#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

#16 Coveys Adventures – September 2015 – Puget Sound and the Oregon coast

 September 2015

Puget Sound and returning to the Oregon coast

When I retired a couple of years ago, we knew we wanted to move out of southern California, but had no idea where we wanted to live. Buying Ripley and setting off to explore as many places as we could was our answer to that question.

Washington, especially the area around Puget Sound, has been at the top of our list of places where we might live since our first trip to the San Juan Islands in 1985. We have lost track of the number of subsequent visits to the Islands and Seattle, and to Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. This year we decided to return to Port Townsend, a place that we passed through on the way to Victoria thirty years ago. When we checked into the  RV park we discovered an added bonus: the annual Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show would coincide with our visit. Its been over 25 years since I built boats, and I was really looking forward to going.

Evergreen Coho SKP Park in Chimacum, Washington, about 10 miles south of Port Townsend is another of the Escapees co-op RV parks. It has about 160 leased spaces and roughly 30 more for transients. We stayed almost two busy weeks in site 13. The dogs really enjoyed the large dog park and immediately made several new friends.

As usual, we spent a lot of time in the car, exploring the area. We have been through Port Angeles several times, but just to take the ferry to or from Victoria, BC. We hadn’t spent much time just looking around, so one day we set out to do just that. Port Angeles is still a working port focused on shipping timber and timber products to Asian markets. The waterfront is predominantly commercial operations, with a couple of small marinas and a few restaurants tucked into the corners. Logging trucks are constantly rumbling through town. Downtown has a number of interesting shops and small eateries, but it isn’t a destination that most people would seek out.

While in Port Angeles, we decided to revisit Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park. Hurricane Ridge is a very scenic 20 mile drive straight up hill from the center of Port Angeles. The road takes you from sea level to over 5,000’ through the only temperate rain forest in North America. On a clear day, it is some of the most spectacular scenery we’ve ever seen. Even on a cloudy day, it is well worth the time.

One of hundreds of lovingly built wooden boats at the show

Among aficionados, the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show is right at the top of the list. There are several wooden boat building schools and boat yards dedicated to building and preserving wooden boats around Puget Sound that keep interest in the craft alive, and keep large numbers of classic boats afloat. Every year, thousands of enthusiasts flock to Port Townsend to see hundreds of boats and talk to owners and builders. I had a great time. I was especially interested in two work boats, a 60’ fishing trawler and a 90’ tug that have been converted to cruising yachts. The tug had even been repowered with a vintage Atlas diesel engine, a treat to see in its own right. I also picked up information on a couple of small boat kits; maybe I’ll get back to that someday.

Larry Girardi treated us to a great lunch in Poulsbo

It is always a treat to get together with people who live in the areas we travel to. We had the pleasure of meeting Dixie, another of Midge Paterson’s sisters, for dinner at the Alchemy Bistro, a great restaurant in Port Townsend. We also enjoyed seeing her house near the center of town that she has restored and transformed into a bright, sunny home with a great yard.

Later that week we met Larry Girardi, an old friend from my business days at his home in Poulsbo. Luckily the resident black bear wasn’t around so we could enjoy the yard and pond before going to Poulsbo marina for lunch overlooking the harbor. Great food, a nice wine and good friends made for a very pleasant day.

In May we went back to Carlsbad, CA, for Ted Anderson’s 65^th birthday; in August it was St. George, UT, for Liesa’s 25^th. One of the reasons we came to Chimacum was so that Kayeanne could go to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to help Michelle Shober celebrate her 60^th birthday. From all reports it was a great party. The dogs and I had fun riding the ferries to and from Coupeville on Whidbey Island to take Kayeanne to Anacortes so that she could get the big ferry to Friday Harbor. I look forward to every opportunity to ride the Washington State Ferries.

After our busy time in Chimacum it was time to head south to the Oregon coast. We had stayed at Fort Stevens State Park in Hammond, OR, near Astoria for a couple of nights last year. We looked forward to returning to see some of the sights that we missed, especially the fort museum, a local effort run by dedicated volunteers. We spent three night there on the way south this year. It turned out to be interesting, especially learning about I25, the Japanese submarine that shelled the fort and the surrounding area during WW ll. No damage or injuries resulted from the only successful attack on the US mainland during the war, but it had an impact out of all proportion at the time.

