Archive for Uncategorized
November 20, 2005 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
[There was no Internet access when I wrote this, so I’m posting it at my first opportunity with the date and time of when I wrote it.]
It’s good to be moving on, especially here on the Oregon coast where it is uncrowded and scenic. When we started this trip we figured we’d settle into a spot for 2-3 weeks, but so far the only placed we’ve stayed more than five days was Denver. For some reason, after a week in a spot, we usually have the itch to explore some more.
So this morning we hitched up and headed south on Rt 101, the coastal road. Our goal was “no place in particular,” the sun was shining, and for the first time in weeks, we have no schedule at all. It’s a nice feeling. We are free.
Our travels today took us past several lighthouses among the dunes, and I couldn’t resist the photo opportunities. Lighthouses are just too easy.
Then a dramatic bridge, a still lake reflecting the pines trees, a historic house “¦ We let the whole day go like that, covering less than 100 miles but stopping so often that it took until 3 pm to arrive here, at Humbug Mountain State Park.
After parking the Airstream, we still had some light so we took a road less traveled: an unmarked one-lane dirt trail that wound its way up Humbug Mountain from the campground. With absolutely no idea where we were going, we climbed the switchbacks for half an hour, never exceeding 15 MPH. To our left, precipitous drops of 50-500 feet. To our road, a deeply scalloped edge along the crumbling mountainside.
This went on for several miles, until we finally intersected China Mountain Road, arbitrarily chose to go left, and eventually (a few miles down) found a paved road back to 101. It was a fun detour. Eleanor was white-knuckled half the trip, but Emma was only wondering when we would get to the hike we had promised. I was only disappointed I never needed to engage the 4WD.
Although we are right by the coast, there are few places one can get to the beach because of tall sandy cliffs. During high tide, there is no beach at all. We found some scenic viewpoints but never figured out how the surfers managed to get down from their cars parked by the highway to the thunderous waves below. Then we saw this intrepid fellow cruising on the soft sand in his truck.
Finally, we found a bit of beach access by the town of Port Orford and did a little sunset exploration.
What a bonanza of sea life! We found sea caves everywhere, colorful orange and red starfish, green sea anemones, and other creatures. We found a sunflower sea star, too — a creature that looks sort of like a large starfish but it has something like 15 arms. We ran out of daylight before we ran out of energy, so we headed home (soaked to the knees, all of us) and agreed we’d look again in the morning.
With the long cold evenings this time of year, we are trying to find ways to keep ourselves entertained after dark. Tonight we decided since we were all in wet clothes, we’d get right into our pajamas and have “Pajama Fun Night.” We watched an old campy movie, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (a musical, with Jim Backus!), I made popcorn, and Eleanor and Emma baked up some cookies. (By the way, if you are wondering where we get these movies: We subscribe to Netflix, but the really bad old movies like this one come from the bargain bin at Wal-Mart.)
Emma discovered that she has a loose tooth in front, which has thrilled her to the point of bouncing around the trailer like a superball. We can clearly see a replacement coming in behind. Her six-year molars are also showing up. She has pledged to tell everyone she meets about these things.
One other thing: our good friends Adam and Susan called today, just to say they’re following the blog and to send us good tidings. That phone call gave me a huge boost, and reminded me to say to all of you that the support we’ve gotten from you is a huge part of what makes this trip fun. It gives us a greater sense of purpose to share the experience with you, and so almost every day I’m eager to write down our impressions of the day. It’s not work to keep up the blog, with you along for the ride. Keep writing and commenting ““ we love to hear from you. Thanks!
November 18, 2005 at 8:11 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
OK, the work is done … and so we are off again, checking out the local scenery. There was a bit of sunlight left and it was a beautiful day so we drove 7 miles south on Rt 101 to an access point for the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area (Siltcoos Beach).
Fabulous. Just what one needs at the end of a stressful week at work! The light was terrific for photos and Emma was happy to oblige as foreground in most of them, so I spent the next 90 minutes shooting until there was no light left.
These dunes are huge and gorgeous. Some are over 100 feet tall! You can drive on part of the beach to explore them, and the recreation area even has “sand camping” areas further down the road. I’m going to check those out, and see if we can camp at one of them this weekend.
