February 6 – February 22, 2015: Family and Friends

On February 6, we were in Peach Beach RV Park on the north shore of the Columbia River on US-97.  We are staying at this RV Park 2 nights so we can do some sightseeing in the area.  Even though it’s too early for the tourists, there are lots of things to see here.

Our first stop was a replica of Stonehenge, sitting high above the Columbia.  This memorial was the first in the US dedicated to WWI soldier deaths and was part of a large estate.  As you can see from the photo, the weather was cold and drizzly, so there weren’t many tourists wandering around.  We did talk to one gentleman who told us that his uncle had helped with the construction of the memorial and used to ride his bicycle around the top!  Yikes!!  Stonehenge and the adjoining Maryhill Museum were part of Samuel Hill’s ranch in the 1900’s.  Yep, there actually was a "Sam Hill"!

According to Wikipedia:

The Maryhill Museum building was designed as a private residence for Sam Hill. It was designed in a Beaux-Arts style and built of steel-reinforced concrete beginning in 1914. Hill imagined the structure as a ranch building amidst a 5,300-acre agricultural community that he was developing at the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge. During a 1917 visit by his friend Loïe Fuller, he decided to turn his unfinished home into “a museum for the public good, and for the betterment of French art in the far Northwest of America.”

Unfortunately, the museum was closed until the first of March, so we were unable to view the collection.  Surprisingly enough, this little out-of-the-way museum has quite a collection of pieces by Rodin, including “The Thinker”!  We will have to come back.

Our next stop was Maryhill Winery, located on the bluff above the Columbia River, a few miles west of the museum.  The tasting room was built in 2000 and included an open-air amphitheater for concerts.  What a gorgeous venue!  Their wines were delicious and we managed to only purchase a couple of bottles of delicious red.  I thought we were very restrained, considering this winery has won numerous awards over the years.  Coordinating a concert date with a visit to the museum is on our to-do list.

We drove to Goldendale; about 10 miles north on US-97 in search of some lunch and decided to explore the Goldendale Observatory and its 24.5-inch telescope.  The park ranger was quite knowledgeable and perhaps a little lonely…he went on and on about the telescope and the park in general.  The park recently received funding for upgrades, in anticipation of the next total solar eclipse in August of 2017, which apparently is quite a big deal in the world of astronomy.

We made one last stop at John Day (he was an early Oregon explorer) dam, just a few miles east of the RV park.  The dam is near Rufus, OR, and has fish ladders and locks on both sides of the river.  It’s the newest dam on the lower Columbia River and produces significant hydroelectric power.  We viewed the dam from the Washington side, so didn’t take the tour or explore the grounds at the dam.

We departed Peach Beach RV Park Saturday morning, 2/7/15, continuing south on US-97 through Oregon.  Smokey gradually adjusted to another big change in her feline life.  While we are on the road, she sometimes hides underneath our bed.  At other times she sleeps on the couch in the salon, and when she’s feeling really needy, she sleeps on this chair I placed between Jerry’s seat and mine.  Poor kitty!  She’s had quite a life.

Saturday evening we stopped at Tingley Lake RV Park just south of Klamath Falls, OR.  The park, until recently belonged to Frank and Nell Kuonen, parents of good friends from Visalia, Phil and Rita Olson.  We knew we wouldn’t see Phil and Rita, since they were away, celebrating granddaughter #2’s second birthday. However, we were delighted to spend the evening with Frank and Nell and cooked salmon for them.  Sunday morning, they treated us to breakfast at the Klamath Falls airport restaurant.  Although the airport no longer has regular air service, this is a training facility for F-15’s, so we watched the jets depart as we ate.

After breakfast, we made final preparations for departure and discovered our driver’s side front slide would not retract.  Stuck!!!  Another problem had surfaced, and Jerry’s phone calls for assistance produced few results on a Sunday.  The NW rep for Tiffin did respond and had a couple of ideas to correct the problem but no success.  Our only recourse was to find a local service center on Monday morning and try to get it repaired enough to get to a Tiffin service center. 

On Monday morning we discovered that Klamath Falls and its dwindling population no longer supports RV repair service of this nature and we were referred to the “RV Doctor” in Medford, OR…a short 70 miles away.  Michael, the RV Doc, only came to Klamath Falls once a week and his next visit was to be on Wednesday, two days away.  Once again we revised our plans and settled in to wait.  The silver lining in this annoying cloud was that we would get to see Phil and Rita after all.  They arrived home on Monday night.

Tingley Lake is a lovely place to be and our prolonged stay here was certainly no hardship.  It wasn’t raining, it wasn’t terribly cold, and we had power and water.  I even did some laundry on Abe while we waited.  Tuesday morning dawned with bright sunshine and crispy clear air so the lake was particularly pretty about 0730!  This is a popular birding area and, even in the winter, there are lots of Canada geese to watch.

