#62 – Coveys Great Adventure – Nov 2019 – Salt Lake City, Aguanga CA

Nov 2019 – Salt Lake City and Aguanga CA              

Last month ended in Bend, Oregon, where we had the main engine starter replaced. From Bend we made our way across Oregon to Salt Lake City to spend a week with Liesa. There are two routes across the state that don’t involve interstate highways. We picked US 20 and stopped for the first night in Burns at the Burns RV Park, a place we have stayed before and like. We just made it, though. We arrived Friday afternoon and they were closing for the season on Sunday. The friendly, hands-on owners said that they have been sold out since they opened in April.

The next morning we began to smell a strong ammonia-like odor when we hit the road,. Strangely, when underway we could only smell it up front, and when not moving we couldn’t smell it at all. That was a real puzzle and led me to think that mice had built a nest in the dash air box during one of our long stationary periods. We stopped for the second night at Walmart in Mountain Home, Idaho. As soon as we parked the smell stopped, reinforcing my mouse-nest-in-air-box theory. The next day the smell returned and lasted all the way to Salt Lake City.

We set up camp and opened the fridge to discover that it wasn’t working. A quick check of the possible systems issues didn’t help, it was dead. The smell was the refrigerant slowly leaking away through a corroded cooling tube. I still can’t explain why we could smell it so strongly in the front of the coach while underway but not next to the refrigerator when we were parked.

Most RV’s use absorption-based refrigerators that use either AC power or propane to generate the heat that turns the refrigerant from liquid to gas. These fridges do not use compressors like residential units because of the power drain. When working properly, ours switches automatically from electricity to propane as needed. Until it died it worked great.

Not a DIY project!

Many people don’t replace failed absorption units because they have a nasty habit of burning up the coach and killing the occupants. Instead, they get scrapped and replaced with residential fridges. That is a popular “repair” when folks don’t do much dry camping and are hooked up to power every night.

There was a mandatory federal recall to install over-temp safety shutoff devices on these fridges about the time our coach was built. I made sure that ours did have the factory safety device before we bought the coach, and I had an additional one installed four years ago. Both of them worked.

We like dry camping and didn’t want to replace the current fridge with a residential model. Doing so requires bigger batteries ($$!) and changing the interior woodwork ($$$!).

This fridge was clearly installed before the roof was put on, because it won’t fit through the door. Many coaches (ours included) have to hire a fork lift and remove a window or the windshield to get the current one out, or to install a new one. You can see where this is going: $,$$$. A replacement fridge like ours costs over $3,500, plus freight from Texas.

About 6 inches of clearance!

Cooling unit failures are common enough that a couple of suppliers offer replacements. These arrive fully charged and ready to install onto the current fridge box. For $1500. Via truck freight. Plus installation. Careful measuring showed that it could be done (just barely) on the living room floor without having to remove the whole unit from the coach.

So that’s what we did. Given our schedule we couldn’t get the new cooling unit shipped to Salt Lake City before we had to leave, so we arranged to get it done when we arrived at Jojoba Hills SKP Park in Aguanga, California. That meant a couple of weeks without refrigeration, but we bought a few coolers, lots of ice and dry ice and managed to get by. Despite the breezy YouTube videos showing "easy user installation" I was smart enough to hire the pros this time. 

Sand Hollow State Park

We pulled out of Salt Lake on November 13^th bound for Aguanga, about 750 miles away. A few years ago I might have driven that in two days, but not now. We made it to Sand Hollow State Park the first day, a place we have always said we wanted to try as we drove by on our way to Willow Wind RV Park, also in Hurricane, Utah. I wouldn’t want to stay at Sand Hollow in warmer weather because there is no shade whatsoever, but in November it was terrific. The site was huge, the roads were easy to navigate and the facilities were very clean. It’s a little pricey for an overnight stop, but we’ll certainly return.

Our second stop at Desert Springs RV “Resort” in Daggett California had nothing to recommend it except electricity and water hookups. Next time we need a place to stay near Barstow we’ll dry camp in the parking lot at Peggy Sue’s Diner, an institution on I15 just a few miles away.

