Windseeker Motor Coach Travel Log
with Joe and Libby

Autumn excursions in the Pacific Northwest To Tucson & back with the new Country Coach Back home in Lake Oswego Stop #4 - Kelowna B.C., Canada Side trip - Glacier National Park, Montana Stop #3 - Flathead Lake, Montana Stop #2 - Lake Coeur d'Alene, Idaho 2012 Stop #1 - Fernridge Lake, Oregon 2011 Windseeker Shakedown Cruise ~~~~~ RV Park Reviews ~~~~~

December 13 - Junction City OR - final outing of the year We wanted to get a couple more things attended to on the coach and nearby Junction City has the most options. We also wanted to do one more road test to make sure our DPF issues were behind us. I also wanted to get the DirectTV Roof Mount Satellite Dish converted to Dish Networks and rigged with an A/B switch so we could easily switch between the premium self seeking Winegard Trav'ler system on the roof and our portable Tailgater in case the roof was blocked. I ordered the parts from Winegard, and Bobby at Kustom Koach in JC did the conversion and setup. Works like a charm now... pull in, push a single button and go set up shore power, electric and sewer, and when you come back in you have your HD Satellite TV working. Love it. We spent four days at Riverbend RV park in nearby Harrisburg, pictured at the right. A little cold at night but otherwise quite pleasant.

November 24 - Northwest Country Coachers Thanksgiving Rally - Portland, OR Part of the fun of living the RV lifestyle is getting to know other RV owners and like minds tend to stick together, So we joined the northwest chapter of FMCA, the Family Motor Coach Association... who call themselves the Northwest Country Coachers. Since the kids were doing other things for the holiday, we decided to join the group for a Thanksgiving Rally at Portland's beautiful Fairview RV Park. There were 8 - 10 other couples in attendance and everyone brought a favorite dish. We had the park's clubhouse reserved for the event and the ladies brined and roasted a 24 pound fresh turkey which was delicious. I did the honors and carved it, unselfishly tasting various parts of the bird as I carved it up to be sure it tasted ok.

November 8 - Junction City and Eugene OR We drove the coach back down to Country Coach HQ in Junction City this week to have them iron out a few electrical gremlins... and we had also scheduled with Hitch Pro in Eugene to install the Roadmaster Blackhawk All-Terrain 2 tow bar & SMI Air Force One airbrake system pictured at the right. This is the state of the art towing setup and utilizes the coach's air system to actuate the dinghy's vacuum assisted power brakes to proportionally brake the dinghy behind the coach. It took them 7 hours for the install and cost about $3600 installed, much less than an archaic alternative offered by Camping World. After much research I am convinced this is the best setup with a 10,000 lb. capacity to match the coach's own towing capacity for a heavy dinghy like the Suburban. We hooked it up and followed the Suburban owner's manual's explicit instructions for towing. With this setup we can tow the Suburban anywhere and with the Caterpillar's 425 HP doing the pulling, it is effortless.

October 28 - Itinerary Changes I posted this first on the homepage but am posting here as well since more friends will be reading the blog than anything. Our purchase of the new Country Coach has prompted us to choose a more conservative 2013 itinerary which will keep us in the west, a little closer to home. The realization hit home that we're just not familiar enough with this new coach to take off cross country. Luxury also implies complexity, and we have a lot to learn about its operation. So 2013 will be a shakedown cruise, once again, but this time with the Country Coach and towing the Suburban part of the time. Having Country Coach Factory HQ nearby in Oregon gives us a certain sense of confidence and comfort. So for 2013 our itinerary will take us and our two indefatiguable Westies down to warmer winter weather in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, then in spring moving north where we will pick up the sailboat and sail Clear Lake, CA for a month before we move north to our favorite western lakes, Fernridge Lake, OR , Lake Coeur d'Alene, ID, and Flathead Lake, MT.

October 25 - Adding a Thule Evolution cargo box Today I added a beautiful Thule Evolution 1800 cargo box (or pod) to our Suburban, utilizing a Yakima Rack I had held onto for the last 6 years after selling our 2003 Tahoe. Fortunately the Suburban is still using the exact same roof rack so this very neat Yakima rack fits perfectly. It is so neat because the Yakima Rack clips on and off small bases which fit unobtrusively into the Chevy roof rack tracks and can be semi permanently mounted simply by removing the track end caps from the car briefly, sliding each foot into the track, locking them down with allen screws and then reinstalling the end caps again. You just position them where you want them and then never move them again. The towers then remain clamped onto your cross bars and can be unlocked, unclipped and popped off the tracks in a matter of moments. I positioned them for the Thule pod and locked everything down. The pod occupies roughly half the width of the cross bars leaving just enough room to secure our Hobie Mirage Outfitter Pedal Kayak on the other side. The Thule pod will comfortably hold all the kayak gear including two sets of MirageDrive pedal assemblies, two paddles, seats, sail and assorted bags, life jackets and so on.

