The western US in the new rig, fulltime! Just the facts Maam!

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Phoenix RV Park
Salem, OR​

This is an inland stop to let us thaw out a bit after a few chilly coastal RV parks.  This is a nice well maintained park that is kind of ?in town? as far as location. The has 107 sites, and all of them are in pretty good shape. Most of the sites are pull through, and the back in's around the perimeter are a bit shorter than the pull through sites. There is lush well cared for grass between the sites, and the grounds crew did a good job on regular maintenance. 

The RV pads are paved, as are the small concrete patios. Small is the operative word here, as there is a PVC picnic table at each site that takes up most of the patio. We usually will pull the table off to the side when possible as we like to use the patio to sit out in chairs or work out in the mornings.  After our table was moved for about a day a campground worked knocked on our door one morning. He said that if we didn't need the patio table that he would take it away as they try to keep the grass clear for watering. Rather than move it every day, we let them take it.  But they were nice about it. 

We stayed a week at the park and got a weekly rate of $254.50, or $36.35 a night. The sites are FHU 50 amp, and all worked well. The park offered free wifi, but our T-Mobile card worked great here. The restrooms are in good condition and clean, but while they are marked handicapped accessible, I noted that the showers while large had a 4? lip on the front. There are grab bars in the shower stall, but getting over the lip with a wheel chair may be a challenge. 

Most sites have a large shade tree near the end of the site, but with most of the sites the afternoon sun is on your patio side. I had rigged up a beach umbrella that I carry so we could sit outside in the afternoons without cooking in the 90 degree weather. No pool or spa here, but there was a small playground and rec room. There was also an indoor gym that had some cardio machines, treadmill (2), bike, and stair machine, but the few dumbbell free weights were about 5 pounds each. A little lite for me!

The biggest drawback to this park was it is surrounded by commercial buildings, and all of the noise that goes with it. A Safeway grocery store is on the other side of the fence, and they have a pager system with an outside speaker. Every time someone got paged, a brief tone would sound and then the person would speak. Then there were trucks coming and going, traffic in the alleys, and the trash men got a certain perverse pleasure out of dumping the large trash bins, and making sure that the metal lids banged against the bins at least 10 times each.  This usually happened every other day from 6 AM to 8 AM. I guess they really loved their jobs.

All in all this is a very nice well taken care of park, reasonably priced, and centrally located. As long as you are not too noise sensitive. Like Diane. Enough said. 

We did do a couple of fun things here, one was attending a PRCA rodeo in a nearby town. There is just something about rodeo that just makes me feel like a proud American. Since this was a PRCA event (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association), the livestock was fast and tough,  and so were the cowboys. We went on a Sunday, the second day of the event. It was about 3 hours long, and the events are fast, and one after the other.

And then between the fun stuff, I had to do some maintenance work that I have been putting off (because I dread doing this task). Every so often I  have to replace the silicone caulk along the door rail on the shower. Not a terribly hard job, just real PITA to get the old stuff off, get the surface super clean, and then reapply. Well the putting it back on takes about 5 minutes. The taking the old stuff off is about 3+ hours.  But I  got it done, and  it should be good for another few years,  I hope.  I  even modified the bottom door track because the ?C? shape of the channel would hold water, then after a period of time, unless Diane cleaned it out regularly, would get mildewed. Not a happy wife job. 

So I applied a ?Mcguver? fix, and cut several  little slots in the bottom  of the channel on  the inside with a Dremmel tool.  Now the channel drains after every shower, and preliminary reports from Diane  is that it seems to be working well. Yaay!

Pic 1) The site at Phoenix RV park. Nicely maintained, but a bit close together.
Pic 2) Our itty bitty patio. About twice the size would have been nice.
Pic 3) Scraping with a plastic razor blade, steel blade, and Goo Off.  Slow and tedious.
Pic 4) Don't scrape up the finish!
Pic 5) Cut small drains to allow the water to escape the track.
Pic 6) Then tape the edges where the silicone goes to get a nice even looking caulk line.
Pic 7) Then add silicone and remove the tape.
Pic 8) Entertaining the fans between events.
Pic 9) The "Bullfighters" set up to protect the cowboys during the bull riding event.
Pic 10) Americana!
 

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Damn Marty. Are those guns loaded? I want you on my 6 next time I get in a scrap!
Again, love your posts. Learn, love, live. I'll explain that soon enough.
Peace to all.
 
LOL!! Too funny Jeff!  It's Diane, she beats me and makes me work out!.  Of course I kid, but it does keep me from feeling too old and creaky.  Thanks for reading.
 