We were on a fairly tight schedule to get to Aguanga because Ted and Judy Anderson’s daughter, Amanda, was getting married and we really wanted to be there. We’ve known Amanda since she was born, so we made sure that our plans and reservations were in place months ago. A small problem like a broken fridge wasn’t going to delay us. It was a beautiful wedding, Amanda truly was the belle of the ball, and Ted gave a terrific speech. We even liked the groom, too.

Attending the wedding meant we couldn’t be with Liesa on Thanksgiving. That’s the first big holiday that we haven’t been together, ever. I think it was difficult for all of us, but Liesa and Cory had dinner with his mother and we spent the day with Paul, Brenda, Katie and Chris in Hemet. As usual, Paul and Brenda outdid themselves and dinner was delicious. While we certainly missed Liesa, it all seemed to work out.

We really like Jojoba Hills

Jojoba Hills is one of our all-time favorite places to stay, and we had been looking forward all year to our third visit. The park has about 300 sites that sprawl across several hundred acres of semi-desert terrain. Individual sites are quite spacious and there is lots of open space to walk the dogs. No weekly or monthly discounts, though, so it isn’t cheap, but it is good value for money, especially if you use the pool, spas, library, pickle ball courts, etc. Like our SKP Saguaro Co-op in Benson, Arizona, the members here are exuberantly friendly. On December 3 we headed north to Simi Valley to catch up with friends in Thousand Oaks and Pasadena.

The dogs love Jojoba!

We’ll be splitting our time in December between Simi Valley, Perris and Hemet, 
California. Right after Xmas we head east to spend a couple of weeks in Puerto Peñasco,
Mexico, then on to our lot at the SKP Saguaro Co-op for several weeks.  

Books I enjoyed this month featured The Whole Town’s Talking by Fanny Flagg, and Dog Songs by Mary Oliver

Noteworthy wines included: Columbia Crest H3 Cabernet Sauvignon 2016, and J. Lohr Paso Robles Syrah 2017

More soon,

Bob

#61 - Coveys Great Adventure - Oct 2019 - Nehalem OR

October 2019 – Nehalem OR

I don’t think we had finished setting up camp after moving from site D17 to site A2 on September 30 before the first camper showed up looking for help with something. The 30 ^th is the last work day for most of the seasonal Rangers, so the “professional” staff was reduced by over 75% that day. The ranger station closed until May, and several large signs went up directing campers to site A2 for questions and assistance with reservations, yurts, checking in, etc. At the same time, the firewood cart stopped operating on weekdays, making our site the main source of firewood for the campground. Luckily, one of the other hosts kept running the wood cart whenever demand was high, which took some of the pressure off of us.

Another squirrel!

Despite the 10-hour days, we really enjoy being in site A2 once the campground is essentially turned over to the hosts. We are the first thing that folks see when they turn into the campground, so most of them, especially first-time campers usually stop to ask a question or to register. The few remaining rangers have their hands full with maintenance projects, training sessions and paperwork. The host crew in the Fall and Winter tend to be experienced and pretty self-reliant; none of our co-hosts were rookies and everyone got along well.

The Queen of Millennium Park 

We haven’t spent a night out of the coach in a long time and were looking for any excuse to take off for a night or two. Kayeanne discovered that Bob’s Red Mill company headquarters was near Portland, and they gave tours! A plan was soon hatched: we found a hotel in Lake Oswego that liked dogs and that was all we needed. I don’t think Lucy and Schroeder were too thrilled about this venture, but we had a great time. The hotel was close to a section of town called Millennium Park that combined apartments, shops, restaurants and green spaces right along the lake shore. Lunch at the St. Honorè Bakery and dinner at Bamboo Sushi were both memorable.

Bob's first millstones

Unfortunately, the Red Mill tour wasn’t. Keeping in mind that we had just spent two months giving tours of an historic flour mill, we were probably a tough audience. The tour basically consisted of looking through windows at folks doing stuff while the guide tried to explain what was or was not happening. The narration didn’t match what we were seeing because the group was so large that everyone was looking into different windows. More than 40 people were on our tour, including a local school group, several young housewives pushing kids in strollers, a small clutch of foreign tourists and a few old fogies like us. The guide tried, but the situation was just not going to work. Luckily it didn’t last too long and we were able to head down the road a mile or so to the company store, which was actually much more interesting!

