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Lake. Campground. Rally. Heat. Bugs. Fun!

June 9, 2015 By drpaddle 6 Comments

Nine months ago we reserved a campsite at Taidnapam Park in central Washington. The park is owned and operated by Tacoma Public Utilities, and this is on account of back in the 1950s they built a big dam on the Cowlitz River to generate electricity for all those people in Tacoma, and after the dam was complete the water backed up to form a lake bigger than most small countries.

I forgot to take a picture of the dam, so I found this one, taken by a fellow named Robert Ashworth and used under Creative Commons 2.0 licensing, which you can read about here.

Riffe Lake. You have to paddle your canoe a long way from that dam before you find the Cowlitz River again, way up at the east end around some corners, amidst Cascade Range foothills, countless trees and an awful lot of turkey vultures.

So here was this lake, and the utilities people decided to make a park so people could enjoy it. Taidnapam is the name of a tribe of native Americans who lived around the upper reaches of the Cowlitz River. I expect the area was even more beautiful back then. No lake, but more river.

Taidnapam has a large campground, and it’s a really appealing one. Large sites, many trees, spotless everything, and ready access to the aforementioned lake. It was popular last weekend — not completely full but pretty close. A lot of fifth wheels roughly the size of Cleveland come there, probably to fish, and to drink brewskies and trade fish stories.

Except this weekend was different, because this weekend there was a Rally of Molded Fiberglass Trailers (and their people).

Assorted molded fiberglass trailers at Taidnapam Park campground

No, all the fiberglass trailers weren’t radioactive, even if this picture makes them look that way. But they did get warm. Come to think of it, a lot of them are shaped a little like toasters.

Note that the tall conifers in this campground appear to have been limbed a good way up — whether by nature or by human beings (a branch of nature, I suppose), we’re not sure. It’s like being in the woods, but the woods are… airy. All very tidy-looking (taidy?).

We took a “back road” — Washington state route 7 — to get to Taidnapam. It’s scenic, winding, pleasant, and makes Wally carsick. Even Tyler was panting a little. As has been his custom, TinMan handled the hills and curves well.

A “haul road” (something to do with logging, I think) takes you from Washington route 12 to Taidnapam Park, skirting around the lake’s east end. Looking westward, you can see about 15 percent of the lake here. I’ll bet the birding is good around here, too, but I didn’t try it. I was busy.

We had reserved a pull-through site for this trip, because it was one of the first reservations I made, well before Toto was hatched, and I wasn’t sure how adept I would be at backing the trailer. The way the site was laid out, it made sense to pull forward a bit, so we ended up parking TinMan behind Toto. This may have confused both of them.

Toto and TinMan resting comfortably at Taidnapam site 237

Taidnapam Park has a two-part campground, consisting of the old part and the new part. Our little rally was held in the new part. It’s quite appealing. Although most of the campsites are good-sized, some (including ours) aren’t very private. At a rally, though, privacy isn’t really the goal. We give Taidnapam five stars for aesthetics, cleanliness, friendly staff and value.

See, you can see another egg-trailer on the right up above. That one belongs to a very nice couple from Port Townsend who have a Casita trailer. They also have built wooden kayaks (me, too), and they used to live on a boat. We learned that we had mutual friends, after a fashion. When these folks cruised down to Mexico in their boat, a few years ago, they knew some friends of ours who also cruised down to Mexico (and kept going). It’s a compact world.

We did some walking around with Tyler and Wally, checking out the sights.

Here you could launch a boat. I figure I could bring my kayak, and its little wheelie cart, and roll it from my campsite to this ramp in no time. Bringing the boat next time!

So. There is more to show you, and a considerable amount of Rally Angst to discuss. Bugs, too. Also heat. But let’s save it for later. I hafta work for a while or my clients are going to yell at me.

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Washing Toto and TinMan

June 3, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

This will get your tail waggin’. I washed Toto and TinMan on Saturday, using a new AUTOSPA SUDSnWASH <TM> Wash & Rinse Cleaning Set from Costco. You will want to run out and get one of these right away if you have something to wash. Exception: these are not good for washing dogs. But they work great on trailers and pickup trucks.

Here’s a general idea of what went on around here on Saturday. Just look how clean Toto is!

See that aluminum-looking pole with the blue handle on one end and the brush on the other? That’s most of the SUDSnWASH. There’s a shut-off valve where the pole attaches to the hose, so you don’t waste water, which is expensive in our town. Water, I mean. It costs a lot.

