Sunday, January 26, 2025 Cape Disappointment North Head and Razor Clamming

Sunday, January 26, 2025 Cape Disappointment North Head and Razor Clamming

We did an energy austerity exercise last night to maximize our chances of not having to go through jump starting the house batteries.  We ran the generator until we were done with dinner, had the portable jump starter fully recharged, and the house batteries up to at least 75% charged.  Then it was lights out at 8pm.  We usually keep our iOS devices plugged in charging overnight, but we took the additional precaution of not charging anything off the house battery overnight.  Ben has an app that monitors the battery status and with the everything off, it was reading zero amps.

When the furnace was running, it reported about 54W of energy discharge.  The refrigerator also runs on the house battery, but runs intermittently so we can’t force it to run to test the power draw.  We set the thermostat at 59 degrees, and did manage to make it to the morning with the batteries still online.  

The solar panel charging display came on at 8am and wasn’t blinking the no battery error like it had yesterday.  The battery monitor app showed the batteries at 52 and 61%.  All this suggests the batteries are OK, and that we probably have some solar panel diagnostics to do.  These solar panels supposedly don’t have that long of a lifespan despite having no moving parts because they are exposed to a lot of vibrations and thermal stress.  These are now 3-4 years old so we may be looking at replacing them before attempting any really long RV trips, say to Alaska or the Canadian Maritimes.

  

Another oddity we have noticed is when we start up the generator, the GFCI in the bathroom trips.  This cuts off power to the outlet over the kitchen counter (coffee maker etc), so that has to be reset by pushing the button on the GFCI.  This is most likely just the GFCI showing its age as well.  We started up the generator at 8:45am. The campground rules say we can run generators from 8am to 9pm, but we waited until plenty of people were milling about the campground and the sun was fully out.  

After brewing coffee, we headed out in the Bronco to explore the trails of this part of the state park while the generator recharged the house batteries.  McKenzie Head trail is just a quarter mile long but it is to the top of McKenzie Head where there is an old gun battery, and where Lewis and Clark surveyed the mouth of the Columbia from it’s elevated view point.  

It is also a designated tsunami evacuation site for the campground.  While much of the vegetation is similar to Whidbey Island’s, the huge Sitka Spruce are a more unique characteristic of Cape Disappointment.  

There is a small cover near the park entrance named Waikiki Beach, and while it is beautiful, it bears no resemblance to its Hawaiian namesake.  We also drove along the north jetty and found people fishing with sturdy fishing poles for Dungeness crab using small bait cages with heavy monofilament snares. 

We returned to the RV and shut down the generator before heading out of the park to the North Head Lighthouse.  There is a very nicely kept light keeper’s and assistant light keeper’s houses that the State Parks use as rental properties.  The light house is now automated but is one of the best maintained light houses along the west coast. The two light houses at North Head and Cape Disappointment are the only two lighthouses on the West Coast within 2 miles of each other.  There is a short spur trail to Bell’s View just north of the North Head Lighthouse which also gives a grand view of the coastline.  

There is an 8 mile long “Discovery Trail” that runs between Ilwaco, Cape Disappointment State Park and Beard’s Hollow on the Long Beach Peninsula.  We walked a short distance along this but it ends up pretty much running along side the roadway.  

We returned to the Corral in Long Beach to return the food pager and ended up ordering bacon burgers, tater tots and milk shakes, this time taking advantage of their Senior discount of 10%.  These were nice burgers, much like a Whopper, and the serving of tater tots was generous.  The milk shakes are made with vanilla soft serve doused with flavor shots- nothing extraordinary, but who can complain about milk shakes?  

We returned to the Long Beach beach access arch to replicate the photo that Ben’s family took back in the 1970’s, and then ate our lunches on the beach watching kites, surf fishermen and dog walkers.  

We were able to take advantage of the cellular service in Long Beach to do our daily DuoLingo language lessons before heading back to the campground to get ready for razor clam digging.  The RV’s batteries had recharged to about 60% in the morning, so we ran the generator again to try to get the batteries up to 75%.  Using the heat pump running on the generator also heats up the RV quicker than the LP furnace does.  

The low tide was at 5pm at 0.0’, but we headed out to the beach at 3pm since the weather was so nice.  It was only in the 40’s but it was sunny and calm.  We walked out toward where we found the clam shows yesterday, but Janet had found half her clams enroute by walking down to the waterline and then cutting across, while Ben did a beeline on the diagonal.  It didn’t take too long to get our 15 clams each.  There were classic clam shows above the wash zone, and the lack of wind seemed to help eliminate pesky sneaker waves that would normally chase you up the beach.  We were all done by 3:30 and were back in the RV before 4pm.  

