LINCOLN CITY AND CHINOOK BEND CAMPGROUND in OREGON

Friday's moving day arrived and we drove on south to Lincoln City and located our campground south of the city, surrounded by mountains. It was a pretty setting, but to our dismay we do not have cell service, thus no computer Internet or phones!! This was one home on the road to the campground located along Siletz River. Wouldn't it be lovely to live along the water year around? Well, maybe not when the snow flies or when they feel the high water results of a Tsunami!! This is the office for the campground and their mini falls. They do have wi-fi, at times. They also serve breakfast on Sunday morning. Driving back the long lane to the actual camping area, this is the view. Some of the hill tops have been logged out, but the beauty is still there. The Siletz River runs along between the hills and the campground. Home at last! And this is one of our neighbors! There is a small marina here also, and many boats launched for fishing. It must be good fishing! Going out to the highway, we can see where this river empties out into the big bay right along the ocean. Saturday we went in to Lincoln City to do laundry and to use the computer at the library which had much faster computer service. While in there we also checked out the Chinook Winds Casino and ate lunch there at their buffet. Mistake!!! Too much food for us!!! This was the weekend for try-outs for Wheel of Fortune!! My hair-do looks like Traficant, from the winds!! We were going to try-out for the show to be filmed in Portland. We even got into this line which was moving quite fast, but then we chickened out!! We just could not see ourselves jumping up and down and screaming to win!! It would have been nice to see what their process is and maybe go home with a prize that they were giving away that day. Maybe next time!! Even the RVers were parked in the upper Casino lots. The beach just beyond the Casino and the condominiums was looking a little rougher. The winds were stronger than when we first arrived in Lincoln City. Then the rains rolled in for a couple days. Our next outing was after the rain. When driving on south to Depoe Bay, we stopped to take pictures of the tides. Some change, huh? Take care!!

OREGON COAST -3

On Wednesday we started along the coast north, almost to the Columbia River, to see Ft. Stevens Military Reservation, a National Historic site built in 1862. Gary had wanted to see this since first arriving in the Portland area. So better late than never!! On the road we followed another camper (?) also going up the highway. I am guessing that his camper was more the bargain than ours was!! Arriving at Ft. Stevens, we had nearly an hour to look around before their guided tour. So Gary and I covered much of the ground checking out the main historical remains of the fort. This fort was used beginning before the Civil War through and beyond WWII, to guard the mouth of the Columbia River. It is a matter of record that the Japanese followed fishing boats into this area looking for what they suspected was a military operation of our country. They fired from their submarine toward our shore, making one hit, but we did not return fire in order not to give away our location. Jetties were later built in this area, which then changed the land at the mouth of the Columbia River. This makes the fort appear to have been facing the river than the Pacific, as it did originally. This gun was in the museum along with a replica layout of the fort. When tour time came, I opted to visit the rose garden at the fort rather than ride on the wood planks along the inside of this truck!! Gary did learn much more during the narrated tour and was glad to have gone. But I also enjoyed the roses!! Leaving the fort, we drove to the dunes and beach where the "Peter Iredale" ship wreck remains, pretty well buried by the sand. We had the feeling that we interrupted a drinking party, but not to worry as we would not be there too long!! Same ship, different view, with other parts of the ship projected from the sand. Heading back south along Hwy 101, we stopped at a lookout to take pictures again, looking south, and looking north. This fellow kept hanging around, evidently looking for a handout!! I did manage to find an oats and honey bar to share with him. We had to spend Thursday at home waiting for an RV serviceman to check out our loss of electric power from "new" batteries that had been installed in Portland. It turned out that there were fuses in a converter that we did not know about, that had blown. Had we known that, Gary could have fixed it. In fact, he had to later anyway, as the serviceman had not put the new fuses in properly and they fried!! Oh well, all is well that ends well?? Friday we are to move on. Stay with us.

