Category Archives: Oregon

Back in the 48

Posted on by

We got Roxie’s SCS battery replaced and still ended up waiting another week for her followup appointment. All was good and we headed back on the road. We were a little gun shy about the change in the weather. You could feel it in the air. We decided to head directly back to the lower 48 as we had a date to be somewhere. However, we kept track of the places we passed to visit in the future.

We headed to Tok for a night, entered back into Canada and spent one night at Cottonwood RV Park on the shore of Kluane Lake. This RV park has some wonderful views:

We dry camped here as their power is via a generator. They only allow 15 amps so that really doesn’t help us at all. We can’t do the microwave with it, nor did we need the A/C.

The next one night stop was Hi-Country in Whitehorse YT and then on to Watson Lake and the provincial campground there:

You can barely make out the lake through the trees

At Watson Lake, we changed our route off the AlCan highway to take the Cassiar highway down through British Columbia. This is a much less traveled path, much more beautiful and much more remote! It took us 2 days to traverse the road and we had ZERO cell coverage. I am not sure if that is good or bad.

We stayed at Kinaskan Lake campground for one night. It was a wonderful campground, almost all spots were on the lake and quiet (except during generator times from that big bus a couple of spots away). Here views from the evening and the next morning:

Sitting by the lake
Smooth as glass!
A bit different the next day!

At the end of the Cassiar is the town of Hazelton, BC. This worked out great to be our next stop. We stayed at the ‘Ksan Campground. It is set in a historical village of the local indigenous peoples.

One interesting part of this was the bridge we went over to and from the campground, the Hagwilget Canyon Bridge. It is a single lane suspension bridge and was exciting.

Since we were back in civilization we made a quick stop at Walmart in Prince George BC and spent one night south of there at Mama Yeh RV Park (they are Passport America). The road south of Prince George as you start to enter the Frazier River valley is very beautiful as well as the valley itself. Nice rolling hills and green everywhere. Another overnight near Clinton BC at the Willow Springs RV park as we continue our trek back to California to help Roxie’s sister with her total knee replacement surgery.

Once we entered the Frazier River valley, it was a lower altitude and warmer. Our last stop in Canada was at the Chilliwack Walmart. This was our ninth night in a row on the road back with each stop only one night. Time for a rest. Our border crossing back to the US was pretty easy. They asked us about food and we had avocados and apples. They pulled us over and the AG guy came by but we were safe since the items were from the US. Great!

We stopped in Mt Vernon WA for 3 nights. This gave us time to visit Roxie’s nephew who lived in the area. That area, north of Seattle, is very beautiful and the weather was great. We got to decompress a bit before we headed south. As we left the campground, I heard a loud noise from the left rear of the trailer. The ingress/egress to the campground was a bit steep so I thought that I just scraped the tail in the gravel. We stopped down the road a bit further for a bathroom break. While parked I noticed my stabilizer jack, on the left rear, was bent all out of shape! I had forgotten to raise it as we were leaving the RV park. This is not normal for me but it happens. I spent about 30 minutes removing the old jack.

The dead jack. RIP

We stopped for another 3 nights at the Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland WA. While there we had a couple pull in next to us in a brand new Airstream. This was their first Airstream and the first trip in it! We were able to talk with them a bit and help answer some questions they had. I am confident they will have many years ahead of them of fun travels.

On our way through Portland, we stopped at the Airstream dealership. This is where we initially purchased our trailer. I needed some parts for our step as one of the washer assemblies had failed. I got 3 sets of parts.

Our final destination was Redding but we were a bit ahead of schedule so we headed to San Francisco to visit our family there. We stopped at an Escapees park in Sutherlin, OR, a single night in Yreka CA at the Waiiaka RV Park.

Mt Shasta

The next overnight was a freebee in Corning at the Olive Pit restaurant. Another one night stop in Rio Vista by Sacramento delta. The last stop was in South San Francisco to stay at our usual stop (Treasure Island RV).

Treasure Island has changed. It appears they are trying to get out a lot of the older full-time units. They parked us in a spot where there was no possible way for me to park. After calling management, the directed us to a new spot. This spot was very tight also. It took me about 15 minutes to get parked. The guy behind us was not happy that I was so close but what else could I do?

Encroaching on our neighbor!

