Drydock '09

We are at Infinity Coach in Sumner, Washington (map), Odyssey's birthplace (well, at least in her current incarnation).

I apologize for taking such a long absence from posting. We spent the weekend, from Friday afternoon through mid-day Sunday, parked at our friends' house in Kingston, and long-time readers know that we don't post map links, generally, when we stay with friends, in respect for their privacy. They were throwing a holiday weekend party, which was well attended. We had a great time, and, of course, everyone wanted to see the bus, so we had a couple dozen folks through for tours.

We were a bit anxious about getting here to Infinity and squaring everything away for the upcoming repairs, and so we rolled down here Sunday afternoon. Apparently the guys had jockeyed some rigs around in anticipation of our arrival, and "our space" right across from the office was available. Infinity has a handful of hookups available for customers, and we are settled in with 50 amps and a nearby water spigot.

It turned out that there was really no need to be here a day ahead, because shop logistics dictated that they couldn't really get to us yesterday anyway. We did meet to go over the list, and said hello to the gang, including meeting some of the new folks. Work actually started this morning, with Danny coming in to remove the bulk of the trim around the windows. We found a bunch of dry rot and some mold in the process, adding to the scope of work.

Good progress was made this afternoon. With the trim off and a hose running water onto the roof, we found at least three clear areas of ingress, and that was just on the passenger side. In the process of getting to the leaks on that side of the bedroom, we removed the emergency exit handle that has been broken for six years, opting to re-fabricate it out of aluminum before reinstalling it. If any of the other three handles shows any problems during the repairs, we may opt to replace those as well.

Kevin from the paint and body shop next door came over today to look at our handful of paint issues, and we've agreed on a course of action. We'll have to be finished with all the other repairs before we wrap up in the spray booth, and, with today's discoveries, I am estimating we will be here at Infinity for a full three weeks. When we are done, we should have most of the leaks under control, some of the old wall coverings replaced, and the body work and paint squared away.

I expect a rather light posting schedule while we are here. Mostly I expect that I will post occasionally about the progress of the work. At this moment, we don't really have a plan for where we go from here when we are finally done, but I expect that will shape up as we close in on a completion date.

Casino hopping

We are at the Little Creek Casino at the junction of US-101 and Washington 108 (map).

Yesterday we had another beautiful morning on the coast, and got rolling a bit after lunch. After a quick stop in Aberdeen to unload our "donation" pile and pick up some groceries, we headed east to the rest area at Elma.

Unlike many states, which are closing their RV sanitation facilities at rest areas, Washington has been beefing them up, and the Elma facility has a modern four-lane dump station. The rest area, on the eastbound side, is perfectly positioned for the hordes of rigs coming back from the coast. We pay a registration surcharge for an RV here, and this is one of the things that the surcharge funds -- I have to say, it's good to see the money going to good use.

108 winds its way through logging country, and we had a scenic drive, landing here in the late afternoon. This casino also has a dedicated gravel RV lot, and there were perhaps a dozen rigs here last night. Signing up for the players' club got us $10 in cash, which we promptly gave back in the restaurant.

In a few minutes we will head out for Poulsbo, where we will stop to make a conference call, en route to our destination for the night in Kingston.

Fuzzy Friday: Fuzz Removal

On Fridays I write about our pets

Cheapest room at the beach resort

We are at the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino, near Ocean Shores (map).

This is a fantastic spot, just a hundred yards or so from the beach across a salt marsh -- nothing at all between us and a perfect ocean view, and we can even walk on the beach via a nearby boardwalk access. There are about half a dozen rigs here, in a lot that can probably accommodate upwards of 50. We are less than a quarter mile from the state park, where primitive camping is over $17 and RV spaces run $24 and up, neither of which has an ocean view.

In addition to providing this nice free parking for RV's (check in at the hotel desk for a pass to put in the windshield), one can buy a day pass for the hotel's indoor pool and hot tub for $15 (per rig). I have heard that one "day pass" is good for your entire stay, but I can't vouch for that. So far, we have resisted the temptation.

We did, however, get massages today at the hotel's spa. It's a small spa, but they had good locker facilities, a steam room and sauna, and a few treatment rooms. There was only one therapist on duty today, so we had to have our massages sequentially.

In short, we have access to all the resort facilities here, including the spectacular view, for $0 per night ($15 if we want to use the pool), an unbeatable deal. We really needed the day of downtime, and the massages were an extra treat.

