Stir Crazy: A Trip to Roseburg

Grants Pass has been a good place for us this winter, but it wasn't our original destination, and while there is a great deal to see around here, much of it is not at its best in winter. So, our outings have been few the last couple months and I'm eager to get going again. It was time we went somewhere.

We've been meaning to go to Roseburg, 61 miles north of Grants Pass, for some time, and today was the day. We filled up the tank (Can someone explain to us why diesel prices didn't go down hardly at all when gasoline did? The difference between the two has really increased!), loaded up our canine companions, and
drove away into the mist, hoping it would turn out blue-sky sunny. A lot of days here start out overcast and later improve, but today?  Not the case. It went from mist to drizzle to sprinkle to rain, and even bouts of downpour, but still we pressed on.

Our main objective was the Douglas County Museum of History and Natural History, directly adjacent to the fairgrounds and just off I-5. Directly adjacent to the museum is the fairgrounds campground, apparently open all year. All the spaces have electric and water, and a handful have sewer; the rest have dump priveleges. Rates, according to the sign on the host trailer, are $20.20 per night.

This would be a great stop for roadschool families, as the museum is very child friendly, with a handful of hands-on activities. Nature and history are both well represented in the exhibits.

Covered wagon settlers had an much harder time than we full-time RVers in deciding what to what was worth the weight and space, and many "precious" belongings were jettisoned as priorities changed. The typical covered wagon was about 4' by 10'--makes our travel trailer absolutely palatial by comparison.

Here's a list of suggested provisions for the journey, per person.

I'm sure the settlers were ecstatic when they found berries or greens, or their men bagged fresh meat, to supplement this very basic diet.

Roseburg was right along one branch of the Oregon Trail, so there is a great deal of history here.

The museum's largest artifact is this train station, which is used to tell the story of the influence of the railroad in Oregon history.

One exhibit tells about a famous big game hunter who filmed his African exploits in the early 1930s. His adventures had a tragic end, as he later died from his encounter with this lion.

There are also extensive natural history exhibits.

We had lunch at a Sonic drive in, which we have never experienced before. The food is brought to your car by a server on roller skates!

You can take a downtown walking tour and learn about the history of "the blast," a tragic 1959 explosion of a truck loaded with dynamite. About a dozen people were killed and many more injured as many city blocks were flattened. The area was promptly rebuilt, and many of the businesses downtown even now have a certain, hard-to-describe, early 1960s look. Maybe it's the business signage; I wish I had some pictures to show you what I mean, but we were busy managing our two dogs and our umbrellas. Tasha and Claire enjoyed the trek around the downtown area, and their presence led to several pleasant encounters with local people, as almost everyone we met had nice things to say about our dogs. I think I would recommend this method as a good way to meet some locals, most of whom were happy for a brief chat about the town and area. The dogs were wonderful "icebreakers." Roseburg, incidentally, has a population of approximately 21,000.

We drove out to Glide, several miles east of Roseburg, intending to see the "colliding rivers" and a nearby covered bridge, but by then the skies had reached downpour status; we got a glimpse of the colliding rivers, but decided to save the bridge, still several miles distant, for another day.

On the way back to Grants Pass, we stopped at Seven Feathers Casino in Canyonville.

We stopped there merely as sightseers, as Jan and I are absolutely uninterested in gambling away even a dollar of our limited funds, and we never go to bars, and our idea of eating out is usually the value menu at a fast food restaurant, and that not too often. (Or just call us cheap!)

It was very nice inside and seemed fairly busy for a Friday afternoon in February. Strolling around, we remarked to each other that it felt much like the casinos we'd strolled through while on a conference trip to Reno. The Seven Feathers crowd was probably considerably bolstered by the Red Hat gathering that was going on. We saw quite a few red hats. The casino is run by the Cow Creek band of the Umpqua Tribe. There is a very nice RV park in Canyonville that is associated with the casino, should this be a destination you would like to visit.

