South Jetty, Florence OR 9/23-9/30

Well, off to another park. It is fun seeing a lot of our Thousand Trails Parks, but sometimes it is a little crazy moving every week. We will continue only staying a week at the next five parks, and then we will start staying from 2-3 weeks at a time. Our week usually goes something like this: Sunday is Church day, Monday is laundry day (every other week) and cleaning day, Tuesday is moving day, Wednesday and Thursday is work day (for me), and then Friday and Saturday is play day! Not too much different from some of your weeks, only we lots of free hours mixed in between.

South Jetty was a really fun park. We were there on the very warmest day of the year in Florence, and it was only 85 degrees!! Some of the other days were almost as nice. Each time we go into a Thousand Trails Park, there is a Ranger there to greet you and check you in. They also act as the information/problem solver station. This lady was really fun. She walked us around a couple of spots before she put us in one because she wanted to get just the right one for us. This is one of the few Thousand Trail Parks that assign spots. That is because it is a pretty old park and has a lot of short sites. She tries to put the shorter RVs in them and keep the larger ones for longer RVs. She told us she is the "nice Ranger." She told us that several times. I took her picture and told her she would be on the BLOG.

The spot she put us in got sun the first thing in the morning and had it almost all day. There are not too many sites like that in the park because it is in the middle of the forest. We really enjoyed the site because of the sun! Terry wanted this picture on the BLOG to show off his new chrome tailgate he and Shay found when we and all of the kids were all in Emmett. He had to make several adjustments to get it to work, but he made it. What do you think, boys?
There was another really nice club house at this park. We hung out there some and ate one dinner there. There is a full-time/private business in the clubhouse. It is called South Jetty Betty's. She is the cook and serves breakfast for members and also for the public five days a week. She has had her business there for 17 years! She is also the cook for the other meals available to the members--a BBQ lunch several times a week and dinner on Friday and Saturdays. We go to dinner once in a while at the parks.

There is a really nice pool, two hot tubs, and a kids pool. But, the weather wasn't warm enough for a lot of water activities. We saw people in the pool a few times, but we never used it. This is the front of the activity center. Terry was sitting there talking on the phone to our son, Ryan. So, Ryan, when you look at this picture, you will know where Dad was sitting when he was talking to you!

The Florence OR area is really famous for its miles and miles of sand dunes. We decided to check them out by going on a dunebuggy bus ride.
We lucked out and got the very front seats next to the driver--a great spot for taking pictures and asking questions.
This is a hill we started out on. It was a "staging area" that you could drive to and unload your toys. We had walked down here from our camp one day. It was on a weekend and the hill was covered with ORVs (off-road vehicles). We went straight up that hill in our "bus." It is really steeper and higher than this picture shows.

At the top, there were miles and miles of dunes. On one side of us there was dense forest. The drive talked a lot and told us a lot of stories and history about the dunes.

And on the other side, there was the Pacific Ocean! Our driver told us that this stretch of beach from Florence to Coos Bay was called "Old Highway 101" and there are actually speed limits attatched to it and the police have been known to ticket people going too fast. Years ago, this was the main thoroughfare for getting goods from bay to bay--of course, only during low tide!
This is looking down to the staging area we started at. The driver said we would just kind of meander down it, but then said, "Oh, what the heck, let's just go straight down." And we did! There were a few screams from the back of the bus, but of course, none from the front seat!
This is the bay marina in Florence. We went crabbing out on the docks one day. We caught a lot of crab, but no keepers. We had to fight off the seagulls out on the docks. They were everywhere. There was a flea market in the middle of the grassy area one day and we bought some really good home-made salsa.
The weather was nice enough to have a campfire a couple of evenings. I am thinking that we could use a fire ring like this at our house. So, if any of you have an old tire hub, preferably a large-sized tire (like maybe school bus size) that is in your way and you are wanting to get rid of, just drop it off at our house in Emmett. I am sure you will get invited to a wiener roast when we get home next summer.

