Weekend Activities and Trip Planning

Dave and I arrived home from McMinnville on Thursday.  Dave worked a semi-pro football game in Vancouver last night while I stayed home and caught up on some of my  TV shows on TIVO. 

Today, Sunday, we took our bicycles to a parking area near Vancouver Lake and rode on the bike path that goes by the lake and out to Frenchman's Bar.  The lake was creeping up on the grass due to flooding.  No beach was visible and the lake smelled terrible.  Needless to say, no one was swimming, although we saw a few people putting kayaks into the water.  It was too cool for swimming even if it had been safe to do so.

The bike path was fairly uncrowded and we enjoyed a ten-mile ride.  Frenchman's Bar Park is along the Columbia River and we usually see ships when we are out there.  Today was no exception.

Last Saturday we met Tim and Kiersten at a small airport in Hillsboro called Twin Oaks Airpark.  We feasted at their monthly pancake breakfast and got up close and personal with the runway and some propeller airplanes.

That's Sophie under the white hat on Kiersten's chest. 

I told you we were up close and personal with the runway. 

Tim found lots of airplanes that he liked.

Yesterday I spent most of the day on the phone getting reservations for our upcoming trip to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.  We leave next Sunday!  That's cutting it close with the reservations, and we weren't able to get all the nights that we wanted at our preferred park, Yellowstone Grizzly, but we got a spot at Wagon Wheel RV Park in West Yellowstone for five nights and then the last two nights we'll be at the Grizzly Park. 

After that we'll head north to Glacier, spending a couple of nights at the St. Mary KOA and then five nights at West Glacier KOA.  It took awhile for the trip to come together, but now that it's all planned, we are looking forward to visiting the two national parks. 

Champoeg State Park, Oregon

Champoeg State Heritage Area is one of our favorite state parks.  We paid $24 for a full-hookup site with 50 amp power.  Only a few of the sites have full-hookups--the partial hookups (electric and water) also cost $24, and both types of sites cost a few dollars less during the winter off-season.  Verizon cell service is not great, with 0-2 bars in the B loop.  Champoeg is also a popular day-use park and parking is $5/day.

Site B24

The bicycle and walking path at Champoeg State Park goes through all areas of the park and includes both forest and meadow terrain.  We saw many different birds during our bike rides.  The park also contains a popular disk golf course.

This basket was looking pretty muddy after all the rain.

Champoeg (pronounced sham-poo-ee), was an important settlement in the Willamette Valley in the early 1840s and was the site of the first provisional government of the Oregon Territory. 

The town continued to exist after Oregon statehood. However, on December 2, 1861, the adjacent Willamette River rose 55 feet above its normal summer stage, flooding the town with seven feet of water.  Champoeg was never rebuilt after the disaster. The town site is now preserved as Champoeg State Heritage Area and Archaeological Site. A 1901 monument records the names of the 52 settlers who voted to establish the provisional government at the 1843 meeting. Dams installed since the 1930s make another catastrophic flood unlikely.

The original townsite isn't much more than a trail now.

A pioneer cabin was built by the DAR and is open for tours on weekends.

Riverside day use area

Oak Grove day use area

We saw a couple of sets of bleachers out along the bike path.  We couldn't figure out why they were there.  Dave's idea was to watch mud wrestling, and my idea was to watch the weeks grow.

Mud wrestling or weeds growing?  Cast your vote.

Now we are home again for a few days, and then we will head out on a short RV trip to McMinnville, OR. 

Mallard Creek Golf and RV Resort

Mallard Creek is one of our favorite RV parks.  It is located 7 miles outside of the small city of Lebanon, Oregon.  The views from the park are pastoral and serene.  We always enjoy our stays there.  This time we were there from Thursday until today, Monday.  The first night there were only four rigs at the park, including us.  By Saturday and Sunday, there were still only ten rigs.  The rainy weather forecast probably had something to do with the lack of RVs. 

The view from our site at Mallard Creek

Site #19

Our frustrations with our motorhome don't seem quite as dire as they did Saturday night.  We have some things to fix, but it's nothing we can't handle.  We are committed to this lifestyle and hope to continue to be part-time RVers for as long as we can manage.

While Dave was playing golf on Friday and Saturday, I went for a bike ride each day.  One of my favorite areas to ride around is Waterloo County Park.  It's one of Linn County's excellent parks.  The park has partial hookups, not full hookups, but it doesn't stop the people that camp there.  The rates are $24 for partial hookups, with a discount price for seniors 62 and over of $17 per night.  The Santiam River runs along the east side of the park.

The Santiam River on a dark, cloudy morning

I recently bought a new bicycle from Camping World.  It's a full-size folding cruiser (1 speed) bike.  I was having trouble with the hand brakes on my old bike, and determined that they contributed to my carpal tunnel problems.  My new bike has old-fashioned coaster brakes, and so far, I've had no carpal tunnel pain. 

My new bicycle parked at Waterloo County Park, OR

On Sunday afternoon, Dave and I drove to Albany, OR, parked at Grand Prairie Park, and rode our bicycles on the bike path along Periwinkle Creek and around the surrounding neighborhood. 

Periwinkle Creek 

We saw this sign at a house in the neighborhood.  Clever, huh?

Tonight we are at Champoeg State Park, southwest of Wilsonville, OR.  We have reservations here for the next three nights. 

Hungry?

This is not the usual type of motorhome parked here at Pismo Coast Village RV Park.  Does this mean that his stay here is a total write-off?  Where do we sign up?