We ran the generator while we cleaned the clams and had dinner, which was spaghetti with canned Hunts spaghetti sauce and Costco meat balls.  And we like the toasted Costco Ciabatta rolls on the side.

While the campground bathroom has free showers, and Ben had used it on the first night, Janet discovered the women’s side did not have any hot water.  We both took nice hot but brief showers in the RV, in part to drain out the freshwater holding tank since we are leaving tomorrow.  We shut down the generator at 6:30pm.  The battery monitor showed them to be at 71.7% and 80.4%.  We’ll hope for no battery drama overnight.  Ben will be doing some homework studying on how to troubleshoot RV solar panels and charging systems in the near future.

Saturday, January 24, 2025 Cape Disappointment and Long Beach

Saturday, January 24, 2025 Cape Disappointment and Long Beach

It got cold last night. Ben was concerned our batteries were at below 50% when we got back to the RV late last night.  Our solar panels don’t seem to be charging the batteries adequately, either because of shade or because of a problem with the solar panels.  At any rate, the furnace quit working sometime in the early am hours.  Ben had to make a late night run to the bathroom at 3am because of a touch of GI trouble and saw that the electrical panel was de-energized and the Lithium Batteries were not reporting their status.  This would most likely be caused by them draining below about 10.8V, at which point the battery management systems built in the batteries would shut them down to protect against over discharge that might be damaging.  

We threw on extra blankets and managed to sleep in until 9am.  The outside temperatures were below freezing. At that time, Ben started up the RV motor and used the RV’s cabin heater to warm up the RV while he got out the tools to troubleshoot the system. In the past, he was able to simply use a portable jump starter to start the generator, but the generator control panel was completely dead.  It wasn’t until he physically disconnected the batteries from the coach and then applied the jump starter to the batteries that the batteries came back online, reporting a voltage of 11.5V.  Once we were able to get that reading of 11.5V on the batteries, Ben was able to reconnect the coach, and this lit up the generator control panel. This then allowed us to start up the generator using the jump starter on the house battery banks.

  
We were then able to shut down the RV coach motor and let the RV furnace heat up the RV to shirt sleeves temperature.  Ben also noticed that the inside rear dual tire was reading a bit low, and while the RV motor was running, the TPMS sounded an alert to that effect.  The one tire was reading 54psi while the others were reading 60psi.  They should be at 61psi.  Fortunately, Ben has a heavy duty compressor for airing the Bronco tires up and down, and he was able to use that to bring all the RV tires up to 61psi.

  
We ran the generator for an hour, which brought the batteries up to 50%.  By then, the sun was rising, and the solar controller was showing 0.4A charging current, which isn’t much, but it was positive.  We shut down the generator and started off to explore the Cape Disappointment and Long Beach areas.

  
We drove across the park and saw the boat launch facility, which was quite nice.

There was parking for 10 trucks with trailers plus 2 designated handicap spaces. There was a gravel overflow area a few hundred feet away.  There are two nice floats and launching lanes on either side of each float.  There is also a fish cleaning table and a nice bathroom serving the parking area.

At one corner of the overflow gravel parking area is the trailhead for a 1.5 mile forest loop trail.  This highlighted some huge sitka spruce trees over 12’ in diameter.  These trees were present when Lewis and Clark explored the area originally.  There was a bit of elevation (~100ft) in the loop trail, so we got a decent work out.

From there, we drove to the Cape Disappointment light house trail, where we hiked up a pretty steep pathway to the coast guard light house (194’ elevation).  Ben took a side spur to check out Dead Man’s Cove, which was a very scenic little beach area tucked between two adjacent headlands.  Then we took the trail to the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center, which puzzling enough had a separate $10 admission fee, but the upstairs of the building had a free gift shop, bathrooms and Fort Canby exhibits.  The weather was beautify and sunny, although it was only in the 30’s temperature wise.

We drove into Long Beach to have lunch at a place called the Corral Drive In.  It was well past the main tourist center of Long Beach, so we got to see all that.  The Corral did not have any inside dining, and although the sun was shining, it was too cold outside to eat, so we got our food (two orders of “Hot Mess”- pulled pork sandwiches on brioche buns with jalapeños and BBQ sauce, fries and a drink), and drove back into Central Long Beach. 

We found the main beach access and the “World’s Longest Beach” arch, where Ben’s family had taken a photo back in 1970.

  

We drove onto the sand and ate our lunches.  Ben took a quick stroll down to check for clam shows, but saw none.  The tide was heading out, so we made a beeline back our campsite so we could do reconnaissance of the beach for clams.  

