May 10 - Saturday
The sun was shining again when we got up the next morning. I crossed my fingers that it might warm up a bit. I played with my agates/rocks and put them in the brandy snifter and put my little pieces of driftwood in the basket. The basket fit just right on top of my little bear that I had bought up at Rustic. He is holding his paw up in the air so it looks like he is holding the basket up over his head. It looks really cute. The agates/rocks look neat in the snifter.
Glen got out the water jug and made a few trips to the water faucets to fill up the fresh water tank. While he was doing that, I got on the ladder and washed the windows on the trailer. The road grime makes them so dirty and since we spend so much time in the trailer I like to see out the windows.
Glen grilled hamburgers outside on the grill for lunch. They were so yummy. I am buying a pound and a half of ground meat at time and mixing it with onion soup mix and then dividing it into six patties. I then wrap the patties in wax paper and put them in zip lock baggies by two�s. That way whenever we want to have burgers I just pull a packet out of the freezer. It sure is nice not to have to clean up a mess each time and they are so much better than the patties that are already frozen.
After lunch I took a nap and Glen replaced the brakes on the front of the van. He really enjoyed doing that and it saved us a little money. He said the old ones were still okay for a while but he wanted to put some lifetime guaranteed brakes on. He said it made him feel better about all the hills that we were climbing. I think it made me feel better, too.
The sun stayed out the rest of the day and it was so nice. The temperature finally got up to 61 and we were able to have the front door open. Some tent campers came in and set up camp a little ways down from us. I am looking forward to a little more activity in the parks. I just hope I don�t regret those words.
May 11 � Sunday
Happy Mother�s Day!
The skies were overcast and rainy looking so we went ahead and brought in the slide out since we were going to leave the next day. First Glen went out and swept off all the pine needles and pinecones, though. We brought in the slide and then had to wipe it down with a towel. Even though it hadn�t rained the day before there was still a lot of moisture on the roof. It seems to take a long time for things to dry in this humidity.
We hopped in the car and headed down the highway to find a place where we could use the phone. We had to go about four miles and found a spot with three analog. We called the girls and talked to them for quite a while. They seemed to be doing good and the big news was that it had snowed quite a bit on Saturday. Steffy said the daffodils were just starting to bloom in Laramie and Emily was having a hard time getting to mow her lawn because of all the moisture. I just hope it helps with the drought situation.
After talking to the girls we decided to celebrate Mother�s Day at She-She�s Caf� in Gasquet a small community just about 5 miles from the campground on Hwy 199. It was a cute little place painted pink and gray with a flamingo theme. The specialty of the house was the She-She Burger, which was a cheeseburger on a French roll and fries. Glen and I split one of those and I had a vanilla malt and Glen had a strawberry malt. It was a fun place to eat. All the locals were coming in and just standing around talking and you could tell it is the �place� to be on a Sunday afternoon. One fellow said that his parents had driven into Brookings, which is about 30 miles north up in Oregon, to do their grocery shopping. We were curious about that but didn�t think to ask.
After lunch I called Mom and talked to her and Dad. They too seem to be having unusually cool weather. It was fun talking to everyone and it was good to learn what was going on out in the real world. Mom said that they hadn�t caught Saddum yet.
After we got home we pulled in the awning and kind of worked a little on leaving the next day. After it started getting dark we plugged in the Honda and watched an old movie called San Francisco with Clark Gable. I had seen it before but really enjoyed watching it again. It is one of those old movies that never gets old.
May 12 � Monday
We headed to Oregon but didn�t have to go very far before we took a picture of the Welcome to Oregon sign. We only drove a few more miles and we turned off on Winchuck River Road and drove up to the Winchuck Campground. It was 9 miles up the Winchuck River in the Siskiyou National Forest.
We were a little concerned at first because the roads in the campground were very narrow and covered with pine needles. We tried the first loop on the right hand side of the road and didn�t find a spur that our trailer would fit in very well but then we drove across the road and checked out the loop on the left had side and found a great site. It was site number 6 and it was even a pull through. Our site was situated just several yards above the river and we could see it easily from our front windows. We found out that the campground had only opened just a few days before and that was why it was cluttered with pine needles and didn�t look used. While we were setting up a van pulled up into the site above us and several high school age kids got out with rakes and yellow hard hats. They were on a school field trip and as part of their biology class they clean up the campgrounds each year. I thought that was such a great idea.
We decided we couldn�t stand to wait another day to see what Brookings was like so we heading back down Winchuck Road to check it out. We found the Chamber of Commerce and talked to the nice fellow there for a while. He seemed to want to find out more about us than we could ask about Brookings but he gave us a nice map and some tourist info and we headed out to see the sights.
The Chamber of Commerce was in the harbor area and it was really beautiful to see all the fancy boats and yachts docked there. The Brookings Harbor is a lot different than the harbor in Crescent City. The Crescent City harbor was a working harbor for fishermen but the Brookings harbor which was three times bigger was more touristy and fancier with a lot of pretty plantings and a boardwalk with beautiful lights and ocean type decorations. It was fun seeing both kinds.
As we were leaving the Chamber of Commerce we saw there were lots of RV�s parked around back in the parking lot. It looked like some kind of RV show so we headed over that way and I spotted a fellow hooking up a fifth wheel to his truck. I asked him what was going on and he said that they had had and RV show over the weekend and he was taking all their rigs back up to Grant�s Pass! I was so disappointed that we had missed it but it was fun talking to the fellow. He said he would be glad to deliver any of the 5th wheels to my home and when I told him Laramie, Wyoming he kind of blinked a couple of times and then laughed and said he would deliver there, too.
We left there and drove on through the town of Brookings. They don�t have a Wal-Mart but they do have a store called Fred Meyer. It is just like Wal-Mart and has the grocery part so we are going to do our grocery shopping there before we leave the area. They have Fred Meyer�s all over the northwest. I guess that is why they don�t have any Super Wal-Marts in Oregon.
We were looking for a library so we could look up some information about agates but we got side tracked and found an Oregon State Information and Rest Stop. I went in and got all kinds of great info about the Oregon Sand Dunes Recreation Area, which is where we are going next, and also a great magazine called Mile by Mile of the Oregon Coast. It tells what is located at each milepost as you drive the Oregon Coast and has a small map of each major city. It is one of the best resources that I have seen for a tourist brochure. We also found out that there is a free dump station at the rest stop!
I had asked the lady at the rest stop about an easy beach access and she had told us of one right up the road so we headed up there. It was so beautiful and we got there at low tide so we had a wonderful time exploring around the huge rocks and the tide pools. It was so amazing to see what the water had left on the beach. There were starfish everywhere clinging to the rocks. We didn�t see them at first but then as we knew what to look for we kept saying �oh my gosh.. here is another one.. and another one.. here are three right together!� There were mussels all over the rocks and Glen said the starfish were feeding on them. Badger sure likes the beach. She really kicks up here heels and explores every nook and cranny.
Glen and I enjoyed picking up rocks. We didn�t make it to the library so we still didn�t know what an agate looked like but we sure enjoyed picking up rocks that we thought were pretty. We found a dead starfish that we added to our collection. Steffy is supposed to be researching �how to preserve a starfish� for us on the internet. We are going to call her on Wednesday. We didn�t want to leave the beach but we were afraid that we were getting sunburned so we headed back to the car and made our way back home.
Stay tuned for more....