Archives for 2014

Got out early this morning, as I wanted to get to Whitefish fairly early in the day, but, of course, the best laid plans... Our first stop was at the Salem Post Office, where supposedly I had a contract waiting for me at the General Delivery there, but no one could find it, even though it had been sent a week ago. One clerk there was kind enough to take my phone number and call me if they get it, and I gave her the address of the next post office to where we would be going, Crescent, OR. That killed an hour. Since that was just up the road from a Walmart, we decided to get our shopping done now rather than later, that killed almost another hour. Then we stopped at Camping World north of Eugene to dump and ask about parts, that was another 30 minutes gone. One final stop at a 76 station, where my credit card stopped working after it's second run-through (because of the station's system, not my CC), and then it wouldn't take my bank debit card for some unknown reason, and despite phone calls to both, it was all centered on the station's system, not my cards. We ended up having to pay cash for the final tank of generator gas (thank goodness it was only 5 gallons), before we hit the road, having wasted almost another hour, swearing I'd never stop at a 76 station again (which I hadn't done for decades anyway, but this clinched it, again). So by the time we finally got to Whitefish, it was after 3:00, almost two hours behind my estimated schedule. We found our spot, which was large enough, but not exactly level, so we had to put some boards under the back truck tires to get some semblance of being level. Hubby wasn't able to get the satellite dish set up because of the trees, so he was a less than happy camper, he gets pretty frustrated when he can't figure these things out. We also spent a lot of time transferring water, because the spigots here are the kind with a spring handle and no threads, so we had to get out the bungies, the sump pump, and the rain barrels, and spent another hour plus to fill those up, as well as the RV, so that we would be good with water for at least 4-5 days (unless I do laundry, which I'll probably wait until later in the week to do). In any event, we were finally ready to settle down, had a cocktail and watched some things we had previously recorded, with the horses all settled into a couple of pipe corrals side by side.

Got up just after 8:00 and on the road by 10:00, going downhill very slowly on the twisty steep gravel grade to insure no untoward occurrences, and headed south, finding an Indian Truck Stop where diesel was only 3.84, compared to 4.19 at the Pilot!! Thanks Gas Buddy!! Stopped for lunch and shopping at a Walmart with a Subway, then got stuck in lots of traffic in Portland (where the drivers really make me mad!) If you leave ANY space for a safe stopping distance, some idiot jumps in front of you. After several incidents like that, I had enough, and the next little white Kia that dared to do that got my front bumper as close to his back bumper as I could get. He looked a little worried, but by that time I didn't care, the red Ford in front of HIM was my safety margin, and his little pipsqueak of a car would barely slow me down between me and the Ford, so there! Eventually we cleared the accident that was the cause of all the fuss, and finally arrived at Willamette Mission after 4:30. By the time we found the horse camp (poor signage) it was just after 5:00, so when I called reservations to see if the site we wanted was available for the time we wanted it, they, of course, had left (it was 5:01, after all). So we took a chance on Site 5, and before long a female ranger came by to get money from us, but in the end, decided to wait until tomorrow, so we could find out how long the site was available. Unfortunately, when Hubby was getting the horses out of the trailer, Apollo stepped squarely on his foot, and Hubby went down in agony. Just as he was recovering from his other broken bones, now his foot! Not sure if it was actually broken, but it is definitely going to be heavily bruised, and will hurt him for some time, darn it! Finally got the horses settled in to a couple of nice log corrals, introduced ourselves to our only neighbor, a girl in here 20's named Rachel, who ended up coming over and hanging out with us most of the evening, very interested in hearing about our adventures. I emailed her some Google Earth information about the horse camps in the three-state region, and we chatted until after 10:00. Watched a one-hour recording, then off to bed with us!

Knowing the drive wasn't too terribly long today, we let ourselves sleep in a bit, still recovering from our busy month. Still managed to get out by 10:00 or so, for an uneventful drive to the Olympic National Forest, with one stop to dump at a rest area on I-5. Had no trouble finding where the horse camp was, and most of the road was tarmac except for a short section of gravel, until we crossed the second bridge where it not only went to gravel, it became a serious, winding grade, so much so I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to make it up. I let Hubby go up first to confirm that, indeed, that was where the horse camp was, and to find the best spot for us, while I waited down below for his report. Meanwhile, four horse rigs came down the road, and one woman stopped and chatted with me, warning me about closed trails and how to get around them. Eventually, Hubby called the all clear and I headed up, though unfortunately, another rig came down at the same time, and the road was narrow enough where I felt compelled to slow down a bit, and then I really was afraid I was going to get in trouble, so I kept going. The other rig stopped for me, thank goodness, and I managed to spin my way up the hill to the top. I turned in where Hubby told me, and wound my way through some pretty narrow twists until I came to the site he had picked, which was probably the biggest one, but still quite small and narrow for a rig our size. We were barely able to get both vehicles in the pull-through site, and only by pushing ourselves into bushes that made getting around and between the vehicles almost impossible. Nevertheless, we managed to get set up, and get the horses out on a cable highline that was already in place. While it made it easier for us, it's not really the way we like to tie them, as they can't run back and forth up their line on their pulleys, the way we do. In any event, they were very quiet all evening, and apparently quite happy, at least, once I got them some water. Water became the challenge. We didn't find any water at the campground (despite a couple of websites telling me it was there), but I had been told by the office that they had water in the Brown campground back down the hill. So I got out the water barrels, and on a hunch, the sump pump, and drove the horse trailer down to the campground looking for water. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered the only water was a hand pump!! Yuck! There was no way I was going to pump 100+ gallons of water with a hand pump, so instead, I found a campsite near the river I could get into, though it was a bit steep, but it got me close enough to be able to put the sump pump in the creek and run power from the generator for an hour, filling the two barrels about half way full, as well as two big buckets and the tank in the horse trailer, before I finally made my way back to camp. Hubby, meanwhile, figuring out that I had run into some challenges, did most of the setup on his own, so by the time I got back there wasn't much else to do, thank goodness. After finally watering the horses, we settled down for the evening, which was wonderfully quiet. Of course, we are in deep woods, so no chance for a satellite dish, so we started watching a bunch of programs that we recorded while we were in Alaska. Started to wind down from all the activity!