Category: Travel

Someone had a birthday!

We celebrated Addy’s birthday with a small cake, cupcakes and whatever she wanted for breakfast. This candle was a super cool find of Alex’s, but the packaging said “fireworks” so we decided to move the cake outside.

Turning 9 on the road has been a little challenging since she really wanted a gymnastics party with friends. Instead she got to sleep in, and enjoy time with us and do some geocaching, a bike ride,B.B.-gun shooting with a new friend and a campfire with s’mores.

This on is now hidden on the state line between Wyoming and Idaho and will be online soon! This is one of two she got to place!

Little piece of land to build a cabin is on?

The posse was keeping a close eye on us as we road by this ranch.

Anyone care to guess what kind of cow this is.? If your from Maine your not allowed to guess.

The bike ride was part of the geocaching fun. We had to cross this river that washed out the old road bridge. It was 10 miles roughly and included hills, out washes, horses and bridges!

Ian is our friend Murray’s son who was up for a visit. These two had fun shooting and having a campfire under the stars!

Not to shabby after all!

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Enough With The “Bumps” In The Road!

We made it to Idaho! Woo Hoo!

Burns, Oregon was a booming metropolis, and the only thing we can figure is it is a central hub for travelers and commercial vehicles transiting from coast to coast or north to south. The campground was well laid out with large sites and beautiful grassy lawns with the sound of frogs in the background!

After our overnight stop in Burns, we moved our way further East through more rolling hills, farmland and ranches.

Continue reading “Enough With The “Bumps” In The Road!” →

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Though I feel like we have been sitting for too long here in Klamath Falls, OR we have not really been idle.

We have been taking care of a few things we have planned to do for some time and others that have come up since starting our adventure.

We installed a fence at our house here in Klamath which was in our plans from the start. Of course we did not plan on 90 deg temps while doing it but ahh what’s a little heat.

The Klamath County fair has been going on the past week so that warranted a visit.

They had a great shuttle from the parking lot to the main entrance to the fair. To be honest it was only a few hundred feet to walk but who could turn down a ride on this bad boy.

Now you should all know that Shawnda is not much for carnival rides, the spinning kind any way. So in good form I went off to ride the Ferris wheel with Addy and Alex wrangled Shawnda into going to ride the Rampage

Continue reading “Idle Thoughts” →

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When planning to take a year long hiatus to hit the road with your family, you imagine fun family adventures such as hikes in beautiful rainforests or sunny walks on the beach. You also imagine every one of your plans falling into place! We have already figured out that that rarely happens when you don’t have reservations and are 60′ overall.

The latest thing we didn’t think about is weather and acts of god and how they could affect plans.

The forest fires in Northern California and Oregon are awful this year. When we left Alaska we didn’t think that by the time our route got us into Oregon, two of the major attractions would be full of smoke. If we had arrived two weeks ago it wouldn’t have been so bad, and maybe a few weeks from now the situation could be better. But because we are 60′ overall we aren’t as nimble about switching plans as we could be.

Below is a picture from Crater Lake where we visited yesterday:

And this one is from Klamath Falls, our current location.

Another thing we have had to adjust for is campsites that should fit us, but don’t!

Twice in three days our plans had to change because we pulled in to find the sites aren’t set up with enough turning room to back our behemoth of a rig into. So, we quickly rallied and located new places to stay. Once we were lucky and the site was awesome; the other doesn’t have the same warm fuzzy feeling so far. We could have had a much nicer spot if the county fair wasn’t this weekend (see more timing issues).

The lesson learned this past week: patience and resilience are required to stay sane on this journey!

~S

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Rivers, Streams and Lakes

The last couple of days have found us back in the interior, headed east through Oregon. We spent a night at this great hidden gem of a campground called Casey’s Riverside RV Park.

The park runs parallel to the Willamette River and is hidden behind a well kept Mobil home park. At first we weren’t too sure, but as we drove in we quickly realized how well kept the place was. The kids wanted to hit the pool right away after we checked in and got set up; which I can say is down to taking about 10 minutes flat. The pool was not cold (it was mid 80’s outside), and the water was clean with very little chemical smell to it. John even took a splash and I sat poolside and dipped my legs in. It was refreshing.

Continue reading “Rivers, Streams and Lakes” →

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Beaches Rock!

I know, enough about the Oregon Beaches already!

But really, it is one of our happiest places. We picked these beaches as our first home, we were pregnant with Alex on these beaches, and visited them with friends while pregnant with Addy.

The sounds of the waves crashing, the soft sand on our feet, the smell of the ocean as the breeze blows your hair! Somehow just a taste of this, made it all come together, and our days more productive. The kids are set up with school programs, we cleaned the closet, and got those post cards and a few other items sent in the mail.

We also had another successful beach day of slow walking and agate and sea glass hunting.

Our next few stops will not be the same, especially since a couple of them are currently close enough to forest fires to have smoke filled air.

So for now, we are enjoying our last taste of beach heaven. And I’m enjoying my current office view.

~S

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When we finally got to leave our hotel in Washington, we quickly looked over our “plans” and said yup, they look good. Well looking good, and being good are two different things!

Apparently summer camping in the northwest is a very popular activity. Every place we planned was booked! So, to add to the stress of finally getting back on the road, we didn’t really have any idea where we are going.

The decision to skip the olympics was a little heartbreaking since we never got to the peninsula when we lived in Everett. Just always viewed those glorious mountains from afar.

So, lesson learned. We are going to have to start looking farther ahead than originally planned. We’ve been lucky finding places to stay up until now, and am sure there will be places that are easier to get into than others. But when it comes to the big items, we will just suck it up and book ahead, because as the nice park owner at Canyon Alpine told me “you’re awful brave just winging it with such a big rig”.

The other thing we haven’t done so well is the whole post card thing! We have a list of folks that we want to send post cards to as we move about the country. Well one thing I learned a while ago, is that post cards actually have to make it into the mail to get delivered! Imagine that!

Well, after missing post office boxes and mail opportunities for over 3 weeks (yep) about 3/4 of the post cards we have filled out actually made it to a post office. So some of our family will be getting a small handful of cards at once. Sorry, we will get better at this!

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Kicking Myself.

Lincoln City will always hold as a special place for me. It was really the start of a new life for me and there are many great memories I have of time spent when we lived here. And of course there are beaches here.

Just a short 58 mile drive was all we had yesterday which I’m sure was a relief to everyone. We got to town around 1330 and took care of a few things that we have been meaning to do for a bit, organizing and re arranging, that sort of thing. In a smaller living space everything has a place and if you have to put something on top of something else because there is no place to put it, its time to evaluate your space and the stuff in it.

On our way into town I mentioned that it would be great to find a lot of land to buy on the beach that we could put the RV on while we built a house. Or find a fixer upper and do the same. The Oregon coast would be a good place to do this as you can live in a RV here year round due to the fact they hardly ever get snow or even freezing temperatures. More about that later.

Continue reading “Kicking Myself.” →

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