See you at the next campground!

Whalers Rest/Newport OR 9/17 -- 9/23

After getting back from being home in Emmett, we moved the next day and went to our Whaler's Rest Park near Newport, Or. We had been to this park many years ago when we had a Howard Family Reunion there in 1986. It has changed a lot since then, but some is still the same. I don't know if it was in Thousand Trails Park system then or not. The most rememberable thing I remember is Sarah riding a bike down one of the graveled road hills and we ended up in the hospital with her where she had to get gravel scraped out of her face and hands. Her eye swelled shut and she was a real mess!
Now, the park has expanded to across a County road. That is where we were camped, down this road and to the right. There were activity centers on both sides, with a nice laundromat that we used in the one on our side. One evening we went to entertainment by a guitar player in the other center.

Most of our parks have rental sites. Some are trailers and some are these cute little cabins. We get to use one of these for a week out of each year at no cost. I am not sure when we will do this because we have always traveled with our 5th wheel. We will have to see.

My brother, Bill, came from the Portland area to visit with us for a couple of days. He said he was coming, but I was still surprised when he really came! He is a workaholic so I hope his couple of days with us was kind of relaxing, even though we kept him pretty busy. The first day we tried to go crabbing but where we went, they were out of crab rings to rent. So, we came back to the park, ate dinner there, and then went and listened to the guitar player. The next morning we walked around the park and then ended up at the beach.

There were some really neat caves in the cliffs along the beach. It was a little scary sitting in them because the rock was kind of soft and water was dripping through them. But, I was brave and sat in this one long enough for a picture. Bill takes almost as many pictures as I do and sometimes we share them. This is a big washed out area in the side of the bank. It washed away all of the soil around some of the roots of the trees above us and they just hang in mid-air. (This is one of Bill's pics. His has dates on them, which is a good idea until you want to blow one up for a copy of it.)
We found lots of fun things on the beach, crab shells, little muscle shells, a large muscle shell, and fossil shells. I put some of them in this candy dish and it makes a nice decoration in the Condo!

After walking the beach and finding lots of "treasures" we went into Newport and visited the Yaquina Bay lighthouse. It was built in 1871 and is the oldest building in Newport and was the first of four buildings in Oregon that housed both the light and the keeper's quarters. The Lighthouse Board hired Charles Pierce at a salary of $1000 per year. He and his wife Sarah lived in the lighthouse with 7 children. There was, of course, no electricity. Rainwater was collected in a cistern and then pumped into the kitchen by hand. It soon became apparent that the light was not as visible as needed, so the government decommissioned it in 1874. In 1934, it was scheduled for demolition, but local residents formed together and preserved it. It was re-lit in 1996 and is used by the Coast Guard. (Thank goodness for pamphlets!)
The Yaquina Bay Bridge (in Newport) is a really cool bridge. I think it is really pretty the way it is built with all of the curves. I took this picture from the parking lot of the Yaquina Bay lighthouse.
We later went to the Newport bay area. Lots of fishing boats come in with their catch and take the fish to the canneries there. Also, the customers from the charter fishing boats end up here and there are crews who clean and fillet their fish for them. Because of this, there are a lot of seal lions (I called them "seals" and was promptly corrected by someone standing near me.) They are so noisy. Bill took pictures of me while . . .

. . . I took pictures of him. He is much more photogenic than I am! Maybe I just take better pictures than he does!
Here are some of the seal lions. They are very possessive of their spot. If one tried to jump up and claim a spot, there was usually a fight. I took a video with my camera and tried to load it on the blog, but my Internet is too slow. Maybe I will load it later, although I know that some of you do not have fast enough Internet to watch the videos.
This is a place where the charter boats came in. There were two women who were cleaning and filleting the fish. They were amazing. I took a video of the lady in the bottom of the picture filleting one of these halibut. It was over 30" long and it took her a little over 2 minutes. She charged the guy $10 for filleting two of them. They were nice fillets!
Most people go to Mo's to eat clam chowder, but we were told years ago that the Chowder Bowl in Newport was at least as good as Mo's clam chowder. We tried it back then (about 20 years ago) and agreed. So, we took Bill to eat there. We all ordered slumgullion, which is clam chowder heaped on the top with little shrimp. It was just as good as we remembered it. I asked one of the people waiting in line outside to take our picture!
I said that we had eaten at the Chowder Bowl 20 years ago. Well, this is the house we rented for five days back then, on Nye Beach. We took my Mom, Sarah & Jill, and our niece Danielle with us and my sister Lorrie and her three kids followed us there. So, there were 10 of us and there would have been plenty of room for more. Back then, the house was old and musty and we were not sure we wanted to stay there at first. But, by the time we left, we really liked that old house. We could see the ocean from the porch balcony and especially sitting on the window seat upstairs in the bay window. They have put new windows and siding on it since we stayed there.

After Bill left (we had a great time with him--hope he had fun), the next day we rented a crab ring from the Park (we should have done that with Bill) and Terry got a shell fish permit and we went crabbing. You have to be very patient when you crab because all there is to do is sit there and pull your crab ring up about every 15 minutes (some say leave it in longer, but we were too impatient!)
But, sometimes, your patience is rewarded with CRAB! They have to be a certain size, color, and sex to keep them, so we ended up throwing most of them back in, although we usually got some with every pull.
Terry said he wore gloves because pulling the crab ring up with the rough rope is hard on his hands. But, I think he didn't want to get pinched. A crab pinched him through the glove and I am sure he was really glad he had the gloves. You notice there are no pictures of me holding one of those crabs! My work came later! We took the live crabs home and plopped them into a pot of boiling water (nothing like being boiled alive!) After they turned bright red (that is how you tell when they are done), I had to pull the shells off and clean out all of the innards. By the time I did that, I wasn't sure I wanted to eat the meat (Terry doesn't care for crab meat). But, it was really pretty good. We may try our luck again before we leave the coast.

Back to Emmett

Our niece, Angie, was diagnosed with cancer two years ago--brain tumors from melanoma. We got the sad news that she passed away on September 11. We drove home for her funeral, leaving our 5th wheel at Pacific City. It was a very untimely death because she was only 39 years old. She left her husband, Aaron, and 16-year-old son, Brandon. She will be missed by all of us. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of her family. This is a picture Angie's brother and sisters and some cousins she grew up with. The back row is our daughter Sarah, our son Travis, cousin Teresa, Angie's brother Matt, and our sons Shay and Ryan. Bottom row is Angie's sister Sherry, our daughter Jill, and Angie's sister Michele. One good thing that comes out of funerals is the family time we get to spend together.

All five of our married kids came home for Angie's funeral, without any spouses. Sarah brought her four kids and Jill brought her daughter Kamber. Sarah's boys, Luke and JT thought Aunt Lorrie's foosball game was lots of fun. I think it survived all the playing on it!
Jill's daughter, Kamber, spent a lot of her time playing with her new little cousin, Sarah's baby, Lyndee.

Sarah's daughter, Jenna, came with a skinned nose. She is a sweetie.
Baby Lyndee is now 4 1/2 months old. She laughs and goos a lot now. It was so much fun having some of the grandkids with us again.
As usual, some of the biggest kids were the most entertaining! It was pretty crazy having all of our kids together, especially without their spouses to keep them out of trouble. And, they always have to make a run to Roe-Ann's fastfood drive-in for a Wimpie burger and a scotch and soda. It's funny how they turn into kids again. Some more than others! Lorrie has this "wiggle car" that is so much fun to ride on, even the "big' kids like it. It is a wonder it is still in one piece. I told the kids that if it got broken, we would all have to pitch in and buy her a new one. I admit, I even rode it a few times!

The Howards cannot ever get together without playing pinochle, even if it has been a long day. And, we have to play until at least midnight! All of our kids knew how to play pinochle by the time they were about six years old. It always made them mad when we got together with relatives and all of the adults got to play, but everyone thought they were too young. We usually played pinochle with the kids on Sunday evenings, sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, summer and winter.

We took a more formal picture of our kids, just before we left for the funeral, but I think this one is more like them. Travis isn't wearing a tie because he loaned his to his Dad because we didn't bring one with us. We thought we left some at the house, but they were no where to be found.
What a great group of kids. They all turned out terrific, despite the way they were raised by their parents!

Pacific City, Oregon

We spent the week of September 9-17 at our Thousand Trails park a mile north of Pacific City, OR. The weather was pretty nice most of the time--in the 60-70's. This is the entrance to the park. It had a lighthouse scene in the front. The park is in the middle of a lot of trees and was just across the road from the ocean.Bob and Lolita had told us that this park had a lot of hills. They were not exaggerating! They told us at the ranger station that the higher we could get, the better the phone and possible Internet air card service. Well, by the time we got to the top of all of the hills, I think Terry was wondering if this was such a good idea! This is looking down from across the road where we were parked.
But, with the help of several of our neighbors (neighbors are usually always willing to help with, or at least observe, your "backing in techniques!" We didn't have a view of the ocean, but the people across the street did. And, as we walked down to the showers and restroom, there was a good view.
We had fun playing the 18-hole miniature golf course. We tied the first round and then I let Terry beat me the next round. He is easier to live with if I let him win once in a while!
The park has a beautiful indoor swimming pool. We never made it down to swim in it--maybe next time. There were people in it most of the time. The hot tub is just outside the door.
The club house is probably one of the nicest ones we have seen. There are a lot of windows and a great view of the ocean. There was a big-screen TV where we came and watched once in a while. We had no TV reception at all and were too cheap to pay $3/day for cable. There was a bottom floor under this room with a game room and a country store.
I had to show the little kids room, for the grandkids to see. They really cater to families at the Thousand Trails parks. Hopefully, we can get some of our kids and their families to come to the coast with us and this would be one of the fun parks to stay at.

Bob and Lolita (Terry's sister) were camped at a campground about ten miles away. They came one day and we went sightseeing. We went to the Cape Meares Lighthouse. It is no longer functioning as an active lighthouse. It is 38 feet tall and is Oregon's shortest lighthouse.
Here is Lolita and Terry heading towards the lighthouse. There is a gift shop in the bottom of it.
There were some beautiful shots of the ocean from the top of the lighthouse. I just can't resist taking pictures of the ocean. This picture is to the north of the lighthouse.
And this picture is to the south of the lighthouse.
Just up from the Cape Mears lighthouse is the Octopus tree. It is a Sitka spruce tree that has six candelabra branches, each of them at least six feet around and expand horizontally from the main trunk at much as 30 feet before turning upward. The base of the tree has a circumference of about 50 feet! (Can you tell I got this info from the sign by the tree?) It was pretty cool!

We stopped at a little soda fountain that Bob and Lolita had been to the year before. Bob and I were the only ones brave enough to tackle one.
I think this is the first real ice cream soda I have ever had, but I don't think it will be my last!
Terry stepped behind the counter and took this picture.
We went for a walk around the campground and saw this huge mushroom. I think it is the biggest mushroom I have ever seen.
I have always been fascinated by blue flowers. This bush of big, beautiful, blue flowers was growing next to the clubhouse.

There are lots of bunnies all over the campground. The speed limit is 5 mph. I think it is for the safety of the bunnies and all of the old people walking around who can't see or hear too well any more (of course, that does not include us, yet). We saw a baby deer when we first came into the park and the ranger said that baby bears had been seen. I would have liked to have seen the baby bears, but I am glad we didn't run into their mommies!