Reconnecting

Odometer  39601

Trip Meter 192 miles

April 16, 2014

Heading to our Summer Place in Port Orford this morning, and the excitement is building.  Yep, we are still quite enthused about the little cottage we purchased and remodeled last summer.  We actually were still working on the house as we were making preparations to head south for the winter.  It was a little hard to tear ourselves away, as the house was looking just the way we wanted, and the weather last November was warm and sunny!

Today's trip is 192 miles, about 4 hours from our RV space here in Medford to Port Orford.

We have chosen to go up the freeway and over to the coast from Winston to Bandon.  Port Orford is 25 miles south of Bandon.  

The weather is perfect and the trip is very pleasant.  We stopped just outside of Camas Valley to make a quick "road lunch" of soup and sandwiches.  We also stopped in Bandon to fill the diesel tank, as the price of fuel is a little cheaper here ($3.83/ gal) than it will be further down the coast.  I always want to park the motorhome with the tank full to reduce condensation.

We arrived at our Summer Place at 2:00 in the afternoon, on a gorgeous day- what a nice welcome!

We unhooked and parked all the vehicles and started the first of many trips from the motorhome to the house with armfuls of food, clothing, and paraphernalia.   In retrospect I wish I'd been counting, because every time I thought there couldn't be one more thing we'd need out of the motorhome- off I'd go for reading glasses, or a computer cable, or the Sirius satellite receiver, or.. on and on.

As it turns out, we are home for the rest of Wednesday and Thursday before we leave Friday in the car to head for Salem, Oregon, to share Easter with Jeff's mom and brothers.

Jeff decides that it would be fun to go up the coast and head over to Salem at Lincoln City, rather than the much faster route, heading over to Interstate 5 at Reedsport and taking the 5 from Cottage Grove to Salem.  For the first part of the trip is was more pleasant (I really don't like freeways unless I have to be somewhere fast).

We ran into a construction zone north of Florence and as we were sitting in the line of cars behind the flagger we looked to our left to see this scene!  How cool is that!  We are at the best picture point for Heceta Head Lighthouse- normally you would not be able to stop here without causing a wreck, on the two lane blacktop with virtually no shoulder.

  Once we got to Newport, Hwy 101 got much more crowded.  Highway 101 through Oregon (Cal and Washington too for that matter) is a two lane road with a few passing zones.  If you get behind a slow car (and you will) it is a long wait to get to a passing lane.  It's what is known as "the coast crawl".  The 20 miles of Hwy 101 from Lincoln City to Newport is called the "20 Miracle Miles", because the road stays close to the beach and the scenery is out-of-this-world spectacular. The north coast of Oregon has a lot of small towns and they are really close together, and the posted speed drops to 35 for each one.  I am normally a very patient man, but by the time we got to our turn off at Lincoln City- I'd had enough of this traffic.  Former Governor Hatfield was not too far off when he described this stretch of road in 1965 as the "20 miserable miles".  The final straw is Lincoln City.  Lincoln City is the incorporation of 5 smaller towns which once independent, had grown together into one seven mile stretch of "town" the whole 7 miles is heavy traffic and speeds reaching 25 miles per hour on a good day.   I'm actually being facetious here, the coast is beautiful, we just prefer the slower pace of the south coast.

The trip east into Salem on Hwy 22 is another 2 lane with a few passing lanes- so patience is a virtue.

We arrived in Salem at about 3PM and dropped in at Hot Stuff Spas and Pools, the store my brother and sister-in-law own, just to say hi then went to visit mom at her apartment a few blocks away.

Our stay in Salem was very pleasant, Thane and Kathy always go out of their way to make sure we are well taken care of.  Kathy put on a grand feast for Easter, and our whole extended family except sister Phebe were there.

Monday April 21st, we headed back home to Port Orford, the day was cloudy and it looked like rain would be a possibility.

I have been looking for a small aluminum row boat to use during the summer on Garrison Lake (across the street from our house) while I effect repairs to the wooden boat that I had on the lake last year.  I was surfing on Craigslist while Joan was driving- and I found what looked to be a good deal on a boat in Coos Bay.  I talked Joan into the small side trip, and called the owners to make an appointment to see it.  The boat was a little rough- but we agreed on a price that was commensurate and we rigged it atop the Honda for the 50 mile trip home.

The promised rains had finally arrived by the time we got home and we put the boat in the garage for a little refittment. 

Tuesday I did a thorough once-over on the new boat and determined that I could massage out most of the big dents and the rotted transom had to be replaced.

I laminated two pieces of 1/2 exterior plywood and coated it all with fiberglass resin.  I used stainless steel carriage bolts to reinstall the transom, where the original had 1/4" aluminum rivets..

Next posting, I'll let you know how it works out in the water.

Your Traveling Friends

Jeff and Joan