September 17, 2009 – Port Orford, OR

We had one of those strange mornings where everyone gets up early, gets involved in something (usually nonessential), and doesn’t get around to doing whatever is on the schedule until the morning’s almost gone. On the scheduled, essential activities side, Don took me out for a good long walk on the playing field next to the RV Park. About halfway across the field, I spotted a couple of gophers lounging around on the grass and set out after them. They ran for their holes, but I kept an eye on which holes they went to; I chose one of them, and started a major excavation job to try to extract the rascal. I’m not normally a digger, but something was urging me on to get this critter. The dirt was really flying, and I got the hole big enough so that I could get my snout down the hole about a foot. No luck, he was way too deep. Well, it was fun anyway. When we got back to the rig, Don got involved in some exterior cleaning, and Geri was putzing around inside. They finally got together to discuss which RV Park they wanted to stay at in Port Orford; they finally boiled it down to two choices, and Geri called both of them to find out that they didn’t have room for us. She wound up getting a reservation at the KOA that we stayed at last year.

We finally got on the road around eleven, and headed south on the 5. Just as we were turning off onto route 38 to take us to the coast, Geri decided to take a nap. Too bad, she missed some remarkably beautiful scenery on the drive along the Umpqua River; Don and I really enjoyed it. We turned south on 101 at Reedsport, heading back through North Bend and Coos Bay and down through Bandon and Langlois, where Don spent many summers as a kid. We pulled into the KOA, got our site assigned, and pulled into it. As I got out of the coach, I could see that the lady from the rig next door was admiring me; I smiled at her, and she walked toward me. I was wagging furiously, and ran to her, while she knelt down to hug me. Wow, am I good, or what? Turns out she is a Goldie fancier, and has her own young fellow, by name of Austin. He’s less than two years old, and a bit feisty. That’s OK, he’ll probably calm down.

After Don got the coach set up and livable, we loaded into the truck and headed down the road to visit Port Orford. We’ve been through here before, but haven’t spent any time looking around. We went down to the fishboat pier, where they haul the boats up onto the pier for storage with a crane. Lots of boats, but not much going on. We drove up the hill to the old Coast Guard Lifeboat Station, where the museum was closed. Then we went over to the lake which is separated from the ocean by sand dunes, and looked at the nice houses there. We visited the RV Parks that didn’t have room for us; they were both kind of tight, might have been difficult to shoehorn our rig into one of those spots.

Geri and Don called a halt to our wanderings, and headed for their real destination, a restaurant called The Crazy Norwegian’s. It has the reputation for serving the finest fish and chips on the Oregon Coast. They came out about an hour later (and about an hour after my scheduled meal time) raving about the quality of the fish; the place was packed with people, and they had been invited to share a table with a couple of fellow RV’ers from Reno, who were staying in Port Orford for a couple of months. I guess they had a really good time while their Best Friend starved in the truck. But we finally got home, I got my dinner, and all was well; I forgive easily. A little walk with Geri through the RV Park, a few treats, a little blogging, and so to bed. We’re underway again tomorrow!