18.11.01-30 McMinnville

I was sad to be leaving Newport, but enjoyed a trip to the commercial fishing dock area on getaway day....

where I had lunch with a friend and got to watch him at work activities packaging the fish 

caught by charter fishing boat guests when the boat came back to the dock. 

Bonus for me I was gifted a couple freeze packed meals of ling cod and a crab for cooking later. 

It is a short two hour drive from Newport to McMinnville, and I timed the drive to arrive just before dark.  Immediately I was reminded I don’t need to be at the coast to see a beautiful sunset 

Now I live in a beautiful RV Resort park 

only a 10 minute drive from Eric and Claudia’s house. Mateo made his first trip to grandma’s house my first weekend in town

and we went for a walk in my neighborhood - there is a huge air museum complex next to the RV resort which I enjoy walking for exercise on a regular basis. 

I go to their house on a regular basis as well ...for meals - this one was to celebrate Carletta’s birthday.  I made chicken piccata following her hand written recipe card, and her famous strawberry pie for dessert.
.....and to help Clau on her sewing machine by finishing up a couple projects that Lupita started while she was here but did not have time to finish before returning to Cancun because she was busy with newborn activities.

We had a quiet and delicious Thanksgiving together at home

where Eric has a hammock set up in the living room for all to enjoy 
And I get to cuddle with Mateo
Happy baby. Happy Grandma

Besides family activities, I’ve been having fun getting to know McMinnville and the surrounding area.  I go lap swimming in the McMinnville public pool 

and am finding places to enjoy live music in the downtown area on 3rd street

I walked the parade route when Santa came to town 

and tapped down some fermenting grapes during an open house on Thanksgiving weekend at one of the (literally) hundreds of wineries in the area. 
I met a new friend while enjoying music at a local restaurant and she came to visit me because she is on the verge of being a part-time RV traveler as well and wanted to see my set-up

I made one day trip out of town to visit an Art fair where I lusted after beautiful quilts
but am happy to report I continue to derive great satisfaction from my knitting - it is therapeutic and takes up less space at home - if you don’t count my large inventory of future project yarn:) - and  is more portable than sewing. In fact, I took one out of town overnight trip back to Newport where I had a nice overnight visit with Linda, my ranger friend from South Beach State Park

and spent the next day at my table at a craft fair and sold a good number of my knitted items. 

Future business?  I doubt it from a financial perspective, but being a traveling crafter makes good emotional sense!

Happy knitting to me!

18.10.04-31 Off duty at South Beach State Park

Newport is a short two hour drive to McMinnville where Eric and Claudia live, so I went there twice during the month. Once to visit while Lupita, la otra abuela de Mateo, was there

And once to visit while tia Isa, la hermana de Claudia, was there.

We celebrated Clau’s birthday

And enjoyed a nice “peace, love, trees” walk through the fall colors with a happy sleeping baby. 
Besides being a grandma.....

I also enjoyed staying in Newport on my off duty days. I rode my bike to see the sunset a few times 

and in the mornings for exercise I took the nice bike path from the state park through the dune forest to the jetty

where I went to observe the tide changes and the fishing fleet traffic on the water, and ride inland along the south side of the jetty to the bay front fishing pier where people come for crabbing. No crabbing for me, I just enjoy the view. 

One beautiful day I rode OVER the bridge.
for a good view into the south side pleasure marina and the Yaquina Bay. 

I was thinking about how much this physical geography is so similar to the Golden Gate (on a much smaller scale, of course, but similar - beautiful bridge, beautiful sheltered harbor along the Pacific coast) and thinking about Mike and all the time we spent here AND there together. He was thinking about me at the same time because I felt the full body tingles
 and saw his image walking along the shore under the bridge. Now THAT is (and was) a good day:). 

Here I am looking back toward the bridge through the north side commercial fishing port 
I stopped on my way home at Rogue Brewery on the bay for a bit of refreshment and toasted Mike
for sharing our good memories of being here together in 2014 and in earlier years. 

