The Rolling Home

May 1st found the Rolling Home leaving Orick, California to continue the trek north. We moved a hundred or so miles to Gold Beach, Oregon. As we have been since April 29, we were on U.S 101. The route through northern California and southern Oregon is absolutely gorgeous. We pulled into the Oceanside RV park in Gold Beach and settled in for a couple of days.

Our first trip out of the RV park was to the Mail Boat office to book a trip the next day on the famous Rogue River Mail Boat. These boats have been carrying mail, freight and passengers up the Rogue for a long time. While there is now a road up the river to Agnes, the Mail Boat Company still has the contract to deliver the mail to this community. In the winter, they use a truck, but the rest of the year, they still put the mail aboard one of their boats and take it 30 miles upstream to the booming metropolis of Agnes.

We boarded the mailboat the next day at 8 am in a misty rain with temperatures of about 50 degrees.  It was pretty cold and raw for the first 15 or 20 miles.  Just around the first bend in the Rogue, we came across a hog line.  We learned that a hog line is a group of fishing boats anchored in a row across the river in order to catch salmon.  I guess the theory is, if you string the boats all the way across the channel, someone is going to catch a fish and let the others know a run is in progress.  We threaded our way through a number of these hog lines for about the first 20 or 25 miles of our journey up the river.  At one line, our captain stopped to chat with one of the professional guides and his clients.  They had a few fish and asked us to take one  up river to Bobby Door.  Now we had no clue who this guy is, but the captain explained that he was a famous baseball player, a hall of famer, who lived on the Rogue.  Quite a ways upstream, we came to Mr. Door's boat tied up on the bank with him sitting in it.  We pulled up and gave him the salmon and chatted for about 15 minutes.  He played second base for the Red Sox from 1939 to 1951.  He told us the most money he made was $32,000 a year.  He played against Ted Williams, Dimaggio etc.  Quite a character.  He met his wife when she was teaching in the one room school in Agnes.  They married and spent every off season in a cabin on the Rogue.  Now that he is in his 80s, they apparently live there all the time.  A very interesting and unexpected interlude in our jet boat trip.

We docked in Agnes for a health break, but the hike up the hill from the river was quite a chore.  It was several hundred feet up a narrow, wet path from the river to the little collection of buildings where we would later eat lunch.  They had a pickup truck that backed down the hill and took folks who could not walk the path up to the rest rooms.   The truck ride up and down that hill must have been every bit as exciting as shooting the rapids in the jet boats.  I would not have wanted to sit in the back of the truck while the driver backed down a couple of hundred feet of wet clay on a 20% slope.  Agnes has 75 residents and it appears that most of them make their living from the tourist who come to their community on the jet boats. There are several lodges in the area. Two of them that we stopped at are served by their own private air strips and the boats. In fact, we picked up some passengers at one of these resorts and returned them to Gold Beach on our way downstream.  This was a really cool trip.  However, we did not take the camera since we were not sure how much water we would see in our laps.  It turned out that we would have been fine, but it did get wet inside the boat from time to time.

After Agnes, we left a few folks who had not paid for the entire tour and donned our life jackets for the ride  up the river.  At two mile bridge, things began to get interesting.  We started to run into a series of rapids and canyons.  Although we didn't see any bears in bear canyon, apparently they do run across them once or twice a week.  It was quite rugged and wild back  this far on the river and we were a long way from civilization.  We did stop at two resorts and pick up two couples who had been out there on a wilderness adventure.  The only way into these resorts was by private plane or boat.  There are no roads this far up the Rogue.  We traveled to the limit for powered boats and saw a couple of sets of rapids that were used in the filming of the River Wild.  It was quite an adventure, but we were glad to get back to Agnes and walk up the hill again for lunch.

After lunch, we got to sit in the boat for about an hour as the captain struggled to get one of the engines started.  This boat was powered by three Ford 460 cubic inch engines.  I think the total horsepower was around 1200 hp.  Anyway, one engine wouldn't start, so we sat in the boat, took off our foul weather and warm clothes and many of us got a sunburn.  Quite a switch from the weather on the coast when we left earlier in the morning.

