Seduced By Tiny Campers

While we were driving down Hwy 101 on the Oregon Coast the other day, we saw a vehicle from Alaska towing a tiny camper. Something like this one.



Instead of sleeping in a tent in the pouring rain, imagine sleeping inside one of these little beauties. A little bit later in the day, we ran into the guy towing the camper from Alaska and got a sneak peek inside. A tiny kitchenette to make your coffee in, a dinette to sit and drink your coffee in and a bed to sleep on (rather than a sleeping bag on the ground). It reminded me of living on our tiny sailboat. Oh, how I wanted one! 

People always say the universe listens to what you put out there. It must of heard me say, "I want a tiny camper. NOW!!" Because next thing you know, we drove right past a tiny camper dealership in Brookings, Oregon. Okay, they sell far more than tiny campers, but all I saw where we were driving past were adorable, tiny campers. Like this one.

Their lot was chock full of R-pod travel trailers just sitting there, ready to seduce you into taking one home on the back of your vehicle. Take a look at their website. I'm not greedy, I just want the basic RP-171 model. With a flat screen TV, microwave and air conditioning of course. 

Sadly, the Universe takes you quite literally when you dream out loud. So when I said, "I want a tiny camper, NOW!", I should have said "I want a tiny camper, NOW, that my vehicle is capable of towing cross-country through the mountains." Our 1995 Nissan Pathfinder took one look at the R-pod camper and said, "You're dreaming if you think I have the towing capacity to tow this, plus all your stuff and water. Hah! It's never going to happen! Learn to love your tent and sleeping bag because that's all I'm ever going to tow!" All said with some sort of evil, creepy voice because our Pathfinder has really been getting into the spirit of Halloween lately. 

And on a semi-related note, has Halloween always been such a big thing in the States? It is the first time in over 12 years since I've been in the States for Halloween and everyone seems to be really, really getting into the spirit of things. It almost seems like decorating your house for Halloween is almost as important as decorating your house for the holidays. Watch out Santa, the Great Pumpkin is coming for you.

I think instead of writing a Dear Santa letter this year, I'm going to write a Dear Great Pumpkin letter. There is only one thing I want this year, Dear Great Pumpkin, and that's a tiny camper. Pretty please...

Think Retro, Not Porno

Sometimes camping sucks. Like when it is raining cats and dogs and you can’t find your waterproof pants* and you get absolutely soaked and covered in mud taking down the tent, getting your food out of the bear-proof locker and loading up the car. I think we’re getting too old for this kind of nonsense. We broke down the other day and looked for a motel for the night in Crescent City, CA. Our original requirements were cheap, clean and free wi-fi. I later added a new requirement – a place where they’re not making porno movies.

We stopped by one motel along Hwy 101 on the California coast in the morning to ask about their room rates. It was still early in the morning, but the office wasn’t open and it didn’t look like anyone had stayed there the previous night. We asked the chambermaid if she had a clue how much the rates were. She said we had to come back in the afternoon when the owner would be back from taking her dog to the vet. That’s when I noticed she only had two teeth. When we came back in the afternoon to talk to the owner, she quoted us a ridiculously high rate for a room without wi-fi. I happened to glance in one of the rooms and saw a bunch of guys setting up lights. I’m pretty sure they were getting ready to make porno movies. I guess if you’re making porno, you don’t need wi-fi and you’re happy to pay a lot of money for a dodgy room. Scott tells me that guys who are doing drywall use lights to check for imperfections and quality control. But, trust me, they didn’t look like drywall guys. That’s when I added a new requirement to our motel list – no porno movie filming. And as a bonus, it would be nice if the chambermaids had more than two teeth. If they don’t practice good dental hygiene, how can I be sure they’ll do a good job cleaning the rooms?

Further up the road, we stopped by some other motels. Either outrageously expensive and/or no wi-fi. On the plus side, I didn’t see any evidence of porno movies being made. Then we ran across Curly Redwood Lodge in Crescent City. It was relatively cheap ($56 during non-peak season), it had wi-fi, the rooms were clean and it was porno-free. And the best part was its retro vibe.



The entire lodge was built from one curly redwood tree – 57,000 board feet of lumber in all. Curly redwood produces curly grain wood. Which seems pretty obvious from its name. Most redwood is straight grained, so this stuff looks a bit different.