October 19 - Buying a new Dinghy We had been considering a more multipurpose daily driver for our journeys. We loved our AWD Lincoln Aviator SUV ... possibly the best vehicle I have ever owned. It drives like a dream and with the 300 HP V-8, it tows our boats effortlessly down the highway. But, unfortunately it cannot be towed behind a motorhome or modified to do so. Many folks tow Jeeps as their 2 speed transfer case is designed so that the vehicle can be "flat-towed." In the Motorhome community, these are called Dinghies... the little local cruiser you tow behind your land yacht. While we plan to travel driving both the SUV and the coach, with one or the other towing the sailboat, we would also like to be able to take non-boating side trips where we drive together in the coach and tow our car or "dinghy" behind us like many motorhome folks do. The Chevy Suburban with certain options is the perfect choice for our purposes. With the big 5.3L 310 HP V8, it is great for towing our boats. But it can also be flat towed behind the coach. For this, you need one with the 2 speed transfer case... i.e. a high and low range 4WD... recognizable by the selector dial on the dash. It is a specific process and steps must be followed carefully... I made a printable PDF from the owner's manual with step by step instructions for the benefit of other Motorhome drivers.

October 12 - Pickup from Country Coach Factory Service, Junction City OR Part of the logic in purchasing a Country Coach was that their Factory Service Center is located in Junction City OR, just 2 hours from our home. Buying a pre-owned vehicle this large and this expensive and preparing to take off on a multi year cross country journey, I wanted to make sure that everything is 100% road ready. Like anything these days, the fancier the rig and the better the technology, the more complex it is. So I had it gone over by factory technicians, all systems checked, making sure that everything worked right, and fixing what did not. Even though we have an extended warranty which covered a couple major issues like the A/C not working properly, for example, the cost to have it fully prepped for the road was certainly not cheap. But it actually cost me about 1.25% of the original MSRP on the coach, so it was a reasonable investment to bring it up to like new operating condition. In addition we had them install a state of the art Splendide combination washer/dryer with proper venting and water supply. The Goodyear tires had DOT stamps of 2607 on them, and 6 years is considered the average safe life of these tires *if* they have been properly cared for... and you have no guarantee of that when buying a used vehicle. And even if they had received no improper treatment we would be passing the six year mark early in our travels next year. So, even though it cost me some $7000 for 8 new Michelin XZA-2 tires all the way around, I decided it was well worth the price for safety. and if you have ever seen the blowout damage a 115 PSI monster tire can do to the wheel well of a motorhome, you would not take that risk either. Let's just say it would be dollar-wise and thousand-dollar foolish. If it happened on the road, the vehicle would have to be towed and we would have to abort our journey for months while all the damage was repaired. Definitely not a chance I was willing to take. New Michelins remove the risk and I will be taking care of them like they were my own children.

Sept 7 - 10 - Oregon Coast We took our first shakedown cruise in the new coach and drove to the Oregon Coast for a long weekend. We got a space in a KOA Campground in Waldport south of Newport. It was a pleasant RV park on Alseo Bay and a short hike up the hill to a great 180 degree view of the ocean as well. We didn't tow a car because we were only staying a few days and we used our bicycles to bike over the bridge into the town of Waldport. It was mostly cloudy and cool on the weekend but cleared on Monday and turned into a beautiful day for our trip home. We pulled out of the park around 11 am and headed back up the coast and stopped in nearby Depoe Bay, a charming town with a great promenade along the sea wall with the waves crashing on the rocks below. We took the dogs and walked the length of the town, did a little shopping and then continued on. I pulled over at one point to snap the photo at the right. We got back to the Portland area late afternoon, and drove to the storage lot where we had left our car, parked the rig and drove home in our car.

Tuscon, AZ - Aug 27 - Sept 2, 2012

August 27 - Sept 8 - To Tucson and back with the new Country Coach Well we took another hard left turn, placed the Bounty Hunter up for sale on Craigslist and located a gorgeous 43' 2008 Country Coach Founders Edition Inspire 360 down in Tucson Arizona. We had been looking at Country Coaches this summer and decided that this is the quality motor coach we would really like to travel in. So we flew to Tucson, met the owner of this flawless coach we had found listed on RVtrader.com, purchased it and drove it 2.5 days back to Portland. We put it in the storage yard and immediately began the arduous process of moving all our personal stuff out of the Bounty Hunter and into the Country Coach, and with no time to spare. Because amazingly enough, while we were in Tucson I got a deposit by Paypal to purchase the Bounty Hunter. The buyer was coming in Saturday less than 48 hours after we returned from Tucson, so there was no time to waste. I met the buyer at the airport and Sunday morning he paid me in full and drove off with the Bounty Hunter. On the new Windseeker homepage, I have explained in some detail the rationale behind this move and how this affects our future plans for the better. And there are a few more photos on the our Country Coach photo gallery page. We plan to take a few brief shakedown cruises this fall before we head south in it after the first of the year.

Lake Oswego, OR - Aug 12 - Sept 6, 2012

August 13 - Back home in Lake Oswego We left Kelowna on Saturday, Aug 11 and drove as far as Wenatchee WA; then continued on Sunday driving down through the Columbia River Gorge on our way back home to Lake Oswego (right). We spent several hours in the afternoon visiting friends in Rowena, where I had my river place for 22 years. It was fascinating to see the transformation under the new owner. Wow! It exceeds my wildest dreams for the place. Then we drove into Portland and put the RV and the boat into temporary storage in the RV storage lot at Tomahawk Bay on Hayden Island. On Tuesday we'll rig the sailboat and launch her in the Columbia. I've rented a slip for a month at Tomahawk Bay Marina. I want to do some sailing with my son Pat, before he leaves for Europe in September (taking a quarter off from school at OSU to see a bit of the world). Then in late September Libby and I have plans to make a few brief excursions around the Pacific Northwest this fall before the rainy season returns. We plan to head to Texas for the winter in January.