Finally, the engine cranked and we ran for the coast.  After getting on the boat at 8 a.m., we were very happy to disembark at about 3:30 in the afternoon.  It was overcast and rainy back on the coast by the way!

Wednesday, May 3, we stopped in Bandon at the Bandon Cheese Factory to sample some cheese and eat ice cream.  Several RVers told us this was a must stop and sure enough, the ice cream was wonderful.  The store has a large parking lot out back for big rigs.  If you are coming from the south, you just go to the end of the building and turn right.  You cannot miss the parking lot.
We stayed at a Coast to Coast park just south of Newport, Oregon.  Nice park, but I couldn't find  the satellite because of the trees, I thought.  More later.  It worked out though, the park provided cable for $1.50.

Thursday was one of those rare days where we drive two days in a row.  We moved up the coast to Tillamook, Oregon and dairy country.  We stayed in a park on the south side of Tillamook , about 7 miles out of town.  We spent the weekend in this park, picking up our mail at the Tillamook Post Office on Monday.  While in Tillamook, we toured the Tillamook Air Museum.  This is an old Navy W.W.II blimp base.  One of the two buildings has burned down, but the other is still standing. It is an awesome building, entirely constructed of wood with a tin roof.  All of the airplanes in this museum are in flying condition or are being restored to flying condition.  They had F4s, A4s, B25s, a PBY a Messerschmidt and lots of other flying museums pieces.  It was quite a collection, but my favorites were the P38 and the P51.  I sure would have liked to figure out how to catch a ride in one, but since they are single seaters and I an not a pilot, I guess it won't happen.

We toured the Tillamook Cheese factory which was like the one in Bandon on steroids.  They run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  While it was very interesting to watch 40 lb blocks of cheese get made into single slice packages, we just could not imagine sitting or standing there for 8 hours doing the same repetitive job.  I sure hope these folks make good money.

We stayed in Tillamook until Monday the 8th.  We picked up our mail at the Post Office c/o General Delivery and off we went.  It is fun to go into different Post Offices and tell them you have general delivery mail.  Most of the time the clerk will say something about all of the people who must live in Livingston, Texas.  I guess the Escapees folks all travel to the same locations!

After Tillamook, we moved up the coast to Warrenton.  At Warrenton, we stayed in a Good Neighbor park right on a lake.  The ocean was about a mile to our west and the paved road in front of the campground ran right out onto the sand.  We drove there a few times and just watched the surf.  This location was only about 9 miles from the Columbia River, so we visited Astoria, Warrenton and the Columbia River jetty.

The south jetty is where you see all the Coast Guard rescue boats doing their rollovers on the Discovery and Learning Channels.  We stood on an overlook built up above the jetty and watched the surf crash against the Columbia River Bar and the jetty.   The locals told us it was a calm day.  The wind was blowing at 40 mph plus and the waves were only about 10 feet.  I would love to see this area during a storm.

After Warrenton, we left U.S. 101 for the first time since Ukiah, California and turned east on Highway 30.  This road paralleled the Columbia until we crossed over into Washington and picked up Interstate 5 for the run back down to Vancouver, Washington and our friends Patti and Jim Hammond.

While we were at the Vancouver RV Park, we were joined by the Holders, Don, Liane and Tommy along with the wonder dog, Peanut.  We toured downtown Vancouver, downtown Portland, Oregon, just across the river and went up the Columbia River Gorge for about 20 miles to check out the waterfalls.  We also got to meet Frank and Koyu Tucker.  Frank posted quite a bit to the Escapees Discussion group, always signing Frank Tucker in Japan.  He and Koyu are now back in the states with a new pickup truck and fifth wheel.  Frank and Koyu were staying at an RV park on the south side of Portland.

We left Vancouver after a week and traveled up the road about 60 miles to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is one of the jumping off points for Mt. St. Helens.  We happened to visit the volcano on the exact 20 year anniversary of its eruption.  It was quite and experience.  Another one of those, you have to really see it to understand kind of things.  However, I did get a nice shot of the lava dome that is rebuilding inside the crater.  I took this picture from Johnston Ridge, three miles to the north of the blown out side of the mountain.  After two days at Mt. St. Helens, we left for Chimacum, Washington and the Escapees Coho park.