At the other end, the brush head features a smallish reservoir into which you can pour liquid car-washing soap of some kind.

See, here’s the reservoir. You fill it up with soap.

Years ago, when my parents thought I had the energy for such things, they gave me a Car Washing Kit. I used it for a while, but I can’t find it now. I did have this left over, though:

Gallon container of car wash gel, about 1/4 full.

I have no idea how long this has been in the garage (and the other garage in the house before this one. Or the one before that).

At first I thought Tyler was going to be helpful.

Tyler sitting expectantly in the driveway.

Or at least watchful.

But no.

I think he likes the feeling of warm concrete on his chest.

So, here’s the thing about he Suds n Go. You start out with the blue control dial set to Rinse, and you get all the big dirt chunks off. The brush is really soft, and you can hold it off the surface and get a pretty strong stream of water without otherwise touching the vehicle, so there’s no worry about scratching the gel coat or clear coat.

While you’re doing this, you notice that you have not been spending time with weights like the doctor suggested. Your arms are going to be sore later. Heck, they’re sore now. Why is this? The Suds n Go isn’t heavy — but the water is, and our garden hose is pretty heavy-duty and therefore heavy, too. So it feels like you’re moving a bowling ball around as you work, and this gets a little tiring. I may try a lighter-weight hose next time.

After the rinsing there is cleaning. Twist the dial on the brush head and presto, soapy water instead of clear. This is good for about 10 minutes. The Suds n Go may not be a precision-engineered device, because somehow, gradually, the soap in the reservoir gets diluted with water, and after a while there’s just water in there.

It’s not a problem. The soap seems to last a reasonable amount of time. The reservoir doesn’t hold much and I only had to fill it four times, total, for washing all of Toto. And while you might think Toto isn’t a very large trailer, he sure seems large when you’re washing the whole thing.

After soapy brushing, more rinsing. Toto gets really clean. And the Suds n Go kit from Costco even includes a nice, easy-to-grip squeegee. If you use a light touch, the squeegee works fine and gets most of the water off, so no need to get all the garage towels wet.

Toto, gleaming in the sun on the driveway.

It gleams.

I give the Suds n Go 8 stars out of 10. It doesn’t seem durable. The dial, which doubles as the cap for the soap-filling hole, is a little fussy, and I had to loosen a screw under the cap to make it work right. But I’d have to say the gadget did help me get the job done more quickly and with a little less effort.

I was tired, though. I stopped for lunch, then gave TinMan the same treatment.

Note: there were a few stubborn bug carcasses on the front of Toto and TinMan after the wash job. I used to have something called Bug and Tar Remover — in fact I still did have it on the day in question, but it had Gone Bad. So I used Goof Off II and a soft cloth to take the bugs off.

Also note: see how sunny it was? That has been happening a lot around here, in western Washington, and we’re not used to it. When I started the job — cleaning Toto’s astoundingly white roof — I didn’t have sunglasses on, and I needed something from inside, but when I got to the kitchen I noticed everything had turned dark red. Snow blindness! Yikes. When I went back out I took sunglasses and saved myself from a life of listening to audio books.

If I ever have energy again I’ll clean the awning. But first… more camping, please.

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Deception Pass: Watch for Crocs

June 1, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

It was the day after Memorial Day, so the hordes had departed.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

Good thing, too, because this made it easier to hear the roofers. There is nothing like the smell of bacon cooking over an open camp stove, with the sun glistening through dew-laden cedar needles, and the staccato of hammers, mercilessly attacking roofing nails, to complete the scene.

Even with roofing noise, cooking outside can be fun. Just pretend it’s a woodpecker!

What to do? Enjoy breakfast and depart for other environs. We piled into TinMan and made for the park’s West Beach area, which promised an American Disabilities Act-compliant trail gentle enough to accommodate Wally’s stroller. Yes, Wally has a stroller — he was born with a neuro-muscular problem that precludes long walks for him, and I was born with a laziness problem that precludes me carrying him for long distances.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch — and an air show put on by jet fighters from the nearby Whidbey Naval Air Station — at a weathered picnic table right on the white sand. Then, we took off — all of us on foot, at first.

Wally and Tyler prepare to cross leashes.

Wally always leads. Tyler always crosses under Wally’s leash. They are trying to tell us something, but what?

Our walk took us first past a small swimming beach on freshwater Cranberry Lake. There plenty of birds about — we heard kingfishers and spotted some killdeer — and this fellow was there, with plenty of siblings and a parent or two.

