A huge surprise and back to Colorado!

After arriving in Vernal with the added excitement of 15 miles at 25 mph in pouring rain and hail that built up to about an inch on the road, it cleared up and gave us a wonderful day to go explore Dinosaur National Monument.  Now we have been by a couple times, never really had the time or admittedly the inclination to visit before as neither one of us is really into dinosaurs, what can I say?  But on doing some research it appeared there was the dinosaur area and another huge area farther east, so off we went, honestly not expecting too much.  The countryside is pretty, deserty, a lot of shrubs, but not all that spectacular.  We stopped into the park visitor center and asked the ranger about it and she indicated it was pretty, but a long way in, 31 miles, not exactly a stellar recommendation, but off we went.  We started climbing across rolling dry shrub covered terrain, again pretty, but.....  We reached the first view point about 8 miles in and wow, what a view, only marred by some of the smoke from the many fires around the area.

The first clue this might be good

We continued along, and much like the Black Canyon of Gunnison, if you've been there, it just sneaks up on you.  You are rolling along on top of the hills with no indication that around the next bend there is one hell of a canyon waiting for you.

Wow

Really wow!

Now that patch of water you can see the above picture is 2600' feet below you, and called Echo Park, it is at the confluence of the Green and the Yampa Rivers, and can you get there, well the answer is yes, although it did take a bit of thought on my part to attempt it.  The very first part of the 13 mile road to get there goes down what they call a dugway.  It descends 600' in about a half mile, cutting back and forth across the hillside, so to say it is steep is an understatement, then when we read the warning sign that said 4wd, high clearance vehicles only, passenger cars highly discouraged, and that if it rains while you are down there, you will be UNABLE to climb the dugway back out:)  

Part of the dugway is visible to the left of the photo,
believe me the pict doesn't do it justice

So off we went and what a glorious drive it was.  We worked lower and lower through several canyons, went by the ranch that Jack Chew and his family lived at from 1910 until 1966 when his son Rial sold 1900 of the 2250 acres to the National Park Service.

Down we go

More down, remember 2600' total

The Chew Ranch

A few outbuildings

Corral

An old sod covered cabin

Finally we reached Steamboat Rock at the end of the Echo Park Rd.

Steamboat Rock

Steamboat Rock with yours truly:)

We had a glorious time in an absolutely beautiful place.  We ran into a ranger and he said almost no one visits that part of the park, so not only is it beautiful you have the place almost to yourself, our kind of place.  If your travels take you this way, this is a not to be missed destination.

We were only in Vernal for 2 nights, so off to Carbondale, CO.  We had a wonderful campsite right on the Crystal River at the Carbondale KOA.  It was quiet, big sites, and in 50 steps we were fishing in the river!  And we were successful, we each caught a few fish.

Jan's first trout on a fly!!

Right beside our campsite

We had a great time fishing and did a little sightseeing around the area.  Now we are in Montrose, CO for a week or so before we head down to Durango and our 5 weeks there.

Lots of stuff has been happening in the last week!

We left you last week arriving in the Eugene area and having our TV pulled out, repairing our windshield, and replacing our microwave/convection oven.  Well a lot has transpired since then.  But before I get into it, since we were in a rush to pull out early from the Portland area I didn't want you to think we hadn't done a bit of sightseeing there, even though, at least for Jan and I, we won't be going back, Portland is NOT our kind of town:)

Even with some smoke in the area, Mt Hood looms large!

A view of the Columbia River from the Historic Columbia River Highway

And another

It is a dark, narrow winding road

With lots of waterfalls, and LOTS of people!!!

So as I said the first thing we did in Eugene was stop by Amazing Creations and they measured and pulled our rear TV out to make the new cabinet front.

Gonzo

Then we replaced our oven over the weekend, actually in about 3 hours while we waited to move sites at our campground.

The old one ready to come out

Jan reaching in our secret hole to remove the bolts that hold it up

The secret hole needs some explanation.  We originally had a Sharp oven in the coach, that's how it came.  But Jan and I had a Sharp in one of our previous motorhomes and knew we didn't like it and replacing it with a GE was one of our very first projects.  Well we found out the GE needed 3 bolts through the top to secure it whereas the Sharp didn't.  So in addition to modifying the opening a bit we had to come up with a way to access the absolutely inaccessible area above the oven, hence the secret hole.  We experimented to find the smallest possible hole in which Jan could get her arm through to be able to start and tighten the bolts, and then we used a hole saw to cut it into the face of the cabinet.  We covered it up with a decorative tile and nobody knows the hole is there.

New oven in position 

Tada!  New oven installed, just need to cover the secret hole:)

We killed the rest of the weekend tooling around Eugene and doing a few odds and ends, now Eugene we thought was a very nice small town, actually much bigger than we thought.

So first thing Monday morning we pulled into Elite and were directed right into the bay.  We are so impressed with this outfit, while you are there it is as if there is no one else around.  Their entire attention is on you and your issues, fantastic and incredibly rare!  We needed a slide seal replaced on the passenger side rear and Erik hit that first.

