A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 133 miles from Fairview to Eugene, Oregon.
RV
Posts featuring the coach.
Travel from Fairview to Eugene, Oregon
We drove our coach 133 miles, about two hours of driving, from Fairview to Eugene, Oregon.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading south:
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:
I-84 West:
Heading to I-205 South:
Interesting paint job:
I-5 South:
Shredded tire on the freeway:
Willamette River:
Rest area:
Paladin getting off the dash as we get back on the freeway:
Triple trailer:
Exit to Eugene:
RVs by the river:
Arriving at the Oregon Motorcoach Center:
Portland Fairview RV Park
We stayed at Portland Fairview RV Park in Fairview, Oregon. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Our second stay here; this was actually the first campground we stayed in with our coach. Not the best place, but convenient to Portland.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-10-04
- Check out: 2025-10-08
- 4 nights
Weather:
- Sunny
- High temps 67-75°F, lows 47-53°F
- Little wind, gusts to 17 MPH
Noise:
- Significant road noise
- Occasional train noise, but no horn
- Frequent plane noise (in the flight path of PDX)
- Little neighbor noise
Site:
- #38, pull-through, concrete
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked beside coach
- Somewhat level site; high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
- Concrete driveway about 45 feet long by 10 feet wide, plus 24 feet long by 12 feet wide car park
- 16 feet to neighbor on both sides
- Just grass between sites
- Picnic table
- One tall tree
- Mostly clean site
- Elevation 80 feet, front facing NE
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located; lost power for about 15 minutes one day
- 55 PSI water, though the pressure dropped significantly when in use; conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 50-80 Mbps down, 8-13 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
- RoamLink: 12 Mbps down, 8 Mbps up, 133 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
- AT&T: 14-55 Mbps down, 0.05-4 Mbps up, 40-90 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
- Campground Wi-Fi: not used
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
- Pool
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Not the best park around, but convenient
Usually, when we make our annual trip through Portland, we stay at Mt Hood, but this time we had errands to do in town, so we stayed here for a couple of days. It’s still not the best park we’ve ever stayed in, though. The site was just barely big enough for our motorhome, and we had to squeeze our tow vehicle in the space alongside, but it was pretty close to the neighboring site. The roads are still uncomfortably narrow, and weeds are popping up through the cracks in the concrete. Maintenance is still an issue, as is the road and train noise. If I want a quiet place in the woods, I’ll still return to Mt Hood, but if I need to be nearer to the city, this will have to do because for $20/night (as part of the Thousand Trails Collection), you can’t really beat the value. We camped at Portland Fairview RV Park in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site:
Very Portland: by the garbage dumpster was these bins, presumably for people to reuse items:
Looking towards the office and entrance:
Other sites:
Not a great park, but convenient when in the Portland area, so we’d stay here again.
Video: Shelton, Washington to Fairview, Oregon motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 158 miles from Shelton, Washington to Fairview, Oregon.
Travel from Shelton, Washington to Fairview, Oregon
We drove our coach 158 miles, about three hours of driving, from Shelton, Washington to Fairview, Oregon.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading south:
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:
Bay:
John Prairie Road:
Electrical work:
I-5 South:
Rest area:
Cowlitz River:
Train:
I-205 South:
Entering Oregon:
Entering Portland:
Welcome to Oregon:
I-84 East:
Exit to Fairview:
Arriving at Portland Fairview RV Park:
Entry steps stuck
Our entry steps have been dodgy for a while, making horrible noises when extending and retracting, and sometimes not fully retracting until they are nudged. I tried cleaning the tracks and lubricating several times, and even got a couple of techs to look at it, without improvement.
Recently, it’s been getting worse, where it sometimes wouldn’t move at all until I tapped the motor with a hammer (a recommended workaround). So it was clearly on its last legs.
When departing our home base, it did this again. I had bought a replacement motor, but it was too awkward for me to get to it in order to replace it, due to a cover plate partly over the motor. We had a service appointment coming up, so I figured I’d get them to replace it for me. I managed to get the steps to retract by tapping the motor, and rather than risk them getting stuck out again, I disconnected the motor, and secured the steps in place with a ratchet strap (probably not necessary, since the motor was still engaged with the step gearbox, but better safe than sorry).
Here’s the step motor:
I disconnected the motor, a simple plug:
And added a ratchet strap to hold the step in, just in case:
In order to get in and out in the meantime, I had also ordered some metal and wooden steps, which we used at our next campsite:
The good news is that the aforementioned service place, the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, was later able to replace the step motor, and it is now working like new again. It’s certainly nice to have this issue resolved.
Back from New Zealand
Speaking of home, a real-time update: we are back in the US from our trip to New Zealand. It was nice to see my family, and explore more of the country.
We took lots of photos during our trip, of course, so I plan to do blog posts about it. Probably one post for each day, since most days were traveling from one location to another, with lots of sightseeing along the way.
We still have a couple of months backlog of posts about our travels before the trip, plus the traditional yearly summary posts, so look for the NZ posts around the end of January.
Our Washington home
We stayed for a month at our official domicile, aka Mom’s house, in Shelton, Washington.
It was good to be home! An opportunity to catch up on dentists, doctors, optometrists, etc, and of course with family.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-09-04
- Check out: 2025-10-04
- 30 nights
Weather:
- Partly cloudy, rain
- High temps ranging between 70-82°F, lows around 57-60°F
- Wind gusts to 20 MPH in the area, though much less when sheltered amongst trees
Noise:
- No road noise
- No train noise
- Occasional neighbor noise
Site:
- Front in, concrete in front, gravel in back
- Disconnected toad; parked next to coach
- Fairly level; high in front; used hydraulic leveling
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, located on house in front of coach, used extension cord
- 40 PSI water from the house
- No sewer hookup; used macerator and hose to dump into house septic system
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 80-230 Mbps down, 10-40 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
- RoamLink: 13 Mbps down, 0.2 Mbps up, 160-215 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
- AT&T: 10 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 40 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
- House Wi-Fi: not used
Amenities:
- House
Our coach parked in front of the house, with our Starlink dish on the flagpole, to peek over the trees:
Using the macerator to dump our waste tanks (as previously documented):
The other end of that 200 feet of hose goes into septic tank:
This time I kept the hose in place, with foam weather stripping sealing the gaps on either side of the hose; this let me just turn on the macerator and open the tank valves to dump, without having to go around to the septic tank to open it, insert the hose, then remove the hose and re-close it after each time:
The RV electrical outlet box we added on the house last year had an issue, so we had it replaced with a better one, so were able to have 50 amp power:
Nice to have full hookups at home.
While there, we cooked some pizzas in my Ooni pizza oven, which had been stored in our shed:
I decided to take the pizza oven with us, as we’ll be staying in one place for even longer early next year.
It was good to be home!
Video: Ephrata to Shelton, Washington motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 250 miles from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington.
Travel from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington
We drove our coach about 250 miles, about four hours of driving, from Ephrata to Shelton, Washington.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading west (with the ultimate destination omitted for privacy):
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:
There was roadworks on the bridge over the Columbia River, with a 9-foot width restriction, so we considered avoiding that and taking a more scenic route, as follows, but it would have added 1.5 hours to the travel, and been more stressful with curvy highway roads, so we stuck with the above route instead of this alternative:
I-90 West and the aforementioned Vantage Bridge:
Narrow, but good enough for trucks, so good enough for us:
Thorp Fruit & Antique Mall:
Rest area:
Wildlife bridge:
Keechelus Lake:
Snoqualmie Pass:
Crossover intersection:
Joining I-5 South:
Fuel stop:
Tacoma Dome:
Route 101 North:
We previously took this exit, but it is more difficult getting through Shelton:
Instead we took this exit, which is much more straightforward:
Downtown Shelton:
