Pacific North West was Cooking!

Recorded August 1st, 2009


On Saturday the 25th I realized we probably had not thought through our planning for RV space. It is a weekend and we are coming upon the Columbia Gorge area, like Penticton, it’s a big vacation spot. I had better get it through my head that I am not in Alaska anymore!!! So as we are traveling with TomTom leading us by the nose, I am trying to get a reservation to no avail. I do make a reservation for 2 nights in Portland. Here we are after 3pm and zip. The problem is that along the Columbia Gorge you can’t just pull into a rest area as there are none. There are only public & state campgrounds and their reservation system is only open M-F. Real helpful for folks like us. You have to go to each park to see if space has become available as they do not even answer the phone. I am definitely out of the local loupe up here. We finally found a spot out in the hills at a Tucker County Park near the wonderful lavender fields that Linda had told us about. We dry camped. We had trouble getting into the park and it was hot but it all came out fine! It was not meant for rigs our size but there was one perfect shady spot for us. There was no camp host. You just put your $19 bucks in the box. We ended up with a wonderful evening, after it cooled down, right on a moving river that sung to us all night long. This rural camp ground was totally unlike what we are used to in this monster machine. It was full of families with little bitty kids. We had great fun watching the drama as they prepared to leave on Sunday morning.


We have never spent any time in the Columbia Gorge or Portland area but the approximate 3 days we spent there were pretty much a waste. It was so unbearably hot that we were out of the mood to do anything. Our drive from Hood River to Portland though only 60 miles, was hot and uncomfortable because of a problem with the dash air conditioner/heater. We only half way repaired it with a toggle switch that is now leaking so we can not use the AC at all. We would have made some stops along the way but we were anxious to get out of the heat. By noon it was 90 degrees & climbing. It was Sunday and the forecast was for a week long record heat wave.

On Sunday July 26th we pulled into a beautiful park a suburb of Portland near Jansen Beach & the Portland Yacht Club. I will always remember this location because you had to go through the most peculiar double cloverleaf off Interstate 5. When we arrived we melted in the 100 plus weather as the coach was unbearable inside. We survived it all and spent a couple of nights in Portland.

On Tuesday morning we began our maintenance by making our appointment at Peterbuilt-GMC to have our transmission serviced. By 1pm we were again anxious to get out of the heat for a while so we headed for Tillamook 80 miles west out at the coast. It was a record hot of 107 as we drove in our coach it was 100 degrees and we could not use the AC as the leaky valve has yet to be repaired. I worked at keeping Lindsey cool by taking soda cans out of the frig & putting them under her tummy.

By Wednesday the 29th we were cooling off and again feeling like we are on vacation. We took a delightful drive out to Oceanside for lunch at Rosanna’s Inn. It was great at about 60 degrees. We loved it! The weather was all overcast. So we could not see the wonderful rock formations out in the water, heck we couldn’t even see the water but our afternoon was perfect.

We spent one more day in Tillamook exploring and on Friday we headed about 60 miles north to Seaside & the Circle Creek RV Park for a few more days. This time at the beach was a great change of pace and scenery from the last few weeks. HAPPY DAYS!