Last night we ate at the resort's restaurant, Emily's, which is quite nice. The chef is quite creative and the ingredients were fresh. Tonight there is a $13 prime rib buffet, and we're going to give it a try. It's in one of the ballrooms; they do not have a regular buffet restaurant. At this writing, they are doing buffets Wednesday and Friday nights, and Sunday for brunch.

Tomorrow we will head back the way we came, along the north shore of Gray's Harbor, turning north at Elma towards the Kitsap peninsula. We have our eyes on yet another Native American casino for tomorrow's stop, about half way to our destination.

To our Facebook using readers

Update: The contest is over, and the Red Cross received enough votes to win $793,942. This money will be used to help save and rebuild lives. Thanks!

Do you have a Facebook account? Did you know that Target is giving away $3,000,000 a week to selected charities?

Ten charities have been selected and folks can vote for their favorite by going to Target's Facebook page. Target tallies up the votes and allocates funds on a percentage basis. Everyone wins!

It should come as no big surprise that we would like to encourage you to vote for the American Red Cross. Here's why:



No matter which of the 10 charities you support, I hope you'll visit the site and help Target give away its cash. Thanks!

Licensed and Registered

We are stopped for lunch at the city park in Oakville, Washington (map), conveniently across the street from the library and its free WiFi signal.

This morning found us at the Wal-Mart in Chehalis (map), a place we've stayed before. The GPS again thought we were in the middle of one of the Chehalis airport's runways, since bulldozed to make way for the Wal-Mart (which does show in the satellite image), and a host of other stores including Home Depot and Applebees, where we again had dinner (even though, at this writing, they do not show in the image).

We had planned, actually, to spend the night at the Rotary Riverside Park in Centralia, right along the Skookumchuck River and a short scooter ride from the Department of Licensing. Unfortunately, the park is now posted "No Overnight Parking" and "No RVs," even though it was listed in two of our guides (Don Wright's Guide to Free Campgrounds and Day's End) as having several RV spaces for $12 per night as well as a dump station. Oh well.

That left the Chehalis Elks Lodge for $15 and the Wal-Mart, neither in convenient scooter distance. We opted for the Wal-Mart with its convenient access to Applebees, and it was handy for picking up a few items we did not find at our last stop. It did mean having to drive Odyssey up to the DOL this morning.

Fortunately the DOL parking lot was large enough to accommodate us, and other than about a 15 minute wait in "line" (they use a numbered ticket system, so no standing in queue required), we had no problems getting our driver licenses renewed. We have paper cards now, with the plastic ones to follow in the mail. Renewal was $50 -- we got hit with a $25 surcharge for our motorcycle endorsements. That goes into the state's motorcycle safety fund, though, and, as a former motorcycle safety instructor, I suppose I can't complain.

From there we headed back south to Chehalis and the county auditor's office to renew our license plates for the bus. They bought our (true) story about the computer not letting us renew them on line because it thought our driver licenses were expired (even though the state had sent us one-year extensions) and did not asses us a penalty for being a month late. They handed us our current registration and sticker and I immediately affixed it to the plate, so we can breathe a bit easier now.

We were done with the whole affair before noon. I was stunned, since I had girded myself for an all-day event, and possibly another night right there in Chehalis. In addition to finishing the bureaucratic processes in record time, my grand plan for working our way slowly up the eastern shore of the Olympic peninsula and then over the Hood Canal bridge to the Kitsap peninsula for the weekend exploded when Johnny from Hitek Homeless (with whom we are hoping to rendezvous during our sojourn in Washington) informed me that the Hood Canal bridge is closed at the moment. Sure enough, the DOT web site reveals that the bridge closed May 1 for renovations and will not reopen till mid-June.

Since we now have to go up the Kitsap on the more direct route, we found ourselves with a couple of free nights in the schedule, and we are now en route to the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino, in Ocean Shores. We have fond memories of our last stay there, and we are looking forward to a relaxing couple of nights. I have to say, after passing the same exit on I-5 for the fifth time in the span of 24 hours, I am happy to be leaving the Interstate behind.

Photo by Whirling Phoenix

Saint Helens Turn

We are at the Elks lodge in Saint Helens, Oregon (map).

We can't see it from our camp site, but there is a lovely view of the Columbia from the lodge's back deck, just downstream of the confluence of the Multnomah Channel and the Saint Helens Turn. The weather was perfect, when we arrived yesterday afternoon, for a glass of wine overlooking the river. The top of Mount Saint Helens, or what's left of it, was also visible in the distance, majestic and covered with snow.

