Happy Halloween

Wow, the last day of October. Where has the month gone?

We didn't do very much today other than do some grocery shopping in between the rain. Later in the afternoon we sat outside for a while until the wind came up and it got too cold for that pleasure.

We went out for pizza and salad and were back before dark just in case we got any trick or treaters . . . none came a knocking. We suspected that would be the case but weren't 100 percent sure. We had a bag of Milky Ways on hand just in case. Guess we'll just have to eat them. Darn!

I tweaked my back yesterday so no swimming tonight but we did enjoy the hot tub for a while. More wind and rain is due in tonight and tomorrow. No real complaints though as we saw how low Lake Shasta is (never have seen it that low) and know how badly California needs the rain. All we ask is that it we get breaks in between storms.

Smokey Day

We were woken up early this morning with the smell of smoke. We learned that there was a control burn going on in the Lassen National Park area. The sky was gray and the air was so smokey that we kept the windows closed up and pretty much stayed indoors. We did make a trip to the office to pick up our mail and chatted with Kristen in the office. I also got a name of a hair salon here in Red Bluff as I am needing a trim. Thankfully, the wind picked up and blew most of the smoke smell out. It started to sprinkle late afternoon which was a good thing as that also helped with lessening the smoke smell. When we headed out to the pool, the rain had stopped and it made for nice evening.

We came back home and watched a little TV before heading off to bed.

Lassen Volcanic National Park and a pleasant surprise

We decided to take the drive to see Mt. Lassen today as a storm was suppose be coming. We stopped at the Visitors Center and had a nice discussion with a ranger and the gift shop docent. The gift shop docent said he recognized John. After some discussion, it was determined that he had seen John and I at the mall the other day. Strangely, John remembers him because he was looking at John so intently. It seems that John looked like a friend of his. Strange and funny world we live in.

John and Melissa climbed to the top of Mt. Lassen with members of her 7th grade class in 1995 so it brought back memories for John. It certainly didn't look like a mountain I would like to climb. John has fond memories (Melissa not so much) and he said the views from the top were spectacular.

The backside of Mt. Lassen still had snow on the mountain top. This is a view of Mt. Lassen from across Manzanita Lake.

We hiked around Manzanita lake (1.8 miles). We stopped about half way and sat on a log to eat the lunch we had packed. It was very nice and peaceful. The other lone person in the area was a fisherman. He said that there was a local eagle that liked to terrorize the ducks on the lake. No such luck today. All we saw were crows and stellar jays. This was our view from our log . . . pretty darn nice.

Here is another pretty shot with Mt. Lassen in the background and my honey in the foreground.

We stopped in Redding on our way home so that we could pick up goggles at Leslie Pool Supplies. We definitely made a big circle today.

When we got home, I checked our email and saw a reply from one of the campgrounds where we submitted our resume. They gave us the low down on the job and the requirements./benefits I gave them a call and spoke with the owner/general manager, Paul. John and I had a nice conversation with him. After John and I discussed the position, we called him back and said we would happily take the position. We are totally stoked. We love the Custer area and this should be an interesting way to spend the summer of 2009. Three days of "work" and four days of play for our site with full hookups, cable, wireless internet in an area we love. What will John/we be doing? . . . maintenance stuff (lawn mowing, painting benches, etc.). I will also be able to learn the workings of the office.

After dinner settled, we again went to the pool and tried out our new goggles that worked great. Finished it up with a soak in the spa. Ah, what a great life!

Summer job hunting

John and I had sat down and went over the Workamper Magazine's summer job listings and selected the "jobs" we were interested in pursuing. As there were a few that I needed to place calls on, I suggested to John that he take a bike ride so that I wouldn't feel awkward while on the phone. He jumped at the chance! I got a couple of calls made with not much success so I decided to just work through the list and send out our resumes where I could. I got two resumes emailed and was working on a cover letter when John returned. I was frustrated with the new Word on setting up a table. John said this would be a good time to sit outside and enjoy the afternoon for a while. I jumped at the chance! Needless to say, I never got back to my cover letter.