A Downside Day

Everything has its downside, we all know. Today we had planned an outing to a neighboring town, but instead had to wait around for the mobile RV service van.

We've been having water seeping around the base of the toilet, a Dometic SeaLand 110. Chuck, the RV tech, and his team stopped by a couple days ago when Jan and I were unable to stop the leak ourselves. We needed a new valve kit and seal, which they had to order. Meanwhile, they tightened it up. It would only be 2 days to have the part.

Then, last night, I noticed the leak had accelerated. I had visions of the leak bursting into full stream and discharging massive amounts of water, so we took the precaution of shutting off the water supply to the trailer. Then, each time we needed to use the water, we turned on the pump and used water from the onboard supply, then turned it off again. (A precaution I recommend if you have any plumbing acting up in your rig.) We went to Soup Supper and Lenten Service last night at church, and I did not want to come home to a disaster, nor wake up to one in the morning.

Today the techs, apparently a family business with an OJT son, came with the parts. We learned that our toilet was about the bottom of the line--Dometic makes much better ones. I think this one must be manufactured just for the RV manufacturing industry, as it isn't even listed on their public website. Why am I not surprised? Chuck suggested we think about buying a better one, which we will, but right now we just want this one fixed as this is the month we paid truck insurance, trailer insurance, registration for both, heating for January (the coldest month of the year), and a couple other things.

It came to $140. In our house, we put in a brand new toilet for less. That's one of the downside parts of RV living. We will get a better toilet, and Jan is confident he can install it himself, when the time comes. I just hope it can wait a couple years.  There are quite a few things higher on my want list.

It's always something, isn't it?

New Curtains: The Big Reveal

I am very excited to share with you how the new curtains turned out. Counting the curtains the trailer came with, this is the third window treatment this 2009 trailer has had. Here is what the trailer looked like when we bought it (company literature photo):

That brown palm-tree print was dismal! Another RV blogger had the same print and said it looked like brown marijuana leaves. Ugh!

Then, because the dinette was still in place, the fabrics were a combination of some stuff we had left from the house, plus the valance print chosen specifically to tie it together. The furniture soon went, but the fabrics lingered.

Then I found this great fabric on clearance online. Doesn't it look great with the wallpaper border?

Here's the same room as it looks today with the new curtains.

And here's the view in the other direction.

I totally got rid of what was left of the waferboard cornices that came with the trailer and put up valance boards.

It was a tight fit above the table, as there is a cabinet just above the window.

We had to go buy a chisel so Jan could make it work.

The curtains are lined with Roc-lon, which makes them so nice. I bought the lining with a 50% off coupon at Jo-Ann (if you aren't getting Jo-Ann coupons via e-mail, you should sign up!)

Did you notice the wooden hook to the right of the window in Picture 4? It matches one on the other side of the window. Jan's home now from another day of gold panning

so I think I'll go spend some time with him.

'Bye for now.

Book Junkie on the Road

If ever there was a more inappropriate habit for a full-time RVer to have, it is the accumulation of books. This is a lifelong habit of mine, and I've spent far too much money on books over the years, even though I almost always bought used or on sale. I just had to have all that knowledge at my fingertips. I can tell you that it has made for some hellish moves.

I've been trying to cure myself for years now, and have actually made good progress. First, I sold hundreds of books on half.com (a department of eBay) and on eBay itself. Book money coming in instead of going out was a huge encouragement. At one time, I had something like 425 books listed at once!

Then, the evolution of the Internet into what it is today has made most of my personal library unnecessary. The hard-to-find idea or information or recipe for which I had purchased an entire book is now, in most cases, easily located by a simple Web search. 

Another freeing development is being able to digitally scrapbook the--in most cases--one or two things in a book which, to me, had justified keeping the book. It is surprising how many books I could happily say goodbye to after electronically scanning just a handful of pages.

And finally, the development of ebooks to the point they are today made holding a library in my hand a real, modern day marvel.

