20230815 Tuesday, August 15, 2023; The Long Drive Home

 Tuesday, August 15, 2023; The Long Drive Home

Having power last night was nice since the temperature didn't fall below 80˚F until after midnight.  The parking spot with the 30A power outlet was situated between the house and shop, both of which had porch and security lights.  These caused quite a bit of light pollution.  The prior night, we were parked out in front of the house and shop so the RV actually blocked the light, affording a view of the night sky to the north.  So we didn't stay up to see the Perseid meteor shower.  

Because we were a relatively short drive to Janet's brother's house, we decided to have Janet drive the RV while Ben tried to pinpoint a knocking sound in the RV coach that is most noticeable at slow speeds.  We retracted the slide and drove off.  About 2 miles from the Toledo Boondockers Welcome site, someone following us honked their horn and when we came to a stop sign, the driver came up to our window to tell us we were dragging our power cord.  Doooohhh!  Although the cord itself wasn't visibly damaged, the plug at the end was severely damaged, and will have to be replaced.  Somehow, Ben didn't do his customary walk around before driving off.  Guess we'll need to stick to a pre-flight check list every time. We did circle back to check on the outlet, which was fortunately undamaged. 

Janet's brother lives in a log cabin that he built with logs harvested from his own land.  Over the years, this has developed into a small complex of multiple log buildings.  He and his wife had been holding log building construction classes over the last many years, but retired from teaching them very recently.  We had a very pleasant short visit and did some catching up.  They had just returned from a European cruise vacation and are preparing for a future cruise to Asia. 

We headed north and made a stop to visit one of Janet's high school friends in Kent.  After another short but pleasant visit, we stopped at a Dairy Queen for lunch and found several new Heinz SauceAmerica state themed condiment packets, which we have been collecting as part of a Heinz promotional drawing.  There are packets celebrating all 50 states and each features an item of local cuisine. We found mustard packets for Mississippi featuring a Slug Burger, Iowa Pork Tenderloin Sandwich, Illinois Chicago Dog, and Ohio Chili Dog.  

Our next stop was to see our daughter Ciara to give her something to take to Chicago on her next trip and to also pick up some move out items from her apartment since she needs to be out by the end of the month.  
As we headed north on I-5, traffic came to a near complete stop around Boeing Field.  We were stuck there for over an hour because Vice President Kamala Harris was visiting Seattle, so they closed I-5 so that her motorcade could take her to and from some political event.  It was 104˚F, so we had to leave the motor running to run the air conditioner.  

Once they reopened the freeway, we were back on our way, and met Ciara in the parking lot of Chiang's Gourmet, our favorite Seattle area restaurant.  We would have had lunch there except that they are closed on Tuesdays, so we exchanged items and hugs in the parking lot before continuing our trip home.  

Even though it was a week day, and we were driving through rush hour, the traffic heading north was bearable, particularly after having suffered through waiting for the Vice President's motorcade earlier in the day. 

We emptied our holding tanks and took on some potable water at the Smokey Point rest stop to prepare the RV for its next trip, whatever that may be.  Then we hit the Angel of the Winds Casino to fill up on diesel.  The price there was a whole 30 cents per gallon less expensive than even Costco's.  

Our last stop was in LaConner to fill up 10 buckets on our rear cargo carrier with compost for use at home and around the barn.  We managed to arrive back home in time to have dinner and retire early.  When we get the RV back to the barn, we'll have some projects cued up- replacing the 30A plug at the end of the shore power cord, replacing the rear view monitor camera and display, and trying to hunt down the source of the slow speed knocking noise which is coming from somewhere below the RV cabin floor. 

20230814 Portland Mission Accomplished

 Monday, August 14, 2023

We got an early start and were on the road by 7:30am.  Traffic heading south into Portland was surprisingly not terrible.  We did see plenty of "unhoused" tents set up in the grassy areas along Portland's freeways and highways.  Interestingly, there were many places where trash bins were set up in proximity to these tents so there was much less in the way of prolific trash heaps that you see all over the similar areas in Seattle.  If providing free municipal trash pick up is a Portland strategy to lessen the blight of unhoused communities popping up all over the city, it seems to be working because the Rose city, at least on the surface, appears less trashed than the Emerald city.

