The Joys of Winterizing

We began to winterize the rig while at the RV Park, but there were still a few chores left. We still needed to wash the exterior before we put the cover on. Well, our week got busy, but two days ago we made a break in our schedule in order to finish the job. The forecast called for sun and temperatures in the 50s.

Well, there was no sign of sun, but the weather held out, so we still chose to proceed. We began cleaning the outside of the rig, but our pressure washer was being temperamental. In an effort to get the job done quickly, we drove up to the closest car wash and spent $10 in the wash bay. Driving it home helped it air dry and we anxiously pulled up to the side of the house to do the last chore--get the cover on. The only issue was a steady 18 mph wind with 27 mph gusts occurring at regular intervals.

Ever tried to put an RV cover on in the wind? It’s not fun. Trust me.

While Boy Bird climbed on top of the rig to pull the cover towards the front, I stayed below, doing my best to guide the cover up, keep it from hitting the neighbor’s truck and getting ripped on the fence. As I stood below, surrounded in the billowing silver fabric, I realized it was a lost cause. I moved to the back of the RV to move the fabric from getting caught on the ladder when Boy Bird, who was still on top, yelled down for me to get the cover off of the fence.

As I tried to walk over to remedy the situation, I discovered my feet were caught in the fabric. I couldn’t move forward without hopping. After hopping twice to the fence, and releasing the fabric before it caused any major damage, I yelled up that we would have to give it up.

This frustrating experience created one of those lovely RV moments that we all like to forget. You know the kind. We used to get them often when it was late, and we were tired, and we had to pull into a campsite late at night and set up when tempers were flaring.

This time, tempers were flaring because our window of opportunity to finish this task was supposedly very small. The weather report called for rain for the next several days.

The fence did end up ripping our cover in three places. My only regret is there are no photos documenting this experience. I wish I had been in the right mind to take some photos of that experience.

Today though, our luck changed. With no wind, and only slight remnants of the rain, we were able to put the cover on. It’s a sad sight really, our rig all wrapped up like a mummy on the side of the house.

Urban RV Staycation

OK, so we planned to head to a state park, but instead decided on more of an urban RV escape. We ended up at the Jantzen Beach RV Park located just north of downtown Portland off Interstate I-5.



Jantzen Beach is home to the Jantzen Beach SuperCenter and a large shopping complex with stores like Best Buy, The Home Depot, Old Navy, Pier One Imports, and Circuit City, to name a few. It also has a few restaurants to choose from. We packed a little food, some toiletries and a few clothes, hopped in the rig early on Friday to beat the rush hour traffic and were set up in our site before 3 p.m.

The park is located on the Columbia River with views of Vancouver, Washington and Mount Hood.



It’s in a prime location as it is close to all the above mentioned food and shopping, plus, it’s just a short trip to either Portland or Vancouver. It’s also a great place for airplane sightings as planes pass overhead all day long and well into the night.

The park boasts several outdoor pools which were closed for the season. There was also a small fitness center…



And small recreation room with a pool and ping pong table.



The RV spaces are large, and vary between really shady sites and full sun sites. Each site includes full hookups and cable.



Another perk could have been the free WIFI access at each site; however, the NomadISP.com WIFI service has not been reliable. I was able to access it yesterday for about 20 minutes, and then started getting booted off, and then was unable to connect at all. I’ve done all the suggested troubleshooting techniques and still have been unable to connect again today although it says I’m connected to their network.

Thank goodness for our backup Sprint Aircard. We’ve had many problems in the past while vacationing and having spotty access to WIFI at RV Parks and hotels where we’ve stayed. That’s why we’re afraid to rely solely on that. We’re still in research mode for internet satellite and will report back on that at some point.

In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying our stay, the weather has been sunny and in the mid 50’s. Tomorrow we will begin to winterize the rig. That’s going to be sad.

For two nights, the fee for our stay was $54 with a Good Sam discount. Oh, and our Sprint phones and Aircard worked perfectly. For more information visit JantzenBeachRV.com.

A Break in the Weather

We’re looking at a busy week ahead of us. It actually started yesterday with a calendar full of classes, meetings, project fulfillments, working out and just your basic life busyness. So, we were excited to discover that this weekend is going to be sunny! Just when we thought we might have to give up hope on squeezing one more trip in before winterizing the rig, we’re now excitedly planning a mini-escape. Now we just have to decide where to go. Perhaps to one of the campgrounds nearby in the Columbia River Gorge? Or perhaps we could check out Silver Falls State Park which is south of Portland (although, their RV sites tend to fill up quickly on nice weekends). Maybe we could trek out to the beach again. The sky is the limit.

One thing that we have to make sure of though, is that wherever we go, there needs to be an RV dump station. Our backup station is no longer available. We recently discovered the Camping World in Troutdale, Oregon no longer provides a free RV dump station. Rumor has it that the dump station kept getting clogged up and it took a lot of money to fix the clogs, so they just decided not to offer it anymore. That sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. What would really suck is if the Super Wal-Mart center in Wood Village, Oregon quit allowing overnight RV parking. We’ve noticed that some of the same rigs overstay their welcome all too often in that parking lot. We also know that all it takes are a few folks taking advantage of a good thing to ruin it for everybody. I checked out www.allstays.com and noticed there are quite a few Wal-Marts in Oregon that don’t allow overnight parking.

Although we absolutely LOVE staying the night at Wal-Mart (talk about an adventure), we will still plan to stay at one of our beloved Oregon State Parks. Stay tuned to find out just where we chose to escape to!

Work and Camping Go Together

We have several friends who think it is weird for us to bring our work along while camping, but we think it’s normal. Well, of course we would, because we’re the ones who bring our work with us! Our livelihood and most of our hobbies revolve around technology; especially our laptops. We want access to our cell phones and internet. And, we want to camp. Basically, we want the best of both worlds. We’re happiest when we can manage a mini-escape to a state park mid-week and still be able to keep our work lives running smoothly.

Recently, we haven’t been able to plan any escapes though. Since our work is deadline driven, it’s hard to leave during the height of deadline time for a mini-escape. During our mid-October deadline rush, the weather was beautiful. Crisp, sunny autumn days graced us for over a week. We said we would take a trip as soon as deadline was over. Well, it’s been over, and the weather has been cold and rainy. Since our trip to Fort Stevens was so rained out, we didn’t feel like repeating that experience. We’re biding our time and obsessively checking the weather, but it doesn’t look like we are going to have a break before the next deadline comes around. I just checked weather.com and it calls for rain for the next 10 days.

So, until then, we’ll just do other things. Like, we could visit the 50th Annual Portland Metro RV Show being held this upcoming weekend at the Expo Center. If you are in the area and want to go, be sure to visit
this link for a 2 for 1 coupon.

We just hope that we can squeeze in one more trip before we have to winterize our rig.