Windseeker Motor Coach Travel Log
with Joe and Libby

Just 6 miles east of our home lies the lovely Lacamas Lake, a lovely little 300 acre lake in Clark County, Washington, just east of Vancouver. Just 2.5 miles long and 1/4 mile wide on average, it is a quiet spot, popular with nature lovers, hikers, bikers and fisherman... and now with model sailboat sailors... me! It is one of the very special elements in our immediate area, beautiful enough to rate its own little Lacamas Lake page on my blog. From here we are off on our summer adventures and the Windseeker 2014 Summer Tour..

There are many places famous for their cherry blossoms but none of them have a thing on our neighborhood, which explodes in color every spring with the incredible Cherry Blossoms. Very appropriate that today is March 21, the first day of spring. We should have our own Cherry Blossom festival! To the right is one in our own side yard. I took another half dozen or so of the more dazzling displays on my morning walk with the dog and created a special page for the cherry blossoms, with all the photos being taken within a block or two of our home.

It seems like it has taken me an eternity, but today I finally concluded the massive task of sorting through all the stuff in my 10x30 storage garage. This was 25 years accumulation from garages, attics and otther homes. I've earned a gold medal in Olympic sorting. I started on it Jan. 2 and have been working on it almost every day for the past 2 months. I built all the shelving in my home garage, finished the small attic space above the garage, built a 6x12 storage shed in the back yard and gradually went thru every box, cabinet and drawer in the storage garage, transferred stuff home to either find a place for it, take it to our other long term storage garage, take it to Goodwill or toss it into the landfill trailer. I cannot tell you the sense of relief I feel that it is now complete... and before the end of the month so we don't have to pay another $275 to store all that stuff.     E-X-H-A-L-E.    Click on the photo at the right to see a full page of my completed garage conversion project

As we start finishing up projects with the new house, and winter starts drawing to a close, as Tennyson wrote, "In spring a young man's fancy turns to love." Same is true of this "old man's fancy" except it is more the love of sailing and RV travel, with my beloved wife of course. To ease my growing seasonal disconnect, I bought a 1/64 scale diecast model of a big luxury motorhome with similar colors to ours and a 1/64 Chevy Suburban and sailboat. I have them set up on top of the TV Entertainment center in the family room (at right). With a snowcapped Mt Hood backdrop it looks a lot like my photos on the blog of my coach with Mt Shasta in the background. This conjures up visceral memories of being on the road in the coach. For now I have to rely on the diecast model to keep me motivated and focused. The Beatles song pops into my head... "It won't be long, yeah, yeah..."

The new house definitely feels like home now and we are enjoying life in Vancouver. The only challenge which remains is the sorting of all my *stuff* in the nearby storage garage and deciding what goes and what stays. Since this house has far less storage space than our Oregon home, I am forced to be ruthless, getting rid of a lot of stuff... either selling on Craigslist, giving stuff to Goodwill or just tossing it in the trash. I built floor to ceiling shelving around the inside of our oversized garage. I took my time, building it myself so it was exactly to my specifications as those evolved. It took careful planning so I had room for my air compressor, my pressure washer, my large power saws, the bicycles, etc. The project turned out well, and then I turned my attention to storage, bringing over carloads of boxes in the Suburban and sorting through them. This winter project is proceeding gradually; I should be done by spring, impeded only slightly by "Snowmadgeddon 2014", which kept us confined for several days this month. We're looking forward to getting back into the coach this spring and getting back to sailing!

We managed to finish unpacking in time for Thanksgiving when the kids came home for the holiday. Over the ensuing couple weeks, life gradually returned to a more normal pace with final decorating touches added each week. Libby and I are kind of perfectionists, and so there are 1001 little tweaks that we continue to make over time to customize the home to our exact wants and needs. We hung our last few pictures, and son Patrick helped me hang our fabulous 19th century Ferahan Sarouk (featured in P.R. Ford's 'The Oriental Carpet') on a drapery rod on one of the high walls in the formal dining area. Thus we were able to celebrate the Christmas holiday with our family in the new home which is now finished. For many interior photos, see the photo gallery for the interior of our new house..

Work has been completed for the most part and we completed the movein yesterday. There were a few additional unanticipated delays but we finally made it. We will take the coach to storage this weekend and then get serious about the unpacking next week. I've posted a bunch of photos of the new house on a special photo gallery for the new house.. The outside is done, landscaping and all. Inside is still in a state of disarray with boxes everywhere. This is the fun part, but it will be a challenge to see how much of our stuff we can make room for.