Our first destination was Bob's Red Mill in the Portland suburb of Milwaukee.  Bob's Red Mill is an employee owned company which produces foodie grade milled grain products.  Janet had heard about it from someone who highly recommended the factory tour, but since the pandemic, the tours were discontinued.  But there is an extensive gift shop, displays and restaurant.  We arrived just as they were opening at 8am.  It was a very pleasant 72˚F as we walked across the parking lot and toured the store and ordered breakfast at the food counter.  The menu is pretty extensive for breakfast and lunch items.  Janet had a breakfast sandwich on a biscuit, while Ben had the chicken and waffles.  The chicken and waffles was excellent with the chicken tenders being generous in size, country breaded and and the waffles were crispy and very delicious.  We had to buy some of the Bob's Red Mill pancake and waffle mix, and received a secret tip from one of the cooks.  She substitutes club soda for water to add lightness and crispiness to the waffles, and even uses 7-up when she makes large batches for events.  This produces sweeter and crispier waffles.

There was a new REI store in the Clackamas Mall so we stopped in and found some nice walking shoes in the clearance racks.  Then we headed across town to the Washington Square Mall where Ben picked up his new laptop and accessories at the Apple Store and Janet found a new cruise outfit at Macy's.  Our last Portland stop was the Costco near PDX airport for diesel and shopping.  The temperature had hit 114˚F by late afternoon.  Walking from the RV into the store was like hiking through a Scandinavian sauna.  Thank goodness for air conditioning!  

On our way back from Portland, we stopped in Longview, WA where our friends who own one of the Chinese restaurants at home have an uncle who owns the Golden Palace restaurant.  We had dinner which included appetizers, soup and two entrees.  Much to our surprise, instead of two small bowls of soup, they brought out a full tureen that could have served 4-6 people, and each entree was a full platter, so we ended up taking most of it home in take out containers after eating all that we possibly could.  Our advice for anyone considering a meal there is to come hungry and bring friends and family to help eat it all.

When we arrived back at the Boondockers Welcome host in Toledo, two of the other guests' rigs had moved on, so the site between the house and garage with 30A power was available for us.  It was still 103˚F when we arrived, so it sure was nice to be able to plug into her 30A power and run the air conditioner to get the RV cooled down.  We'll see if we can manage to stay up late enough to look for shooting stars again, but we may end up falling asleep before it gets dark enough tonight.

20230813 Portland Shopping and Heat Wave

 Sunday, August 13, 2023

There's no better excuse for a road trip than going on a sales tax free Portland shopping trip.  Ben's laptop is pushing 12 years old, and an upgrade is needed to allow Vlogging for an upcoming extended cruise trip.  So Ben placed an order on Apple.com and even though the drive to Portland takes time and diesel, it's an excuse to hit the road with the RV.  It turned out that one of our friends also needed a lift down to the Olympia area to pick up a truck he was buying from a friend for his son.  He also wanted to check out used camper in the Portland area.  So we picked him up on our way down.

We made a stop at the Tulalip Cabelas for a merchandise return, Marysville for DQ lunch, and then the Costco in Lacey for diesel, pizza and rotisserie chicken to stock the RV fridge.  Traffic had been decent until we hit Lakewood, where an accident backed up traffic for miles.  Our friend's destination took us in the vicinity of the Mima Mounds, which are a peculiar geological curiosity in south central Washington state. We dropped him off and continued our way south.

Our destination for the night was a Boondockers Welcome host in Toledo, WA.  There are several hosts in this stretch of I-5 including a site at Grand Mound and another in Castle Rock.  This host is a recently retired full time RV'er who has now settled into a sticks and bricks home, but who wants to stay involved in the RVing community through hosting.  She has several sites on her property including one with optional power.  When we arrived on a Sunday afternoon, she had 4 guests including us that she was hosting.  It was very kind and generous of her to allow us to spend two nights- one for us heading south, and the other for heading back north.  All of the sites are nice and level, and gravel surfaced.

The weather was beautiful and sunny, but a heat dome was building over the Pacific Northwest, and record high temperatures were predicted for this trip.  When we arrived at the host site around 5pm, the temperature was 90˚F.  She did not have a site with power for us, so we parked so our generator was facing the road and ran our generator to run our air conditioner until the outside temperature had dropped to below 80˚, which was about 8pm.  Since there were clear skies, the temperature actually dropped down into the upper 60's overnight, and we were comfortable opening the windows and using our MaxAir fan to create a cool breeze through the RV overnight.  

