We left Moab on April 23rd and headed Northwest. Our original plan was to get to Eugene, OR via northern Nevada and Bend, OR, but the weather was going to change in a few days and Bend would be in the 20s at night. We decided to take the route we knew well, maybe too well, I-84 from the Salt Lake City area to Portland, OR area and south.
It was hot and we needed to run the generator and our only working air conditioner while stopped. One stop was at the Costco in Sandy UT to stock up. Turns out it was 89 degrees in Salt Lake City that day, a record. After 295 miles were camped a Golden Spike RV Park in Brigham City, UT. Our last stay here was in October.
We were parked on the end so it would be easy to leave in the morning.
Some tulips around the campground.
While taking a walk close to the campground we stopped in Old Grist Mill Bread Company and found they had wonderful bread. We bought a 2lb loaf of wheat sourdough that was priced like 1lb loaves in most other bakeries and it was very good. We will remember it is here and since we see it on the way to the campground, it should be easy to remember.
April 24th we drove the familiar 300 miles to Garrity RV Park in Nampa, ID. We had last stayed here in October.
Yes, thunderstorms did come through just after we set up.
The thunderstorms passed through by late afternoon and we were back to decent weather so we went out to a nice dinner at Gino's Italian in Meridian. This was our first meal out since Albuquerque and Gino's was a winner.
April 26th we drove 239 miles to Pioneer RV Park in Hermiston, OR. Our last stay here was in October 2010.
We hit lots of rain, with some snow content on the passes, and our tachometer again messed up for a while, just like it did on April 3rd. The rain was gone by the time we arrived.
We had made it across the country from Florida to Oregon. We delayed leaving Florida to get our air conditioner replaced and that meant we had to travel across the country much faster than we wanted to. On our fall trip from Oregon to Florida we stopped for 7 days 3 different times, this trip we stopped in Alabama for 6 nights because it was Easter, but otherwise our longest stays were 3 nights.
April 27th we drove 232 miles to the Keizer, OR Elks lodge. Our last stay here was in May 2011.
It is a good place to wait out the weekend.
On the 28th we took a day trip to the Oregon Coast. The route came out at Lincoln City and we realized it had been many years since we visited this part of the Oregon Coast. We need to come back and camp since our last stay north of Florence and south of Seaside was in September 2004. We really need to spend more time here.
We had a good lunch at Wildflower Grill in Lincoln City and then headed south down the coast.
Views.
Nothing until Asia heading into the Pacific Ocean.
This killdeer posed for us.
We drove around Newport to see how it had changed and then headed back east to I-5 and back to the motorhome.
The next day a familiar motorhome came in, it was Denny and Susie. We had not seen them in a couple years and it was a surprise.
We visited and ended up corrupting them by going to Love, Love Teriyaki so they could try Seattle-style teriyaki. We think they were hooked.
April 30th we drove 76 miles south to our appointment at Carrier & Sons in Eugene, OR. Our last visit here was in October.
Carrier & Sons was able to diagnose our rear air conditioner and found it was not repairable, but because of Dometic's rules (it is a Dometic unit), they could not do the replacement. We arranged with the distributor in Portland to have it replaced there, but they won't have a until until next week. At least Portland is a day trip from Rochester, WA.
Our slide topper was measured and ordered for our next stop. Our washer/dryer was pulled out and the drying problem was a clogged intake, not the exhaust. A part did need to be replaced and was on order.
May 2nd we drove 13 miles to Cummins Northwest in Coburg, OR. They had moved a short ways from where they were before. We last stopped at their old location in April 2011.
These photos are some of the first taken with our newest camera, a Nikon Coolpix p510. It is a 16Mpixel camera that can take 1080p video and has a 42X zoom lens that goes from 24mm to 1000mm equivalent to 35mm.
Cummins found our air leak was on an air tank so the fix required welding. They also found the tachometer problem and could fix it, but we had to wait on a part. During inspection they found a pinion seal leak that needed to be fixed. There are always problems.
The work at Cummins extended into the 4th and they finished just before lunch. From there we drove in tandem back to Carrier & Sons for our washer/dryer part install, which went fast. But Bill noticed the batteries were not charging so we went back to Cummins and found that a couple things had happened during the welding. The main was was they removed all the battery connections and missed one when they put it back together. The other was the circuit breakers on the generator were tripped, probably sensing the arc welder load. Everything got fixed so now we could head to Vancouver, WA for the weekend.
While in the Eugene area we had a nice dinner with Deb and Greg at Wild Duck Cafe. On our own we tried Greek Paradise and Evergreen Indian for the first time and revisited Sabai Cafe.
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