#34 – Coveys Great Adventure - March 2017 – AZ, UT, NV, ID, OR

“On the road again - Just can’t wait to get on the road again.” Willie got it right. After two and a half  months of sitting still we were both happy to hit the road on March 7. We always enjoy returning to Benson, especially seeing the people we have come to know over three years, but our sense of escape was palpable as we pulled onto the interstate to see Liesa in St. George.

One of the desert gardens at North Ranch

We decided to make the trip in two easy stages. I had planned to revisit the Burro Creek BLM campground in Wikieup, AZ, but Kayeanne held out for North Ranch SKP Park in Wickenburg, instead. Since we were only staying the night we decided to dry camp rather than hook up utilities. It had been a while since we dry camped and I wanted to be sure all the systems worked before we really needed them. Everything worked, which was a relief. The dogs seemed to remember the place, too, and were quite interested in all the “news” since their last visit. We were struck by the number of For Sale signs in the park. We were toying with the idea of settling down here, but those all those signs seem to indicate something might be amiss.

The hiker ladies of Zion

Guitar made from license plates

We pulled into Temple View RV Resort in St. George the following afternoon after an interesting, but uneventful drive. The new bridge over Lake Mead at Hoover Dam certainly is more efficient than the old road over the dam itself. I wanted to pull over and take a few pictures but the turnouts weren’t designed for a rig our size. We avoided rush hour in Las Vegas and easily made StG by mid-afternoon. Coincidentally we were assigned the same site at TVRVR that we had last summer.

With everything working on Ripley for a change, we spent the next ten days visiting with Liesa and going to medical appointments. My hip problem that started last summer didn’t respond to the first two epidural  treatments, so we gave it one more try. It is better, but I need to be more diligent with the exercises. Liesa has become an avid hiker and she and Kayeanne went for a long hike in Zion National Park. Clearly it was a great day.

We had a long standing appointment at Monaco in Coburg to get the persistent slide leak fixed. Ripley was built there 14 years ago. We hoped that, if anyone could get to the bottom of this, the guys who build him could. We allowed five days to get to Coburg (near Eugene), making it a somewhat leisurely trip compared to our usual road trips. Wells, NV is…eminently forgettable. We spent the night in a dirt lot being alternately pummeled by fierce winds and rain. By morning the coach and car were so plastered in muck that you couldn’t see the color. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Great pizza!

The reason we went through Wells was to make the next day’s drive to Boise reasonable. We wanted to stop in Boise to eat at PizzalChik, a local joint featured one night on Diners,

Drive-ins and Dives. The show claimed that PizzalChik’s pizza was one of the Ten Best in the country. We had to find out. Folks, we haven’t eaten pizza everywhere, but theirs was the best we could remember. Kayeanne ordered Mediterranean Madness and I had the Raging Waters. The décor is classic rock ‘n roll and the music matched: a grand evening, indeed.

Central Oregon semi-arid vistas

We discovered Clyde Holliday State Park near John Day, OR, last year. We had an extra day to kill before we were due at Monaco so we decided to revisit one of the small gems of the Oregon park system for two nights. Because Oregon received three times the normal rainfall this winter, all the rivers are full to overflowing and standing water is everywhere. Clyde Holliday is located on the banks of the John Day River. The park itself was pretty dry but the main trail that we enjoyed so much last year was underwater. The first night we were the only camper in the whole park. The word got out by the second night; two more showed up.

From the beauty of the banks of the John Day River to the parking lot of the Monaco service center in Coburg was a bit of a comedown, but we were happy to finally arrive to get the experts to fix our leak. Their workday starts at 6 AM so we were up pretty early to organize the dogs and ourselves for a day out of the coach. Success was declared seven hours and $1200 later, so we moved a couple of miles down the road to Armitage County Park. We were so happy to finally not have to worry every time it rained!

Ripley was embarrassed

But then it did rain, and the leak was still there. If anything it was worse. So, next morning,

Friday, we packed up the coach and went back to Monaco and they tried again. Several hours later they declared victory, again. They had resealed the top of the slide, and then told us we couldn’t pull it in for 24 hours, and it couldn’t get wet. That meant a trip to Home Depot to buy a large tarp to cover the slide and some rope to secure it, and another night in the parking lot. Saturday afternoon we returned to Armitage, still hoping that THIS time they had fixed it. It rained that night and the slide still leaked, so Monday morning found us once again at Monaco. To make a long story short, again their efforts were for naught: the first time it rained the leak returned.

For the time being, I am stuck; I have no solution. We looked forward to going to Coburg for 6 months but now the “experts” have struck out. If we position the slide just right and tip the coach to the left just so, the water doesn’t come in, but we have drafts in the bedroom and live at a 6° slant every time it rains.

That aside, we enjoyed being back in Armitage County Park, especially since our new Wifi receiver delivered Netflix every night. Being so close to Eugene meant we could stock up at Trader Joe’s, something we hadn’t been able to do since Simi Valley in December. We also spent a day furniture shopping and finally replaced the dining table chairs that we had hated since we bought the coach.

We had a few days to fill between Armitage and our commitment to camp host at Jesse

The neighbors came calling

Honeyman State Park beginning April 1^st. We tried to find a reasonably priced park near Sisters, OR, but all of the NFS and Oregon campgrounds were still closed for the season. A Google search turned up River Bend County Park. The description sounded great and with a senior discount AND an off-season discount the cost was only $20 a night, so we gave it a shot. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised. River Bend is a relatively new park along the Santiam River in Foster, OR. The sites are huge, paved and level. Each one has a large concrete patio. The whole park is immaculately maintained. It is a little remote, though, there is no AT&T cell service in that area so we had to feed our data consumption habit by firing up the Verizon Jetpack. Withdrawal was short-lived.

Mount Washington got 3X the usual snow this year

One day we decided that a road trip was in order. Sisters is about 60 miles east of Foster on US 20 and filled with shops and restaurants. US 20 would be a lot of fun on a motorcycle (Sam, and Mark note), with lots of snow covered mountains, vividly green valleys and turns galore. The trip was at least as good as the town. We wandered around, had lunch at a pretty average place and then headed across the street for ice cream at the place with the only line we saw all day. They were right, it was worth the wait.

On April 1^st we headed west, bound for Jesse Honeyman Oregon State Park to camp host for four months. This would be a new experience for us, sitting in one place about twice as long as we have since we embarked on this odyssey. We were looking forward to running the boat rental concession within the park, something quite different than we had been doing at Nehalem every Fall. Unfortunately, those plans fell apart as soon as we arrived. Despite our effort to communicate with the ranger in charge of volunteers at the park we were assigned a site that was much too short for the coach to fit into. That might not have been insurmountable, but we also had no AT&T service, and none available for miles in any direction. We could get by with getting data through the Jetpack (at a substantial cost) but we were unwilling to be out of cell contact with family and friends for four months. We had made it explicitly clear on at least two occasions when we discussed this assignment with the ranger that AT&T service was non-negotiable.

When we attempted to discuss these issues with him he was unresponsive, to say the least. He disavowed any recollection of assuring us that AT&T service was available.  When he declared that by complaining we weren’t beginning the relationship on a positive note and that we might be better off rethinking things, we walked out the door, started the coach and we left. I hope he needed us a lot more than we needed him.

If nothing else, this life has taught us resiliency. Within three day we found another camp host position at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park in Winchester Bay. We begin on Saturday.

More soon,

Bob