CRANBERRIES, KITES AND JAKE THE ALLIGATOR MAN

in the land of kites

Another rainy drive up the coast brings us to Long Beach, WA. We are staying at another 1000 Trails preserve.  This was not our first, second or third choice of locations. It is the only place on our route that we could book with less than 60 days notice over the 4^th of July.  The positive thing about this park is the location.  There is a walking trail to the beach that intersects with the Discovery Trail, a paved walking and bike path that runs north and south through the dunes.  The town of Long Beach is only a few miles north, and Astoria, Oregon is a half hour drive to the south.  Real fireworks (not the sissy safe and sane ones) are legal here so we will be able to enjoy the professional display in Long Beach and the anarchy of individuals blowing up the beach.  Woo Hoo!

The not so positive, is everything else. Crowded doesn’t even begin to describe this place. Someone in the past had the bright idea to double the occupancy on the cheap. They split the sites and changed the utilities to service 4 spots from one hook-up location.  That leaves half of the visitors hooked up on the wrong side, and it being a holiday week, only wrong side hookups are available. Our view from the dining area is the ass of a huge diesel pusher and the first must-do is to drive into town and purchase 20 additional feet of sewer hose.  

The park has Wi-Fi (available only in their micro trailer/clubhouse) and one evening, while checking e-mail and waiting for our laundry to dry, we meet Sandy, who has just completed a three-month tour as a docent at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center.  She is a veritable wealth of information on the history of the area and we are fascinated. Turns out she also spends time in Yellowstone every year and gives us a lot of tips about the park.  Then we discover that she will be staying in the same campground where we are booked, this coming September.  We look forward to seeing her again.

Foraging is pretty good here on the peninsula.  We find really fresh (as in picked an hour before) baby greens, a tasty loaf of banana bread, strawberries, raspberries, black berries and fresh veggies at the Friday Farmers Market in Long Beach, fresh roasted Sumatra beans from the Long Beach Coffee Roasters and more veggies and some tasty BBQ sauce from Big Daddy’s at the Saturday Market in Ilwaco.  Another week of fine dining on fresh regional products and our taste buds are happy.

It rains on and off all week and we find that there is a lot to do here both in and out of doors.

The town of Long Beach has an old fashioned feel with hi-tech sensibilities. This is a walking beach community at the western end of the Lewis and Clark Trail. Nineteen QR codes are posted throughout the town and a quick scan with our QR reader app gives us information about historical sites of interest. (Very Cool!)

Jake

two headed calf

A must do item on our list-o attractions is to visit Marsh’s Free Museum. Marsh’s sets the bar for roadside attractions. This is an uber collection of the weird and unusual merged with a novelty/souvenir store. We spend well over an hour taking photos and gawking at odd inventions, giant cooking utensils, strange taxidermy and the piece de resistance of The Weekly World News fame, drum roll please… JAKE THE ALLIGATOR MAN!

Columbia Maritime Museum

Of course, there are the other museums.  In Astoria we visit the fascinating Columbia River Maritime Museum.  We tour the Columbia Lightship; learn about the economic importance of the river and the dangers of the bar where the Columbia meets the Pacific.  There is also a current special exhibit of fifteenth through seventeenth century maps that have never been seen outside of Europe.

cranberry bogs

In Long Beach we visit two museums. The Cranberry Museum (yes there really is one) is located at the north end of town and is part of the Pacific Cranberry Research Foundation.  We do a self-guided tour of the cranberry bogs and learn a lot about production and cultivation. 

Japanese Kite

The World Kite Museum and Hall of Fame is located at the south end of town.  They have a great collection of kites from around the world, including military kites, used for gunnery practice and one that could shear wings off of WWII planes with the piano wire that was used to fly it.

We drive through Cape Disappointment State Park stopping to view the incredible scenery.

On the first sunny day we pull out and unfold the Montague bikes. (finally) We ride for nine miles through the dunes along the discovery trail.

In Ilwaco harbor we chance upon an inspector checking for clipped salmon and scanning sport fishermen’s catch. This is a nice follow up of our visit to Trask Hatchery where we witnessed clipping and learned about data implants in hatchery salmon.

Painted Lady

Also in Ilwaco, we stop at The Painted Lady Lavender Farm.  This is a family affair. Daughter, Sherry Housley AKA The Butterfly Lady gives us an in-depth, guided tour of the edible gardens and quaint outbuildings created and decorated by her parents Dwight and Susan (the youngest seventy year old we have ever met) Wallace. Sherry also proudly points out the beautiful iron gates, fencing and furniture created by her brother. They invite us to come back in a week for a gypsy music concert, but unfortunately we will be leaving on July 5^th. 

this is one scary clown

in the parade

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Our final day in this location is the 4^th of July, (second sunny day in over a week for those who are keeping track.)  At noon, we drive about 11 miles north to Ocean Park and witness a true small town 4^th of July parade complete with politicians, police, fire fighters, belly dancers, kids on red white and blue festooned bicycles, clowns, a marching band and the local shopping cart drill team. And finally, fireworks on the beach.

Now for the bad news... On our pre trip inspection, we discover a huge dent in the middle of the back, under the center running light. @%#&*$!!!  So we call our insurance and notify them of the mystery dent. Looks like we’ll be doing more than sightseeing in the near future.

And so ends our sojourn along the pacific coast, now we make a hard right turn and head east.

