Sheltering in place........

 7:20 am - Saturday - September 12th - Forks, WA - 55° F, 93% humidity, wind - CALM.....heavy overcast, and smoke from forest fires.  The forecast high today is 68° F.  On this day in 2017 we were in Jackson Hole, WY.........↴

......the view this morning..........↴

There are three of us now

As can be the case in the nomadic life plans must be changed due to circumstances beyond your control, and that is what has happened here in Forks, WA.  Our Jello plan had been to head south to Raymond, WA Friday morning and spend a couple of days there on the Willapa River, but when I called the RV park for which we were destined to secure a spot I was advised the smoke from the Oregon fires was quite bad, which would mean sitting in the coach for two, or three days paying $35/day for only 30 amp, water and a dump site.  Here in Forks we are paying just $20/night for 50 amp, and water with a dump station on site.  If we are to be confined to our motorhome due to bad air quality then why not stay put?

This is how it looked most of the day

As Friday went on the air quality began to worsen due to the smoke moving up from the south, and we ultimately had to close our windows.   Staying inside was fine, at least for the morning, as we were watching the 13th Stage of Le Tour, but by the time it was finished I was getting stir crazy, and went outside to putter around in the trailer for an hour, or so.

Later on in the afternoon I spent some time cleaning the Newell exterior once again.  It has been a while, and a few thousand miles since I last wiped the dirt and grime from her riveted aircraft aluminum sides.  Over the next three days (we'll be here until Monday when winds are forecast to shift and blow the smoke inland once again) I'll work my way around and get her all pretty once again.....not that she isn't pretty as she sits right now.  From 20' away she still looks great, but I spend most of my time within 5' of her and notice the road grime beginning to build once again.

That was pretty much our day....I wish there was more about which to write, but when you stay inside most of the day there is not much to share.

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Smoked!

 8:16 am - Friday - September 10th - Forks, WA - 56° F, 84% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast.......foggy this morning with a forecast high today of 70° F.  On this day in 2017 we were visiting my sister and brother-in-law at the Grand Tetons......↴

Our purpose for spending a couple of days in Forks, WA was to drive out to Cape Flattery, the western most point in the Continental U.S.  We left the Elks Lodge a little after 10 am for the 1+ hour one way drive.  The first town we came to was Clallam Bay......

....then Sekiu.......

....we stopped a few times to take shots of the rock formations along the Puget Sound coastline......

.....then we came to this unfortunate sign......Neah Bay is a few miles east of Cape Flattery, and is apparently located on Indian land along with Cape Flattery.  The COVID restrictions are much more severe on any Indian land, and this was no exception......

.....so we had to abort our plans and turn around.  We knew there was a possibility the road past Neah Bay might be closed, but did not know Neah Bay itself would be closed to outside traffic.....doh!  

The road out to Neah Bay is quite narrow, windy, twisty, uneven, and rough.  I could never see us driving the Newell out to Neah Bay......

....TLE took the following video to show how narrow, windy, twisty, and rough this road is.....

.....we drove back to Clallam Bay to get a cup of coffee and figure out the rest of our day.  The only coffee place was drive through only, and we really wanted to get out of the car and drink our coffee outside.  The local fuel station had a coffee shop inside with benches outside so we both settled for two Americanos with two shots and sat outside talking and sipping the surprisingly good beverages.  We decided to drive back into Forks, visit the local ACE Hardware store to get a few things, then head back to a food truck we had see in town (4.5 stars on Yelp) called FYABES.  We both ordered their 4 taco plate....mine with carne asada, and TLE's with pollo asado.  Since they offered no adult beverages (beer) we opted to do 'takeout' and head home where we have a more than ample supply of brews.  I set up the table, and brought out a couple of chairs so we could watch the rest of the 12th Stage of Le Tour we had begun to watch that morning.......

FYABES (Yelp picture)

.....these were some of the best street tacos I have had.....top 10 for sure....maybe even top 5.

Thursday was also the second day of the heatwave with temps in the high 80's, and by 3 pm it was time to head inside to the air conditioned confines of the Newell for the rest of the afternoon.

