#22 - Coveys Great Adventure - March 2016 - Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida

Eastward Ho! – March 2016

Even by our standards, March was a whirlwind. We pulled out of Mesa Arizona on February 29 headed for Florida to visit Kayeanne’s brother Grant. The first move set the pattern for the rest of the month: drive 200 – 300 miles and set up housekeeping in a new place for two or three nights. We also decided to stay at as many Escapee parks as we could, so the first stop was Dream Catcher SKP Park in Deming New Mexico.

Dream Catcher RV Park

The park turned out to be a spacious gravel parking lot within sight (and sound) of I10, but it offered full hookups (water, power and sewer) and easy in/out for a reasonable price. Deming isn’t the most interesting place we have been by a long shot, but we discoverer a great family Mexican restaurant and a very interesting museum.

The restaurant is called Taco Mirasol, true family enterprise where grandma and daughter turn out really good food at very reasonable prices.  The refried beans were as good as any we can remember. They even make fresh squeezed lemonade.

Volunteers created the whole museum

As you may have gathered, we both like museums and the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum was an unexpected find. Housed in a vintage National Guard armory that is itself worth a visit, the museum is the only one in the country that is operated solely and completely by volunteers. Over many years they have assembled a fascinating, eclectic collection of photos, artifacts, vehicles and art that covers the history of the region from the pre-Spanish Indian cultures through the early 1960’s. Rather than just laying out material for viewing, the volunteers designed and built displays, period settings and dioramas that put many of the objects in historical context. All of them were interesting, but the one that really caught my eye was the recreation of a hardware store from the turn of the century that sold everything from thread to bullets. We had no expectations when we walked in and ended up spending over 3 hours.

Tethered Aerostat Radar System used for drug and
immigration  enforcement near Alpine, TX

The next stop was Alpine Texas. We picked Alpine because it was not on I10, was roughly 300 miles from Deming on the back way to San Antonio, and had a few RV parks to pick from. BC Ranch RV Park didn’t quite live up to its website pictures or description, but it was reasonably priced and quiet so we decided to stay for a couple of days. Alpine is a pretty neat small town, big enough to have one of most everything and small enough to see in a couple of hours at most.

Fantastic food from this little trailer

We are always on the lookout for local places to eat and the bright yellow trailer parked on a lot near the center of town caught our eye. The Smokin’ Cajun served up the best Cuban sandwich I have ever had. The woman on the grill is Cuban and learned to cook in Miami from her mother and grandmother. I don’t remember how they found their way to Alpine, but I’d return just to get another one of those sandwiches.

We both looked forward to visiting San Antonio, primarily to see the Riverwalk and, of course, the Alamo. After Deming and Alpine, we decided to treat ourselves a little and pulled into the Green Lake RV Resort in south San Antonio about 20 minutes from downtown. Green Lakes is just a few years old and has all the things people look for in a modern RV park: wide streets for easy access, large paved pads and patios, intelligently positioned utility connections, cable TV, usable WIFI, a pool, a spacious laundry and a great staff.  About all it needs is a better dog park.

We liked San Antonio. The Riverwalk lived up to expectations. The river itself is a couple of stories below street level. It meanders through the city center and is lined with restaurants and bars of every kind. Large trees and the shadows of the downtown building provide plenty of cool shade to stroll some of the 13 miles of walkways that border the river. We visited the Mexican Market one afternoon. Think mini-Faneuil Hall: lots of shops to browse, a food court and a local band that could really rock and roll made for a very pleasant visit.

I have to say that I was underwhelmed with the Alamo. Admission to the mission building itself is “free”, but everyone is forced to stand in long lines while obligatory pictures are taken that are then “offered” on exit. I refused to play that game, so we focused on the museum and the grounds, both quite interesting. Based on some comments that I overheard from people who had gone inside, I don’t think we missed much.

When we unhooked the car tow dolly at Green Lake I discovered that both fender/tail light brackets had broken. The fenders were holding the brackets and lights on, the reverse of what was supposed to be the case. Closer examination revealed that the steel bars had fractured, probably from vibration. The staff at Green Lake quickly contacted a local welder and the next morning I met Joe Luna at his house. An hour later Joe, a retired oil field maintenance supervisor, had fabricated and installed much more robust replacements. After some hemming and hawing, he asked me if $30 sounded fair; I thought that was a bargain, quickly paid him and headed home.

The neighbors at Rainbow's End

The Escapees RV Club is headquartered at Rainbow's End in Livingston Texas, sort of on the way between San Antonio and New Orleans. We had been hearing stories about “the mothership” since we      we joined the club and couldn’t let the chance to visit slip by. Site 134 is located in the “new” section of the park. As you would expect from an organization started by and committed to full time RV’ers, access was easy, the site was large and it took little time to settle in for a week.

One of the first things we did was go over to the mail service building to pick up a month’s accumulation of mail. We had no idea how large an operation the mail service is, but got a strong hint when the US Mail tractor trailer truck passed us to deliver the incoming mail to the service center. The mail service handles about 13 tons of mail a day, so much mail that it has its own Zip code.

Livingston is the Polk County seat and our domicile address for taxes, vehicle registrations and insurance, health care and voter registration. We registered to vote so we are now official Texans, ya’all.