Despite the years we have been visiting Nehalem, we realized that we hadn’t really explored Cannon Beach, an upscale seasonal community on the coast just north of Manzanita. Named for a cannon that washed ashore from the wreck of the USN schooner Shark, it’s is a very popular seaside destination. While it certainly is a tourist area, it has avoided becoming tacky. We had a fine lunch at Ecola Seafood and then spent a few hours wandering through several nice arts and crafts galleries. A number of places were

closed during the week, probably recovering from the Summer season frenzy. We enjoyed the day and will certainly return next year.

Until six years ago, Nehalem Bay State Park attendance really dropped off after Labor Day. It dropped so much that they closed half the campground for the “winter” season. If the weather was good, the weekends were busier, but midweek was very quiet. Last year the park was sold out through September and busy throughout most of October, often selling out on weekends. This year surprised everyone, more resembling 2015: very quiet during the week and busy when the weather cooperated on the weekends. By the end of the month even the weekends weren’t too busy. We didn’t complain, because after six months of camp hosting we were ready to start to wind down a little.

Endless driftwood piles in Nehalem Bay

As usual, we planned our annual pilgrimage to Eugene to get Riley looked over at Kaiser Brake.  We pulled out of Nehalem on October 30^th and headed south. We hope that they don’t find anything serious, but it always turns out to be more expensive than not. Riley seems to be aging more quickly than expected. Kaiser discovered that the drag link was shot, a critical component of the steering system. There are no spare parts available for this chassis, so they had to make one. <sigh>

From Eugene we went to Bend OR to have a new starter installed on the engine. Truck repair shops are much cheaper than RV service locales, but finding one that will work on RVs can be a challenge. We hope that’s the solution to no-start problems we had in August on the way to Washington. For a change, that went according to plan and by late morning we were on the road to Salt Lake City to see Liesa.

A couple of books that I really enjoyed recently are Why We Live with Animals by Alvin Greenberg, and Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser. I seem to be on a poetry kick lately.

Wines we liked this month include Maryhill Winemakers Red, Columbia Winery Cabernet 2016 and Willamette Valley Vineyard Founders Reserve Pinot Noir 2017.

More soon,

Bob

#60 - Coveys Great Adventure – Sep 2019 – Nehalem OR

September 2019 – Nehalem Oregon

Dogs joy!

I know I’ve said it before, but returning to Nehalem Bay State Park is sort of like coming home. This is our fifth stint in six years, so the places and the people are pretty familiar.

This is the first time that we have hosted in September. In years past we just worked in October. It turned out to be both pretty familiar and quite different at the same time.

The main difference is that the park operates with the full ranger staff in September, so the park office is open until 9 PM every night. That means that the rangers meet and process all of the incoming campers, eliminating most of the camper contact that we like so much. We were also assigned to a different section of the park, site D17, which is far removed from the action at the A2 site.

D17 is a tight fit for Ripley

Another significant difference was the work assignment. Since the host roles vary by the site they are given, our September duties were much different than we had in past years. The D17 hosts clean yurts and sections of the campground, period. Once that was done, the rest of the day was wide open. This is a much more traditional host assignment than we had been used to. It took us awhile to realize that campers wouldn’t be coming to our door all day, and that we weren’t expected to hang around after we finished the daily work assignment. That gave us lots of free time, something we aren’t used to.

We don’t host just to clean yurts and camp sites in exchange for a free site. 

The neighbors are still around

Free camping is nice, but we do this for the contact with people and the energy of running the campground. On a busy day it’s a little like working a trade show. Despite the shorter hours in D17, we are looking forward to moving to A2 at the end of the month and resuming our “usual” duties.

One nice surprise was that we got to see Milton and Lynnette Hansen before they pulled out at the end of the month. We missed them last year; we arrived the day they left. They were hosting at one of the day-use parks in Manhattan Beach, not in the campground itself, so we got together for dinner in Garibaldi one evening to catch up before they headed home. Unfortunately, Milton didn’t get to do much fishing this year, so we’ll have to make do with store-bought salmon this Fall.