Once a week I joined a group of people at the Newport Senior Center on Wednesday afternoons for Pinochle. I am really enjoying that game - it is a bit of a challenge to learn, and I have my cousins in Iowa to thank for getting me started. 
I went three different times on sunny days to my favorite sun bathing spot on the north jetty

Where I let fly some of Mike’s ashes fly last year.  
Fun times in Newport. I look forward to returning next year to do it again:)

18.10.04-31 camp hosting at South Beach

I missed the camp host orientation on Oct 1st, but this is my 5th time hosting here, so I did not miss/need all the information - but I did miss the introductions - there are 12 total host spots, and it is always fun to regroup with familiar faces and meet the new ones.   

This year I’m staying in a new area of the park - the four space host loop right by the front entrance, (but just off the main road, so it there is not as much traffic as there is in front of the six space host row on the main road into the camping area.

I met my three host neighbors when they stopped by to say hello in my first 24 hours. 

My main assignment is working in the Hospitality Center. 

This is the large solid-walled yurt just inside the park where guests come for firewood, ice, information and yurt registration. 

I was trained by Kathy 

We recognized each other from 2016, but did not really meet that year.  We are well acquainted now though, after a month of cooperation in the hospitality center. 

I volunteered for the last shift: 4-8 PM four days per week. 

I’d work the cash register, stock the firewood carts, pass out yurt keys to incoming guests and chat with guests who came in to get warm, stay dry, or use the internet. 

It was perfect for me because I could maintain my night owl routine.  I’d close up shop at 8 and get home at about 8:30 ( a short 2 minute walking commute), have dinner and start cooking the next day’s food ( for me it  is better to cook at night so I don’t waste the daylight hours in the kitchen but there is always something healthy and delicious to eat).  Then I’d stay up too late, watching movies and knitting until the week hours of the night, then sleep until I woke up naturally the next morning. 

Besides the hospitality center,  when the weather was nice ( which turned out to be more often than any other year I’ve worked here in October) and it was an on duty day, I assigned myself to Scotch Broom “search and destroy” duty.  I really enjoy this work - it is outdoors ( better than cabin/yurt cleaning) and independent ( I choose where I want to work) with lots of variety ( the park is large and I know where the scotch broom problem areas are ). Here I am out in the back tent-only campsite area which is closed this late in the year.  

I was able to completely “sweep” through this and other areas I’ve clear cut in prior years to catch the little straggler plants which are now bigger and still easy to remove as isolated plants rather than a solid patch.

A two hour session of this activity is all my body can handle in one sitting. The end of scotch broom pulling always led to a trip to the burn pile to offload the current haul. 

On my last sunny day of work , after a good rain spell the rangers were burning the pile.  Quite a sight to see! 

After my load had been dumped at the burn pile, I would return home, gather my knitting and food for another four hour session in the hospitality center.

Sounds like work?  Well, it was not ALL work and no play.  The details of off duty play time are coming in the next post.  The on duty time I call better exercise than going to the gym, enjoyable outdoor activity, and fair exchange for the site and the pleasure of living in this beautiful spot for a month.  For an example of the beauty: here is a view of the beautiful wide unpopulated sandy beach

and a sunset equally as beautiful on the Oregon coast as the many I’ve posted from sunny Southern California!

18.10.01-2 Home repairs

No matter where a person lives, home repairs are a fact of life. Every time I get work done on MT, I hear the comment from the service provider something to the effect of “ your broken system (water pump, in this case) is working hard because you are a full - timer - these things were not designed to be lived in”.

Well, I know lots of people who DO live in their RV’s full time, and they agree with me:

THE BENEFITS:

-Variety of scenery (natural world)

-Variery of home town services (groceries, entertainment, etc)

-less stuff to carry, manage and clean

-focus on outdoor activities 

-easy to meet(and change, if necessary) your neighbors

OUTWEIGH THE DRAWBACKS

-continuous logistics planning (where will I park next?)

-how can I fix what is broken while still having a place to live?

I know, this is a short drawback list, but honestly, it is how I felt about my lifestyle.

 I like it - the drawbacks are few:)

So back to my needed repairs….

One morning, about half way through my stay in Silver Falls, I discovered water running OUT of my city water intake spout 

(the place where I normally add water INTO my fresh water holding tank by hose from the campsite water spicket). 

Not good!  I stopped the bleeding by turning off the water from the campsite water spicket 

so no new water would come into MT to fill the holding tank and overflow on the other side. 