Click here for more Photos.

Adventures of Dave and Dimples vol 1.5

THE ADVENTURES OF DAVE AND DIMPLES VOL 1.4

THE ADVENTURES OF DAVE AND DIMPLES VOL 1.3

THE ADVENTURES OF DAVE AND DIMPLES VOL. 1.2

A NEW YEAR

We welcomed in 2011, heads bursting with information but no truck and no Airstream.  Weather had caused delays for both. The Airstream arrived first in mid January.  (Figures.)  We arranged to have Solar panels and gel batteries installed before pick up.  That bought us a week.  The Truck arrived at the end of January.  We were finally ready to pick up and hook up!

So on a rainy Saturday morning at the end of January we headed down to Los Banos for the "ultimate hook up." The folks at Toscano showed us all the features and instructed us how everything works.  They installed the Reese Hitch and back up camera.    

Our first night spent in our Airstream was in the parking lot of Toscano RV.  It was still raining.  After sunset, we opened the rear awning, and set up our two snazzy Zip-Dee-Airstream lawn chairs.  We shot a champagne cork over the cyclone fence into the adjacent vacant lot, filled two crystal flutes and toasted to our new life. 

We all have those moments in our lives where everything is right in the world.  Well, sitting behind OUR beautiful new Airstream Classic, sipping Champagne, listening to the rain on the awning and watching the lights of the cars on Highway 152 beyond the vacant lot through a cyclone fence was one of those moments.  Who’d a thunk?

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IT STARTED WITH A TRAFFIC JAM...

on the 101 freeway heading out of Los Angeles. 

We were returning from a glorious week on Catalina Island where we celebrated Chris’ 60^th birthday.  Up until this moment, we were relaxed and refreshed after seven perfect days spent exploring the island, photographing buffalos in the interior, eating out, listening to music and just chilling in the beautiful ocean front condo.

Now, here we sat on the 101.  Inching forward toward our lives back in Sacramento.  Why?

That evening, after we eventually made it to Pismo Beach, we talked over dinner.  The traffic jam still fresh in our minds was more than a mere inconvenience.  It was a metaphor for our lives.  Trapped by commitments to our employers and held hostage by our posessions.  The thought of inching towards retirement in another five or six or maybe more years was no longer an option. We needed a plan!

Earlier during the heady Dot Com days, we dreamed of cashing in stock options and taking off around the world in a catamaran.  But we all know how that turned out.  So now what?

We started a methodical list of questions.  The first two had easy answers. What do we like to do? Travel.  How do we most like to travel? Road trips. Then it got tougher. How can we afford to do this?  Do we have enough savings? How do we feel about RV’s and our perceptions of that lifestyle?  Is a “land yacht” as sexy and romantic as the sleek catamaran of our dreams?  One word kept bouncing into my mind, “Airstream.”

Over the next few weeks, major decisions were made and everything started to take shape.   We would liquidate everything we didn’t need.  This included the house and all of the furnishings.  We would retire early and see all the parts of North America that we have ignored. (Pretty much everything away from the coasts.)  It felt right and I had to continually suppress my urge to shout “ROAD TRIP” and high five Chris.

We went to a couple of RV shows, and looked at the Diesel Pushers, Travel Trailers and Fifth Wheels. Nothing really did it for us.  We called our kids and received a less that positive reaction, Oh well they’ll come around.  We visited our aunt and uncle up in Redding who had traveled extensively in their 40ft Diesel pusher.  Asked a lot of questions and received enough information to spin our brains.  Finally we drove down to Toscano RV in Los Banos and looked at the Airstreams.  YES! This is what we want!

And so the research began.  We discovered the Airstream Forums and combed through the posts trying to wrap our heads around all the information needed to make this a reality. Chris started researching tow vehicles.  In his methodical and oh so Chris way, he narrowed down the choice and decided on a GMC, ¾ ton diesel with 4WD fully loaded.  Concurrently, I reviewed models and floor plans of the new airstreams.  Being avid DIYers, normally we would be more inclined to purchase a vintage model and do a complete update, but time and logistics were not in our favor for this type of project.  The 27ft FB model looked like it would meet our needs; large enough to carry us and our necessary stuff yet small enough to keep us from getting back on the consumer treadmill and acquiring too much stuff.  Although we preferred the interior finish of the lower priced Safari and the International, the Classic won out due to heavier suspension and larger water capacity. We also discovered Indoor Valet RV Storage close to our home. We could get the truck and trailer first.  Take some time to learn how to use them and keep working on our plan.  (Always knowing that we could change our minds, back out and call this an expensive experiment.)

In early October we ordered the Truck, It was scheduled to arrive before the end of the year.  The day we placed this order we visited an Airstream Rally up in Jackson, CA. The Nor Cal Airstream group was welcoming, informative and entertaining. That was it… we now had Aluminitis.  We didn’t know how serious this infliction was until we woke the following morning.  The usual Sunday morning question popped up, “What do you want to do today?” The answer was obvious.

“Go look at Airstreams again.”

“Just look again?”

 “Right, just look!”

We headed back down to Los Banos, and by 3:00 PM we were placing the order for our shiny new home.  It would arrive around the beginning of the year. Perfect!

Now that the Tow Vehicle and Trailer were taken care of, we could concentrate on the rest of our exit strategy… Let the research begin!
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