Yeah, about two weeks before I retired, I took Marty on a patrol flight. When he showed up at our hangar, my partner said,"Who's the tank? I hope he's on our side." :)

Kev
 
yea, if he flashed his creds and said show me hands, don't run, get on the ground....I would listen very carefully. But that's the way I was raised!  ;)
It seems that is no longer the norm.
 
Kevin Means said:
Yeah, about two weeks before I retired, I took Marty on a patrol flight. When he showed up at our hangar, my partner said,"Who's the tank? I hope he's on our side." :)

Kev

LOL!  Now that's just funny right there! ;D  And the best part? That's a cop comment if I ever heard one!!  :)) :))
 
Alpena Jeff said:
yea, if he flashed his creds and said show me hands, don't run, get on the ground....I would listen very carefully. But that's the way I was raised!  ;)
It seems that is no longer the norm.

Sometimes it still is Jeff. We called it "command presence". Weather it worked or not, it sure saved me a lot of fights!
 
Seaquest State Park
Castle Rock, WA​

This stop took us up into the state of Washington to check off a must see spot. We have always wanted to make a trip to see Mt St Helens and the volcanic aftermath that occurred in 1980. I was a young adult when the eruption occurred, but I was also struggling to earn a living so current events news was not on the top of my to do list.  We picked a state park that was well rated and made a reservation for 4 days.

Our site was a FHU spot in ?T? loop, site T13.  It was an end site at the back of the loop, so it cut down on the passerby traffic which we like.  Some of the comments we had read from other campers were accurate.  Our dirt gravel pull through site was pretty unlevel and sloped backwards towards the entry point. Unfortunately that meant that hydraulic leveling was out of the question, as our levelers had I blocked them would have leveled us easily, but both rear tires would have been off the ground.  Fortunately I was able to air level using the ?Valid? system of air bag leveling.  Even then we just made it. I would later discover that the front bags had deflated so far that I couldn't get the tire cover off when we were leaving until I stored the slides and went to travel mode. 

Our first challenge was pulling into the campground. While our site was plenty long for us to put the MH and Jeep in, the interior roads and turns are extremely tight with hair pin turns and trees.  To make one of the turns when pulling down a row, a nice guy in a fiver had to move his truck parked well within his site so I could complete my turn.  Later when leaving exiting was just a tight, and I was glad that 3 of the sites were empty on a tight turn or I never would have made it out.  And our rig is a 40', so a tag axle would really have problems here. 

A few other site issues was the sewer is all the way at the back of the site, so bring at least 30' of sewer hose to reach it. There was a small concrete patio at the back of the site as well but it was in full sun. Due to the usual 90 degree days we never used it. Fortunately we had afternoon shade on the patio side so we could put out a rug and sit in the shade of the rig. Some perfectly planted trees about 100' tall prevented any possibility of satellite reception from about anywhere in the loop. Funny thing was I was able to get 4 OTA channels that were digital quality and very clear. However, one was Japanese, one French, one Washington State political monitor (state senate hearings, ect) and the other was a PBS channel that had some really odd programming.   

We had weak Verizon signal that dropped out and just flat failed often, but we may have been the only ones in the campground able to get any at all (due to our booster and mast antenna).

We paid $40 a night for the site, plus a $5 non resident fee, and $8 registration fee. The restrooms are clean and  handicapped accessible. They are in good condition and have token operated showers. One token costs 50 cents and can be purchased from a machine, or a small campground store, when open. The token will give you 3 minutes of shower time.

On the up side, right across the street from the campground is a Mt St Helens Visitor center with exhibits and a 13 minute movie on the eruption event.  There is also a 1 mile nature walk by the visitor center as well. The drive to the mountain is about an hour from the campground. The National Park visitor center is large and well done. Getting in was $8 a person, but well worth it. Our national parks pass got us in free. The have a different 16 minute movie that is very well done. A lot of their footage was taken from reporters and scientists stationed at the mountain waiting for the eventual eruption. And boy, they were not disappointed.  The massive collapse of part of the mountain, landslide, smoke ash and lava flow changed the area forever.  It is well worth the trip.  If going to the area again, I would stay in the KOA which is nearby to the state park, but sits high on hill and would surly have more room to maneuver. I am sure that it would cost more than the state park. 

As a footnote to this visit, we learned almost accidentally that our mail service of 10 years had failed and was closing in a few days.  Talk about Murphy's law.  We spent the first few days scrambling to find and set up a new service, all without cell or wifi signal. Fortunately there was a Starbucks about 10 miles away in town (Americas new free office!).  Hey, it's all part of the adventure........