Still, a person needs a few books, and some music, and a few videos, so we decided that whatever would fit in the seven inch deep cabinet under the television would be okay. If it gets crowded, something will have to go to make room for the new.

You can see that it isn't even crammed! Knowing any books or media we acquire has to fit in there makes us very choosy about what makes it into the trailer.

Jan and I each have a Kindle. We just have the low-end ones that display an advertisement when not turned on. We each also have a booklight so we can read in bed without the poorly located head-of-the-bed light glaring in our eyes.

I still am a book junkie, but they're accumulating on my Kindle now.

The kindle will hold about 1500 books. I can remove books from my device if I wish, and they are still available for me to download again from "the cloud."

I've only paid real, actual money for one of those books. Three are currently on loan to me from my home library. You probably have a library card from somewhere, and there's a good chance your library has gotten involved in loaning patrons ebooks. They can be accessed from anywhere and you won't have overdue books; they simply deactivate on your device when your time is up.

The rest of the books I acquired from free sources. Older books, classics, that are now Public Domain books, are readily available for free download (excellent for homeschoolers), and both Jan and I find many entertaining reads via an e-newsletter that we each get every day. You can learn about it here:

 http://ireaderreview.com/

Some of the books in this newsletter are excellent. Many are free for a few hours but will have a price attached shortly. Some have also been published in paper format by big-name publishing houses, some are classics, but many are self-published. The self-published books really vary in quality, and if I see that a book isn't likely to be worth reading, I don't hesitate to delete it. Some of them have been so entertaining that I am very tempted to purchase others by the author. (Which is why they are offered free in the first place.) There are books of various genres listed, including for children.

I am sure there are other such newsletters, but we haven't yet explored them as we have, between the library and the books listed in the newsletter, more than enough to read.

Kitchen Storage Project

Yesterday Jan and I celebrated 17 years of marriage. Yes, our anniversary is on Valentine's Day. Our wedding day was Jan's choice; he is a hopeless romantic. Even sang a love song to me (and everyone who was there) at our reception, and he is not a professional singer. I cringed and was deeply touched at the same time, if you know what I mean. Today, midway through February, we're enjoying another beautiful, sunny, blue-sky day. It's still cold at night, but the days are getting up to about 60F. I'm opening the ceiling vents during the day, and the unfilmed window over the kitchen sink. I'm also realizing our time here will come to an end all too soon, and it won't be long before it's time to hitch up.

Jan went gold panning again, for the second day in a row. We're almost giddy with the beautiful weather. And I worked on another house project. I love projects in the trailer. By definition, they're small, so the materials outlay isn't nearly what it is in a stationary house. (Unless you need a new appliance; those prices will make you cringe. Fellow across the way needs a new fridge in his unit: $1300.)

Friends and family who are reading this blog to find out what wonderful adventures we're having are probably not fascinated by our "trailer improvement" stories, but I know from personal experience that other RVers, and those who aspire to be, find them interesting. So if you were hoping for an exciting travel story, I forgive you for tuning out now.

I long ago got rid of the folding metal range top cover that came with the trailer; it was a total nuisance. I had my eye on a wooden cutting board stove cover that Camping World had, but it was quite expensive. I found a nice bamboo cutting board of the right size at Ross for $11, but needed to be able to easily move it back and forth between counter and stove without rearranging a lot of stuff, which meant making counter space available for it.

Meanwhile, there was this wasted space beside the stove hood that just niggled at me.

I was thinking a spice rack, but they're expensive. Then, while trolling the aisles at Home Depot (I find solutions to so many problems that way), I found this shelf.

Before I bought the shelf, I went home and made a newspaper pattern of the shelf and tried it out for size and decided it was a go. Yes! Back to Home Depot for the shelf and a front ledge piece for the spice shelf (already had wood for the shelf itself).

I used Polyshades, from Minwax, which we had on board in our tool kit, to stain and seal the pieces. Here's how they turned out.