After dinner and a little TV, we headed off for the pool and spa. We decided that it would make the lap swimming better with goggles. Darn! We had goggles but threw them out in November as we didn't think we would ever need them again. Still the swim and spa was good and relaxing. Time for bed!

Jaunt to Redding

We had to take the DirecTV box back to FedEx. Due to information I received from DirecTV, I thought we had to take it to an actual FedEx office . . . the only located in Redding. So after breakfast, we loaded up and headed for Redding. The FedEx office is actually at the Redding airport (never been there before). Once there, we could have dropped the box off at any FedEx outlet (I should have listened to my instinct) On our to FedEx, we saw diesel for $2.99 a gallon. Darn - John was disappointed as we topped off yesterday.

While in Redding, we stopped at there mall to get John a new pair of flip flops. I must say, their "mall" is rather small and quite unimpressive. No compulsive buying was done, I'm happy to report. We stopped for lunch and decided to head on home. We will take in Turtle Bay another day as we have plenty of time to kill.

Later in the evening, John looked outside and saw a beautiful red sky what with all the cloud cover we had today. He got this terrific shot:

We again took advantage of the pool and spa and once again, we were the sole users. It is like having your own private facilities.

Tour de Red Bluff

We took a drive around Red Bluff to familiarize ourselves with the area. We stopped at Home Depot and we saw a gas station had diesel for $3.09. Yikes!!! We haven't seen those prices since we bought the truck in September of last year. Well, we just had to top the tank off.

After we bbqd dinner, we decided to take advantage of the pool and spa. Boy, was it delightful. The pool temperature was 80 degrees which meant no shock getting in to the water and the spa 104 degrees. We had the whole area to ourselves which was very nice. We went home very relaxed and ready for bed. This just may become our evening ritual.

Slugs

We didn't do much today but sit outside in the gentle breeze (much cooler today) and enjoy our surroundings. We walked over to Longs Drug and FoodMax. I told John that we were being very environment friendly as we (1) walked over and (2) used our own reusable bags. Our other big trek was up to the office to buy a bag of ice. Oh, and as John reminded me, he did wipe down the rig's end caps so that we are bug free and shiny once again. That was about the extent of our day today. Oh, John did BBQ and did a great job. Life is good :)

Our new home town

We left Yreka about 9:45 a.m. and pulled in to Red Bluff a little after 12 p.m. Our new home for the next five weeks will be at the Durango RV Resort. We were greet warmly and efficiently. We even got to pick out our site in the extended stay area. That was nice. The park just opened in July and it is quite top notch. The grounds and buildings are beautiful. Take a look at their website for a view of their RV park.

Whew! It was a warm one today. I have gotten spoiled with the mid-60 and 70 degree temperatures. After setting up, we headed out for some lunch and the grocery store as we were running low on most everything. We stopped at Riverside Bar and Grill that is located on the Sacramento River and had a terrific lunch. Then we were off to Raley's. Ah, another familiar sight. Actually, we went to Raley's because we knew their deli would have the lunch meat that we have not had since May and have missed. Happily, they did not let us down.

Boy, it sure seems like it is getting dark early here. I don't know if it is because we are further south or we are getting closer to the time change. Before it got dark on us, we took a walk around the park and checked out the lodge, pool and spa area, and the building that houses bathrooms, a meeting room, and laundry room near the river sites. Wow! The only downside but it is very typical for RV parks is the noise of the freeway and the train. We didn't have any of these irritants for the past three months. Alas, within the week, neither will be bothering me.

