3-8-2017

3-8-17 Lake Quinault, Willaby Campground

It's spring break and I need a vacation.  Took the week off and we will take a long slow drive around Highway 101 on the peninsula. I had planned on the first night at Klaloch, but Lorena said we should check this place out.  It's a spectacular spot on the lake.  The water is glass smooth, there's a dusting of snow on the hills on the other side, there are loons.  It's very nice here.  Come summer and peak season I'm sure it will not be so pleasant.   We practically have the place to our selves.  Very strong winds closed the campground yesterday, but today it is calm.  Overcast, raining on and off, a little cold.  

Still getting about 9MPG. The auxiliary fuel tank is 16 gallons.  I filled it just in case, but doubt we will need it. The camper is condensing a lot in this weather.  Especially when I run the catalytic heater.  I should invest in a Fantastic Fan.  I Might be able to pull power from the AC run.  That might only have 110v though.  If so, I should be able to extend the power from the cigaret lighter.  

The boys are a bundle of energy and noise.  Teagan especially.  He has a noise for every event, and a running dialog to accompany it.  Mom says I was the same at that age. (What the hell happened to me since then?)

3/9/17 Klaloch campground

found a spot right on the ocean. Open the door and the pacific is right there. Lorena is a happy girl. Wandered up and down the beach.  Picked trash off the beach as well. Some of it with Japanese writing on it. We will stay two days here and wander up to Neah Bay. Weather was good all day. There's a pretty good rain here tonight.  It's a real luxury to have a camper. There are several tents here. All of them seem well prepared and know exactly how to handle the weather. We are very happy to have a warm dry camper with a heater. 

3/10/17 Klaloch campground

wandered and explored the beach and trails. It rained heavily last night and though the morning and early afternoon. The battery is about spent and the tanks about full. We will head north and look for a campsite with hookups to charge the battery.  Every tent camper got flooded out. Very happy to have the camper.

3/11/17 Mora Campground

Inland from the ocean a bit. Rather damp, but that's probably seasonal.  We walked up Rialto beach to Hole-in-the-Wall.  A good hike and great spectacle as a reward. The campground is reasonable as far as State Campgrounds go. The truck needed 1/2 quart of oil.  Fuel mileage is about 8mpg.  

3/12/17 Hobuck Campground

Privately owned.  Not very nice at all.  The cheap camping is in an open field.  The hookup sites are parking lot camping.  The upside is a great view of the ocean.  By this point the camper battery needs charging.  So we will fill up the water tank, dump the waste tanks, and plug in to charge the battery.  Tomorrow we will walk to the NW most point of the continental USA and look through the Makah museum.  Not sure where we will end up, but definitely not here.  Drove out to Lake Ozzet.  A hard, slow, winding drive.  The road is very uneven and bumpy. Rather punishing.  Fuel economy seems very poor. The campground was under 3 feet of water! Maybe in the summer it will be ok.  

3/13/17 Salt Creek Campground

We walked out to Cape Flattery this morning.  Farthest most Northwestern point in the continental USA.  An easy walk with a terrific view.  Filled up in one of the small towns on the way to Port Angeles.  My math says we got 10.1 MPG, which beats the hell out of the 8 from the previous top-off.  I'm rather surprised to see 10MPG, perhaps it was the 25 MPH for 3 hours on all those winding slow roads out to Ozzet, and the slow winding road to Neah Bay.  We took HWY 112 east to Port Angeles. What a punishing road.  Slow, winding, rough, lots of sharp corners, hills, and generally a heck of a work out for the truck.  We stopped to look at Lyre River campground.  It's maintained by a local Boy Scout group.  It's surprisingly good camping, and free! We continued on to Salt Creek.  It's not the best camping.  Typical State/county camping.  Sites are close together, but there are lots, and there are some reasonable sites with a great ocean view.  We decided to drive out to Heart-O-the-Woods, turns out its just within the Olympic national forest boundary, so $25 to get into the forest, then $20 a night to camp.  The drive up to it is 5 miles of steep up hill.  We must have gained 2000 feet of elevation in 5 miles.  It would have been cold, and we couldn't look at the campground before paying the fee.  So we went back to Salt Creek.  I think we will spend our last two nights here and work our way back to home on Saturday.  National Park entrance is free on Saturday, so we should go back and see how the campground is.  

3/14/17 Salt Creek Campground

I didn't have very high expectations for this place.  It's not terrible though.  The site are way too close together.  This time of year its not crowded or noisy, but I expect that to be very different in peak season.  For a quick weekend it would be tolerable. Oh, no booze allowed.  Opening of containers and consumption prohibited by ordinance.  What a bummer.  But what they don't know wont do any harm right?   I expect its used more as a reason to expel groups getting noisy and generally being obnoxious.  Tomorrow we go home.  We will make several stops at campgrounds on the way to see what our options are.  

It's been a good vacation.  We got to spend a lot of time at the ocean.  We saw Cape Flattery, did a lot of scouting for the kind of camping we like. The truck got a good workout, and get to know its quirks and abilities better.  We have more confidence in our ability to prepare and pack for a week away.  Bring more milk, less eggs. We started with 1/2 gallon of milk and 3 dozen eggs.  We stoped once for more milk, and still have 2 dozen eggs. We ran the catalytic heater a lot.  I'll weigh the tank and see how much was used and amend this.  The battery didn't last all week.  We ran the lights rather a lot, and only ran the truck for a few hours between campgrounds.  The battery never reached full charge. Also, the grey tank filled rather fast.  Emptied it twice so far, and will empty again tomorrow.  I really am not concerned about that.  We can always find a spot to dump when on the road.  At Priest Lake when we are stationary for a week straight we will need to be more disciplined.  I can always dump the grey tank into a bucket and dispose of it in the forest.  There's a dump station and fresh water at the visitors station too.  We will need to do some planning.  I'm very satisfied over all.  It's been a good vacation.

Amendment 10-20-2017

Used about a full tank of LP for the week.  Not bad considering we ran the catalytic every morning and evening.