The Perseid meteor showers just happen to be peaking this weekend, so after then sun set, Ben set up outside with a tripod and lawn chair to try to capture some on camera. But it's a great big sky and it proved nearly impossible to catch a falling star.  Some did streak across the camera's field of vision, but proved too faint to register without massively overexposing the background stars and sky.  But between 10pm and midnight, Ben did managed to see about a dozen falling stars, despite not being successful in capturing many.

Small meteor streaking through the handle of the Big Dipper

20230423 Sunday, April 23, 2023; Mocrocks clamming and heading home

 20230423 Sunday, April 23, 2023; Mocrocks clamming and heading home.

We got a bit of a break from the rain in the morning as people started packing up campsites and heading out for Mocrocks beach for clamming.  We topped off our fresh water supply, stowed all our umbilicals, and joined the convoy of vehicles headed to Mocrocks beach.  We parked in pretty much the same location each time this trip within a quarter mile of the access. This time, an older Winnebago View pulled in next to us driven by a couple in their 50’s who live on Hood Canal and who bought the RV about 3 weeks ago.  They were excited about moving up to their first Class C RV, having previously camped in a towable. 

The tide today wasn’t as low as Friday or Saturday, so we had to work a little harder to find the larger clams, but ended up settling for what clams we could fine in the surf.  We still managed to get our limit of 20 clams each but did things a little differently by sending Ben back to the RV with a full bag of 20 clams to start the cleaning process while Janet continued hunting for the last 10 or so clams to make up our second limit.  

Ben had developed a technique for giving the clams an enema which helped purge a lot of sand out of most of the clams using our fresh water outside shower hose connected to a hand nozzle.  After Janet returned with the second bag of 20 clams, we started to clean process them, but ended up running out of fresh water.  

We stowed the clams in process after having shelled them and dumped the shells on the beach below the high tide line.  Then we returned to the RV park a half hour before check out time, and refilled our freshwater tank.  We then formally checked out by dropping off our parking pass, and drove down to Ocean City State Park, 6 miles to the south, where we finished processing our clams and then dumped out holding tanks at the state park’s trailer dump facility.  Our Natural Investment Pass is valid for State Park entry as well as use of the boat launches and trailer dump facilities.  

We drove home along SR 108, which was back open after the state had shut it down to do some land slide mitigation work just north of Hoquiam.  We encountered pretty heavy traffic going through Hoquiam, which was probably mostly weekend clam warriors headed home to the big cities.  Traffic was also pretty heavy approaching JBLM. 

We stopped at the Lacey Costco to return an item and pick up some AAA batteries after discovering we needed some in the RV for temperature sensors and remote controls, and topped off the fuel tank, but after paying $4.79/gal for diesel at that Costco, we subsequently discovered that diesel was actually a lot less expensive up north with Samcor selling it for $4.43/gal and even the Cenex in Oak Harbor selling it for $4.45/gal.  

We met Ciara at Chiang’s Gourmet for a late lunch, and also met with George and his family there.  Ben had some surveying equipment that he had borrowed from George that needed to be returned, so that worked out well.  We gave both live in shell clams and some cleaned frozen clam meat to the staff at Chiang’s for their meal, and they stir fried some fresh razor clams with mixed vegetables and black bean sauce for us on the house.  

We ended up doing our weekly family Zoom meeting from the RV in Chiang’s parking lot at 5pm, and then headed home racing the sun.  Janet filled her compost buckets in LaConner and we made it home at 8pm, beating the sunset by 15 minutes.  

We’ll be doing laundry and cleaning fine sand out of the RV for some time, but had a productive and fun trip to the Pacific coast in the RV, having dug up 200 razor clams.  We’ll be giving a fair number of clams to friends and family as gifts and will be expanding our clam recipe repertoire.  

20230422 Saturday, April 22, 2023; Copalis Beach Clamming Day 2

 20230422 Saturday, April 22, 2023 Copalis Beach Clamming Day 2

The later low tides made for a quick and relatively easy two limits of 40 clams in under 30 minutes.  The beach is noticeably more crowded on the weekend, but there seems to be plenty of razor clams left for the picking.  Our procedures for processing our catch has been getting more efficient with each day of additional experience, and our RV’s freezer is filling up with razor clams rapidly.  

We had to have the last of the Birdseye pasta with garlic chicken for lunch to make room in the freezer for incoming clams.  