Michael, the RV Doctor, arrived with his helper about 0740 on Wednesday and quickly started the problem solving.  He thought the stern end of the slide was stuck and at one point thought raising it up with a jack might just do the trick.  Nope, no joy!  Eventually he talked to the right tech at the manufacturer of the slide (HWH in Iowa), who, fortunately for us, had recently had worked through this problem on another RV.  He suggested that Michael look for a check valve lodged in the valve body in the hydraulic system.  Apparently there have been a rash of check valves left in place as the hydraulic system was assembled.  Yep, that was exactly what had happened.  That little piece of plastic had caused all our woes!  Once it was removed, the slide worked as easily as it always had.  Why the check valve chose to lodge in the valve body at this particular time no one could say. 

Of course Michael had found other problems with the slide and suggested that we get it repaired, but these problems would not interfere with the slide performance. 

We said our good-byes and were on the road again!  We had a glorious drive through northern California and past Mount Shasta.  We saw lots of snow on the mountains but Shasta Lake is frighteningly low.  The stories of the severity of the California drought are real.

We spent Wednesday night, 2/11/15 at Parkway RV Resort in Orland, CA, and had finally found warm weather and sunshine.  Jerry and I sat outside at the picnic table next to our little spot and watched Smokey explore the grass.  The RV park was almost empty so she felt brave enough to step off Abe. 

Thursday, 2/12/15, Jill’s 36^th birthday, we pulled up in front of Jill and Bob’s house about 2:30.  It was a little hectic driving south on I-5, I-505, and I-680, as the traffic zoomed around us, but Jerry did great!  The exit off of I-280 to get to Jill’s house is not a simple, straight forward ramp, but requires a couple of lane changes around the other cars that are exiting and merging onto the freeway.  Well, no problem for us!  We unhooked the pickup and got it washed (what a mess it was!) before we took off for the grocery store. 

We were in charge of the birthday dinner and had planned to serve one of Jill’s favorite childhood menus:  Chicken teriyaki, rice-a-roni, broccoli with cheese sauce and tiramisu for dessert.  Since Lauren had just celebrated her second birthday the week before, I think she understood the birthday cake and candles were for Mommy’s birthday.  However, it was more than she could do to resist the pudding-topped tiramisu! 

As you might imagine, we spent every possible moment with Lauren, letting Jill and Bob go to dinner by themselves several evenings and get other weekend chores done without Lauren’s assistance.  We went to Santa Cruz on Sunday morning and found beautiful, sunny, warm weather.  Lots of folks were out walking along the cliff above the beach and we saw lots of surfers in the water.  Bob had been surfing on Saturday and said the waves were pretty good.  We even watched some Pacific white-sided dolphins fishing near shore.

On Sunday afternoon, while Lauren was napping, Jerry and I put together a little play kitchen that was our birthday present to her.  Good thing she took a long nap – this little item was not simple to put together!  It was well worth the trouble, though.  She loved it and quickly began “cooking” and “serving” anyone who would join her!  Grandpa was a very willing guest.

Lauren was fascinated with the bus and thought it was great fun to “drive to the park”!  Since Jill and Bob had converted their guest room to a playroom, it was lovely for us to have Abe parked in front as well! 

Monday morning, 2/16/15, we left Jill and Bob’s and headed for Beth’s house in Turlock.  We had originally planned to park in front of her house, as we had done at Jill and Bob’s, but we were wayyyyyy too wide for the street and the overhanging branches were a big problem.  Turlock is full of lots of lovely old sycamores, but the trees overhang almost every street.  The sound of those low branches scraping the top of the bus was not a happy noise!  We finally found a spot on a side street, about a block from Beth’s and settled in. 

One of the fun things at Beth’s house is that she always has some sort of interesting project going on that we…particularly Jerry…can help with.  This time Jerry took down her Christmas lights while Smokey enjoyed sitting under Beth’s blooming camellias.  Ahhhh, spring in the San Joaquin Valley!

Tuesday morning, our departure from Turlock was delayed a couple of hours as we problem-solved why the step would not retract (we had blown a fuse!).  Finally we were off to Visalia and, more specifically, our friend Chuck’s ranch in the Sierra foothills east of town.  We unhooked the pickup outside Chuck’s gate and pulled in with relative ease.  We didn’t attempt to take the bus up Chuck’s long, curvy drive, but parked just inside the gate.  We shut Abe down and moved up to the little apartment in the shop.

We will be here until sometime the first week of March and then we’re off to Arizona and wandering from there.  In spite of all our problems, travelling on the bus is comfortable and we are ready for the next adventure!