The beach was dotted with little birds that I would call sandpipers but I don’t really know their name. They are cute little things, scooting along the reflective wet sand so smoothly they look like a bunch of white ball bearings cut loose on oiled metal.
It was a spectacular walk and a terrific way to wrap up a working day. I think Eleanor and Emma agreed.
November 14, 2005 at 7:36 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Gotta love those guys at Sutton. What a nice bunch. Today we were leaving, so they hitched us up to their little forklift and hauled us over to dump the tanks. Then they filled our propane, adjusted our tank monitors, and fixed a minor issue with our water heater. In the meantime the entire staff was just incredibly accommodating and nice … and they fed us donuts and hot mulled cider.
AND they offered us tons of advice on places to see along the Oregon coast, directions to everything we might want to do, and, and, and, …. I could go on all day. Thank you Debbie, Crystal, Tom, all the guys on the sales staff, Sig, and of course George and Martha. You guys ROCK!
Just before we left, George showed me his latest delivery: a “WBCCI 50th Anniversary Edition” Airstream Classic Limited 30 slide-out. Nice rig.
Everyone we’ve met in Oregon has been exceptionally nice. Last night fellow Airstreamer Jim Jordan (who we know only from the Internet) dropped in and chatted for a while. Today he came back with his wife and we spent another pleasant half hour talking Airstreams. Another couple dropped in too, folks we didn’t even know before but who had heard (via Internet) that we were there. And Dan Patch dropped in again, too, just to give us a nice card and wish us luck.
Everyone has done two basic things: (1) plied us with extensive advice about the wonderful things to do in beautiful Oregon; (2) educated us on the proper way to say “Oregon.” Being from New England, we say “OR-uh-GONE”. Locals tell us that it should be “OR-ee-GUN.” We are practicing but far from fluent in Oregonese.
So now we are in Florence OR, which is by the coast. The weather is very mild here, so freezing nights are a remote possibility but it probably won’t get much over mid 50s either. We arrived after dark, so I can’t tell you much about the place but tomorrow Eleanor and Emma will go exploring while I work.
I’m afraid this may be a fairly dull week for the blog. I expect to spend the next four days plugging away on my computer, in the “Activity Building” of this campground where they have free wireless Internet. But I’ll try to get E&E to post about their adventures. They are planning to visit a haunted lighthouse, see Sea Lions, get salt water taffy, and walk on the beach, among other things.
November 13, 2005 at 7:34 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Parking at the dealership is nicer than a few campgrounds I’ve stayed at! All day Saturday we were surrounded by nice people (staff and customers) who dropped in to chat with us in our trailer. It was always a laugh when someone would open the door and see me typing at my laptop, Emma watching a Scooby Doo cartoon, and Eleanor nearby. They’d do a double-take, recoil for a moment, and then say, “Oh I’m sorry — I didn’t know anyone was in here!”
Well, that’s why we put the “OPEN” sign by the door. Can you guess who drew it?
We gave a half dozen tours of our trailer during the day, and around 1:15 I was briefly interviewed by the local radio station for the live audiocast. We spent the rest of the day visiting with people, checking out all the Airstreams (we like the Safari Special Edition 25), and snagging free donuts.
Last night a magazine reader and follower of this blog came by and took us out for Italian dinner. Dan Patch, a new friend, lives in this area and we had a great time visiting with him. Toward the end of the evening, I was able to recruit him to write an article for the magazine, too, so I expect we’ll be hearing more from Dan in the future. What a nice guy.
It’s being able to make friends everywhere we go that makes this trip so special for us. Sure, seeing the country is great, but building and solidifying friendships is really where it’s at. One point of the trip for me is to look up as many current and future contributors to the magazine as I possibly can. We have friends all over the country now, and it’s all because of our travels in our Airstream. That’s why I get so enthusiastic about it.
November 12, 2005 at 7:46 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Hey, where is everybody? We woke up here in Eugene, parked among a couple dozen Airstreams cheek-to-jowl, and I felt like I was at a rally — except there’s nobody in the other Airstreams. They’re all for sale. It’s like living in a ghost town. But that’s going to change soon!
When we arrived yesterday, George told us what he had planned for this weekend. They’re having a 3-day sale. The dealership has done a bunch of radio and newspaper advertising, and later today one of the local radio stations is coming over for a broadcast from here. The folks from Thousand Trails (a campground association) will be here to run a contest where people can win free gas or diesel for a year. And the dealership is giving out free turkeys, too, to new buyers.