He has to jack up the slide first

Another view of the jack

Erik putting on the new seal

Then we found we had some wear on the bottom of the other rear slide.  These slides go in and out on rollers and tend to wear through the plastic coating, especially after almost 10 years:)  The fix is to install aluminum "skis" on the slide bottom where the roller touches.

If you look close you can see the break in the coating

Lucky guy, he even got me to help:)

Erik lining up the first "ski"

All 3 skis attached

The last thing was to try to fix our errant light problem.  We lost our running lights just at the rear of the coach, the turn signals, brake lights, flashers, and clearance lights all work, so driving is not an issue.  Now these guys are some of the very best if not the best in the industry, so we all were very hopeful that they could fix this weird problem that I couldn't fix after spending at least 5-6 hours on with much help from lots of folks.  

Erik working on the lights

Unfortunately, even the master couldn't do it in the time I allotted him.  They worked their butts off on this problem and just couldn't solve it other than running new wire which may be the answer down the line.  This in no way is reflective on their expertise, these guys, in my opinion are the best repair facility on the west coast, probably the country, bar none!!  

So after our time at Elite, we went back to the campground chilled out for the evening and showed back up the next morning at Amazing Creation where Scott installed our beautiful new TV mount and cabinet front.

Scott installing the TV mount

Our new shelf behind our swinging TV mount!

Looks beautiful, the cherry will age and darken to match in no time at all

Awesome, thanks Scott and Bobbie!!

So after that whirlwind time we are now in Vernal, UT, yeah we've beat feet, cut through Oregon, Idaho, and Utah to get to Colorado where we will spend the next 7 weeks or so.

A beautiful view of the Sisters in Oregon as we blew by:)

The good, the bads, and the ugly

First we had a very nice surprise.  We left our campground in Troutdale early as I explained because our appointment to have our TV cabinet worked on was moved up.  Now Jan and I have been doing this RV thing since 1995, and due to numerous different situations have had to leave a campground early, NEVER have we EVER gotten a refund, it simply isn't done, nor would we even ask for it.  So as we informed Sandy River Front RV Park that we were leaving early, they asked if there was a problem, we said no we just had a service appointment get moved up and we had to go.  We weren't down the road 2 miles when Jan's phone rang, it was the campground calling to say she had refunded our money for our early departure!!!  Kudos to them, we were so amazed and appreciative.

More good, we pulled into Amazing Creations and were met almost immediately by Scott and Bobbie who jumped right in, found out what we wanted, gave us some alternatives, measured, yanked out our TV, and said they'd be ready when we got back after our other service appointment at Elite with our new swinging cabinet front/TV mount and it should only take about 30 minutes to install!  Should save us a day or two in the scheme of things.

On to the bad, two things.  First, just reality, we have a combination microwave convection oven in our coach.  It is our only oven, and we use it almost every day, and have used it almost everyday for 7 years.  Lately it just won't heat up on convection.  It takes an hour or so just to get to 325!  It is obviously tired and GE agrees, so we are going to replace it, probably today.  

Second, our pristine windshield that we had replaced in Florida in February caught a rock chip with a big bang just 10 miles from Amazing Creations!  A stinking dump truck on the interstate tossing rocks and even though we were way, way, way behind him, bammmm.  

We called the insurance, lined up an appointment with a glass repair, found out we couldn't get a mobile until later in the week and hope to be long gone.  Called and were assured that we could get the motorhome into their shop, looked at Google Earth and it looked good, so after we killed a bit of time before our appointment, Jan took off in the truck and I followed in the coach.  She got there and saw there was quite an incline getting in their driveway and was not confident.  I got there and, of course, it is a left turn across traffic to get in, and man it looks pretty steep, but I think if I raise the coach and stay at a angle it will work.  CRUNCH!  Damn!  I stop, Jan is checking to see what's going on, traffic is backing up as I'm only half in and blocking the road, Jan says back up.  Not good, reverse, CRUNCH, CRUNCH, and back out into the traffic which is now backed up pretty good, no one yelling though:)  I pull out, go around the block, wondering what I have ruined, is it driving weird, dreading the damage I'm going to see when I can finally find a place to park.  I maneuver through a industrial area and manage to come back out and find a shady spot fairly near the glass place and park.  Jan and the glass guy meet me, I go back to see the damage, and find out, thankfully it doesn't look too bad.  The receiver hitch took the brunt of it, but the backing out pretty much mangled the steel assembly that holds the socket where the light cord to the truck plugs in.  I haven't found out yet if it still works, tomorrow.  The ugly....

So then, just to convince us Murphy is alive and well, the glass guy says the windshield is too hot to repair.  But if we sit in the shade for awhile, run the AC aggressively inside it should cool enough to do it.  I should mention that Eugene is under an unusual heat advisory and it is 107 outside!  So we wait an hour and a half while the window cools, and they finally repair it, and off we go to our campground for a few days.