Our Jello plan today (Friday) was to head south to Raymond, WA (124 miles south of Forks) for a few days, but I just called the RV park we were going to stay in while there and found out the smoke from the Oregon fires is terrible there, so as things stand right now we will probably be staying a few more days here at the Elks Lodge in Forks where there is very little smoke right now.  We heard yesterday US-101 is closed south of Lincoln City in Oregon.  Our winter work destination is south of that, so will need to wait for that to reopen, also.

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Serendipity........

 8:00 am - Thursday - September 10th - Forks, WA - 51° F, 83% humidity, wind - CALM......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 87° F.  On this day in 2012 we were in Rock Springs, WY Wallydocking at the local Walmart.....we were at the Starbucks across the street when it began to rain.....↴

Wednesday was moving day, but we only had 86 miles to travel so we did not depart 7 Cedars Casino around 10:15 am.  Traffic was heavy as we slogged through Port Angeles, and there was one construction zone after another, but at last we came to the city limits on the west side.  Just as we were passing the last gas station in town both TLE and I noticed a vintage class 'A' just pulling out onto US-101 going the same direction as we were.  It became apparent to both of us that this was a late 60's Newell.  I have seen pictures of these Newells, but have never come across one on the open highway until Wednesday.  At some point the owner recognized that we were also a Newell and pulled over.......

......we followed suit and pulled into the turnout.  In the mid 60's a trailer company called Streamline (begun by former employees of Airstream) built their first class 'A' motorhome.  A man named L.K. Newell bought one of them.  After two weeks he returned to the factory in El Monte, CA with suggestions for improving the design.  The owner of Streamline remarked that if Mr. Newell thought he could build a better product he should buy the motorhome division, so he did.  He moved operations to Miami, OK and in 1967 L.K. Newell (for a history of Newell click here) produced his first Newell using the same design.  It was a front control unit (motor up front) utilizing a Ford Industrial V-8 engine.  This particular Newell is a 1969, and in pretty rough shape.  Nate and Tammy (the current owners) just purchased it a short time ago, and this was their maiden voyage to test the integrity of the engine repairs Nate had made......

.....we exchanged tours of our Newells, and our contact information before taking the requisite 'usie' in front of their unit.......Nate and Tammy have plans to renovate the interior, and bring her completely back to life as a functional RV......

....it is always serendipitous to run into other Newell owners as we travel as there are not a lot of us.  Over it's history from 1967 until the present Newell has averaged building around 25-30 new units a year.
We only had about 43 miles to go when we resumed our westward drive on US-101 to Forks, and arrived there around 50 minutes later.  There is a nice Elks Lodge in Forks, WA which provides 12 RV sites with 30/50 amp electric, water and a dump station for a mere $20/night.  it is about 6 blocks off US-101 which means there is little noise at night.  This is a very nice facility, and we are totally surprised to be here all by ourselves, but who is complaining, right?  
We are also in the midst of a 2 day heatwave here in northwestern Washington, and the forecast high for Forks Wednesday was 88° F.....

......for the first time in weeks we had to run our rear A/C for several hours.  We spent the afternoon reading, and then after dinner watching 3 more episodes of 'Travelers'....what a great series!

Thanks for stopping by!

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The Fat Smitty.......

8:08 am - Wednesday - September 9th - Blyn, WA - 53° F, 75% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the south.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.  On this day in 2014 we watched the sunset at Cape Blanco, OR......↴

After watching the entirety of Stage 10 of Le Tour Tuesday morning we got dressed and drove into Sequim (Squim) to visit the local COSTCO where my cholesterol prescription was awaiting my arrival since Friday.  It's only about 7.5 miles from the casino, and we were there within 10 minutes.  Normally it is difficult to find parking close to any COSTCO entrance, but on this day we scored a parking spot quite close.  While I headed to the pharmacy to get my prescription TLE began to shop.  Once again, there was no waiting line at the pharmacy prescription pickup desk, and I was in and out in a couple of minutes.  I found TLE pretty quickly, and within another few minutes she was finished shopping so we went to checkout where we encountered a checkout line as long as we have ever seen at a COSTCO.....easy to get in, but did it ever take along time to get out!

By the time we made it back to the VW it was closing in on 12 pm, and time to look for a place to get lunch.  Many of the places we wanted to eat at were closed on Tuesdays, but we found a hamburger place called Fat Smitty's back at the intersection of US-101 and SR-20.  I had noticed this place as we drove by on Sunday, and was impressed by the long lines of people waiting to get their orders......long lines are usually a good sign the food is good, right?  It is the kind of funky place we like.......