Kelowna B.C., Canada - Aug 4 - Aug 11, 2012

Aug 10 - Heading back to Oregon Well after three days of pretty good wind beginning of the week, we got skunked the last couple days, so we pulled the boat out this morning, derigged her for the road, and my friend towed her back up the hill to the campground (a bit much for the lil Tracker) where we will hook her up to the RV in the morning and head south. It's been a short but pleasant visit to Kelowna with our friends here. Now it is time to head home. Tomorrow, Saturday, we're planning to go as far as Wenatchee WA, only about 350 miles. But we also have to cross the border which may delay us a bit, depending on the crowds. We will spend the afternoon and evening down at the big riverfront park there on the Columbia and then cruise over to the Wenatchee Wally's World to spend the night. Sunday we will cruise on down into Oregon and stop off in the Gorge at Rowena to visit some friends before heading back to the city.

Aug 6 - Sailing Lake Okanagan Our first full day in Kelowna was HOT... hot as hell! The thermometer hit 100... according to Weather.com it was hotter here than in Texas! We came to Canada to escape the summer heat... what is the deal??? Anybody who doesn't think we have global warming is not getting out much! Actually just read an indepth study on the topic for climate change if anyone out there is still skeptical. And although it is not my usual source for accuracy in reporting, even Fox News reports NOAA just released its findings for the month of July 2012.... not hard to believe we had the hottest July on record since 1895. Coincidence? I think not! Anyhow today was a bit better... we got the boat launched downtown at the Hotel Eldorado marina and I took my friend and his two young boys out sailing on Lake Okanagan... Winds were a bit on the light side but we had a enjoyable couple hours on the water. I tied up the boat at my slip at the marina. This was the only place I could find out of Kelowna area for short term moorage and the rate is $50/day plus tax... yikes. That is more than 4x what we have paid anywhere else this summer. But Kelowna is a very expensive resort town and they command top dollar.

Aug 4 - arriving in Kelowna B.C., Canada Just a few hours north of the border and about a 10 hour drive from Flathead Lake lies the popular Canadian resort town of Kelowna B.C. That is accoding to Google anyhow, but NOT realistic when driving a rig such as ours. Better figure on a minimum of 12 hours or more plus stops. We had planned to split the trip into two days spending the first night back in Coeur d'Alene, ID. The Walmart in nearby Hayden allows RV'ers to stay free overnight in their mammoth parking lot, a convenient option for stop late and leave early overnights. Saturday we awoke early, pulled out of 'Wally's World' and continued on.

We headed west from Spokane and then north towards Kelowna and Okanagan Lake. Enroute we drove up past Grand Coulee Dam. Constructed between 1933 and 1942 with a third power station was completed in 1974, Grand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. At right it's me, Joe Cool at the Grand Coulee Dam. Impressive feat of engineering! The Grand Coulee Visitor Center contains many historical photos, geological samples, turbine and dam models, and a theater.

We got to the border crossing a little later than planned and hit a few speedbumps. Earlier this summer in Idaho I had purchased a classic Winchester 94 lever action 3030 rifle, "the gun that won the west." Always wanted one... remember "The Rifleman" TV series? Anyhow the Canadian border patrol would not let us bring it into Canada and made us turn around (back through the line at US Customs, unfortunately) to go back to a little pub where the guy has a little sideline where he will store your guns for $10/mo each. This was an easy and inexpensive option, but cost us a couple hours, before we finally made it into Canada. So we barely made it to our reserved RV Park, Canyon Farms RV Park just outside Kelowna B.C. before dark.

Canyon Farms RV Park is a nice quiet little spot tucked away in the orchards on the outskirts of the popular Canadian resort city of Kelowna B.C. Kelowna sits on the eastern shore of beautiful Lake Okanagan, our 4th sailing lake expedition for this summer. I have a close friend who lives here with his family and we have been promising to come up again for a visit for several years now. I am looking forward to taking him and his wife and two children sailing. None have ever been on a boat before! The weather is predicted to be excellent and the winds have been good for sailing the last few weeks so we are hopeful. We will launch the boat Monday morning and "test the waters" so to speak.