The French Quarter

Visiting New Orleans was one of the must-do’s on this trip, but the downtown RV park is really expensive. Bayou Segnette State Park turned out to be a great place to stay to visit New Orleans. While it is across the Mississippi River from the city, it is just 20 minutes from the French Quarter. Big spaces, lots of trees, good facilities including free laundry, and great dog walking for $18 a night; we even had great OTA TV reception.

Two beauties

We both liked New Orleans. Over three days walked all over the French Quarter in the rain and stuck our noses in every shop in the French Market. We roamed around a very old cemetery in the Garden District, which is much more interesting than it sounds, and took a cruise down the mighty Mississippi River on a real steam paddle wheeler.

Oak Alley Plantation

One day we set off down the River Road, following the river past farms and plantations to Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana. I’m not sure you can get bad food in this part of the country, but the

B&C Seafood Market and Cajun Restaurant was a real treat. A true locals place, we drove by and decided on the spur of the moment to make a u-turn and have lunch. The alligator burger was quite good (tasted like turkey) and the stuffed gator had a big grin. Seriously, stop here if you are in the area.

Pushing on to the East, our next stop was the Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV Park in Summerdale, Alabama. Neither of us had been to Alabama (or Louisiana, now that I think about it), and had no idea what to expect. Southern Alabama is quite beautiful. The coastline around Mobile is some of the prettiest we have seen. Summerdale is just east of Fairhope, a strikingly lovely town with a long commercial fishery and coastal trading history on Mobile Bay.

Rainbow Plantation is a very attractive, spacious park. We stayed a couple of nights and really enjoyed the site, the park itself and especially the people who lived there. Every SKP park seems to have happy hour around 4 pm and this one was no exception. We met several very nice people and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The park has only developed about a third of the land that they own, making dozens of acres open to walk the dogs, and they loved it.

Real waterfront camping

When we started planning this trip I was looking forward to visiting the northwest coast of Florida, the so-called “lost coast”. Looking on the Internet for RV parks in the area popped up Ho-Him RV Park in Carrabelle. With a name like that, we had to go there. Ho-Hum is anything but. Several of the sites are so close to the Gulf that there is no beach at high tide: the water comes right to the low seawall that the RVs are parked on. The view through the windshield is ocean to the horizon. We weren’t able to get one of those sites, but we still had ocean views from our coach. The site itself could have been a little wider and it could certainly have used more gravel because it got pretty muddy when it rained, but being able to walk down the beach a half a mile or so at low tide made up for any it.

Carrabelle is a pretty little town with limited services and one small market. It does have a couple of stores selling locally caught, fresh seafood. One day we bought and cooked shrimp that were swimming that morning. They were the best I’ve ever eaten.

Deeelicious!

The next day we drove up the coast to Apalachicola, a much larger town with many neat stores, several good restaurants and a small maritime museum and boat building school. We spent some enjoyable time wandering through the museum, looking at many vintage photos and pouring over a couple of the boats that the school had made. A couple of the shops were a cut above the usual tourist traps and we made a small contribution to the local economy.

Apalachicola is famous for oysters and we went to Papa Joe’s for lunch. Between us we made short work of a dozen and a half, a pile of fries and beers. We agreed that the local oysters lived up to their billing; boy, that was really good.

The last stop this month was another SKP park, Sumter Oaks in Bushnell. The park is in a very rural area about 5 miles out of town. Our site was large and partially shaded, but could have used some landscaping and fresh gravel. In fact, the whole park was in need of some attention. The trees needed trimming and the roads needed re-grading and fresh gravel. The dog park fence had been damaged and never repaired. Several signs were just hand lettered on cardboard, giving the place a slightly seedy appearance. It was also the quietest SKP park we have been to. There was no happy hour or any scheduled activities. The pool hadn’t seen water in years.

Glass bottomed boats 

On the plus side was the donkey herd on the adjacent farm that was just as interested in Lucy and Schroeder as they were in them. Every time we walked by the donkeys came right to the fence to exchange sniffs. We didn’t see the resident alligator in the swamp behind the park, but we certainly heard him at night, and a couple of times I think I caught his eyes way back through the trees with my flashlight on our late evening walks.

Algae is destroying the springs

Bushnell is not far from Ocala and I had been looking forward to revisiting Silver Springs State Park. In 1958 we stopped at the park and took a glass bottomed boat tour of the extensive artesian springs that deliver over 500 million gallons of fresh water a day. I distinctly remember looking down through 80’ of crystal clear water and shoals of fish in every shape and size to a white sand bottom so brilliant it was dazzling. Today’s experience couldn’t be further from that memory. Algae caused by agricultural runoff coats everything in a dull green slime. Eel grass has invaded almost the entire spring. The fish population looks like maybe 1 or 2% of what I remember. I can’t imagine how people let this happen, it felt like sacrilege.

A small fraction of Garlit's fascinating collection

As we approached Ocala a sign on the side of the highway declared that the Don Garlits Drag Racing Museum was just ahead. I couldn't pass that up! Big Daddy is arguably the founder of modern drag racing. He is responsible for many of the inventions still in use today, most notably the first rear engined dragster. He held innumerable records over his long career. The museum is housed in two large buildings and is packed with cars, motorcycles, dragsters, engines, vintage cars and a host of memorabilia. It is a fascinating place that I could easily revisit. Kayeanne was a good sport about it, too. 