Yesterday we stopped at the Fred Meyer (a Pacific Northwest competitor to Wal-Mart, though significantly more upscale) in Scapoose to top off the fuel tank at $2.299 per gallon (with club card) before heading into Washington, where fuel is 20 cents or so higher. We also stocked up on box wine and a few grocery items while we were there.

Today we will cross the river into Longview, Washington and continue north to Chehalis/Centralia, where there is both a driver license office and a vehicle registration office. There is apparently a city park there with RV parking, and also an Elks lodge, so we should have no trouble finding a spot for the night.

Opal continues to improve and is showing signs of becoming her old self again, although we've created a monster with the wet food -- she is not the least bit interested in the dry kibble any longer. Weaning her off the wet stuff might be our next challenge.

Photo by eldan

Captain Neoplan!

I just found a listing for this comic book on eBay. Looks like they carry more than one issue, too, so it wasn't just a One Hit Wonder.

Next time someone asks us if there is anyone famous inside Odyssey, we can answer, "Yes! It's Captain Neoplan!" I'm just not sure if he's the robot or the buffed dude in the tight jeans.

Slow rolling out of Oregon

We are at the Camping World in Wilsonville, Oregon (map).

We had a great time Friday night with friends Brad and Kathleen and their new puppy Jackson. The Valley River Center agreed to let us stay another night (a simple matter of flagging down security and asking permission), and we all met there at the bus and then walked over to McGrath's Fish House for dinner, which was excellent. After dinner we returned to Odyssey for coffee and conversation.

We let Jackson, who is a ~80lb Australian Shepherd, just a year old, come in the bus to socialize with Opal. I have to say, the interaction really seems to have reanimated the old girl, and she wolfed down a bunch of wet food when the evening was over, the first signs of a healthy appetite that we'd seen in days. She, as usual, quickly informed Jackson of her status as lead bitch, even though he outweighs her by a factor of four. They managed to work things out pretty quickly, and then were mostly pleasant all evening.

Yesterday morning we strolled over to Marie Callender's for breakfast, since, horror of horrors, we had run out of milk for coffee the night before. That made four different restaurants to which we walked from our lovely spot on the river. Shortly thereafter, we packed up and headed out, just in time, as we were completely out of fresh water.

We had several shopping errands yesterday, including picking up a replacement DirecTV receiver at the Best Buy in Eugene (I've been trying to do this for months -- very few stores still carry the base-case "standard" receiver these days), a gallon of TranSynd synthetic transmission fluid at the Detroit/Allison/Freightliner dealer in Coburg (where, we discovered, they even have hookups for their RV customers who are stuck in the shop overnight, in stark contrast to many of our Detroit/Allison and Freightliner shop experiences), groceries and supplies, including a new batch of wet dog food, at the Wal-Mart in Salem (no overnight parking, unfortunately), a replacement CB antenna at the Pilot truck stop in Halsey (where we also took on water), and, ultimately, a couple of new mylar thermal window covers right here at Camping World.

Our plan had been to spend the night here, then continue north on the Oregon side of the Columbia, crossing into Longview, Washington to try to hit the Department of Licensing first thing Monday. It turns out, though, that all the DOL offices I looked at, with the sole exception of a "limited service office" in Vancouver, are closed Monday. So now it looks like we will roll a little more slowly along that same route, likely spending one more night in Oregon, and hit either the Kelso or Chehalis DOL office first thing Tuesday.

Opal is still regaining her strength, spending a lot of time sleeping, and moving very slowly when we walk her or even call her to another part of the bus. But at least now she is eating more and more regularly, albeit wet food, which is probably exacerbating the colitis a bit. She's still turing up her nose at the cottage cheese and rice, which is the bland diet she needs to get past the digestive issues, but right now we just want to get the calories back into her.

Best-kept overnight secret in Eugene

We are parked along the Willamette River at the Valley River Center mall, in Eugene, Oregon (map).

We've stayed here before, and like the spot because there are a variety of restaurants a short walk away, along with all the stores in the mall itself, including a multiplex cinema. The view can't be beat, right on the river, with access to the city's wonderful paved riverside trail. We arrived late yesterday afternoon, and spent a quiet and undisturbed night. This morning, as we were heading out to walk over to the cinema, we were approached by security's roaming lot patrol.