Pic 1) Getting set up at Sea Quest.
Pic 2) Kind of a rustic little campground.
Pic 3) Main Visitor Center about an hours drive from the RV park.
Pic 4) Nature trail at small visitors center across the street.
Pic 5) Mt Saint Helens. That whole side of the mountain collapsed in the eruption.
 

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Old Stone Village RV Park
McMinnville, OR
This is a highly rated park in Oregon's wine country area.  It's unique in that one half of the park is park model's and permanent residents,  and the other is all rent-able RV sites. The sites are all paved and have concrete patio areas. The only problem I had at the site was that while the site was long enough for the rig, the patio was towards the back. There was a nice lush grass area at each site as well, but I have learned that it usually means that the park does frequent watering to maintain that lush grass.  I tried jockying the rig back and forth trying to reach a happy medium between getting the entry door of the rig to be on cement, and still be able to access the bay doors on the drivers side.

To do this I ?angle? parked the rig but I was able to put the whole rig on the cement pad, and still was able to get in the entry door and storage doors.  I know it drove Diane nuts, as crooked parking any vehicle in a spot makes her crazy. But I did anyways, and as I was finishing my set up, she presented me with the park rule sheet. For the first time in my Rving life, I saw a highlighted rule saying that ?vehicles must be centered uniformly on cement pads?.  I was already 90% hooked up with tire covers and everything, so I decided to be a renegade and leave the MH cocked in the site.  It turned out that for the whole 7 days, no one said a word to us from the park.  And it really did work out better for us. We never got out of the rig in wet muddy grass, and the rig never got wet.

The RV pads are a bit close with no real barrier between  you and your neighbor, but sites are well taken care of. There are good size shade trees on most sites that we really appreciated on sunny afternoons, as the sun was on our patio side. But the trees tend to be planted at the ends of each RV site instead of the middle.  I did choose to back out of the site when leaving though to avoid any possibility of scraping tree branches down the side of the rig.  The sites across road angled opposite from ours and would have had afternoon shade. We were in site #263.

We paid about $46 a night for the FHU pull through site. The had a pool and a small workout room that we didn't use, instead we worked out at the RV and walked.  Right next to the park is the ?Evergreen Museum? which is a Aviation and Space Museum, and is the current home of Howard  Hughes' plane the Spruce Goose. Included in one of the museum buildings is an indoor water park that has a full size airplane on the roof. The plane is an actual functional part of the water park, and two of the water slides are started by climbing to the top and entering through the hull of the plane.  Pretty amazing. 

The restrooms are new and handicapped accessible, but you do have to enter them going through the laundry room facility. All are kept in excellent condition. They do offer free wifi, but our T mobile air card worked great here. There is also lots of shopping and restaurants in the area to choose from.

We did visit a few of the local wineries, but honestly the local wines were not to our taste, so we just sipped and left. At one place we visited, a ?party bus? pulled up just before we did and dropped off 29 people! The wine business is well and thriving in Oregon.

Pic 1) The site at Old Stone Village. Yep, I'm the guy parked crooked in the site.
Pic 2) It looked a little funny, but I had lots of room on both sides of the rig!

Premier RV Resort
Lincoln City, OR​

This was kind of a stop over park between two week long stays at other parks.  The park is kind of ?shoe horned? in along highway 101, and right across the road from the ocean. It is built in two levels, so many of the lower sites have no direct ocean view, and the back sites on the upper level have restricted views.  We lucked into probably the best site in the park, #64.  It is at the front end of the upper loop, and your patio side looks out on the water.  However, the lower loop is not that low so you may also be looking right into the back of someones RV in front of you. The sites are concrete and have small patio's towards the rear of the site.  We chose to sit up front in the site when outside so the our view was more ocean  and less the back of the 5ver on the lower loop.

There was one more rig to our right, and then their patio was adjacent to a community fire pit and mini bandstand where musicians play on the weekends.  The park put out some free happy hour food, but  the beverages were BYOB. We missed the guitarist and the food though, as we already had dinner reservations in town for Diane's birthday. Unfortunately as it turned out, we may have been better off staying for the happy hour food. But that's a different story.  The little event was cool, unless you happened to be in that site next door and weren't really into the music or the party because it was right at your front door.  By the time we got back it was over, so I can't say if it was good or not.

We had a FHU site, but the water pressure was on the low side. The sites are close together, but the park still sold out every night.  We paid $67 a night. A bit on the pricey side for what you get, but this park is all about the location.  There is a small gym on site, but it was tiny, and consisted of a few aerobic machines.  Free Wifi was offered, but our on board router worked well.  The restrooms were small but in good condition.  There are 2 small dog areas in the park with small gravel surfaces.