OREGON COAST - 2

Tuesday morning we began a drive on side roads along Netarts Bay which lies between our campground and the Pacific, stopping to take pictures of the tranquil water. It was so peaceful looking and yet so awesome!! Leaving the bay behind we came to sand dunes that were quite high along the highway. However, we did not know the half of it!! After climbing the dunes at roadside, we certainly did not expect the sand fields to go on for what looked like miles!! We dawdled the time away to lunch and stopped at a little cafe' along Hwy 101 in Pacific City where we split the most delicious cheeseburger and fries!! One of our goals for the day was to find Munson Creek Falls south of Tillamook. We found the road back to the falls to be quite narrow. Hoping that we would not meet any oncoming traffic, we followed this Class C motor home. It was a beautiful wooded area. You can see that we were not the only ones to see the falls. It is always nice to meet someone wanting to have their picture taken together. That way we can get them to reciprocate. The falls are 266 feet in height and quite beautiful. Not too bad a trek either!! Then leaving the falls, we journey to the north side of town looking for Lattimer Quilt and Textile Center. Again we were trying to follow Freddy the GPS instructions. Not wise!! Finally with our nose leading, we found this remote location. It was awesome and brought much of the research time to mind that we had done for our son, Victor's Eagle Scout project back in 1989. He restored a loom (which appeared to be just a pile of wood) that the Salem Historical Society had in their basement. The lady behind this counter could relate to Vic's project and wants some pictures, that we will get when back home. I will email them to here after I get them scanned into the computer. Her son had to do two projects before getting his Eagle. It seemed that something went array in paperwork not being signed properly and in the correct time line on the first project. So rather than buck the system, he suggested another project and learned his lesson to make sure that things are in order when working on something so important. Stay tuned for day three along the northwest Oregon coast.

OREGON COAST

Leaving Portland, we drove to McMinnville to spend the day at the Evergreen Aeronautics Museum, home of the Spruce Goose. That is, we parked in their lot after we got past their vineyards and Gary spent several hours in the Museums. During his time in the museums I drove in to town and got a hair cut and visited a Goodwill store that I found right next door to the beauty shop. I have never seen such a busy GW!!! I did find camera cases to store our new GPS in. We went back to town later to eat at Pizza Hut. I have been longing for that for quite a while. Then on Sunday we went to Newburg Friends Church to meet up with friends, Dick and Linda. We also got to say "Hello" to Warren. Afterward we stopped for lunch at Dick and Linda's before moving on to Tillamook. Linda was willing to get out the games to spend some time together, but we felt that we should get the driving done!! After the problems that we had with directions while on the road, it was a good thing that we did get an early start!! Not sure how we feel about this GPS that tells us to turn right when we should have turned left!! We will test it out a few more times before we are sure that we want to rely on it!! Gary and Dick had visited this Museum in 2005 when there was just the one building that housed the huge wooden air ship, the Spruce Goose, built by Howard Hughes for use during WWII. He was to have built three but the war ended before the second and third ones were built. Just after the war ended, he flew it once in order to get his payment from the government. You can see the Spruce Goose tail fin from outside through the window, but the plane is so large that Gary was not able to take one picture to show the entire ship. He did take pictures both inside and outside of it so you can see the features and magnitude of it. They have planes sitting outside of the buildings as well as some military tanks. Pictures taken inside the Spruce Goose: Crew's Lounge Cockpit Inside picture looking toward the tail. The door at the end is 4' 6" with 30 feet of storage beyond the door! Since 2005 they have added three more buildings to this Museum, the Space Museum , and IMAX Theatre and the Water slide building. The slides begin in the plane sitting on the roof of the building. I heard at the beauty shop that the ticket for one child is $25 for the day, and of course adults are more. Thus she says that she has not visited this!! But there are plans to add a Resort to the complex in the near future. This particular Saturday they were having a model plane show in the main museum, with many models on sale. They also had many model size displays and a Boy Scout display. Vern, I thought that you would get a kick out of this!! After I returned from my trip to town, I watched the farmer running the disc in his fields in back of the parking lot. They ran two tractors though out the night to get it finished! I've heard that a farmer's work is never done, but I imagine that it is better done late in order to keep the dust down. Leaving McMinnville, our next stop was Netarts Bay, about six miles west of Tillamook, Oregon. Again we had some interesting experiences with the new GPS, not all pleasant. Freddy sure could not tell his left from his right!!! On Monday, driving the country coastal roads, we found some lovely views along the Bay. WE drove on to the Cape Meares Lighthouse. While there we got to talk with the volunteers to hear their experiences with the work, since we will be doing this at Cape Blanco for the month of October. Then on to Tillamook to visit their cheese factory and test taste the cheeses and some ice cream. Sorry Pearl, they do not have the black walnut flavor any longer.

Our last stop for the day was the Tillamook Air Museum that was the only remaining blimp hanger from 1942, a part of the WWII operation on the northwest coast.

Many of the planes housed here are still fully functional and flown occasionally.

The weather was great!! This was a busy week of sight seeing, and we have only shown you a part of what we did. So stay tuned!!

When we find locations where we have wi-fi or cell reception, we will continue to show it all to you. I tried to write the Blogs in Word and then transfer them to Blogspot, but it did not work. So I started from scratch today and then re-typed the information. It didn't take too long, but I will know not to bother with Word for the pictures, only the written information in the future.