Apparently the mall is under new management, and the rules have changed. Fortunately, overnight parking here is still allowed, although there is now a two-night limit. Also, they want you to check in, and they will issue you a lime-green pass to go in the window, which alerts the patrols that you are already checked in. On the pass are written a half dozen or so "rules," which are really just common sense and already covered by the industry-sanctioned overnight parking etiquette memo that I have linked here several times.

Now that we're all checked-in and legal, we've decided to spend another night here. Last night we ate at Olive Garden just a couple blocks away, and today we saw the new Star Trek movie at the theater, probably the first time we've been to the cinema in over a year. Tonight we will pick one of the many other restaurants nearby.

We had hoped to stop in and say hello to some friends just a bit north of here today, but it turns out that they aren't available until tomorrow, and they've also actually moved here to Eugene. So tomorrow we will need to find new digs for another night; we might run up to Harrisburg where these same friends have some property we can use.

On our way here from Grants Pass yesterday, we stopped off at the Safeway in Roseburg, principally because my fuel price resources showed it had nearly the cheapest diesel in all of Oregon ($2.269 with Safeway club card). While I was putting in 110 gallons (OK, actually standing around watching some guy put that much in -- you are not permitted to pump your own fuel in Oregon), Louise ran into the store for a handful of necessities, including a number of items to try to tempt Opal into eating.

She turned her nose up at the jerky treats (which smelled, to me at least, amazingly similar to jerky intended for people rather than dogs), but the stinky wet Safeway-brand dog food finally did the trick, and we managed to coax her into eating a few ounces last night. We also picked up some flavored Pedialyte with the sugar already in it, and we have been giving her that as well, since she is still not eating enough. Today we have only managed to talk her into a couple of bites so far.

Now that she is at least eating something, and seems to be improving hourly, we are going to give her another night. Tomorrow morning we will need to decide if the situation warrants another vet visit, before the weekend makes that more difficult (not to mention expensive). If she continues to eat and improve, we will stay the course. If we can just keep the darned cats out of the wet dog food.

We had also hoped to catch up with our friend in Portland this weekend, but the schedules just did not mesh, and so our route north from here is something of an unanswered question. We may still head up the Willamette valley anyway, and do some touristy things in Portland, or else we can swing a bit east or west from here and get off the Interstate. In any case, we'd like to be in Washington on Monday to get our driver license and registration issues squared away.

The Opal report

We are at the Elks Lodge in Grants Pass, Oregon (map).

The drive here from Cave Junction was scenic, and US-199 seemed like a superhighway after ten miles of Caves Highway. We got a late start from our lovely digs in the forest, leaving sometime after 4, and we arrived here in Grants Pass around 5:30 or so. We got the last space(of two) left here at the lodge, just barely squeezing under a heavy tree limb. The tree is keeping us from deploying the satellite dish, but there are a couple of weak WiFi signals here, and we can get online intermittently.

We'd like to thank everyone who has commented, emailed, or tweeted about Opal. I'd like to be able to report that she is improving, but, frankly, we are quite worried. The cocktail of meds the vet in Crescent City put her on seems to have cleared up the serious colitis issues in short order -- we have found no more blood in her output, which has been, umm, improving.

Unfortunately, she also stopped eating shortly after the vet visit, and has been refusing even her normal favorite, cottage cheese. At first, we were not too worried; we knew that the colitis itself was probably affecting her appetite, and we also knew that the meds might be too. We wanted to continue the full course of meds, and so we also continued to give her Pedialyte as recommended by the vet, to keep her hydrated and her electrolytes up.

After the second full day of refusing to eat, she started to get a bit lethargic, and so we have been mixing sugar in with the Pedialyte to get her blood sugar back up. After a day of that, she has been a bit more active and reacting more normally to most stimuli, but still has not wanted any food.

This morning, finally, we were able to tempt her with some egg. Still, she did not eat much of it, and it amost looked as if she had forgotten how to eat -- she'd take some in her mouth, perhaps chew a little, then put it back down without swallowing. A lot of persistence with hand feeding resulted in her swallowing perhaps a half ounce of food over the course of the morning.

These sorts of appetite issues can be vicious cycles, wherein the lack of food in the stomach leads to discomfort, which then causes the dog to refuse to eat. We are continuing with the electrolytes and sugar to keep her strength up, and hoping she we will continue to ingest at least a small amount of solid food every few hours to reverse the cycle.