We are looking forward to arriving in St. Petersburg next month to see Grant, Kayeanne’s brother. More soon.

Bob

#21 - Coveys Great Adventure - February 2016 - Benson, Bisbee and Mesa AZ

Benson, Bisbee and Mesa Arizona - February, 2016 

February was really busy. The Saguaro Co-op is no place for lazy, anti-social people. What with dinners on Monday nights, bingo every Tuesday, movies on Wednesday, happy hour every afternoon, yoga, flexercise, beading, making cookies for bake sales, board meetings, dancing on Saturday nights, Bunco, and hours every day in the desert with the dogs we were on the go all month.

We also became friends with Cosmo and Ellen Baraona, who vastly increased our knowledge of the Co-op and patiently taught us a new game, Pegs and Jokers. It is sort of like Cribbage, Mexican Train and Monopoly all mashed together. Serious thought and concentration is required.

We h avebeen looking forward to visiting Bisbee, Arizona since we first heard about it last

March. When Ed and Christine Woznicki had to delay their arrival we decide to take a day and see what everyone was talking about.

The latest hardrock fashion

The train is over 50 years old.
I'm not worried....

Bisbee is the home of one of the largest and richest copper, gold and silver mines in the world. It started out as a hard rock mine in the 1880’s and transitioned to open pit mining in the 1950’s. Mining operations ceased in 1975 when the cost of extraction exceeded the value of the metals. Bisbee was headed for economic oblivion when a group of strong minded citizens put together a plan to make the town a tourist destination centered on an underground tour of the Queen Copper Mine. They succeeded.

The mine tour was very interesting. It is conducted by old guys (like me) who actually worked in the mine before it closed. It was a fascinating window into a world unlike any I have ever experienced. I am certainly glad that I never had to do that for a living.

Many of the original buildings survive

Like Jerome, Arizona, Bisbee started to attract artists and hippies beginning in the 1960’s because the economic downturn in mining made houses really cheap, or even free for the taking. Bisbee today is an attractive, interesting blend of counter culture folks, artists, cowboys, tourists and entrepreneurs. We enjoyed walking around looking at the buildings and visiting the various shops. We found a great restaurant for lunch, Ana’s Seasonal Kitchen on Main Street. I had a chicken confit sandwich on fresh baked ciabatta with local greens and chipotle mayo. My mouth is watering as I write this! 

Redefining "eclectic" shopping. I have
idea what the store old

A couple of weeks later, Ed and Christine arrived and we all headed back to Bisbee. This time we visited the museum and covered the rest of the town that Kayeanne and I hadn’t seen on our first trip. Again, we found a great place for lunch. Thuy’s Noodle Shop has maybe 6 tables, but what it lacks in size it more than makes up with great food.

It was good to see the Woznickis, again. Kayeanne drove to Las Vegas to spend a weekend with Liesa and Luis, so Ed and Christine and I revisited Mi Casa for another excellent Mexican dinner. Ed and I puttered on our coach projects and spent one afternoon shooting at targets in a local wash. We hit the same spot so often the sand bank collapsed, burying the targets.

Tim Trask and his latest project

Traveling to and from Bisbee and Tombstone we always passed a bright blue building in St. David called A Gallery of Dreams. One afternoon the four of us hopped into the car to go see just what was inside. We were surprised and delighted to find a very eclectic collection of bronze and stone sculptures, various kinds of art and ceramics. We started talking to a tall, weathered cowboy who turned out to be the owner and world known sculptor Tim Trask. He gave us a tour of the workshop where he is preparing a 10’ tall statue and described a little of the exhaustive process that goes into bronze castings. He also showed us a 210# meteorite and a 120# piece of jade that he was planning to begin work on. If you are going to Bisbee or Tombstone, budget an hour to stop. We had a great time.

We had planned to stay in Benson through the end of the month, but Judy Powell invited us to join her and her friend Chris to tour Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and school in Scottsdale. Wright is a fascinating character as well as one of the most influential figures in modern architecture and design. At Taliesin, he and his students/employees transformed several hundred acres of desert into a visually stunning residence, office and school over a long period beginning in the 1920’s, right up to his death in 1959. Everyone is required to take a tour and I can see why. The guide talked non-stop for 90 minutes and just hit the high points of the history of the man and the place. Eccentric doesn’t begin to describe him.

Don't move the vase or the table, cut the window to fit.
Frank Lloyd Wright personified.

Packed in as closely as possible

Mesa Regal RV Resort was our first experience with the mega snowbird parks that have transformed Mesa, Surprise, Apache Junction, Scottsdale and several other great Phoenix suburbs. The picture doesn’t show the scale and the density of the place. It has over 2,200 sites, pools, spas, ballrooms, bars, tennis courts, shuffleboard, card rooms, a 2,000 seat theater (Donnie Osmond headlines the 

weekend we left) and its own entrance to a shopping center. People seem to love it because most of the spaces are rented year round but only occupied 4-6 months. We really hated it, and so did the dogs. If that was RV’ing, we’d stay home.

