RV EAST DAY ZERO

Pretend that this is Sunday.  That is when we started out on our RV trip to avoid traffic and to get part way down the road towards Yellowstone and parts East.  Ever hear the saying "if you want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans?"  Well, someone must have told him because we woke up on Sunday and Pamela had a little bit of an asthma attack so we went to the Oregon City emergency room so she could get a script and a nebulizer treatment to help with her breathing.  So we went to the ER and four hours later she had the treatment and script and all was well.  We had a lunch and thought that we could still drive East to Pendleton and be on our merry way.  Not to be.

Pamela Was Hooked Up to Something Like This on Sunday

On our way down the hill, we stopped at the Post Office to mail some letters, and Neil decided to check the tires one more time.  He had checked them the night before and one inside dual was a little low.  Well, it went from 70 psi the night before to 40 psi the next day--not good.  So--discretion being the better part of valor, we drove back up the hill to home and plugged it back in.  Neil's plan is to take it to Les Schwab Tire Center who installed new, metal, high-pressure tire valves and see if they could get it fixed.

One of These Custom Sprinter Van Valves Was Leaking

We spent the night at home, watched the Discovery Channel "North America" series, and slept in our own bed.  Thus ended Day Zero of our RV Trip.  Stay tuned.

This is a Great Series--Look for it on Your TV Provider

Thanks for visiting.

Neil and Pamela

Beginning Our Great Midwest RV Trip

We are just about ready to depart on our RV trip back to Wyoming, South Dakota, and Kansas and parts in between.  We have spent the last several days sorting, packing, and getting the RV ready to go for the trip.  Neil has been getting new tire valve stems installed so he can check the inside and outside dual wheels.

We have been working hard to make sure that we take what we need, but not more than we need.  Our Winnebago Via has a lot of storage, but we don't want to overload it.  We will be taking all the comforts of home, including BBQ grill, tables and chairs, some adult beverages, DVD's and a good reading library.  We are looking forward to visiting some new places, visiting some old friends, and meeting new ones.

We will be starting up this Blog again during the trip.  Several folks have asked if we were going to start posting, so we will do it for those folks so that they can keep up with our travels.

This Will Be Our Home Away from Home for the Next Month

We have been also getting the house garden whipped into shape.  We finally broke down and hired a small crew to do heavy weeding and the spreading of compost/mulch in our large garden.  We had ten yards of the compost/mulch delivered, and they have spread about seven or eight yards.  Wow!  What a difference it has made.  We hope that it will keep the weeds down and allow us to focus on other stuff around the house and garden.

So!  Watch this space and we will try to share photos and let you know what we are seeing as we travel east and back west.  We will be spending the Fourth of July at Mount Rushmore, so that is patriotic, eh?  We hope that we hear from some of our "fans" who actually read these blogs.  Just send us a note at hagafinn@gmail.com

Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

April Ends - Camping and Wining at the Beach

Oregon Crab (and Wine!) Fest Parade Float

Where did April go?  We just returned from the Oregon (and Washington) Coast where we camped at Fort Stevens State Park and attended the Astoria Crab and Wine Festival.  The weekend started with having the Winnebago Via serviced for a faulty EGR valve.  It started acting up when we brought it back from Junction City where we had the Via serviced by Guaranty RV to finally fix the two annoying electrical issues--a shorted light circuit and a beeping fridge.  They found two screws through an electrical wire, and adjusted the fridge door to fix the door fault beeping.

When the Mercedes engine gets an EGR fault, it puts the engine into "limp mode" which gives you next to no power.  We determined that it was an EGR valve and took it into McCoy Freightliner Sprinter service center in Portland and they fixed it under warranty.  We packed up the RV the same day and drove over to the Oregon Coast to attend the Crab and Wine Festival.  Since we were not sure when we would be able to drive over, we didn't make reservations since Fort Stevens was such a large campground.  Silly us!

As we turned off into Fort Stevens, we saw signs that said "Campground Full", and sure enough, it was.  The wine festival, classic car show and other things last weekend brought everyone to the coast it seemed.  We went into the park office to find that they were totally booked--but just got a cancellation.  We took it and felt blessed to have a place to camp on Friday and Saturday nights.  