We had a great site, number I271, tucked way back in the trees with plenty of room between us and the neighbors. It had nice fire pit that we took advantage of on the one dry evening. Hammond doesn’t have much to offer, but it does have a great off-leash dog park that Schroeder and Lucy were really happy to visit.

Home sweet home at Tillamook Bay City RV Park

It was time for Kayeanne’s annual visit to the beach house on Nedonna Beach with the ladies from San Juan Island, so the dogs and I needed a place nearby to hole up. It was also time to put new tires on the coach, so Tillamook had the services we needed and the location we wanted. The Tillamook Bay City RV Park, about 4 miles from town and 15 miles from the beach house, delivered adequately sized spaces, 50 amp power, cable TV and decent WIFI at a reasonable cost. We were all set for the next couple of weeks.

On the Kilchis trail to the bay

An unexpected bonus was the Kilchis Point Nature Preserve, just across US 101 from the RV park. The Preserve has over 2 miles of trails in two loops that meander through dense foliage to  the shore of Tillamook Bay. Maybe the best part is that dogs don’t have to be on leash in the Preserve. We visited Kilchis a couple of times everyday, and all of us enjoyed it.

I like Tillamook; it has enough of everything to meet most needs, lots of things to do and see, and reasonable access to Portland if you really need something like sushi or a good bookstore. With time on our hands, the dogs and I toured the area. We hit the coast south of town, the seaside towns of Netarts and Oceanside, and the forests, meadows, farms and vineyards to the east. 

The hanger is so large it has its own micro-climate

We also visited a couple of the local highlights. The Tillamook Air Museum is housed in a W ll blimp hanger, maybe the largest standing wooden structure in the world. Blimps were used very effectively throughout the war for anti-submarine patrols off all three US coasts. The Tillamook Naval Air Station became operational in 1943. The hanger building itself was more interesting than the exhibits. It is over 1000 feet long and 175 feet high, the sheer scale of it made it impossible to photograph with my small camera, so I cribbed this one from the web. 

Tillamook's famous cheese factory, a must-see spot

Tillamook State Forest virtually surrounds the town, providing many campgrounds, OHV trails and hiking trails. Combine all that with the bay and ocean and I’m surprised that it hasn’t become more popular.

Tillamook Bay City RV Park is the 51^st campground that we have stayed in this year, and the 65^th since this odyssey began. Next week we return to Nehalem Bay State Park to camp host for the month of October, as we did last year. We have a sense of closure and accomplishment, and a growing feeling of confidence. 

We are especially looking forward to upcoming visits with old friends next month.  

More soon.

Bob

#15 Coveys Great Adventure - August 2015 - Utah, Idaho, Oregon

Hurricane, Utah, at the end of July was HOT. Fortunately, we have three air conditioning units on the coach and ran them all day and well after dark. The air temp didn’t drop below 80° until after midnight.

Heat aside, it was good to spend time with Liesa, and to sit in one place for a whole week to relax and to knock off a few maintenance projects. I replaced the ignition switch to try to fix another no-start problem, replaced the air conditioning filters (very dirty!), cleaned the air conditioning roof units, etc.

It wasn’t all work, though. We took a day to go to Kanab, the self-proclaimed western movie capital of the world. Since the 1930’s, over 80 films and several hundred TV shows have been filmed in-and-around Kanab. The whole town became extras in those epochs, or developed businesses to provide catering services, horses, props, drivers, motels, sets and all the other stuff that film productions need. John Wayne was in Kanab so often that he built the pool for the main motel in the late 1940’s.

Downtown Kanab. Not much going on today....

Kayeanne and I had visited Kanab several years ago during their semi annual western days celebration, and had promised Liesa that this would be an exciting, interesting day. Well, Kanab without the special event is really quiet, as in dead quiet. We walked the town, browsed a couple of shops and had an expensive lunch. Not what we had planned on, I’m afraid.