California here we come

We pulled out from Seven Feathers close to 10 a.m. The drive over the mountain passes were beautiful with all of the autumn colors. We pulled into Yreka a little after noon, filled up the truck with diesel ($3.29), and headed for the Yreka RV Park. This RV park is relatively new and is quite nice. The bathrooms were very nice, the sites long (we didn't unhook), and roads in the park were wide. The park sits up and away from the freeway so the noise is rather muted. A very nice place to stop.

Melissa returned my call from the night before and she seemed happy to hear that we were in California. It's always nice to hear from our girl.

After we had lunch, we pulled out the chairs and enjoyed the afternoon enjoying the sun. John bought a Sacramento Bee newspaper (ah, a touch of home) that we leisurely read. Later that night, we watched a little TV and called it a night.

Cooling our heels

In preparation of our move tomorrow, we did the normal things: laundry, emptying our tanks, packing up the outside things. We will have approximately a three hour drive to Yreka where we will spend the night and then on to Red Bluff on Friday. John made the observation that we are making our trek to Sacramento in thirds - approx. 124 miles to Yreka, approx. 125 miles to Red Bluff and then approx. 120 miles to Sacramento. Why not drive straight through to Red Bluff? We don't like driving six hours when we absolutely do not have to. As it is, a three hour drive will be longer than we have done in quite a while. Whatever. . . . I'm just happy to be getting on the road.

We received our DirecTV receiver today (the order that was being canceled). I spoke with MotoSat and we tested the signal which was strong. I also read the owner's manual where the receiver had a system testing program which I ran. Everything seemed to be working correctly - perfect. I called DirecTV about returning the package unopened as our receiver seemed to be working correctly. Earlier this evening, the fan was running loudly hours after the receiver was turned off. Something to be worried about??? We will give it a few days as we don't have to return the receiver until Monday. Needless to say, I am frustrated with this whole thing.

Change of plans

We had planned to be in Sacramento on Saturday or Sunday. We called Cal Expo RV park to let them know we were coming. We were told that they had a 30 day stay limit (30 days in/30 days out). Well, darn, we were planning on being there at least two months. Guess that is not going to work for us. We thought about testing their "rule" but we have medical/dental appointments set for December so we didn't want to be evicted and have to find another location when we need to be in town. We looked all around the Sacramento area and beyond. Nothing really worked for us.

We had originally planned to stay in Redding a week before heading to Sacramento. We spent a couple of hours pondering what to do/where to go. In the course of research, I remembered a new park that Bonnie and Butch had stayed at in Red Bluff that they said was fantastic. In checking out their website, I noticed that they had extended stay sites for a reasonable price. We gave them a call and we have got it worked out. We will be staying with them until after Thanksgiving. By waiting until then to move to Sacramento, we will not be breaking Cal Expo's 30 day rule. It stinks because we were looking forward to being close to Melissa, Bonnie and Butch, and friends. I'm sure we will make a trip or two to Sacramento as we will be about 2 hours away. I'm bummed but I feel we made lemonade out of lemons.

Unexpected travel

I received a call from DirecTv representative this morning and we discussed our problems. He seemed to think that it had something to do with our satellite signal and not the receiver. He said he was cancelling the new receiver order as he wanted me to have MotoSat check out the signal that the receiver was receiving. He said that a weak signal could affect the receiver this way and may have contributed to the first receiver's failure. I told him that when we get to Sacramento, I will give MotoSat a call and see about having the equipment tested.

We decided to check out what the town of Canyonville had to offer. Not too much. I was looking for a post office but we had to travel up to the town of Myrtle Creek to find one. On our way, we noticed that our left turning signal was sounding very strange. While I dropped mail off at the post office, John confirmed that our left turn and brake light was out. We decided to take the drive up to Roseburg as there is a Ford dealer there. While the sun was shining in Canyonville, it was raining as we got closer to Roseburg. Super, we weren't dressed for it. Our decision to go to Roseburg proved a good call. We read the owner's manual but the cover did not come out as written. We where afraid we would break something if we forced it. Thankfully, one of the guys from the body shop showed John how to remove it and the bulb was quickly replaced. He agreed that it wasn't a very good design and was a pain to deal with. Ford has a better idea!