Squirrel!

I swear the dogs can tell where we are going while we are still several miles from the park. Maybe they can smell the beach or recognize a few curves, but whatever it is by the time we actually pull into the park they are at full attention. Nehalem means two things to them: the beach and the wildlife. Off-leash on the beach must be a transcendental experience for them. Coming over the top of the dunes they plunge down the far side as fast as they can run and they don’t stop for several minutes. Their sheer joy in the release from control is a real treat for us, too.   

On the 30th we moved from D17 to our "regular" site in A2, stocked the fire wood shed and hung out our "host on duty" sign. Let the fun begin!
 

Books I enjoyed recently include Kindest Regards by Ted Kooser, and Canadian Living by Peter Gzowski.

Wines that we discovered this month include Eliseo Silva NV Syrah and Ryan Patrick Redhead Red, both from Washington.

More soon,

Bob

#59 – Coveys Great Adventure – August 2019 – Oregon and Washington

#59 – August 2019 – Oregon and Washington

As much as we liked hosting at Thompson’s Mills, we needed a break before our next assignment. Working four months in a row is….work. We made plans awhile ago to spend three weeks at the Evergreen Coho SKP Park in Chimacum, Washington, but we had get the air system worked on, again. Three companies had tried to fix the damage that the antelope caused in September, but none of them had succeeded. If anything, two of them made it worse. They were well intended, they just didn’t understand the complexity of the system and tried to treat it like a truck installation. The system’s manufacturer suggested we take it to Oregon Motor Coach Center in Coburg, a place we tried when we were chasing the slide leak a few years ago that Kayeanne ultimately fixed. $1,500 and five days later (waiting for parts over a weekend) that problem may finally be fixed.

Spending the weekend in Oregon Motor Coach Center’s parking lot didn’t have any appeal, but finding a camp site on short notice anywhere in Oregon during the summer is tough. All of the parks that take reservations are booked months in advance, and first-come-first-served sites are all taken by Thursday afternoon. I finally found a site at Archie Knowles Lane County Campground, about half way between Eugene and Florence. I figured there had to be a reason a site was available, but beggars, etc. The site was fine, the park was ok, but it is right next to a busy road, so traffic noise was a constant problem. I think we were the biggest coach they had ever seen there, but we made it in and out without incident after I trimmed some overhanging branches.

Chimacum, Washington is a pretty good haul from Coburg, so we decided to break it into two easy days. Woodland WA on the Columbia River was our destination the first night. Ripley desperately needed a bath, so we pulled into a truck wash just south of Portland and took our place in a long line of trucks and RVs waiting our turn. But, when I tried to start the engine to pull ahead nothing happened, it was completely dead. We’ve had no-start problems in the past. I tried all the usual remedies, checked all the likely components, but nothing seemed broken. Luckily we were in a big lot with plenty of room for others to get around us while we tried to figure it out. An hour or two later, one of the passing drivers suggested tapping on the starter with a hammer on the chance that the solenoid was stuck. WTH, I tried it and the engine started right up! Needless to say, we didn’t shut it off until we got into our campsite.

Barge traffic on the Columbia

We got the last river front site at Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland. A little pricey, but the view of the river through the windshield was worth it. It reminded us of Intracoastal Park near Lake Charles, Louisiana where we watched the tugs and barges day and night right on our doorstep (see blog post #43). Our site was a long pull-through, so we didn’t even have to unhook the car! Happy hour came early that day.

Chimacum is a small town a few miles south of Port Townsend, which is one of our favorite places in the country. Evergreen Coho SKP Park is an Escapees 

co-op organized like our park in Benson. We have stayed there a couple of times and have been looking forward to returning. We were fortunate to get one of the few full hookup sites for three weeks.

Port Townsend is not only a great place to visit, it is also a ferry terminus to Whidbey Island. Anacortes on the north end of Whidbey Island is the main ferry terminal for the San Juan Islands, so it is fairly easy to take a ferry from Port Townsend to Coupeville, drive to Anacortes and get the ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

Yikes! She's 29!