All in all in the big scheme of things it's not a disaster, it's all going to be taken care of, in fact with the heat wave Jan and I might as well be working inside in the AC replacing our microwave, no one got hurt, the motorhome is dinged but not bad, we probably saved a day or so, and soon next week we will be heading out of Oregon eastward, and it won't come soon enough as neither of us is very thrilled with Oregon, but that's another story:)

Go with the flow

Short post.  We've been busy running errands here in Portland, actually we are camped in Troutdale, a small town to the east of Portland but close.  It's been a funny year so far, no fresh veggies!  We have seen tons, and I mean tons of berry stands, blue, black, raspberry, strawberry, etc, but essentially no vegetables.  We are in withdrawal in a summer with no tomatoes or corn.  Pay dirt!  The Barn is close by and exceptional, so we've been loading up and stuffing ourselves with awesome tomatoes, green beans, corn, squash, radishes, and even got a bunch of pickling cucumbers to make pickles with!

Half sours working

Jan got her hair cut, doesn't sound like something to mention, but think about it.  We travel all the time, it's something full timers need to deal with, haircuts.  Now we have solved my hair, Jan cuts it, but for her it's always a project to figure out where and who to have it done by.  Anyway she has almost always been successful and was here as well, and the bonus was the salon was within walking distance of the campground and she was very pleased to boot.

We have also made Costco runs, REI runs, grocery store runs, found a famous Portland ice cream place called Salt and Straw that makes its own ice cream in very unique flavors, we can both report it was fantastic!  Then we also got our previously mentioned hunky tires:)

As Tim Allen would say, "ARRRR, ARRRR, ARRRR"

We have been busy to say the least, we had planned more sightseeing but.........we found out the shop, Amazing Creations, in Eugene that we had an appointment with to work on our rear TV cabinet could take us earlier which would expedite our time in Eugene enormously if we could get there.  So we are cutting out early, seeing them, and hopefully if all goes to plan get out of Eugene way ahead of schedule after our more important appointment with Elite for a couple slide issues and our rear running light problem.  So all said and done, we are out of here:)

On the Pacific coast, but only got a glimpse

We had a nice time in Silver Lake, WA, it turned out our change of plan gave us a nice stop and campground although the weather was a little murky.  It's about 40 miles west of the Mt St Helen's observatory, and although we had been there once before we made the trek keeping our fingers crossed that the low overcast would allow us to see the mountain.  No such luck.  If you ever get a chance to go there, do it, and watch the presentation movie at the observatory, it is well done, explains the absolutely unbelievable forces unleashed when the mountain blew, and at the very end of the movie with the view of the mountain as it is today, the screen splits and you see the very same view but of the real mountain.  It is fantastic!

When it blew in 1980, it was the 5th highest mountain in OR.  It lost 1280' of elevation and left a crater 1-2 miles across and 2100' deep.  It was the largest landslide ever recorded.  It killed 57 people, and 200 houses, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railway, and 185 miles of highway were destroyed.  The blast covered an area of approximately 19 by 23 miles, and obliterated everything in its path with pyroclastic flow of gases, pumice, debris moving initially at 220 mph increasing to 670 mph!  If you are interested read the link on the eruption, the power of mother nature is extraordinary!

Since we were unable to see the mountain this trip,
this is a picture we took in 2005 when we there

This was taken when we were there this time,
you can see how the streams have cut into the ash deposited by the blast
Those cuts average 210' deep to put it in perspective

This area is a huge lumbering area, both OR and WA, but this sight along the highway that Weyerhaeuser manages caught our eye.  We both thought for a moment that our eyes were giving out:)  This photo is in focus, there is something about these trees that were planted, Noble Firs, that make it look blurred, kind of cool.

Add caption

We then made our move down to Newport, OR on the coast.  We had to cross the Columbia River to get over to the coastal highway.  We went over the Lewis and Clark Bridge, in Longview, WA, that when it was built in 1930 had the longest cantilever span in the US.

Lewis and Clark Bridge

This is just one of the many, many logging operations that we saw

Loading logs onto a ship

We cut over to Astoria and then ran down the coast, unfortunately it was a rainy, foggy day, but still amazing.

Incredible view, and no there is nothing to the right!

Pretty, even in the rain and fog

We got to our expensive, splurgy site advertised to be right on the coast, and found out that even if we could see past the pines in the way, all we could see was fog, fog, fog.  But that's okay sometimes it just happens.

We had a good time nonetheless, we met friends from our campground in Florida, Dan and Carolyn, and their daughter, Sunny for a nice lunch and visit.  Did our best to sightsee amidst the fog, which by the way abated at our site for about 5 hours total in the 3 days we were there:(

The pretty bridge in Newport

San Fran has nothing on Newport with its sea lions

The fog moved out enough to get in a couple mile walk on pristine Agate Beach

We are moving over to the big city today, Portland for a while, plan to do some sightseeing and we have a bunch of errands to accomplish including getting those previously mentioned tires before our upcoming off-road adventures in Colorado.  So we are done with the coast for a good long while.  A few parting shots when the fog lifted enough to get a glimpse of the ocean.

Right from our campsite

Looking north up the coast

Right from a path in our campground

And right out our window