.....all of the figures in this picture were carved out of large trees with a chain saw......very impressive!  I ordered their world famous 'Fat Smitty's Bacon Cheeseburger'.....

....it is a double decker, quite a mouthful, and very decadent!  On top of all that we got to eat our meals alfresco....for some reason the smoke from the forest fires was not that bad at Smitty's.  The interior of Fat Smitty's is even more funky than the exterior......

.....every square inch of the interior walls and ceilings are covered with $1 bills left by customers over the years!  Like I said, this place definitely has the 'funk' factor working for it big time.

We were home by 2 pm, and relaxing and reading shortly thereafter for the rest of the afternoon.  We opted to have no dinner as both of us were still quite full from lunch.  There was still a lot of smoke in the sky all afternoon, so being outside for any period of time was not in the cards.  Finally by 5 pm the skies began to clear somewhat so I continued my relaxing and reading outside for another couple of hours.

On Wednesday we will continue our trek westward toward the Pacific Ocean, hoping to arrive at our winter location by next Tuesday.....thanks for stopping by!

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Layover......

8:10 am - Tuesday - September 8th - Blyn, WA - 55° F, 69% humidity, wind 15 mph directly out of the east.....smoke filled skies today from forest fires east of I-5 with a forecast high of 72° F.  The view this morning......↴

On this day in 2014 we were enjoying the beauty of the Cape Blanco beaches......↴

Monday was largely a layover day for us as we are waiting for the COSTCO pharmacy to open Tuesday morning.  The Tour de France also had a 'layover' day, or day off from riding, so we took a walk about mid morning over to Longhouse Market and Deli, which is owned and run by 7 Cedar Casino and Hotel (where we are staying).  We spied this sign on the way....isn't it 'Johnny Come Lately'?.......

.
.....the market/deli is actually almost as large as a regular supermarket, and seems very high end......

  
....we did a little shopping, but didn't buy much.  The walk over and back is about a mile from the very back of the RV parking area, where we are parked.  Since this is a Native American facility owned by the Jamestown S'Klallam Indian Tribe, which means 'strong people'......

 
....so there are many totem poles located on the property.......

...we were  back home shortly after 11 am, just in time to see Dustin Johnson (the leader after 3 rounds of the Tour Championship) tee off.  He began the day with a 5 stroke lead (19 under par), and held a lead ranging from 4-5 strokes until the 7th hole when he bogied the 7th and 8th holes and found himself only 2 strokes ahead at the time.  Ultimately he held off the field winning by 3 strokes at 21 under par to win the $15 million dollar winner's purse.  With about 5 holes to play I went out to our Norcold refer to find a good beer to sip and was surprised to find I still had one Allagash White left from our summer in Maine two years ago......

 Still the best Belgian White I have ever tasted!

.......the other night Bob and Karen served pot roast for dinner, and gave TLE one half of what was leftover.  She took that and made a wonderful Beef Bourguignon for dinner which we enjoyed alfresco.........

......not much of a 'lido deck' effect in the middle of a large parking lot, but perfect for us!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Plan C.........

8:36 am - Monday - September 7th - Blyn, WA - 60° F, 87% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the east by southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this day in 2012 we were near Flaming Gorge at Sheep Creek Overlook......↴

As is often the case on departure days I awoke around 5 am thinking about what needed to be done to extricate our 36' Newell from our site overlooking Harrington Lagoon.  Turning around was not an option due to the slope, we had decided a week before that we would back out.  The only thing I really had to do was to turn over the big Detroit Diesel 6V92, stow the 60 feet of heavy duty 50 amp cords we used to reach the 30 amp electrical outlet on the front side of the barn, and then back out.  It's funny how your mind identifies what it thinks will the the problems, and then how things turn out in in real time.  I thought backing out around the barn would be the difficult task, and hooking up the trailer would be the easy part.  In real life it was exactly the opposite......I began backing out of our site around 7:30 am......

                                    

.....TLE managed to get about 6 seconds of me backing up, which ended up being quite easy......and then the hard part began.....backing up to the trailer.  All in all we had the trailer on the hitch by 8:10 am (it seemed much longer)......TLE then got a little video of me driving up the gravel road back to pavement.......