Flathead Lake, Montana - July 5 - Aug 2, 2012

Aug 2 - wrapping up the month at Flathead Well I can honestly say that Flathead Lake is incomparable in my experience when it comes to sailing. We have been here a full month and sailed probably 12-15 days or so... generally 3 hour sessions and usually early afternoon, like 1 or 2 until 4 or 5, sometimes 6:00. The openness of Big Arm Bay where our boat has been moored, with flat water inside the islands, the water is so clear you can drink it, the variety of scenery is awesome, temps around 80-85, typical company of 5 -10 sailboats out in the afternoon for the visual effect, and most of all the wind... it doesn't get any better than this. We have had some good sailing elsewhere, but this has been truly epic. We sailed the last three days in *perfect* conditions 10-14 every day, and steady as you could ever want. On a scale of 1-10, it has been a 10. I mean, you set a course under full sail, get up on a 20-25 degree heel and never touch your sheets - speed just stays between 6.4 - 6.6 mph and never changes for 45 minutes until you tack and then same thing in a different direction. I've never experienced anywhere else like it. It's like what I would imagine tradewinds sailing in the islands must be like. Rock steady and smooth as silk. We have been spoiled... this is the standard by which all other lakes will be judged... I just fear that no others can match it, at least not for quality. Flathead Lake in July/August... put this place on your bucket list... it is as close to heaven as you will ever find. We break camp today, pull the boat and derig it, and tomorrow we head for Kelowna, B.C. Wind there is reportedly good on Lake Okanagan these days as well, from what I can tell, so we are looking forward to this, the final leg of our summer adventure.

July 29 - the drive up to Glacier National Park On Saturday July 28 with a gorgeous weekend weather forecast ahead, we headed towards Glacier National Park up north of Flathead Lake about an hour or so. We drove to the resort town of Whitefish in the Tracker where we spent the night at a motel. We had an excellent dinner at Mambo Italiano Ristorante... a great place in the charming resort town of Whitefish. If you have never been here, this probably sounds like some funky little fishing town or something, but quite to the contrary it is a high end resort town, frequented by celebrities with some very expensive real estate in and around Whitefish Lake.

Sunday morning we picked up our rental car, a new Subaru Outback. We figured this was a better choice for all the climbing up to Logan's Pass (6646 ft) on the "Going to the Sun Road" thru Glacier National Park. The park has many spectacular views and it is difficult to pick the single iconic shot, but this one would be my choice half way down the other side to Saint Mary at the East Entrance to the park. That is Saint Mary's Lake with Wild Goose Island in the middle and the Glacier covered peaks in the background. There are about a dozen of my best photos of the park in the photo gallery.

July 18 - Another picture perfect day sailing on Flathead Lake This is me, your humble blogger and ship's captain at the helm of the Anne Marie as we cruise around the back side of Melita Island which is visble at the left of the photo. We have been here at Flathead Lake now just over two weeks, and in and around a few thunderstorms and a day or two off from sailing, either by intent or because of lack of wind, this is our 6th or 7th day out on the lake. Today was a perfect day as we sailed out of Big Arm Bay. I took 7 good sailing pictures, all posted in the photo gallery near the bottom of the page. We had steady winds in the 10 mph range all afternoon in the bay. We ventured out of the bay for the first time and around the backside of Melita Island, where this photo was snapped. Winds were a little light on the back side of the island but picked up again nicely as we sailed back through the channel.

July 14 - taking a break from sailing - visiting the wildlife We had 3 days of sailing this week... and the last two on Weds and Thurs were just outstanding. I failed to get any photos, but will be sure to get some this week. I have sailed a lot of places, but this lake, when it is good, is just as good as it gets. Cool clear water, beautiful mountain scenery, wide expanses of flat water in the bays inside the islands, and steady, steady winds typically in the 10-12 range... you gotta love it. Yesterday was flat calm so we putzed around at the marina a bit, went swimming and came back to the coach and turned on the A/C and watched a movie on the Bluray player. Life is tough sometimes, but what can you do? Today T-storms were forecast so we decided to go on a little adventure and headed down to the National Bison Range Wildlife Refuge, run by the US Parks and Wildlife, south of Flathead about half an hour's drive. As we left the basin by the lake the weather became only partly cloudy with lots of sunshine so we had a nice leisurely visit to the Range. At the right is a photo of the entrance. There are several more good photos on the photo gallery. My "America the Beautiful" seniors card gets us both in all these places for free. Some advantages to be an oldster!

July 9 - first day out sailing on Flathead Lake We drove up the ten minutes from our RV resort to Sunny Shores Marina where we have the boat moored now. We got up there about 11 am and the wind was light in the bay so we did a few little projects around the boat, but then around 12:30 the wind was up as far as we could tell maybe 1/2 mile offshore, as we could see a few sail boats moving along at a pretty good clip. So we loaded Corey on board and headed out. We motored out to the wind line and sure enough there was a decent breeze on the water. Skies were mostly clear with a few puffy clouds. We sailed a couple hours and were hitting speeds close to 6 mph on a pretty good heel... so it was a nice sailing afternoon. This is just a gorgeous lake to sail on... probably the best place I have ever sailed. A wide bay with steady prevailing winds from the NE. We look forward to sailing around some of the islands off shore like Wild Horse Island and the smaller Cromwell Island, about 5 miles across the bay from our marina.

About 2:30 we noticed a dark cloud over one of the mountains behind the marina which was moving our way. And as the cloud obscured the sun, the wind faded off so we turned toward the marina and thought we would sail as far as we could, then drop sail and motor in. But about half way, the wind began to shift around to the East. Then it whipped up suddenly real strong, and we started scrambling to furl the jib... then suddenly the squall swung 180 degrees around to the E and it got very dicey for a few minutes. We managed to just release the main and the jib, which were flapping wildly in the strong squall and then used the furling line to reel in the jib quicky. Once the jib was in it still took a bit of scrambling in the squally conditions to drop the main but once that was done, it was quick task to tie it up, start the motor and head back to the marina. Whew! This was unlike any conditions I have ever experienced with those violent shifts in wind direction. Almost tornadic! Important lesson learned... take thunderstorm clouds moving toward you very seriously on midwestern lakes. Alls well that ends well! Back to the RV for a couple beers and think about barbecuing some brats for dinner!