We have taken a few mini showers during this trip, but now that our grey tank is at 2/3, and the septic system at the RV park shut down, we are taking measures to limit grey water production, including dumping some grey water into the black tank and Janet took a shower at the RV park’s shower facilities, which are extremely “rustic”.  But Janet reported that hot water was plentiful and the shower stall is very roomy compared to our tiny RV shower.  

We had decent weather while digging for clams with spotty drizzles, but as the day progressed, the rains built and became quite regular.  The rains didn’t seem to discourage more RV’s from arriving during the day.  The park is probably at 85% capacity despite the rain.

Tomorrow’s low tide is at 9:30am and is at -0.8’.  We’ll be headed back up to Mocrocks beach for that clam dig, and expect it to wet again, but we are confident of finding our limits before heading home tomorrow afternoon.

20230421 Friday, April 21, 2023; Mocrocks Beach Day 2

 20230421 Friday, April 21, 2023; Mocrocks Beach Day 2

With a later and lower low tide today (8:08am, -1.2’) it was nice to be able to leave the RV park after sunrise and drive during daylight.  The trailer that had parked within 10” of us last night had disappeared as mysteriously had it had appeared when we drew our blinds in the morning. We left the RV at 6:50am and had our two limits of 40 clams by 7:30am.  There was a light drizzle as we initially set out, but the sun broke through the clouds and we had nice weather for the rest of the morning. Janet actually said “That was fun!” As we walked back up the beach to the RV.  

We cleaned and put up our catch back at the RV park and fried up a couple of clams breaded with Krusteaz in butter for breakfast.  We took a nice walk along the Connor Creek and through Griffith-Priday state park.  The only beach access to that state park is via the same pedestrian bridge that is next to our RV park, so we circled back and walked south about a mile on the beach, hoping to spot a glass float, but only found crab molts and drift wood.

Lunch was Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and cheese sandwiches with potato chips, followed by naps.  Dinner was pasta with Alfredo and green beans, but with canned chicken from Costco instead of clams since we had already put up the clams in the freezer.  

Tomorrow’s low tide is -1.1’ at 8:50am and Copalis is open, so it’s right in our back yard.  

20230420 Thursday, April 20, 2023; Copalis Beach Clamming

 20230420 Thursday, April 20, 2023

The rain stopped during the early morning hours so we were able to walk onto the beach with overcast sky and plenty of daylight.  We headed out of our RV at 6:15am.  With the lower tide level of -0.9’ at 7:28, we were greeted by plenty of clam shows above the surf wash zone, and could afford to be picky and only go after the larger shows.  In the lower surf wash zone, we could see feeding razor clams with the tips of their siphons at the surface of the shifting fine sands and volcano like spouts as the surf washed out over them.  We each had our limits of 20 clams by 7:15am and were headed back to the RV.  We finished cleaning them and putting them up in the refrigerator by 10:15am and had time for a nice nap.  

We were fortunate to have gotten a break in the rain and wind to dig our clams because by 11am, it was raining sideways with 30-45mph wind gusts and sheets of rain.  This shook the RV and occasionally sent waterfalls cascading over the side window.  RV’s began arriving later in the afternoon. Presumably the weekend warriors who had taken Friday off work were arriving.  

We had canned chili fortified with fresh chopped razor clams for lunch.  While the clams didn’t seem to affect the flavor, they did add a bit of crunchy texture and protein.

We spent the afternoon sheltering from the wind and rain watching streaming TV within the comfort of the RV.  We had more of the Birdseye pasta with garlic chicken and toasted ciabatta rolls for dinner, this time sans clams since we had put up what cleaned clams we had in the freezer.  

The rain and wind finally stopped about 6:30pm, so Ben went for a walk along the canal that separates Copalis Beach city from the actual beach.  The canal finally turns and drains into the Pacific about 1.5 miles north of the pedestrian bridge at our campsite.  There appears to be a few ATV and 2 wheeler tracks along with the walking trail.  When Ben got back to the RV park, he was blinded by headlights next to our RV and was surprised to see a travel trailer now parked with its slide within 10” of our extended slide.  I guess we’ll be keeping those blinds pulled permanently now.  We hope we won’t be listening to their TV blaring or other noises being so darned close.  It kind of reminded us of the Viking river cruise ships tied up rail to rail in Vienna.  

Tomorrow’s clamming is at Mocrocks beach, so we’ll have to pack up, crawl under the slides to disconnect water and power early tomorrow to head out.  We just hope not to find ourselves pinned in with another RV on our other side blocking our side door.