We returned home and had lunch. I worked on updating the blog while John got involved in a book. It rained for a while and then just drizzled. I also made an apple crisp for dinner tonight. We'll spend the evening watching some TV.

Moving day!!!!!

Our move today was greeted with happiness. Nothing against Sutherlin but after 10 days, we were ready to move on. The closer we get to Sacramento, the more we are like homing pigeons and are thinking of our old home town. After a 38 mile trip, we arrived at Seven Feathers RV Resort in Canyonville, OR (must say, we are getting spoiled by these short jaunts).

Our site shot is below. The trees all around us are in fall colors - very beautiful.

Here is a shot of the office where you check in and get escorted to your site.

Here is a shot of the building housing the pool, recreation room, and fitness room (very upscale). We walked through the park and went through all of the buildings. The park is simply one of the most beautiful we have been in the last 10 months.

The park also have shuttles that run from the park to the Seven Feathers casino. You can get door to door pick-up and delivery; all you have to do is call the shuttle phone number when you want the transportation.

We had a beautiful afternoon with bright sunshine (yeah!). We were greeted with an Osprey flying over and the sights and sounds of Red Tail Hawks. We also had nice conversations with Melissa and Bonnie.

We are having problems with our DirecTv receiver again. We just got a new receiver sent to us the first of October and the new one is restarting, not working with the remote, and can't download new updates (we just get into a loop). I spent a couple of hours on the phone with a couple of representatives for two different issues. Sigh! Supposedly, we will have another receiver overnighted to us tomorrow.

I received a surprise phone call from my friend, Alice. What a pleasant surprise and we had a very nice chat. Alice is another one of the reasons Sacramento is having such a draw. I am looking forward to seeing all of our family and friends that we haven't seen since May.

Gloomy day

The gloomy skies mirrored my gloomy mood today. John and I am ready to move on down the road tomorrow.

Hanging out

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

We did little things like laundry and grocery shopping. We also finished the jigsaw puzzle we had started so we went out and bought another.

We had a first Friday night. We had neighbors that pulled in next to us. late in the evening. After watching TV, we went to bed around 11 p.m. Around 11:30 p.m we were woke up by our neighbor who came out of the motorhome for a smoke (we believe) and saying in a very loud voice "Dave, you have a great hand!). Really? Don't you know how late it is? Talk about rude. We also had to hear his basement doors being opened and slammed shut for several minutes. In 10 1/2 months of full-timing, this is the first time we have ever experienced anything like this.

Thundering Waters Highway

We decided to take a drive today to see some of the waterfalls along Highway 138. This roadway runs from Roseburg to north entrance to Crater Lake. As we have been to Crater Lake before, we agreed that we would only go approximately 40 miles.

Our first stop was at the Colliding Rivers Viewpoint. This is where the North and South Umpqua Rivers meet. The rivers weren't exactly "colliding" but the view was pretty. We certainly imagine that in the winter and spring the views must be spectacular.

Our next stop was the Deadline Falls on the North Umpqua River. It was a short hike to the falls. Between May and October, steelhead and salmon may be observed jumping up the powerful falls. Sadly, we were too late to view any spawning fish.

We stopped along the North Umpqua River for this shot. The color of the water was a spectacular turquoise.

Next we stopped at Susan Creek Falls. This was a mile hike in to the falls on a very nice trail. As we got close to the falls, we came across this lovely picnic area (if we had known, we would have brought the lunch we had packed).

Here is a nice shot of the bridge that crosses the little stream.

Here is John sitting in front of the waterfall that drops 50 feet over moss-lined rock cliffs. We have determined that maybe this is not the best time of year for spectacular waterfall viewing. We are a little underwhelmed.

On our hike out, I took this picture of these trees. I just think this picture is special.
After we got back to the truck, we ate the lunch we brought as it was too cool to sit outside at the picnic table.