The RV was back in the shade and the solar panels weren’t charging any more than 0.2A, and the batteries were still just about 50%, so we started up the generator again and hoped to get them up to at least 75% before shutting the generator down for the night so we can count on the furnace all night and not have to jump start things again in the morning.

We changed our shoes and headed onto the beach.  We did find some clam shows and were surprised they were about 150’ up the beach from where the surf was wetting the sand.  We walked toward the North Lighthouse, and found a patch of beach with quite a few nice clam shows, so we know were to head for tomorrow with our clam guns.

Classic clam show

We made dinner (Mac and Cheese with meatballs, toasted artisan bread) while the generator was running, using the induction cooktop, microwave and toaster, in sequence.  This would preserve propane for the generator and furnace.  
We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we make it through to the morning without the batteries cutting out and have heat all night.  Tomorrow we plan on checking out trails at the North Head Lighthouse in the morning, and clamming in the late afternoon.

Friday, January 24, 2025 Portland Costco and Apple Store

Friday, January 24, 2025 Portland Costco and Apple Store

Even though we were camped out in the southwestern corner of Washington State, we were still about 2-1/2hrs to the nearest Oregonian Apple Store.  It was a scenic drive through Ilwaco, Astoria and Seaside before we headed in towards Portland.  We made a Costco stop to top off the Bronco and pick up a Pizza for dinner and a few other items.  We had asked Siri to give us directions to the nearest Apple Store, but much to our chagrin, she lead us into downtown to a store with no parking, which was a bit of a wild goose chase.  Fortunately, there was another more suburban Mall location only about 15 minutes drive away.  We had previously bought Apple gear there, so we probably should have asked Siri for directions to that specific store.  
Ben wanted to have good backups of all of the devices on his laptop before we traded all our old gear in.  This took quite a bit longer than anticipated, so Ben sat in the passenger seat doing this while Janet drove the Bronco into Portland.  We did manage to get everything backed up just as we were arriving in the parking lot at the Washington Square shopping mall in suburban Portland, Oregon.

  
We traded in both of iPhone 13Pro models in exchange for the newer iPhone 16Pro models which now feature Apple Intelligence (whatever that is) and more importantly, a new 5x zoom lens on the camera and better batteries.  Janet’s phone was on Mint Mobile, and transferring her number from the old phone to the new was a snap. 

Ben’s phone was on Xfinity Mobile, and transferring his number proved to be a long drawn out and frustrating process that took several hours because he couldn’t activate it until the Xfinity ap was fully restored from the iCloud backup, and even then, there was a glitch on Xfinity’s end requiring a phone call to finally sort out. Janet got her old iPad upgraded to a new iPad Air which has an Apple silicon M2 processor, which is 4 times faster, and Ben got his old iPad Pro upgraded to a new M4 iPad Pro, which is about 6 times faster.  He may be able to leave the MacBook Pro at home for most trips with the new iPad Pro’s capabilities.

Washington Square Mall also has all the major department stores so we stopped in at Macy’s and Nordstroms to shop for clothes and shoes that might be suitable for Ciara’s wedding.  We’ll most likely have to order specific items online for sizing, but it was good to actually have some shoe people measure foot sizes and have some shoes to try on in person.

That made for a long day.  We drove back to Cape Disappointment in the dark, but there was very little traffic and the roads were bare and dry.  When we got back to our campsite, we were surprised to find we had a whole lot of new neighbors.  We had the entire loop to ourselves last night, but now we have someone in the Yurt and 5 other campers in the sites all on the beach side.  It’s a safe bet they will be digging for razor clams on Sunday.

Thursday, January 23, 2025 Exploring Cape Disappointment with the RV and Bronco

Thursday, January 23, 2025 RV Trip to Cape Disappointment and Portland Shopping

There is a daylight razor clam opening starting Sunday, January 26th on the Pacific Coast.  We have trips to Egypt and China coming up this year.  Ben’s iPhone is in need of upgrade due to a failing battery and Janet’s iPad is running intolerably slow.  Ben’s iPad is also too old to receive the latest security updates.  So we have plenty of excuses to head down to Portland to do some sales tax free shopping and do some razor clam digging in Long Beach while we’re at it.

  
During a prior RV trip down the coast, we failed to find the Cape Disappointment State Park Campground because we weren’t familiar with the roads and didn’t want to get trapped somewhere we couldn’t turn around.  Now that we have the Washington State Parks Senior Off Season pass, we can camp for free during the winter months, so we want to get our money’s worth out of the pass. 

