Month: October 2021

Olde Stone Village RV Park

After a night at the Boondockers Welcome site, we continued down I-5 and across the bridge into Oregon:

I-5 bridge into Oregon

Here’s the sign on the bridge saying “Entering Oregon”:

I-5 bridge into Oregon

Near downtown Portland, with a glimpse of the arch of the Fremont Bridge:

Fremont Bridge

Part of downtown Portland:

Portland

Our destination: Old Stone Village RV park. It’s an interesting combination of manufactured homes and a quite nice RV park:

Old Stone Village

We’ll be here for a couple of weeks, while we take care of a bunch of things in the Portland area, and continue to get the coach set up.

Here’s our coach in the campsite, before we put the slides out:

Coach in campsite

And after (notice the window awnings, too):

Coach with slides out

Since this campsite has full hookups, I connected the power, water, and sewer. Here’s the wet bay with the sewer hose:

Wet bay and sewer hose

The sewer hose is draped across a rack for a proper drainage slope; the first time I’ve had occasion to use this rack:

Sewer hose

Here’s our coach and truck:

Coach and truck

This RV park is literally next door to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, with a walking path between them:

Evergreen Aviation Museum

We’re very busy with Portland-area chores and setting up our coach, but hopefully will find time to visit the museum while we’re here. We’ve been there before, but I’m sure we’ll enjoy checking it out again.

The RV park has nice grounds, including a gazebo:

Gazebo

Water feature:

Water feature

Play areas:

Grounds

Unlike in previous campgrounds we’ve stayed at (admittedly a very short list so far), there are several similar coaches to ours in this park, e.g. here are two Tiffin Allegro Buses opposite each other:

Two Allegro Buses

Kevin and Julie’s Boondockers Welcome site

Yesterday we picked up our coach from Poulsbo RV in Kent, WA, where it had been for a week getting some routine maintenance done, some minor issues fixed, plus adding a couple of extra solar panels and upgrading the batteries.

It was getting a little late by the time we were heading down the freeway, so once again we had the solar shade down a bit:

Driving on the freeway

The coach is a bit messy at present, especially with the slides in, but we’ll get things more organized soon:

Mess with slides in

We didn’t have too far to go, though the horrible Seattle traffic made it take longer than it could have. We spent the night at Kevin and Julie’s Boondockers Welcome site near Chehalis, WA. Boondockers Welcome is a service where people can list their property as available for people to come stay for a night (or a few nights), at no cost (though a small donation to cover any electricity used is appreciated). Some people just provide a driveway without any hookups, but Kevin and Julie offer a few very nice sites, with 30-amp power and water, plenty of room, and even Wi-Fi:

Campsite

Campsite

We’ll definitely stay there again in the future.

Olympic National Park

On Sunday we took a day trip to Olympic National Park in the Northeast corner of Washington state.

It’s a large park, nearly a million acres, mostly mountainous. We went in the Staircase entrance in the Southwest corner of the park, then skirted the park up highway 101, and went in again at the Hurricane Ridge entrance.

Here’s the Staircase ranger station:

Staircase ranger station

Staircase info sign:

Staircase info sign

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase:

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase

An animated GIF of the river:

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase

A little further downstream, next to the Staircase campground:

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase

The water was so amazingly clear:

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase

Some fallen trees:

North Fork Skokomish River at Staircase

An interesting structure:

Interesting structure

Further downstream:

North Fork Skokomish River

Lake Cushman:

Lake Cushman

Lake Cushman

The portion of the road to Staircase outside the park was a somewhat rough dirt road; an opportunity to engage 4WD mode on our truck:

Dirt road

At the visitor center in Hoodsport, an interesting relief map:

Relief map

We had lunch at El Puerto De Angeles in Hoodsport, with a waterfront view from our table of a couple of seals relaxing on a dock:

Seals on a dock

Seals on a dock

A GIF of the seals:

Seals on a dock

I experimented with the iPhone 13 Pro Max macro camera on my margarita:

Macro margartia

A tasty margarita and burrito:

Burrito

After lunch, we headed north up highway 101, and saw a sign for a viewpoint, so headed up a road… that turned out much longer than expected. Apparently the viewpoint was at the top of a mountain. Looking at the map, we still had a long way to go, so decided to turn around, since it was socked in with clouds anyway. The road was quite interesting, with a sea of clouds next to sheer drop-offs:

clouds next to dirt road

clouds next to dirt road

Our truck wasn’t quite so clean after those dirt roads:

Dirty truck

On reaching Port Angeles, we headed into the park again at the Hurricane Ridge entrance… which was using a temporary entrance station in a cargo container while the permanent ones were being renovated:

Temporary entrance station

At a viewpoint on the road to Hurricane Ridge, an info sign:

Info sign

The view:

Viewpoint on the road to Hurricane Ridge

The first of three tunnels as we entered the cloud layer:

Tunnel on the road to Hurricane Ridge

Tunnels on the road to Hurricane Ridge

We drove through the thick fog-like cloud layer for several miles, wondering if the top would be socked in… but no, we saw the sun again as we neared the top:

Nearing the top of the clouds

Nearing the top of the clouds

The Hurricane Ridge visitor center:

Hurricane Ridge visitor center

Awesome views from above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge:

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

A selfie:

David and Jenn at Hurricane Ridge

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

An info sign on the North side of the ridge:

Info sign

The view on that side:

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Unicorn Peak looked like a whale breaching:

Above the clouds at Hurricane Ridge

Heading downhill into the clouds:

Heading downhill

Heading downhill into the clouds

Heading downhill into the clouds

We went for a stroll on the dock at Port Angeles:

Dock at Port Angeles

Dock at Port Angeles

For dinner, Jenn had fish and chips, and I had a burger and fries at Smugglers Landing Restaurant on the wharf:

Burger and fries

Followed by “New Zealand-style” Welly’s fruit ice cream from a trailer outside:

Ice cream trailer

The sun had set at that point, so we headed back to Mom’s place in the dark. About 12 hours round-trip, and we only saw a tiny fraction of the park. But it was a great day-trip, a sample of the kind of thing we want to do more of in our new RV lifestyle.

Coach mods

While the coach was at Mom’s place, we spent some time organizing things, plus doing some minor modifications.

One tweak was to mount a towel holder under the kitchen cabinets, so it didn’t take up counter space:

Towel holder

We also removed the towel rails from inside the shower (a crazy place for it, having to remove the towels when using the shower), and installed new towel rails outside (I didn’t get a picture of that, though, and the coach is currently at a dealer getting serviced, so I can’t get a pic).

We left the ends of the towel rail in the shower, but rotated them to act as hooks. And added wall-mounted liquid dispensers:

Shower dispensers

For Jenn’s necklaces, we added a couple of wall-mounted racks by the vanity:

Necklace rack

Necklace rack

In the living room, you may recall that we removed the couches so we could use our chairs:

Chairs

Since the front edge of the chair base hangs over the edge of the slide carpet, we added some higher feet using rubber doorstops, to make the chairs more level and stable:

Chair feet

We also added some extra shelving in several cupboards, and other tweaks. I’m sure we’ll make more over time, to customize the coach to be more comfortable.

Aerial pictures of our coach

Our coach is currently being serviced at an RV dealer, but I recently flew my drone above it while it was parked at Mom’s place. Since this coach lacks a ladder, this was the first time I’ve seen the roof, other than via the pictures from the inspector.

Here’s an aerial shot of the coach from the passenger-side front:

Coach roof

From the driver-side front:

Coach roof

From the driver-side back:

Coach roof

From the passenger-side back:

Coach roof

From the front:

Coach roof

Higher up:

Coach roof

Coach roof

A closer look at the roof, starting from the front (right side), with the two radio antennas, the front AC, and the awning:

Coach roof

Next, again from the front, the TV antenna, a solar panel, the kitchen vent, the middle AC, and the half-bath vent:

Coach roof

The satellite dish, the back AC, the shower skylight, and the bathroom vent:

Coach roof

The same as above, plus the back cap:

Coach roof

A lower view, showing a puddle on the living room slide topper. Not a problem; it’ll drain off when the slide is closed:

Coach roof

Same on the other side:

Coach roof