February 29^th was the first day of the next phase of our adventure. We pulled out of Mesa headed east. The plan is to cross Texas, stop for a few days in New Orleans, wander down the west coast of Florida and end up in St. Petersburg to see Kayeanne’s brother Grant. Then we are off to Hilton Head, South Carolina to join Charlie and Molly Kendrick and travel together to New England. We can’t wait to hit the road.

More soon.

Bob

#20 - Coveys Great Adventure - January 2016 - Yuma and Benson AZ

Yuma and Benson - January, 2016

We’ve been traveling long enough now to be returning to places that we have already visited. A couple of days after Christmas we retraced our steps to the Cocopah RV Resort in Yuma, AZ. It was time for our annual dental checkup in Los Algodones, Mexico.

Cocopah dog park. Schroeder and Lucy reading "the mail"

Cocopah is a little more expensive than most places that we stay, but it has a lot going for it, including the best dog park we’ve seen anywhere. Almost any time of day, a dozen or more dogs are hanging out at the park, just waiting for a new butt to sniff. It is quite a site to see a pack of dogs ranging from a Bull Mastiff to a Chihuahua running around together having a great time. I’ve yet to see any aggressive behavior.

We felt like old hands as we casually pulled into the Indian parking lot and strolled across the border into Los Algodones and right to the Alamo Dental clinic. An hour later we had clean teeth, checkups (one filling, me) and were back on the street looking for lunch. The bill for everything was $120. We celebrated with a margarita and beer!

Unlike last year, we felt like we had seen most of what there is to see in Yuma, so we spent a few days just hanging out. January is certainly colder than March, so swimming was out. I took a golf lesson, more to see if I still could hit the ball than to learn anything. I actually surprised myself, but I certainly felt it the next day. One night we went to see the new movie “The Martian”. I rarely like movies but this one really lived up to its billing. Go see it if you can. Surprisingly, the old folks made it to midnight on New Years Eve, despite killing a bottle of champaign. I think we kept the dogs awake past their bedtimes, too.

On January 4, 2016 (yikes!) we headed out to Benson to try to get a site in our favorite park for the next two months. Saguaro SKP Co-op doesn’t take reservations, so we’d been a little anxious about whether there would be space available. We didn’t really have a Plan B if there wasn’t any. It turned out to be no trouble at all, and we soon settled into site 288.

View from the coach

Hundreds of thousands of people move to sunny, warm Arizona in the winter, to escape the bitter cold and freezing snow of more northern climes. Three days after we moved in, we woke up to… bitter cold and freezing snow. Ok, it was only 4 inches, but this is the DESERT, it is supposed to be WARM. Not this year. Daytime temps rarely hit 65° and hover right around 30° at night. As I write this on February 1^st, we just had a little hail, the wind is howling, and I just disconnected the hoses because it is supposed to get down close to 20° tonight. El Niǹo certainly is making itself felt.

A desert princess and her court

Weather aside, the Saguaro Co-op is every bit as nice as we remembered it to be. Happy hour every evening, dinner at the clubhouse on Monday nights (chili relleno tonight), flexercise on MWF mornings and beading MWF afternoon keep us both busy. We danced to a pretty decent rock ‘n roll band on Saturday night and movie night last week featured The Martian. I’ve got a full wood shop and a pretty well equipped metal shop to play in, too. We are all taking advantage of the extensive series of trails and washes to hike every day. We also have decent cable TV and they are installing what sounds like a state-of-the-art free WIFI system that may be running before we pull out. It seems like I’m raving about this place, but it really is pretty special.

We are really looking forward to another visit with Ed and Christine Woznicki next week. Kayeanne is headed to Tucson in the morning for the Gem and Mineral show to buy yet more beads. I’ve got a visit scheduled with a welder on Wednesday to finish an upgrade to the tow dolly. Who knew retirement was so busy?

More soon,

Bob

#19 - Coveys Great Adventure - December 2015 - Simi Valley and Aguanga, California

December, 2015

As faithful readers may recall we spent last December parked in Perris, California. This year has been a little more hectic; we’ve moved four times.

We pulled out of St. George on November 30^th to go to Simi Valley to catch up with our many friends in SoCal. To avoid arriving n the LA area during rush hour we stopped that night at Shady Lane RV Camp near Barstow. We had called ahead to be sure that they could accommodate our coach. I’m glad we did, because the first thing we saw when we pulled in was a sign saying that the maximum length allowed was 35’, but hey had one site that we could squeeze into with a little creative piloting.

Shady Lane is an older park in a fairly sketchy area that could really use a facelift. It’s far enough from I15 to be quiet at night, a nice change from the park in St. George. Everything worked, the manager was friendly and competent, but the roads and the parking areas are dirt and have not seen any gravel in years. Don’t go there if it is raining, the place will be a sea of mud. All-in-all, a good place to stop for the night, but we wouldn’t stay any longer.

