Tuesday, July 17 - Seattle WA and the Carnival Legend

Cruise Day 1

We get away as planned leaving lots of time to drive the 30 odd miles into downtown Seattle to the Smith Cove Cruise Terminal 91.  Our route takes along the I5 which moves nicely for about 15 minutes and then we spend another 30 minutes crawling.  Kim complains he has just driven through Seattle and he didn’t see a thing, he was concentrating too much!  Although he does see our first glimpse of the Carnival Legend floating there majestically lording it over the lower buildings.

Lovely day to drive through Seattle to meet our cruise boat

Nice city

We arrive at the cruise parking easily, GPS got it first time, follow the signs for oversize parking and check in with the attendant who directs us over to the back where there are another half dozen rigs parked.  Everything gets ticked off our check list except leaving the fridge doors ajar, I guess we will have a smelly fridge when we get back

A shuttle picks us and our two cases up within 5 minutes and takes us right to the front door where we check in to the cruise.  Surprisingly there is not much of a wait and we are onboard by about 11.50am.  Kim immediately finds the carvery, we learnt that from last time and he has lunch chosen and eaten before the hoards of passengers arrive.  We find a nice spot outside in the fresh air but in the shade, it is another 30C day today.  An hour or so later Carrol and Chris rock up, my directions must have been alright.  We spend a leisurely hour or two catching up on their trip so far and stuff.

Carnival Legend before the throngs

Our luggage has been delivered by the time we go check out our cabin (5119) and a nice surprise - our alcohol has been delivered too!

The unpacking has been done and everything stowed, lots of storage in the cabin, three single wardrobes, lots of drawers and shelves.  The bathroom ditto, lots of shelves so everything can be out.  Our extended balcony is wider rather than longer and it means the guests above us can look down onto the outer part of ours, so we will have to behave ourselves!

3.20pm we are instructed to march smartly down to the muster station for the drill, we are a bit late so get to stand in the second row from the front, we feel for the poor people in the four rows behind, we are really squashed in like sardines.  Although it is hot and sticky, more so because of the limited personal space at least we are in the shade.  One largish lady feels the pressure, feeling faint and moves to the rail to get some air.  The muster drill unfortunately seems to be a bit of a farce and we think it is more intended to make sure everyone who has embarked is on board before sailing rather than advising what to do in an emergency.

We’ve sussed out the Serenity Bar (adults only) and agree to meet C&C there for HH.  I check out the cocktail list but the only one to take my fancy is the frozen margarita, I won’t be working my way through the list this trip.

We leave on time at 4pm and we get a great view of Seattle from the sea.

Big marina seen from the C Legend as we depart Seattle

It gets a bit cool outside at the back, we aren’t in the sun anymore so move inside and find some space at the Alchemy Bar and listen to the singer while we wait for the queue to reduce for dinner in the Truffles restaurant.

The food is great, especially the cured salmon cubes.  After Kim’s substantial roast beef lunch, he wasn’t overly hungry and settled for the shrinp cocktail and a salad for main but then managed to find room for dessert, tiramisu and butter pecan icecream.  The steaks looked pretty good too.

We are finished in time to catch the show in the Follies, it is just a taste of what we might expect from the staff at their main show later in the week. It’s all over by 10.20 and we are all a bit weary from having so much fun, we hit the hay.

Nice to go to sleep lulled by the movement of the ship, and we could feel it more during the night.  It got a little rougher at one point.  Nice comfy bed and American pillows – I love them!

Monday, July 16 – KOA Seattle/Tacoma, Kent WA 98032

After a nice relaxing morning and yet another load of laundry we break camp to get closer towards Seattle so we don’t have so far to drive tomorrow morning to catch our cruise to Alaska.  We have booked parking for the motorhome right at the cruise terminal so hope that works out as expected.  Our booking time to board is between 11.30 and 12, might as well enjoy as much of shiplife as we can and the parking opens up about 10.30am although I guess we have to wait until the ship and the carpark empties out before we can move in.

Nearly half way to Kent and after we have finished our travel mugs of coffee we stop at a Walmart Pharmacy for damage control.  The pharmacist, not of this country, didn’t know what spray on plastic skin is and just points me in the direction of the band aids.  Might need something more methinks.  Anyway we scan the shelves and get some Neosporin cream (US version of Savlon?), some waterproof dressings and some New Skin – liquid bandage spray.  Now we’re talking!

