Month: July 2021

Our Mesquite neighbors (and our Oceanside RV Resort nextdoor neighbors), the Carnicellis, moved down the road to Bayside RV Park yesterday. And, our good friends, the Quinns, are moving into The Mill Casino RV Park, in nearby North Bend, today. We, on the other hand, will be staying put for the next twelve days.

For the next week or so, we will have two sets of friends to socialize with here in the Coos Bay area. How nice!

We’ve been here at Oceanside for two weeks. The weather has either been sunny and around 60 degrees (high) or foggy with 60 degrees. The coastal fog days are dreary, to an extent, but we are able to read a lot, watch TV, fool around on the computer, and do some shopping and dining out. Even on the fog days it is better than in Mesquite, Nevada: I can still exercise the dogs down at the beach, and they love it. It makes their day.

There was a nice community bike race the other day.

We’re still having some issue with the air bag leveling system, despite having six air bags replaced this past Spring. Our site here at Oceanside is not level at all and I have to re-level the rig at least every four hours or so. There must be a pinhole leak in one of the air lines or possibly a leak in one of the non-replaced air bags. I will have to take it back to the shop in October.

Galen (Carnicelli) will be calling me today to drive over to Bayside RV Park and help him replace some propane gas line and fittings on his motorhome. He has a bad back and can’t get under the rear of his rig, so I can help him. Later in the week, he will return to Oceanside RV Resort and help me replace a thermostatically-controlled ceiling exhaust fan.

Charlie and I are going through the learning curve with our brand new Splendide washer/drier. It is a much higher level of technology from our previous appliance, with all manner of digital controls and features. We have yet to master it, but we’ll get there. It is so nice to be able to do small loads and avoid having to go to a laundromat.

It’s all part of RV’ing.

I take the dogs to the beach every morning when I get up (usually about 6:30 a.m.) The tide is very low then and the beach just goes on forever. I take along a tennis ball and we three Amigos play “fetch”. Baby is, of course, a world class ball retriever, and will bring it quickly back to me and drop it at my feet. BonBon is learning from this example and, after only two weeks, will now return it to me every time and let me take it from her mouth. Good dog!

We typically sit outside in camp chairs when the sun is out and the dogs mill about off leash. They are both really good about not charging off to greet people and dogs who are passing our coach. However, BonBon is extremely social, like Booger used to be, and has an impulse to “visit” dogs who might be staying at the immediately adjacent site. So, we have to watch her. However, occasionally, when our screen door is open and we’re inside, BonBon will exit the rig without permission. When we realize what has happened, and rush outside, we will find her soaking up sunshine in one of the camp chairs.

Just like Booger, BonBon is a sun worshipper.

On Friday, we sat with a notary for an hour and signed an inch and one-half stack of legal documents for a refinance of our Mesquite property. Who knows where interest rates and inflation are going in America, but we felt that 3 percent APR was too good to pass up and it is going to drop our monthly mortgate payment by $500 so…why not? We won’t be around to pay off the loan anyway, and there should be plenty of equity for the heirs to split up when we finally croak.

With this move, we will essentially only have a mortgage payment, a car payment (for less than 12 months), and our $151 per month H.O.A. dues. Our motorhome is paid off, as is an infrastructure bond that came with our house.

As long as Social Security and the California Public Employees Retirement System remain afloat, we should be okay.

Of course, with the current state of affairs in America, who knows what will happen in the future.

Coos Bay is a working class town featuring a lot of loggers, fisherman, and assorted blue collar “Lunchbucket Joes”. The economy here, as in many places in the U.S., is on the rebound in a tentative fashion…as if waiting for the next shoe to drop. There are a lot of homeless folks in this town and families who are right at the financial tipping point. Many of the businesses who employed minimum wage workers have yet to rehire the Covid-19 furloughed help.

Heaven help us all if the resistance to vaccination causes another pandemic wave this Fall. The last thing we need is another round of business closings, masking, and social distancing. It might devolve into a Civil War between responsible people and the idiots who think they know better.

The more I travel around this country, the more I realize how many of those dumbasses there are out there among us. It’s scary.

Our son Jeff and wife Carol have joined us here in Coos Bay for five days.

They love the beach: they’re “beachies”. A typical vacation for them would be flying to Cancun, Mexico, driving down to Tulum, and spending a week on the beach, soaking up the sunshine, reading books, and consuming adult beverages. They’re good at it.