We were out late last night playing trivia at the Bastion Brewery in Anacortes.  We managed a clean win this time- no sharing the first place prize.  We won a nice boxed Scattergories game, along with some Play Doh, busy slippery toy and candies.  The Play Doh and busy slippery toy will go towards entertaining children at Ciara’s August wedding. Normally, Ben would have gotten the RV all set up the day before leaving on a trip, but Janet had a medical appointment yesterday afternoon, which is how we ended up playing trivia.

So Ben headed over to the barn to pull out the RV, hitch up the Bronco to it, and load up the razor clamming gear.  It took an hour to end up back in front of the house where we then spent a half hour loading clothes and provisions for the trip to the coast and Portland.  We have dental appointments on Tuesday, so we’ll have to head back on Monday.

Our first stop was to refuel both the RV and Bronco at the Angel of the Winds Casino in Arlington. Since we ended up arriving in the U District at noon, we stopped at Chiang’s Gourmet for lunch. It was fortunate that their parking lot was pretty empty, so we could park along the back wall of the dry cleaners.  In addition to lunch specials, we ordered extra to go for dinner, instead of our usual Costco Pizza.

The next stop was another fuel stop at the Lacey Costco for diesel.  From there we made a bee line for Cape Disappointment State Park, arriving at 4:30pm.  This gave us just enough time to be able to set up camp in daylight.  

This state park requires reservations year round but a list on the ranger’s booth at the unmanned entry showed only 6 sites with reservations who had not yet checked in.

Any others should be available for drop ins.  Instead of the usual paper envelopes, this particular park has a yellow telephone mounted on the unmanned ranger registration booth with an express line to the park’s reservations.  

We were able to find a nice basic site very near the beach trail, site B100, which was also very close to the bathroom.  We were able to stay in the site for the full 4 nights, and the Senior Off Season pass made it free.  Without the pass, it would have been $30 per night.

We were just able to check out the bathroom and beach access before night began to fall.  There were several boats visible on the water fishing for squid. You can tell this because they were lit up with huge floodlights.

  
We ran the generator for 10 minutes to exercise it and used the microwave to reheat our take out Chinese food dinner.

Tomorrow, we’ll head to Portland in the Bronco to hit the Apple Store and Costco.

20241230 Monday December 30, 2024; The Long Trip Home

20241230 Monday December 30, 2024; The Long Trip Home

Fort Lauderdale dock workers whisking off luggage.

Disembarkation from the ship went smoothly. John had to disembark by 7am to make his airport transfer.  

Everything packed and ready.

Last buffet breakfast.

John heads off for his flight to New Jersey.

The rest of us got out of our staterooms by 8am and hung out in the Take 5 Lounge for Elite disembarkations where they had pastries, coffee and tea.  We got the go ahead to head ashore at 9am. There was a bit of a wait in line clearing customs, but that was no more than 10 or 15 minutes to get through.  The bus transfer to the airport was also easy enough.  There were enough empty seats on the bus that we could spread out just a little bit.  Price and Ben got to have a row to themselves, but one of the very last ladies to come aboard squeezed in with Janet.  It looked like there was actually still one empty row further back in the bus when everyone was loaded on.

The biggest headache for us was getting to the airport at 10am, but not being able to check in our luggage until 2PM for our 6:40PM flight departure time.  The Fort Lauderdale airport was not set up for this because there are inadequate waiting areas on the ticketing side of the airport, and almost no services (restaurants and shops).  There was a bag storage service in one corner of the building that charged $10 per bag, which is pretty exorbitant.  

Ben had contemplated renting a small SUV so we could relax outside the airport and get something to eat while being able to store the bags in the car, but we ended up finding a couple of seats and snagged an abandoned luggage trolley to park our bags on. The airport did have wifi.  We took turns walking the terminal buildings which span nearly a mile from one end of Terminal 1 to the other end of Terminal 4 to get our steps in for the day.  

Once an announcement was made that people with 6PM flights could check their luggage, we made a beeline to the counter and got all our bags checked.  Janet and Ben could each check one free bag because they have the Delta Airlines American Express card, but because the flight was nearly full, they also allowed us to check all our carryon suitcases for free, including Price.  This made getting around the airport easier.  

The Fort Lauderdale airport has CT luggage scanners that can slice through luggage from top to bottom, allowing them to see through multiple layers of items in a bag. While this can detect more items, it is significantly slower than the conventional conveyor belt X-ray scanners.  Our TSA Pre-Check status allowed us to keep our shoes on and laptops did not have to be removed from our bags.  Janet’s TSA Pre-Check anomaly had been resolved on the outbound leg so she sailed through this time without a hitch.  