Unfortunately, the car spaces to Friday Harbor are booked months in advance, making it impossible for both of us to visit our friends Roger and Michelle Shober. There are no reservations required for walk-on passengers, so the dogs and I dropped Kayeanne off at the ferry in Anacortes and were on our own for three days. The following week she spent three nights in Port Townsend visiting with her friends Katy and Midge from the beach house days. Then, we drove her to the airport in Seattle so she could go to Salt Lake City to visit with Liesa. The dogs and I were all glad when she finally came home for good. We were getting tired of our own company.

Great BBQ pork and beef tacos

PT is a good place to eat. We found good sushi, a very good Mexican food truck on Discovery Road near the junction of Sheridan Street that served outstanding pork adobada tacos, and a pub called Sirens on the waterfront that served outstanding food overlooking the harbor.

Three weeks passed quickly and it was time to head south. We wanted to see the west side of the Olympic Peninsula and we lucked into an opening for Labor Day weekend at American Sunset RV Park is Westport, WA. Our plan was to follow Rt 101 along the coast, expecting spectacular views. I should have zoomed in a little more, because 101 just parallels the coast, it never touches it. Instead of sweeping ocean vistas and windswept headlands we got a long green corridor through endless pine forests, sharing the road with dozens of logging trucks. Needless to say, we arrived at Westport a couple of hours earlier than we planned.

Looking down main street in Westport

Westport is an interesting combination of commercial fishing harbor, party fishing boat center and tourist destination. Mix in a few condos and the one main street filled with shops full of “stuff” and you get the idea. We are rarely disappointed with local museums, but this one was quite forgettable. We liked Westport for three nights, but aren't planning to return anytime soon.

Decent chowder and good fish 'n chips

Salmon fishing is a near-religious experience on the North Wet Coast. I forgot that the season kicked off on Labor Day this year, so the park was jammed with fisher folks and their boats in addition to their RVs, tents and families. Once again we were the biggest rig in the park. I am glad we arrived before the evening rush because as the park filled up, getting into most sites became a real test of pilotage and swing room. I’ll bet it took some folks 30 minutes of backing and filling to finally get settled in.

We pulled out of Westport on September first and headed south to Nehalem Bay State Park for our last camp hosting assignment of the season.

Books I enjoyed this month include John Sanford's Holy Ghost, and an old Tony Hillerman novel that I missed years ago, The First Eagle.

More soon,

Bob

#58 – Coveys Great Adventure - July, 2019 – Shedd, OR

We experimented with lighting

July, 2019 – Shedd, OR

Running the mill without Don and Penny turned out to be as much work as we feared. Bill, the other, single host worked hard to hold up his end and Tom put in extra hours, but we sure did miss the extra, experienced hands. Luckily the school group tours ended in June, and a new seasonal ranger was hired in mid-month, so the real strain only lasted a couple of weeks.

Yes, it really did rain hay

One breezy day I looked outside and it was raining hay. Literally, hay was falling everywhere. As far as you could see in any direction, including up, the sky was full of hay. It was a bit of a “Wizard-of-Oz” moment. It turns out that after the grass seed is harvested, the straw is left in the fields to dry before it is baled. In the right weather, dust devils will suck the straw thousands of feet up where it is dispersed over wide areas. It’s really weird to see.

Despite the increased workload, we found time to do more exploring. Kayeanne’s birthday warranted a fine dinner and Castor in Corvallis looked good on the web. We weren’t disappointed, especially with the farro succotash. I’m not usually a fan of exotic vegetarian dishes, but it was outstanding. The owner suggested a local Pinot Noir from Lumous and she wasn’t mistaken, it was delicious.

You can’t visit this area without going to some of the hundreds of vineyards that have helped establish the Northwest as one of the leading wine producing areas of the country, especially of Pinot Noir, and lately Pinot Gris, too. Channel surfing on PBS one night, we ran across a documentary about the history of wine making in Oregon, with the focus on Pinot and the almost fanatical drive for quality shared by the vineyards growing it. Interesting factoid: Oregon has the most stringent labeling standard in the country, maybe the world.