July 7 - moving down to Polson, MT Well Big Sky RV Resort turned out to be a disappointment... live and learn. It is a lovely spot and our assigned space had a beautiful view out the front windshield of the RV, and the people were certainly friendly, but the place was run down and not up to our standards. And we decided it was not a good spot to sail out of and too remote a location to spend a month at. So today, Saturday morning, just two days after we arrived, we packed up, disconnected the hookups, and connected the sailboat trailer and Libby followed me down about 20 miles to Polson. We had scoped out a nice clean well maintained park just north of the bridge across the mouth of Flathead River which feeds the huge lake... appropriately named Flathead RV Resort. About the same price at $525 for the month with full hookups, nice level asphalt pads and facilities. And just ten minutes from Sunny Shores Marina where we put the boat in on the way down. More photos in the photo gallery

July 5 - the trip from Coeur d'Alene to Flathead Lake, MT We left CDA around 11 am and headed down I-90 through the Coeur d'Alene National Forest and a beautiful drive, out of Idaho and Lolo National Forest to St Regis where we headed up Hwy 135, connecting briefly with Hwy 200 and then onto Hwy 28 over to Flathead Lake. Mostly pretty good roads and it was a gorgeous drive most of the way. There was a lot of climbing, and some sharp descents through the mountain passes, most notably Lookout Pass elevation 4860, so we took it slow with our 16 tons of rolling stock. But as we came over the pass and started down toward the lake, we were rewarded with the breathtaking view at the right. whoa!

Highway 28 ends at back at Hwy 93 which winds its way north on the western shore of Flathead Lake. This magnificent body of water is 27 miles long and covers almost 200 sq miles of surface area, with an average depth of 165 feet and a max depth of 370'. Quite a lake! We drove along the shoreline about 8 miles up to Rollins where we were booked at the Big Sky RV Resort. This is a beautiful spot just above Dayton and Wild Horse Island. The Lake is about 5 miles wide at this point and should make for spectacular sailing if the wind will cooperate. We got a nice level campsite. We unhooked the boat down at the main road, lowered the rear ramp door and and rolled out the Tracker. Then we drove the RV up the hill and backed into our spot. The picture at the right gives some idea of the view of the lake out our front window through the pines.

We set up some essentials, like the gas bbq, the dog pen and the satellite dish. Given all the tall trees here I was grateful to get one of the two satellites for Dish Network... and the most important one with all the movie channels, CNN and the like. Cell phone reception with ATT is pretty much non existent here at the campsite. We will have to experiment with how far down the road we have to travel to make a phone call. Verizon 4G is also non existent here and while we could connect marginally at 3G speeds, we were not able to really do much with the marginal connection. Fortunately Big Sky RV Resort has pretty good wifi and we were able to connect to that most of the time If we need to make phone calls from the campsite, I suppose we'll have to use skype or hop in the car. Cell phones are pretty terrific for RV travel, but in outlying areas like this, reception can be pretty spotty.

Lake Coeur d'Alene, Idaho June 1- July 5, 2012

July 03 - Strong winds for our final day of sailing Last night we had huge thunderstorms with lightning and pouring rain. You would think it was raining cats and dogs, the way it kept the dogs up a good part of the night... and us with them. Today we had more t-storms and even some hail... in July! Then as predicted it finally broke around 4 and by 5 it was definitely clearing. So we took the Anne Marie our for a final sunset sail on Lake CDA. We had excellent winds and achieved speeds of 7.5 mph on a heart pounding heel. And then about 7:30 pm we took her over to the boat launch directly across from Blackwell Island RV Park where we're staying and pulled her out of the water. The little Tracker performed flawlessly. The pulling power of this little 4 cylinder engine coupled with 4WD low range never ceases to amaze. We brought the Anne Marie back over to our campsite... to the empty parking area across from our campsite and in the morning, July 4th, we'll unstep the mast and get her road ready. We'll break camp tomorrow as well and be ready to pull out for Flathead Lake MT first thing Thursday morning. We will definitely take some time late afternoon to go down to our little private beach with the dogs and drink a margarita and a toast to Lake CDA. It has been grand and now it is time for a new adventure!

June 27 - Sailing on the lake... Beautiful day today... mid 70's mostly blue skies with a few puffy clouds and crystal clear air... Nice moderate breezes on the lake today... we sailed with new RV friends Bill Evans and Ginny Schneckenburger from Florida who are here in their fabulous 45' Country Coach. Sailed for a couple hours then stopped at the downtown docks long enough to have a famous burger at Hudson's in downtown CDA, then back out for a bit before coming back in to sit and have wine and cheese with our new friends. We shared stories and got a tour of their fabulous coach, and an introduction to Geocaching. Sounds like a fun hobby that fits well with the RV life! We will go our geocaching with them over the next couple days and experience it first hand.

June 24 - Corey goes fishing... Still no wind today but a beautiful day in the 70's lots of sunshine... perfect day for the Iron men, I suppose. We had our own brand of excitement today. Corey decided to go on a little fishing expedition down at his little beach today... he found a fish hook and lead weight wrapped around a root along the shoreline and decided it looked interesting, I guess... and in chewing on the root he swallowed the hook. This was a hook with at least a 3/8 spread, as it turns out... maybe more. Suddenly he is gagging and we find the nylon fishing string and lead weight hanging out of his mouth. I tried to reach into his mouth in and around his gagging and couldn't get to the hook and gentle pulling on it did nothing. Suppressing the panic, I carried him back to the coach and sat him on a table while Libby held his mouth open and I reached in there as best I could... but no success. arghhhh....

So I held him quiet while Libby put in a few phone calls and located an emergency pet care center about 10 miles away. Quickly we jumped in the car and with Corey in my lap holding him firmly and soothing him to keep him calm, Libby drove to the vet. We were both very shaken... imagining the worst... the hook could be halfway down his esophagus and embedded and would have to be surgically removed. But amazing as it may sound, as we pulled up to the vet center and I opened the door, he gagged as I lifted him out, and hook, line and sinker, it all fell out of his mouth onto the ground. What a miracle! I would not have given a 10% chance that could happen, as it was a very sharp fishing hook with a barb. We were all very fortunate and greatly relieved. We showed him to the vet, but he seemed fine and so we drove him back to the RV park, stopping along the way for a little dish of Dairy Queen ice cream... Little boys deserve an ice cream when they have such a harrowing experience. He earned a new nickname... Captain Hook!

June 23 - Ironman Triathalon In spite of the T-storms that were forecast, the weather turned out quite nice today... cloudy in the morning and mostly sunny by afternoon... with a high around 70 degrees, but not much wind. But we have been out 3 times in the past week, so no complaints... we never intended to sail every day. We did some bicycling and I took some photos around the park and added them to the photo gallery. Took the dogs down to the beach for a swim. Not much wind though. Warmer temperatures and more wind are forecast for tomorrow and Monday. Weather should be good tomorrow for the Ironman Competition which is scheduled. 2.4 mile swim, followed immediately by a 112 mile bicycle race followed by a marathon run. Yikes. Lots of masochists staying the park this weekend planning to compete tomorrow. We will drink a toast to them as they go by.

June 15 - Sailing weather arrives Well the weather has turned gorgeous in Coeur d'Alene, finally! We sailed both yesterday and today in the afternoons. Corey went with us both days, but Gracie is getting a little old at 13 1/2 so we left her back in the coach to sleep. Corey enjoys sailing as much as we do. The shot at the right is off the starboard side of the Anne Marie, our lovely Catalina 22 looking over towards Arrow Point I spent the last couple mornings working on formatting my new laptop. I decided to buy a new Dell Vostro 3750 which Dell calls a 'Desktop Replacement' for serious business use. This has a 17.3 non glare screen like my current Dell Inspiron which is now 6 years old. I reformatted the Inspiron a couple years ago with Windows 7 and it works well, but with my software business, I cannot depend on an aging laptop when we travel on the road. At home I could shift over to my desktop if the laptop had problems, as I keep them both synched. But on the road, I am dependant on my laptop, so I decided it was time to get a new one. I will keep my old Inspiron with me on the road as well for backup as it works just fine. This is my 4th Dell laptop over the past 12 years. I just like to be able to configure it online just as I want it with Windows 7 Professional and a dozen different options. It also has a builtin webcam also for those of you with skype who want to chat face to face some time :-) Just in from having a maragarita down at the beach with Libby and the dogs and thought I would update the blog. See the photo gallery for more of the day's photos

June 11 - launching the boat and waiting for wind We got the sailboat rigged and in the water yesterday. We spent some time cleaning up the boat, a little dirty from our road trip, and then over to Murphy's Marina adjacent to Blackwell RV Park where we are staying. We had hoped to go sailing today with the warming clear weather, however the high pressure system brought very light breezes along with it, so we went for a walk in the downtown park instead with the dogs. Lots of good photo opps today with the beautiful weather. Tomorrow looks a bit more encouraging for winds in the morning, before afternoon thunderstorms move in. So we will try to get in some sailing tomorrow. The outlook is for quite windy on Weds with more isolated T-storms... and then clearing and breezy for Thursday and Friday with highs in the mid 60's, so we should get our sailing fix this week!

June 10 - Coeur da Rain: rain, rain and more rain... Our first 9 days here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho were pretty much rained out. We got some sun breaks and did some bicycling, walking the dogs and taking them for swims at the beach, sunsets by the water's edge with a glass of wine when weather permitted, watched some movies on our sensational HD Home Theater, and did some reading, and a few projects around the RV. But it was cold and wet and stormy all over the Pacific Northwest, and so we waited until today to get the sailboat rigged and launched and over to her slip at Murphy's Marina, adjacent to Blackwell RV Resort. We have become quite friendly with Skip and Susan Murphy and they always have a slip for us when we come here now. Tomorrow promises to be a picture perfect day and we will for sure be out there on the Anne Marie. I will get some photos out on the lake tomorrow.

May 31 - leaving Oregon for Coeur d'Alene Well, our first month of the Windseeker 2012 Summer Tour comes to a close. We really enjoyed our 4 weeks at Fernridge Shores. Very pleasant quiet RV park, nice folks and a very nice little marina, just a couple hundred yards stroll down the path from our RV space. It is hard to beat Fernridge for lake sailing in the pacific northwest, reliable winds, lots of knowledgeable friendly sailors and very few powerboats and almost NO jetskis. You have to love it. But all good things must come to an end... the nice part is that we are able to go from one "good thing" to another, in an endless string. We have been looking forward to a month in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, one of our favorite spots, and the time has arrived.

We pulled the sailboat out of the water on Monday as planned. The little Tracker performed its job admirably. In 4WD lowrange, this baby can pull stumps, so pulling 4500 pounds of sailboat and trailer out of the water is child's play. We have learned from experience that you do not want to do this without 4WD, especially on the slipperier, steeper ramps. And forget All Wheel Drive, unless you have low range or gobs of horsepower, the stress on the transmission is great. 4WD lowrange makes it a piece of cake. We have some more photos of Tracker pulling the sailboat on our coach gallery page.

Tuesday morning, I did some projects on the sailboat parked right next to the RV, and then early Tuesday afternoon, we started breaking camp. Putting away all the equipment, loading the Hobie pedal Kayak onto the custom rack on the back of the sailboat, tearing down the Dish Network Satellite, sewer connections, dog run, and so on. Then we loaded the Tracker in the back of the RV. We had an audience for this and people taking photos. Few people have ever seen a Class A motorhome carry a car in the back. It went easily as we have done it several times now, and the new winch I installed makes raising the door a piece of cake. I put a series of photos of the process on the coach gallery page. After the car was loaded and the rear ramp door closed and locked, I mounted the new Swagman bike rack on the extended stinger into the receiver hitch at the back of the coach and adjusted the racks for our two bicycles, locked them on and made it ready to connect the boat.

That was enough for Tuesday. Wednesday morning, we awoke early, I raised the jacks (one touch on the control pad, this time), disconnected the water and power and pulled out of the space, backed up to the boat trailer and we were on our way! 65 feet of rolling thunder, about 16 tons, on our way north. While it sounds intimidating, it's pretty easy to drive once you get used to it. Navigating around town, service stations, and such require extra care and a bit of extra planning, but tooling down the freeway is pretty easy, actually fun when you get used to it. Libby followed me, driving the Lincoln Aviator which we had also taken with us for the month at Fernridge. We pulled into Lake Oswego near our home, and parked the 65' rig on the road across from our rec center about 3/4 mile from the house. We ferried some stuff back home in the Lincoln, and Libby and I and the two dogs spent a couple hours at home, and then mid afternoon, I dropped them all off at the RV, drove back down the hill and parked the Lincoln in our garage at home and hiked back over to the RV and we hit the road. We drove out I-84 through the Gorge. After 22 years of driving I-84 dozens of times every year to our property near Hood River, it was a new experience cruising in the RV with the big Cinemascope windshield. What a joy! I did not stop in Rowena, much as I would have liked to, as it would have been very difficult to get turned around with the boat in tow.

We spent the night at Celilo Park about 10 miles east of The Dalles. They allow free camping for RV's and there's always lots of room, nice paved lot, good restrooms if you need em and nice park grounds for walking the dogs. No hookups or anything but that's what generators are for and you are right alongside the Columbia. The only downside as in much of the Gorge is that when you are near the river you are also near the RR tracks. But we were so tired we slept right thru the few trains that came through overnight. We awoke around 7:30, walked the dogs, had some coffee and hit the road.

We passed several other decent options for free RV parking that are worth mentioning. There's a nice little park at John Day Dam a little further east and we saw a bunch of RV's parked there along the river. The thundering dam will drown out any road or RR noise. Then a bit further east, there's Rufus which doesn't have any grass and is a gravel lot, but it's quite a ways over from the RR tracks so a little quieter than Celilo. Then there is Arlington also right on the river and there were a bunch of RV's parked there. There may be a fee there... not really sure, but there's a little marina and boat ramp, so quite a nice spot along the Columbia. We cruised on up to Coeur d'Alene without incident. I had punched the tripodometer before we left, and when I filled up it registered 330 miles. That's mostly freeway driving with a few stops... fully loaded and towing the boat. The fuel tank gauge was showing about 1/3 tank and it took 46 gallons to fill 'er up. This is a common question I get... what kind of fuel mileage? 46 gallons to drive 330 miles means about 7.2 mpg. At four bucks a gallon that's less than $200 to make the trip. Try flying 2 people here here with two dogs for that. There are a lot of hills coming up here, so towing up all the hills cuts your mileage a bit. But I guess this is fairly average for most US driving. Sometime next year when we are traveling in more flat country, maybe in the midwest, I will check it again to compare, but I am guessing I could get 8-9 if the terrain was fairly flat. Don't forget that's 16 tons of equipment rolling down the road. When we towed the boat back from Texas last fall in our Lincoln Aviator, total combined weight there was about 11000 pounds... roughly 1/3 the weight and we got about 10.5 mpg with the gas powered V-8. So the diesel powered RV is getting 2/3 the fuel mileage of the Lincoln weighing three times as much. Pretty good, really.