If she does not improve from here by tonight, we will have to get her to a vet for IV or sub-cu fluids. At least she has been drinking water consistently of her own volition, and between the water and the Pedialyte she has had a somewhat normal urine output. We will try to be in Eugene this afternoon, where we should have a surfeit of vet choices.

Oregon Caves

We are parked in a turn off on National Forest Road 4611 (map), in the Siskiyou National Forest, not far from Oregon Caves National Monument.

As long as we were driving by on 199, we really wanted to make the diversion over to the caves for the tour. The monument's web site recommends against bringing RVs further up the road than the Grayback Forest Service campground, but we tend to disbelieve these dire warnings (more on this in just a moment). As I wrote in my last post, we learned that Grayback was not yet open for the season.

On our way in to Cave Junction, we found a visitor center for the monument across the street from a Forest Service ranger station. We checked in at the visitor center first, who informed us that there was a private RV park just a mile or two shy of Grayback, and that became our backup plan. They knew nothing about the forest, so we went across the street to inquire about dispersed camping and look at the maps.

As is not uncommon, the person staffing the counter didn't really know much about dispersed camping, but we at least got the skinny on a couple of the paved roads, and found out what gates were still locked. We figured we could find a spot to camp if we proceeded carefully, so off we went down OR-46, the Caves Highway.

At Grayback I pulled off the road in front of the locked gate, and Louise took her scooter out to scope out the parking options. I stayed with Odyssey, in case anyone needed to get through the Grayback gate -- clearly, the volunteer camp host was already in quarters there for the season. We knew to stay off the main highway, so Louise made a quick run up this road. It's a single lane, with periodic turnouts for passing, and this enormous turn-around just before the road crosses into a single section of private land. Nevertheless, it had good overhead clearance, no inflections, and reasonable turn radii.

She did identify one unpaved spur that was clearly usable (and well used) for dispersed camping, but it was rather steep and had a section of soft gravel. We did make a brief effort to squeeze Odyssey into it, but gave it up as having too much potential to get stuck at the inflection. Instead, we continued here to the paved turn-around, reasoning that we are far enough off the road to be out of the way. There is also a small clearing just east of here that would be a good spot, except that it has been used as an illegal dump, with several houshold appliances and other miscellaneous trash, and it appears from our map to be on private land (although unposted).

We only saw perhaps half a dozen cars all evening, and the spot was dark and silent all night. We are surrounded by lovely coniferous forest, and can hear nearby Grayback Creek. It was a great spot, and, of course, free, whereas Grayback campground would have been $15, had it even been open.

This morning we took the scooters up to the caves, arriving around 11:30. Of course, as soon as we pulled in to the lot we saw a pair of 40' tour buses, an MCI and a Van Hool, and so it would have been no problem to simply drive Odyssey up to the monument -- we were, of course, reminded of a similar discovery at Chisos Basin in Big Bend after even more dire warnings posted there, considerably lowering the Park Service's credibility on this issue.



There were even a number of parking spaces marked "RV," at least a couple of which were 40' long. That's OK, though, because the road to the park was really fun to ride on the scooters, and we were able to park right next to the cave entrance.

We got on to a 12:00 cave tour, which consisted only of us and one other couple, so we had a much more pleasant tour than the typical 10-15 people. The tour was 90 minutes long, and ranger Brian was very pleasant and knowledgable about the cave. Afterwards, we stopped in to the historic Oregon Caves Chateau on the property for lunch.

Unfortunately, this early in the season, the coffee shop was closed, and we had to settle for buffalo chili (homemade, though) in the gift shop. At least we got to see the historic building. On our way back down the hill, we checked out a couple of other forest service roads, and attempted to look at the closer campground, also still closed for the season.

In a few minutes, we will load up the scooters and head out, with Grants Pass in our sights for tonight.

Under the trees at Panther Flat

We are at the Panther Flat campground (map), along US-199 in the Smith River National Recreation Area, part of the Six Rivers National Forest. The entire campground is under a dense canopy of conifers, so we are off-line, and I am typing this for upload later.

We had actually hoped to be a little further into the forest last night, but we found out that none of the campgrounds east of here has opened yet for the season. Continuing on to Cave Junction had also been an option, but the Forest Service campgrounds there are also still closed.

When we arrived here, we were somewhat surprised to find the temperature in the mid 70s, as it had been much cooler in Crescent City. Between the pleasant temperatures, the fact that the place was empty save for the camp host, and the emerald beauty of the river, we decided to stay, despite the inevitable jonesing for internet access.

Our solitude was short-lived. A pair of cars arrived later in the day with tent campers, who each chose, out of an entirely empty campground, to set up in spaces not far from us. Still, it was very quiet here last night.

It's much cooler today, but we will remain here at least through the morning. Then we need to move along -- not that we're internet junkies (we are), but we have a package here from our fire sale that needs to ship today, and we either need to get on-line to print the postage, or find a post office (there is none in the nearby town of Gasquet).

We should be in Cave Junction this afternoon, and we will hunt around for a place to stay. We'd like to go see the Oregon Caves, but with Grayback campground still closed for the season, it's not clear we will be able to park Odyssey within reasonable scooter distance of the monument.

Postscript: As I upload this, we are parked for lunch at the Patrick Creek Lodge (map), across from the Patrick Creek campground built by the CCC. The campground is not yet open for the season, but it is only a short walk on a lit trail along the creek, and it looks like it would fit us just fine, despite the guidebook indicating 35'.

Lunch was tasty, although the server was rather rude. Nevertheless, we would consider staying at the campground some time when it is open, and walking over here for dinner. The lodge itself was built in 1925 and has that CCC look about it as well.

The girl with colitis goes by...

We are at the Elk Valley Casino (do you detect a pattern here?) in Crescent City, California (map).

We actually intended to have other plans for last night, such as staying at one of the several coastal parks south of here, or perhaps continuing into the Six Rivers National Forest, but circumstances conspired against us. Specifically, Opal is having some issues.

Opal has a chronic condition of recurring ulcerative colitis, a condition which was diagnosed four years ago, when we were in Utah. We're used to it now, and when she starts having a bout, we switch her to a "bland" diet of rice and cottage cheese until it goes away.

Yesterday morning when I walked her, I noticed a drop of blood in her excrement, which worried us a bit, but it was very small. When I walked her again just before we left Trinidad, she strained a bit, and produced only a small amount of something runny, but this time with enough blood to make it somewhat pink. So we decided the best course of action would be to shoot for Crescent City for the night, in case we needed a vet.

Crescent City is one of these RV-unfriendly towns (probably not without reason, though) that has banned overnight parking of rigs, even in private parking lots, throughout the city. Our guide said there was an Elks lodge downtown, though, with room for one rig, so that's where we headed, with our fingers crossed that no one else was there.

Well, it turns out that they have room for maybe one rig if it's a class-B (RV-speak for a van conversion), or perhaps a truck camper. I might have been able to jockey Odyssey into their tight-quarters downtown lot if there had been no traffic (or we held it at the next cross street), but then we'd take up nearly a third of their tiny parking lot. On top of that, they were having some kind of event when we arrived, and the lot was already half full.

That left us with two back-up options, both about the same distance from town -- this casino (on sovereign tribal land, thus exempting it from the onerous RV parking regulation), or the county fairgrounds for $15 per night (with hookups). We came here, and checked in with security. They gave us several parking options, and we decided to go inside and check out the restaurant and the club promotions before getting Odyssey squared away in the furthest lot (the looky-loo factor is particularly high here in Crescent City, we don't know why).

Signing up for club cards got us each $5 in credit, which we immediately parlayed into nearly that much in real cash in the separate smoke-free gaming area. The restaurant seemed fine, with a varied menu and a number of nightly club-card specials, and so we headed back to the bus to get parked for the night.

Of course, we had already gotten parked, leveled, and the dish deployed when I took Opal for a walk, and this time she produced what looked to me to be a hemorrhagic quantity of blood. We immediately went on line to find an AAHA-accredited hospital, called, and got an urgent appointment in about 45 minutes' time. We buttoned everything back up, and headed right back into town, passing the Elks lodge again on our way to the vet. I grabbed as much of the, ahem, "output" as I could in a zip-lock baggie for analysis.

The vet was very reassuring, indicating that the quantity of blood was not at the crisis stage. He seemed to feel that it was simply a slightly worse bout of colitis, and gave Opal a pair of shots as well as some meds to take with us. Unfortunately, the preferred treatment for colitis, Metronidazole, is not an option for Opal. That's what the vet had prescribed four years ago, and we ended up rushing the dog to another vet a few days later, suffering from Metronidazole toxicosis.