We pulled out fairly early and made great time getting to Simi. I really don’t like driving the Cajon Pass and the 210, so we turned off of I15 in Victorville and cut across to CA14 in Palmdale via CA18 and 138. It’s a short, easy drive from there on CA14 to connect with the 118 to Simi Valley. We pulled into Tapo Canyon County Park, got settled into site 11, and headed right over to Judy Powell’s house in Thousand Oaks, the first of several visits with good friends. The dogs were really disappointed not to be invited along.

The next ten days passed very quickly. We drove over 1,000 miles and never got beyond Pasadena or Ventura. One day we made four round trips to Thousand Oaks. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken”, certainly rang true. We danced at the American Legion hall in Woodland Hills, enjoyed a slide show about Japan in Pasadena, ate Nepalese food in Ventura, Italian food in Simi, and Chinese, fabulous beef and sushi in TO. I think I gained 10 pounds, but we had a really great time.

On the 10^th we headed to Temecula, actually Aguanga, to Jojoba Hills RV Resort, another of the Escapees Coop parks. On the way, we stopped in San Pedro (Peedro, not Paydro) to see Mary Lucik, our neighbor and close friend. We had lunch down at the harbor at Utro’s, one of the real locals’ places that make San Pedro such an interesting place to live.

It has been about 15 years since we left San Pedro and the transformation that has taken place is striking. West Channel and Watchorn Basin have been completely gentrified. All of the commercial docks, the Navy fueling terminal and the “cannery row” marinas like Holiday Harbor where we kept our boats have been replaced by shiny new county run slips and charmless buildings. I’m sure the power now works and the docks don’t sink occasionally, but I’d rather see the character and weathered friendliness of the old facilities. I wonder where all the characters and their very colorful and eclectic vessels ended up? I do miss that place.

A small part of the Jojoba Hills Resort

Jojoba Hills RV Resort is a very impressive place. It’s located on 140 acres in Aguanga, about 12 miles east of Temecula, CA. Like Saguaro in AZ, Pair-a-Dice in NV and Evergreen in WA, Jojoba is an SKP coop park. Unlike the others, it has a heated pool, two spas, an air rifle range, four pickle ball courts, two dog parks and over 400 planned activities a month. Everyone can find something to do, or they are welcome to start their own activity. The night we arrived we went dancing to a live band in the meeting hall. I’ll bet there were close to 300 people there.  

Everyone volunteers

Jojoba Hills takes the cooperative park concept about as far as it can go. Everyone volunteers to do something. Even major projects like storm drain cleaning and repair, utilities maintenance, propane delivery, and landscaping and building maintenance are handled by the members. Jojoba owns tractors, backhoes, chippers and all the other gear needed to handle everything themselves short of paving the streets. The skill set among the residents includes pilots, engineers, bankers, lawyers, farmers, mechanics, welders, teachers and about anything else you can think of, so they handle virtually everything themselves.

Speaking of paving, we arrived at Jojoba to find the gate closed and paving trucks and equipment everywhere. One of the contractors directing traffic routed us to an alternative

Pool (86 degrees year 'round) with a view

entrance, carefully giving us directions that lead right into a dead end. I suspected that we were in trouble when I noticed the slightly bemused expressions on the folks we passed by. Finally one of them flagged us down just as we arrived at the road block where the new pavement was being rolled out. That job was being “supervised” by 30 or 40 folks, so we had an instant audience. We felt a little like the circus arriving in town. We couldn’t drive on the fresh road and we can’t back up with the car and dolly attached, so while two people  got on the phone to the office to see what to do with us, Kayeanne and I made short work of unloading the car and switching the dolly from the coach to it. We were then able to back the coach up the road a ways to a spot to get turned around. I think we disappointed a few folks by how quickly and easily we extracted ourselves.

Sites average 50x70'

We were lucky to arrive just in time to get an unoccupied leased site in the main park. After walking around for an hour and meeting so many friendly people we decided to cancel our reservation in Perris for Christmas week and stay through the holidays in Jojoba Hills. We had a great time, and are considering getting on the waiting list for a site.

Kayeanne left the dogs and me on our own for a couple of days and headed up to Long Beach to go cocktail cruising in the harbor with Judy Powell and friends, and then to spend the night with Mary Lucik in San Pedro. I know she had a good time, and so did we. Lucy got to sleep on the coach all night, a rare treat

Zack and Ed focused on hitting target 500 yards away

Aguanga is “only” 70 miles or so from San Juan Capistrano where Christine and Ed Woznicki live. Ed discovered a pretty unique shooting range near Lake Ellsinore, about half way between us and we spent a couple of afternoons turning vast quantities of ammo into noise and empty brass.  We even managed to hit a few things, too. On the second visit his son Zackary joined us. I hadn’t seen Zack in almost a year, so that was an added treat. One day Ed brought his industrial strength cable crimping tools to the coach and helped me replace the main power cable to the house battery bank that had become badly corroded. We spent Christmas Eve at their lovely home and ended the evening sitting in front of the fireplace after a terrific dinner. Really, really great time. I hope we can hook up in Arizona in February before we head east in March.

Paul and Brenda hosted the Xmas day festivities at their place in Hemet. Lucy and

Christmas at Paul and Brenda's house

Schroeder got to go, too. They were very happy. P & B have three good sized dogs, so a couple more just blended in. Liesa and Luis met us there, and Ed Wiklund, Kayeanne’s third nephew also arrived. Paul cooked a perfectly done beef roast and everyone contributed delicious side dishes. By popular request, I made popovers for breakfast the next day.