This is kind of ?in town? so you are fairly close to most shopping and restaurants. The park is a good stop by kind of location, but may not have enough of an interest to spend a week or more.

Pic 3) This was the site at Premier RV resort. Kinda tight.
Pic 4) This was the view from the patio. Better to sit in front of the rig.
Pic 5) The view from the community fire pit was better.
Pic 6) If you weren't in front, there wasn't much of a view at all.
 

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Sea Perch RV Resort
Yachats, OR​

This is another great ocean front RV park right on the sand in Oregon. We have been here before and it is still a favorite.  We reserved a beach front site which means that your site either faces (or backs up to) the ocean waves. Even though we were here in August, the weather can still be quite chilly if it overcast and the wind comes up strong.  We had not been here in about 5 years, and some things had changed. One interesting one is that they have taken down several park model type cabins that they had for rent.  They are in the process of converting the spaces back to RV spots, and we got one of them that was still in process of being converted. 

What that meant was that some of the utilities, like the electrical hook ups were still on the wrong side for a head in site. Fortunately I had enough cord on the reel to reach under the rig to the opposite side pedestal.  The sewer was also way in the front of the site by the beach, so we needed about 30+ foot of sewer hose to reach the hook up. However, in spite of the goofy hook ups we still paid $90 a night for the site, plus a whopping 9.8% sales tax. That made the stay a hair under a $100 a night.  The non beach sites were $80 a night plus tax.

The park is rather small, 29 sites and the pads are cement and roads asphalt. The on site amenities are a club house, social area, and work out room. A grass area next to the rear sites has horseshoes and corn hole games. No pool or spa, but the beach is very close. The beach is dog friendly, and we took Heidi on many walks on the sand when the wind would die down.  One expected consequence to being this close to the water with the wind is that everything outside is almost always wet. At the end of our 5 day stay I was longing for some good hot dry weather. 

The biggest negative for this park (besides the cost) is a total lack of cell signal. I was able to get an occasional weak Verizon signal with the antenna and booster, but it never lasted long. The park offered Wifi, but it was sketchy and usually overloaded.  The other issue  here is that nothing is close. The town of Yachats is about 6 miles north on Highway 101, but most of it is twisty with sharp corners, so count on 20-30 minutes one way to get to town depending on traffic. And the town is not very big, so if you need anything special you will be going even farther. 

Bottom  line is that if you are a beach lover, this is a great park. But right now the sites still need work, nothing is close, and cell signal is non-existent. And bring your piggy bank, because it's pricey.

Pic 1) The view out of the front window on a beach front site.
Pic 2) Looking down the side of the RV. Not fancy spaces, but it's all about the view.
Pic 3) Sometimes the overcast would clear at the end of the day, then things got beautiful.
Pic 4) The ever present clouds. And this was the beginning of August.
 

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We do when available. Often you have to ask because the campgrounds won't tell you about it checking in. It only takes one or two uses to get your money back on it though.
 
Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort
Sisters, Or
After leaving the coast we headed east to Bend, Oregon. Actually Sisters, Oregon but Sisters is a smaller town outside of Bend. This is another park we returned to after visiting some years back and really liked it then. It is right next door to the fair grounds where they hold the Sisters Rodeo every year, but we missed it by a few months. The landscaping and grounds are very well maintained, and have a great grounds crew constantly working on the plantings. The downside to green lush grass is they water the lawns A LOT. Sometimes to the point of mushy lawns and standing  water puddles.

One disappointment was was our site upon arrival. Even though Diane reserved it 5 months before, when we were taken to the site our first concern was that the trees over hanging the site would have prevented us from opening the slides. Being kind of particular, I refuse to allow tree limbs or branches to rest on the sides of the rig.  We contacted the office about it and wound up getting a different site, but had to split our 7 day stay between two different sites.

The sites and  roads were paved, and there were small roundish patio's often made out of cobblestones, but there were randomly placed in different sites. We had one that was usable, and one that wasn't. The utilities all worked well, and the on board Wifi worked well enough, but the cell tower must not have been too close. The only cell provider that would work here was Verizon.  The park did offer Wifi and cable, but the Wifi was usually impacted and slow.

A long walking path goes around the outside of the park perimeter and they like you to walk your dogs on the path to do ?business?.  Interestingly there are several signs asking that you keep dogs off of the grass. This is a big park, and keeping the pet from ?going? until you get to a path is not always possible.  There is a gate that is open that allows you to take pets or walk in the large rodeo grounds next door.  We took advantage of that a few times.

