Lake View Campground, Graham, WA

We had some business to take care of up around the Tacoma area so we decided to make a 4-day trip of it. Gordon had a client in Graham who wanted some Porsche's polished up so we found a campground in Graham (LakeView Campground) that looked pretty nice on the Internet. We weren't disappointed, it really was nice. Not crowded, quiet (no alcohol allowed) and a nice lake with fishing in the park. There were a lot of "long term" rv's parked here and they had the lake view, but overall we couldn't complain. Full hook-ups, almost had t.v. reception and the lake for $22.00/night.

The location worked out good. Gordon would head over to the customer's house (less than 10 miles) work for a few house and then come back to the rig for lunch. After lunch, I would drive him back and drop him off. I had the afternoon to relax and do nothing but sit by the lake.

The only problem developed on Sunday afternoon. After dropping Gordy off, I came back, grabbed my camera, cell phone and cigarettes and left to go to the lake. When I returned I discovered I was locked out of the RV. I could see my purse (with the keys in it) right next to the window, but couldn't get in through the window. We ended up calling AAA and they sent out a locksmith who unlocked the door in about 5 seconds. The moral of this story is "always have your RV keys with you".

South Jetty in Florence, Oregon

August 30th - Sept. 3, 2007 We have been wanting to try out our new membership in the Thousand Trails/Naco/Leisure Time campgrounds. So a few weeks ago I booked us 5 days at South Jetty in Florence. The idea was to have a place where Steve could ride his quad while Mom, Grandma & Grandpa could play with the boys. Unfortunately, Steve blew up the engine on his quad the week before our trip. He immediately lost his desire to go camping.

Gordon & I left early Thursday and arrived at the park around 1:30. We had no idea what to expect and I've read such horrible things about Thousand Trails, I was a little apprehensive about going. The ranger at the gate was extremely nice, check in was painless and no one tried to hound us into upgrading our membership while we were there. The park was very nice, with a large pool for the kids, separate hot tubs for kids & adults and a large activity center with a restaurant. As with any rv park, some spaces were close to the road with a lot of road noise, but most were very nice. The park is heavily treed, so if you prefer open with lots of sunshine, you may not like this park. Our space was so forested that the 5th wheel's interior lights had to be on even during the day.

Thursday was spent just walking around familiarizing ourselves with the park. We tried to get tv reception but no luck. Friday we went into town for breakfast and decided to eat at the Three Rivers Casino. Food was good, the slot machines weren't. While visiting in town we also made a stop at the local museum. There was a lot of history on the Siuslaw River area and the pioneers who helped to grown the local towns. Saturday we walked around the harbor on the Siuslaw River, checked out the boats and watched seals begging for food off the docks. The local fishermen were have a fish fry to raise money to replace the ice machines that are necessary for the fishing fleets to be able to operate. They had brought in 800+ pounds of tuna that they caught that morning and were filleting them and frying them up in the park next to the marina.

The kids finally showed up late Saturday and we barbequed burgers and hotdogs. The kids were anxious to play in the pool so they did get in some late evening swimming. Sunday was much more fun. Lots of play time in the pool, and on the playground and then a short drive down to the local beach to play in the waves.

We had decided to leave Sunday to avoid the holiday traffic so we played until about 4:30 and then hit the road home. Great fun but just not enough time to really enjoy the grandkids.

Lake Shasta

May 27th & 28th.

The drive to Shasta was quite an eye opener. The views from Hwy. 50 were breathtaking but then so were the curves and the up and down road grades. Lots of road construction going on with long waits. Ever try staying stopped for 15 minutes on an 8% down grade with the 5th wheeler wanting to keep pushing you down the hill? Not my idea of fun. The whole way down the hill I'm nagging at Gordy to "drop it into 2nd gear - don't use the brakes". He tried, but it's still just 2nd nature to hit the brake pedal when you're getting pushed down hill at 65mph and the sign says "curve - 35mph". It didn't take too long for us to start smelling burnt brake pads. We finally managed to pull over and smoke was pouring out from the front truck tires. We grabbed the fire extinguisher and stood by but the smoke finally stopped. Fortunately, we were pulled over next to a nice path down to the river, with picnic tables, so we just went for a walk and let things cool down. We weren't sure how much farther the steep down-grade went on but we took our chances and got back on the road after about an hour. It didn't take long for the road to level out and we didn't have any more brake problems (except for a slight squeel when depressed) for the rest of the trip to Shasta.

Now, the campground as Shasta Lake was really unique. Very small, very "redneck" and very beautiful views. They had a restaurant & bar that the colorful locals hung out at, a swimming pool that you could hardly see through to the bottom and train tracks that run right along the back side of the park (with trains that ran hourly). For some strange reason, we just fell in love with this park. It must have been the view of the lake, just sitting in the shade of the trees watching all the different boats go by and all the different colorful birds flying around. We actually decided to stay another night there and just make one long drive home from there rather than split the remaining drive home with another night on the road.

We did spend most of our time there trying to fix the problem with the brake controller. We hadn't even noticed that the controller wasn't working (newbies without a clue) until we had the problems on Hwy. 50. We finally bought a new controller (this is where the casino winnings came in handy) and installed it and thought it was working fine, until we left on Friday and pulled out onto the road. The blasted brake controller still wasn't working so we drove back to "Cousin Gary's RV Repair" (honest, that's the name) where we bought the part and asked them to take a look at it. Even thought they were turning people away because of a 3 month wait for repairs, they got a mechanic to take a look and crawl under the 5th wheel. He located the problem, which was sheared off wires. It seems when Camping World installed our new tires and brakes they left so much wire just hanging that it was rubbed by the tires and just wore thru. We actually hadn't had any trailer brakes for who knows how long! They fixed us up and sent us on our way. WoooHoooo!!!! We can stop now! Time for the final leg of the trip home.