Work was delayed because of unusual September rainstorms middle of the month. I have been working with a handyman doing some garage customization, and other minor projects. The windows and siding repairs started yesterday and are in full swing today... slated to finish tomorrow. The weather has been cooperating beautifully and we had a gorgeous day today. At the right is the front of the house with scaffolding in place and some of the old windows removed. They started on the back of the house mid day after Cascade Windows delivered the new windows. They expect to wrap up tomorrow just before a rainy stretch hits. Next week the interior of the house will get painted and then after carpet cleaning we should be able to get moved in by end of the month. The exterior will get painted in the next dry stretch after we move in.

We had been wanting a trailer for our Hobie Mirage Outfitter pedal kayak. Something we could keep the kayak stored on when not in use and have everything set to go to just hook up the trailer to the car and go off for the day. I did some research and I think the best trailers are made by Malone with 12 inch wheels and a capacity of 388 lbs. I found one barely used a few times on Craigslist for about half of retail, so I bought it. It came with 2 pairs of J-Style carriers. I took one set off the cross bars and mounted our silver Thule pod to it instead (as pictured at right). The Thule pod will carry all the assorted pedals, paddles, seats, and gear. What a great setup - Hobie + kayak gear + bikes ready to go in just moments! We can use our special receiver hitch stinger which carries our unique Swagman bike rack, so we can also take our two Trek bikes along wherever we go!

Today we take possession of our new home... aerial photo at right is from Google Satellite view. The sellers have moved out and are on their way to the east coast, the house is vacant and it is now ours to do as we wish. I have a general handyman starting Monday to work with me to make some minor modifications here and there. The contractor Straightline Construction will start end of next week to replace all the windows in the house with top of the line Cascade vinyl windows. We will then have the house painted inside and out by Oren Painting. We hope to be able to move in last week of September if all goes well.

Not much to report... we are comfortably settled into the Van Mall RV Park as we await possession of the new home. The sailboat is in Steamboat Landing Marina nearby and we have been out sailing a couple times but winds are less than stellar this time of year. We have been meeting with contractors, selecting paint colors and windows styles, and having some yard work done. The sellers, Chuck and Candace, are getting packed up and plan to move on Sept 6... so we'll take possession then and the work will commence. We should be able to move in last week of September if all goes well.

Well we are now officially 'Washegonians'. That's our self-coined term for former Oregonians who have moved across the Columbia River to the Washington side. We know many people who have done the same thing to avoid Oregon's oppressive state income tax. Our beautiful new home is in the Cascade Park neighborhood adjacent to Fisher's Landing in East Vancouver, Washington... and 5 minutes on local streets from Steamboat Landing Marina where we'll keep our Catalina Sailboat. Escrow closed today... the house is officially ours, but we gave the sellers a one month leaseback to prepare for their cross country move, so for now we are living in our motorhome once again, staying at the very comfortable Van Mall RV Park at right, just 5 miles from our new house in Vancouver.

Escrow closed today on our Lake Oswego house... we are officially homeless. We have until Weds to clear out the last remaining stuff... the movers are here today. Our home of 21 years in Lake Oswego is now the property of someone else. The purchase of the new home in Vancouver pictured below will record tomorrow. But the seller of that house needed a one month leaseback, so we are going to be living in the Windseeker Motor Coach for next month or two until we take possession of the new house, have some work done, painting etc. It was an arduous three weeks but the end is in sight here and we have survived the ordeal. We're looking forward to kicking back in the coach for the next month or more, doing some sailing on the mighty Columbia and generally relaxing.

I think everyone dreads moving... especially after you have lived in a place for some time. We have lived in Mt Park here in Lake Oswego for 21 years, first just around the corner in a smaller house, and now in this 4000 SF home for the last 13 years. There is an axiom, they say, that the amount of stuff you have expands to fill the available space over time. We have certainly done that. We've filled this 4000 SF home (plus another 600 sf of attic and back basement storage plus a 3 car garage) FULL to the gills. Moving is going to be a definite challenge. We have just 3 weeks to accomplish it. We did not get started immediately upon our return because we had inspections, loan applications and appraisals to get through. And I did NOT want to go thru this herculean effort only to have the deal fall through. Today we cleared the last hurdle and learned our home appraised for the sale amount, so now we have the greenlight and have to get serious. Our travels are over for this year, although we will be living in the motorhome for about 5-6 weeks until escrow closes on the new home and we have some work done prior to move in.

Libby has an uncanny ability to scour the listings and to cut thru all the crap and come up with the perfect home. The timing has to be right and I guess the timing was now because she cut right to the chase and found our new home, a gorgeous place pictured at the right on the east side of Vancouver, Washington just on the other side of the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, just a couple miles from our favorite Columbia River marina, Steamboat Landing Marina. Funny how we have looked far and wide and now come full circle and decide to relocate right close to home. I have created a little Slideshow here.

Send us an e-mail and say hi with any comments on our new home - or sign our guestbook!

Visit the Photo Gallery for the new house

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