May Activities

Dave and I are down at our cabin at Safari Park in Ilwaco, WA for a few days.  On Sunday we will be attending our first membership meeting for the park.  Afterwards they are having a pie social.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you might recall that I wrote that our neighbor down here wants to move his fence 14 inches on “our” side.  We have met him in person and decided that we believe his story that he originally built his fence in the wrong spot.  Are we happy to lose some of our lot size?  Of course not.  But it seems to be the best solution.

Neighbor’s park model and fence-to-be-moved on the left, the 14-inches staked on the right and our car parked next to our park model. 

In the meantime, our plans to have a 20 foot by 5 five utility room addition onto our park model have been approved by the board, as well as the plans to build shed.  Builder Bob will begin both projects in early June and he said that he should be finished in about three weeks.  Then Dave will paint the inside of the laundry room and the outside of the shed.  We’ll see about that timeline!

See the picture of our cabin below.  The new addition will be from the back of the park model up to the window.  The new covered porch will be from the window to the sliding glass door with new steps in front.  The two current sets of steps will be removed.  The shed will be built at the back left of this picture.

Adding another hundred square feet to our cabin will make a big difference to us.  We’ll have a washer and dryer with its own water heater, more pantry storage, and a broom/vacuum closet.  We will also have a small covered porch leading to the new addition. 

Last weekend we went on our annual trip to Mallard Creek Golf and RV Resort in Lebanon, Oregon.  Dave and two of his friends played golf on Friday, but we ended up having to go home after they finished their game.  Our motorhome’s residential refrigerator was not keeping things cold or frozen.  We drove home during Portland’s rush hour and unloaded everything when we got home.  An appliance repairman arrived on Monday morning and discovered that there were a couple of small freon leaks.  He came back later in the day with the equipment to fix them.  All is well now and we (hopefully) won’t have that problem again.

Mallard Creek RV Park rhodies

Since Dave and I were home on Saturday, we decided to attend a performance of “Phantom of the Opera” at a local high school.  We had never seen the play or the movie version.  The school rights to the play became available last fall and Washougal High School ambitiously applied and received permission for the performances.  They did an excellent job!  One more part of pop culture experienced by us, check!

On a cold and rainy May 4, Dave and I attended the Loyalty Days parade in Long Beach. We were surprised to see the mighty Camas High School Band marching in the parade.  I enjoyed all the bands.  We were surprised that the parade lasted almost 1.5 hours.  Lots of patriotism showed through despite the bad weather!

Ilwaco High School Band

Birthday Celebration

Yesterday, April 30, was my birthday. I am now old enough to receive social security at the earliest possible date, in other words, 62. 

I celebrated the day before my birthday by going out for lunch with my friends, Jackie and Diane, at The Heathman Lodge in Vancouver.  Then on Wednesday, Dave and I headed to our cabin (park model) at the beach.

There are always projects to do here—this time it was finishing up some satellite work and installing a router for our computers.  These projects were done by Dave and I am happy to be the recipient of his expertise and hard work.

Then today we are having the electricians install an exhaust fan in the cabin bathroom.  Maybe now the bathroom mirror won’t get fogged up every time we take a shower.  And that’s it for this week’s projects!

Cape Disappointment State Park

After arriving at the cabin yesterday morning, Dave took care of a little client computer work and then we headed for Subway to get our lunch and took it to one of our favorite spots at Cape Disappointment State Park, the parking lot with the view of Cape D Lighthouse.  The lighthouse is in desperate need of a paint job, but it’s still a fine sight.  This time we saw an incoming ship while we were having lunch.

Then last night, we ate dinner at The Depot Restaurant in Seaview, located between Ilwaco and Long Beach, WA.  This used to be the actual depot when people traveled by train from the Portland area to vacation at the beach in Seaview in the late 1800s.  The depot has now been turned into a casual fine-dining restaurant.  On Wednesday nights during the school year, they cater to the local population and serve hamburgers.  And they were excellent hamburgers, although I had a portobello mushroom burger instead of a hamburger and it was delicious, too.  We each had the clam chowder, too, which was different than our favorite Splash Café chowder in Pismo Beach, but nevertheless delicious. 

1870s era picture of The Depot from the internet:

Guess what?  The rain has stopped for a few days and now it’s HOT.  Yesterday was a record-breaking day for high temperatures in many parts of Oregon and Washington, and California, too, I hear.  Mid-80s temperatures might not sound too bad, but believe me, it was hot in our little cabin with no air-conditioning.  Today it’s a little bit cooler and for tomorrow and the following days more rain is predicted along with much lower temperatures.

The not-so-famous Cape Disappointment version of Waikiki Beach, littered with driftwood: