Author: Lee and Tracy

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First Time in Yakima, Washington

It was chilly when we woke up the next morning and unfortunately our air mattress had a slow leak so we were sleeping on the ground, but the sounds of the river were awesome and we turned on our Bond Mfg 66603 Aurora Portable Gas Steel Fire Bowl, 18.5″, Black fire pit to take the chill off.  I woke up with some heavy thoughts the morning of my birthday and mostly they were about the job we have been working.  We have “had a rough go” this season as we like to say.  Partially because I’m new and partially because of all the unusual things that have happened.  Seriously there have been at minimum 10 times (probably way more) where pretty major occurrences have taken place and I have heard “that has never happened before”.  When you are in a near constant state of crisis management, it’s easy to lose perspective.  Being in the Mountains (and without a cell signal) had allowed me the emotional and mental space to see things a little more clearly.

It was a pretty heavy conversation for a birthday morning, but ultimately a good one.  And while we had it we tried another one of our instant meals.  Of all the things I had purchased I was the most excited about the scrambled eggs and bacon.  I thought these might taste the closest to the “real food” and since I eat breakfast for dinner all the time thought this might be my favorite solution.  Unfortunately unlike the meals from the night before the flavors were chalky and bland.  Also the instruction tell you to “drain the excess water” and without a colander of any kind, quite a bit of the egg mixture fell on the ground.  I only took a few bites and even Lee (who will eat almost anything) threw most of his away.

Ultimately that was OK though because by this time we saw that the smoke wasn’t going to clear today either, and decided to head to Yakima Valley on our way back to Timothy Lake.  I love getting fresh produce from the different places we travel to and one of the first things I research about an area is where to find local fruits and vegetables.  In my research Yakima Valley kept coming up as the best place to get fruits and vegetables.  Since it wasn’t that far out of our way, we headed north to the 410 scenic highway, and then drove that down to Yakima.  This road took us through the Wenatchee National Forest, and although it was super smoky once again we could tell on a clear day it would have stunning views.  And the road itself was in very good condition, so in relatively no time we made it to Yakima.

 

One of the interesting things about leaving the Cascade Range is how dramatically the landscape changes.  You go from dense, old growth forest to sagebrush and juniper in what seems like the blink of an eye.  Yakima Valley lies near the edge of the Cascade range and apparently has an incredibly fertile valley.  They also have access to water and the combination has made this a very fertile valley.  The first thing we did was stop at McDonald’s and I got myself a breakfast sandwich.  I needed fortification for all the farmers stands we were going to, because there were around 15 in a relatively small area.  Generally this is not something that Lee really loves to do, but since it was my birthday he was game.  He did want a map and for me to GPS us from one place to another, but he was a pretty good sport about the whole thing and we ended up stopping at 8 different places.

I love wild huckleberries and know they are extremely time consuming to pick, but these prices were too steep for me

 

This sign was in one of the farmer’s markets and at first I thought it was funny, until I met the guy who ran the place and saw this was his overall attitude on everything.

Actually the Yakima Valley is divided into two areas.  One is outside the reservation and the other is within.  I actually preferred the stands that were on the reservation because the prices were better and the vegetables were (to my eye at least) much better quality.  I bought some absolutely fantastic green beans and tomatoes at one stand and some really great peppers at another place.  The peppers I was particularly interested in because I am not really a big fan and I had a great conversation about the mildest peppers they had.

Pimento Sweet peppers

 

This pepper is called a Christie sweet and unique to this farm. The woman told me her grandfather traded with a Bulgarian and cross bred some seeds to create this pepper. She gave me one to try.

 

We also were able to buy gas really cheap on the reservation. only $3.09 a gallon, and we enjoyed the drive down to the Dalles and towards Timothy.  I was getting hungry again then so started to look at restaurants on Yelp and ran across a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Sai Gan.  In the last two years we have been super disappointed in almost every meal we have had up here, but not this time.  First off Vietnamese is my absolute favorite ethnic food, because it’s plentiful, relatively inexpensive, and delicately spiced.  Lee has come around to my way of thinking too and after eating this meal he is definitely a convert.  The restaurant had a cool ambiance, the service was great, and the food was really good.  It was the perfect way to cap off my birthday and we are definitely coming back here the next time we want a good meal!

Back to work we went, but my birthday wasn’t over yet because a couple nights later a few of the camp hosts threw me a surprise birthday dinner.  I was so surprised, I didn’t even notice the decorations at first, but was super grateful when I did.  It was very sweet of them and much appreciated and we all had a wonderful time eating and drinking and of course having cake!

I was so tunnel vision I didn’t even notice this at first

 

One of the hosts bought me these cool lights and a new water bottle since she see I am always carrying one

 

they were kind enough to go easy on the candles 🙂

 

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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First Time at Mt. Ranier

Don’t get me wrong, I love the road less traveled as much as the next full timer, but sometimes when you take that road you get lost!  But let me back up a bit.  When I was searching  for something to do on my birthday, I knew two things:  I wanted to go someplace I had never been before and despite living in an absolutely beautiful setting, I needed a change of scenery.  Mt.  Rainier seemed perfect because it was a national park, and only 5 hours away by car.  There were two routes we could take.  One was all major highways and through Portland, or the “back way” which was on all new roads for us.  Of course I chose the back way, and since we weren’t pulling the trailer, Lee agreed.

The beginning of the drive started out pretty great.  We enjoyed the scenery and felt like we were getting back to a part of the lifestyle we really loved.  Then we came upon one orange sign that said “Forest Service Road 24 was closed in 23 miles”.  After a brief consultation we decided to keep going, because we had our paper atlas and Lee had the GPS in his phone.   The farther north we went the less maintained the road was, and the deeper into the forest we were.  We both lost cell service, but felt OK because our phone GPS was still working and then we came to an intersection.  To the right was highway 24, which our phone wanted us to take, but now it said the road was absolutely closed in 12 miles.  According to the GPS we needed to go farther than that, so not knowing what else to do we made a left on FS 90.

Now this is where it got dicey.  90 ran east/west and although my map had some thin road lines on it, none of them told us the name of the road.  So I truly had no idea where this road would eventually end up, and more importantly didn’t know what road to take to go north again. 90 was in even worst shape than 24 was, and Lee started to dodge some serious potholes.  More important than that, entire sections of the highway had “sunk” and despite his best efforts it was impossible to miss them all.

This was actually worse than it looks, and there were MANY of these. The area to the left of the fissure is a good 9 inches lower than the right.

 

Now I was starting to worry.  We had plenty of gas, but a flat tire in the middle of nowhere is an entirely different thing. Eventually I asked Lee to pull over so we could talk about it (not something I would have done in our early years as full timers), and he plugged in our Rand McNally RV GPS.  We’ve had this GPS since the very beginning, and I’ll be honest we don’t use it much now, but when we need it we REALLY need it.  The GPS loaded right up and started routing us, which is ultimately how we figured out which road to make a right on to go north.  We also stumbled across the small town of Eagle Cliff  in the middle of nowhere (closest utility power was 30 miles away) and there was a small campground and camp store.  The guy running the place was super nice and verified that yes, 24 was actually closed, and we were roughly on the right track.  Since it was well past lunch at this point we grabbed a couple of snacks and both wished the little pizza place was open.

Sadly, only open Thursday through Sunday

Once we turned onto 25 we both started to feel better, but then we started to see the smoke.  We’ve been really lucky at Timothy Lake this year with not many really bad smoky days, but the valley  leading into Ranier was was full of it.  There were lots of pull-offs and what we assume were spectacular views but we couldn’t see any of it. At this point I started to get really bummed out, because the weather report for Ranier had shown clear skies and there was no mention of smoke at all.  Eventually we made it to our campground. Ohanapecosh, and went into the Visitors center.  We met a very nice ranger who told us that unfortunately there was a fire ban (again not on the website anywhere before we took off and I read their twitter feed!), but I wasn’t too terribly disappointed because just in case we brought our new Bond Mfg 66603 Aurora Portable Gas Steel Fire Bowl, 18.5″, Black. The smoke was a larger concern, and at that point I was tired and just wanted to get into the campsite and eat some lunch. 

The views on the way in

 

Entrance to Ranier

 

Ohanacopesh Visitors Center

 

This topical map showed that the entire park really centered around Ranier, which bummed me out more, because I thought we wouldn’t be able to see it

Despite my darkening mood, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the campsite.  #16 is on Ohanapecosh river and we even had a dirt path we could use to walk down to the river bed.  It was a huge site, very deep, with a place close to the water we could pitch our tent.  Really great site and the fact that it was only available for that one night made a ton of sense to me.  It was in Loop A which was a generator free loop, and they had bear boxes for food at every site, which was a great feature.  My only complaint was the restrooms, which were very dirty and didn’t include any paper towels for drying your hands, or soap in the dispensers.

Campsite, from where we parked the truck

 

View of the river from the edge of our site

 

Here we are all setup

 

Highly functional bear box

 

The river was beautiful and the cool water felt great

 

I sat down here on the rocks for awhile and just enjoyed the noise

After setting the tent up we were both starving and decided to try out a couple of our ready to eat meals we had brought with us.  After our last camping experience and having raccoons get into our food, we both thought we wanted to try some dehydrated, “just add hot water” meals.  Using Amex points we purchased about twenty bags of different meals and we both wanted to give them some of them a try.  I should mention that these meals are NOT cheap, but they are super convenient and you don’t have to worry about bringing ice, coolers etc. There’s also zero cleanup, since all you use is a pot to boil water, and you pour the water into the bag to “cook” the food. You can eat right out of the bag, but we brought paper bowls. We had ordered multiple varieties and manufacturers to see what we liked, and Lee tried Mountain House Beef Stroganoff with Noodles and I tried Wise Foods Entree Dish Chili Mac with Beef (2 Servings)

 

Lee really enjoyed his, and the flavor of mine was surprisingly good, BUT we didn’t stir mine enough so there were chunks of powder in the bottom of mine which was not so good.  It was definitely operator error, but a bit disappointing, because there was no good way to tell it wasn’t fully cooked until it was too late.  Still, it got the job done, but despite being better flavored than I would like I was stuck on the price.  They cost over $8 each, and I kept thinking about what other kinds of meals I could get for the same price, which isn’t really a fair comparison, because the whole idea is that you eat these when there are not other places around.

I was also struggling with the fact of how disappointed I was by the smoke.  As full timers we tend to take a pretty philosophical view when weather isn’t cooperating, but mentally I was acting like I was on vacation and it was an all or nothing experience.  That concerned me because theoretically we could jump int he truck and come back anytime we wanted to this summer, but the reality was we both knew we wouldn’t.  This job has been seriously kicking our butts and it was tough enough to carve out these two days to get here.  I really didn’t like the fact that I was feeling this way at all, but Lee said let’s just go into the park and see what we see.

Turns out that was an absolutely wonderful idea, and I am so glad I agreed.  For one thing at 4pm crowds were minimal and as it got darker, more animals came out.  From this point I am going to show you what we saw with the pictures, but I think you will agree that staying inside the park and exploring after 4pm is a great way to go!!   That choice not only salvaged the day, but taught us something as well, and helped reconnect us once again to the true purpose of this lifestyle for us.  By the way, we drove into the Stevens canyon Entrance (no one was manning the gate so entrance was free) and worked our way “backwards towards the Nisqually entrance.

The first place we stopped was at Box Canyon and saw a place where a fire had cleared a section of land

 

Where the fire cleared.  Ranier is in the background, and could barely be seen, but that was OK because there was neat stuff to look at anyway.

 

Beautiful stone bridge looking down into a DEEP gorge

 

Super Cool gorge

 

Loved the stone bridges

 

On the other side of the road there was a viewing platform, and once Lee reached it he emphatically waved me over

 

Across the gorge, ambling along the trail we saw a huge black bear

 

These sightings aren’t really that common, and we knew the moment was definitely special. The later time period made it possible and the lack of people on the trails. I just felt like the universe was giving me a birthday present, and once again saying, you are on the right path, keep doing what you are doing. Yes, it was just a bear, but it was more than that to me, and I believe in those sorts of moments.

 

My mood noticeably brightened after the bear and depite the fact that the Mt. Rainier views were hazy I was glad we could at least get a feel for it’s size

 

Plus there were more super cool rivers, creeks, and small waterfalls along the route

 

Really amazing glacier streams were kind of everywhere

 

And since the ice was still melting even in August they had great force in them

 

 

I was momentarily bummed out a little when we got to Reflection Lakes because what could have looked like this

 

But instead we saw this. But I was heartened by the fact that we knew what we were missing and we both vowed to come back on a clear day

 

And the higher elevation we went the better the views became

 

We got a pretty decent view of the many glaciers

 

And the top.

 

This would have been an awesome pic on a clear day

 

Plus I saw on the map that there were two waterfalls near our route and I knew that the haze shouldn’t affect them much.  Turns out the waterfalls were absolutely amazing and the Christine Falls were one of the most romantic waterfalls I have ever seen.  There may have been waterfall kisses 🙂

We walked down a path to Narada Falls

 

And saw this beautiful black tailed deer along the way

 

This was at least three stories tall

 

You get a feel of the size from the stone bridge at the top which could easily fit a regular sized automobile

 

Christine Falls were even cooler though because you could see where it started

 

See a side spring that fed into the falls

 

Giving a second stream under the bridge

 

And walk across down to a viewing point to see this

 

Just wow.  This is not clever photo framing, it really looked like this.

 

After the wonderful waterfalls, we decided to go up to Paradise Inn and eat some dinner.  We knew it would be pricey, historic lodges generally are, but splurging for a birthday dinner seemed like an OK thing.   And I am so glad we did, because there was construction going on and we missed our turn into the parking lot which took us on a one way loop away from the lodge, and back down the hill to where we started when we headed up to the lodge. Lee stopped the car rather suddenly and asked for the camera, and started taking pictures of a hoary marmot.  These guys are about as big as a ground hog and the only other place we had seen them was Alaska.  The first little guy posed for me for a really long time to my delight and then a second one was on Lee’s side and stood up for him and he got some really great shots.

My little guy was right by a hole, and although he started to go in he changed his mind and decided to pose for me instead

 

He gave me the side pose

 

Then had a nice scratch

 

And looked right out me for a long time

 

Lee’s little guy was eating when we came upon him

 

But then decided to stand up

 

As cute as they are take a look at those teeth and claws. Personally I wouldn’t want to be near one who was unhappy

 

That encounter was amazing and pretty much dumb luck since we took the wrong turn and once again the lack of traffic on the roads made it possible.  The lodge itself was OK, and dinner was pretty good, although the service wasn’t awesome.  Lee had and Elk chili noodle dish and I had prime rib, which I actually really liked.  It was a nice way to top off the day though, and the gift shop up there was pretty terrific.

The lodge

 

Dining room

 

Lee’s dinner

 

After we were done we headed back and made it to the campsite in the dark, and fell asleep to the wonderful sounds of the river.  It was a really good day and I was very grateful for it and especially grateful that my husband had hung in there with me and made it a special day.  We had a plan B  if it was still smoky the next day, but more about that in my next post.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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Campground Etiquette

At the very beginning of the season, my oldest daughter asked me if I would write a post on campground etiquette.  None of my girls have much experience camping, and none at all in an RV, and she was curious about what the “rules” were.  It’s definitely a tough subject to tackle, but one I thought I might try after a season of running these campgrounds because I would have lots of feedback from the people who have stayed here since the complaints funnel through me. That being said, I am speaking here as a private citizen, but those comments and experiences have impacted how I feel about this particular topic.

As I told Kyrston, this particular question is very subjective.  Different RV parks have different rules and norms also vary from state to state.  I do think there are some basic categories that are worth talking about and some generalities I can share with her based upon what I have experienced and seen.  You may disagree vehemently with me on some of these, I’d be shocked if you didn’t, but I am going to try and put a personal stake in the ground here.  If you don’t agree with me on any particular subject please feel free to add it to the comments, but please keep in mind you are talking to my kid here, and she doesn’t have a ton of experience camping.

Walking through someone else’s campsite- This is probably the most common etiquette faux pas and usually only done by the inexperienced camper.  When you rent a site the entire area is yours for the length of your stay, and it becomes your de facto backyard for the length of the visit. Just like in a sticks and bricks home you wouldn’t like it if someone walked through your backyard without invitation, in general people feel the same way in campsites.  When it becomes a real problem is when there are no paths to get to the bathroom, or water, or any other area of interest and your site is quite literally the path of least resistance.  And by the way, people don’t get cranky about this just because they feel possessive of their space.  Minor thefts are pretty common in many campgrounds and since most people have chairs, grills, coolers etc outside, they don’t want folks walking through.  Later at night it can also be a little physically threatening when you see the silhouette of someone strolling through your campsite.  Again think of it like it’s your backyard and you will understand the emotions many people have.  All of that being said, you can ask and usually people are pretty cool about letting you walk through.  But it is very important that you ask and if no one is in the site, go the long way around. 

Noise – In general there are two ends of the spectrum on people who camp.  Some love to party and go into the wilderness to let their hair down and others like the quiet and peace of nature.  Although many people fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, there are lots of folks on either end and unfortunately what they want from the experience are diametrically opposed.  The fact that sound really carries in most campgrounds doesn’t really help, and there is no such thing as a “rowdy” section, so often quiet people are in sites right next to louder people.  Most campgrounds solve this by having established quiet hours and the 10pm rule is pretty constant in most places.  The problem is what constitutes quiet?  Talking in a normal voice can sound very loud at night to the person trying to sleep next to you and something as simple as playing cards or sitting around a fire chatting can be disruptive.  The way we deal with that personally  is to call it a night when quiet time comes.  Since we are early risers this normally works well for us, but is rough on the night owls who like to stay up later.  My best advice is to be aware of the habits of the folks who are staying around you and try to keep that in mind, especially at night. 

Generators – We have received more complaints about generators this season than any other issue.  Purists want to camp in an environment with as little machinery noise as possible, but many people camp in RV’s that have either onboard or outside generators.  In general generator hours match quiet time hours, but listening to a generator run all day (especially loud ones) really ruins the experience for many people.  Some campgrounds are dealing with this by having “no generator” loops or zones, but not all campgrounds (including ours) have that option.  If you are staying in a place with electric hookups it is less of an issue, but when you are dry camping without services this can be a huge deal.  It’s even worse now because of the prevalence of CPAP machines.  Many people want an exemption from the quiet hour rules to run their CPAP machine all night which means the generators are running 24/7.  As sympathetic as I am to the need for a medical device, personally I feel this is unreasonable.  There are battery operated CPAP machines and I hear they are coming out with a solar version, but if that doesn’t work for a person, they really should have electric.  That’s just my opinion, but I am one of those folks who finds constant generator noise extremely annoying and since I invested in a solar system to minimize generator use, I suppose I think people who need that much power should do the same.

Dogs on Leashes – The second most common complaint we get is regarding people leaving their dogs off leash. I have been a dog owner most of my life and although I don’t have a dog now for a long time I was firmly on the side of the folks who felt that as long as the dog was well behaved, let them go off leash.  Unfortunately my thoughts have changed on that for two main reasons.  First, Lee was attacked by a dog when he was a small child and has a healthy fear of any dog that is not under control.  When people’s dogs run up to him to sniff him, he goes completely rigid and no one should have to feel afraid when they are trying to relax and have a good time.  The second thing, which really put me over the edge on the topic, was when our friends small dog was attacked in a campground by two dogs off leash.  Those dogs belonged to the campground owners and ran wild through the campground, and one day they just decided to attack my friends dog.  His belly was ripped open and he had to have over 20 stitches, not to mention it took over a year for him to get back to his normal personality.  Dogs are animals, despite our tendency to humanize them, and their reaction to other animals or people can never be taken for granted.  All that being said I am a huge fan of  “off leash” areas in campgrounds and think they should all have them.  One of my eventual goals up here is to add an off leash dog swimming area, to give the puppies a place to play without bothering anyone else.

Trash – Speaking of dogs leaving dog poop laying around really isn’t cool.  Not every campground has staff that picks up the poop and frankly with that many dogs in one area it can relaly build up.  Not to mention the flies and smells that dog poop brings with it.  And speaking of trash, please don’t use your fire pit as a trashcan.  If you have a fire going and it’s not windy, it’s fine to throw paper plates etc in the fire, but make sure you are going to be there until it totally burns through or someone is going to have to deal with food on partially charred pieces of wood, which is frankly gross.  The worst experience I ever had was at a state park once where I checked in and their was a half eaten (and rancid) chicken leg in the fire pit.  It was just nasty and a terrible way to start a visit in a new place.  

Smoking – This is a rough one, because we smoke and I would say I am the most guilty of breaking these etiquette rules especially in crowded RV parks.  We have friends who hate cigarette smoke and in crowded RV parks have to close their windows, which should never happen.  That being said, as a smoker in a crowded RV park, I am not that crazy about having to walk to a remote area every time I want to have a cigarette.  For me personally, we try to avoid the parks where we are on top of other people because of this issue, but it’s not always possible.  We try to be considerate when we are with friends, standing far away from them and making sure the wind doesn’t blow towards them, but even as considerate smokers we know on occasion we break the unspoken rule.  It’s not lost on me that we are out in the beautiful outdoors and polluting the fresh air people are trying to breathe.  My only solace is these same people are often breathing in campfire smoke, which yes, I know isn’t the same thing, but for some reason makes me feel better.