Fortunately, I had an idea about what the problem was because the same thing happened last October when I was in Newport at South Beach State Park. That time I called a mobile RV guy to come take a look. He diagnosed a faulty water pump, ordered a part and came back 10 days later to install it. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, I could not locate a mobile RV guy to come to Silver Falls in a reasonable time at a reasonable price.   I knew I was driving out toward Salem in three weeks and I knew how to manage an acceptable work-around until then…. Leave the city water intake source turned off, and use the fresh water in my holding tank (which was now completely full).  Not a bad workaround, and I survived my last three weeks just fine by turning off the water pump (easy access to the on/off switch near the kitchen sink) when I was not running water, and I started taking showers in the bath house in the cabin loop. 

During my final week at Silver Falls I made a lot of phone calls to RV repair shops in Salem.  I was thinking Salem was the place to get drive in work done because it is a good sized town midway between Silver Falls and McMinnville - my ultimate destination. I had a couple options that I thought would work and booked three different date/location appointments but none were perfect ( date too far out, inconvenient location, shop not too helpful on the phone.....).

The issue for me is timing since I need a place to live while I get the repair done.  If they were busy, or had to order a part, I would either need to leave it overnight, or make two trips, and Salem is not far from McMinnville, but not exactly convenient, and moving one mile is as much work for me as moving 1000 miles - everything inside needs to be securely stowed while I’m driving, plus, I need to hook up the Jeep and tow it along so I have wheels once I’m out of MT. You see why this aspect of my lifestyle is on the drawback list. 

Finally, I did a google search in the McMinnville area and found “That Trailer Guy” who was conveniently located on a major two lane highway not far from my intended overnight parking or from Eric’s house. AND they could see me on October 1 - the day I pulled out of Silver Falls so I did not have to move twice on the front end of the repair. 

Best case scenario!  I pulled in at the appointed hour, 11AM after my 90 minute drive from Silver Falls.  They were courteous, had helpful suggestions - I learned more about my systems while I watched the repair.  They completed my water pump AND put in a new water temperature thermostat so my water would get hotter - all while I waited!  Happy happy Denise!

I spoke with Eric while I was at the shop. Baby Mateo is now four days old, they are getting settled and still in transition, with Lupita there to help, so staying overnight at their house was not a good option. 

Instead, I drove to Champoeg State Park, another place on my list of possible hosting spots that I wanted to check out anyway. It is only twenty miles from their house.  I got a camp host complementary campsite for two nights.  Exciting!  The place was fall color pretty

and I took a nice bike ride on the park’s bike path along the Willamette River before heading in to McMinnville to spend the evening at Eric’s house. They received dinner from a friend, so all I had to do was hold baby Mateo for an hour or so 

while Eric and Lupita did house chores and Clau continued to become acquainted with motherhood. Great visit and a short drive back to my home at Champoeg.

BUT!!!!  In the morning I awoke to discover I had no inside electricity. I went out to look at the electric fixture in the same utility cabinet where the water pump is housed. I touched the electric box and it sparked and smoked.  Scary!!!! I turned off the electric power source ( something I should have done BEFORE I touched the RV end of the cord).  Then I called That Trailer Guy back, described my situation and got permission to return there again.  

Best case scenario - a repeat of yesterday!! It was an easy fix for Matt - That Trailer Guy. He rewired the electric box in MT while I waited, and only charged me 30 minutes labor.   Happy happy Denise. I left a really nice review on his business google search:)

Now I had another housing challenge. I had already forfeited my comp night at Champoeg by pulling out for more repairs, and could not park in Eric’s neighborhood, so I paid the full price night fee of $46 at Old Stone Village - the same RV park where I have a $495 monthly rate reservation of during November. It is only five miles from Eric’s house. Flat, sunny, full hookups, internet, site available for drop ins. Happy happy Denise!

I had time relax and do much needed paperwork at home in the afternoon. Then I gathered my items to bring dinner to the newborn house, and spent another newborn-watching evening with the family. Yeah!

Tonight’s drive home was even shorter - back to Old Stone Village on the outskirts of McMinnville. Very near the hospital where Mateo was born. Very near That Trailer Guy in case something else breaks-which I’m sure it will!  It’s always something. One of the things on the “Benefits” list is the joy of finding new local services. Here in McMinnville I’ve already got a good hospital and RV repair guy. Happy happy Denise:)