Wine Fest Wine Tasting

We took the shuttle bus from the campground on Saturday, and joined hundreds of other winos at the festival.  Yes, there was some crab and other eats, but the main focus was WINE!  There must have been fifty or more wine tasting booths, so the shuttle bus was a very good idea.  We had some very good wine, but got away without buying any bottles to take home.  Neil was able to have some chowder and shrimp cocktail, and we had a very entertaining bus ride back to the campground with some well lubricated winos.

1930 Ford Roadster as a Tow Vehicle

While we were walking through the campground we saw this old Ford and talked to the owners.  They were driving it to the Fort Rilea classic car rally.

Man!  What a Simple Motor

On Sunday, we drove up to Astoria and over the Astoria bridge to the Cape Disappointment State Park and Lewis and Clark Visitor Center overlooking the Columbia River bar.  We had not been to the visitor center in decades, and enjoyed re-learning about the Lewis and Clark expedition.

The visitor center is built on the site of Fort Canby, one of the many coast defense batteries that guarded the Columbia River.  There are great exhibits about the Lewis and Clark expedition from Saint Louis to Fort Clatsop and the trials of their eighteen month journey.  There were also exhibits about the navigation across the Columbia River Bar.  We saw a First Order Fresnel lens from Cape Disappointment light and a Lyle Gun that was used to shoot life saving lines out to ships that had run aground.  Neil's Dad had rebuilt one in Ketchikan and donated it to the Officers Club there.  It was solid brass and weight a ton!

First Order Fresnel Lens

US Coast Guard Lyle Line Throwing Gun

From Cape Disappointment, we drove down to Cannon Beach RV Park and had a great dinner at Mo's Restaurant and a good walk on the beach.  It rained hard Sunday night, but we were snug in our RV and woke up to sunshine for the drive home to West Linn.  

Logger Carving at Camp 18 (Sam?)

Logger Number Two (Dave?)

One the way back over the Coast Range, we decided to stop for lunch at Camp 18 Restaurant and Logging Museum.  As we saw the statues and all of the logging equipment, we thought of our friends Sam and Dave in Alaska who worked as loggers and foresters.  The ridge pole for the main building is 85 feet long and weighs 25 tons.  For more information, go to http://www.camp18restaurant.com/

Salmonberries in Bloom in April

While we were at Cape Disappointment State Park, we talked to friends in Juneau who were enjoying a snow storm while we saw salmonberries in bloom.  Spring flowers are bursting out all over, and our dogwood tree and peonies are in glorious bloom.

Small RV with Martini Wine Light in RV Campground

This week, we hope to have our new oven and microwave delivered and installed, and we plan to do more yard work as the weather is supposed to get into the 70's and 80's.  There are always things to be done when the weather gets nice.  We hope that you are having a good Spring where ever you are--even if it doesn't look like Spring yet.

Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

Spring Has Sprung!

A Great Play in Ashland in March

Wow!  How time flies--our last Blog post was in February, and it has been a busy couple of months.  We have been dealing with some more appliance issues (furnace finally fixed and a new stove on the way), had visits from two sets of friends from Juneau;the first with Jim and Judy Hauck who we met in Ashland in our RV and went to a great Shakespeare play and had a great dinner.

We also made a trip to visit Neil's folks in Silverdale, and afterwards visited the Seattle Flower and Garden Show.  It was a great show and we took in some seminars about roses and pruning.

We Visited the Garden Show in February and Had a Great Time!

This Show Garden was "Pillow Talk" After the Movie

Neil and Pamela at the Wizard of Oz Garden in Seattle

Later on, Ed and Janis Buyarski came by as part of their annual plant buying trip and stayed a couple of nights with us.  While here, Ed did some long overdue heavy pruning around the homestead and we hauled four pickup loads of yard waste to the recycle center.

Ed and Neil Pruning Flowering Cherry Tree

Flowering Plum Trees After Pruning

Pile of Pruning Debris Behing Rose Bushes

 We also have been working on getting the Skinny Winnie motorhome ready for some spring camping trips.  The RV has had a couple of electrical issues that have finally been fixed by Guaranty RV in Junction City.  In fact, we pick up the RV tomorrow (Friday) as they finally found two electrical shorts that kept blowing a light circuit.  One of them was a mounting screw that punctured a wire behind the microwave.  The other issue was a beeping fridge caused by a mis-aligned door.  While they were working on these issues, we had them install a four stage battery charger that will keep the batteries charged better and make them last a lot longer.

Our New Progressive Dynamics  Four stage RV Charger

One of the things Neil worked on this week was to install bicycle hangers in our garden shed.  They mount to the roof and allow us to store the bikes up high out of the way until we need them.  It is a double pulley system that Neil found on Amazon for $15 each.  

Pretty Nifty Bike Hoists at a Good Price

Bikes Hanging in Garden Shed--With Headroom!

Next weekend is the Astoria Crab Fest and we plan to go there for a long weekend. We plan to eat lots of seafood and take some walks on the beach.

Our Destination Next Weekend

We plan to stay at Fort Stevens State Park, which is the site of Battery Russell and other gun batteries that operated from 1904 to 1944 to protect the mouth of the Columbia River.  

Fort Stevens State Park Near Astoria

There is also a popular ship wreck, the Peter Iredale that Neil's Mom used to talk about as she used to walk the beaches when she and Neil's Dad were living in Seaside, Oregon after World War II.  In fact, a few of the large Japanese glass floats we have are from that beach.

Barque Peter Iredale Aground in 1906

Wreck of the Peter Iredale Near Astoria Today

The weather has been typical spring in Oregon--some sunshine and some rain.  We may get our first 80 degree day of the year next week.  We hope that the weather holds for our trip to the coast.  We are also waiting for the replacement of our wall mount stove and microwave oven.  The stove stopped working on Easter as Pamela was baking pies.  Since we renewed our home warranty, we called American Home Shield and after two technician visits, we are going to get a new stove and microwave combo in the next week or so.  We decided to upgrade to a better make and model than the replacement they would provide, so we will get a new one installed for less than half of what it would have cost us without the home warranty.  The home warranty has been a good investment for us with the water heater, furnace, and now the oven.

While Neil has been working on some outside stuff, Pamela has tackled sorting of our large number of 35mm slides to determine which ones we want to have scanned.  We have nearly eight banker boxes of slide pages and carousels, so it is a BIG job.  She is making good progress, and it works in well with her Creative Memories work.

Dining Room Table is Now a Slide Sorter!

Sorry it has been so long in posting updates to this Blog.  We appreciate your visiting, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Neil and Pamela

Back Home and Toilet Safe

We got back home on Thursday after a good visit in Southern California with family.  We flew down early on Sunday in time to watch the Super Bowl with Neil's brother and wife Sandi, and we also saw his nieces' Shannon and Noreen.  It was a good visit, and it was a pretty good game.  Most of the hot action was in the half-time show, but that isn't unusual.  Neil had hoped that the Forty-Niners would win, but they had a chance and had too many errors.

Queen Mary in Long Beach

While we were in California, the weather was pretty good (about twenty degrees warmer than Oregon, at any rate) and we took a day excursion to the Queen Mary in Long Beach.  It was only about a thirty minute drive on the freeway, so it was a breeze since we weren't driving!

While there, we had a tour of the ship that was pretty interesting, and then took the Ghosts and Legends Tour, which was a bit of a bust.  They took you into dark parts of the ship with an effort to scare you, which is fine, but you could hardly see anything because of the darkness.  We don't recommend that tour.  We took some time then for a good (but expensive) lunch, and Neil and Bruce went to tour the Russian Scorpion submarine self guided tour while Pamela and Sandi did some "Retail Therapy".

This was a pretty good tour, except that both Bruce and Neil had a bit of trouble squeezing through the passage ways that connected the different parts of the sub.  It was amazing to learn that they actually had about 75 crew members on this sub and only two heads.  There is also nothing elegant about Soviet design, and there were valves and machinery poking into every part of the living quarters.  Every US Navy submariner should take a tour of this thing to learn how good they have it.

The "Foxtrot" Sub is Right Next to the Queen

That Round Passageway on the Left Wasn't Big Enough!

