Day Two: Grant’s Pass, OR to Modesto, CA

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california, Grant's Pass, koa, Modesto, Oregon, Snow, VanDeCampSeesAmerica17

5 March 2017 – Modesto, CA

We woke up without the kids stirring all night at a very reasonable 7:05 AM.  I mentioned I like sleep, right?  I was kind of afraid sleep was a thing of the past embarking on this trip.  Six people in a minimally insulated mobile hotel room?  Scoffs.  Turns out the doors work some minor wonders!  Exhaustion probably helps, too.

Sergio made the kids oatmeal and our coffee, and as we were cleaning up and finishing getting dressed, our lucky feeling started going away.  The snow began to fall heavily, and we had already accumulated over an inch in less than an hour.  We stuck the kids in the Suburban with a movie and started going down the breakdown checklist.  Sergio started raising the stabilizer jacks with the drill we brought and realized it wasn’t working anymore so manually did it with the included tool.  That wasn’t too hard!  I walked with another couple up to the KOA office to inquire about road conditions.  They were a fellow self-employed couple who were headed to Vegas for a heavy construction equipment conference.  I have the feeling we’re going to meet some awesome and colorful people on this trip!  The good news is that Grant’s Pass was right on the edge of the storm and the roads south, including the pass, were pretty clear.  We finished packing up the trailer doing all the things I mentioned the previous night in reverse.  We’re figuring it out, or so we thought.  We turned off the fridge, the LP gas, the lights, folded down all the tables, stowed everything away, and then actually said, “Hey, the snow on the slideout will squeegee off when we bring it in.  No problem.”  Ahem, yes it was a problem.  When we pulled it in, I stood on top of the cooler to see if the slide out (now inside) was mostly free of snow and saw there was still an inch of snow.  After laughing and debating how to solve the problem (hey, let’s just slide it back out and then broom it off outside didn’t work, haha), we decided I was going to stay on the cooler and use the broom to slide the snow to the sides, where Sergio would try to catch the snow in a salad bowl to dump back outside.  I’m laughing while writing this!  He caught some of the snow in the bowl, and the floor caught the rest, but I fairly quickly got it off the slide and pushed it back out so we could clean off the floor.  Swept that all up (plus the gravel that SOMEONE tracked inside with their slippers), then pulled the slide back in.  Laughed some more and added that experience to our mental checklist of things to do/not to do.  Nothing like life to keep you humble!

We pulled out just before 10:00 AM with the help of the 4WD and drove over the first pass easily.  We stopped at an Albertson’s to pick up some lunch things – worst organized grocery store ever! – and Sergio took a work call.  He’s been asked to keynote a conference in July at MITRE, which was exciting enough on its own but then I really got excited when I learned they wanted him to present on my nonprofit, Global Emancipation Network, for which he serves as the Technical Director.  Squeal!

Sunset at RiverPoint Marina

RV Camp Site at Riverpoint Marina

We hit the road again and went up over a second pass and crossed over into California.  We took turns driving and eventually pulled into RiverPoint Landing Marina Park.  We started by debating whether or not we had to take the sway bars off the Equalizer 4-way weight distribution hitch and decided we didn’t have to, but being nervous newbies, we decided to do it anyway.  Probably with amusement, another couple came out of their giant motorhome and asked if we needed help as Sergio and I began the dance of backing the trailer into a spot for the first time (yes, in the dark).  I was driving the Suburban and Sergio was behind the trailer, both with walkie talkies in hand.  I nodded enthusiastically, and the lady stood by my window helping me sort out which way to turn the wheel while the two men shouted directions through the walkie talkie to me.  It was great!  We got in without too much trouble, so I felt pretty good about everything.  Night two in the books!

Day One: Woodinville, WA to Grant’s Pass, OR

Tags

Grant's Pass, koa, Oregon, VanDeCampSeesAmerica17

4 March 2017 – Grants Pass, OR

Sergio woke me up bright and early Saturday morning – accent on early (6:30 AM is brutal for this lady) – with a smile and cheerily asked, “Are you ready to go camping?!”  After taking what I fear to be the last long and hot shower for a while (yes, there is a shower in the trailer but only 5 minutes’ worth of hot water), we frantically loaded all the last items in the car, bolted up the house, ran keys to friends and neighbors, and waved goodbye.

Our first stop was the Battle Ground, Washington rest area where we met my family for Rocky’s Pizza and a quick goodbye peek at our new “rig.”  We’re learning the lingo already.  J  Then we hit the road again with our first destination plugged into Waze: Grant’s Pass, Oregon.  The trip was estimated to take 7 hours, 20 minutes but you know, kids.  And also RV.  So a zillion of potty stops, not to mention gas fill-ups (hello, average 12.5 mi/gal fuel efficiency while towing!), and a Taco Bell run for dinner, we ended up towing for the first time ever in the dark.  And the snow.  In construction.  But you know, it’s cool, it’s all part of the adventure!  We both drove and learned how to use the towing brake and figured out lane changes and how not to bust a tire on a curb.  We pulled into the Grant’s Pass KOA with minutes to spare as the office closed at 8:30 PM.  They took pity on the newbies and moved us into a bigger pull through the lot by the office where we basically could just pull in and out without any maneuvering.  Yay!

Sergio and I began going through our checklist, which included a million things, like: lowering the post, setting out the stabilizer jack blocks and lowering those, putting out the tire chocks, setting up the drinking water hose with the L joint, water filter, and pressure regulator, and setting up the electrical plug with the power conditioner and hooking it up.  Did I mention it was dark and snowing?  We got all the outside stuff done in about 20 minutes since we decided to leave the trailer hitched.  We extended the single slide out, turned on the furnace to heat up the ice box, turned on the water heater, and prayed to the RV camping gods that we did everything right, and we wouldn’t roll away or blow up in the middle of the night.

The kids tornadoed into the trailer, and we eventually managed to wrangle them into pajamas and bribe them into bed.  We finally got them quiet and possibly asleep around 10:30 and were just drifting off to sleep when I tried to turn on my heating blanket and realized hey, we no longer have electricity flowing.  The interior lights can work off the battery, but the outlets do not function if the RV isn’t plugged in.  That’s probably a good thing.  Sergio had realized earlier that something was wrong when the kids OK to Wake clock suddenly lost power but chocked it up to an issue with the clock.  The heating blanket definitely tipped us off to another problem.  Serg buttoned back up and went outside to find the power conditioner had actually fallen off the hookup post, so the fix was very simple.  Sweet, sweet blanket heat followed, and we collapsed quickly into dreamland.

Crater Lake

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Crater Lake, National Park, Northwest, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, United States

11 June 2016 – We spent most of the day driving south from Portland towards California.  Having never seen Crater Lake and having the opportunity we decided to stop by.

The park opened not too long ago and tall snow banks were all around. All of the trails still closed.  However, having the opportunity to see the lake was enough.

The lake was beautiful – an unimaginable blue.  Clear enough to see the lake bottom contours from hundreds of feet above while standing on the rim.

Wizard Island was dusted in snow but the evergreens still gave it a green and brown hue.

Crater Lake from the East Rim

We spent about 90 minutes on the lake rim walking around the snow-cleared walkway and the visitors center.

Crater Lake and Wizard Island from Visitors Center

A 2 hour more drive south took us to Jacksonville, OR outside Medford for German cuisine before retiring to Grants Pass.