Ripley's holiday trimmings

On the 28^th we packed up and pulled out, bound for Yuma to return to Los Algodones, Mexico for our annual dental work. I’ll pick it up there next month.

Bob

#18 - Coveys Great Adventure – November 2015: Heading South

November 30, 2015: Heading South

Sunday morning, November 1, came with mixed feelings. While we were certainly ready to hit the road after spending October in one place, we were sad to leave a place we love and people we really like. I hope we see the same folks next year. We signed up again for October 2016 before we turned in our keys and books and pulled out. 

As I mentioned in the last report, we have catching up on coach maintenance and repairs, starting with the transmission fluid replacement in Salt Lake City, then new tires and rebuilding the Aquahot heating system in Tillamook. Our first stop on the way south was Eugene, OR, for our appointment at Kaiser Brake and Alignment. Kaiser specializes in heavy truck and RV chassis work. We wanted to get the front end aligned to match the new tires and get the engine coolant (14 gallons!) changed, too. All went well until the road test, when they didn’t like something about the brakes. Ripley is our first coach, so I don’t have any basis to judge what does and does not “feel” right. Back at the shop it wasn’t good news. The front disk brakes had been incorrectly serviced with the wrong grease, and the calipers were frozen on the pivot pins. The calipers had to be removed, cleaned and flushed, and new pads installed. Luckily the disks were still good. The rear drive axle brakes hadn’t been serviced properly either, and needed new drums and new shoes. The only good news was that the tag axle brakes “just” needed disassembly, cleaning, lubrication and adjustment. What we thought would be several hundred dollars turned into almost $3,000. As painful as that was, we should be able to count on at least 5 years before having to repeat any of these items. We are now completely caught up on all maintenance and are confidently looking forward to heading east next spring.

We stayed at Armitage Park campground in Coburg, just north of Eugene. It is another of the really nice Lane County parks like Richardson Lake, where we stayed in September. Armitage is a very attractive, spacious park laid out along the banks of the McKenzie River. It is much smaller than Richardson Lake, but the camp sites are huge. We stayed in site #8, a pull through that was so long that we didn’t have to unhook the car dolly going in, and still had room to park the car in front of the coach when we did unload it. Armitage even has cable tv at each site, unheard of at publicly owned parks. We’d go back to Armitage in a shot.

We stopped in Grants Pass, OR, for a couple of days last year and had differing opinions of the area, so we decided to visit again. Beaver Creek RV Park turned out to be a quiet, comfortable, friendly place with all the amenities that we needed. It’s located just north of Grants Pass in the small town of Merlin, not far from the Rogue River and the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest. The park is home to a large flock of Canadian geese that really got Schroeder’s attention!

It is also about 6 miles from Wilderness Images, a really interesting place that does great work rehabilitating wild birds and animals. If the patients can’t be successfully released back to the wild, they are provided lifelong homes at the refuge. Eagles, hawks, vultures, bears, mountain lions, and many other birds and creatures live out their lives in relative comfort and security in return for being gawked at several times a day. Many of them do seem to enjoy being the center of attention, though.

Over 1 million beads on this bear

Grants Pass is also home to Fire Mountain Gems, one of the largest suppliers of beads and beading related products in the world. They carry over 280,000 items, a dazzling array of shapes, colors and sizes sourced from every corner of the world. When Kayeanne discovered that tours are given there was no question of what we were going to do one afternoon. The whole operation seemed very well managed. I was very interested to hear that they did all of their own web design, hosting and creative in house. They clearly have a very capable staff. The founders still own and run it, too. Pretty impressive. 

We had heard many good things about Ashland, OR. Among other things, it is the home of the longest running Shakepeare festival in the world. It turned out to be just as nice as promised, although the festival was closed for the season. We spent three nights at the Point Campground in Emigrant Lake County Park.

Although the lake was closer to pond size due to the drought, the setting was really peaceful and quite beautiful. We just about had the whole place to ourselves, too. Located three or four miles from downtown Ashland, it was about perfect. Ashland has a large, active Unity church and Kayeanne enjoyed attending on Sunday.

With more than two weeks before we needed to be in St. George to see Liesa and Luis for Thanksgiving, we spent a lot of time pouring over maps, checking the weather forecasts and flogging the internet for campground information. We really wanted to go east across Oregon, through Klamath Falls and then head south on US 395 down eastern California to Reno, but the weather already looked too cold with many places expecting snow (!!). We avoid snow or worse, freezing rain and sleet at all costs, so that route was put aside for warmer weather. We had already been up and down the coast a couple of times, and even the best coastal route added about 400 miles to the trip. We reluctantly focused on the most direct route, straight down I5. Neither of us like I5 very much. It is fairly rough and pretty boring once you get south of Redding, but it is the shortest way to St. George. Once we resigned ourselves to it, we decided to make the best of it and revisit one of our favorite areas, Grass Valley and Nevada City, CA (see blog #5).