We don’t have the endurance for wine tasting we once had, but we found two local wineries that sounded worth visiting. Emerson Vineyards in Monmouth OR is small and gaining recognition. We both liked their Pinot Noir. The setting is also worth a visit. They offer a full calendar of events throughout the summer featuring local musicians that sounded like a great way to spend an evening.

Bluebird Hill 

We picked Bluebird Hill Cellars because we liked the area around Monroe and the pictures on their website looked lovely. We weren’t disappointed with the wine or the setting. Located on (ahem) Bluebird Hill, the very comfortable patio has expansive views down the valley that compliment the wines and the local cheese. We managed to drag out a tasting, a little cheese and a bottle of Pinot Gris for the better part of an afternoon. Founded in 2014, they are just beginning to compete and have already had some success. The 2016 Shiraz is pretty tasty, too.

NOT a pulp wood mill!

Monroe is also home to one of the most interesting places we have visited in quite awhile, the Hull-Oakes Lumber Company. For 4 months we’ve been demonstrating the technology and telling the story of commerce in Oregon during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but Hull-Oakes is actually still doing it. The mill converted from steam to electric power in 2008, and they only did that because they couldn’t get parts for the steam engine! The steam plant is still there, ready to go if the electric grid dies.

Add caption

As the guide emphasized at least three times, Hull-Oakes is not a museum, it’s a family business in it’s fourth generation of management. It employs about 50 people and operates much like it did when it was founded in the 1930’s.

It is also Disneyland for machinery junkies like moi. These guys cut BIG trees into serious lumber. They can make beams up to 85’ long, and 3’ square, the longest and largest in Oregon. They were milling 24’ long

This is the sharpening shop. The saw blades are
30' long and changed every two hours. 

2’x2’ beams when we toured and that was impressive. 3’x3’ is almost incomprehensible; remember they start with a tree and cut away what isn’t a beam! Tours require reservations so call ahead if you’d like to visit.

Dinner time

Tending the ducks and chickens does have a downside; you bond with them. We had two flocks of ducks, four older ones that were raised in 2018, and another flock born this spring. The older ducks refused to spend the night in the pen with the youngsters because last winter a skunk managed to reach under the pen wall and take an egg. The ducks refused to stay in the pen from that point on. One morning only three of them came for breakfast, a few days later just one showed up. We found one of the carcasses on the shore of the millrace, but only found feathers of one of the others. The sole survivor finally joined the young ducks in the pen at night. I reinforced the pen and the chicken coop to eliminate any chance that varmints can get even a paw in.

One morning Schroeder hopped up to his usual perch on the dashboard and went nuts. The river was apparently no longer a barrier to the neighbor’s livestock. Two sheep took up residence at the mill and on the day we left, they were still mowing the grass. Since they also graze cattle, I’m sure it won’t be long before the cows come to visit, too.

We were sorry to leave the mill. We really enjoyed working here, and at Cape Blanco. Camp hosting is fun, too, but learning about new places and old times, and talking to people all day is much more interesting than cleaning yurts and fire pits. We will still camp host, in fact we are looking forward to doing just that during September and October back at Nehalem Bay State Park for the sixth time. Next year, though, we’ll focus on finding more docent work.

We are taking August off and visiting northwest Washington. More on that next time.

Bob

PS: A few more pictures of the mill:

The mill race gates control the water level

The last water powered machine.
The hand-wheel controls the water
feed into the turbine

Why visitors don't tour the 3rd floor.
Those holes are access hatches to
two-story bins

Turn head on the 4th floor can
send grain down chutes
to 7 locations

#57 – Coveys Great Adventure – June 2019 – Shedd OR

June 2019 – Shedd OR

We had done a lot of reading about Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Site since we were selected to be hosts at the park, but the pictures hadn’t prepared us for the shear size of the place when we rolled down the driveway the first time. The silos are as tall as Cape Blanco Lighthouse, and then there is that five story, 130,000 square foot mill behind them. We turned to each other and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into, especially when the chickens and ducks were pretty casual about getting out of the road.