The last stop was Little Falls. This small waterfall pours over large basalt boulders and cliffs. As parking is limited, we could only get a shot of the falls from above. Not too impressive but it was the best we could get.
After a nice day, we returned home.

Roseburg, OR

We decided to drive down to Roseburg and check out their Visitor Center. The Visitor Center had a lot of good information on the local area and on out to Crater Lake. The women there were most helpful and loaded us down with a lot of information. We were given instructions on how to get to River Forks park. We had read some interesting tidbits on the park and wanted to see it.

The park is at the confluence of two rivers. It is a large park area with a lot of grass area for picnicking and such. The two rivers did not have a lot of action other than some bank fisherman and these two boats. What John and I noticed was how clear the river water ran.

Hopefully, you can see the clarity of the water from the picture below.

At the top of the hill in the park sat a fort for the kids to play in and around. We thought it looked pretty cool from down below.

Here is a shot of the fort from the front. It definitely was a good sized replica.

What would a park be without swings. I took advantage of them and went swinging for a spell. I guess it is something from my childhood but I find swinging to be fun (of course) but it also is relaxing and clears my mind. John took a short turn on the swings himself, although I don't think he enjoyed it as much as I did.

One of the first things you see when you drive in to the park is this big Osprey nest. It looked to us like the Osprey had originally built their nest on the cross bars of the power pole that didn't go over to well. It looks like a platform was built to keep the nest out of harms way.

Located just down the road from the park is an RV park called Twin Rivers Vacation Park. As it was rated well, we wanted to check it out. The office was closed and it had a locked gate. As we were getting ready to turn around to leave, the manager drove up and said that she would open the gate for us . She gave us flyer on the park and showed us on the map the sites best suited for our size and to take our time looking around. She suggested that we call for reservations as the park fills up on weekends. It is a nicely shaded park with large pull-through sites. It definitely has some possibilities.

We stopped for lunch at Elmer's in Roseburg and found the restaurant to be very good. It is located at exit 125 and sits in front of a Best Western.

We returned home to just enjoy the rest of the day and evening.

10/11/08 - 10/12/08

We had heard from many different RVers that if we ever go through Canyonville, OR that we have to stay at the Seven Feathers RV Park as it is fabulous. This was again confirmed by Bonnie and Butch who stayed there overnight on their way back to Sacramento. As Canyonville is only 38 miles from us here in Sutherlin, we decided to take the drive down and check out the park. We were told that they would give us our 10% Good Sam Discount plus another 10% discount if we got their Players Card. The RV park is a bit pricey but it is beautiful and if we stay there Sunday through Thursday, the rate is lower still. So we went to the casino to get our Players Card. With each new card, they give you $5 of free play but of course, you have to put in at least a dollar to get your $5. John and I played on their $10 and our $3 for quite a while on a penny slot. My how times have changed, in my younger days, I would have spent a lot more and wouldn't have had any more fun. Here is a picture of the front of the casino with this glorious bald eagle with salmon:

We even filled up for diesel at their gas station and got three cents off each gallon with their Players Card. We paid $3.62 a gallon. I checked our records and the last time we paid this price for diesel was mid-February.

When I downloaded pictures from our camera to the computer, I discovered that John had taken a picture of our states map that we have on our of our slides. I must say it is rather impressive what with us just having started to full-time in January. Our goal for next year is to fill in Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas as then we will have stayed in all of the continental states west of the Mississippi.

Most of Sunday morning was spent writing a resume for putting on Workampers Awesome Applicants. I have been having a mental block on putting one together but a talk with our neighbors (who are fulltimers, have workamped or volunteered as camp hosts, etc.) sort of put things in perspective for me ... writer block gone. John and I would like to try our hand at "working" for the summer and a resume was needed for perspective "jobs". Now we have to find an opening for which we want to apply. If found, we are now prepared!