In any case, the situation was not of enough concern for them to keep Opal over the weekend, so she was released to our care, with instructions to call the emergency number if the stool comes out looking, to quote the doctor, "like raspberry jam." In the meantime, she is back on rice and cottage cheese after a night of nothing but Pedialyte to keep her electrolytes up. And, of course, we are stuck here in Crescent City until we see either an improvement or more symptoms. Later today I will have to ask security if we can spend another night; if not, we'll move to the fairgrounds.

I am hoping, of course, that we will see an improvement by this afternoon. Her system has been completely empty since yesterday morning, so we just have to wait. At least she was acting much more chipper this morning, and showed much more interest in breakfast than she has in a couple of days.

Once we are clear to leave Crescent City, we will head east on US-199 into the Six Rivers National Forest, where we hope to spend a night or two before landing in Cave Junction and heading east to see the Oregon Caves.

Today's post title, BTW, is a mondegreen (misheard lyric) for "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (and now you can thank me for having to think of this every time you hear that song). Apparently, this mondegreen (of many for this particular lyric) is more likely to be heard by, umm, an older demographic.

Blogging from Trinidad, mon

No, not "de islands" but, rather, the California coastal village, where we are parked at the Cher-Ae Heights Casino (map).

This casino is very RV-friendly, having not only a separate, dedicated RV lot (oddly, striped for passenger cars) but also eight or so fresh water hose bibs arranged along one side. The casino and its tasty smoke-free fine dining restaurant is a short walk (or shuttle ride) away, and we have a view of the Pacific, albeit somewhat obstructed by lush conifers.

This is our first stay here, and we each got $5 in casino credit when we signed up for the players' club, which we parlayed into $10 in real cash at a pair of video poker machines. Speaking of which, yes, we did manage to turn our $10 in funny-money into $11 or so in cash at the Sho-Ka-Wah, and got a pair of free breakfasts to boot Monday morning.

Since we have the RV lot to ourselves, and the tribe is OK with it, we decided to spend two nights here. We bought ourselves a nice dinner in their restaurant last night, and tonight we'll clean the leftovers out of the fridge. This afternoon, we had a pleasant walk down "Scenic Drive" (really) as far as the trail to Baker Beach. This is really a hidden gem here on the coast, and we are adding it to our list of "secret spots."

I am having a bit of difficulty getting back into the "groove" of blogging every time we move, after a couple of blog-free weeks in San Jose. I think I need to keep the posts fairly short until I can find my muse again. Instead I have been busying myself with selling stuff on eBay, mostly that we rescued from our minuscule storage closet while we were in San Jose.

From here will will continue north to Crescent City, where we will turn inland on historic US-199 to Grants Pass.

Please, sir, may I have Samoa?

We are parked outside of the Samoa Cookhouse in Samoa, California (map), across Humboldt Bay from Eureka.

Long time readers know that this is one of our favorite restaurants, although we've only ever been here for breakfast or lunch. The last time we ate here, though, the dinner menu appealed to us, and I asked at the desk if we could park overnight in their lot, were we to eat dinner here. They gave us a hearty "yes," and so this morning I called to re-check that information, and to find out what's for dinner (roast beef, and pork steaks).

This will work out well, because we can have a glass or two of wine with dinner, and just stumble back home. In the past, before we thought to ask about spending the night, we'd stayed at the Samoa Boat Ramp county park, about five miles down the road. In addition to saving the ten mile round trip, we save the $15 (last we checked) it costs to dry camp there. I've always thought of the Cookhouse as a breakfast place; we'll see how we like it for dinner.

For the uninitiated, the Cookhouse serves all meals family style, and you eat whatever they are serving that day. There is no "menu" and no choice, other than whether or not to help yourself to whatever is on the platter. They keep bringing more helpings until you tell them to stop -- all you can eat (as opposed to all you should eat). I was initiated at a motorcycle rally, where we nearly filled the place for breakfast, and the platters were heaped high. When Louise and I eat here by ourselves, they bring more reasonably sized platters.

We had a short, pleasant, and sunny drive here from Benbow, where we spent last night at the Benbow RV Resort (map). Here again, long time readers may recognize that we've been there before, and, in fact, this trip is shaping up to be the exact reverse, stop for stop, of our trip southward in January of last year.



As then, our purpose for stopping there was really to have dinner at the Benbow Inn, a wonderful white-linen place with a great chef. Yesterday was our sixth wedding anniversary, and we wanted to eat someplace nice, rejecting several other stops along the way. Unlike last time, when we were there off-season, yesterday's stay set us back $52, after AAA/FMCA discount and including the $5 dog surcharge (up a whopping 67% since our last visit). Nevertheless, it was worthwhile for the meal, and I even managed a soak in the hot tub and swim in the pool this pleasant morning (it rained cats and dogs last night, precluding any such pleasantries when we arrived).

So far today we've managed to stay dry, but yesterday's storm system forced buckets of water into the coach through all our various leaks, including several gallons raining down on the dash from some ingress into the cockpit ceiling while under way.



Our principal goal for our visit to Infinity Coach this month will be to try to deal with these leaks yet another time. We have leak management down to a science now, so they are annoying but not destructive, but still, we'd like to have a leak-free home for the next few years, and besides that, we'll never be able to sell Odyssey without fixing them -- it's not as if any potential buyer can't just look here on the blog to see every problem we've ever had with the bus.

We've been moving north rather faster than I had expected, and I am hoping tomorrow we will find a nice spot for a couple days of down time. I have some work to do around the house, and, frankly, we really need to unwind from our rather hectic schedule in the bay area.

Runnin' up 101

We are at the Sho-Ka-Wah casino in Hopland, California (map).

We stopped here a bit more than a year ago on our way south, and, as then, we've concluded it is more or less the first low-cost stopping option north of the city on the 101 corridor. We did stop at the Petaluma Elks yesterday to dump our tanks, and they had plenty of space in their RV area, but we did not need the electricity and did not want to spend $20 for a night in what amounts to a parking lot. We dropped a few bucks in the donation box next to the dump station and continued on.

Since our last visit here, they have opened a steak house, which is separate from the casino floor for a thankfully smoke-free and much quieter experience. Our players' club cards got us the special $4.95 prime rib dinner, which was actually quite good (regular price, $14.95). It did mean that we drank twice as much as we ate, by cost, as the wine was $5 a glass.

Flashing our club cards at the promo desk yesterday also netted us some coupons for free play and $5 off food today, so we will wander in later to see if we can get something brunchy for our food coupon, and parlay the funny-money into cash. Not as good a deal as when we originally signed up, though, where we got $55 in casino credit that we were able to turn into $33 in real cash.

We had a nice drive yesterday, once we got out of the tight and inflected confines of the city streets. The gate was unfortunately (but not atypically) completely shrouded in fog as we crossed, but it was sunny and warm as we arrived here in Hopland. This afternoon we will continue north into the redwoods. There are high wind warnings out for much of the state, including our route. We'll take it slow, and stay away from the trees as much as we can (redwood branches falling ~100' to the ground can be destructive or deadly).

Shaky Town

We are parked adjacent to Buena Vista Park in San Francisco, a neighborhood aptly known as Buena Vista and just a couple blocks from The Haight and The Castro (map). This is Odyssey's first ever overnight within the city limits.

Our friend Neal lives in this neighborhood, and when we revealed that we were planning on leaving the south bay to the north and across the Gate, a plan was hatched to quarter us here for the night. We had a great visit with Neal and with Robert and Linda over in Noe Valley. Neal was kind enough to schlep us over to Noe Valley last night and again this morning, and we enjoyed a nice Thai dinner last night at a local eatery, and Linda made us a home cooked breakfast this morning.

All in all a great visit and a great way to spend a weekend here in Fog City. We spent Friday night in Sunnyvale, parked in front of the house of our friends Steve and Lisa and their kids Tatiana and Spencer, our pseudo niece and nephew. Another great dinner followed by a nice breakfast. Yesterday we had a pleasant drive up scenic I-280, followed by a few butt-clenching blocks on Fell Street, where the inflections at the intersections threatened to low-center the bus every block. Neal had graciously staked out a pair of adjacent parking spaces here on Buena Vista for us earlier in the day, and, in spite of a rather steep couple of blocks to get here, it is actually fairly level on this stretch.

We really enjoy the lifestyle here in San Francisco, even though we rarely got up here when we actually lived in the bay area. The city is on our short list of places where we might settle down for a while, whenever the travel bug releases its grip. Robert, Linda, and Neal are all friends from our motorcycle touring days, and we also confess to missing that aspect of our more stationary lives. We were sorry to have missed them this year in Baja in February, but we are hoping to catch back up with them next year at the same time.

In a few minutes we will head over to 19th and north to the bridge, and then to Petaluma where the Elks lodge is reported to have a dump station. After two full weeks in the bay area, we are due.