We arrived mid afternoon, checked into Coeur d'Alene at Blackwell RV Resort, a great Idaho RV Park located on the Spokane River right where it flows out of beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene. This is actually where we stayed last year in our Truck Camper when we discovered the Gulfstream Bounty Hunter and left early to drive home so I could fly to San Diego to buy this thing. Now we are back and we arrived in high style! We began the basic process of setting up camp. We only did a temporary set up in our space and rolled out the car... you can see it and the boat in backround behind the RV.

Tomorrow Libby will follow me over to the RnR RV dealer in nearby Liberty Lake WA. You gotta see this place: We had checked it out last year and decided when we have our RV serviced next we want to do it here! Then when the RV is done tomorrow we will drive back to Blackwell and set up camp for the month of June. I'll post an update after a few days when we are all set up, boat is rigged and in the water and we get our first sailing day on the breathtaking Lake Coeur d'Alene.

May 16 This is our 11th day at Fernridge Shores RV Resort and I have to say, we are loving it. The weather has been fabulous. We arrived to cloudy rainy weather but by day three after we had finished setting up the Coach and doing little projects and tweaks, the weather cleared and has been beautiful and sunny every day with winds ranging from light sailing winds in the late afternoon to excellent sailing winds all day long. Today is yet another. So we will be heading out on the lake in the next hour... we're taking our neighbor Betsy and her friend out, nice folks and avid sailors as well. We were going to take Corey with us, but with 4 people on the boat, I think we'll just let him hang back and relax... "No problem", says Corey. I'll have the recliner all to myself!"

May 5 (initial entry 2012) Well at long last after months of dreaming, coach modifications, general tweaking, and various preparations, we pulled out of our storage garage in the Portland area and headed south for our first stop on the Windseeker 2012 Summer Tour. This is our reservations lineup for this year: May: Fernridge Lake, OR June: Coeur d'Alene Lake, ID July: Flathead Lake, MT Aug: Lake Okanagan, Kelowna, BC Sept: Columbia River, OR We arrived at Fernridge Shores RV Resort today, right on the south shore of this beautiful lake in northwestern Oregon, just 15 miles west of downtown Eugene and about an hour from Florence over on the Oregon Coast. This is a lovely spot, quiet and tucked away far from the highway right on the lakeshore about 3 miles out of the little town of Veneta, OR. Fernridge is probably the best sailing lake in the Pacific Northwest, and just a couple hours from our home in the Portland area, so it is ideal for our first extended venture with the new Windseeker on the 2012 Summer Tour.

I had autocalibrated the jacks last fall for 'level', but when I had extra leaf springs added to the rear to compensate for having the car in the garage, it raised the rear end up a couple inches when empty. This appears to have altered the computer's sense of level, so I needed to manually adjust the computer's auto-level efforts. Add to this the fact that the assigned space was not very level at all. As a neighbor commented later, "Oh yeah, I been here 5 years and watched many many folks try to level their rigs in that space. Worst spot for leveling in the whole park. I keep telling them they need to level that space." Just Great! After several attempts to manipulate the system to get level, and failing miserably, I started reading the manual for our Powergear jacks. Only later did I realize that the manual that came with the coach was mistakenly for the hydraulic system - ours is the fully electric system. Needless to say, the instructions were somewhat 'flawed' and after pushing the wrong buttons a few times, I managed to confuse the computer just enough that my left rear jack got stuck in the down position. Argggghhhh. Now the whole system just kept throwing up error messages and I could not level, retract or do much of anything.

Well at this point it was pretty clear we were not gonna get level in this space without having the front tires a foot off the ground, so we got permission to move over a couple spaces to a more level spot. Trouble is that by this time we were completely set up so we had to break down everything and carry it over two spaces. Fortunately it was only two spaces. Then started the leveling game again. This time, reading the correct manual, I managed to tweak the auto-level manually and get the coach level at long last, some 3-4 hours after I started the process in the original space.

Now here we are... it is Cinco de Mayo, a few margaritas last night got our heads straight, the weather has cleared today with beautiful blue skies, some high clouds and light morning breezes. We are going to rig the sailboat today and get her launched and head out for an afternoon sail before we put her in her slip in the marina. Compared to the RV, this process should be relatively glitch free as we have set up and broken down the sailboat many times now and have it down to a science. Meanwhile I am going to have a second cup of coffee and sit in my new recliner swiveled around to look out the big front Cinemascope windshield and watch the morning sun glisten on Fernridge Lake. Well that is, when I am *allowed* to sit in my recliner. Seems Corey our 5 year old Westie has adopted it as his spot. He really gets comfy in this recliner and I hate to disturb the little guy. Ah well, I am over here at the table writing up today's blog posting on my laptop anyhow. We'll have lunch in a little while and then tow the Catalina over to the marina and step the mast and get her ready to go sailing! Ah life is definitely looking a little brighter today. Now if I can just figure out a way to get to use my recliner at least part time! Ah wait, I got it... is that a SQUIRREL I see on the tree next door.... heheheh.