#51 – Coveys Great Adventure – November 2018 – OR, UT

November 2018 – OR, UT

Eugene yard art

At the end of October we wrapped up our camp host stint at Nehalem Bay State Park and headed to Eugene for Ripley’s annual physical. In addition to the usual inspections and lubrications we asked the good folk at Kaiser Brake and Alignment to look for an air leak that we’d had for several months that had gotten worse after we hit the antelope in Wyoming.  The guys found several leaking air valves (there are dozens of them for the brakes, suspension and leveling systems) and they “fixed” them all. We paid the bill and drove a few miles to a local park for the night, but by the time we got there, Ripley had developed a severe list. The right side rear suspension looked like it had collapsed. The coach attitude is controlled by ride height vales, two on each axle. Back at Kaiser the next day, everyone was very apologetic and quickly “fixed” it, again. They had missed an adjustment to one of the rear valves. No problem, off we went to Newport to explore the town and South Beach State Park.

Headed home after playing in the surf

We have wanted to check out the areas around Newport and Bandon for some time. Most of our visits to the Oregon coast have been focused on the central and northern areas. We’ve driven through Newport and Bandon but haven’t taken time to really explore them. We were especially interested in checking out South Beach Sate Park in Newport and Bullard’s Beach State Park in Bandon as future camp host sites.

South Beach is a typical Oregon state park: lovely setting, large sites, and well maintained amenities. Half the park was closed for the season, but we had no trouble finding a site in the D loop. Although it has fewer sites than Nehalem, South Beach has more yurts and a large  section devoted to tent campers. More yurts need more camp hosts to clean them, so South Beach has twice the number of volunteers despite having fewer camp sites than Nehalem. We liked the park and dropped off a resume for the ranger in charge of volunteers.

We really liked Newport. Yes, it certainly is a tourist town, but it also has a substantial community that isn’t related to just catering to visitors. That stretch of coast is notorious for wild weather and heavy surf, making it perfect to train Coast Guard lifeboat crews. It is also large enough to have all the services needed, lots of dining options and a few small enclaves like Nye Beach that have their own personalities. It even has a (tiny) Unity Church. The locals were clearly glad that the summer tourist crush was over; traffic on US 101, especially on the two-lane bridge over the harbor, is apparently just nuts during the high season.

Henry of Nye Beach

We had a surprise call from Gary and Sharon Sams, who we hosted with in Nehalem. They were traveling down the coast to look over a host job in Port Orford and stopped in Newport to meet us for dinner. We always look forward to meeting new people and it’s great when we can become friends, too. It looks like our paths may cross a couple of times next year. We just missed seeing them in Salt Lake after Thanksgiving.

We didn’t think anything about driving over a speed bump in South Beach on our way to the dump station but by the time we finished dumping, the coach was leaning to the right, again. Clearly it wasn’t really “fixed”. So, instead of heading south to Bandon and Bullard’s Beach we returned to Eugene to give the Kaiser folks their third shot at it. Profound apologies ensued, a different tech was assigned and all hoped for the best. More on that later.

We were now running a little late. We had to start heading east to make our reservation in Salt Lake for Thanksgiving with Liesa, so the rest of the south coast will have to wait. After some discussion and poring over Google Maps, we came up with Plan B: Eugene to Salt Lake via US 20 and I84, a route that we have used several times. It really is the most direct route between Utah and the coast. This trip, though, we’ll spend a couple of days in Bend to check out a town that we have wanted to see for some time.

Tumalo State Park is a few miles north of Bend and turned out to be more than just a place to stay. It didn’t start out very well when we arrived and had to get the rangers to evict someone from our reserved site. Ordinarily we wouldn’t have insisted on a particular site, we’d have just picked another one. This time, though, there were no other sites that we would fit into. B26 was just long enough for the coach after we surreptitiously moved the concrete end curb about six feet back. The ranger was a good sport about it and looked the other way while we worked. Even with that we had to park the car in the overflow area by the park entrance, something we have never had to do before. It turns out that the loop with the bigger sites had closed for the season a few days before we arrived.

Kayaks in flight

While the campground was nice with plenty of area to walk the dogs, the real find was the riverside day use area across the road. Acres of grass, trails and the riverbank to explore is doggie heaven and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh, and the best heated showers I’ve ever seen in a state park; very welcome with temps in the 30’s!