Occupancy – Most campsites have a set amount of people who are allowed on the site, but in general these rules are not always strictly enforced.  It is very common for a campsite to have a huge group of people and in the case where several sites know each other the groups can spill into common areas, and sometimes other sites who are in between them.  This wasn’t something I personally experienced as a camper, but as a campground host it is a pretty frequent problem.  People have tons of vehicles, parked all over the place, and so many guests that the noise level gets really high.  Since it’s not always possible to get all the sites you would like to have adjoining each other, one persons site becomes the “hangout” place and since people are having such a good time they aren’t really aware of the folks around them.  Best case scenario the neighbors are invited to join in on the fun, but worst case someone who is trying to have a nice quiet camping weekend gets totally overrun by a huge party.  It really does happen all of the time, and in retrospect, I have probably been guilty of it a time or two.  I have a tendency to be oblivious to what is happening outside of my little piece of the campground and I am sure on occasion I have annoyed the crap out of people.  

Dealing with Conflict – It seems there is lots of this in any campground where people stay for awhile, and can range from something relatively minor to something major.  As much as people want to relax and not be hassled when camping, often they love to complain about what other folks are doing.  In my experience the campgrounds with lots of seasonal campers are the worst and the “pass through” campgrounds where people are only there a night are the best.  Basically the more time people spend with each other the more chance that they will get on each others nerves.  There are exceptions of course, and lots of RV parks where folks get along really well, but we have sort of seen this pattern over and over, especially in the more established parks and the conflicts can get nasty and escalate quickly under the wrong circumstances.  My personal stance on this is we have wheels and whenever possible should leave the conflict behind.  Of course that isn’t always possible, especially in an area where campground spaces are limited, which means if you want the spot, you have to find a place to get along.  Yes, you can appeal to the owner or camphost to intervene, but generally they aren’t able to do much.  The best thing is to nip these potential conflicts in the bud before they escalate and be aware that just because you are camping that doesn’t mean you can blow people off.  Treat them as you would your neighbor in your apartment or house and you will probably do fine.  Act like it’s no big deal because it’s “temporary” and it’s likely you will end up with more conflict than you bargained for.

So, that’s my thoughts, and as I said, feel free to add yours in the comments.  Like I said, please keep in mind this was written to someone without a ton of camping experience, and I would appreciate it if you kept that in mind with your responses.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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First Time with a Half a Million Hits

When I started this blog four years ago, I had the vague idea that it would be a place where I could document my travels and keep my friends and family updated on what I was doing.  I had no idea that it would become such an important part of my life, and I certainly didn’t expect so many people to be interested in my travels.  Don’t get me wrong, objectively I think it is a pretty interesting story, but I have met lots of people with interesting stories in my life, and mine is just one of the many.  So it is with extreme humility and no little awe, that I want to take a moment and recognize the fact that people found what I wrote interesting enough to click on this web page 500,000 times.  To me that’s extraordinary and in no small way helps me to remember that my life is different…and different in a good way.

So as the number grew closer, I tried to think of the best way to say thank you.  Thank you for caring.  Thank you for the support.  Thank you for giving me external validation, which I know I shouldn’t need, but hey, I’m human.   For liking our pictures and our words.  For talking to us as people.  Mostly for sharing in the journey and being invested in it. As much time and effort as I have given this blog it has always given more back to me.  To illustrate I’d like to share one small story.

If you have been reading all along, you know that dental care has been a huge challenge for us on the road.  After RV repairs, it’s probably been my least favorite thing, so last year when we found a dentist that we liked in Oregon we were pretty excited. We started talking about our lifestyle with him to explain our particular challenges and it turned out he was very interested in what we were doing.  Sometimes, if it feels right, I’ll share the blog with people, but it’s always an awkward moment for me because it feels a little self-aggrandizing.  Still it’s the best way to really explain what it is we do, and sometimes, the person I am sharing it with takes a look and gets hooked.  We rarely know when that happens after the fact, but this year when I called to make Lee a dentist appointment the receptionist immediately knew who we were and said “We have been following your travels!”.

Even after five years, when that happens I am still surprised by it, and I was even more surprised when we went to see Ed yesterday and he spent a ton of time in between patients talking to me about what had happened to us in the last year.  He doesn’t just skim the blog, he reads it! And through it he knows me.  He cares about what happens to us, poked me a little bit because I haven’t written as much as I usually do, and in a very cool way gave me some career advice on what to do next.  The blog brought someone into my life who cares about us and not to sound too corny, but ultimately nothing is more important than that.  So thank you Ed, and all the other people who share this journey with us.  We are truly grateful.  And sorry Ed I know you wanted to stay in the background, but that story was just too good not to share 🙂

Faced with this, I wanted to find a cool way to say thank you.  Lots of ideas went through my mind, but ultimately I decided to go back and pick out pictures of some of our WOW! moments.  It’s easy to lose site of why we do this sometimes, especially when life becomes all about working, and the exercise helped clear my mind, refocus me on what is important, and was a ton of fun.  After all, we have done some pretty cool stuff.  I hope you like it!

This may seem like a silly place to start, but we came across this Giant Fork in the Road (July 2013) while we were still thinking about becoming full timers and it really felt like the universe was speaking to me.

 

Lee and I at Looking Glass Waterfall, which we stumbled across accidentally.  This was the moment I decided I wanted more waterfalls in my life.

 

Lee at Jekyll’s Island in late December 2014.  After going on the road in October and then spending the holidays with family, we were finally moving and Lee as you can see felt totally free.

 

Feburary 2015,  we took a sunset cruise with Jo, Ben, Kelly, and Bill and the dolphins swam along side our boat for most of the trip.  After enduring 15 winters in New Hampshire watching dolphins at the ocean while on a boat was particularly special.

 

April 2015 we spent a month with friends in the Outer Banks and one special day went to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers Memorial with Kelly and Bill. Walking the path where their airplane took off and landed felt very much like walking on hallowed ground and I absolutely loved the monument.  It is still one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

 

In June 2015, we went to Minneapolis to visit my daughter and visited the Star Trek exhibit at the Mall of America.  I have been a fan since I was a child, but never in my wildest dreams imagined I would ever get to sit in the captains chair.  I was completely giddy as I channeled my inner Kirk and pondered how to get us out of another jam.

 

And then there were the bears. Hands down my most amazing experience to date on the road was when we were 80 yards away from a mama and baby grizzly bear. The fact that we were Deb and Steve only added to the joy and this moment has yet to be beat by anything we have done.

 

Another childhood dream of mine was to see the redwoods, and not only did we see them in November of 2015, but we lived in one of the groves when we spent a month volunteering in a campground along the Avenue of Giants. Although the constant rain did eventually get to us, those first moments with the trees were magical and completely lived up to my expectations.

 

When the constant rain in the grove drove us to the coast to explore in December of 2015, we followed the advice of a park ranger we had met and went to explore the Lost Coast. This was the most beautiful piece of of coast I have ever seen and I just laid in the grass and enjoyed the amazing view.

 

Ok I know this is a weird one, but in January 2016 I was able to dump our tanks all by myself in Quartzsite That was a major victory for me and the first time I felt like I was getting a handle on the mechanical aspects of of the lifestyle. It was a major “victory” and made me super happy.

 

In March 2016, we got to visit the site of one of Lee’s childhood dreams, The Very Large Array.  It’s out in the middle of nowhere, and not easy to get to, but completely amazing in it’s size and scope.