The shelf allows me to access the cutting board without moving things around. I keep a grip pad under the cutting board so it doesn't slide. By the way, the utensil holder is another "trolling" find. I had been looking for a good-looking, lightweight utensil holder and found this black metal mesh oversize pencil holder at Staples. It even came with a nonskid bottom!

How I treasure this space to the right of the stove. Most RVs just seem to butt the stove up next to the fridge, with no counter space there. Here's the stove transformed into more counter space.

I'm very pleased with my day's project.

By the way, I love the magnetic knife rack you see behind the stove. I had to search quite a while to find a shorter one; most of them are too long for the space. It holds the knives very well during travel. The assortment you see is perfect for our needs: chef knife, paring knife, offset blade serrated knife, boning knife, corkscrew, carbon steel blade (not stainless steel; they don't stay sharp for long) vegetable peeler. There's a sharpening steel in the cupboard.

RV Windows in Winter

Condensation on windows is an ongoing challenge for RV dwellers when the temperature falls. I understand that those with thermopane windows have less of a problem, but I wouldn't know firsthand; we're not so lucky.

This is our second winter in the trailer. Both years have been in mild-winter areas (cool, moist winters with rare snow and quite a few nights that just dip below freezing, plus a couple nights as low as 24F). So, we're not talking severe cold here, which we wouldn't stay around for in this non-four-season trailer. Even so, perhaps what we've learned will be helpful to others.

Last winter, which we spent parked at our daughter's house, we had to to a lot of window wiping, a couple times a day, saturating several terry cloths (we buy those bundles of white terry cleaning cloths and have a plastic shoebox-size bin of them handy for whatever). Water would pool in the bottom channels of the windows--a couple of them have those little  slot-shaped drains, but not all. I had to soak it up with a terry cloth. We had the free use of our daughter's washer and dryer, and even so, getting them dry and ready for the next round of wiping was an ordeal.

This year, we have to ante up five quarters for each and every load of washer or dryer use (we're lucky; it's higher a lot of places). Hanging the cloths up to dry isn't a good idea, as it adds to the humidity problem. So it seemed a good investment to apply the do-it-yourself plastic window film kits to see if it would help. We have three ceiling vents we can open for ventilation, and I also left the sliding window over the sink un-filmed.

The difference was dramatic. In the morning, there is some beading along the bottom edge of the window. It's important to run the cloth along there first thing in the morning, before the droplets break loose and run down the wall. I can do the whole trailer with one cloth.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the physics of condensation. I know it has to do with warmed air meeting cold air and all that, so the next thing we discovered surprised me. I thought bundling up the windows would help, so we would faithfully close both the pleated shades and the curtains, which resulted in what you see above plus some moisture higher up. One night we forgot to close the pleated shade, and with just the curtain, there was much less condensation to wipe. Since then, we close only the curtains at night, leaving the pleated shade open.

The kitchen window, which we did not apply the film to, looks like this in the morning.

This is what all our windows looked like last year. Plus, there is that little pool in the bottom channel of the kitchen window.

It seems, though, that every time we solve one RV living problem, there's another one. Partway through winter we discovered that there was some mold growing behind the film where we can't get at it to clean it. We just sighed and added that to our list of spring chores.

So I'm going to follow through on an idea I had about how to make removable interior storm windows from sheets of acrylic. That way they can be taken down for cleaning and replaced. I won't be getting around to that until the end of summer, most likely, but I'll share with you how it goes.

RV Door Insulation for Winter

If you're a full-timer like me, there's a good chance you, too, scour the Internet for inspiration and ideas for dealing with the special opportunities and challenges of this lifestyle. One topic of much discussion, I know, is how to winter successfully in an RV. As I've mentioned, our travel trailer doesn't even pretend to be a four-season model, so we won't even attempt to winter in places that get below the high twenties. Still, we regularly face those slightly below freezing temperatures and face many of the same issues that those of you wintering in colder places, hopefully with a better-insulated RV, deal with.