When they saw the Tour trailer with all the decals, they decided to park us front & center, which is sort of an honor but also a bit like being in a golfish bowl! See, George & Martha run one of the largest Airstream dealerships in the country, but their lot is not that huge (as RV dealerships go), so the result is a traffic jam of units. You can get lost wandering among them. I feel like I should have a map on me at all times.
So here we are, right smack in front of the dealership’s front doors, a bit of a human sideshow amongst the empty Airstreams waiting for happy new owners. As people notice the Tour Trailer, we will open the door and invite them in for a peek. We’re part of the action this weekend, “free turkeys” of another sort … 😉
Eleanor and Emma did their usual running about yesterday afternoon, to get oriented to the local scene. They spent some time at a McDonald’s playland to get Emma exercised, and then went out and bought so many groceries that we could survive for weeks if necessary. I have been told that people are interested in Eleanor’s continuing perspectives on being a mother and homemaker on the road, so she is composing some throughts and I expect you’ll hear from her soon.
November 10, 2005 at 10:12 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We hustled yesterday … from the foothills of Nevada City to the warm sun of the San Joaquin Valley, to the foggy heights north of Mt Shasta and eventually into a twisting valley between the Coast Ranges and the southern Cascades.
We called George Sutton from the road and he said, “You’re in for a beautiful drive!” He was right. I-5 in California has the reputation of being dull, but in the northern part of the state that’s not true. The San Joaquin valley section is straight and flat, but after weeks of mountain passes it was a nice change to drive at sea level past olive and almond trees.
I had to stop at a rest area on I-5 to do a previously scheduled interview with the guys from Airstream Europe at 11 a.m., but that was easy: just pull in, open up the laptop, and take the call from the bedroom (while Eleanor and Emma did some home school work on the dinette).
Mt Shasta was the most stunning thing on the drive. You can see it coming for miles, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger… Lake Shasta is also beautiful to see from I-5.
Just north of Mt Shasta, in the town of Weed, we spotted what looked like a band of smoke from a forest fire. It turned out to be a wisp of fog from a huge fogbank. We were engulfed from there for the next 60 miles, in a deep gloom and temperatures hovering around 33.
It just kept getting deeper and darker, until finally, at 4300 ft pass just over the Oregon line (Siskiyou Summit), it got so dense that we could barely see road signs. Trucks were pulled off to the right lane with their flashers on, waiting it out. Eleanor was gripping the armrest as we crept up the pass, and we were wondering if we would have to pull over, too — when suddenly, the sky broke open and we emerged into brilliant blue sky and a gorgeous sunset down the long long descent into Mt Ashland. A pity for the truck drivers who were parked in the fog, only half a mile behind us, none of which probably had the slightest idea that they were only 2000 feet from perfect weather.
Two misc notes: (1) ain’t no parking at the Wal-Mart in Roseburg. We’re at a truck stop (hidden amongst a row of 18 wheelers) by the “Apple Peddler” restaurant off I-5. (2) After a shower and breakfast, we’ll head up to Sutton RV and join the fun. Apparently they are having a big 3-day event there this weekend. More later on that, and I’ll post pics tonight after my laptop battery re-charges.
November 10, 2005 at 8:27 am · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s been a hectic three days, but a lot of fun too. I got a lot of work done in the Velocity7 offices but there’s so much more to do that I could have stayed a week. But we promised we’d be in Oregon this weekend and a lot of people are expecting us, so off we go this morning.
Nevada City has a lot more to offer than we’ve had a chance to explore, so we may be back at some point. I like working downtown. It’s just couple blocks walk through the historic district to a bunch of great restaurants. Yesterday, Emma, Eleanor, Laura, and Bailey (the 3 yr old) met Robert and I for Chinese lunch.
Last night we gave the kids a few hours to play together before dinner, and afterward they collaborated to make us all “Airstream cookies”, while Laura served chai tea.
We are packing up now to leave, sadly. We’ll stop somewhere in northern California tonight and then arrive in Eugene tomorrow. I’m looking forward to exploring Oregon, but also to coming back to California. This is a great state and we’ll enjoy spending more time here in late November and December.
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