Along the I5 we are slowed down by road works for 20 minutes or so - it’s a bit hair raising driving alongside an extra wide load with a brand new pleasure boat on one side  and another 18 wheeler on the other side but it was actually quite a nice drive.

It was kind of this truck to drive in front of us, I could see what was coming up from behind on both sides for a while.

Getting all arty!

The Washington State road signs show the silhouette of George Washington, pretty cute hah?  Should he have done something with his hair?

We drive through a nice modern suburb a mile away from the KOA

Lovely backdrop

We pull into our site, 29, it’s on a corner and it is really only just long enough for us.   Kim borrows a chair to put on road hopefully protecting our mirrors from being sideswiped should someone big come down Ellensburg.

Handy chair protecting our corner

We don’t have much shade and it’s pretty warm, 30C+ - we have the air on inside.

I’ve done a preliminary pack, we leave on our cruise tomorrow – yay!  Seems plain wrong to be packing winter type clothes in this heat but I’m not sure what to expect so covering all bases.

I am not taking the laptop so you won’t see any blogs for a week, but I will take notes and fill you all in when we get back to civilisation.  And with lots of photos too. Take care everyone!

Sunday, July 15 – Stan Hedwall County Park, Chehalis WA 98532

There was one good memory about our stay at TT Chehalis, as we were walking the loops scouting out a suitable site we were overtaken by a beautiful bouncing bambi, complete with spots, it was less than 5 feet away from us aww!  Shortly after we saw an adult wandering into the bush.

So this morning, as we are just about to leave camp I go outside to perform my usual outdoor inspection to make sure the power and water is disconnected, the TV aerial is down, the jacks are up and the blocks are away and the bikes are stuck on good etc.  Anyway bumblefoot me tripped down the steps and did a brilliant rendition of an oscar winning face plant - but it was obviously wasted, nobody saw it, at least nobody came running! You’ll just have to take my word for how award winning it was.  Only damage is a badly grazed shin, perfect timing not, I will be disfigured for the whole of our Alaska cruise!  I will put the photo at the end of the blog so those who are squeamish can avoid looking at the damage.

We advise the TT rangers on the way out that we are not staying for the second of our booked nights because their camp is crap!  Does it sink in, I don’t think so - he responds have a nice day!

There is a Walmart about 8 miles north, in the town of Chehalis and I really want a haircut and hopefully the bleeding will have stopped by then.  We should also have cell coverage there so can find somewhere else to stay tonight.  Happy with my haircut, maybe my day will turn around.  And I pick up a couple of tops ‘cos retail therapy is well recognised as a remedy for owies : )

The KOA we are booked in tomorrow night can’t take us a night earlier so we drive a couple of miles south to the Stan Hedwall County Park and select a 50 amp site in the shade, it’s already 28C.  And we have cell coverage and there is a river running behind us and there are big gaps between the sites etc…..

Nice park, we are half way down the right side under a tree

Kim sees a garden snake as he is hooking up the hose, it’s right by the wheel and it slithers between the two back wheels so he squirts it with the hose and it slithers off into the bush – thank goodness, didn’t fancy any uninvited bed mates tonight.

We go for a walk and check out the river, might need to come back for a swim later.

Nice silhouette Kim

It’s quite warm so we don’t spend too much time in the sun but it is very pleasant relaxing in the shade with our books.  The camp hosts come over and stay for a visit and chat, nice to learn about life as a host.

Don't look any further if you gonna faint or anything.....

Owwie!!

Saturday, July 14 – TT Chehalis, WA 98532

We are on a mission today, we are driving 3 ½ hours north into Washington State to the first ever TT campground at Chehalis.  It’s a lovely sunny day and there is no marine layer of fog over the ocean yet.  We're on the road by 8.15am so an excellent start.  Although we are backtracking the same way we came to Lincoln City, it's still a nice drive.

We stop for diesel at King City on the outskirts of Portland, while we are still in the no sales tax land and once again Gas Buddy shows the best price in the area - $3.139 when others were advertising up to $3.50.  It’s such a good app.

Portland looks like a nice city from what we saw driving through, the I5 pretty much skirts around downtown alongside the Columbia River, where there are some very large launches moored, there are high rises dotting the skyscape and sun is reflecting off the water, lovely.  The I5 gets a bit busy through town but Kim only has to honk twice!  Our horn is so loud I bet it scares the bejasus out of those on the receiving end!