Luckily the fowl weren’t the welcoming committee. We were expected, and one of the current volunteers directed us to a temporary site for the night until the outgoing hosts cleared one of the regular sites in the morning. After setting up, we went to the mill for a quick look around. It was as big inside as it looked from out, and packed with very old, dusty machines driven by a bewildering array of line shafts, pulleys and belts. I was right when I stumbled onto this on the ‘net; this is my kind of place!

Schroeder is going nuts

The three host campsites are brand new and all we had hoped for. New lawns separated the sites which are surrounded on three sides by large fields. After a few days, I used the large riding mower to cut a path around the perimeter of the fields for better dog walks, and Lucy and Schroeder clearly seemed to enjoy exploring it. It is far enough from the chickens and ducks that they can be off leash, a real treat for the dogs, for the fowl and for us.

The first morning it became apparent that hosting here was quite different than any other place we’ve been. Hosts are encouraged to “own” the place and to use considerable initiative maintaining the mill, making any needed repairs and suggesting improvements. I’ve done a little carpentry, electrical repair, plumbing, pump repair, rigging and other stuff I’ve forgotten. We have the run of a pretty good workshop for whatever we need to tackle.

Tom Parsons has been the ranger in charge for ten years and really knows the whole site, inside and out. Luckily, volunteers Don and Penny overlapped with us through June. They have spent six months a year here for five years and are intimately familiar with every facet of the mill structure and operation. Penny is the go-to person for the ducks and chickens. Yes, three days a week we are also farmers. More on that later.

Original posts and beams

Describing this place isn’t easy. On the one hand it is OSHA’s worst nightmare because almost everything will seriously hurt you if you aren’t careful. That’s why it’s so interesting, though, because everything is right there: belts fly, pulleys spin, machinery pounds away and you are in the middle of it all, watching the whole show. Some of the belts go up (and down) over five stories, from the water powered turbines in the cellar to the top of the main grain elevator.

Water powered, and it still runs

Don and I got to figure out how to replace a belt, including making a splice when one broke. We used a tool that was on display as an artifact that might be as old as the mill, and parts that the archivist had cataloged and put in storage. It took two attempts but it’s been running for a month now.

Visitors are free to wander the grounds and the first floor of the mill, but most join us for a tour which includes visiting the basement where we can open the flume gates to run one of the turbines that is still connected to machinery on the first, second and third floors. That’s a real kick for everyone, and it never gets old for us, either. We also have a section of the mill that was electrified in the 1940’s and set up as a very live demo. Four elevator banks fly by, a corn cracker starts hammering away, and a big seed separator comes to life. Everyone gets a real kick out of that, too.

It will take weeks to finish the logos

When we arrived, the silos were encased in scaffolding and surrounded by safety fences. The roof of the silos and much of the roof support structure was being replaced. That work wrapped up in late June and the scaffolding finally came down. The painting crew moved in and spent the next week water blasting every surface of the silo to prep for paint. That really made a mess! It did get a little old trying to give tours while all that was going on, but the visitors were all understanding. Finally, a muralist began to repaint the large, colorful logos that have graced the silos for over 100 years.

This mill is the last survivor among hundreds of small water powered mills that dotted western Oregon’s fertile valleys beginning in the mid-1800’s. Few decent roads, no navigable rivers and no railroads made it a real challenge for farmers to get their wheat turned into flour. Moving grain by horse and wagon averaged just 6 miles a day, so they were enthusiastic customers for the new mill to reduce their travel times.

Top of #1 turbine

But, you couldn’t just decide to put a mill anywhere. Water powered mills need two things besides customers and capital: an adequate flow of water and a minimum “head”, or drop, of 16 feet to pressurize it. Richard Finley found what he needed along the Calapooia River and built the mill here in 1858.

Main drive shaft from #1 turbine still operates

It was his third mill, and he poured everything he learned from the first two into this one. One decision, though, probably did more to insure the mill’s survival than any other. He bought the water rights to seven miles of the river upstream of the mill. Since Oregon was still a territory in 1858, those territorial water rights were never successfully challenged by farmers or by the State right up to the sale of the mill with the water rights to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department in 2004. In 2011, the state demolished two dams that mill owners had built on the Calapooia, restoring the river’s natural flow to assist Coho and steel head salmon spawning.