While we were there, we tried to visit the Best Friends Animal Society , but the highway was closed for a police action. After sitting in line quite awhile with no indication of how long we’d have to wait, we gave up and went back to St. George. We’ll try again when we are at Liesa’s for Thanksgiving.

View from our site at Deer Creek

We figured that we had about “done” Utah at that point, so we headed straight north to see Park City, the last place on our “go-see” list in this state. Deer Creek State Park in Wallsburg proved to be a really nice place to stay. Our site had a panoramic view of Deer Creek Reservoir and the park has lots of walking areas for us and the dogs. On the downside, though, this is the first state park we have seen that had dirty restrooms and showers. I’m glad we didn’t need them. I’m not sure what caused that, but it is quite  unusual in our experience with state park campgrounds.

Kayeanne finds a friend

Kayeanne and I had been to Park City on a Control Data (remember CDC?) boondoggle in 1980. I’m not sure that the main street was paved then, but I am sure that there was only one main street. Needless to say, we were not prepared for the transformation initiated by the 2002 Winter Olympics. Today, Park City is as toned and buffed as Newport Beach, and just about as expensive. On the way into town we passed two new Porsches and a Ferrari.

The doorman at Artworks Gallery

Downtown Park City has restaurants galore, wall-to-wall bars and any number of shops happy to sell you anything from the latest mountain technical gear to designer chaps. We did discover one thoroughly original store and spent a pleasant time talking with the owner and browsing a very eclectic collection of American artist-made glass and metal sculpture, pottery, jewelry and other unique “stuff”. It’s called the Artworks Gallery, and we will certainly visit again if we have the chance. And, the club sandwich at the Main Street Deli may be the best I’ve ever had. It certainly was the biggest. They make their own bread, which was delicious on its own.

Friday morning we packed up and headed north to Idaho. About 15 miles down the road, the coach suddenly shifted into neutral, clearly not a good thing. Five miles later it did it again, so we pulled over and started calling places for advice. Smith Power in Salt Lake City is the Allison transmission factory service center for Utah. They strongly recommended towing the coach to them “to minimize any further damage.” With visions of thousand dollar bills flying out of our bank account, we contacted CoachNet who called Stauffer’s Towing and a couple of hours later the biggest wrecker in the state showed up.

What you never want to see

Smith Power works on lots of RVs, they even have power hookups in their parking lot just for coaches waiting for service. Smith Power is a very large operation, working 24 hours a day, six days a week. Despite a heavy workload, they put someone right on our problem as soon as we arrived, hoping it was a simple fix. No joy. We resigned ourselves to staying the weekend in the parking lot.

Ted, the Allison expert (he really is) unexpectedly came into work on Saturday and spent most of the day working on Ripley. Despite the factory diagnostic system and crawling through every compartment looking for clues, he couldn’t find a “smoking gun”, a definitive cause for the problem. It was clearly electronic, though, so no damage occurred inside the transmission itself, a big relief. Ted did discover that the transmission hadn’t been serviced since the coach was built 14 years ago, so we attended to that, and updated its firmware. Fingers crossed, we haven’t had any recurrence of the problem as I write this three weeks later.

A little nervous about not finding a hard cause, we pulled out Monday afternoon headed to Downata Hot Springs and RV Park in Downey, Idaho, a place that Kayeanne somehow picked off the interweb. The RV park section wasn’t any great shakes, but the hot springs were great. Natural hot water keeps the water in the pools at 104°, which is very toasty, indeed. Lucy and Schroeder also had a great time sniffing the horses in the pastures that surrounded the park. Since nothing had broken on the coach, the next day we headed west to Sun Valley.

Our kind of campsite

We took a chance without a reservation and lucked into the only campsite at Boundary NFS campground that we could fit into. Boundary is just 4 miles north of downtown Sun Valley. The site itself was just what we like, spacious, private and the view was terrific. After what we spent at Smith Power, the $5 a night camping fee was certainly welcome. Jim and Kathy Kirby have been camp hosts at Boundary for 16 years, so there is very little they don’t know of the area.

