May 5th - Sightseeing South

No rain today, except for a few drizzles while we were driving south this morning.

I went up and had breakfast with the "campers" this morning. This weekends campers are all adults. Rather than serving everyone family style there was a buffet line. We had scrambled eggs, fried (cubed) potatoes, LOTS of bacon, several different types of melon, strawberries, cinnamon rolls and I'm sure there was also cereal.

After breakfast I drove up to Rockaway Beach this morning, about a mile north of here, looking for a place to get a haircut. Couldn't find a barbershop so I drove south down to Garibaldi, about 4 miles from here. Got my hair cut at Tami's Barbershop. $10 for a haircut and she trimmed my beard. I gave her a $5 tip. Tami and her husband have lived in the area for 17 years. She was quite informative.

Today there was a tsunami evacuation drill for many communities along the coast. Other than seeing a lot of fire department personnel and police officers along the road I don't know what other things happened.

After the haircut I drove back to camp, picked up Kathy and we headed south. We drove down to Depoe Bay, about 70 miles south of here, to watch for whales. On the way we stopped at J's and had fish and chips and clam strips for lunch. We spent about 3 hours watching for whales. We saw one blow a couple of times within the first 10 minutes and then it was pretty slow until the last hour. We were able to track a group of three or four for over a mile. Several times we were able to see their backs as they came up to breathe. It was great.

On the way home we stopped at the Fishermans Korner Restaurant. I had fish and a salad and Kathy had a bowl of clam chowder. The food was great.

 The restaurant was out at the harbor.

 There are plaques along the railing in memory of local people who have died.

 We drove on past the camp, back up to Rockaway Beach. We wanted to check it out a little more. The buildings in the foreground are on the main street. The buildings in the background, no doubt multi-million dollar summer homes, are perched on the hillside; and I do mean perched.

 Another photo of Rockaway Beach's main street shops.

 These are the twin rocks when viewed from Rockaway Beach. We can't see the arch from the beach in front of the camp. We thought they were two solid rocks.

After walking up and down the main street a little we went out and set on a bench at the edge of the sand, just to watch the ocean. A couple who were standing down the way from us came over and asked it we saw the whales. We had not seen them. There were at least two of them that we watched blow many times as they made their way north along the coast. The couple saw one of them come out of the water enough to see its back. While we were watching them we only saw them blow as they came up for air.

We had a great day. Good night and may God bless you and yours.

May 4th - Not Much to Report

It drizzled rain through mid-day and then the sun occassionally peeked through in the afternoon.
Two groups left today so there was lots of "cabin" cleaning to be done. Kathy worked hard, along with the cleaning people, to get cabins ready for a group that came in this afternoon.
Richard and I worked on the woodwork and walls in the dining area. He touched up the stain on the woodwork and "cut-in" paint along the wood work. I painted about the bottom 3' of the walls, just above the area that was marked up from being hit by chairs and tables. We also washed a lot of woodwork (doors, cabinets, etc.) and scrubbed a fair amount of the tile floor, right up next to the baseboard. Around 3 PM he had to take off and go blow off any debris that was on the sidewalk. He told me to take off anytime. I continued working until around 4 because I wanted to finish washing the base cabinets along one wall.
The group that came in this afternoon was not eating here tonight, and the groups that left today did not have lunch here (actually I think they had sack lunches made for them but they didn't eat in the dining hall). The kitchen staff used the time to "deep clean" the kitchen and that was kind of what Richard and I were doing out in the dining area.
We are taking off Saturday and Sunday. No rain in the forecast for those days. Not sure where we will go or what we will do. I HAVE to get a haircut this weekend. Kathy is supposed to go to come a quilting meeting, with one of the Twin Rocks camp ladies, tonight. Not sure if she has the energy.
All seems to be going well on the Missouri home purchase front. The inspector is done and found nothing significant. Even though we are paying cash we had it appraised. The appraisal came in slightly higher than what we paid, so that was good. Doug is back in Missouri to do more work on Kelsey and Andy's kitchen. He was there with the inspector today. He said that the people have really been busy cleaning up the grounds. A LOT of the old boats and boat motors are gone.
Good evening/night to all. May God bless you and yours.

