September 30, 2013

09/11/2013

Today in the 12th anniversary of the attack on our country that forever changed the way we live.  As I reflect on that day and the years since, I feel an overwhelming sadness at all the lives that were lost on that day.

Never forget!

On Monday we went up to Astoria to spend a couple of days just goofing off.  We got a room at the Holiday Inn Express that had a jetted tub so of course she had to take a bath.  In fact, she took a couple of baths.

The Oregon Coast, September 2013

09/16/2013

Nehalem Bay is one of the busiest parks in Oregon, especially on the weekends and during fishing season.  The salmon are running right now and some of our guests have been catching a few.  Then, there are some that haven't even gotten a bite.

09/19/2013

The Glaspey's along with Jim's sister Donna and her husband Dwayne arrived on Sunday for a visit.  Then on Monday Gary and Marcia Stevenson came over.  That evening we all went down to the San Dune Pub and had a delicious dinner.

Max & Little Bitty Glaspey

09/22/2013

Rain, rain, rain!  It all started yesterday and now the weather front that is moving through has turned into a major storm.  The wind started blowing about 11:30 this morning and as I write this at 12:30, we're getting sustained winds around 20 MPH with gusts well over that.  We were able to get our yurts cleaned early but the campground cleaning is just going to wait.

There are some tent campers still here but a couple of them have seen their tents blow down.  I have even seen some awnings still out on a few RV's if you can believe that.  Not a good idea folks!

09/29/2013

After reviewing all the weather reports yesterday morning and seeing that the north coast of Oregon was going to get hammered, we decided to pack-up and and head inland.

The drive north on Hwy 101 north to the Hwy 26 junction was terrible.  Heavy rain coupled with very high winds made for slow going.  Once we turned east on 26 and drove just a few miles, things calmed down some but it was a 40 to 45 MPH kinda drive.

We had planned to stop at the Phoenix RV Park in Salem but on the way over the hills Joyce called Champoeg State Heritage Area in St. Paul.  The ranger she talked with said the park was having a lot of cancellations and they had some open sites.  We arrived about 1:30 PM and took one of the last two RV sites.  The good news is this is a free stay for us with our Disabled Veterans Pass.

Our plan is to hang here the day and ride out the next wave of storms moving into the area today and then drive down to Eugene tomorrow.  On Tuesday we have an appointment with Quality RV in Springfield to have our furnace checked which started acting up earlier this week.  We hope they can get it up and running quickly or at least early next week.

On Tuesday afternoon (hopefully) we going up to Jim and Jeanne Glaspey's RV Park in Oakridge.  We plan to stay there until Sunday and then head south to Redding, CA and then on to Calistoga.

09/30/2013

We survived the storm!  It rained very hard most of the day and night Sunday with some high wind gusts but not nearly as bad as it did on the coast.  Then yesterday it did the same but not nearly as bad as the forecaster's predicted.  The weather front did hold off long enough to give us time to do our laundry in Newberg.

Today the weather report is not nearly as bad with just scattered showers this morning and then a little more rain in the afternoon.  The really good news is that the winds are not going to be gusting to above 30 MPH.  So with that news, we're headed down to Eugene for one night.

More soon!

Barry & Joyce

September 9, 2013

08/23/2013

Yesterday Joyce had to get up at 4:30 AM and drive to Eugene for jury duty.  She got picked for a trial but was released after sniveling and whining about the 2.5 hour drive each way.  Go figure!

08/24/2013

After getting our yurts and campsites cleaned yesterday, we drove over to Spirit Mountain Casino to meet up with Jim and Jeanne Glaspey.  After a very filling crab dinner, the girls played bingo while Jim and I relaxed.  They are going to spend two nights there and then head over here to Devils Lake for five days.

08/27/2013

The Glaspey's arrived on Sunday and on Monday we drove down to South Beach State Park.  We wanted to check out the parking sites for our stay there in October and discovered that our parking site was very narrow and had a large tree limb blocking part of the pad.  I might be able to maneuver around that but then again, I might not.  So we will be canceling our stay there and make to run to Glaspey's RV Park in Oakridge on 1 October and staying through 5 October.

It rained most of the day yesterday on the central Oregon coast and throughout the night.  The weather guesser's are saying it's going to clear ups some tomorrow and then more rain is in the forecast.

08/31/2013

Today we're going to hookup the rig and head up to Nehalem Bay State Park for our September hosting gig.

