After 5 days at the "Duckett RV Park" we came up here to Welches, OR to a place we have stayed in before.  In fact, I come up here to Mt Hood Village RV Park twice a year for my scrapbooking retreats.  And we have come here with family and for a Newmar Rally.  Coming up here on Monday as we did, it has been very quiet all week.  We have a nice site with lots of shady trees so the heat down in Portland has not bothered us.  It has been sunny and nice the whole week; although we did run the a/c for The Girls (OK, and us too!!!) one afternoon.  We have just been lazing around and taking a much needed rest; there is something about mountain air that makes napping so pleasant! :-) When we leave here on Monday, August 1, we will head back up to Silver Lake near Mt. St. Helens again. It is a great place to stay and maybe we can see the volcano's crater up at Johnston Ridge without clouds like a couple weeks ago.  We chose here at Welches and then Silver Lake in case we have more trouble with the jack....at least we are close to mobile repair help at both places.  But we are thinking positive and will not need them....

Yes...this is our home here in Portland...and that is where we are now parked in Sweet Baby. Tuesday we were all ready to leave Ft. Stevens: Doggies on board, slides all locked and everything secured, bring up the jacks.  Oh, oh....what was that clicking noise from the right rear jack (the one that had to be replaced in Colorado last summer)??  And why wasn't it up like the other 3?  Retied the jack retract command several times to bring it up: no go!!  Not again, we thought, as our hearts sank.  Took 10 days for repair that time; we needed to be out of our spot so the next people could pull in. So, off I went to Park Headquarters to explain our dilemma.  They gave me the name of the mobile RV repair group that works with the park.  I called; John came.  Took a look underneath and used a "jumper" to get the jack motor to lift the jack back in place.  Done in 10 minutes!!  But what to do now?  Would we be able to get the jack up at the next stop (who knows)?  How soon would it be before we could get in at our reliable repair shop for a fix (not right away, it turned out)?  What were our options?  Well, we decided that we would call our house sitters and go home to Portland. That way if the jack wouldn't go up again at least we would be able to deal with it from home.  And that meant calling all the RV parks along the way to cancel our reservations.  Then it was back along Hwy 30 in Oregon, cross the bridge at Longview, WA, and home on I-5/I-205. Arrived back home with no problems, and found the house sitters were away visiting family.  OK...parked in the driveway and put down the jacks.  Worked fine; up and down for 3 times in a row....the silly right rear jack works fine now.  So we are staying here for a couple days and figuring out what to do with this summer of travel!!  Good chance we will try again, but go to a closer RV park...maybe.  Stay tuned.......

It was just an overnight stop here at Ft Stevens State Park near Astoria, OR, and we sure took advantage of the gorgeous Pacific Ocean views!!  Our campsite was just a short distance away...too far to walk, though, without being eaten alive by mosquitos!!  So after dinner we drove down to the beach...our mission: to see if the ocean was still there [as my father used to do whenever we arrived at the beach...take us down to the surf, no matter the time of day or night, and make sure the surf was still there].  We walked around the remaining pieces of the wreck of the Peter Iredale, waded a bit in the surf, and I even found a whole sand dollar!!  Great find!!  Tomorrow we get under way for the drive south to Lincoln City, OR for a couple days. 

Mt St Helens IS behind the clouds

Toutle River Valley from Coldwater Center

While our stay here at Silver Cove RV Park at Silver Lake has not been rainy....we found it today when we drove up to Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It is only about 35 miles east from our RV Park (and about 55 miles total from I-5).  But as we arrived up at the parking lot a rain storm dumped on us. We had been in the low clouds since about 1000' elevation, and up at the Observatory at 4,800' all we could see outside were fluffy clouds, and well, the rain.  We spent about a hour there, watching the movies and looking at the exhibits, and then had to leave.  The rain had stopped and the clouds had begun to lift off the crater and lava dome, but not enough for us to see it clearly.  Oh well, there wasn't rain or as many clouds on the drive back down towards Toutle.  When we got down as far as the Coldwater Center we were able to get a good view of the Toutle River Valley and see how Mother Nature has been at work these 36 years since the volcano blew.  The river really isn't as wide as it looks here...most of that is the rocks and other leavings of that flooding and mud flow from the 1980 blast... 

 

Stark Street Bridge over the Sandy River
 

OK...we didn't go very far for the first stop!!!  Wednesday morning we left home and headed east...for about 5 miles!!!  Since the satellite was having problems and we couldn't get an appointment to have it looked at until July 14, and our house sitters were well settled in....we moved into Sandy Riverfront RV Park in Troutdale, OR.  That way we were just about 20 minutes from the shop for the satellite work.  This is a very nice RV Park, and right above the Sandy River.  In fact, the Stark Street Bridge is very close.  The river itself moves pretty slowly here, and looking down river we could see the railroad bridge AND the I-84 bridge over the Sandy.  With all those bridges and activity, it is still pretty quiet at night.  It was a very restful and easy place to begin our Oregon Adventure 2016!!!

In June 2016 we took a short week's trip to Bandon, OR...to visit our friends Joy and Dondi Plummer at their new RV Park...Robbins' Nest.  We hadn't been to the coast in a couple years, and never to Bandon.  It was so good to get down there....and get Maddy and Scarlett out running in the surf.  They have such a good time.  It was a good trip, and a good "trial run" for a longer trip.  But we didn't have anyone to house sit for us for a longer trip, and weren't so sure we would be able find one.  Well, family members of one of our neighbors were coming for an extended visit, and a housesitting opportunity arose!!!  Great!!!  That meant we could plan to be gone for at least a month...plenty of time!!!  So...we chose to make the Western half of our "Around Oregon" Dream Trip (summer in eastern Oregon is pretty da-- hot!!).  So...after 4 days near Mt. St. Helens, we will be following the Oregon Coast, along Hwy 101, starting at Ft. Stevens near Astoria, OR, and all the way down Oregon to the Redwoods in California!!  Then it will be back north and home to Portland, with lots of stops and visits as we travel south and north!!