Downtown Sun Valley park

We both liked Sun Valley. While there is clearly a lot of money in the area (Oprah has a place nearby), we didn’t get the sense of smug entitlement that we felt in Park City. It is hard to say where the town of Ketchum stops and Park City begins, but it feels like many people really live here year round, making it a real community. Between the two towns, most services are available, too. Atkinson’s market is work a visit even if you don’t need groceries.

The day after we arrived at Boundary, a single guy on a motorcycle pulled in and set up a small tent in the next camp site. The next day we met Gregoice Forestier, a French air force fighter pilot from Paris who is spending a month touring the West on a rented Harley. We

Greg and scribe 

invited him to dinner that night and had a great time learning about his life and travels. We hope we can connect with him again someday. Who knows, France is on our bucket list and it’s a small world. He’ll certainly be back from his posting to Mali by the time we get to Paris.

After three days we’d seen about all we needed to see in Sun Valley so we headed to Boise. On the way, we stopped off in Twin Falls to get the chassis air conditioning checked. As we’d headed west, the temperature had been climbing and the dash air conditioning hadn’t been keeping up. Twin Falls Truck Service ran a battery of tests and recharged the system, which made it a little better. They also discovered that the engine air filter hadn’t been changed in many years, if ever, and attended to that, too. That done, we continued to Boise.

Dog park, pool and spa at Hi Valley

We decide to splurge a little and booked into Hi Valley RV Resort in Eagle, ID, a suburb just north of Boise. Hi Valley is one of several G7 Resorts parks in Idaho, and is a first rate operation. Immaculate grounds and facilities compliment a pool, a spa, and a great dog park, all overseen by a terrific staff.

The farm in Emmett. Note smile.

Our main reason to come to Boise was to visit Emmett, Idaho, where Kayeanne’s grand parents had a small dairy farm that she visited every summer until she was in her late teens. It took visits to the and County Assessor and Clerk offices to dig into old records to locate the address, but we finally found it, just across the road from the town airfield and golf course. She was pleased to see the place again, and it brought back many pleasant memories for her.

In Grangeville: an original steam tractor

Several years ago I had been through Idaho on a couple of motorcycle trips. For some reason, I had been really impressed with Grangeville, a town a couple of hundred miles north of Boise. Nothing would do, but we had to go see if I was right. Sadly, I couldn’t see why I thought that Grangeville was particularly unique. The area was ok, but the town wasn’t very appealing. It looked like any one of hundreds of other towns that we have passed through since we set out. Disappointing, but good to find out.

Lake Cascade from Crown Point campground

Two days later we headed south to Lake Cascade State Park, about 30 miles south of McCall. We managed to shoehorn our way into a space at Crown Point campground that was never intended for coaches our size, but it had a great view of the lake. We had a fine time there walking along the lakeshore with the dogs, and exploring the whole perimeter of the very pretty lake. 

The beach in McCall

We also took a day to visit McCall, also on water, Payette Lake. McCall isn’t very big, we saw the whole town in less than two hours of casual strolling. Payette Lake is even prettier than Lake Cascade.

Crystal Crane in sore
 need of maintenance

The ladies liked the hot springs

Really unlikely setting for a hot spring

After four nights at Crown Point, we needed to head west to get to Coburg, just north of Eugene, to try to have some work done on the coach at the Monaco service center. On the way, we stopped at Crystal Crane Hot Springs and RV Park just south of Burns, in central Oregon. This place was a dichotomy: a great hot spring that fed a small pond that was marvelous to soak in, but surrounded by an RV park that badly needed maintenance. We planned to stay two nights, but left after one. Given the location out in the middle of seeming nowhere, we were quite surprised to be able to pull in two TV stations on our antenna, and even better, both were PBS.

Since we left Crystal Crane early, we had a day to fill before our reservation in Eugene. A web search uncovered Prairie NFS Campground in the Deschutes National Forest a few miles west of La Pine. It proved to be a lovely campground along a stream that meandered through a small meadow. No water, power or sewer connections, but we’d love to go back for a longer stay. I did manage to put a couple more large scratches in the coach when I misjudged some tree branches. I’ll know where they are if we come back.

Richardson campground is one of several Lane County recreation facilities that surround Eugene. It is located on a large reservoir and includes a couple of marinas in addition to the campground. It was a treat for me to see so many sailboats here. It looked like sailboats out numbered the power boats by 10:1!