We liked Bend. The town has a “funky” vibe to it that really appealed to us. I’m sure the folks who moved there in the 60’s and 70’s aren’t very happy about the town being “discovered” shortly thereafter, but the city has done a better-than-average job of dealing with the issues that explosive growth bring. I’m sure there were some real donnybrooks in the process, but from our very short visit it looks like they succeeded.

Bend rotary art

One thing I really liked were the sculptures in all the traffic circles. What a terrific idea! Two days was much too short to really check it out and we plan to return, soon.

As faithful readers might remember, we’ve shuttled back and forth along US 20 and I84 several times since we began this odyssey. We like to see new places whenever we can, so the description of the Heyburn Riverside RV Park read like exactly what we look for. Located on the Snake River in an otherwise unnoteworthy town near the Idaho/Utah border, the park sounded like one we couldn’t pass up. The RV park is part of an extensive multi-use development that stretches for over a mile along both sides of the river. We took full advantage and the dogs had a great time off-leash, too. Mid-November is not the prime RV season in Idaho, so we almost had the whole park to ourselves. $25 a night for full hookups with our (ahem) seniors discount was certainly welcome, too.

Locals place in Salt Lake

It’s just 180 miles from Heyburn to Salt Lake, so we left late and still arrived at Pony Express RV Park in mid-afternoon. This is our third visit to the park and we are very familiar with the area, now too. You may recall that we stayed here for three months while helping Liesa get back on her feet after her accident. It’s the best park in the area, but a little hard on the budget. We took advantage of the cool weather and got a space facing to the southwest and were treated to some great sunsets.

Liesa’s new apartment looks great. She is much happier without a roommate, and so is her dog, Beckham. He’s a real character and gets along well with Lucy and Schroeder. Downsizing meant she had to go through another round of decluttering and the place really looks nice. She walks to work and now has indoor parking, too, a real benefit as winter closes in. Life seems to be good for her, so that means we breath a little easier, too.

We were expecting to have T-day dinner at her place, but Cory, her BF, invited us to join his family at his brother’s house in Layton, about 20 miles north of town. We had a great time. Cory  is from Mississippi and apparently the southern Thanksgiving tradition requires truly overwhelming quantities of food. Twelve of us tried to do justice to two turkeys, a ham and more side dishes than I could count, followed by pies, many pies. I have not eaten like that in many years, but I hope to do so again; boy was it good! Thanks Cory!

As we put out the front slide when we arrived at Pony Express, I noticed that the canvas cover was drooping. That’s not good, because it will get jammed in the top edge of the slide if it isn’t under enough tension when the slide retracts. The main seam was coming undone, sort of like the rear slide cover that we fixed in Rapid City. After some pondering, I figured out how to get the canvas off without releasing the spring tension in the roller it winds up on, something to be avoided at all cost. Sharp’s Tarps made room in their schedule to restitch all of the seams and Kayeanne and I spent over an hour in a very cold drizzle coaxing the canvas back into position. Victory was proclaimed and suitably toasted after we warmed up a bit.

Dummy 

The last couple of times that we dry camped I noticed that the house batteries weren’t delivering the amount of power we could usually count on. They were much more discharged in the morning and took a long time to recharge. One of the jobs I planned for Pony Express was to see why. It took about one minute to see the problem, and it was me. I had been over-tightening the terminals and had finally jacked a couple of them right out of the battery, essentially ruining them. It’s hard enough to write checks when it isn’t my fault, but the “hey, dummy” ones really hurt.

Nope, no way. Way past time to go.

Some folks actually liked it

Constant overnight temperatures in the low 20’s reminded us of a couple of things: first, RV’s, even good ones like ours, are not made for those conditions, and second, we are no longer made for those conditions, either. One morning I had to shovel a few inches of heavy, wet snow/slush. I’m certainly not made for that. Time to follow the geese. It was great to spend a couple of weeks with Liesa and to get to know Cory, but we needed to move south before we froze in place for the winter. We had planned to leave on Dec. 2, but the weather forecast called for a snow storm along most of our route, so we  pulled out a day early and missed it completely.

                      More soon,

                         Bob