Jeff and Carol have never been to the Oregon coast before, so everything (particularly all the green stuff) is novel to them. They, like us, live in a dry environment where succulents are common, totally unlike the pine trees that dominate the landscape around here.

Our neighbors, the Carnicellis, are still here, parked next to us in space 19. Everything on their (new) rig seems to be working pretty good, although Galen headed off to the nearest RV parts store this morning. I’m not even going to inquire what broke or came unscrewed, as I have enough of that crap to handle myself.

Jeff, Galen and I went golfing at the Coos Golf Course yesterday. Jeff hasn’t touched a golf club in at least three years and has maybe played a half dozen times in the past 25 years. (He played golf way back in high school…35 years ago…and was number 1 on the golf team for a couple of years.) Amazingly, he still has a beautiful swing, although his timing was off yesterday. Galen and I hadn’t played in maybe 5 weeks and we were pretty rusty. It was a beautiful course, carved out of a Douglas Fir forest, with lots of small ponds lining the course. A beaver was on the 2^nd fairway near my ball, probably wondering if he could eat it. We had a great time. Jeff had some “x” holes and must have taken 50 putts. Galen shot around 95, I think, and I struggled home in 91.

A neighbor in space 23 is here with his son on a golf expedition. They golfed Bandon Dunes yesterday ($350 green fee, $100 for caddie, $50 for caddie tip…each!). My son Jeff leaves tomorrow (Friday) and the Carnicellis will be moving down the road to another RV park (Bay Point Landing) as well. However, Galen and I may golf Bandon Crossings on Sunday with the father-son neighbors. I think it costs $100 green fee, which is at the very top of our price range, but would be an experience…so what the Hell.

The six of us are having a steak fry tonight with all the fixins. We’ve eaten out a few times this week (seafood, Chinese, Mexican) and I’m ready for some home cookin’.

We will top off the evening with a board game called Sequence. The girls kicked our asses a few days ago so we intend to get revenge against the Bitches.

Life is good.

We are camping at Oceanside RV Resort in Charleston, Oregon.

Yesterday, our Mesquite, Nevada neighbors, Galen and Sherry Carnicelli, rolled into the park in their new (for them) motorhome. It is (I believe) a 2018 Coachman Mirada that had only 12,000 miles on it when they purchased it in the Spring.

It is their first Class A motorhome.

We went on a short weekend “break-in” with them to Cedar City, Utah back in June. They were quite apprehensive about driving, leveling the unit in an RV park, and hooking up to utilities. They did fine.

They did not do fine when they began this trip to Oregon. About 30 miles out of Tonopah, on their second day, they experienced a flat tire on the passenger rear axle. When the AAA guy arrived, he pointed out that both of the tires on that side were ruined. The mobile repair took them about four hours. The blown tire also did some cosmetic damage to the rear skin of the motorhome and also tore up a fitting to their propane tank…which they were not aware of at the time. After the tire replacements, they drove about four hours to their next destination…with a leaky propane line! Wow, that could have been a disaster!

On their way over to Oceanside RV Resort to join us, they took a nasty GPS “shortcut” for fifteen miles through the woods, featuring narrow logging roads, steep hills, and narrow, windy stretches that scared the Hell out of them.

We had a nice Taco night with them upon their arrival. Galen mentioned that his rig seems to labor quite a bit going up hills (automatically shifting to low gears with high revs) and seemingly shifting into an engine brake situation (allowing no more than 40 mph) when he hits a downhill. He’s not too happy about this. I reminded him that I’d recommended a diesel engine to him, but he went ahead and bought the Ford V-10 anyway. Good luck with that.

Later in the evening, Galen came to my door and said he had a problem with his toilet…standing water (and poo)…it wouldn’t flush. We spent a half hour dumping his black and grey water, flushing his holding tanks, and so forth to no avail. Eventually, he used a length of water hose to punch open the blockage under his commode. It appears that the Missus was not flushing her business with sufficient water, and a large clog of dry toilet paper was blocking the chute into the holding tank.