The terminal gates at Fort Lauderale seemed to be operating at near capacity.  We were eventually able to find seating and did manage to get some burgers, fries and shakes a the Shake Shack in the terminal.  There was a very limited selection of dining options. We were disappointed not to see a Burger King or McDonalds.  Besides the Shake Shack, there were two pizza/meatball sandwich places, a sushi bar, and a Starbucks.  There was also a general store with cold wrapped sandwiches and bottled drinks alongside overpriced souvenirs and travel essentials.

Our flight departed right on time and was pretty smooth sailing.  We booked in Premium Economy which gives enough leg room that it is possible to pick something up off the floor if you drop something.  Not nearly as nice as international business class, but bearable for the 6 hour flight.  There were meals available for purchase at the start of the flight.  Smart people had brought their own sandwiches on board.  We didn’t think to smuggle sandwiches out of the International Cafe for this purpose, but that would have been smart, and unlike in all the other ports of call, there was no prohibition to taking food off the ship.  We did see other families in the airport who had done that.  Next time.  

Because we were flying westbound, our flight arrival at 9:55PM theoretically wasn’t that late, but since we were essentially on Eastern Standard Time, it was 1AM for us.  By the time we got to the car with our luggage, it was 11:30PM and we found most of the fast food outlets around the airport drive to be close after passing a McDonalds that had a back up out onto highway 99.  We ended up stopping in Marysville where we found an open Burger King.  We were grateful for the food, although it definitely had been sitting under a heat lamp for many hours.  We topped off the gas tank at the Angel of the Winds Casino, but then drove straight home, arriving around 1am, which would be 4am EST.  We pretty much just dragged ourselves upstairs and collapsed into our beds.  

Invariably, we seem to need a vacation to recover from our vacations, but in retrospect we did have a very enjoyable Christmas trip with John and Price where we got to be spoiled by the Princess Cruises staff at every turn.  It’s hard to beat a Christmas cruise for putting together inclusive food, entertainment, travel and lodging with minimal fuss.  We look forward to doing it again next year, but with the entire family and Tom’s family as well.

Sunday, December 29, 2024 Last Day at Sea

Sunday, December 29, 2024 Last Day at Sea

Our final day was a relaxed affair, although having to reorganize everything back into suitcases and figuring out what to leave out for our last night does require a bit of effort.  

We attended the last morning trivia and finished with a flourish, winning the session and getting Princess wine bottle stoppers.  The kids and Ben got in one last workout in the fitness center so we could pack away our work out clothes.  Smart travelers use a large ziplock bag to bring home stinky dirty laundry.  

Ben and Janet did a new game show called 10 in 60 which is a trivia where you have to list the top 10 items in a category according to Ranker.com. If you get all 10 before the 60 seconds are up, you stop the clock and have the opportunity to get 20 points.  If you get it wrong, the clock starts again, and then everyone tallies their points for the category.  The rules were a little confusing at first, but somehow we ended up winning and got a bottle of champagne to give to our room steward.

John purchased some St. Kitts local soft drinks called Ting so we had afternoon High Ting, sampling the grapefruit Ting, which was a bit like Fresca, and Pear, which was quite unique, tasting a bit like a very sweet wine.

We got together with Katherine and did the 4PM trivia but finished out of the top 3 who had a 3 way tie.  The tie breaker was to guess the host’s age, which was 27.  Katherine guessed it dead on.

Ben and Janet did finally get to the Elite lounge to check it out and they had a very nice selection of sushi, bigger than what we had received at the Ocean Terrace.  

Dinner featured braised lamb shank, Mahi Mahi and prime rib.  Ben was surprised to actually get a rare prime rib after ordering rare.  Being the last night of the cruise, there was a Baked Alaska parade through the dining room.

The Princess theater had a Farewell variety show featuring the saxophonist, Whitney Houston tribute singer, Vista lounge magician and an Uptown Funk You Up number by the production crew.  We were surprised they didn’t parade crew and staff on the stage for a final acknowledgement on this show.  

Ben and John hit the gelato stand on the way back to the rooms.  

We wound up the night with a last hurrah trivia at 10:30pm, which was a name the next lyric trivia.  We did surprisingly good, but there were at least 3 teams who all got perfect scores so the host was liberal with the prizes.  

Ben and John hit the International Cafe for one last soup and sandwich run and a moment of relaxation in the Piazza before retiring for the night.

We get an extra hour tonight as clocks go back an hour to get back on Eastern standard time.  John will have to disembark at 7am so we’ll be up early to see him off.