A New Adventure, February 6, 2015

 

Abe on the lot in Portland

       Welcome to our new blog!  Our exploration adventures continue, but we’ve moved from a 42’ Nordic Tug to a 37’ Tiffin Allegro Bus.  Why? You ask.  Well, for the complete, robust answer, we refer you to our last blog on “Adventures on Cosmo Place”.  The short answer is that we had serious boat problems last summer and were just “over” the whole cruising experience.  We bought our bus at the end of November and Cosmo Place sold the end of December…life is good!

         We spent December and January on the bus, whose name is “Abe”, in Anacortes, WA at Fidalgo Bay RV Park.  The transition from Cosmo Place to Abe was a challenge.  Where to store stuff, how do the systems work, how to tow the Chevy pick-up…the list went on and on.  On top of all that, Cosmo Place needed to be emptied.  Although comparable in size, the bus has less storage than the boat and we were challenged to make it all work.  Our storage unit was the processing sight and we left quite a lot of boat stuff in storage.  We need to have a big garage sale when we return to Anacortes!

         You might think that staying in Anacortes in the winter was a crazy idea, but we didn’t think so!  Anacortes is a delightful town, we’re sold on the our church there…Anacortes Lutheran Church, and there’s always something to do.  We’ve acquired lots of friends who keep us entertained…or whom we entertain!  More than once this winter we’ve said to each other, “How did we ever go to work?  We’re so busy now and love being retired!”

         Monday, February 2, we were ready to leave.  We hooked up the pick up to the tow apparatus behind Abe and checked the lights…no brake lights and no turn signals on the pickup!  Rats!  Jerry went through everything twice but it was all hooked up correctly.  Certainly we were a little frustrated and decided to depart anyway and seek help.  RVer friends had recommended an independent RV service in Sedro-Woolley (about 20 miles east of us).  A quick phone call reassured us that this place could help us out.  The tech quickly determined that the tow package was installed incorrectly:  two wires were crossed and we were missing a relay. 

         By 11 AM we were on the road again and headed south on I-5, looking at blue sky out there ahead of us.  We made it a big 20 miles south of Mount Vernon, WA, when our windshield wipers quit!  If we were in Arizona this would not have been a big deal, but no wipers in Washington is an emergency!  Luckily we were close to Smokey Point rest area and pulled off to figure out what was wrong.

         Jerry called Rick at B Young RV (where we bought Abe) with no luck and then called the Tiffin Service Department in Red Bay, Alabama, but no success there, either.  Out of frustration, he called Bob Tiffin, the founder of Tiffin, the company who built our coach.  Bob (yes, I feel comfortable addressing him with such familiarity) is still very much involved and his phone number was in our documentation.

Abe in Mount Vernon Poulsbo RV service department

         Much to our surprise, Bob soon called us back.  Jerry explained the wiper problem and lack of maintenance support and a few of our many frustrations with Abe.  Within 10 minutes after the conversation with Bob, things started to happen!  We were put in touch with the NW Tiffin representative and he asked that we return to Mount Vernon Poulsbo RV (MVPRV) for help.  Ironically, this RV dealership was one of those we had visited in our quest for an RV in November!

         The tech at MVPRV confirmed that the wiper motor had “bit the dust” and a new one needed to be ordered.  Okay let me say here that Abe was not yet a year old and had less than 5,000 miles on him.  Rats!  Given all the other problems we had found on Abe, this seemed ominous.

         One of the magic people at MVPRV was Monique, the customer care director, who did a lot of calling to find a new wiper motor.  Unfortunately she was unsuccessful Monday afternoon and said she would Tiffin in Red Bay, Alabama, on Tuesday morning.  She was hopeful that she could order our needed motor ASAP on Tuesday, it would arrive on Wednesday morning and we could be on our way by noon on Wednesday.  Music to our ears!

         We were able to stay at the MVPRV lot on Monday night, hooked up to 30 AMP power (in a happy life we would have 50 AMP power).  The down side of this plan was that we were only a football field away from the southbound lanes of I-5.  Noisy?  Yes, but we were happy to be safely tucked in.  At the end of the day on Monday, we figured we had driven about 100 miles and actually made it about 15 miles east of Anacortes!

         Tuesday morning brought some new opportunities.  Jerry, in his conversation with Bob Tiffin, mentioned that we had had many problems with Abe.  Most of these problems were due to poor cabinetry skills during installation.  While we waited on the motor to appear, cabinetry repairs were made and now the drawers will stay shut as we drive down the road.

         Of course the UPS truck came and went on Wednesday morning…no wiper motor.  It finally showed up about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, was quickly installed, and voila! we had wipers again.  Of course it was too late to depart so we stayed in the lot at Mount Vernon Poulsbo RV one more night.

Jerry is getting good at hooking up the pickup to Abe!

         0900 Thursday morning, February 5, we were hitched up and on the road and will spend 2 nights at in Peach Beach RV Park on US-97 at the Columbia River.  Great place!  Friday we will do some exploring in the area and maybe even do some wine tasting.  Let the fun times begin...again!