Gee, it reminds me of some stupid things we’ve done over the years:

• Backing up over a large rock that tore up the back end of my rig
• Driving too close to the road shoulder, scraping my passenger side to the tune of mucho $$$
• Using blocks to level the coach, resulting in a cracked windshield
• Driving away from the utility pedestal with my electrical line still attached to the rig
• Leaving a park, while towing my car, with the Jeep’s parking brake engaged
• Breaking my passenger side rear view mirror by nudging a telephone pole within an RV park
• Breaking another guy’s mirror while parking my rig in a tight RV park
• Not addressing my leaky air bag problem until after it had caused damage to other parts of the rig

We’ve also had our share of adventures (i.e. just bad luck), like the drenching we took in Oregon one year when we had a roof leak while it rained for a week. We were also stuck for a week in the Avenue of the Giants (Hwy 101, N. Calif) when our dinette slide wouldn’t retract. And, then there was the $1,000 futuristic commode that did an absolutely shitty job until we replaced it with a $200 gravity flow toilet.

Our television experience has been rough, as well. We have a Dish satellite receiver which does a good job when it wants to. However, reception issues, tech issues, and hardware have given us fits over the years. I have spent scores of hours on the phone with Dish techs to the point that I should probably be eligible for a Dish pension or at least employee benefits.

The newbies (the Carnicellis) have all of this to look forward to. They will be here at Oceanside RV Resort for the next week, then they will relocate to some other parks in this part of Oregon. We will see them again in Brookings at Driftwood RV Park beginning on August 10^th, assuming that their rig (or ours!) doesn’t succumb to another malady.

RV’ing is not a job, it’s an adventure.

We stayed at Crown Villa RV Resort in Bend for five days.

Crown Villa is a beautiful, well-managed and -maintained RV park. It appears to be one of those parks where some of the spaces are owned by private parties who have upgraded their spaces with outbuildings. Lots of large, spiffy RV’s here: Newmars, Monacos, Tiffins, and nicer Winnebagos. Lots of big fat squirrels, too.

The Crown Villa property includes hundreds of large (60’ tall) pine trees which are wonderful for shade but, at least in the case of our space, absolutely rule out catching a Dish TV broadcast signal no matter where I put my Tailgater sat dish.

Accordingly, our TV menu has been sparse, featuring only those shows that we’ve recorded in the past on our DVR. Luckily, when we were last in Yuma, I recorded a couple of dozen Law and Order episodes. So, we’ve been watching them, reading books, walking the dogs, and playing cards and board games. And enjoying each other.

In short, just what we bought the RV for.

Leaving Bend, and heading west toward Coos Bay, we fell victim to “road construction” and wildfire road closures that required us to take a 1-1/2 hour detour south, so that our couple-hour relocation took half a day. That sucked.

We are now settled in at Oceanside RV Resort in Charleston, Oregon (just south of Coos Bay). We’ve stayed here many times in the past; it’s right on the beach, the atmosphere is easy-going camping (rather than luxury “glamping”, like we experienced at Crown Villa), and there are lots of restaurants and things to do in the area. We know this town quite well.

We did not visit Oceanside RV Resort last year due to Covid-19 and, thus, we lost our “regular” site (68) and had to settle for site 20. It is not level, so I must re-level the RV a couple of times per day via the compressed air suspension system. Even still, the coach lists a bit to the passenger side. It’s annoying but livable.

(Today I booked a 30-day stay here beginning next year, July 6th. We will be situated on Space 63, which is the longest pull-through site here at Oceanside RV Resort. It looks to be pretty level, as well.)

The weather has been cool (high temp about 63), overcast, and breezy, quite a difference from what we left in Mesquite, Nevada. Our friend Lloyd reported that the temperatures have exceeded 115 degrees practically every day since we’ve been gone. A news report that I saw yesterday told of a high temp of 134 degrees in Death Valley this week. Ouch.

One thing we like about RV’ing in Oregon is the good seafood. We ate at Miller’s At The Cove on Monday night. The place has zero atmosphere (it’s essentially a sports bar); however, every item on the menu is delicious. I had Calimari strips, fish and chips, and grilled prawns. Yummy!

Our Mesquite neighbor Sandy Rose is staying here in a cabin for a week. We will do some biking in the area, we will play cards, enjoy some local restaurants, and explore some shops that the girls like. From here, Sandy will head north to live on a floating house near Portland for a couple of weeks.

