Moving East

After an enjoyable night in the Dunes, we are now making eastward progress towards Sunriver. The climb in elevation has also provided us with some, very welcomed, higher temperatures. We tried to stop in Eugene but couldn't figure out a place to go. So we went a little further and stopped in Oakridge. It turned out to be a great decision.

We found a cozy brewpub called the Brewers Union Local 180 for lunch. For the second time in the trip we have found a brewtub that serves cask beer! We enjoyed a delicious lunch and sampled all their cask beers. The "Extra Knuckle" seemed to be the overall favorite.

After lunch we climbed 5000+ feet through the mountains and caught some pretty glimpses of Diamond Peak.

We are currently on I-97 about 20 minutes outside Sunriver. Hannah and Paul will be jumping out to get the wedding festivities underway. Michelle, Renee and Keith will be moving on to Crater Lake for the night. While we are all looking forward to the wedding weekend and staying in a larger condo, the RV lifestyle will certainly be missed for a few days.

Oregon Dunes

First we played in the dunes...

Then we watched another beautiful sunset...

Making our way north - Garberville/Humboldt CA

Finally left Pacifica yesterday! Crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, passed through wine country, and 210 miles later landed in Garberville CA in Humboldt County. Drove through the Avenue of the Giants with huge redwood trees only inches off the road. It felt like driving through a tunnel.

Made our first meal on the grill last night then woke up this morning by taking a dip in the nearby river. We filled up our bellies at a great diner called the Eel River Cafe in the downtown area. Now we're on the road again with the final stop being in Gold Coast OR, which puts us back on our original schedule. Along the way we will be driving through more redwood forests and making a lunch stop at Patrick's Point in Trinidad CA.

Alright since Alfie the RV is back in our good graces, let's take a closer look. He certainly turns some heads!

It's almost time to mix some lunchtime cocktails! In the back of the RV of course.

Stuck in Pacifica CA

We could not have been more excited to get on the road yesterday. We started securing everything in the RV and sliding in the retractable sides. But one side wouldn't move. We literally placed 25+ phone calls to All Star RV "emergency assistance," home office staff and the owner himself. However, being that it was a Sunday making contact with people was proving to be problematic. We kept being told that people were out of cell phone range and/or that a mechanic was on the way. Finally, voicemail boxes were full and we had sat another full day in the same RV park. So we spent another night in Pacifica CA.

This morning a mechanic showed up bright and early. After some tinkering he found what we thought was going to be the problem. A pair of tin snips wedged into a place they shouldn't ever be and preventing the slide out from moving. Alas, removing the misplaced tool did not fix the problem.

Here's the tin snips:

After a couple hours, the original mechanic has been pulled off the job and we are told that another mechanic is en route who can "certainly figure out the problem." So why wasn't he the first person called to assist us yesterday? Great question. Should he not be able to diagnose the problem, a replacement RV should (might?) be showing up at some point this afternoon once it arrives from Las Vegas and gets cleaned.

The bummer of this whole thing is that it puts us behind schedule. We intentionally planned our trip to drive 150-200 miles a day which would allow us time to explore the area where we stopped. Because of the delays we are now going to have to make up for lost time and drive many more hours. Hopefully we can still see the Redwoods and I certainly don't want to miss out on dune buggies in Florence. Obviously the bigger issue would be making sure we arrive at Shane and Thereasa's wedding on Thursday.

Thus far everyone is remaining upbeat, positive and optimistic. But the constant set-backs and lack of customer service is mentally draining.

Hopefully the next post is from 350 miles north of Pacifica CA! Stay tuned.

T minus 3

How can the last post be from the holidays?! As long as we have been talking about this trip, it was always in the back of my mind that it just may not happen. It may changed slightly, but it's still a go!

Here's the original mission statement: "Five Friends. Two Dogs. One RV. The trip of a lifetime from Boston to Portland and back." We quickly realized driving all the way across the country was going to take too far too much time which meant that we wouldn't have time to stop and see anything; it would just be straight driving. Though there can be some fun in doing that, that wasn't the trip we were looking to do. So then we thought we could find a one way rental from San Diego to Portland/Seattle. Finding an available RV proved to be far too difficult. We brainstormed on it and finally came up with starting in San Francisco; heading north up the Pacific Coast Highway; at some point head due West from the Oregon coast to hit the wedding in Bend; beeline it to Yosemite National Park; then finish again in San Francisco.

The new mission statement: "Five Friends. One RV. The trip of a lifetime in the Pacific Northwest." Still a damn fine trip if you ask me.

I feel like I'm vibrating waiting to leave on Friday. There is still so much stuff to do in order to be ready to leave though, not just packing things that I wouldn't normally pack for a wedding trip (a headlamp for example) but also stuff like temporarily shutting off our mail.

So stay tuned. We haven't been updating the blog much. But now that the trip is finally upon us, there will be plenty of updates to highlight our temporary home and all the stops along the way.

Let's roll!!!!