 

As we headed up to Alaska in May 2016, we had one day where we saw seven different large wild mammals. One of the most interesting sighting was watching a baby caribou attempt to cross the river and eventually we watched it scramble out.

 

At the end of the month Lee’s first moose sighting was also really special, mainly because he kept saying there are no moose…and then there was! I love it when I am right and he is wrong…although to be honest that doesn’t happen often 🙂

 

Alaska had so many jaw dropping moments I could make this entire post about them, but I’ll pick one of my favorites when we walked on an actual glacier and got to see an ice cave and a waterfall. Very special.

 

For Lee standing under the Alaskan pipeline was a really big deal.

 

But nothing beat finally seeing Denali.  I was giddy!

 

I completely geeked out when I finally got to Stand on the Corner in Winslow, Arizona. It is a quintessential RVer moment and totally lived up to what I thought it would be. Plus there was hands down the coolest giftshop I have ever been in next door.

 

In April of 2017, we fulfilled another childhood dream of mine and saw the Petrified Forest. What I didn’t know was there is also a section of absolutely gorgeous painted desert that truly blew me away.

 

Sharing all the waterfalls in Columbia Gorge with Lee in June 2017 was a very special moment for me, and hiking to bridal veil falls (one I had not seen before) was really wonderful.  You could swim at the base of this one and being in this picture, felt like I was in it.

 

This picture doesn’t really capture the experience, but we had a magical moment at night standing at the base of the Hecata Lighthouse with Rick, Jim, and Diana.  We could see so many stars through the beams of the lighthouse and it was really special.

 

Crater Lake, July 2017, with our friends Kat and Bert was amazing. Some things in life really do live up to their press and this was definitely one of them. Every picture was a good one and it was really special that we got to see the floating “Old Man of the Lake” log. After talking to some locals not everyone gets to see that when they visit, and we wouldn’t have even known if some folks didn’t point it out to us.

 

In August 2017, we saw the eclipse and being in the path of totality was well totally amazing. I thought it would be anti-climatic after all the fuss, but it really wasn’t. It was 5 minutes or so of pure magic.

 

In March 2017, we finally made it to Padre Island in Texas.  There were lots of great moments when we stayed on the ocean in one of our best camping sites ever, but nothing beat when we saw this pelican eat a huge fish.  It was definitely a mouth hanging open kind of moment.

 

And then there was our April in Utah, 2018. After Alaska, I didn’t think any landscape could impact me that way again, but the three weeks we spent in Utah had so many of those moments. Again it’s hard to just pick one (and maybe I won’t) but standing at the base of Grosvenor’s Arch and looking up was very special.

 

Ok I can’t pick just one. The photographer’s tour of monument valley.

 

This gorgeous view of Canyonlands brought tears to my eyes.

 

And Arches. For me this was a terrifying and exhilarating moment because it was a difficult climb to get up there and a drop to death behind me.  Not something I would have ever done in my old life.

 

And most recently in July 2018, standing in the cave behind North Falls. Waterfall kisses are the best!

 

As I am finishing this post up, I realize it comes woefully short of capturing the complexity and joy of the last five years. Yes, when I think about my life there are a series of images that flash through my mind, but the true story is in the details, the small moments, the day in and day out struggles and triumphs.  I know it’s presumptuous, but if you haven’t had a chance to read from the beginning I really wish you would.  It’s not about getting more hits (although a million would certainly be cool!), it’s about sharing the story arc with you.  We are in the middle of our story now, and I have absolutely no idea where all this will end, but I do promise that I will share it all the way through.  And once again…thank you!

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

  • As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  Search Amazon Here
  • You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
  • You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
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Budget July 2018

It’s interesting that when we have a really good financial month it is almost always a month that we have very few experiences.  Despite the fact that we “live” in a gorgeous place and have all sorts of low-cost nature things we can do in the area, we have found that almost everything costs some money (gas, lunch, trinkets) and it turns out that the best way to save money is not do anything at all.  That shouldn’t be a huge surprise I suppose, since that is how it was in our old lives also, but I thought that surrounded by so much nature we would always find lots of cool things to do.  And in all fairness some people do.  They take their days off and hike or fish or kayak and explore, but all of that takes energy and one thing we have found is when you are working this hard, energy, for us at least,  is in short supply.  The good thing is we aren’t spending all the money we are making on fast food or Amazon purchases  and we were able to put $2500 back in our savings account, which was a much-needed event, but aside from the end of the month when our friends came to visit our lives were all about work and more work. So yes, it was a good month with only $2,151 in expenses, but not such a good month in the overall life category. You can see below for more details.

 

Groceries –  Well, we got our groceries expenses under control this month, but that’s mainly because we are eating lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  We did have some fantastic meals when Deb and Steve came to visit, and I have been trying to use what we have lying around, but the freezer is getting pretty bare and we definitely need to restock in August.

Dining Out – The fact that we aren’t huge fans of any of the restaurants in the area (Huckleberry Inn aside) certainly helps in this category.  Plus we paid for Lee’s birthday escape room and then Deb and Steve paid us back in a couple of meals out so we were actually closer to breaking even in this category.

Entertainment – We ended up spending $180 on the escape room because Lee wanted the room all to ourselves.  Since it was his 50th I was happy to spend the extra money, but definitely next time we will use Groupon on and if we can’t find enough friends will have to try the room with other people.  I’m just glad Lee enjoyed it so much, because he’s a tough guy to buy presents for.

Truck Fuel – We only gassed the truck up once the entire month, which was a good thing because gas prices are kind of high right now.  We have to take our company trucks down to Estacada to fuel them up and are able to combine a grocery store trip with that which helps save us a ton of money in gas. Next month we will be doing some exploring in Washington so these costs will go back towards normal levels.

Home – Thankfully no repairs this month and the extra items we bought, like the propane campfire, we used Amazon points.  We just let our points build throughout the year until something camping related comes along that we want and then we cash them in.  So thanks for your support in both buying the recipe book and through our Amazon link.  I really like the propane campfire and we both wonder why we were so resistant to having one before.  If we didn’t have the points we probably wouldn’t have gotten it, so thanks again! 

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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Lee’s 50th Birthday

Lee is not a big birthday person, but since this is a landmark day, I felt like I really wanted to do something for him.  Months ago Deb had reached out with her travel plans and with a little tweaking we worked it out so she and Steve would be visiting on the big day. I was really excited about this because we spent my 50th in Alaska with Kelly, Bill, Jo, and Ben, and I wanted Lee to be with friends for his.  It’s really amazing how wonderful our RV family is and how often we manage to be with each other for those special days, despite traveling all around the country. And since we tend to do things big when we are all together, we had to have the pre-birthday dinner.  Deb made teriaki flank steak, rice, and green beans (which were yummy) and then  brought out a homemade cherry pie she bought at the fruit loop.  After tasting it Lee decided cherry pie with a crumble top was his new favorite, so all of you who are keeping pie score take a note 🙂

Afterwards we went down on the lake with the propane fire pit and watched the sun set.  It was our first evening down on the lake, and we really loved it.  There were tons of bats swooping along the lake surface and we had geese, ducks, and could see the fish jumping.  It was beautiful and serene and we all just chatted and chilled until a group of young kids came along with flashlights who were looking for crawdads in the water.  Since we have 7 kids between us, we really loved talking to them as well and it was a perfect pre-birthday celebration warming us up for the main event.