May 3rd - Laundry & Cleaning

It rained all night and most of the day Today. Not even a hint of sun. Today's high was 54 while last nights low was 46.

Kathy did laundry today. I got a walk through of the camp to see some of the maintenance facilities as well as some of the maintenance needs. After than I spent time washing the baseboard and bottom 3' of the wall in one of the dining areas. I, or someone, will end up touching up the stain on the baseboard, installing a chair rail to protect the walls and repainting the lower portion of the walls.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, tater tots and good biscuits. Hot cereal is also available. Cold cereal is also probably available. Lunch was pizza and salad. Supper was BBQ sandwiches, curly fries and cole slaw. Everything is served family style. Each table gets a big bowl of each entree. The buns were in big bowls that had been warmed in the oven. Not only were the warm, the warm bowls kept them warm.

All the staff here wear many hats. One of the things that everyone pitches in and does it carry food out to the guests. If you can get to the dining hall a few minutes early you get in line, grab a tray, fill it with whatever they are serving (one bowl of everything) and carry it out to one of the tables. There is a lady at the dining room door who directs traffic. (She tells you which row you are supposed to take food to a table.) You come back to the kitchen and if needed grab another trayfull of food and head back to the dining room. I have enjoyed doing it, although the pizza for lunch was a challenge for me. The pizzas were 14-16" diameter. They were on some type of paper plate (I guess something that could stand the baking process. There were cheese and sausage pizzas. We didn't use trays. We had to carry one of each to each table. They paper plates were floppy and you had to get your hand well centered under them. The staff eats in a separate room. There are usually over 20 people eating in the staff room.

Some photos:
Looking out one of the windows in the room I where I was working.

 Looking out a different window.

 The room I worked in.

 Table cleaning experiment. For some reason the tops of these tables are sticky, even after they are washed. I tried a variety of things to see which, if any, would remove the stickiness. Otherwise they will all have to be sanded and refinished. The wood tables in the main dining room don't get sticky. No one knows what was used to finish the tables in the different areas.

 The maintenance buildings.

 The "woodpile". These areas are 10' deep. The signs indicate when the wood was cut and split. They are currently using wood that was cut in the fall of 2011. They have a full section that was cut and split during the "winter" of 2011.

 I didn't check the date signs on the area below.

 If you look hard hopefully you can see the building halfway up the hill, about in the center of the photo. It is an area they rent for people who want to spend time in solitude and prayer, $20/night. There is no shower in it but there is a toilet. I can't wait (I can wait until it quits raining.) to go up and check it out. The grassy area is a 9 hole kids golf course.

 Some of the guest housing.

 The camp is actually on the east side of Hwy 101. They built this way cool pedestrian bridge so that they didn't have to bus kids back and forth over the busy highway. The highway is 4 lanes with a center turn lane. The far span is over an active railroad track.

 This is the camps lake.

 Looking back at the camp from the ocean side of the bridge.

 The "Twin Rocks".

 Looking north up the beach.

 And south down the beach.

 And heading back to the bridge.

While out on the beach Kathy asked, "Did you ever think we would be out on a beach, where we could see for miles up and down the beach, and not see another person." I said, "No, but I never expected to be standing out on a beach while it was 51 degrees and raining." Actually is wasn't raining when we left to walk over the bridge.

All in all we had a good day. Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

May 2nd - Parked at Twin Rocks

We left Coos Bay this morning and are now at Twin Rocks Friends Camp near Rockaway Beach, Oregon. If I remember correctly we are about 50 miles from Washington. Most of the day was partly sunny but in the afternoon it started drizzling on and off.

Yesterday I said I would try to get a photo of the Coos Bay bridge as we crossed it today. The bridge is just to cool. During today's travel we crossed another one that was similar, it might have been larger.

The following two photos are are of the swing span rail bridge over the Coos River. It has recently undergone a $20 million plus renovation. We only saw it open. I would love to have watched it close.

We crossed several concrete arch bridges today. I think this one is the Ten Mile Creek Bridge

Curves today.

 Curves and hills.

 Curves hills and the ocean. The ocean is around 100 ' below the road in these photos.

The driver just kept going. I felt kind of puny today and did not drive any of the 220 miles.