It was good to visit with family, and it was good to get home to Oregon as well.  We got in after a boom-a-rang flight to Seattle and down to Portland and arrived after rush hour.  Somehow flying isn't as much fun as it used to be when we were MVP Gold members with Alaska Airlines and could fly in First Class or at least the exit rows.  Boo hoo!

Very Simple Instructions to Repair Flushmate Toilet

When in California, I got a voice mail from a fellow named Scott from Flushmate, who had read my Blog about exploding toilets and wanted to make sure that we got a repair kit.  He must have a search engine set to find discussions on "exploding toilets", I would guess.  At any rate, he was a really nice guy and he got info from me and shipped it out.  It arrived today, and literally took me five minutes to install the fix.  So--kudos to Flushmate for the good customer service and follow up.  It you have one of these toilets, get the very simple repair kit for your peace of mind.

We think that Spring may be just around the corner, and we are counting our blessings that we do not live in Boston right now (or ever) as they get hammered with snow.  We hope you are doing well where ever you are.

Neil and Pamela

Good Bye January and Exploding Toilets

Wow!  Where has January gone?  Not that we are complaining, but it flew past for us.  We have had a pretty mild winter here, thankfully.  We do not miss the piles of snow and Taku winds with minus twenty wind chills that we experienced in Juneau.  We got a little bit of freezing temperatures and a dusting of snow so far this winter, but there is more winter to come.

One of the nice things about living in "the land of plenty", as Pamela calls it is that we have easy access to things that we used to have to special order and pay big bucks for shipping.  One of those things is the food stuffs from Bob's Red Mill, which is just about ten miles from us now.  We were there earlier this month and had brunch, along with a number of office types who stop by for a good and quick lunch.  The seating is mostly upstairs overlooking the store aisles.

Bob's Red Mill Store from our Lunch Table (Upstairs)

Last weekend, we helped Seth and Cathy tear out the carpet and paint two of their bedrooms.  We spent most of the day ripping out the old carpet and pad, filling holes, masking woodwork and repainting.  All four of us were working in the same room, and things went pretty fast.  We have more to help them with when we get back from California.  By the time they are done, they will have replaced all of the carpet their home and repainted several rooms that haven't been painted in some time.  Amazing the difference a fresh coat of paint can make on the ceiling to brighten up a room!

We think that we have finally got the gas furnace operating properly, and since the temperatures have warmed up into the forties, we have turned the heat pump back on.  Neil may adjust the gas jets to burn a little bit hotter, but will wait until he can borrow Seth's temperature probe to make sure that we don't overheat things.  Neil knows a lot more about gas furnaces now that he has looked over the shoulder of the technician for about eight hours over three visits.  

You know the saying:  "You want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans?".  Well, it kinda seems like that for Neil right now.  Since the furnace seems to be keeping the house warm, he thought that he would look into trading out the power flush toilet we have in our guest bathroom, because it is so very loud and since we have increased the water pressure and don't have any problems with the standard toilet we have in our master bathroom.  So--he did some research on the internet, and found out that there is a recall on the Flushmate Pressure Assisted Flushing System, because they have a little bit of a problem.  THEY CAN EXPLODE, breaking the porcelain tank and send projectiles into walls, people and anything else around.  So, Neil's plans for buying a $19.99 replacement toilet innards at Home Depot has turned into a paper chase with Sloan valve who made the Flushmate system to see what they will do for us, and our home warranty that costs us $60 every time somebody stops by to diagnose or fix things.  

An "After" Shot of a Flushmate Exploding Toilet

What actually happens, is that the black plastic pressure chamber bursts at the mid-seam and breaks the toilet tank it is inside of, and sending the tank cover headed for the ceiling.  There are a few pictures online from an emergency room of the lacerations caused by this if you happen to be sitting on it when it goes.  Needless to say, we plan to tackle this project soon, and will follow the directions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to turn off the water and depressurize it.  If you have one of these things--beware.

Pamela has a big event all day Saturday with her Creative Memories business and we leave at "O-Dark Thirty" for the airport to go to Southern California for a Hagadorn family Super Bowl party.  We are looking forward to temperatures in the 70's instead of the 40's.

The days are getting longer here, and we are even seeing some sunshine, so life is good!  Thanks for visiting, 

Neil and Pamela