Hurley got in on the action

 

Geese

 

The kids were so cute

 

They all got excited when they found one

 

Oh and I keep forgetting to mention Steve bought me this cool present. It’s a solar powered jar with stones in it and turns lots of cool colors at night. I bought him some huckleberry preserves! For some reason we always buy each other little things and it’s always a real treat when we see each other.

 

On the morning of Lee’s birthday Deb and Steve invited us over for breakfast.  I took some signs, which long time readers may remember, and Lee got his presents from Steve and Deb.  They bought him alcohol because they think my alcohol budget is too stingy (just kidding) and we had a fantastic breakfast with some Portuguese sausage that tasted different than any sausage I have ever had.

These “50” signs have been used by Bill, Kelly, me, Greg, and finally Lee. I was thrilled they had seen so much use, but even more glad I didn’t need to carry them around anymore 🙂 Lee as you can see was thrilled with his Piehole , apple pie flavored whiskey

 

Steve cooking an awesome breakfast

 

Portuguese sausage…yum. It’s sweet with a bit of a kick

 

 

After breakfast we took a little break and then met up again at 2pm.  We headed into Portland for Lee’s birthday wish, which was to try an escape room.  Deb and Steve had tried a pirate themed one a few months back, but Lee chose an assassin themed room since he’s a major spy buff.  His one request was that we do it with just the four of us, and Steve called the company Hour to Midnight .  We paid for 6 (it normally holds 8 people) and they guaranteed us a private room, so although it was a little pricier than we would have liked it was worth it to have the room all to ourselves.  The outside of the building was pretty unassuming, but inside was neat as a pin and the room itself was fantastic.  There were multiple clues and multiples puzzles and the theme was to diffuse three different bombs.  We all loved it, and Lee said as soon as he was done he wanted to do another one.  High praise from him.  We solved it in an hour and 6 minutes (6 minutes grace over the hour because we were so close) and it was really thrilling.  I highly recommend trying an escape room if you haven’t and I especially recommend you do it with close friends.  It was really cool how each of the four of us brought something different to the party, and how many clues were only solved when we combined wits.  Big fan and we definitely plan on doing it again in other areas we visit. 

Lee, me, Steve, and Deb

After the escape room we drove across the state border to Vancouver, Washington, and had a Chinese buffet. It was nothing special, but the company was great and after the event we were all really hungry.  The day held one more cool moment though when we stopped on the way home at the very first geocache ever.  Deb and Steve are huge geocache fans, and have done at least one a day for over two years now.  The very first cache is a special place and even had a plaque to memorialize it.  Turns out the first cache is in the middle of nowhere, but also pretty close to where we worked last year, so it was fun to see it, especially because it meant so much to our friends and was a perfect way to cap off Lee’s birthday.

Supporting our Blog

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

  • As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.  Search Amazon Here
  • You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
  • You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes.
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Planes and Pianos

You never know what you are going to get up here at Timothy Lake, especially when Deb and Steve come to visit, and this week was no exception.  On Monday, Lee saw on Facebook that Deb and Steve were having some trouble with their site at a nearby state park, and since their site here was open, invited them to come up early.  Deb is one of the most badass chicks I have met on the road, but she has a thing about bees/wasps/hornets, and the site they were given had a huge yellowjacket nest in it.  Given the option of staying in the site or driving the additional two hours to us, they chose the latter and arrived in the late afternoon.  It took us a while to get them settled into their site, so we ended up having their arrival dinner close to 9pm, but no one cared since it was so great to have them here.

Steve is staying in one of the few spots here that has Verizon service, since he was working during the week, and we had to work the next day, but we were excited that we would have two sets of days off with them.  We made tentative plans for dinner Tuesday night, but Tuesday morning bright and early I got thrown another curve ball.  With no warning we had large planes dipping water out of the middle of the lake, and Lee and I were scurrying around trying to determine what the protocol was.  Through sheer bad luck our most experienced veteran was off property and I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do.  There was a fire in the National Forest about 22 miles NE of us (as the crow flies), and it made sense that they would get water from the lake, and since it has been so dry they had 4 planes taking water to the fire.  The problem was I wasn’t initially sure who was supposed to clear the lake of small water craft and since the lake is pretty huge wasn’t quite sure how to do it.

Plane coming in with Mt. Hood in the background

 

You can see why having a kayak or sailboat in the planes path would be an issue

 

Despite the concerns over how to clear the lake it was amazing to watch

 

I spent time on the phone trying to get some answers, but Lee just jumped into action.  He got our bull horn, connected with some Fire Service rangers who arrived on scene, and ultimately helped them clear the lake.  He loves using the bullhorn and hasn’t gotten to use it all summer, so he was into it, but I was more concerned about what my responsibilities were.  This is a huge lake with 5 major points of entry and since we are low on staff (and equipment to clear the lake), it was a bit confusing for both us and our camp hosts.  Eventually we got it all sorted out and I did find some time to watch the spectacle a little, and I must say it was a really cool show for us and Deb and Steve.  The flights went on for several hours and most of our campers sat on the beach and watched, with the little kids in particular really enjoying themselves. That night was a long one for us, but Deb made a lovely pasta dish and she was kind enough to pack some up and Lee devoured it at 8:30pm.

The next day we had more planes but things were a little slower and we were able to make some steak dinner for Deb and Steve and enjoy time around their propane fire.  The fire ban for the National Forest was finally started and after some initial confusion, basically they settled on anything with a shut-off valve being OK.  I’ve seen the “campfire in a can” at Quartzsite and other places, but didn’t really like them because they didn’t generate much heat and I thought they smelled bad.  Steve’s was totally different and I absolutely loved it.  We often find that we want a little fire, but don’t want to mess with starting one and I could see the benefits right away.  I liked it so much by the end of the first night, that I asked Lee to order me one for an early birthday present, and we will soon be the proud owners of a Bond Mfg 66603 Aurora Portable Gas Steel Fire Bowl, 18.5″, Black

The next night Deb and Steve cooked, and they made a pork loin, smashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts.  As I have mentioned, Deb is a fantastic cook, and since Lee loves brussel sprouts I had to get the recipe.  Unfortunately with Deb (who cooks by feel), it’s a little tough to nail down exactly how she does things, but I have gotten better with deciphering her descriptions.  Basically she cuts the sprouts in half, tosses in olive oil, salt, pepper, and Tuscan spices, and the broils them in the oven until they start to turn crispy.  Then she uses a spatula to move them around on the pan and cook some more, until there are lots of brown, crunchy flakes which are the best part.  Totally Lee approved!

Lee, Steve, and Deb

 

Yummy brussel sprouts

 

I love watching Hurley with his “sticks” or really logs.  He’s being a good puppy and staying on leash while he is here since we have pretty strict leash rules.

 

Another night with a fire. I particularly like the holes in the sides, although ours actually has diamonds.

 

We knew we were going to have a busy weekend so we recommended a list of things for Steve and Deb to do and refocused ourselves on the jobs.  Being with good friends is great because they totally get that we are not on vacation, and Deb and Steve make their own fun wherever they go anyway.  They took several of our recommendations (and tried a few new things we haven’t done yet) and you can read all about it in her blog Down the Road. If you haven’t seen it you should definitely check it out, because it’s full of amazing hikes and lots of great restaurants.  Steve loves to eat (and drink) and Deb loves to hike, which works out to be a nice balance!