Ryan the Gosling. Sorry.

Toward the end of our stroll, a tree was presented for our inspection and edification. A placard informed us that the tree is more than 800 years old (or some big number like that). I swear it doesn’t look a day over 575. But in front of the tree, wait, what’s that?

When we saw this off to the side of our trail, we both thought “crocodile.” Or maybe it was alligator.

By now, both of the boys were gassed.

Tyler is visible in Wally's red stroller.

Wally is in here, but you can’t see him, because Tyler’s in front. Tyler doesn’t really like the idea of Wally riding while he walks. The humanoids bow their heads in despair.

Back at Bowman Bay, the roofers had finished for the day and we poked around. We saw this:

Paddlers, rowers and other drivers of human-powered boats can camp at dozens of sites all over Puget Sound, collectively called the Cascadia Marine Trail. It involves sleeping on the ground, so we don’t do it any more. But it was fun, back in the day.

… and this:

This guy is not, and was not, a real person. He is an imagined person, created by the sculptor to represent the Civilian Conservation Corps workers who built many of the roads and structures in the park. Sooz did not say that I don’t seem to be in this kind of shape any more. But she was thinking it.

If you don’t know about the Civilian Conservation Corps, and I’m not suggesting that you should, you can learn more here.

The next day there was hiking, reading, napping and being puzzled. There was also significant experimentation with our Wilson Electronics Sleek Cellphone Signal Booster, with some further puzzling results. Stay tuned for details.

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So many projects, so little time

May 8, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

On the way home, fresh from the factory, and already not good enough. Modifications are required!

One of the joys of Toto stewardship is the opportunity to modify Toto. Why? To make him even better than he is. Though we selected many of his features, we left some things for ourselves to do, so Toto wouldn’t be too expensive and so I would have something to do after all my clients flee. (It’s bound to happen sometime. Isn’t it?)

We’ve talked about all sorts of potential Toto enhancements.

An electric powered tongue jack, like this one, to save my shoulders. But it would add 25 pounds of tongue weight, so… maybe not. Would be nice though.

Some sort of TV setup. We have a 19″ TV we could install — all we would need is a mount. But it raises all sorts of questions about what we like to watch. Ultimately we would want a setup that let us watch anything that’s at home, live, streaming, or recorded on our DVR. That can all be done, but it involves expense and hassle. And it would make going home pointless, no? Yes.

In our four trips to-date, watching something streaming on the laptop or tablet has been good enough, if not exactly a home theater experience. So, yeah, this project is out there, but it’s just out there.

Now I will admit to having already raised the TV topic. It says something that I am raising it again. But what does it say?

Raising the Toto Lounge floor. We’re not really tall, and our feet don’t reach the floor from the dinette seats if we try to get comfy (note that our feet reach the floor just fine when we’re standing). Some Escape trailer owners have put in a riser of sorts in this are for the same reason. We might. Or we might just an empty cardboard box as a footrest. Thrifty! Aesthetically bankrupt, though.

Re-working the dinette table. The double-pedestal setup is kind-of an industry standard, and it’s okay, but it’s a hassle to set up and take down. The pedestals also get in the way of my cardboard footrest idea. We have to take it down for travel, just to make sure it doesn’t fall down. And sometimes I don’t want a table at all, especially on those trips when I don’t plan to do any work. (Ideally, all trips, but that’s not going to happen much in the next year or two, unless, uh, see earlier comment about clients fleeing.) This project could be/should be done in conjunction with the raise-the-dinette-floor project. Frankly I’m tired just thinking about it.

Deepening the bottom of the U. The Toto Lounge’s U-shaped dinette seating is a little shallow at the bottom of the U (located at Toto’s stern). Other Escape 21 owners have found a way to use the existing cushions (supplemented by big pillows) and a hunk of plywood to deepen that seat. This only works if you’ve removed (permanently or temporarily) the stock dinette table. I really want to try this. My only hesitation is that I’ve somehow never learned how or where to acquire plywood that doesn’t warp.

Wow, the dinette has a lot of opportunities. I’m thinking it won’t be such an issue during the warmer months, when we probably will spend more time outdoors and less time in the Toto Lounge.