Portland Skyscrapers

Columbia River with Mt Rainer faintly in the distance

When a river runs through your city you always have bridges

We cross the bridge spanning Oregon and Washington State, there are handy signs advising drivers we are leaving Oregon and entering Washington and I also get the pretty 'Welcome to Washington' sign once we get back on to land.

A bit further along the I5 we can see smoke in the distance and a fire truck heading south towards us and then we come across this car on fire. Pretty sure the driver is out, there is a police car inattendance.

A slightly better photo of Mt Rainer between the trees

We arrive at TT a little after noon and spend the next 2 ½ hours trying to find a campsite we can set up in.  The 323 site campground is quite full and every one of the 33 x 50 amp sites is taken, there are quite a few personal sites which are chained off and there are only a few of the remaining 30 amp sites which are big enough for us and they are not very level nor particularly appealing.    We try three separate sites and none of them will give us power.  Our Electrical Management System, which checks high and low voltage, frequency, incorrect wiring etc. to save frying our electronics, won’t let us connect.

We drive back to the office to let the rangers know of the power problems in the last three sites.  The staff must all be new - unlike the campground, one young ranger sent us off on a wild goose chase to the only pull thru site they have, saying that B9 has very reliable power!  But once we pulled in to the site we could not open the door because of the blackberry.  The camp is losing the blackberry battle, it encroaches everywhere.  We can't get power here either.

In sheet frustration we eventually pull into site B3 on the main thoroughfare but at least we can get in, still no power but flag down the ranger as he drives by to ask if we can please have an electrician check the power pedestal for us. They said they replaced the circuit breaker, but there is still no power coming in on line 2. 

It's 30C, that's very hot when you are a tad stressed and I am not sure if we are more frustrated, grumpy or just plain disappointed once again in Thousand Trails. We go for a swim in the pool to cool down and we will dry camping for the night.  

Friday, July 13 – Premier RV Resort, Lincoln City OR97367

Up early - need to cook about a million sausages before breakfast at 9am.  Kim just about steps on his newspaper as we leave to head over to the kitchen with our offerings, but manages to save it for later.

Another gargantuan breakfast!  Melon, fruit salad, muffins, donuts, two million sausages (only half of them cooked by me), hashbrowns and scrambled eggs plus coffee.  After a leisurely, long and fulfilling breakfast we go home to do our dishes.  There is such a lot of food left over from yesterday and only one more HH and dinner tonight so all the food not used so far is put out on the table for anyone to take back to their coaches if they have room.  We are trying to empty our fridge/freezer as we would like to leave the fridge off when we park the coach while we are on the cruise so we don’t really want any left overs but do snaffle some biscuits/scones and fruit which I am sure we will be able consume.

Kim pulls the printer out to load the new ink cartridges to see if they work – you guessed it, of course they don’t, but he googles how to clean the print head and fix the blocked nozzles etc.  It keeps him occupied for an hour or two while I take myself off for a walk over to the beach, armed with the instructions this time so it is no problem and I can report now, from  experience there are only 77 steps back up to the road from the beach. The ocean is raging and the sand is littered by huge driftwood stumps.  There are some amazing cliff dwellings with fabulous view over the ocean.

View from top of the steps

Spanish Head Hotel

77 steps down and 77 steps up!

HH is another fun filled affair and so is the Mexican themed dinner.  Again, such a lot of food, I don’t think I will ever need to eat again, well probably until we hit the cruise that is!

So the ‘Safari So Good’ Club has done extremely well with getting sponsorship and every coach receives a voucher for service or goods.  We win the voucher for a solid wood cutting board (worth $100) which the sponsors promised to ship to the recipient - I don’t think they intended NZ.

We are back home by around 7.30pm and the sun is still shining into the motorhome, a lovely evening.  Most everyone will be leaving tomorrow so some are packing up tonight ready for an early start.  It was a bit sad to say goodbye to old friends and the new friends we have met on this rally and we hope we will see them again. Safe travels everyone!

Thursday, July 12 – Premier RV Resort, Lincoln City OR97367

What a nice surprise, the newspaper fairies have left Kim a paper on our doorstep!

And he even read the ads!

Breakfast at 9am, what a selection - fresh melon, fruit salad, muffins, pastries, biscuits and gravy – but there is also butter and jam so we can enjoy the “scones” as we are used to eating them.  And lots of coffee!

