Solo life on 30 amps - Living full time in an RV: Boring Oregon (east of Portland)

Destination number: 100/180/38

I don't think I had taken a week off work since before the Pandemic started. Yes, I had made a four-month road trip through the southwest earlier this year, but each of those weeks, I worked at least 4 days out of the week since I'm the only GIS professional for CDCR. This last week though, I took a week off (yes, I did have one meeting I had to attend virtually) and went up to Boring Oregon to meet up with a friend of mine who had just bought her first RV. This is a trip that I had been looking forward to for sometime. Of course there were also sorts of possible activities to occupy our time with, the main focus of the trip was to help my friend Jami with some problems she had with her trailer, get them resolved and get her some experience driving her car and towing her new trailer.

My departure point for this trip was to leave Chico California and make the 600 mile trip to this suburb of Portland. Though I'm always game for what we called in the Blue Devils an "Iron Bottom Special" where it seems like you will never get out of the drivers seat, my route was going to take me right through Phoenix Oregon where my sister Karen and brother-in-law Mike live. I always relish any opportunity I have to get together and visit with them, and this trip would be no different. There is an RV park called the "Southern Oregon RV Park" in Central Point that I love to stay at. So, with an overnight destination in mind, I headed out early on Sunday Morning from Chico and arrived around 1:30 in the afternoon Sunday to the park. On my way into the park, I spotted a COVID vaccine location that was open. Actually, I come up to this part of Oregon a couple times a month so I knew it was there. I was just glad that it was open on a Sunday so I could get my second booster as well as a PCR test (which came back negative by the way). After the rig was set up, I got boosted and then headed to dinner with Karen and Mike. We met up for a very tasty dinner at one of our favorite chains... "Outback Steakhouse". After the early dinner I returned to the Motorhome and took Remi for a leisurely walk around the park to enjoy the large water features that they have at the park.

On Monday the 6th I got up again early and Remi and I hit the road up to Boring Oregon. The trip up to Barton Campground was un-eventful and the motorhome and Jeep combination performed flawlessly. Once I had the Motorhome parked and leveled up, I headed just across the Columbia River Gorge to Vancouver Washington to meet up with Jami, her sister Shannon and her spouse Terri. Jami actually lives in Albuquerque New Mexico. She has been in search of a small trailer for sometime that she could pull with her Jeep Cherokee. In the first picture below, take note of the water level in the pond adjacent to the Allegro Bus... there is an interesting story to come later in the blog.

The trailer had come up for sale not far from Shannon's house in Vancouver so Shannon went to check it out. Well, the sales guy couldn't get any of the propane appliances to work so he took over $1,000 off the price of the rig so as to facilitate any repairs that might be needed. Well, it turned out that the rig had not had a propane tank in place for sometime and corrosion had set in on the regulator on the outside of the trailer. Shannon and Terri replaced the regulator and got the stove and furnace to work but could not get the water heater or the refrigerator to work. Fortunately, since I was pretty familiar with these appliances, I was able to get them both up and running in fairly short order. 😁 With all the major appliances up and running, it was time to get Jami out for some drive time. Initially, Jami had a reasonable amount of anxiety about operating a car with a trailer behind it, primarily because she had never done so before. But after a few 2 hour sessions, Jami was feeling a lot more comfortable pulling the trailer and though not a complete pro at backing the trailer into a spot, she was comfortable enough that she was starting to figure out how to do it and how to determine when things were not going well and how to get past many of the challenges she was facing.

Though most of the week was occupied with helping Jami with her new trailer, there were other activities as well. I got to see "Top Gun - Maveric", which was the first time I had been in a movie theater since the Pandemic upended our lives. The movie was great! If you are looking for a little mindless entertainment with action and a sprinkling of romance thrown in for good measure, this is a great movie to see. I also had numerous opportunities to explore the Barton Campground and Park. They have a number of ponds that are used for water management and the Clackamas river borders one side of the park. On Friday the 10th of June, we had over 2 and half inches of rain from an atmospheric river that came through. Here are some pictures of the park. Notice that the pond adjacent to the motorhome had it's water level increase significantly due to all the rain we had. Also, we had so much rain that it somehow leaked into the front bays of the motorhome and I had to pull the gear out of the front bays so the carpet would dry and not mildue.

In a unique combination of something old and something new, this park had it all. I am always amazed at mother nature and how you get to see new growth on trees, especially fir trees by seeing the new green needles where there has been recent growth. And also down in the day use part of the Barton park, they had a little show and shine event going on Saturday the 11th.