4-8-2023

4-8-2023 Seaside RV Resort (Thousand Trails)

It’s spring break and this year we are traveling down the Oregon Coast.  Keltik  and Sean were going to meet us in Seaside and spend the weekend with us, but their plans changed and it’s just Keltik for Saturday.  

This place is pretty typical parking lot camping.  You can reach out and touch your neighbors.  It’s also very wet.  It’s been raining all day and the place is a swamp. It’s also far enough from the ocean to be a rather long walk.  Not great camping.  We will move to Beverly Beach Monday.  That should be better.  

We bought a new camper.  With my performance bonus we were able to buy a new 2022 Palomino HS2902. We took delivery last weekend and I’ve spent the whole week working on it and packing.  The build quality isn’t spectacular. It’s a nice camper with a slide, more room in general, but the sleeping arrangement on the dinette is pretty small.  There is quite a bit more floor space with the slide so one of the boys will sleep on the floor when they can’t use tents.  It’s surprising what I needed to work on.  One of the speakers had a bad connection.  The bathroom door had no lock.  There was no privacy curtain on the bunk.  The cabinet above the sink is really large, but a ton of wasted space.  I put a shelf in and the split the vertical space and it’s much more efficient. The porch light stopped working the first day.

4-9-2023

1.3 inches of rain today.   Wind is blowing pretty good too.  A perfect day to walk into town.  My rain gear is good enough for this, but the boys either don’t have great rain gear or didn’t bring it, or in Teagans case, refused to layer up.  He was cold, wet, and miserable. Its about a 2 mile walk to get to downtown.  We stopped at the aquarium.  Small.  A coffee shop for the boys to get a hot drink.  Teagan was very cold by this point.  An arcade for them to get a workout, get the blood pumping and warm them up.  There’s a pretty good theater, brewery, burger joint.  They make beer, root beer, and cream soda.  They did a great job all around.  The wind was to our backs on the walk back so wasn’t as bad as the walk in.  After all that Teagan wanted to go swimming in the pool. Guess he needs to burn off even more energy.

4-10-2023 Beverly Beach State Park

It has rained all day.  Our gear was very wet so we stopped at a laundromat in Lincoln City to dry as much out as we could. This park is mostly empty. Lots of flooded sites.  

Lorena really clocked herself good on the corner of the slide out. I banged my head on it several times breaking down camp this morning.  You would think after a while I’d remember it was there.  I need to find a pool noodle to put on the corners when the slide is out.  It’s right at face level. 

4-11-2023 

It rained like a monsoon last night, then the sun came out this morning.  We went down to the beach after breakfast for low tide.  At camp this afternoon a couple came in with a smaller camper and spent 20 minutes arguing with each other about how to back the trailer in.  It took them an hour to finally get the camper situated and leveled.  I get the appeal of larger living space for camping, but really… the pickup and slide in camper are trouble enough. Contrast that with the neighbors who just pulled in next door.  Took 2 tries, not a word said between the driver and the spotter, except when the camper was in the right spot and they said stop.  Made it look easy.  

4-12-23

This place is pretty big.  A lot more sites than it first appears.  Quite a few with power and water, many in the first couple of loops with sewer hookup too.  The dry sites are hit and miss as far as how level they are and what kind of privacy there is.  Some real gems hidden in here.  A large number that would be good if you really liked your neighbors. 

There was an Airstream trailer that stopped at the entrance with wheel problems yesterday.  Looked like the bearing went bad.  Eventually a Les Schwab service truck showed up and worked on in for a couple hours.  When we walked by there this morning it was still there minus a tire and tore down to the spindle.  They cooked the bearing and the spindle.  They eventually got moved today.  Sounded like Les Schwab didn’t expect the parts till tomorrow and they patched it together as well as they could to move it to Newport. Preventive maintenance is a thing.  Makes me feel better about spending weeks before a trip triple checking every inch of gear, equipment, and vehicle.

4-13-2023 Bullards Beach State Park

We got a Yurt for Matt and Misha so they could camp with us a couple days.  Misha is working today but will join us tomorrow.  Matt is flying solo with the kids in the meantime.  Haven’t seen much of the camp so far.  The site we are in has reasonable privacy from the neighbors.  Rather a long walk from the beach though.  1.3 miles to walk there.  I’ve about had it with walking.  I’m out of shape, old, and can’t manage a week of this level of activity.  

4-15-2023 Lacomb

Was really good to spend some time with Matt and the grandkids. We picked up some agates on the beach and accomplished little else. We drove part way home today and stopped at Lorena’s cousin in Lacomb to break the drive up into more manageable chunks. We will drive the rest of the way home in the morning and sign off on a successful first trip in the new camper.  

Uneventful drive home.  Unloading the camper is a breeze with the electric jacks.  Simple, fast, very easy.  Now I wish I had a lighter tonneau cover for the bed.  It’s great, looks very nice, can hold 400 lbs.  Weighs enough that when I’m tired I need the boys to help me.  Maybe I can get a second light weight one for the on season.  Very satisfied with the camper over-all and the truck performs very well with the additional weight.