Need to move after all that, Kim washes the windscreen and I go for a walk to explore how to get to the beach.  I have it figured but need to be back ready for Tom & Bobbi to pick us up at 11.15am to go sightseeing. Will check out the beach tomorrow.

We drive south to Depoe Bay, the home of the worlds smallest harbour and luckily get a car park right where the gray whales are feeding in the surf.  They are so close in to the shore, but unfortunately very hard to get photos of : (

This is a Grey Whale

It's a lovely little seaside town and we have a lunch stop at the recommended Sea Hag for a bowl of their famous chowder and then a walk through the Whale Watching Centre, where I pick up a couple of leaflets for more info.  Grey whales grow to 45 feet, their blotchy colouring is partly present from birth and partly from barnacles growing in the skin. They holiday in Mexico for calving and by March they are migrating north to the Bering Sea again.  The round trip is 16,000 kms, the longest migration of any mammal.  Amazing!

Lunch at Sea Hag with Bobbi and Tom, waiting for our chowder to be delivered

Depoe Harbor - the smallest harbour in the world - the sign said so!

This is how the large boats in the marina get out to sea, it's narrower than it looks and rougher!

We had a lovely day out, thanks Tom & Bobbi and we get back in time to have a relax before I need to head down to the meeting room kitchen about 3.30, I volunteered to help with HH nibbles and tonight’s Italian Dinner plus tidy up afterwards, then I hopefully will have done more than my bit and can relax tomorrow, unless needed.  Oh apart from being on sausage cooking duty tomorrow morning.

After voluminous nibbles, followed by a yet more voluminous Italian dinner and ice cream (the pistachio was real good) we settle down for a game of Card Bingo run by Howard and Pat.  Not only did Kim win the third prize in the 50/50 raffle which meant he got the last envelope left and was surprised to find $20 in it, he won a round of Card Bingo and won about $7 worth of quarters!

Wednesday, July 11 – Premier RV Resort, Lincoln City OR97367

ABDIP 28C and the sun is totally owning it’s space in the sky again.  We are moving on from this lovely park today, we are going to a ‘Safari So Good’ Rally in Lincoln City, run by our new friends Joy and Gary.  We drive a little north so we can hook up with the Walmart at McMinville and then head west along Hwy 18 which is a much better road than some we have traversed getting between the ocean and inland.  In the middle of nowhere we come across the Spirit Mountain Casino and the carpark is probably 40% full at 11am.

Orchards and crops everywhere

Willamette River

As we get closer to the coast we can see a hint of the fog coming off the sea and we join up with Hwy 101 and proceed to stop/start our way through the busy town.  There is another casino here in town, the Chinook Winds.  Also an Outlet Mall!

We keep driving to the south end of Lincoln City where we pull in to the Premier RV Resort, site 73.  What a lovely park, the sites are tiered, relatively private, concrete, flat and each has a nice patio area with a small picnic table.  We are parked up in the same block as the other Safari coaches.

One row of Safaris, ours has the chairs out the front

Two rows of Safaris

Our welcome pack includes a list of all the attendees and it appears there are 17 coaches and 33+ POBs.  We have met some members before and there is at least one couple who is enjoying their first time at one of these rallies.  It’s great to catch up with Bobbi and Tom again and we are happy to learn that they are still full timing in their lovely motorhome. By the time we have set up, interspersed with much chatting with others, had a bite of lunch and a relax in the sun, it is time for HH and OMG it is a big one, all 30+ people attend and we see some more familiar faces.  Instead of dinner tonight we are enjoying ‘Heavy Hors d’ourvres’ and they are indeed heavy enough so that we need just some ice cream at home to top it all off and we are done for the day.  The sun is still out, no fog, it’s 23C at 7pm and we are happy!

Tuesday, July 10 – Champoeg State Park, St. Paul OR97137

Good morning sunshine, thanks for coming!  This is a nice State Park, well laid out, clean modern bathrooms, well cared for tracks, biking trails and hiking trails.  Neighbours have gone and come last night as well as this morning so we have been entertained.

We are going for an explore on our bikes this morning, first planned stop is the historic Butteville Store a couple of miles west of the camp.  Well, we got past the single lane bridge where we must walk our bikes, then get to the road with still a half mile to go, think ‘can we be bothered’ there is a hill in front of us, decide yes we should, we must be so close, then come to another hill and decide feck it – it is only a store.  When we get back to camp we see the sandwich board for the store, we missed coffee and ice cream.  Hmm, we hadn’t taken any money so would have dipped out anyway.