The camp sites are large and shaded, and the surrounding area has hundreds of acres of grass and woods that the dogs really enjoy. We’ve been catching up on chores and shopping, and washed the dogs. Monaco couldn’t fit us into their schedule, but we found a local RV repair shop to take a look at some issues we’ve been having with the slide outs. They squeezed us in on short notice and tried, but didn’t fix the problems. That seems to be the theme lately: we pay money but nothing actually gets fixed. That’s very aggravating, and expensive.

Today, the 30^th, we’ll head north to spend a couple of weeks near Port Townsend, Washington, and then return to the Oregon coast for six weeks.

We have been constantly reminded of the fires burning everywhere in the region that we recently  traveled through. For days on end the sky has been overcast with smoke, often reducing visibility to a couple of miles, and the smell of burning trees has been with us day and night for weeks. The fires caused us to change routes and plans a couple of times. We lost track of the number of fire crews we encountered along local roads clearing brush and preparing fire lines in anticipation of the flames jumping the next ridge if the wind shifted. 

Tent cities, supply bases and helicopter landing pads became common sights as we made our way through Idaho and on into Oregon. As travelers we found it sobering. I cannot imagine what it is like for the people living in those areas, wondering if that wind shift will send the fire racing toward their homes.

Luis Orozco is Liesa’s significant other. He is a wildland firefighter based at Jacobs Lake near the north rim of the Grand Canyon. He has already spent a couple of weeks fighting fires in northern California, and just arrived today in Missoula, Montana, to help defend those hard-pressed areas. Our best wishes are with him and his crew.

More soon,

Bob

#14 Coveys Great Adventure - July – Southern Utah: Moab, Torrey, Panguitch Lake, Kodachrome Basin

If you haven’t toured southern Utah, you have missed some of the most spectacular vistas in the whole country. I have been through the area three times on a motorcycle, but never really saw it, I was going too fast to focus on anything but the road. That way of traveling certainly has its own appeal, but that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say, the road alone was worth the trip. On this adventure we took the time to see as much as we could.

We had our first on-road “event” on I70 just after passing Vail. I looked in the mirror and saw clouds of smoke, never a good thing. We pulled over on the narrow shoulder and discovered that the left side (naturally) dolly tire had blown out and was literally shredded. A harrowing hour-plus later, we had the spare tire mounted, the car back on the dolly and were headed down the road again. Kayeanne did a great job directing traffic. I wish I had taken a picture of her gesturing to the truckers to give us a little room.

Monsoon season has arrived

We hadn’t planned to spend a week at Portal RV Resort in Moab. We intended to spend three night there and then move to one of the BLM campgrounds along the Colorado River, but the temperatures were so high when we arrived that we elected to stay at Portal to be able to run the AC units all day. Of course, two days later it started raining. It rained every day for the next 12 days, and the temperatures never exceeded 80 degrees. So much for the budget.

Arches National Monument

I liked Moab. The town is clearly focused on tourism, but it hasn’t sold out completely. It is big enough to have a real supermarket, one barber shop, two hardware stores, a few interesting shops and several reasonable places to eat. If you go, be sure to take in the free music on Wednesday night and the free magic shows Thursday thru Saturday nights. We saw a group called Sand Soup, four “mature” guys who really enjoyed playing together, and they were very good, too.

The dynamic duo

Moab is the hub for visiting three of the really spectacular sites in Utah: Arches National Monument, Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park. It is hard to imagine what several million years of wind, rain and freezing will do to rock until you see it for yourself. The many wonders that people have created over a few centuries simply pale when looking 2,000 feet down into the canyon of the Colorado river from Dead Horse Point or Canyon Lands. We spent a day at each of these sites and only skimmed the surfaces.

Canyonlands: roughly 2,000' down to the Colorado River

Dead Horse Point. What some people will
do to be in a picture: that's a sheer drop

It is a relatively short drive from Moab to Torrey and the road, Rt 24, passes right through Capital Reef National Monument. What a great way to arrive in town! I have stayed at the Chuck Wagon Motel and General Store in Torrey on three bike trips and enjoyed it every time. It is the only store in town, and it also has a great bakery and pool. This time we stayed a week in site 32 at Thousand Lakes RV Park, a couple of miles west of town. The sites were pretty close together, but aside from that we enjoyed staying there.

