Relaxing on the Water in Oregon

We stayed a few days at Clackamette RV Park, a city park in Oregon City, near Portland. It is a small 35 site park right on the Willamette River, We got a spot right on the water. We have stayed here a few years ago. The RV Park is next to a good sized park and was a great place for us to walk with Savannah. There is a small parking area right on the bank of the river in front of the campsites and it seems to be a place for people to stop and look at the view or maybe take a break from work. Lots of coming and goings.

A rare Airstream Motorhome

Park next to the campground

We continued on to thugene area. We had plans to stop into AM Solar for a quote on some additional solar panels and other related things. While there we ran into Vicki, a woman we knew from Jojoba. It was fun to see her and talk about our adventures this summer. It turns out AM Solar is booked until December and so we are putting this project off for awhile. We also went to Davis Cabinets to talk to them about some work we want them to do. They are the ones who built our desk/table for us and do great work. We set up a time and will come back the day after Labor Day.  We then drove towards the coast on the road that ends in Florence. We spent one night at the 3 River Casino. Again no gambling but we did have dinner there. The next day we headed a few hours down the coast to a new spot for us. Boice-Cope, a nice county park on a bluff right above Floras Lake. It is in Langlois and is near Bandon. On the other side of the lake are sand dunes and there is a trail to the ocean. It gets quite windy and the day we got there, there were a number of wind surfers. It looks like a great place to learn and there looked to be a few on the water doing just that.

Savannah walking to the Lake

It was nice to just sit and watch the kite and wind surfers. Savannah had fun in the water and rolling around in the dirt.

Next we left our great new find where we hope to return to in the future. Our next stop is Winchester Bay which is just south of Reedsport. There is a lot of no hookup sites that are available on a first come first serve basis right in the Harbor. We have stayed here before. We were lucky to get the last of the slightly larger sites right on the water as someone had just left a few hours before.

Ship to the right of our site

Commercial Campground across the bay from our site

 We got some lovely sunsets which we haven't seen much of the last few months.

We continued to just take it easy and enjoy the views from our motorhome. The weather is still a little chilly. There are a number of lighthouses in the area but we had checked them out on past trips. We spent 8 days here including the Labor Day weekend  We met a nice couple who were next to us. They had a place in Ojai which they recently sold. They spent the summer here while he works on boats and will be heading towards San Diego for the winter. Fishing is big here including crabbing. We gets crabs all the time and gave us a couple. Joe got all the meat out of the legs and body and the next day I made some crab cakes with a tartar sauce and they were delish, After going crazy taking pictures in Alaska and Canada, I haven't taken very many in Oregon, especially as we have been here before and there are a lot in the blog from the summer of 2013. With good internet Joe has been catching up with work and we have been watching some  tv after no tv for most of the summer.
We left on Labor Day and made our way inland staying at the Valley River Mall. It is a great freebie site where you can camp upto two days. We got here late and are leaving early in the morning to get to Davis Cabinets first thing. However, we stayed here for a few days last time. The parking is in a large parking area in the back but right near the river and a bike path. There is a park right on the other side of the bridge and we biked through it last time. Pretty nice place for being in an urban setting and we even had a small view of the lake from the MH. We are now at Davis Cabinets and they are suppose to be done with the work we are having done tomorrow. I'll let you know what we had done and have some pictures of the work in the next post.

There's Gold in Them There Hills - Fairbanks

We spent a few weeks in the Fairbanks overall the last time we were in Alaska. We decided to stay at Chena Lake's Recreation Area again. There was a hugh disaster in 1967 where Fairbanks, the second largest city in Alaska was almost completely floodedby the Chena River. Major flood control projects were undertaken and the reservior build by the Corp of Engineers was one of the projects. There are actually two campgrounds, one River Park and another Lake PArk, which is where we stayed.

We are only staying three nights this time. We decided to take two tours, one a new one for us and another we took before but really liked a lot. We had bought a tour book again which includes many of the tours in Alaska on a buy one get one free basis. The two trips we took paid for the book and we know we will be using it over the next 6 weeks or so. The first trip was to Gold Dredge 8 which is a 2 hour tour to the gold fields in the Tanana Valley. The tour begins right by part of the Alaskan Pipeline, which products 15% of the nation's oil production. It goes from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

We then hoped aboard a replica of the Tanana Valley railroad, where we listened to a short talk on the way to the Dredge. The narrator also was a musician and sang a few tunes. Gold Dredge 8 extracted millions of ounces of gold from the frozen Alaska ground. It is now a National Historic Site that pays tribute to the hard working miners who built Fairbanks. The train made stops while we listened to demostrations and talks about mining in Alaska. Gold mining was a big part of Alaska's history and towns grew and some turned to ghost towns when the gold was no longer available.

We then stopped and everyone got to try their hand at finding gold. We were given a poke of pay dirt which we put into a pan and told how to tip the pan into the water washing away the dirt and rocks until only gold is left. I think everyone got a little gold. Of course there is a store there where you can find out how much your gold in worth and then have it put into a necklace or earring. Joe only got 7 dollars worth and I got 19 dollars worth but I combined them into a necklace. It was a fun trip though it isn't anything we would do a second time.

Atrip we did do for a second time was the Riverboat Discovery. Besides being just a nice boat ride on the Chena River, the three hour tour was filled with Alaska history. It started with a bush pilot taking off and landing near the boat. The pilot talked about the importance of planes in the bush country.

We passed a lot of interesting looking homes on the river side. No cookie cutter houses here.

We passed the Pump House which is a restaurant we went to later that night.

We also stopped to see the Susan Butcher Kennels. Susan was a four time Iditarod Champion. She died a number of years ago but her husband and family carry on the tradition and train the champion sled dogs.

We watched a dog mushing demo and then watched the dogs happily play in the water.
We continued on with a stop to see a demo of an Athabascan Indian filleting and drying salmon. We also took a walking tour of an Athabascan Indian Village. There were talks on the construction of log cabins, a primitive spruce bark hut, how some animals such as fox and beaver were used for food and protection in the harsh artic winters.

They also had some of Susan Butchers dogs there to pet and hear about their life in Alaska.

We  headed back enjoying a nice warm day on the water. Fairbanks has some of the warmest weather in Alaska. They get some of the hottest days but also some of the coldest in the winter at 60 below zero.

We headed back to our campsite and later that evening drove all the way back to the Pump House. If we had known it was right near the Discovery Boat area we would have taken the tour later in the day and went right from there to dinner. We had a reservation but weren't able to see outside as it was full. We ate in the atrium room which was still nice as we could see some of the rivr. We didn't have a good start as we sat there for almost 20 minutes without a waiter coming over. Joe had to finally go complain. They said there must have been a mixup though you would think someone would have noticed us sitting there without anything but water. When we finally got someone to wait on us he did go out of his way to make up for it with good service. The food was very good. We had a oyster shooter each and shared some steamed clams. Joe had a bacon wrapped meat dish and I had seafood risotto with shrimp, crab and scallops. All very good.

Next we are on our way to Denali where we are staying at one of National Park's campground.