I'd like to share with you an idea I had for insulating the doors. I've never seen this idea elsewhere, so I hope some of you find it useful. Here's a picture of one of our two doors:

What we've done is attach a piece of quilted reflective insulation (which comes in 2' widths, exactly the same as most RV doors) and attach it to the outside of the screen door, so it fits in between the screen and the main door. We attached the insulation with medium size binder clips (available in the office supply section of the store):

and cut out around the door handles (for both screen and main doors) so the handles are still fully operational.

The door still opens and closes as a single unit, and the bonus is that the window is covered:

so I am no longer bothered by light coming in at night when I am trying to sleep.

I am planning to also make a curtain to go over the door; I already have the fabric and hope to have it finished soon so I can show you a picture. I'm in the middle of making new curtains for the entire main room so decided to include the door so I don't always have to look at it; it is not a thing of beauty. (I have seen some RV doors with more attractive interiors and am hopeful our next unit, in several years, might have such a door. But that's in the future...)  I'm very excited about the new curtains and am looking forward to the big "reveal," coming soon.

RV Parks and Long-Term Residents

One of the most useful RV-related sites I have bookmarked on my computer is RV Park Reviews . This site features reviews of RV parks all over the country and can help you find a park that will meet your needs. Along with basic information about facilities and links to their websites, there are candid reviews by RVers who've actually stayed there (I've contributed a couple of reviews myself). Once in a while you'll run across a review that warns emphatically, "DO NOT STAY HERE!" These warnings are reserved for the most run-down parks catering to run-down, debris-strewn units (as in long-term). Some reviewers report they didn't even stop their vehicle but just kept going, with a comment like, "This place is scary."

Then, in many reviews, you will see a somewhat disdainful reference to "many long-term residents."  Here, we're talking more than for a season, which is what most of us were thinking when we signed on to this RV life. We're talking people who have reached the last stop on their RV journeys.

But the reality is, many parks rely on long-term residents for day-in, day-out income, particularly in warmer climates where year-round RV living is really feasible. Here in Grants Pass, in Southern Oregon, full time RV living is very common. There are many RV parks in the area, and some of them seem to be populated almost exclusively by long-term residents; those parks, you won't even see listed in RV directories, but they dot the countryside. And by long-term, I mean trailers with porches, trailers that haven't moved for ten or fifteen years. Trailers that are starting to look a little...worn.

Our park here in Grants Pass, Oregon, has a nice upper section catering mainly to the short stay RVs, with cable television and Internet. It is close to the office, laundry, lounge, and showers. Around the perimeter of the upper area are a number of long-term residents who can afford these higher-priced sites and the services that come with them. Jan and I are among the few who are in a kind of intermediate category, here for several months, but definitely moving on, and we are in the upper section.

Then, down a little hill, is a large section of longer-term stays, some intermediate, like us, but mostly....permanent. Some of these people don't even own a car, let alone a tow vehicle. The space rent there is less, but does not include Internet or cable television. Many of the units are nice, but  almost as many are aging, and frankly, seeing them is rather sad and even distressing.

One couple relies on $750 a month Social Security and food stamps, for instance.

All of the park is well-maintained (great managers). The only difference, really, is the occupants. I've met a few of the long term residents at the Thanksgiving and Christmas open houses, and seen others around the park. They seem to be mostly on fixed incomes, some with apparent disabilities.  The travelers and the residents are two different groups of people, really, with different realities and different priorities. They don't mix much. Again, we're sort of in between.

We may be traveling very slowly, but we plan to keep traveling, God willing.

Chocolate Waffle Cookies

When we started this adventure, I did my best to make every pound count. Our trailer has a generous payload rating, but every pound you drag around costs fuel, and there's only so much cabinet space. So, one thing that did not make the initial cut was our waffle iron. Jan loves waffles, and I rationalized that I could buy frozen waffles.

But I hate buying things with unpronounceable ingredient lists, not just for health reasons, but because chemicals don't really taste good, and I can whip up a batch of waffles for very little money, any time, from ingredients already in the pantry, without using precious freezer space to store a box of substandard waffles.