This steel arch bridge was the view out our front window while we had lunch along the side of the road. See the guy at the right side of the photo. He was an older gentleman who was walking down the road, using a cane. He stopped a few feet from where he is now and was having lunch along the side of the road at the same time as us. The way the gulls were approaching him for handouts I wonder if he might do this on a regular basis.

 This was the view our our dining room windo. There was a "spit" of sand that extended far to the south. We could see the ocean waves breaking on the other side of the sand.

Parked at Twin Rocks.

 Our view out the front window.

 On our way to supper. We had salad, chicken strips, cauliflower and broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy. Desert was ice cream.

People were very friendly during supper and we look forward to getting to know the staff and other volunteers better. Tomorrow we have breakfast, at the Dining Hall, at 8 AM and after breakfast we will find out what we are going to work on. Sounds like Kathy will be helping with laundry. I don't have have a clue what I will be doing.

Good night and may God bless you and yours.

PS. I'm feeling better tonight, must have been the chicken <grin>.

May 1st - Sightseeing Coos Bay

We didn't do much on April 30th, mostly hung around the RV and rested.

Today we hit the sights. The day was partly cloudy with temperatures warm enough that I found a long sleeve shirt adequate while in the sun and walking. When it was drizzling rain, and we were in the shade/wind, a jacket felt really good.

The following photos are from a drive we took down south of the RV park.
It wasn't to cold for the hearty soul that is the speck in the center of this photo. He was standing on a "surf board" and using a long handled paddle to propel himself out into the bay and then he would "ride" a wave back in toward shore.

 We saw quite a few seals and sea lions. The sandy area in front of the large rock was covered with seals/sea lions. They were supposed to have pups but even the smallest ones looked pretty good sized.

We pulled of the road and decided to take a hike in the drizzle.

 We wanted to go down and look at this cove.

 Climbing back out. Can you find Kathy waving at you?

 Looking down on the cove from the trail above.

 Interesting rock formations

 The same rocks from a point further along the trail.

 The southern most rock in the above photos, the one on the left, is on the right edge of the photo below. The trail from which I took the first picture of the rocks is on the bluff in the center of this photo.

Next we drove down by one of harbors that are around the bay. The two photos below are just to give you an idea of the huge number of boats in the bay.

We stopped at Walmart to pick up a prescription and I had to take a photo of the raindrops falling on the windshield. Note the reflection form the sun in the bottom corner of the windshield. It was drizzling rain and yet the sun was brilliant. Small rain clouds would move in, drop some light rain, and move out. Often the clouds were so small that they didn't block much of the sun. 

 Next we stopped at a museum. This is a photo of a "steam spool donkey". This one was built in 1902 and was in use from 1905-1950. Large logs were pulled to a loading site using the cable wrapped around the spool. After a log was pulled to the site the cable was hooked to a horse and the horse drug the cable back out to the next log. Once an area was logged the donkey was "sledded" to a new location.

We then drove north out of town, over the Coos Bay Bridge, it is actually named the Conde McCullough bridge, after its designer. It was completed in 1936, has a main span of 793' and provides 150' of clearance for ships. The total length of the entire bridge is a little over a mile. See a better photos at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conde_McCullough_Memorial_Bridge and
http://www.bridgemeister.com/pic.php?pid=117

Below is a lousy photo I took while Kathy was driving across the bridge. I will try to get a better one tomorrow when we cross it in the RV. The arched cross section is cool.

 There is a large park in the center of Coos Bay, with 3 lakes. A wild guess would be that the total surface area of the the three lakes is 20-30 acres. There are very nice asphalt pathway all around the park. We took an hour long walk along some of them. Fortunately Kathy's sense of direction is much better than mine or the walk would have been much longer (I think I could get lost in Walmart <grin>).

After that we called it a day and headed home.
Tomorrow we plan to head for Rockaway Beach, OR. It is on the coast, about 50 miles south of the Oregon/Washington border.

Hope this makes sense. I wasn't sleeping well so I got up and wrote this, and did some other "computer stuff", in the wee hours. Now that it is daylight sleepiness is setting in. Good think Kathy doesn't mind driving, and that navigating won't be much of a problem since we just get on 101 and head north.