While they were doing the fun stuff, we had the hottest and busiest weekend to date.  Lee, in particular, is super busy with Day Use on the weekends and we were filled to the rafters Saturday and Sunday.  We also had an event scheduled for Saturday evening, which made for a long day for both of us but was a ton of fun.  Hunter Noack is a classical pianist, and for the past two years has done the In a Landscape concert series where he plays the piano out in nature.  The coolest part is they rent wireless headsets, so guests can wander in nature as they listen to music.  For us it was a bit of a challenge because our amphitheater is down near the lake and has a very narrow road to access it.  Hunter’s team needed to pull a trailer into the spot (with a grand piano mounted to it) and then they transform the trailer into a stage.  When I first got the email about the event, I was a bit perplexed, but then I remembered who I was married to.  Lee’s live event (and RVing experience) was perfect for this event, and he not only measured the entry but also personally directed the trailer in and out of the venue, which was no joke when they left in the dark,

 

It was a wonderful event with multiple musicians and since it was totally free (headsets were $10 but you didn’t have to rent them), our campers really enjoyed it.

The piano on the trailer which was converted to a stage

 

We had a nice crowd

Hunter

 

Cellist

 

I loved the classical guitar player

 

Although we were working the event, we were able to walk a bit with the headsets and the experience was very cool.  The combination of beautiful music in an amazing setting was really neat and if you ever have a chance to experience something like this I highly recommend it.  Here are some of the images I snapped while listening to Debussey’s Reflections in the Water.

 

I also loved that it was a family and dog friendly event, which with the headphones on really added to the experience.  The coordinator of the event brought her family and watching her two year old play while the music was in the distance was really lovely.  He had a wonderful time.

 

 

So, it was a very full weekend, but Lee’s 50th birthday is coming up, and thankfully Deb and Steve are here to celebrate with us.  Looking forward to doing some fun things with them on our days off!

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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Going Bat Crazy

It’s been 9 days since my last post, and the reason is things have been bat crazy.  I mean that literally, there have been actual bats, but I am jumping ahead, so let me catch you up a little.  First of all I went down to the fireworks display in Estacada and really enjoyed it.  Lee wasn’t feeling well so he stayed home, but it was a nice enough show that it was worth the long drive there and back.

Then Lee and I actually got to go out an eat a meal one night which was cool.  I had a wonderful Huckleberry shake at the Huckleberry Inn and Lee had a huge country fried steak.

Yummy!

 

And I took another day, again by myself, and went to the Fruit Loop and Hood River to get some of the first cherry crop.  Amazing.

 

So you are probably wondering, why so little activity?  Well the answer is we had some staff changes up here and have been working very hard to cross train people and redistribute workload.  Folks tended to own their own lane up here, so it’s critical with less people folks can work multiple positions if there is a need.  Since Lee and I had learned most of the positions, we were carrying a lot of that load initially, but things are smoothing out a bit and we are coming up for air.  Plus, aside from the staffing changes there have been a series of events. We had a film shoot at one of our locations that lasted a whole day.  Lee spent some time down there just watching and it was pretty cool.

Film crew, it was an ad for the Ipad and they had a vintage camper which was pretty neat. Although to be fair this is not a spot you can camp overnight so see you can’t always trust what you see on TV.

 

We also had a camper with a heart attack (they were life flighted and are fine), missing kids (we found them), a guy back his truck into the lake.  Yes I am not making that up..not really sure how that happened but here’s the picture.  Our head of security winched him out, and yes the entire bed of his truck (and the drivers seat) was full of water.

It hasn’t all been bad.  We managed to have a potluck/birthday party for one of our camp hosts, and I am trying as much as possible to give people extra breaks as our busy season gets in full swing.  It’s important to say that we are now filling up completely in all campgrounds by Thursday and every week that gets a little earlier.  Our day use is packed, which has put extra pressure on Lee, and I am covering shifts for folks at least once a week.  Still we feel pretty good overall, although we are both being careful about pacing ourselves.  Burn out at this pace is a real possibility.

Birthday cake!

Oddly one of the most stressful things has been the bats.  We have some interns staying in the duplex next to the office and on Friday and Saturday the girls side had bats flying around the room.  Both nights they ended up sleeping down in the living room and I was once again at a loss on how to handle the issue.  The head of security once again came to the rescue and shooed them out, but the same ones were either coming back or we were getting new ones and no one could figure out where they were coming in.  So I punted and on Saturday called the maintenance on call tech and they were kind enough to bring up a sonic device that we hoped would drive them away. It did work.  It drove them out of the girls room and into my office, but thankfully someone else was in there at night when the bat came out to play.  Now I am afraid to turn the lights off in there, and am just hoping that in a few days the bats will be gone forever.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like bats and think they perform an important function, but I want them in their little bat houses and not in my working/living space. One more thing that I wasn’t prepared for, but if nothing else this job is teaching me to be prepared for the unexpected.

The good news is Deb and Steve are coming up for 9 whole days and we are incredibly excited to see them!! Their being here will force me to start getting out of here on my days off so hopefully you will be seeing some pretty pictures soon.  And sorry it took me so long to get to this.  Most of the stuff that is happening I simply can’t talk about and when that’s the case I just don’t feel motivated to write.  It’s one of the downsides of having this job, but I am hoping that as things settle down that will get better.  It might not be until after August though, so don’t be surprised if my posts are a little sparse until then.   If you are Jonesing for a Camper Chronicles fix, go back and re-read about Utah 🙂 That was a fun month and packed full of awesome blog posts!

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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First Time Almost Getting Killed By A Failing Jack

Because this incident happened to Lee, I asked him to write this post.  He says it’s because I am a slacker, but I refuse to accept that premise 🙂  Enjoy!

For quite some time we’ve been having some trouble with our jacks. We have the Lippert Ground Control 3 system, and they’re electric, not hydraulic. The system has a pretty “picky” voltage requirement, so if voltage drops below the threshold, either from a low battery, or high amperage draw, it will cause an error message on that jack, and you have to clear the code to do anything at all. I consider this a pretty serious design flaw, because once you get an error code, you can’t see any information on the screen other than “ERROR” and whichever jack is causing the error. There are lots of things that can cause errors, and you can generally still run jacks up and down, you just can’t see information on anything at all. The clearing process is pretty simple, you lower all of the jacks at least 6 inches from their full up position, and then retract them all by pushing the retract button and holding it until they are all retracting. Again, not a big deal, except that once you’ve done that, you’re back to square one, trying to drop the landing gear, and take the weight off the hitch, and unhitch, then level. If you get an error code again, then you have to go through the process all over again. It can be maddening. And for us, there was no rhyme or reason as to which jack would “error out”. Over time I noticed it was the front left more than any other. More and more lately, during the clearing process, the front left jack would just stop moving after an inch or so of travel, and I would have to raise or lower it by repeatedly pushing the buttons while it traveled that inch or so.

At our current location, we’re on a very unlevel site. The front of the site is VERY low, and so in order to get level I had to raise the front of the rig up A LOT.

