Our First RV Camping Trip- Ocean City State Park, March 15-18, 2021

Our First RV Camping Trip in the Winnebago View- Ocean City State Park: Pacific Coast of Washington State, March 15-18, 2021

Monday, March 15, 2021

8820-9068 miles

First RV camping road trip.  Destination: Ocean City WA State Park campground.  Left Oak Harbor 10am.  Stopped at Lacey Costco (8968 miles) at 12:40pm to fill up on diesel. 13.5gal @ $2.999. (Since last fillup calculated 14.2mpg).  Costco Hot dogs for lunch.  Arrived at Ocean City State Park at 15:30.  Advanced reservation made on WSParks website. $113 for 3 nights for full hook up (30A, water & sewer) site 138.  Pull through site with picnic table, fire ring and small area for a tent.  Site was nice and dry.  Some sites in the park are flooded. 

Walked to beach via trail with many detours due to swampy areas and over dunes.  Cars were parked on the compacted sand on the upper tide line.  Walked for half an hour and returned to the RV to check out Damon point.  15-20 minute drive from state park to Damon Point via Ocean Shores.  2 lane 25-35mph roads for the most part.  There is an Indian owned private RV park right at Damon point, but the gate was closed and there was nobody at the office.  There are a number or RV’s there, but it is mostly a large parking lot with RV hookups.  No trees, picnic tables, etc.  There was plenty of public parking available at Damon Point.  The tide was receding, but the beach is largely fine grey sand.  We did eventually encounter some gravel at the very end of the spit, 2.25 miles walk one way, where we were able to find agates as the sun was setting.   

We returned to the state park and parked the RV using 3 layers of blocks on the driver side to level the slide, and connected city water via pressure regulator and filter, and 30A power.  

Dinner- Costco roasted chicken with baguettes and Boursin cheese, grapefruit.

Watched CBS evening news streamed on Apple TV over 1 bar AT&T  LTE iPhone personal hotspot at campsite.

Took long hot showers- discovered knob on shower oddly installed and control not intuitive.  Removed knob and reinstalled so that full counterclockwise is OFF, 1/4 turn clockwise HOT, full clockwise COLD. Continuous hot water maker works well, although it takes a little time for the hot water to reach the shower initially.  After two hot showers, the tank gauges show grey water at 2/3.  Used toilet ad lib since sewer hookup is available, but will only hook that up just before we leave, unless the tanks fill up earlier.  

Turned into bed at 10:30pm.  Will try to hit the beach early for the morning low tide.

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

9068 miles start

Broke camp by disconnecting power and water, and picking up leveling blocks.  Noticed some difficulty with getting the bed to lower smoothly or raise smoothly.  Careful inspection revealed some extra webbing associated with the bed lift mechanism was wrapped around the drive shaft and web spools.  I had to partially lower the bed to expose the webbing and then resecured the ends so that they would not get tangled with the driveshaft mechanism.  This fixed the bed mechanism.  The slide was run in and we drove to Damon point at day break, having coffee, tea, donuts and bananas for breakfast.  We hiked all the way around Damon point, finding most agates only at the point, but a couple of large ones were found on the east side of the spit.  This was over 6 miles hiking.  We then drove the RV onto the sand at the ocean access by the entry to Ocean Shores.  The access had just had some gravel added and drainage channels on either side dug by a grader.  The surface was soft- not yet compacted by many other cars, so the RV felt like it might get bogged down in a few spots.  I kept it going at a pretty good clip to maintain momentum, and we made it to the hard packed part of the beach.  Driving on that was no problem.  We parked and had lunch and long naps after running the slide out.  The solar was able to fully recharge all batteries, even after running the microwave to warm up chicken sandwiches.  

In the afternoon we drove back to Damon Point and did an evening walk to the end of the Point, and got another handful of agates as the tide was receding, but low tide was long after dark.  We drove back to the Ocean City State Park RV site and reconnected power and water after leveling with blocks and running the slide out.  Dinner was Mac & Cheese with canned green beans and chicken breast meat done in a saucepan on the induction cooktop, followed by a half grapefruit and some peanut M&M’s and smokehouse almonds for dessert.  Watched the CBS Evening news streaming on the AppleTV.  In bed by 10:30 after hot showers.  After showers, fresh water tank reading 1/3, LP 1/4, Grey Full, Black 1/3

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

9096 miles start

Refilled fresh water via tank fill valve, then broke camp.  Drove to Damon Point to hunt for Agates on the morning low tide.  Was at 1.8ft at 9am, low at 1.1ft at 10:10am.  Ben had coffee heated in microwave on solar/battery/inverter.  Voltage dropped to 11.7v on battery while microwave was running, but back to 12.5V with microwave and inverter off.  Overcast early morning sun. Chassis charger has usually show red indicator on and green indicator flashing which means battery is at >80% charge.  Flashing red indicator means battery not connected (disconnect relay active) while solid green indicates fully charged battery with float voltage maintenance.  