There is a pool and hot tub, but a no one under 18 rule for the hot tub is ignored. The weekend we arrived there was a ?customer appreciation? BBQ and band which was nice. Tickets for the BBQ were $15 each. The food was decent,  but the band was a bit ?long in the tooth? so we had some chow and headed back to the rig.  The restrooms were nice and handicapped accessible.

We paid $57 a night for our site, But we got a bit of the price break when we moved because our first site was ?lake front? which was really a storage pond with a fountain surrounded by RV spots.  For some reason there were lots of flies around, but not sure if it was due to the rodeo grounds or the pond. There was catch and release fishing permitted in the pond. 

For a little excitement on day, we heard lots of sirens and saw thick columns of smoke nearby the RV park. We later found out that a brush fire had gotten within about 1 ? miles of the RV park, and burned several dozen acres before they got the handle on it. Fortunately the wind was blowing mostly away from the park, so the threat never came too close.

I did use the services of a RV Detail guy while I was here. After all the beach campgrounds, the rig was a mess with sand, salt, and general dirt everywhere. I went with a recommendation from a guy in the office when we checked in. He was a regular at the park and had very good general referrals. It was the weirdest detail job, ever. 

The first day the guy called saying that he ran late on a job the previous day, but would be there about 11:00. OK, at least he called. He showed up about 11:30 and got started. Diane and I decided to go to lunch. We got back a few hours later expecting the job to be about done. Instead he was just finishing up the roof. What?  It turns out that he had power washed the under carriage, including the engine bay. Then he scrubbed the roof. Twice. Then he seal coated all the wheel wells with a spray sealer coating. Then it was about dark. So he said he would be back bright and early the next day, about 8.  OK......

Day two starts and he isn't there. Diane and I do a work out, and have breakfast. Then I get a call his truck broke down, but it's fixed and he will be there in minutes. He shows up about 11:00.  So he starts washing, and working on the wheels. And the chrome handles on the bay doors. And working on the headlights as they have kind of a flakey peeling look to them.  So we went to lunch.  We get back in a few hours and figure he will be done. Wrong. Something happened while he was working on the headlights, and now they are worse. A lot worse. Then a freak thunder storm comes up. That slows things for a while.  Then it gets dark again.

Day 3. He calls and begs me to let him wash one rig before he finishes my job. It's in the same park and the guy is leaving in 3 hours. I agree (I don't know why). He shows up afterwards and swears he will be done today. Diane is losing her mind. He applies wax to the whole rig and starts taking it off. And he is still working on the wheels. And the headlights. He is running around, and yep, it starts to rain. He is working frantically, and now it's late afternoon.  Now I lose my mind. I go outside, grab a ladder and a rag and start wiping off the wax. At least the wax was coming off easily. At one point he tells me that if he doesn't finish, he will sleep in his truck and start again at day break. Diane is inside drinking heavily (joke).

I am determined that this detail will end today. I finish getting the wax off. He finishes the wheels and tires. I take 25% off the price for my pitching in to finish. Afterwards the rig looked great, but this has to be some sort of record. He was a decent guy, knew his stuff, but was WAY too meticulous.

The bottom line is this is a nice campground in a nice area, but if we do wind up coming back through this area we will request a specific site, rather than rely on the office staff to pick one for us,

Pic 1) The sites were long and narrow with small semi circle patio's on most sites. Lots of trees and grass.
Pic 2) The premium sites had a view of the nearby pond and fountain. Fishing was allowed.
Pic 3) Long run to the sewer, so bring at least 30-40' of sewer hose.
 

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SargeW said:
  For some reason there were lots of flies around, but not sure if it was due to the rodeo grounds or the pond. There was catch and release fishing permitted in the pond. 

Not an RVing experience but your flies story reminded me of the time my x-wife and I were visiting her family in Quito, Ecuador.  The house was across the street from the Arena where the bull fights were held.  I think we got there the day after the big event.  The house did not have screens. 
 
WOW SargeW. so much to share with us ..that is great. Now, don't forget to include your partner in crime on your tales to us( your partner on the your profile picture ). I'm sure he will be doing some adventures too !!

Safe travel  8)
 
;D Hey Marty,
Love the pictures  ohh my just what I want park and feel the ocean breeze.  I'm in Phoenix , so what would be a good spot / suggestion to the nearest beach form me... still looking for " the right one " so for now we will be renting RV
 
The fastest way to the coast from where you are would be I-8 west all the way to San Diego. Lots of different beaches to choose from there. 
 

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