#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.

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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