About the only place to stay in that area is the Nevada County Fairgrounds RV Park. As I said the last time we stayed here, the setting is beautiful but the RV park should be an embarrassment to the area residents and the fairgrounds trustees. I don’t think it has seen any upkeep in years. The sites are gravel and very unlevel, the roads are dirt and any rain turns the place into a quagmire. The restrooms and showers look like something out of a prison camp film. And then they charge $10 a day for a picnic table! Whoever is in charge of the place should be fired. 

That said, we really enjoyed revisiting Grass Valley and Nevada City. Last year, Ed and Christine Woznicki camped with us and we toured several interesting places related to the area’s mining history. The private tour that we got of the North Star Mine Power House Museum was especially memorable for me. This year we kicked back and spent a lot of time just walking around the fairgrounds and through both towns.

Try as we might, we just couldn’t find an interesting place to stay between Nevada City and St. George. Every place we looked at was either already getting snow, too cold, way off track or sounded crumby when we looked it up on the web. Finally, in some desperation, we looked at…..Bakersfield. We were surprised to discover that Bakersfield is becoming a snowbird destination. Several recently built parks have gotten strong reviews and offered reasonable prices. With some trepidation, we made a choice and headed down the road to A Country RV Park, on Rt 58 just east of the city. The park turned out to be quite nice, immaculately maintained, with large paved sites and all the amenities. It was too cold to use the pool, but the nice showers and the laundry got a workout. About the only drawback was noise: this park is located next to the freeway and across the highway from a very active train line.

Bakersfield turned out to be better than we feared; it even has a Trader Joe’s. I’m not a big movie fan, but I did want to see The Martian, so one evening off we went. It was a great movie, keeping me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It actually wasn’t too implausible, either.

We took a day trip to Kernville, about 40 miles east of Bakersfield. Kernville is located on the Kern River which feeds Lake Isabella (more like Isabella Pond now) and is very popular during warmer weather for river rafting, fishing and camping. We about had the town to ourselves at this time of year. We can heartily recommend Cheryl’s Café, where we had excellent cheeseburger soup, really good burgers and great fries. The dogs were thrilled with the leftovers.

We returned to Bakersfield on a couple of my favorite motorcycle roads, through Bodfish, Havilah and Walker Basin. It was great to see that country again; the curves never seem to end and the cows still hang out on the road. I hope that area doesn’t get “discovered” anytime soon. It really is pretty special.

After a week(!) in Bakersfield it was time to head for St. George. It is roughly 400 miles, usually more than I like to drive in one day. The plan was to cut the trip in half by spending a night at the Escapees Pair-A-Dice RV Park in Pahrump, NV. We got a reasonably early start and arrived at the turnoff to Pahrump much sooner than expected, so we decided to push right through to St. George. The coach is much easier to drive with the new tires, so I wasn’t too tired when we arrived.

We usually stay at Willow Wind, a nice park in Hurricane, about 15 miles from St. George, but the drive back and forth to Liesa’s house two or three times a day got pretty old when we were there in August. This trip we decided to stay in town despite the higher cost. Temple View RV Resort is only a mile or so from downtown St. George and less than 10 minutes from Liesa’s place. It is a larger park than we usually stay in, with a few hundred spaces. The majority of the sites have permanent residents in park model (non mobile) RVs, but still had almost one hundred sites for transients. The esthetics could be better and it needs a real dog park, but overall it fit the bill giving us easy access to Liesa and Luis (L & L). Good cable tv and usable wifi went a long way to making us happy, too.

L & L did a great job on their first Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey was done just right and all the supporting dishes were very good, too. Kudos to both of them. Liesa got her Utah drivers license a couple of weeks ago, so we went car shopping and found a nice Toyota Rav4 for her. Our close friends Ted and Judy Anderson drove from California to see the coach, visit Liesa’s apartment and spend the evening catching up. They are Liesa’s godparents and hadn’t seen her for over three years, so there was a lot to talk about. All in all, the week passed quickly and we really had a good time. 

Just over a week after we arrived, it was time to move on. We headed to Simi Valley on November 30, to spend a week visiting friends. We will be in the Temecula-Hemet area through Christmas, and then on to Yuma for the New Year.

More soon,

Bob

#17 Coveys Great Adventure - October 2015 – Nehalem Bay

October 2015 - Nehalem Bay

It’s October, so we are back at Nehalem Bay State Park to camp host again. We have been looking forward to this all year because we had such a great time last Fall. When we finished our stint last year, all of the other hosts said that they would be back for the 2015 Fall season, but that didn’t pan out. On the way north to Port Townsend last month we stopped at Champoeg State Park near Newburg, OR to get the annual service done on the coach. Walking around the campground we ran into Dave and Robyn Biden, who were hosts at Nehalem last year. It was certainly good to see them again, but we were disappointed to learn that they had decided to cancel their plans to host in October. After hearing them describe the management issues that they encountered with the park staff when they hosted this Spring, we were a little apprehensive about what we were going to find when we arrived on the first.

Site A2 - Home, sweet home

When we pulled into the Park on October 1, it seemed like our concerns were justified. We were told that we couldn’t use site A2 that we had last year, a site specifically designed for camp host use. Instead, we were told to use a regular camp site, A60, that isn’t really intended for a coach like ours. It lacked many of the features that made A2 so usable, especially the yards of gravel that I had put in last year to weather-proof it.