So, I ended up buying a small waffle iron at a thrift store, for about $3.

For an appliance to earn its place in our trailer, I ask that it work hard. Much as Jan loves waffles, that wasn't quite enough justification. I spent some time surfing the Web looking for other uses for a waffle iron and found lots of ideas. One of our favorites is for making a small batch of cookies, quickly, without heating up the oven.

Small batches of cookies are a good thing if you tend to eat too many, like I tend to. This recipe makes about 6 nice-sized cookies. You can be enjoying warm, fresh cookies just a few minutes after you decide to make them.

CHOCOLATE WAFFLE COOKIES

• 1/3 cup butter (or margarine)
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 1/2 cup flour
• powdered sugar

In a double boiler (you can improvise one with any bowl that will set in the top of a pan over simmering water),  melt the butter. (You could also do this in the microwave if you are so inclined.)  Mix in the sugar, vanilla, and cocoa. Turn off the burner.

Add a little of the chocolate mixture to the beaten egg (the mixture is hot and you want to temper the egg--warm it up a bit before it goes in the chocolate mixture so the egg doesn't start cooking when it goes in the chocolate), then stir the egg mixture into the chocolate. Mix in the flour.

Put a dollop of batter in each section of the waffle iron,

close the lid, and watch for it to stop steaming. Check for doneness--you want it to be cooked through and be firm enough to remove easily.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy. Aren't these cute?

When we get tired of these, I'll experiment with some other kinds.

This Is NOT an Abandoned Blog

I've run across quite a few abandoned blogs out there in Cyberspace, and this blog has had every appearance of being one of them. But, it is not. Our full-time RV life continues. We've been living in this travel trailer for nearly 17 months now. However, it has not been particularly adventurous this winter. Our plan had been to spend a month in Grants Pass, OR, so Jan could check out gold panning opportunities here, and then head south for the winter.

Well, life intervened. Fuel is high. Jan and I EACH needed a crown (do you have any idea how much diesel a crown costs?) Jan needed to get his cataract surgery, which takes a month or two for both eyes, and my daughter needed some support during a couple surgeries for our grandchildren at the Shriners Childrens Hospital in Portland.

So, we researched typical winter weather here in Grants Pass and decided to stay. Typically there are a few days of high twenties temperatures here, which I know we can do well in. But, occasionally it can be colder, much colder, like 5F, which we knew our trailer wouldn't handle. We decided to chance it, ready to winterize and hole up in a motel if the temperature took a drastic dive.

It didn't, and we've made it through the worst of winter here just fine. We're starting to get some sunny days again, and yesterday we went to check out another possible gold panning site. I know Jan is planning on coming back here later in the year, when it is warmer and he can really do some prospecting.

What did we do this winter?

I went to Portland to help my daughter during the children's first surgeries. (Read about it on her blog, here .) I went for five days in November and again for five days in January.

Jan had his cataract surgeries, which went very well, and we each got a dental crown.

I filled an empty spot in the church bell choir and played at the Christmas eve service.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at the church.

We made all our Christmas gifts.

We practiced our instruments--Jan his guitar, me my autoharp.

I took up watercolor painting.

In January, Jan took a trip by Greyhound to visit his brother in Scottsdale, Arizona (someone has to stay home with the dogs, and it was my turn).

We will be here in Grants Pass, Oregon, until Easter (I promised to help with two more bell choir performances). Then, we'll set out again. We have to make our way back to the house, north of Spokane, and deal with the rest of our possessions that are stored there. Last fall, we got the house painted and the front porch repaired, but decided to wait until spring to get it on the market. Our renter was happy to settle in for the winter, too. Once the house is either sold or in the hands of an agent, we will feel free to venture further away. (That was another reason we didn't go further south this year.)

So, this is not an abandoned blog. I had planned to blog about the everyday details of full-time RV living, so will do more of that. I know when we started on this adventure, and even now, I always enjoy reading about others' adventures and how they have solved the challenges of this lifestyle.