Lake Tahoe

Not being familiar with Tahoe, it would have been the prudent thing to find a campground on the internet and reserve a camping spot. But oh no......I figured there would be plenty of parks and we would have no problem. Wrong. I didn't count on having to haul that big a$$ 5th wheeler through downtown South Lake Tahoe. Tight roads, lots of stop lights and even more tourists made for a tense drive. I don't know if we just didn't drive far enough or didn't know where to look but we sure didn't see many campgrounds around. We finally pulled over into a school parking lot and set up the laptop to try to locate one. Finally found a very nich city park called Campground by the Lake, and got a space there. Very nice park with lots of trees but the lake was across the main road.

We took a drive into S. Tahoe that evening to play for a little bit at the casinos. We got lucky and won back all the money we lost plus a few hundred extra. Little did we know how handy that extra money would be during the next 24 hours.

Next morning we were up and on the road by 10:00 am (with reservations at a campground in Lake Shasta). We decided to take the scenic route, Hwy. 50 into Sacramento then on I-5 to Lake Shasta rather than the usual route we take through Lassen National Park. BIG MISTAKE!

Lone Pine to Walker River

We left Anaheim on Sunday May 27th heading up Hwy. 395. Our (actually my) main interest was stopping at my childhood stomping grounds, Walker River. We pulled out of the campground around 10:00 am and drove as far as Lone Pine, just north of Bishop. We spent the night at Boulder RV Park. The park was fairly nice with wide spaces and an incredible view of the surrounding mountains.

Next morning was up and back on the road to Walker River. We couldn't find the exact spot my family always stayed at. It seems they had a big flood in '96 and the camping spot was washed away along with 600' of Hwy 395. There was a great little state park just south of the spot, called Chris Flat Campground, $17.00/night with no amenities except a outhouse. We got the best spot surrounded by trees with a great view of the river out the back window. Just to step out of the truck and smell the pine trees brought back a rush of memories. It always surprises me how different pine trees have their own smell.

Once we were set up I had to immediately get my fishing pole in the water. The fishing wasn't like I remembered and due to the early time of year the water was much deeper and faster than it would have been in the late summer. I did manage to catch one fish, which we cooked for dinner that night. Poor Gordon just couldn't quite cope with no hook-ups. No access to the tv news, internet or even telephone had him climbing the walls. He was really good and didn't complain though. The weather cooperated but it was a little cool and windy. I thought for sure we were going to get a storm as we were in a valley between to sets of cliffs and the big black clouds at one end of the valley were threatening to drop down on top of us but never quite managed to do it.

Tuesday morning we drove up the highway just a little and tried several different fishing spots. I caught one more fish and Gordy managed to pull out a huge twig! All in all we lost most of our hooks and sinkers in the rushing water. We had planned on staying two nights but I felt so sorry for Gordy that I offered to move on that day (as long as he promised to bring me back for a full week as soon as possible). We weren't far from Lake Tahoe which was our next stop so we packed up and left Walker River about 2:00pm.

Arriving In Anaheim

We were going to spend another night on the road, around Castaic Lake, but we made such good time and got to thinking it might be smarter to just drive on straight through to Anaheim. We thought that Sunday late afternoon traffic would be much lighter than Monday morning traffic through Los Angeles.

We got to mom & dads late afternoon and spent enough time just to show off the rig to everyone. We called the Anaheim RV Resort and they allowed us come in a day early. The RV park was just a former mobil home park converted to RV park (with still some mobil homes on site). The space we had was wide and on the end, close to the pool and shower facilities. Speaking of which, the shower was the most incredible shower I have ever had. There was so much water pressure it could plaster you against the wall if you weren't expecting it.

Now comes the story about our fun with the sewer pipes. It seems that when we tangled with the planter box at the first RV park we cracked the drain pipe. This wasn't apparent until after we hooked up the sewer hose and pulled the handle to drain the black tank.......S--t flew everywhere. Gordy moved fast and shut the drain off but what a mess!! We cleaned it up and spent a whole day trying to figure out how to repair it. Ended up just using duct tape wrapped all around the pipe. It held through the remainder of the trip.

Disneyland was fun, the boys were great and well behaved. They got the biggest kick out of "Toon Town" and the roller coaster type rides. Luke wasn't too keen on the Haunted House or Pirates of the Caribean rides.

While we had a lot of fun in Anaheim and we were there for an entire week, we just didn't have enough time to really visit with everyone. We need to head back soon and just have a good visit.

Stockton, CA & Sacramento River

Our second night on the road and we stayed at the River Port Landing Marina & RV Resort. www.riverpointlanding.com We knew it wasn't going to be much more than a parking lot for RV's next to the river, but we were happy with the site. The spaces were close together, but each space had a picnic table and most spaces were right on the water. You couldn't get much closer without being in the water.

The neighbors were friendly & chatty and the weather was beautiful though a fairly windy. We could just sit in the recliners looking out the back window and watch boats go by and the fish jump. I was really regretting not having my fishing license.