She liked Capital Reef

As noted, Capital Reef National Monument is just outside of town. Capital Reef doesn’t have the “wow” factor of the sites in Moab, but is much more accessible. We spent a couple of days just touring around, looking at the rocks and taking short hikes to see some of them up close. The historic town of Fruita is also worth a look.

A short segue for the riders and drivers in the audience: We took the short route from Moab to Torrey: north on US 191 back to I70 west, then south on Rt 24 through Hanksville. Rt 24 is scenic but fairly boring until you pass Hanksville. The section from Hanksville to Torrey through Capital Reef is visually terrific and a fun drive, too. The longer and much more interesting route from Moab is to take 191 south to Blanding, then Rt 95 west to meet Rt 24 in Hanksville. Rt 95 is an excellent road with lots of fast sweepers and elevation changes, and it has lots to see, too, including Natural Bridges National Monument, with its many spectacular stone arches. Torrey also is where Rt 12 starts, maybe one of the best roads I’ve ever ridden.

Double rainbow in Torrey. Some compensation
for all the rain

As usual, we spent a lot of time during our stay in Torrey exploring back roads, especially dirt roads. I am constantly impressed with how well our Toyota Sienna minivan handles these roads. Scoff if you will, but it has covered a few thousand miles of “unimproved roads” without any complaint. Near Torrey we found some NFS roads in the Dixie National Forest that took us way, way back into the tall timber on the back way to Boulder, UT via a very scenic route. Unfortunately, it started to rain and the road quickly got pretty slippery so we yielded to discretion and turned back. If we had all wheel drive we would have pressed on. The next day we discovered hundreds of miles of county roads crisscrossing a high plateau near Bicknell, UT, including one that would have eventually taken us all the way to Escalante. But another thunder storm moved in, and when a bolt of lightening went right by the car (yikes) we decided that we had better quit while we were ahead and turned back again.

We were really looking forward to spending the next two weeks with Christine and Ed Woznicki, but unfortunately they had to cancel due to a business emergency.

We had no reservation for one night between leaving Torrey and arriving at our next spot,

Ripley at Singletree NFS campground

Panguitch Lake NFS campground. A couple of months ago I had tried to get a reservation at Singletree Campground, one of few in that part of the Dixie National Forest that could handle rigs our size, but all the reservable sites were taken. We drove by Singletree when we were exploring the area from Torrey, and decided to drop in and look around. We discovered that a few large sites were not on the reservation system and were designated as “first come, first served”. A few days later we pulled out of Thousand Lakes arrived at Singletree early enough to get one of those sites, number 19. Singletree turned out to be one of our “A List” campgrounds. No hookups, but water is readily available and there is a dump station in the campground. The setting is just beautiful and as peaceful as you could hope for. We want to return for a longer stay.

As I mentioned, I have ridden Rt 12 on my motorcycle, and I wasn’t going to take our 27 ton rig down that road if there was a reasonable alternative. We could make it, but it wouldn’t be any fun for either of us. So, the next day we headed back to Torrey to follow Rt 24 to Rt 62, to US 89 to Panguitch. Panguitch Lake NFS Campground is about 16 miles west of town on Rt 143, which is the main road to Cedar Breaks National Monument, again in the Dixie National Forest.

Our "yard" at Panguitch Lake

We had a reservation for site 48, but I could tell by the looks we were getting as we passed the other campsites that we might be in trouble. I didn’t even try to put the coach in that site. The reservation system was way out of synch with the reality on the ground this time. We were very lucky to get out of that part of the campground without hitting a tree or one of the large rocks that seemed to be everywhere. We sought out the camp host and he pointed us to another section that had a few larger first-come sites. I was initially skeptical, but Kayeanne pointed out that we could pull in headfirst because we didn’t have any utility hookups to worry about. That made the docking procedure a piece of cake. Site 20 gave us a great view, a huge yard and was really private. At over 8,000’ and heavily forested, the campground was cool, even chilly at times. The rain that we brought from Moab to Torrey also followed us to Panguitch, too. 