Installing the cellphone booster. I got a booster that comes with a little antenna, designed to be snaked out a car window and stuck on a car top with its (the antenna’s) magnetic base. The booster is a cradle that comes with a mount, suggesting that perhaps I ought to mount it somewhere. And then if I want an antenna outside of Toto’s envelope of fiberglass and metal-ized, mylar-coated bubble-wrap, then I have to get a different antenna, one designed for permanent mounting on Toto’s roof, and drill a hole in Toto’s roof. <shudder> But, yes, I want to do this, because it makes quite the difference in mobile reception when we’re in marginal areas like Grayland Beach State Park.

Re-sizing the aftermarket shower curtain. We love the new shower curtain but it’s larger than it should be. Sooz was going to cut it down and hem up the side last weekend, but then life happened and it’s not done yet. Not critical but it will reduce the frequency of my inadvertent brushes with the cold, wet shower curtain, causing instant chills and possibly back spasms.

Team Toto will spend more than 50 nights away from home this year, at various campgrounds and a few RV parks. Is that too much? Not enough? We have no idea, but we expect to have an opinion (or two) by sometime in November. We’ll probably also be better prepared to rank the importance of these projects. Maybe some of them will get done, someday. Maybe not.

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Remembering our time with memory foam

May 2, 2015 By drpaddle 2 Comments

After our first two weekends out with Toto, Sooz and I agreed that the mattress provided with Toto — innerspring, full-size, with a beveled corner at the foot to make it easier to enter and exit the trailer — is a little on the firm side.

There’s plenty of room here for sleeping, or reading, or watching a show on the tablet or laptop, or napping, or for two terriers to hang out in the daytime. Is there room for Sooz, Doug and Tyler overnight? Not really. Yet we try.

Better too firm than too soft, yes? Firm is good if you have a dodgy back, and I have one of those. But if part of your dodgy back care routine is to sleep on your side, then there are Pressure Points to consider.

Pressure Points is one of those terms you learn at Mattress Sales University. No, I did not attend, but I am pretty sure it’s in Mattressology 101, because you hear and read this term all the time, and it always comes from Mattress Sales People or perhaps Mattress Marketers. The Pressure Points are going to keep you awake, ruin your sleep, end your marriage and possibly threaten world peace. They have to go. And the way to make them gone is… add a topper, or purchase a mattress that has a cushy topper built in. Either way, this adds to the Mattress Company’s profits.

I can be gullible, and I can be impulsive, but really I am just mostly attentive. I hear you, Mattress Professionals. I will get a topper, I thought. In fact, my studies have revealed that any number of other Escape trailer owners have added mattress toppers of one sort or another to their boudoir arrangements.

So we tried one from Costco. It was light blue. It was a Gel Memory Foam thing. When we opened it up inside our house, it took a few hours to expand to its ultimate size — just a tad smaller than Toto’s mattress — and we trundled it out to Toto and set it in place.

Setting it in place was as easy as making Toto’s bed, which is to say, it wasn’t at all easy. The only way to walk around the side of Toto’s bed is to walk outside the trailer, and the walls are difficult to reach through. So everything must be done by reaching from the foot of the bed, or by crouching on this or that part of the bed while you’re working. Great dodgy back therapy!

But we got the new topper on the mattress, and encased it all in the cotton cover that came with the topper. This was in late February.

Toto's full-size bed, complete with coverlet and shams.

When the bed is all made up, and before it is subjected to terrier rooting and other activity, it looks like this. That thing on top is called a Travasak, and we’ll likely see a review of its qualities from Tyler or Wally in the near future. Shams by Sooz!

Then we took our trip out to Cape Disappointment State Park. We slept on it. Also, we crawled across it. Back and forth. Our early assessment: more comfortable to sleep on, not so easy to move around on. Getting in and out of bed was a little like walking, crablike, on your feet and hands, over quicksand.

No Pressure Points. In fact no sense that there was anything at all underneath me while I slept, or rather went through the motions of sleeping because who can sleep in quicksand?

But that was just three nights, so we decided to leave it in place for our Big Trip to California.

(This is the thing about Costco… you can take things back if you don’t like them. We don’t ever want to abuse that privilege, but…).

So we used that topper for our 11-day, 10-night trip to California. We thoroughly tested that topper. And so did Wally and Tyler.

Did I mention the topper’s weight? It weighs a little. I think this is generally true of memory foam mattress toppers. But you will recall that weight is an issue for Team Toto — especially weight toward Toto’s hitch, which adds to Toto’s Hitch Weight, and how TinMan considers too much hitch weight a pain in the… bumper?