The rest of the day was just hanging out enjoying the sunshine and working a jigsaw puzzle. John and I have found that we enjoy putting them together (we've now completed two). We only have room for 500 piece puzzles but that is enough for our attention spans.

We spent the evening watching TV and had a nice phone call with Melissa.

9/28/08 to 10/10/08

My sister called me today to say that I said I would update our blog weekly so where was my entry for the prior week. Thanks, Jan, I will try to keep our blog updated (love ya).

After several days of dreary skies, it was time for us to move on down the road to our next stop at the Winchester Bay RV Resort. Back in 2002 when John and I were on a driving vacation, we drove around the point from the Umpqua Lighthouse and came upon the largest gathering of RVs we had ever seen. It left quite the impression on us. It was after we left the area that we started noticing all of the RVs on the road and it got us to thinking about "what if?" This was where our open road dreams really started. It goes without saying that since we were coming back through the area, we just had to stay here. They have certainly upgraded this RV park from what we remember it to be. We would give the park 10 stars and two thumbs up. Of course, the nightly fees reflect that upgrade but was well worth it for the week and the views were great. The marina on one side and the bay on the other.

Here is a picture of our site.
This is the view from my kitchen window at the back of our rig.

It seems that the gray skies followed us here and we even got a good storm on Friday night. Holy cow! We had wind gusts over 65 mph and torrential rainfall. I did not sleep well that night with all of the rocking and pounding but it didn't bother John as he didn't lose a wink. Thankfully, our neighbors confirmed the severity of the storm so that John didn't think I was just making it up.

One of the nice things to do is take a drive 8 miles east of Reedsport to the Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area. We were lucky to see approximately 50 elk while they were taking advantage of a bit of sun. They are magnificent animals and we never get tired of seeing them.

Reedsport is only five miles from Winchester Bay so we drove back in to town to visit their wonderful Umpqua Discovery Center. The center has a wing that shows cultural history exhibits called Tidewaters and Time that tells the story of a town where daily life revolved around whether the tide was coming in or going out. This story applies to not only Reedsport but to any other river towns on the Oregon coast. Their Pathways to Discovery natural history wing is like a trail indoors with landings for viewing interpretive environments. It was informative and entertaining with wonderful murals. We really enjoyed ourselves and would encourage others to stop in and see this wonderful center. The entrance fee is $7 for seniors (over 65) and $8 for everyone else. It seems that we were charged only $7 each. Humm, I'm not sure whether we should be insulted or not. It gave us a good laugh and like I told John, we saved $2.

We stopped at a used bookstore to get some reading material and found a gem of a bookstore. Some used bookstores are rather helter skelter in their layout but this one was organized really nicely. The owner was very outgoing and we had a nice conversation with him. For $17 we left with several novels plus a book on Lewis and Clark that John had wanted to read written by Stephen E Ambrose.

We took a drive along the Umpqua River and stopped at a park and got a picture of this maple tree in all its glory. Trees everywhere are changing colors as fall is definitely here in Oregon.

Here is a picture of my honey along the Umpqua River. The poles here are for a boat dock that rises and lowers on these poles according to the river's level.

We had decided that we were tired of the drizzle and dreary skies so we are going to head inland where we should see sunshine and 70 degree weather. Yippee! After some research, we decided to stay at the Umpqua Golf and RV Resort in Sutherlin for the week as they have good rates. So what do we wake up to Thursday morning, our day of departure, but rain. Just before the slides come in and we get ready to hook-up, we have a downpour. Great. . . We had rain on and off on our drive to Sutherlin which took about an hour and a half. We have a nice long site. This park isn't upscale like the one we left but it is clean and quiet. If we played golf, this would be a nice place to come.

We took a drive to Roseburg to do some grocery shopping and later discovered a nice little grocery store here in Sutherlin called Price Less Shopping. I guess we didn't have to take that 12 mile drive. Now we know.