.....once we had the car in the trailer we took our 'until next time' USIE in front of the coach......

.....the time that time it was 8:30 am, and we did not have to leave for the ferry until 9:15 am, so we spent some time back down at the house drinking coffee, and talking about all that had happened during our 3 week stay.

On the drive over to the Coupeville/Port Townsend Ferry I noticed the alternator was not putting a charge into the batteries, and that did not change all the way to the ferry.  We have the same Leece-Neville alternator Glenn and Laureen have in their '84 Newell, and ours has apparently bitten the dust after 174,000 miles of faithful service.  Fortunately for us, once the 6V92 is running there is NO electrical draw from the engine batteries, and very little from the house batteries.  On sunny days the solar panels will keep all 4 batteries charged, and charging, but overnight dry camping will be out of the question until we get the alternator rebuilt.  I'll worry about that after we get to our winter job south of Newport, OR.

Upon our arrival at the ferry terminal we were advised by the kiosk guy that the 8:15 am ferry had been cancelled due to heavy fog, and that once the ferry began to run again the people waiting for that ferry would board first, meaning we would be waiting for a while, so we parked in lane 5 as instructed (the charge for the 6 mile one way crossing was $107), and wait.  Finally around 11 am we were advised via loudspeaker that the ferry was inbound from Port Townsend, and would be arriving around 11:35 am, so we knew we would not be leaving until sometime between 1 and 1:30 pm.  

By this time the fog had lifted, and we had sunshine pouring into our solar panels so I turned on the inverter, deployed the Winegard Satellite dish and we watched the PGA Tournament Championship for a couple of hours until our ferry arrived a little after 1 pm.....it's really great to have your home with you so you are not really inconvenienced when you run into time delays of this sort......I watched golf, and took a nap......life is good......

.....every time we have taken this ferry we have been boarded first, so we get a great view while we are crossing......

 Departure time!

 Open seas

 Approaching the Port Townsend Ferry

.....the crossing takes about 35 minutes, and by the time we disembarked from the ferry it was close to 2 pm.  Our initial plan had been to drive to Sequim, WA (pronounced Squim....silent 'e') and stay at the Elks Lodge there, but their website indicated their RV park was closed due to the pandemic.  Plan B had been to stay a couple of nights in Port Townsend at the Point Hudson Marina and RV Park, however, they were booked solid.  It is rare we scroll down to Plan C, but I found this Indian Casino in Blyn, WA (just east of Sequim) that had 50 amp hookups and water for free for 3 days.  The reviews we had read indicated it was a gravel parking lot, but we thought it would be fine.  Blyn, WA is just under 15 miles west of Port Townsend.  

On a side note, you will recall I steam cleaned my big rear facing radiator on the Newell the other day.  As we were making the drive from Port Townsend to Blyn I noted that the coolant temperature never exceeded 178° F in spite of several long climbs where we gained over 400' elevation.  Usually I am expecting to see temps hit upwards of 198° F on those long 6% grades.  When we hit the flat areas the temp dropped to the 170-175° F range.....I have never seen temperatures that low in the 12 years I have owned the Newell.  Normally, over the past 12 years of ownership, the operating temperature on the flat runs between 185 and 190° F.....WOW!!!!  A lot of food for thought on how well I have NOT been cleaning the radiator in all my past efforts.

We arrived at 7 Cedars Casino around 3 pm, and found the RV parking area is now paved with brand new pedestals.  What a beautiful place......

.....sure, it is just a parking lot, but how nice is this for FREE?!  All you have to do is walk down to the casino to register your RV, and you get a free 3 day pass.    Our main reason for wanting to be in the Sequim area for two days is to get my next cholesterol prescription filled at the local COSTCO....their pharmacy is not open on Sundays, and will not be open this Monday as it is Labor Day, so the first day I can pick up my prescription is Tuesday.  After that we are free to continue our trip to the Oregon Coast.

After setting up, and registering we managed to watch the last 5 holes of the 3rd round of the Tour Championship......not the day we had envisioned, but a serendipitous day nonetheless.  Sometimes Plan C is the best plan after all.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Thanks for stopping by!