Last week, Sooz washed the topper cover, and we took the topper back to Costco. They were gracious about it — even somewhat impressed that we were able partially stuff it back into its box. We got a credit on our credit card, and spent the money again, instantly, on paper towels, canned kidney beans and a vat of Yoshida’s Gourmet Sauce.

I read recently (on WinnieViews) about the idea of using a self-inflating foam pad — the kind used by backpackers and tent campers — as a mattress topper. Well! We happen to have a couple of those, left over from our kayak-camping days which seem to have ended (or at least paused). They don’t fit the bed just right, but they’re oh so light, and the concept might work. We’re going to try them on our next trip out, which will take us to the sunny end of the Columbia River Gorge. If they work out, we’ll find some that fit the bed.

Will report back after our experiment. You’re probably anxious to know how it goes, but don’t lose any sleep over it…

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The separation is in the preparation

April 5, 2015 By drpaddle 6 Comments

Tinman and Toto in the driveway, ready to head out. Almost.

TinMan and Toto are positioned to head for California.

We’re preparing for our longest trip ever. 11 days, 10 nights, six different campsites. Yippee!

Around our home turf there is a young NFL quarterback who is just super. Knows his stuff, wins games, goes to Super Bowls, the whole thing. He says The Separation is in the Preparation. He says it a lot. He believes it. It seems to be working, and he is about to get a sizable raise.

Sooz should have been an NFL quarterback. She lives to plan, and then re-plan, and so on. I, too, place a high value on planning, but I don’t so much like to do it. But, as a former IT project manager type, Sooz is always casting about for something to plan. So when a trip is in the offing, I’m really enjoying some fantastic ROI on my life partnership. One of my best investments ever.

Okay, planning. We have been planning our upcoming California trip for many months. We’ve done lots of online research into RV parks and campgrounds, mountain passes, spring weather patterns and some other stuff.

You don’t go to visit people in Granite Bay, California in the middle of summer. It’s too hot. Even they think it’s too hot, and they live there. So you visit in the spring or fall, when it will only be 80 (F) in the daytime and cool at night.

Our trip to California won’t be like, well, your trip to California, assuming you actually want to see the place. We’ve been there (lived there for most of our lives), so, yeah, Yosemite, Marina Del Rey, Hollywood, whatever, who cares. (We will admit to wanting to see certain places in California, but they’re more about special times in our lives and not so much concerned with places tourists, or campers, want to go).

Instead, this strategically planned trip will give us some quality time with family and friends, and some good experience with Toto. What sorts of experiences?

Mountain passes. We’ll be going over six baby ones and one young adult — that one only a little over 4,000 feet– so just challenging enough for us less experienced trailerist types.
Weather. We’ve tried to time this trip to be after most mountain snow in the passes, and after heaviest rain in the northwest, but before it gets too hot in central California. As of this morning’s weather forecasts, we should miss snow in the passes on the way down — but we may have to delay a day while en route. Day 2 of our trip will involve the four highest passes, and the forecast keeps moving back and forth regarding snow for that day. If we know there will be snow in those passes we will delay a day and spend some quality time in our first RV park. We have snow chains for both TinMan and Toto — we’re required to carry them — but we don’t want to use them.
RV parks. We’ve never stayed in one. But we want to get down to our first California destination in just three days, so we’ve found a couple of RV parks to try on the way down, and we have pull-through spaces reserved. We hope they’re sufficiently level that we don’t have to unhitch on these first two overnights. Don’t want to do that. We’ll be staying in two more (different) RV parks on our slightly different route back home.
Dry camping — another first for us. We’ll stay two nights at Doran Regional Park in Bodega Bay, CA… no hookups! We’ll have to fill up our water tank a bit when we arrive, rely on our solar to keep the batteries happy, and use the dump station when we head back north. We paid extra for the higher-capacity, two-battery setup, and for the solar panel and controller, so it’s about time we try ’em out.
Mobile drudgery. Hard as I try, I’m still not retired, and my clients want me to write stuff for them. I’ll have the laptop, the smartphone-with-wifi-hotspot feature, and a spot in the TotoLounge to work. I also picked up a cellular booster and antenna that had just been replaced by a new model, and we’ll see how that works before I go drilling holes in Toto’s roof.I think there’s a white paper wanting me to write it during this trip, and there may be other stuff. If I can focus on the work, it will inform our plans for future travel before the eventual retirement thing happens.

So there. Lots of new experiences to try. Fortunately we’re a strong team, with complementary skills, and I think it will be good. We’ll find out.

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