The lodge opened in 1957 and looks like it hasn’t changed at all since then. But for folks who are tired of all of the generic, cookie-cutter motel chains, this is a very, very good thing. Don’t you get tired of seeing the same chains all over the world when you travel? How many Comfort Inns, McDonalds or Starbucks do we really need? (Although to be fair to Starbucks, I recently had one of their salted caramel mochas and would desperately like another one.)



We continued our retro vibe at a Mexican restaurant in Crescent City. It also looks like it was built in the 1950’s. They have Pacifico on tap. What more could you want?



I wish I could say that we got a discount from Curly Redwood Lodge for this post, but I’m pretty sure they don’t know we have a blog. And if they did, I’m sure they would prefer that we didn’t talk about them in the same post that also talks about porno movies. Google does some weird things with their search engines.

*Note: For our UK English readers, I mean “trousers”, not underwear. Talking about wearing waterproof underwear would just be too weird, even for this blog. I know from experience as, when I first moved to the UK, I mentioned wishing I had elastic pants at work. All I meant was that I had eaten too much during all the recent Christmas festivities and that an elastic waistband would be helpful. I got some horrified looks from my co-workers until I explained that “pants” are “trousers” in the US. I’m not sure they believed me. 

Tall Trees & Bears {Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park, California}

Two things I'll always remember about the Redwood National & State Parks - tall trees really are awesome and bears suck. 

Here is a picture of our campsite at the Jedidiah Smith Redwoods Campground. Pretty isn't it? A nice spot right next to the river. Only problem - you have to put all of your food into a bear box. And not just your food, anything that smells yummy and delicious (like that lip balm you got at Lush) has to go into the box. Because the good thing about bears is that they don't have opposable thumbs, so they can't open the boxes. Even though they don't have those ever so handy opposable thumbs, bears aren't stupid. They know that we humans make some delicious food. Who wouldn't prefer a box of Captain Crunch cereal to berries and leaves?

But the redwood trees are awesome, which more than makes up for the hassle of putting all of your stuff in a bear box. Come on, have a look at our pictures from our visit to the park. They make sure you know about the bears straight away - see the cute little picture of a bear on the California State Parks sign? And when they say, "You are responsible to know park rules and regulations.", what they mean is that, "If you don't put your food and lip balm in a bear box, don't come crying to us when a bear eats all of your Captain Crunch cereal and smears your lip balm all over himself before munching you up for dessert."

Okay, enough with the bears. Let's look at some pretty pictures of tall trees. 

 

They're tall. Really tall. Don't forget to look up.

If you can get over your fear of bears (I'm still working on that one), the Redwood National & State Parks really are an amazing place to visit. From Crescent City, take the Howland Hill Road to Jedidiah Smith State Park. Then put your stuff in a bear box.

We explored and camped at Jedidiah State Park 19-20 October 2014.

And The Craziness Begins {The Samuel Boardman Corridor, Oregon Coast}

Yep, we loaded up our vehicle with camping stuff and enough food to last us a week or two (including the all important batch of freshly made chocolate chip cookies thanks to my sister) and headed off from Portland down Hwy 101 to the Redwoods. The craziness had begun - an epic road trip from Portland, Oregon to Ray, North Dakota. Sorry, I just had to throw the word "epic" in there. Perhaps the trendiest word out there these days, at least in the English language. I like to feel younger by using trendy and hip words from time to time. 

It was the usual sort of drive one does down the Oregon coast until we got to the Samuel H Boardman scenic corridor. Huffington Post describes it as the most beautiful place you've never heard of.  Of course, I think they use that headline all the time and just substitute different place names. It is kind of like those titles that start with "7 Ways to {fill in the blank}" and "5 Sure Fire Methods to {fill in the blank}". But now that I've had a look at Mr Boardman's personal stretch of the Oregon coast, I think they may be right. For example, look at this.

The corridor is 12 mile long and runs along Hwy 101. You can see some amazing vistas by just parking your car and popping out to take in the views. Like at Arch Rock.

But you'll see so much more if you take the time to go for a walk along some of the 27 mile long stretch Oregon Coast trail which weaves through the corridor. It was a bit too long for us to manage in one morning, but we did do part of the trail from Arch Rock to Natural Bridges. Amazing. Stunning. Epic. All the usual adjectives apply.

Go for a drive. Go for a walk. Just go and see one of the most beautiful places you've never heard of.