Originally roughly 3,000 square feet and two stories high, the mill is now 130,000 square feet and five stories tall, excluding the silos. Most of that expansion took place under three generations of the Thompson family, from 1891 to 1976. Despite that growth, the original mill is still in place, buried within the present structure. The mill was expanded in every possible direction, and then the expansions were expanded! The original 12" x 12" hand-hewn posts and the beams that connect them are easily seen and still make up over 50% of the mill’s machinery space. 

Building a platform over the mill race, just
part of the job

We certainly enjoyed hosting at Cape Blanco Lighthouse, but our duties were constrained by it being an active aid to navigation and by the fact that it’s mission over time didn’t change: it’s a lighthouse, period. Now we had five stories and the basement jam packed with stuff to explore and to figure out. We are not restricted from any part of the mill. We are encouraged to  poke around every floor and locate and understand as many of the bins, elevators, augers, chutes, belts and pulleys as we can. When we aren’t giving tours we clean (it takes almost 5 hours to vacuum the main floor), knock down cobwebs, mow, trim flowers, repair whatever needs it, change the store displays, or whatever else crops up. We had three sets of hosts in June and all were busy, but Tom couldn’t find someone to replace Don and Penny, so July is going to be a challenge.

We really like this part of Oregon. The Willamette Valley is very different from the coast. Home to about 300 wineries, the valley is also the second largest grass seed growing region in the world (New Zealand is first, who’d of guessed?). When we arrived, the huge fields all had a slight yellowish fog of pollen hanging over them.  My allergies immediately kicked up to the point that I was afraid we would have to quit and leave – nothing I had on hand worked at all. On a whim, we stopped at a local pharmacy in Brownsville. The pharmacist asked me a couple of questions and handed me two OTC products that I’d never heard of and I was cured. That, and Randy’s Main Street Coffee where Randy makes everything himself made Brownsville one of our favorite places in the area. Don’t miss Randy’s and the town itself if you are anywhere nearby.

We also enjoyed exploring Corvallis and Albany, small cities just a few miles apart with pretty different personalities. Corvallis is a college town, home to Oregon State University. It’s a lovely town with great charm during the summer when school is out. The population increases close to 50% when OSU is in session, which I’m told by everyone I asked makes a big impact on congestion, parking and the general tempo of daily life. No one sounded like they were planning to move, though.

A college town wouldn’t be complete without Trader Joe’s and Corvallis didn’t disappoint. It was one of the first places we went, since we hadn’t been close to one for a few months. On the same trip we celebrated my birthday at Sada Sushi & Izakaya. I had been looking forward to sushi since we left California last fall. That’s way too long between fixes, and it was really good, too. We both ate way too much.

Albany is not an academic community, but that isn’t a criticism. It’s a younger city than Corvallis, which means the streets are wider, parking is easier and the shopping is more varied and accessible. The area’s Costco is in Albany, along with Home Depot, Lowe’s and the rest of the usual suspects. We are equal distant from Albany and Corvallis, and probably spent twice as much time in Albany because the access and the stores make shopping easier.

Albany doesn’t lack charm of it’s own, though. The old downtown district is small but worth visiting. It’s nice to spend a pleasant afternoon wandering the shops and restaurants, but the highlight is the carousel. The city has come together to restore an old carousel, and it really is impressive. Hundreds of people have donated over 160,000 hours so far to rebuild, restore and operate the carousel, including carving all new animals. Each animal is sponsored and there is a waiting list. Visiting it is worth a trip on it’s own.

A month into our stint here and I think we are now comfortable guiding visitors through the mill. Like she did at Cape Blanco, Kayeanne has spent many hours poring over the records that Doug Crispin, the first ranger in charge of the mill, and several others have created. She has also watched hours of interviews conducted by Doug with the last owner of the mill and with people who worked here over several decades. She now knows the history of the place in more detail than I do. I want to take one of her tours.

Books I read this month included

             Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

             Leave Tomorrow by Dirk Weisiger

         

More soon,

Bob