Baby and BonBon are really enjoying the beach. They like to chase tennis balls and do figure-8’s while speeding around at 50 mph. BonBon can actually keep up with Baby, who is quite the athlete. The two of them have really adapted well to RV living, just like Booger and JayJay did. BonBon has assumed JayJay’s old position at the window, where she can monitor the activities of everyone at the RV park. Baby is in charge of food prep (she’s the sous chef; i.e. my assistant), lords over the toys, and cuddles with BonBon and Charlie while recharging her batteries.

Speaking of Charlie, this is our first RV vacation where my wife has not spent most of her time “working” on bookkeeping and tax matters. It’s really been good for us: we’ve spent a couple of weeks now enjoying togetherness and relaxing with minimal stressors.

Of course, I’ve had to busy myself with repairing hinges and latches and trying to work magic on our Dish satellite TV setup to keep it shipshape. It seems like I’m constantly on the phone with the Dish folks to straighten out one issue or the next. Technology sucks.

But, other than that, life is good.

We’re in our fourth day on the road, heading north from Burns, Oregon on U.S. 20. We should arrive in Bend, Oregon by early afternoon. We will be staying there (Crown Villa RV Resort) for six nights including July 4^th.

It’s been a pretty good trip so far. We’ve had the normal issues that arise as soon as the motorhome hits the road; there’s always something. This time is was the Norcold 1200 refrigerator acting up. The freezer got super cold quickly, but the two bays of the refrigerator proper didn’t want to cool down. It took a couple of days, for some reason. I will have to look into that.

The on-the-road weather has been pretty good thus far for the trip. Not much wind except once when, without notice, the rig shifted about 8 feet to the left very quickly. Luckily, no one was in the oncoming lane, or we would have made a terrible mess out there on Hwy 95.

Speaking of that, yesterday I passed a crappy pileup near McDermitt, Oregon. A semi-tractor trailer combo had executed a head-on with a truck hauling a bunch of porta potties. A messy sight, for sure. I hope the drivers made it out okay. I wonder if a strong wind gust caused the accident? Scary.

The two dogs, Baby and BonBon, are in “RV mode”: they are happy, playful, and enjoying the sights and sounds of new places. This is BonBon’s first big trip, although we broke her in on a couple of small trips (like to Denver and Cedar City).  She particularly likes to sit on top of the couch and look out of the window at people and animals at whatever RV park we are visiting. JayJay used to like that, too.

It will be warm when we get to Bend later today. The entire Northwest has been suffering from record heat (it was 110 plus degrees for a couple of days earlier this week in Seattle…an all-time record). We can probably expect temperatures in Bend to be in the 90 to 100 degree range while we are there. Luckily, our ceiling fans and air conditioner units work well…so far. If we can survive Bend, then we can expect the weather to improve markedly on the Oregon coast where it has been in the 60 to 70 degree range. Ahhhhh…the beach! Can’t wait!

We ate “out” in Burns last night at a little Mexican restaurant. Okay food, nothing special…but it tasted great. We’ve been on a Nutrisystem diet for several months, so anything with a little flavor tastes special. I am really looking forward to the great seafood on the Oregon Coast. We know some joints in Charleston and Brookings with excellent fish, calamari, and crab. Yummy!

The Covid-19 pandemic seems to be winding down in Nevada and Oregon. Most people are vaccinated and maskless, and the businesses that survived are attempting to resurrect the prosperity that they once enjoyed. It is hard to believe how any small business survived twelve months of restrictions. The ones that did are going to find less competition, for sure, at least for awhile. They are also going to have trouble bringing back all of their low-wage employees, many of which have moved on to other careers or may have returned to Mexico for work (how ironic!).

Our 120-mile trek today to Bend will complete a 1,000 mile swing through one of the most desolate, sparsely-populated portions of America (central Nevada and eastern Oregon). Lots of sagebrush, very little evidence of moisture, and rudimentary structures, mostly in need of repair. It is amazing to me that anyone would choose to live in this region but places like Tonapah, Winnemucca, and Burns have survived for a long time…obviously somebody likes it there! Incredibly, even in these most desolate areas, farmers and ranchers are able to eke out a living.

I wonder if they will make it another hundred years, given the toll that Global Warming will take. Groundwater wells can only last so long. (Heck, we face the same jeopardy in Mesquite, Nevada, where scads of new homes are putting pressure on our limited acquifer. I expect restrictions to be announced soon from our local water district.)