The park said this was a 35′ site but no way! Our trailer is 31′ and we are past the end of it. Now I was thinking about how I might get out of the spot. There was a pole right next to the trailer at the front:

There really wasn’t enough space to exit to the right especially thinking about the tail swing. The solution I saw was to go directly through the opposing set of spots.

Our escape route!

After our visit, we hadn’t been there for over 10 months, we used our escape route and headed to Redding. We stopped off in Chico (I went to school there for 3 years) for 3 nights. Before we took the trailer to the RV park in Redding, I checked with a local welder.

Whenever I set up our satellite I like to secure the dish to the trailer. It is easy in the front as I just use the A-frame. In the back of the trailer I have always had to use the stabilizer jack for the security cable. I believe doing this the last time, north of Seattle, messed with my sequence. I left the jack down because I had to remove the cable. This is it looks under the trailer:

I had the welder do this to give me a security anchor:

We are in Redding for about a month now and will then go back and visit our son in Visalia after that.

My next post will be an Alaska recap.

Back to Cali (sigh)

Posted on by

We left Idaho after the eclipse, as most others did also.  But I was hoping, that as we traveled to the next destination, which was close to the path, there would be some clearing of places to stay.

We left Idaho and entered Eastern Oregon.  It initially was was nice as we were following a river, but once we left the river and turned south on US395 it turned very ugly.  Barren, desolate, blah.  We got a spot in Lakeview OR at the Juniper’s Reservoir RV Resort with a Passport America discount.  It was a nice campground for the evening.  The manager mentioned that they were completely full for the last week or so (eclipse) and tonight was their first break.  It also rained on us that evening continuing the persistent rain we went through during this entire trip.  In the almost 4 months we were on the road, about 15-20 days did not bring rain to us.

The next day we continued on to the coast stopping for a bit to visit with one of Roxie’s cousins in Klamath Falls OR.  We had just joined Boondockers Welcome and lined up a spot for the night between Medford and Grants Pass.  This was going to work out really well, at least we thought it was.  As we came down the hills into Medford we could see the smoke from the fires on the Oregon coast:

This type of environment is not good for Roxie as she had a bout of Valley Fever and her lungs are still affected by it.  We contacted our boondocking host and told him we were pushing on.  We contacted an RV park in Cave Junction OR and pressed on.

The smoke was even WORSE in Cave Junction.  We told the RV park that we could not handle the smoke and we pressed on again on highway 199 to Crescent City CA.  We ended up at the Walmart that night with about 20 other RV’s and others.

The next morning we continued to Eureka to spend 5 nights and visit some of Roxie’s family.  She has a cousin there that is on Hospice and is not doing well.  I tried to make reservations at the RV park just in town but they were full.  I had to take the old KOA and an electric and water spot.  I thought it would be fine.  It wasn’t.  This is potentially the WORST campground I have ever stayed at.  See my review.  We struggled through the campground inadequacies and were able to visit.  But we had to move on to get to our Aug 31 destination.

After Eureka we went a bit more than halfway and stayed at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa CA.  This is a Passport America location and it is a very decent location.  Great for a one night stay.  Then on to South San Francisco to stay at our normal location for a week.

This is the reason to get back to California:

A one-year-old!

We were able to see Atlas, Hannah, and Lukas numerous times even though San Francisco was in the throes of an extreme heatwave!

After we were done there we headed to our son’s house to moochdock next to it.  We will be hanging around his house for a while, take some trips around, visit other relatives for the holidays, make some repairs/modifications to the trailer and then we will hit it again after the first of the year, hopefully with better timing!

Coming back to California makes me realize why we left in the first place over 4 months ago.  This state is nowhere near how I remember it back in my teens.  Everything seemed so vibrant, fair and hopeful.  I feel dread, inequity, and despair now when I come to California.  Products are so much more expensive than other areas.  Here is where I have paid the MOST for diesel fuel than 21 other states.  Here seemingly everything is taxed.  They even tax ice here!  The roads are in such disrepair even though the road taxes are the highest anywhere!  Money is spent on things that don’t help everyone (high-speed rail, etc.).  It is a sad state of affairs and is only getting worse.  I don’t want to be dragged down by it.  I am very happy to have Texas as my residence and I am sure California does not miss me one bit!