Communing with nature

We rode back along the bike trail the way we came and then went east away from the camp, where I had walked yesterday.  We check out the fishing pier where a young couple had caught a small catfish for their dinner and were going for another to round out the meal.  The river height is pretty low right now, the ramp down was very steep.  There are some very expensive looking homes with piers on the other side, some of which we can see between the trees on this side.  Reminds us a little of the Murray River.  Look at this swarm of mozzies or other low flying water loving insects, makes you itch just looking at them.

Would make a nice snack for lurking fish

We ride back through the park.  The Bike Repair Station is a nice touch, it’s complete with tools (on wires - protection from cycling kleptomaniacs), a couple of platforms for carrying out the repairs and a robust bike pump.

Pump it up Kim!

We spend a relaxing afternoon outside enjoying the summer weather and watching the world go by.

There is a movie tonight at 9pm at the amphitheatre, it’s about Beavers.  Kim isn’t interested but I go across, its just down the track from us.  There are about 15 of us there and such a nice night.  A brown bat (at least that’s what someone called it) came to visit briefly.  Did you know beavers can chop down 400 trees in a year and only second to man, in the impact they have on the planet.

Monday, July 9 – Champoeg State Park, St. Paul OR97137

Our destination today is the Champoeg (pronounced Shampoo-ee) State Heritage Area.  We only have 12 miles to drive and it takes us past lots of agriculture, a fertile valley.  We arrive at the Park around 11.30am, check-in is not really until 4pm but checkout is 1pm so we check out the Information Centre first.

Champoeg, the birthplace of American government in Oregon, is situated in the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River.  Originally, before 1840 the Champoeg prairie was home to the Kalapuya Indians who used the area for hunting, fishing and gathering camas bulbs (which look like blue hyacinth and part of the asparagus family).  Fur trappers came from 1811 and in 1841 the settlers began holding “wolf meetings” to discuss the predator problem.  Eventually the meeting turned to larger issues and hence the new provincial government was born.  The Visitors Centre has exhibits showing the ways of the Kalapuya, fur trappers, explorers and settlers who lived in this area.  The Seeds of Government exhibit was really interesting and it was cool to be able to touch the wildlife skins on display.

Even though we are early we take a drive to B Loop and find our site B31 in the hope that the previous inhabitants have moved on.  Yes they have, so we set up camp and make ourselves at home.

It’s a bit overcast this afternoon, but it’s warm and we have it on good authority that the weather is going to fine up and get very hot, ie in the 90’s for the rest of the week!  Bring it!!

Kim potters and polishes and I explore.  

Wipe on - Wipe off!!

This is the State Plant – the Oregon Grape.  The berries are not grapes nor do they taste like grapes, they are very tart and often used for jelly or wine.  I didn’t try any!  Oregon Grape is also well known as a medicinal plant. It contains the compound berberine, which is mainly found in the roots and bark of the plant, good for tummy upsets etc.

Oregon Grape, bright blue berries

Heaps of ground squirrels here, they are not very afraid of humans

Look what else I find in the forest - a fairy door - I peeked inside!

Have a sit outside with my book when I return but it doesn't fine up much.  Another day tomorrow.  

Saturday, July 7 - Canby OR97013

We had a surprisingly good night at Walmart, it wasn’t very noisy at all and the hum of traffic in the background on the I5 was muted.

Woke to brilliant sunshine and it is lovely and warm!  We use propane to boil the kettle for our cups of tea and stooge around tripping over each other as we only put out the bedroom slides last night so space is at a premium in the kitchen/lounge area this morning.

I have to tell you a funny story about Kim and the printer. We bought a new black ink cartridge at Walmart and he is installing it this morning.  Of course he expects it to be dud (blame that on a somewhat pessimistic quality he is endowed with) and sure enough after installing the cartridge he plugs the printer in and nobody home, no lights, nothing!  Well, he’s happy that he is proven right - again and he is grumpy because nothing ever works as it should, bless him.  So he’s got his tools out and the printer is upside down on the bench ready for dismantling when I point out, very subtly I might add, that we are not plugged into power here in the Walmart carpark. Ah - the inverter sorts that out pretty smartly and hey presto the lights light up and the printer whirrs into life.  We had a good laugh over that one and I just had to tell!