We fueled up near Olympia on I 5 and then went to the west side of the water to follow U.S. 101 again.  This road became narrow and winding, but was full of spectacular scenery as it followed the Hood Canal north.  We arrived at Chimacum in the early afternoon on Saturday.  We went right back into town to get our mail, but the Post Office was not open on Saturday, so we had to wait until Monday to get the mail.

The nearest town to Chimacum is Port Townsend.  This is a quaint, bohemian type town situated right on the Admiralty Inlet .  We happened to be there the week of their annual Rhododendron festival.  This was amusing to us, because Hiawasee, Georgia, near our last home has a Rhody festival at the same time.  Anyway, good food, a parade, good coffee shops, what more can I say.

On Sunday the Holders, who had arrived at Chimacum the day before went with us to Seattle.  This short trip turned into an adventure compliments of that male hormone "I don't need no stinkin map".  I knew that we had to catch the ferry, so I looked up the ferry schedule and determined we should go from Kingston to Seattle.  After we drove about 30 miles to Kingston and boarded the ferry, I was quite pleased with myself, having made it on time and with no mishaps in an unfamiliar state and using less than conventional transportation modes.  There are not a lot of ferries in the mountains of north Georgia, nor in Livingston, Texas.  After about 10 or 15 minutes of cruising on this boat, Liane Holder walked up and informed me that Seattle was south of us and the ferry we were on was going to Edmonds, Washington.   Oh well.   We got a nice free round-trip ferry ride since you only pay as you board for the westbound trip.  We went back and retrieved our vehicles from the $4 a day parking lot and drove another 30 miles to the correct ferry terminal at Bainbridge Island  for the trip to Seattle.

Arriving in Seattle, Tommy Holder was hungry as usual, so we went to Elliots Restaurant right on the waterfront.  Libby and I had eaten here three years ago on a plane/ship trip to Alaska and knew the food was good.  We spent the afternoon on a free city bus and walked through the Pikes Street Market before boarding the correct ferry back to  our cars.

On Monday, we picked up our mail and headed out with the Holders following us for another ferry ride.  I was in awe that they would follow me after the Sunday adventure, but we managed to get both motorhomes and our toads on the ferry from Port Townsend to Whidby Island.  It cost us $34 and it cost the Holders $54.  I think the toll booth guy missed our toad.  Too bad.

We followed Washington route 20 to I 5 and then turned north to Canada.  The Holders stopped for fuel as we got on the Interstate so we went on alone to face Canadian Customs.

I carry two shotguns.  Both belonged to my father and they are really the only tangible items I have that belonged to him.  I haven't fired either one for years, but they are in the coach and I just do not want to part with them.  I knew I could carry shotguns into Canada, so I wasn't really worried about them  Libby, on the other hand, was not so sure.  When we reached the Canadian border at Sumas, the nice young lady in the booth went through a litany of questions.  One of them was "are  you carrying any firearms?"  I replied with the type and location of the two shotguns, both locked in a gun case in the basement.  She kept going with her questions and eventually directed me to pull over and take a slip of paper she handed me inside the building to Immigration.  Libby was less than pleased, but having no other choice, we parked the RV and walked into Canadian Immigrations. The Immigration guy was great, asked me a few questions and sent us on to Customs.  The Customs guy never smiled, just said he was going to verify our declaration and for us to follow him out to the RV.  He made us stay outside and searched the inside of our rig from stem to stern.  This took between 30 and 45 minutes.  Interestingly enough, he never asked to look in the basement bays nor did he look in our car.  He did ask us to put both slides out.  After the search, he was much more pleasant.  He had replaced everything except the clothes above our washer/dryer.  He said he would do that, but Libby told him she preferred to put them back.  She repacked the closet and we were on our way.

We spent the next three days in Abbotsford, BC with the Holders and our friends Nancy and Pat Gallagher.

The rest of May is included in our Alaska travelogue, so look for it under Libby's Log.