Here’s an idea of how much:

And since raising the nose is when most of this stuff happens, when we got here we were only able to get within about 2° of level. It would just extend the jack a few millimeters and then stop. 2° might not seem like much, but that’s a fair amount of unlevel, and takes some getting used to. After a month or so I started to get concerned that it might interfere with adequately draining the black tank, so I set out on a bright and fine morning to attempt to get it to go up a few more inches. I encountered the same problem, so I decided to start from scratch by lowering it, hitching up, and trying again. This time it was much worse. I was well beyond 4° when it stopped running. It would run a few millimeters and then quite. I called Lippert and after much discussion they decided it was a low voltage problem, and recommended changing my batteries. I have 4 AGM batteries that are in excellent shape, and my gut told me it was something else, but they insisted it was the batteries, so I let it go. Since I wasn’t about to buy new batteries, I asked them if there was a way to over-ride the error code to get the jacks to go up just a few more inches. They instructed me to pop off a rubber cap on the bottom of the jack motor and use a socket and a cordless drill to manually raise and lower the jacks. I was’t looking forward to that, because it involves either running two drills at the same time or moving it just a little and then going to the other side, and moving that one, back and forth, otherwise you can put too much torque on the rig. I lowered the tailgate and then opened the front generator compartment to get to the jacks, and put the drill on. It didn’t budge, so I turned up the torque a little on the drill. It rotated in my hand a little, so I turned up the torque a little more, and planted my feet, and wedged myself in really good and braced myself so the drill wouldn’t spin my wrist, and would transfer the torque to the jack motor. (Safety tip, when you’re using a high torque drill, and you think it might spin on you, be careful. You can break a bone with one of those things. And if you’re working in really close quarters, the lower half of that drill can spin right around and that big fat battery can smack you right in the face, hard. Ask me how I know.)

When I was ready for it, I squeezed the trigger very slowly and ramped up the speed. It fought a little, then I felt it spin freely, and thought everything was working as advertised, until I glanced at the jack and could it wasn’t moving at all. I was all half folded over and cramped, and getting frustrated so I decided to pull out, and stand up straight, and set down the drill so I could do some serious industrial grade swearing and maybe have a cigarette and think this over some more. The instant I was clear and stood upright the entire fifth wheel wheel dropped and fell the six inches between the hitch and the kingpin. If you’ve ever wondered how good your truck suspension is, drop a fifth wheel on it from six inches. The only thing that kept the front of the rig from hitting the ground was that I had left the truck under the kingpin because I just wasn’t entirely comfortable, and so I just rolled the truck forward enough to clear the locking jaws on hitch, so when it fell, it landed perfectly in the hole, right behind the jaws. But since the gate was down, and I was between the gate and the front of the rig, I would’ve been pretty seriously hurt when that thing came down because I was occupying the space the rig entered, and since you can’t have two things in the same place at the same time, and I’m significantly squishier than the rig….

So, after my heart started beating again, I double and triple checked that the pin was where it needed to be, and slowly backed the truck up so the jaws locked. Once it was secure, I was able to pull the spring pin on the front gear extensions and raise them up. I could get the right jack to come up under power, but the left one wouldn’t budge. I poked around inside to get a feel for how difficult it would be to remove the jack (not at all, it turns out) and had the jack out and on a bench within about 10 minutes. I removed the foot, and spring pin, and the inner sleeve extension, and pulled the motor off. I was left with just the outer tube and the outer sleeve, and once I removed the cotter pin holding them together, I had the screw, and the collar it threads into on the inner sleeve. The way these work is that the motor turns the gearbox, which turns a small ring which is attached the the end of the screw. As the screw turns in the collar, it pushes down on the sleeve and lifts or lowers. I put the screw and sleeve on a workbench and popped a screwdriver through the cotter pin hole to turn it. It turned pretty smoothly and when it got the end, out fell a bunch of little bits of metal, which turned out to be pieces of the collar thread.

So at some point there was some binding or something that caused the screw to cut about half of the threads from the collar, and that allowed the screw, with all of the weight of the front of the rig, to slip through the remaining threads. It is truly amazing to me that this is all there is there to this system, and that there’s no real safety feature to prevent this.

Installing the new jack was relatively simple. The replacements come with the motor, the outer tube, the inner sleeve, the extension, and the foot. The spring loaded pin bracket is sold separately, as is the pin that holds the foot to the extension.

The hardest part was getting it at the right angle to slide through the hole and then lifting it up into position. The jacks are really heavy, and they just barely fit, so the motor has to be removed to get the jack into position, then the motor has to be reattached, with the two rotating parts lined up so they slot together. This is the part of the motor that rotates:

and this is the part on the outer tube that it fits into.

They’re both shaped so they only fit together when they’re lined up correctly. When the jack is in place, there’s no way to see the ring, so I just used my phone to take a picture of the position the jack ring was in so I could rotate the motor spindle to that position.

Once the motor was reattached I could lift the jack up and bolt it in. It’s held in place just by the friction of two brackets, which, again, is amazing to me.

Once everything was put back together and tightened down and the wiring harnesses were reconnected, it all worked just like it’s supposed to, with 100% less falling down. It still bothers me how high the front of the rig has to be in order for us to be level at this location, but there’s nothing we can do about it this year, maybe next year.

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Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.

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June 2018 Budget

This month was really good with less than $3K in expenses!!!  $1,024 of that was for an emergency replacement of our front jacks so we really only spent $2,318 for the month, which is right up there with one of our best financial months ever.  Part of that is that we are working so hard we haven’t done much of anything, and the other part is the things we have done were mostly free.  As always for more details please see below.

 

Groceries – We went over again by over $200.  Going to local more expensive grocery stores, buying lots of pre-made food instead of cooking meals because of our schedule, and another Costco run are the culprit. On the other hand, we should be able to keep July much lower because now we’re pretty well stocked up. We’ll see. Pie is expensive.

Truck Fuel – This was really low because we aren’t really going anywhere.  Lee runs into town on our days off, but we haven’t taken any trips.  Again, good numbers because of crazy work schedule.

New Equipment – We had a catastrophic failure of our front jacks/landing gear (Lee is writing about it in the next post) and because our rig had to stay hitched with the nose down over 4° while we waited for the replacement jacks, Lee paid $200 for next day shipping, otherwise we would have been tilted down that far for a week or more instead of just two days. 4° is a lot of forward tilt to live with. These things happen, but it was a bummer, because we really wanted to put that money back into our bank account. But at least now we have brand new front jacks.

So, how do you hardly spend any money?  Work long 10+ hour days, 5-6 days a week, and don’t go anywhere! Just like we dreamed! Seriously, though, it’s beautiful here, the weather is spectacular, and we were lucky enough to have friends come and visit us, so we don’t feel like the month was a total waste, but it would be nice to have the time and energy to do more with our free time. Maybe it will start to get a little better after the middle of the season. Even if it doesn’t, by the time we get to the end of the season we will have been able to set aside enough to take a nice 4-6 week break before we start gate guarding for the winter. That’s progress over previous years for sure!

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog.  Search Amazon.com here

Or you can check out our recipe book filled with 80 real recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. The cookbook specializes in recipes that have a limited number of ingredients, without sacrificing flavor and is organized into categories that matter to full time RVers such as Happy Hours, Travel Days, and Pot Lucks   You can preview the kindle version on  Amazon or the Apple version on Itunes.    It is available in paperback on Amazon if you prefer.