So we need to make plans for today, we’ve made no bookings and it is the weekend but Kim assures me it won’t be a problem. I start by trying Champoeg State Park to see if we can arrive earlier, nope! Then I try an RV Park about 5 miles away, nope!  Then we look at AllStays and there are a couple of resorts further south towards Salem but they look expensive, Kim doesn’t care but I do, we come with our own house after all. There are a couple of county parks with camp sites about 12 miles east and there is no answer on the phone so, as we need to leave Walmart anyway, might as well take a drive out there and fill in our day.  It’s a pleasant drive, we see some colourful skydivers enroute and we get to the first park and see the sign on the roadway "Campground Full” but we go in anyway and talk to the camp host.  They are indeed full and she very kindly checks the other parks in the area for me but as it is the weekend and the weather is gorgeous we have no joy. Maybe it will be a problem Kim - but there is always Walmart, right? However right then I get a call back from Riverside RV Park in Canby, they have just had someone leave and we can have their spot for the weekend.  It’s only about 12 or so miles north so we head up that way and we are checked in before noon.

Cheek by jowl at Riverside RV and we are the lucky ones!

There’s not much of an outside area on our site, just a scoria rectangle but it is much bigger than our neighbours and we feel a bit bad about putting our slides out making their patch even smaller.  There are not home though so we manage to get over our guilt.  We have room for our recliners - did I mention it is sunny and hot, up to 27C this pm : )

We walk a couple of blocks up the hill into town for dinner at the Wild Hare Saloon, it was a pretty cool place and we had a good night.

Drinks at the Wild Hare Saloon, Canby OR

View of the park as we walk back from dinner

The couple two down are trying to hook up their 5^th wheel and there is much talking and a lot of to'ing and fro'ing going on.  After about ten minutes Kim goes to help and another ten minutes later they have it!  Leaving tomorrow I guess.

We have Cable here but it’s still a challenge to find something we want to watch.  The WIFI is pretty good though.

Wanna buy a gun, Cabelas have a good selection on sale!

Sunday, July 8 – Riverside RV Park, Canby OR97013

ABDIP – the sun is out, not a cloud in the sky and already 18C by 8am, welcome back summer – we missed you!  The duvet is back in storage and the electric fans are out from under the bed.

Exploring the RV Park this morning.  The majority of sites are filled with trailers and fifth wheels with just a handful of motorhomes and those are not very big.  Now we have seen the narrow sites we understand why when we phoned she asked if we had slides and then turned us down.  Probably half of the sites seem to be semi permanent and there is a lot of older equipment. It seems there are workers here who are gone during the day.  But this is super cool - a model train track around your trailer:  Will have to check later and see what the timetable is!

Model Railway

We check out the Molalla River right beside the park, although the shore is stony I think the river will be a real drawcard for later today when it gets really hot. We saw lots of people swimming in the river last evening as we walked up to dinner.

We do spend the afternoon down at the river and actually need to get in the water, it gets to 32C. The water is  pretty warm - after you inch in that is.  The river gets deep enough in the middle to be totally submerged and there are dozens of people floating down it in all manner of rafts, lilos, paddle boards, inner tubes and other sophisticated paraphernalia.  I suspect the punters either get dropped off somewhere up river or picked up down river, there are so many of them and I don't see any walking back.  They look like they are all having a great time. 

Cooling down in the Molalla

After dinner we had another potential buyer have a look at the coach, this might be the way to sell it, but we decide he is a tire kicker and was more interested in telling us what he had in his motorhome.  Maybe he was just lonely!

Friday, July 6 – Portland, Oregon

Last night for no good reason we could glean our fridge/freezer stopped working, it was good one minute and it not the next.  It’s nearly 9pm and its getting dark but Kim with his trusty torch, I mean flashlight, goes outside to check it out.  It’s getting power and the fuses are good, so nothing obvious.  Ah dang it, let’s check it again in the morning.  I wander over to buy some ice  from the Ranger Station which advertises itself as being open until 10pm but not this night!  So we eat the icrecream (every cloud has a salted caramel lining even at 10pm), move everything else frozen to the one freezer along with the ice we still have and leave the fridge doors closed. That should do it till tomorrow.

