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.

9/21/08 to 9/27/08

First of all, I've made the decision to just update the blog once a week unless something interesting happens.

John's sister, Bonnie, and her husband, Butch, were headed up to Sequim, WA for an Aliner rally and met us at the Columbia Riverfront RV Park. Here is a picture of their Aliner in front of our fifth wheel. We all got a good laugh at the size difference. To think it all started with our Aliner for us and where we live now. Bonnie said that she really liked having neighbors who let them watch TV and shower in their rig. She said she hoped their next neighbors would be as gracious.

It was nice spending some time with Bonnie and Butch as we haven't seen them since we left Sacramento around the first of May. We took them to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge on Sunday afternoon but all it did was rain; not too much wildlife to see. We stopped for pasta/pizza and had leftovers for another day. On our way home, we spotted Osprey, Red Tail Hawks, and some smaller hawks all sunning themselves as the sun had finally come out. Now that was a great sight!

On Monday, we took a drive out to the Columbia River Gorge. We saw some waterfalls, the largest of all was the Multnomah Falls pictured below. The falls were beautiful and we took the trail up to the bridge. There were no takers to take the trail higher up to the top of the falls. Here is a picture of Butch, John, and Bonnie in front of the falls. Such a good looking threesome, don't you think?
We stopped for lunch in Hood River at a place called Charburger Country. Wow! The food was very good (all four of us had burgers) and the staff was very friendly. If we are ever in the area again, we would definitely stop there.

After lunch, we checked out an RV park in Salmon, WA. The RV park was nice and clean and wouldn't be a bad place to spend a few days to be able to take in all of the Gorge's sights. Maybe the next time we are in the area. We then stopped at the Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery. The fish hatchery is an interesting place and first rate operation. Much larger than the Nimbus Fish Hatchery in Rancho Cordova. They have some huge rainbow trout and sturgeon that can viewed. We had fun feeding the rainbow trout as it got them quite worked up. Here is a picture of Herman the Sturgeon. He was something like 10 feet long and weighed around 600 pounds. The picture does not do him justice - he is magnificent.

After the hatchery, we took the short drive over to the dam. It was very interesting watching a few fish come up the ladder. We watched a couple of movies on the dam and the locks. We were talking to the volunteers and got ran out of the facility because it was closing time. Boy, the time just got away from us. We must have been enjoying ourselves. Once home, we settled in for some left over pizza, salad, and TV.

Come Tuesday morning, Bonnie and Butch were back on the road and were going to stop at Northwest Trek a wildlife park. We heard back from them and they said they really enjoyed it and was glad we had recommended it to them. We think the place is fabulous.

On Wednesday, we moved down to Newport, OR to stay the week at South Beach State Park. The spot we chose was long enough for us but proved to be a bit of a challenge to get backed in. As this is only the second state park we have stayed in, we have learned to be a bit more picky about site location than just being concerned with site length. Live and learn!

On Thursday, John and I both got a haircut. I went back to a short cut. I've been growing the hair out over the past year and a half. The cut was a bob which was suppose to be easy to take care of and something hair stylists couldn't mess up too much. Well, neither was true. I've come to realize that I don't like having hair in my face and with thick straight hair, I was really feeling weighed down by my hair. Now, I feel pretty ... oh, so pretty.... Well, maybe that is a stretch but I do enjoy having short hair again.

Over the weekend, we took a drive up the coast and were delighted with the viewing of gray whales in their migration south. We were able to watch about three whales in the same general vicinity feeding. Just blowing water and backs visible for a while was our treat. A picture of one is below. You can see the spray and part of its back. Old eagle eye (John) asked me to check out something near the ocean's horizon through the binoculars as he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Sure enough, there were two whales that were breaching. I must have seen them breach three times each. John said he had been watching them for about five minutes before he said anything. That man's vision is amazing.

As we are so close to the beach, a quarter mile hike, we have often walked down there to enjoy a walk on the beach. We also took advantage of a beautiful day to fly a kite. I had purchased John a better quality kite almost two years ago. It has proven to be a challenge to him to get it up in the air for any length of time. Well, he is finally getting the knack of it. I have to keep reminding him to keep his arms down because every time he brings his arms up, the kite nose dives into the sand. John is starting to see the cause and effect not keeping his arms by his side. Soon, he will have it mastered.