18-19 October 2014

Going For A Walk: Looking For Old Signs In Portland, Oregon

We had a little wander through downtown Portland the other day in search of old signs. This is one of my favorites - the old Guild Theatre.

We found some other interesting neon signs.

I remember this Portland Outdoor Store sign from when we lived in Portland. I didn't used to pay attention to old signs, but this one always stuck out. Look at the detail in how the cowboy is lit up. This place has been in business since 1929 and if they don't have what you need in terms of Western tack and clothing, then nobody does.

It isn't just old neon signs you can see walking about Portland. There are lots of painted signs on buildings advertising things like ham and bacon. 

Thanks to this article in the NY Times, I learned that the old hand painted advertising you see on brick buildings or barns are referred to as "ghost signs" and the painters were called "wall dogs". They were quite popular from the late 1800s until the Great Depression, although they did continue to be used into the 1960s. Nowadays, people are trying to preserve them whether on the buildings themselves or through photographs. Here are some more of the ones Scott captured on his camera.

I guess it isn't just Scott who is slightly obsessed with old signs. You can find entire blogs dedicated to ghost signs - Painted Ad, Ghostsigns and Fading Ad. I wonder if these guys have seen all of the amazing signs in the Pearl District?

Do you ever notice old signs when you're walking through a city?

Walk on 14 October 2014

Is This Crazy?

We're currently in Portland, Oregon. We need to go to Ray, North Dakota. We have around five weeks to get there. This is the plan.

Most people would probably drive in more of a straight line from Oregon, through Montana and then to North Dakota. We're not most people. We're doing the "Big Dip" making our way down along Oregon and California, over to the Four Corners area and then back north up to North Dakota. 

To save money, we'll be camping along the way and cooking our own food. Of course, we're heading into the rainy and snowy seasons, so we'll see how that goes. There may be a motel or two along the way and a meal or two eaten out (especially in San Francisco)! We'll also have to pay attention to the weather. We might not be able to do everything we want to. Plans are just plans, they don't always play out in reality. A lot like when we lived on a boat!

Hope you'll follow along on our little adventure. Posting may be sporadic as we need to find places with wi-fi and a way to charge our computer along the way. 

Have you been to any of these places? Any suggestions or tips as we make our way to North Dakota?

More Life In Portland Lately

After a couple of months in Coeur d'Alene, we've been spending some time in Portland lately visiting my family and getting ready for a slightly crazy road trip to North Dakota. There has been a lot going on in a short period of time, so I thought it was timely to do another installment of "Life in Portland Lately" (you can check out the original post here).

Scott and I went for a walk around downtown Portland the other day so that he could take pictures of old signs. Old signs are a new obsession of his. When Scott gets focused on something, he gets really focused on it. Fortunately for him, there are a lot of really interesting old signs in Portland, like the one above from the old Guild Theatre on SW 9th Street. Last time I was in Portland, my mom and I saw lots and lots of fire trucks in vicinity. We walked over to see what was going on and check out the firefighters. My mom has a thing for firefighters. She's probably going to kill me for having put that in the blog. Oops. Anyways, if you want to see more of Scott's pictures of old signs, you can check out the Pinterest board I made for him. I don't even think he knows what Pinterest is, but now he has a board.

We've been shopping up a storm getting ready for our road trip from Oregon to North Dakota. Because we got rid of pretty much all of our stuff in New Zealand, we've had to start from scratch in terms of camping gear. New sleeping bags, a tent, a butane stove, a cooler, dishes etc. Theoretically, we'll save tons of money by camping rather than staying at motels. Of course, it is autumn now and the rain, snow and cold weather might just make camping a drag. It is quite possible that I'll do a fair bit of whining along the way. Good thing that Scott is used to that by now. In some ways, it will be like living on our boat. No fridge, uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, laundromats and less frequent showers.

It feels a little bit like we've gone back to school. Scott "helped" one of my 12-year old nieces with her homework the other night. I'm not sure how much help he was, but he seemed to enjoy it. Not so sure about my niece! It was a kick seeing the Junior Scholastic magazine that they read. Takes me back to when I was in school. My nieces seem to know much more about current events than I do. Perhaps I should subscribe to Junior Scholastic too. We also paid a visit to the girls' school. Nothing like being surrounded by giggling 12 and 13 year old kids to make you feel positively ancient. 

What's been happening lately where you are?