October 2019 – Nehalem OR
I don’t think we had finished setting up camp after moving
from site D17 to site A2 on September 30 before the first camper showed up looking for help with something. The 30
th is the last work day for most of
the seasonal Rangers, so the “professional” staff was reduced by over 75% that day. The
ranger station closed until May, and several large signs went up directing campers to site
A2 for questions and assistance with reservations, yurts, checking in, etc. At
the same time, the firewood cart stopped operating on weekdays, making our site
the main source of firewood for the campground. Luckily, one of the other hosts
kept running the wood cart whenever demand was high, which took some of the
pressure off of us.
 |
| Another squirrel! |
Despite the 10-hour days, we really enjoy being in site A2
once the campground is essentially turned over to the hosts. We are the first
thing that folks see when they turn into the campground, so most of them,
especially first-time campers usually stop to ask a question or to register. The
few remaining rangers have their hands full with maintenance projects, training
sessions and paperwork. The host crew in the Fall and Winter tend to be
experienced and pretty self-reliant; none of our co-hosts were rookies and
everyone got along well.
 |
| The Queen of Millennium Park |
We haven’t spent a night out of the coach in a long time and
were looking for any excuse to take off for a night or two. Kayeanne discovered
that Bob’s Red Mill company headquarters was near
Portland, and they gave tours! A plan was
soon hatched: we found a hotel in
Lake
Oswego that liked dogs and that was all we needed. I
don’t think Lucy and Schroeder were too thrilled about this venture, but we had
a great time. The hotel was close to a section of town called
Millennium Park
that combined apartments, shops, restaurants and green spaces right along the
lake shore. Lunch at the
St.
Honorè Bakery and dinner at
Bamboo Sushi were
both memorable.
 |
| Bob's first millstones |
Unfortunately, the Red Mill tour wasn’t. Keeping in mind
that we had just spent two months giving tours of an historic flour mill, we
were probably a tough audience. The tour basically consisted of looking through
windows at folks doing stuff while the guide tried to explain what was or was not
happening. The narration didn’t match what we were seeing because the group was
so large that everyone was looking into different windows. More than 40 people
were on our tour, including a local school group, several young housewives
pushing kids in strollers, a small clutch of foreign tourists and a few old
fogies like us. The guide tried, but the situation was just not going to work. Luckily
it didn’t last too long and we were able to head down the road a mile or so to
the company store, which was actually much more interesting!
Despite the years we have been visiting Nehalem, we realized
that we hadn’t really explored
Cannon
Beach, an upscale seasonal
community on the coast just north of Manzanita. Named for a cannon that washed
ashore from the wreck of the USN schooner Shark, it’s is a very popular seaside
destination. While it certainly is a tourist area, it has avoided becoming
tacky. We had a fine lunch at
Ecola Seafood
and then spent a few hours wandering through several nice arts and crafts
galleries. A number of places were
closed during the week, probably recovering from
the Summer season frenzy. We enjoyed the day and will certainly return next
year.
Until six years ago, Nehalem Bay
State Park attendance
really dropped off after Labor Day. It dropped so much that they closed half
the campground for the “winter” season. If the weather was good, the weekends
were busier, but midweek was very quiet. Last year the park was sold out through
September and busy throughout most of October, often selling out on weekends.
This year surprised everyone, more resembling 2015: very quiet during the week
and busy when the weather cooperated on the weekends. By the end of the month
even the weekends weren’t too busy. We didn’t complain, because after six
months of camp hosting we were ready to start to wind down a little.
 |
| Endless driftwood piles in Nehalem Bay |
As usual, we planned our annual pilgrimage to
Eugene to get Riley
looked over at Kaiser Brake.
We pulled
out of Nehalem on October 30
th and headed south. We hope that they
don’t find anything serious, but it always turns out to be more expensive than
not. Riley seems to be aging more quickly than expected. Kaiser discovered that
the drag link was shot, a critical component of the steering system. There are
no spare parts available for this chassis, so they had to make one. <sigh>
From Eugene we went to Bend OR
to have a new starter installed on the engine. Truck repair shops are much cheaper than RV service locales, but finding one that will work on RVs can be a challenge. We hope that’s the solution to
no-start problems we had in August on the way to Washington. For a change, that went
according to plan and by late morning we were on the road to Salt Lake City to see Liesa.
A couple of books that I really enjoyed recently are Why We Live with
Animals by Alvin Greenberg, and Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser. I
seem to be on a poetry kick lately.
Wines we liked this month include Maryhill Winemakers Red, Columbia Winery Cabernet 2016 and Willamette Valley
Vineyard Founders Reserve Pinot Noir 2017.
More soon,
Bob
closed during the week, probably recovering from
the Summer season frenzy. We enjoyed the day and will certainly return next
year.
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