One of hundreds of spectacular vistas at Bryce Canyon

Besides wanting to see Ed and Christine, we were looking forward Panguitch because of its

Near Fairyland

proximity to Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument. I have been to Bryce on one of my bike jaunts, but Kayeanne had never seen it. We spent several hours driving from one jaw-dropping overlook to the next. The sheer scale of the place is really impressive, over 18 miles from the entrance to the end of the road and something special to see every mile or two. I went a little nuts taking pictures that don’t come close to seeing it in person. Kayeanne wanted to get closer than the overlooks allow, so we came back the next day planning to hike about 2.5 miles along the Rim Trail from Fairyland to Sunset Point. Again, the pictures fall so short of seeing the actual terrain that it is really frustrating. We planned to take the shuttle bus back to the car, but were told that there was no service to Fairyland, despite a tram stop that we parked across from. We decided to hike back rather than take the bus to the access road and hike in from there. We had a great time seeing everything again, but from the reverse perspective, but were certainly glad to reach the car.

Cedar Breaks National Monument sees about 5% of the traffic that goes to Bryce, but has a

lot to offer on a quieter, more personable level. Cedar Breaks is roughly 2,000’ higher that

Overcast didn't dampen our
enthusiasm for Cedar Breaks

Bryce and has a different climate and topology. The cloud cover was down around our ears the day we went, making it hard to get decent pictures, but imparted a slightly eerie, subdued ambiance. One of the young rangers knocked herself out sharing her in depth knowledge of the place, her obvious enthusiasm was fun and made it even more interesting.

Marmots were everywhere at Cedar Breaks

Again, we had a great time exploring the area around Panguitch. Just down the road from our campground was a sign for Hatch Mountain. We’d passed it several times, but this time we took the turn. Dirt roads are the key to seeing some of the most beautiful countryside we find. After 30 miles or so, Hatch Mountain Road eventually put us on US 89 just outside of Hatch where we discovered the Galaxy Diner. The burgers and sandwiches were good, but the french fries and onion rings were outstanding. We also found the only golf course between Page AZ and St. George UT, a 9-hole course and RV park (golf is free to campers) in Hatch. The rough certainly looked challenging.

After a week relying on our generator and the water in our tank we were ready to move on to Kodachrome Basin State Park near Cannonville, UT. The park is surrounded on three sides by red rock cliffs, acres of slick-rock and groves of pinion pine and cedar. The views surrounding the small campground were sensational, and like the film

Just a glimpse of Kodachrome State Park

the park was named after, they changed as the light changed. It’s a really fascinating place to visit, and the hiking trails were some of the best we’ve seen. The dogs were really happy because the park allowed them to accompany us on hikes. Our section of the campground had full hookups and we certainly needed the electricity because the temperatures were at least 20 degrees higher than we had seen since arriving in Moab.

Kodachrome State Park is surrounded on all sides by Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. We drove all over Escalante: to Boulder to visit the Anasazi Museum, to Boulder again to check out the Kiva Koffeehouse, to the town of Escalante to shop and to preview Wide Hollow Reservoir State Park campground. We headed out to see Grosvenor Arch, the only double arch in the Monument, and of course we explored several dirt roads, one of which took us within a few miles of the front side of Bryce Canyon giving us a perspective few other tourists see.

Grosvenor Arch

Despite spending almost a month in southern Utah, we feel like we just scratched the surface. We could easily spend 3 or 4 months and still not see everything we had to pass up this time, especially if we had a four wheel drive vehicle. Even without that, though, there are seemingly endless paved and unpaved roads to explore and fantastic places like Bryce, Canyonlands, Arches, Cedar Breaks, Escalante, Kodachrome and Capital Reef to revisit.

As I finish this, we are back the WillowWind RV Park in Hurricane, UT, for Liesa’s 25^th birthday. Unfortunately, Luis, her significant other, is in northern California fighting the big wild fires, so it’s just the three of us.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie.

More soon,

Bob