September 29, 2002 -- Coos Bay, OR
Hey, wanna know how to spend a bit over $1500.00 in a hurry? At least Moby Dick has new shoes and his front end is all aligned again. And that sailboat was kind of an idyllic shot to end the peacefulness of our Lake Retreat project.
From Lake Retreat to Turner, OR, where the SOWERS (Servants On Wheels Ever Ready) were having their regional reunion, and the executive board of the ministry was having their open meeting. Great to see some folks we'd heard about, as well as some we'd worked with again. Lunch one day was served on the river, and Barb and I have trouble resisting the draw of the water, so here we are. Standing in the picture on the right is Jim, our Group Leader from the Lake Retreat project, and with his back to us sitting down is Burke, who will be the Group Leader for our Warm Beach project if all our plans come together. At this point we're expecting to spend Nov. and Dec. at the Warm Beach Conference Center in Stanwood, WA, helping set up for their Christmas extravaganza. Burke and his wife Sally were our Group Leaders in Phoenix, and are one of the reasons we want to work the Warm Beach project.
Yup, we're on the Willamette Queen, going up and down the Willamette river. And there goes a huge bale of hay with an engine. Dog poking its head out of the front opening looks like a retriever type to me. Duck blind you think? That's what we thought. Only ducks we saw were a few mallards and a pet white duck at the boat landing which the Captain named Aflac.
Jim got his Jr. Captain's Certificate signed by the Capt. of the boat. To qualify, you had to make your way into the pilot house and hold the wheel for a bit. And on the right is one of those lucky pictures I wish I could get more often. Two paddle wheels powered the boat, and the far one shows several vintages of paddle. The darkest one appeared to be the oldest, the next one down an old replacement, and just coming out of the water was one that looked recent like most the paddles on the wheel closest to us. The interior woodworking was beautiful, and the exterior was well maintained as well.
The river level was down, so we couldn't go far before we had to turn around and go back. The river (like most all rivers in this and other countries) has quite a history, and the picture on the right shows a stream running into it. It was at this point that the first missionaries supposedly landed and set up a small encampment. Followed by various entrepreneurs such as loggers, fishermen, and of course, miners.
There goes the bale of hay! The bump in the top toward the rear is the drivers/hunters head, and there's the dog sticking its nose into the wind up front. And then as we were walking around the boat, I happened to look up and there's a birds nest over one of the speakers. It's really sort of amazing how much there is to see in this world of ours when we slow down enough to look around.
Neat bridge, eh? Raises up for the tall boats. Story is that it's the bridge that was the inspiration for the guy who invented the Erector Sets that some of us old guys remember playing with when we were kids.
And there's the house the inventor lived in. Today it's a children's museum. And of course, anytime someone is taking a picture of me and I have a camera in my hand, it's only fair to take a picture of them. He wouldn't wave back, however.
Yeah, well, what can I say. After we left Turner, we went to Springfield where Moby Dick came from, and had his water pump replaced under warrantee. And then I hooked up again and we went to bed, ready to take off for Coos Bay in the morning. Only I didn't check the hitch to make sure it had fully engaged. Dumb thing to do. The next morning we chatted with Brian-the-salesman, and some really neat folks, Karl & Lynn who were kind enough to say nice things about our trailer the evening before. And as we waved, I pulled away to the sound of a horrendous "CRASH". I hit the brakes, looked around and was really pleased with Brian for making the dimensions of the body the way he had. The kingpin of the trailer hit the bed of the truck and tore up the Linex lining where it dragged before I could stop, but the trailer never touched the truck body! There was about 1/2 inch of clearance between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the truck body. WHEW! Oh, yeah, the hitch did manage to hit the gate, pop it open, and break one of the welds in the process. Pretty small damage from what we've seen of other unfortunate incidents on other people's trucks and trailers who have done the same thing. And to think we hadn't even thought about those dimensions when the truck was being built.
Well, they may not look it here in this picture, but here are the two oldest RV'ing friends we have. Marc & Claudia of www.itchyhitch.com fame. In 1998 Claudia had responded to some wisecrack I'd made on Barb & Ron's bulletin board that they maintained within www.movinon.net, their website. Barb and Ron have written some books and they give seminars at different places. Fun people, too. Anyway, Claudia e-mailed me back then, and pretty soon I was asking Marc questions about his truck, and one thing led to another and eventually we met them at an Escapade in Chico, CA, in June, 1998. www.escapees.com will give you information about what an Escapade is. One of the first stops we made back in June 2000 was at their home in Bend. And then we saw them again in Jackson, CA, when Marc was working there. He was in construction at the time. Before that we ran into Marc when he was driving long-haul for Crete. Now they're living in Coos Bay and Marc is doing local hauling, Rachael is a Junior in high school, and Claudia is interviewing for jobs. Midway RV Park has no affiliation with anybody but Escapees and Good Sam, but because of Marc & Claudia we decided to pay to stay. We'd recommend the place to anybody. New, well laid out, 50-amp, private showers, and meticulously maintained.
Us on the left, them on the right. Marc is in the process of adding the plugs to a cable he'll run from his computer router to mine so we can get high-speed cable connection to update our webpage (which was missing a bunch of pictures because I kept getting timed out by our server using only our cell phone) and do some fast surfing. The second shot is so you can see the pink flamingos they have in their yard. They are the only people we know who can manage to keep those birds.
Notice the nice flooring and carpet Marc has built for their screen room. Our screen room is the same as theirs, only I've never taken the time to put in a real floor for it. They're selling their two Honda Elite 80's as they've bought a couple of dual-sport bikes. Only asking $800 for them, too. They've just finished taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and have their motorcycle license endorsements, so they're doing that right! And there Marc and I are in their place, trying to get my computer to recognize the modem so I can go live. Only it never did work, and after 3 or 4 hours of messing with it we gave up.
Next morning the crab killers were off and at it. Fog or no fog, we're gonna get some crab. We've dropped the pots and are beached just waiting an hour or so before going back to pull them. And there's the sun trying to peek through the fog. We're beached next to what appears to be an abandoned salmon hatchery. The spillway is what's extending out into the bay.
For lack of anything better to do, Marc (with hip waders on) walked out to the island, and is slogging his way back through the muck. And then the sun trying to peek through is reflected on the totally calm water. Real quiet this morning.
We've pulled the first pot, and those buoys are for the other two. And there's Marc with a big grin, waiting for me to put the camera away and pull the pot up.
There's a few in the bucket we'll keep. We dropped the pots again and went poking around some wharves in the area. The fog made us feel comfortable hanging around structures rather than chancing it out in the open water. Starfish were all over these cement pilings eating the barnacles. I liked the pattern the pilings made, too.
Couple of starfish shots. On the right, the upper starfish is 1/2 out of the water, there are two others below it, fully submerged.
Pot with a few keepers in it, and the rest went back to grow some more. The rest of Saturday we cleaned crab, shared dinner, and chatted. Then today, Sunday, we sat outside and played Mexican Train. You can see by our clothes that it's a bit cooler. It even sprinkled a little. Then the sun would come out, it would get hot, we'd shed jackets, and then a cloud would come back and we'd don the warmers again. Marc and Claudia had never played Mexican Train before, but by the time we'd played from 15 to 0, they were talking about buying a set of double 15's for themselves. Great time for us! This is a great lifestyle, you should try it!