Latch on upper pantry got stuck in the pressed in position, not locking the door.  This was fixed by unscrewing it from the cabinet and spraying some WD-40 in the mechanism, then reattaching it to the door.  It had appeared to have been jammed because it was screwed too tightly to the door.  Normal function restored.

Filled up propane at Arrow Lumber in Ocean Shores, 4.4 gal @2.99/gal. Tank gauge reads 3/4 on direct read and on panel.  Returned to campsite and hooked up sewer hose, power and water.  Drained black tank and then power flushed black tank until  clear.  Black tank valve closed. Then drained grey tank.  Back flushed, then closed grey tank valve.  Capped RV sewer outlet and end of flushing adapter.  Flushed hose with flushing adapter.

Lunch Tonkatsu Ramen with chicken.  Had trouble lowering bed- trouble shooting revealed wiring harness plugged into back of the bed switch had pulled partly loose so that the connection for the deploy motor was only making intermittent contact.  This was fully plugged into the switch and secured with electrical tape.  The bed functioned fully after this.  Took naps.  

Returned to Damon Point at 4PM to hunt for agates as the tide receeded, but only found a handful of small agates.  

Returned to Ocean City State Park at night fall only to discover a Camper had parked in our site, and nobody was home.  We got a list of open campsites from the campground host and parked in 143 instead.  This is a back in site, but it was easy enough to get backed into and was a little more level.  

Dinner- chicken noodle casserole made with cream of mushroom soup, milk, chicken breast, and canned corn.  The saucepan in the RV is just a little small to cook the portions we’re used to, so a larger induction compatible saucepan would be desirable.  The cream of mushroom also burned on the bottom- need to avoid high heat on the induction with cream sauces.  

Thursday, March 18, 2021

9137 miles start

Rain started during the night.  Broke camp at 8:15am after coffee, oatmeal, tea, donuts and bananas for breakfast.  Drove to Damon Point.  Only one other truck parked there in the rain while DNR personnel were servicing the porta-potties.

Walked out to the point and hunted for agates in light intermittent rain and heavy overcast.  Came back with just a handful of small to medium agates on our last hunt.

Returned to the State Park and used the water and sewer hookups to drain and flush the tanks again, leaving them clean with grey and black tanks empty, fresh water full.  

Drove to the Ocean Spray Corporation headquarters in near Westport, but they have discontinued visitor center operations/tours.  Had lunch in the parking lot of the Ocean Spray headquarters with microwaved canned chili and nachos with cheese and salsa.  Tried to run the microwave on the inverter, but it shut down with an overload before we realized that the space heater was still turned on and was running off the inverter when the microwave started.  Will make a label to place by the Inverter power button to remind us to make sure the space heater is off before starting the inverter.  

Ran the generator for about 10 minutes.  Meter reads 13.6hrs.  It takes nearly a minute after pressing the auto start button for the generator to actually fire up, and about another 30 seconds for it to stabilize and switch over the power.  Next stop Lacey Costco for diesel and shopping.

9246 miles at Lacey Costco fill-up.  The price of diesel had gone up from $2.99 to $3.05 in just 3 days.  Took 17.869gal.  (Since last fillup, calculated 15.6mpg) A couple was intently looking at our RV in the parking lot when we came out of Costco with groceries.  We gave them a walk through.  They were just about to place an order for a similar RV but had not had the opportunity to see this layout.  

Next stop Chiang’s Gourmet on Lake City in Seattle for dinner in the parking lot with Ciara.  

Next stop Smokey Point rest area for bathroom break and to wipe off drops on the rear view camera which was causing headlights to form a bright blob in the center of the rear view mirror display monitor.  Created temporary hood with duct tape to see if this might help.  This did improve the performance of the rear view mirror camera.  I will fabricate a more permanent shroud or hood for that camera and will try to find some Rain-X to treat the lens with.

9373 miles Last stop Swinomish Casino Chevron for fill up.  $2.99/gal, took 7.801 gallons.  (Since last fillup calculated 16.3mpg).  Arrived home, 9397 miles on the odometer. Plugged in shore power.