Since the Jelly Belly motorhome made me hungry, it's a good thing that Dave and I went for a ten mile bicycle ride Friday afternoon.  We rode from Pismo Coast Village to Oceano.  We visited the small airport there and then road through Oceano State Beach Campground.  It's a great campground with two sections, one with partial hookups and one with no hookups.  The park was quite full.  I enjoyed taking some pictures of some of the geese in the park. 

The geese were hungry, but no, they weren't eating Jelly Bellies.

Is there more food in the street than in the grass?

This white beauty was evidently not hungry and was posing nicely.

Urgent Care

Tuesday morning I tried to lift the recliner chair to straighten a rug that was underneath.  My right hand immediately was painful.  I have carpal tunnel in both my hands and wrists and I wear braces at night to keep from damaging them.  I put the brace back on my right hand and it felt better.

Bob Jones Bike Path, Avila Beach

So Dave and I decided to go for a bike ride.  My hand felt okay as long as I kept the brace on.  We rode on Avila Beach's Bob Jones Trail.  We had a nice six-mile ride along this multi-use path.

A bridge near the end of the path.  Ahead of us was a sewage plant which was located next to a golf course.

Avila Beach is a picturesque upscale community.

After the bike ride we drove to Avila Beach's San Luis Bay.  Along the bay, we were stopped by some road work.  Evidently they were fixing a rock slide area, and part of the fix was to cause more rocks to slide down a hill.

The brown area was the slide area.

After we had been back home in the motorhome for  a couple of hours, my hand and wrist started hurting badly.  I can't take ibuprofen because I'm on coumadin (blood thinner) since I have an artificial aortic heart valve.  So I took some Tylenol, but it didn't help the pain at all.  I finally called Dave, who was playing golf at a nearby golf course, to ask him to stop on his way home and get some BenGay salve and some higher strength Tylenol.  He also bought me an ace bandage. 

A couple of more hours went by and my pain seemed to be increasing, not lessening.  Dave walked over to the RV park office and was directed to an urgent care clinic not too far away.  We drove to the clinic and discovered that it closed at 6.  It was now 5:40 pm.  The clinic  people were super nice and took my Kaiser information so that they could bill them.  The doctor confirmed that this was a classic case of carpal tunnel inflammation.  He gave me a prescription for Vicodin, which we had filled at a nearby Walmart. 

I took the first Vicodin last night and within a few minutes, my pain abated somewhat.  I went to bed early last night and woke up at 3:30 am and took another Vicodin.  This morning, the pain was mostly gone.  In fact, I felt so good that we took another walk to town.  We were trying to locate a couple of geocaches, but we didn't find either one.  We did, however, enjoy the sunshine and warm temperature.  I can't ride my bike until this pain goes totally away, so I am happy that I was able to go for a walk.

Another Pismo Beach clam landmark, this one not decorated.

And yes, the urgent care clinic stayed open until I was treated!

A Day Trip to Lompoc and Solvang, CA

Dave and I are having a great time here in Pismo Beach, California.  Our stay at Pismo Coast Village has been very enjoyable and we can see why people are keen to become shareholders of this park.  The park is 35 years old, but it appears to be well taken care of.   The entrance to the park is being repaved this week and we are impressed with how quick and efficient the workers have been.  There has been no disruption except for having to go in and out a maintenance entrance instead of the main entrance.

While Dave played golf today, I went for another bike ride.  First I rode to the nearby downtown area of Pismo Beach.  That area is undergoing some paving and repairs, also.  They have to do work like that this time of the year since this is the off season.  Summers here are very busy!

Then I rode south along Highway 1 to Pismo State Golf Course where Dave was playing.  I didn't see him, but I left a "Kilroy Carol was here" note for him in the car.

Monday we went on a day trip to Lompoc and Solvang.  We left early in the morning in order to get to Lompoc to visit a Victorian house that was open only between 9 and 11 am on Mondays.  But, alas, the house was deserted when we got there, so we didn't get to go inside.

The house was there, but no one was giving a tour.

Another site we visited was the town's Carnegie library, now the Lompoc Museum.  Alas, this place was closed, too.

Lompoc's Christmas banner--I'm not sure of the significance of the polar bear

We drove about ten miles west of Lompoc (pronounced LOM-POKE) to get to the beach.  We were so surprised to see an Amtrak station (deserted) out there.  It was a stop of a commuter train (no trains in sight).  This was a somewhat eerie place.  I could just imagine someone taking the train here and being dropped off at a deserted beach ten miles from town. 

We visited La Purisima Mission State Historic Park, which I'll write about tomorrow.  Then we drove on to Solvang, a touristy Danish village.  Even on a Monday, the town was hopping with cars and shoppers.

Our outing tired me out, and I slept most of the hour-long ride back to Pismo Beach.  I woke up just in time to take this photo along Highway 101 north of Santa Maria.

Scenes from Long Beach, WA

These competitive kite flyers were from Detroit, Michigan.  

Looking down towards the ocean after the kite festival was over.  

On our final full day, we went for a bike ride from Seaview to Beards Hollow on the Discovery Trail.

Seaview was once a depot on the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company, a narrow gauge railroad that ran up the Long Beach Peninsula from 1889 to 1930.

Originally a summer community for the Portland gentry, Seaview’s quiet tree-lined streets invite strollers to enjoy turn-of-the-century Victorian homes which are survivors  of a developer’s plans from the 1880s.

This picture shows the dune grasses which were still fairly green.  We could see the Pacific Ocean as we rode, but only over the dunes.