6am – Kim vaults out of bed, thinking it is 8am and gets right into breaking camp.  The fridge stuff is still cold so we have breakfast but we don’t check the frozens ‘cos don’t want to open the door.  We are on the road by 7.45am heading inland to Portland as intended, grabbing some ice before we leave the resort.

Highway 26 inland from Seaside to Portland was in two distinctive parts, the first was very narrow, winding and in poor condition, we were bounced all over the place.  The second half was wider, smoother and a better surface. Most of the roads from the cities to the coast have a similar pattern.

Kim is excited, he gets to pick up his new Chart Plotter from Cabelas this morning and that is our first stop.

Goodness me, that's a big box!

While there we also buy a cooler, they have them on a good special and with that and some ice we could manage for a few days with no fridge if necessary.

Then we start making some phone calls about the fridge, the first RV service company can make us an appointment on the 27 July.  Umm, no thanks all the same, that won’t cut it.  Camping World, second call, bless them have a cancellation and we should rock up there around 12.30-1pm and they will book us in for a diagnosis.  We got nothing else to do so we are there a little after 11am brandishing our extended warranty paperwork should it be needed (we still have two weeks before it expires – timing is everything) and after we are booked in and paperwork completed there is a bay available so we drive into the shade and wait for Brian to come back from his parts run to take a look see.

End result is a happy one, about an hour later and only $160 lighter we have a new Electrode Spark and our fridge works – happy face : )

We pop back to Cabelas to return the cooler, don't need that no more!  Next stop Speedco, might as well get it all done in one day, Kim likes to have the coach and generator serviced every 7,500 miles rather than the suggested 15,000 miles.  So we rock up to the Speedco we researched, just 4 miles away.  When we arrive there are just two trucks in front of us and two already in the bays.  Another motorhome rolls up just after us, wait in line buddy.  We are in within probably 30 minutes and out again 30-40 minutes later – the coach has had another birthday.

Right, where too next, we have nothing booked?  AllStays shows a Premium Outlet Mall kittykat across from Walmart and there is an RV Park adjacent, ie within walking distance.  Unfortunately the Camp is full but there is ample separate parking for big rigs at the Outlets so we park up for an hour or two and go ‘window’ shopping!  The Woodburn Premium Outlets is a huge deal, 16 shoe and 44 fashion/sportswear stores including Coach, Guess, Calvin Klein, Nike and the Icebreaker store was brilliant, could have damaged the credit card several times over in there – didn’t!

The RV Park next door and another we phoned are full tonight, so we revert to our good friend Walmart - we haven’t boon-docked at all this holiday so here is our chance.  We arrive to signs plastered everywhere “No Overnight Parking – No Truck Parking” but I can count five big trucks and four motorhomes already set up to stay the night, with slides out and everything.  OK, so we are not going to ask permission, we will just park up, go and get something for dinner and turn out lights out quick.  Kim is disappointed though, the Walmart info said there was McDonalds here but nary a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder to be had.  Walmart didn’t even have his standby fried chicken tenders, but we bought some chicken and that was our dinner.  Going back over shortly to have a leisurely look around the whole store.

Homeless hanging at Walmart, wonder what they use as an address

Another car sleeper and trucks lined up behind - all staying the night.

Boondock alley, our neighbours were outside in their deck chairs when we returned from shopping.

All in all, a good day!

Thursday, July 5 - TT Seaside, OR

Our last day here and the sun is shining.  Kim has nearly run out of data on his phone for the month but it renews in two days’ time so meantime to keep some in reserve we go over and use the free WIFI at the Clubrooms.  Not so busy this morning but it gets more inhabited the longer we stay.

Took the camera with us today so got some pics of the pool etc.  We tried our hands at table tennis, not so successfully, maybe a degree of practice and having bats with the rubber on them instead of just wood, would help!

Indoor pool, it was pretty hot in there with the sun shining on all the glass.

Back home early afternoon for a relax outside in the sun until it clouds over around 3pm.  Take a walk around the camp seeing it’s our last day here, don’t want to miss anything.

Huge stump across from our camp site between the cabins, hope the top didn't hit anything on its way down!

Aww cute, a tent for your 'lil doggie!

A couple of loads of laundry and housework rounds off the day nicely.

Jeanie and Fred stop in for a visit, they have seen our For Sale sign on the front of the coach.  They appear quite keen, their 32 footer C Class is just too small for Jeanie.

Oh, then we have a problem with the fridge!!