that one. Just maybe that’s what made the birds so bold!

Day Ride to Hosmer Lake/Elk Lake

I took a day off today after a week of general repairs and modifications to Huey! While parked at the glorious RV resort at my daughters I’ve been able to use my tools here in storage to fix things broken and install new items to make our travels better. So after busting buns with repairs and installation of a Wilson Warehouse cellphone antenna and booster, I took off for a day ride checking out a possible place to park Huey during the coming week with Michael and Laura and their new RV. I found possibly two spots at each campground between Elk Lake and Hosmer Lake. I ran into and talked to the host who has been here every summer since 1971 in his Silver Streak trailer, a kick off of the Airstreams. A very interesting conversation about the changing capabilities of yesteryear campers and present day campers. He has seen them all.

After hours of verifying that no wires were between the outside and inside of Huey, I drilled holes for the antenna mount. The RV/Trucker antenna was attached and watersealed.

Sent from my iPad

I removed inside trim at the ceiling to run the wiring from the inside antenna to the amplifier. After running the cable 20 feet I attached it and the outside antenna and the power to the amplifier/booster.

What a major difference this has made to the cellphone reception. Before I had 2 bars now I have all 5 and the mifi works like the speed of light! The rest of the year and next year at the Cape Blanco lighthouse we will have great reception. What a great product.

After reinstalling the ceiling trim, nobody is any the wiser!

Here are a few pics from the day ride.

The Road to Bend

Parting Shots Cape Blanco

A Drone buzzing the lighthouse.

More color from the beach and a few more mushrooms from mother natures beauty!

Farewell to Port Orford/Cape Blanco

Our days here at Port Orford/Cape Blanco are sadly over, for this summer anyway! It was the most fun we have had in a very long time.

We met so many wonderful people from all over our beautiful state of Oregon, and also from all over the world. One thing that stands out most about this whole fabulous area, that we had the privilege of spending two months in, is the constant changing of just about everything: The weather changes frequently: the sun peeks out, the fog rolls in, the sky is the most vivid blue you will ever see, then a blanket of fog rolls in. In Oregon we like to say “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes”. Our front yard, that fabulous stretch of beach, changed from tide to tide, it was never the same beach two days in a row. Every day we had a new group of visitors to the museum and the lighthouse, there was hardly ever a dull moment! The people we have enjoyed the most are the ones who attentively listen to the history stories that we relate, and it was always a joy to see happy, modern families bringing their children to see how people lived in the past. Many people left their tour very pleased, and appreciative of what they had learned, and the great thing is that we learned from people as well! Also many people thanked us for providing the opportunity to see fabulous things like our Cape Blanco light house. Michelle and I thank our great Oregon Park system for giving us this opportunity to be of service!

When we arrived, the first person we met was Norm, in the position
of greeter at the lighthouse. He filled us in on what it was like to be a host and what the duties entailed, and let us know just how much he and his wife enjoyed being there.
We had our orientation with Greg Ryder and really appreciated Greg’s enthusiasm for his position of Park Ranger in charge of the interpretive programs.
We then left the classroom part of the orientation and headed to the Lifeboat Museum, we met Pete Rasmussen, a Cape Blanco Heritage Society member. Pete filled us in on our duties
to run the museum, we started a day or two later on the very busy 4th of July.
Returning to our host site, where we parked Huey for the month of July, we met park hosts Jerry and Shirley. This is when I came to the conclusion that the longer you are retired, the more you want to prove you can do good hard work, and Jerry showed just how hard one can work and enjoy every minute of it!
Every Monday morning, hosts volunteering in the area, as far south as Humbug Mountain, got together at the Paradise Cafe in Port Orford, that can be an experience depending on who
all is there. I guess I need to try some southern grits next time, because Norm lit up Jerry’s lights with a bowl of that southern treat at breakfast last Monday.

Visits from John and Jen, Laura and Michael, and a nice trip last
week from Chenin made our time here even better!

We have had the pleasure of meeting some very fun host couples working with us at the lighthouse and we all received complements on being a well organized and smooth operating group of tour guides!

In no particular order we will start with Ralph and Debbie. From what we where told,
they are part of the witness protection program, ha ha. Ralph retired
early as a correction officer, when asked by a camper what he did there, he said without
hesitation “he corrected things!” Ralph had a real knack for cruising the camp ground on his bicycle and getting the scoop on all the happenings in the park, AND the whole area it seems. Now Debbie has the ability to talk and knit beautiful things at the host social hours and if that isn’t enough, she can bake very yummy cookies! Fires were provided by Ralph’s excellent
firewood hunting skills. Hopefully we get the timing right in our travels to meet up with them at PIR in Phoenix in November.
Jackie and Diane are new at this roaming lifestyle like we are. They are two very cool gals who were a pleasure to hang with! I have thanked Jackie for informing me of the dangers of cooking up kale parsnips found around the lighthouse, just because the Indians did it doesn’t mean I could survive these things.
Jim and Randa have proved to be the longest story teller/ interruptive hosts; some stories I suspect are a bit of a stretch as is the story on how myrtle wood got its name!
We enjoyed dinner at Ed and Pegs house, these are people we met many moons ago in Vacaville CA, through Michelle’s sister, Pat. These two are characters, especially
Ed who collects and paints rocks. He also has a strange way of eating huckleberries, but he does know the golden rule of not picking or eating berries lower than 4 feet!

Today we are looking at the worst day of weather since being here, but the storm is nice
to watch from inside Huey; its our day off, and we do feel badly for Ralph and Debbie being the outside story teller/greeter team today. We hope this doesn’t sway them from coming back next year, we already look forward to 8 months from now for another dose of the coast.

Ralph, just a quick note

Just wanted to let you know, definetly take the Beaver Hill Creek rd to get to hwy 42,  just north of Bandon next right after the the dump turnoff to the left. much better than 42S. When you get to the bottom of the hill take a left.