We quietly told the staff that A60 wasn’t suitable for us. An afternoon of subdued negotiation ensued. Finally, late in the afternoon common sense prevailed and we moved into A2 with the understanding that we might have to move out if necessary. It didn’t take us long to get settled for the month. A nice bonus was that our predecessors had accumulated a large pile of firewood, ensuring lots of campfires.

The next morning we took up where we left off 11 months ago: yurts to clean, firepits to clean and campers to help. The weather was simply gorgeous, the salmon run was finally beginning, so Oregonians began to show up in droves. Management had made two changes since last year. First, they had decided to close B and C campsite loops, about a third of the park, on October 1 for planned electrical and water systems upgrades. At the same time, they left all of the remaining sites on the reservation system. That meant that as of October 1, there were no walk-in or first come, first served sites. Well, pandemonium ensued. Droves of campers started to arrive, many without reservations. They had been coming to the park for years and had never needed a reservation, so why now, they asked loudly??  The ranger station closes at noon in the off season, so these folks ended up at our kiosk looking for a site for the weekend. But, we had no way of knowing whether a site was reserved beyond that night. We have no computer access to the reservation system. It was nuts.

Construction belatedly begins on B and C loops

Luckily, October 1 was a Thursday, and park staff put their heads together Friday morning and smartly reopened B and C loops for campers arriving without reservations. Just in time, too, because by 10 pm that evening, we had maybe six unoccupied campsites in the entire park. We would have had to turn away over 80 campers had the rangers not realized the problem they had created. It turned out that B and C loop construction didn’t actually start until October 19, and we have been able to stay in A2 for the whole month.

Real life recreation of Coast Guard lifeboat
in the Columbia River bar

Ed and Christine Woznicki were supposedto join us here last year but had mechanical issues with their coach that killed that plan. No problems this year, so we had the pleasure of their company for 10 days early in month. Ed and I did some sorely needed work on our coach while Christine and Kayeanne checked out several shops in Manzanita, Wheeler and Nehalem. We also went to Astoria, and revisited the Columbia River Maritime Museum, one of my favorite museums.  

One day we discovered El Trio Loco, a great Mexican restaurant in Manzanita that serves really good traditional food, not Tex-Mex. I liked it much better than the other Mexican restaurant, the Left Coast Siesta. We also got reacquainted with the Manzanita Market and Deli, too, one of our favorite places in town. Their deli section prepares several hot dishes every day that are always good. The small size feeds two hungry people, I think the large would serve a family. There is also a video store behind the market that is owned by a real film buff. He sees every movie and write his own reviews.

Ed and Christine closed the sale of their house in Boulder Creek while they were here and offered to treat us to dinner to celebrate. I was thinking along the lines of fish and chips in Garibaldi, but they had other ideas. We headed to Cannon Beach to a place Ed found called The Bistro. I can’t remember having a better meal. Seriously, if you are anywhere near Cannon Beach, make plans to eat dinner at The Bistro. I had grilled lingcod over sautéed soba noodles in a curry sauce. I can’t describe how delicious that was. And the wine was outstanding, too. Thanks you, folks!

No sooner had Ed and Christine left than Karen Moore and Patty Nash arrived. Kayeanne moved out for a couple of days to visit with them in Manzanita. From all indications, a good time was had by all. The four of us went to the Fish Peddler in the Pacific Oyster plant on the wharf in Bay City for their signature clam chowder, oysters on the half shell and halibut fish and chips. It was Seniors Tuesday, to boot, and we got 20% off everything, too! Every once in a while, old age pays off.

The world's largest dog park

As much as we look forward to coming back to Nehalem, I think the dogs get even more excited. As soon as we turned into the park they perked up and started looking around. To them this place means long walks in the woods, squirrels to chase, deer they wish they could chase and, most especially, the beach. Nehalem Beach is the biggest dog park they’ve ever seen, over 5 miles of sand and no leashes required. Heaven, particularly for Schroeder who is rarely off leash. As soon as his leash unsnaps he is off at full speed for the tide line.  At least every other day we spent 30 minutes to an hour just letting them run after the gulls, explore mounds of kelp and piles of driftwood. It is a real treat for us to see them so happy.

Schroeder stalks the elusive seagull

This year the weather hasn’t been quite as warm and dry as last year, and the salmon run appears to be shorter, too. This month started with a bang, but got pretty quiet the second half. Milton and Lynette Hansen who were here with us last year gave us a scare when he had to rush her to the hospital one night. A couple of stents later (!) all is well and Lynette is cleaning yurts again. Milt is an avid fisherman and caught several large salmon. Lynette’s sudden trip to Portland disrupted the plan for him to teach me to fish; maybe next year as we are both planning to return. The fillets he shared with us were outstanding. Fish doesn’t get any fresher than that.

We pull out on Sunday, headed south to Eugene to complete the last of the maintenance items before our trip to the east coast next spring. We plan to meander across southern Oregon, eastern California and Nevada for a couple of weeks on the way to Liesa’s place in St. George for Thanksgiving. We will return to the county park in Simi the first week of December to visit our friends in the Thousand Oaks area.

More soon,

Bob