09/02/2013

After a very rough start on Saturday, we're now settled into site F-32 here at Nehalem Bay State Park.

While getting everything ready leave Devils Lake, we had several thing go wrong including a leak in our black tank fresh water flushing line, our bedroom slide refused to go in and a couple of other small issues.  The good news was the weather was sunny and warm for the drive up the coast.

We had the "Kumbaya" meeting with Shelley, our Host Coordinator and all the other hosts yesterday morning and then cleaned a couple of yurts.  As you can imagine, the park is pretty much maxed out for the Labor Day weekend so we had some litter picking to do.  We expect most of the "weekend warriors" will leave today but the park will be still be very busy on the weekends with the fishing season getting into full swing.

Because our D-Loop hosts won't be arriving until September 4th, Shelley asked us to switch our days off (normally Monday and Tuesday) to Wednesday and Thursday.  No problem.

09/03/2013

I believe yesterday was the hardest day we have had since our hosting hosting in Oregon State Parks began six years ago.  To begin with, the hosts that are going to be working in D loop won't be here until tomorrow so Joyce and I have been assigned to clean not only F and the Horse loops, but also D & E as well.  Also, we had to check paper and cleanliness of two sets of bathrooms.

Yesterday we had 123 campers checking out and 43 arrivals and 3 yurts to clean.  There is no way that we could get all of that done in four hours so we prioritized and only cleaned the sites that folks were checking into last night.  Also, the sites were for the most part very trashy so we had to spend extra time picking up paper, cans, paper plates, etc. in the sites.  Couple that with cleaning out fire pits in each site, we put in seven hours yesterday.

In most parks where we have been hosts, we don't mind putting in a few extra hours now and then.  However, here at Nehalem Bay and the very messy folks that were here for the Labor Day weekend, we got a little frustrated.

09/06/2013

On Wednesday, we made a road trip up to Costco in Warrenton and of course, spent way too much money.  But, we needed some gloves, a few bottles of wine plus some other necessities that we have been putting off buying until they went on sale.

While we were in the area we decided to do some geocaching in Astoria.  Our first stop was at the Astoria Column where we found three caches.  Joyce wanted to climb to the top of the Column but I was afraid that my old legs would give out.  Maybe next time.

Astoria Column

Looking north west at the Columbia River and the Astoria-Megler Bridge

View to the south west.

Next, we drove down to the waterfront and found a cache near the Columbia River Maritime Museum.  We visited this museum a couple of years ago which is a "must see" when you visit Astoria.

Fun Ride!

View of the Columbia.

Next, we went to another cache located in the Bumble Bee Museum, operated by the Hanthorn Cannery Foundation.  Due to the late hour, we didn't have a chance to tour the museum so that is on our list of things to do next time we're in town.

And guess what is located next door?  The Rouge Ale Public House of all things.  Of course we had to stop in and say Hey!

Yesterday we drove down to Tillamook to do some shopping at Fred Myers.  On the way back up the coast it started raining with a few thunderstorms thrown in for good measure.  The forecast is for more of the same today.

09/08/2013

Joyce and I have Verizon Wireless accounts for our phone and internet service.  We both have smart phones and a Jetpack router.  Our plan is a two year contract with unlimited talk and text with our data usage set at ten gigabits for the billing period.

On Thursday, we got a text notification from Verizon that we had reached 75% of our allowable ten gigs.  I thought that this might be a little early in the billing cycle to use that much data but didn't do anything at that time.

The on Friday we got a 90% used alert from Verizon followed very shortly by an overage alert.  I immediately called Verizon and was routed over to tech support who upped out allowable data to fourteen gigs, at no cost to us.  After a lot of discussion Mike and I came to the conclusion that the data drain was coming from my Mac and he suggested that I get a virus scan program and check it out.

When I initially set up my Mac, I set the computer not to download any updates automatically and have done the same for all programs installed since.  Or, so I thought.

After downloading a virus scanner and running it, there was no problems reported which I expected.  So, what was draining the data so fast?

My next thought was to check each program I have installed to make sure there were no updates being done in the background, even though I just knew I had set everything to not do that.  Well, guess what?  The Garmin Express program had been downloading an update to the maps for our GPS!

So, if you are using a MiFi device or tether your computer to a smartphone, make sure your programs and apps are not set to update automatically.  This is especially true for operating system updates.  Those files can be huge.

Enough for now.

Barry & Joyce