The more I look at the situation in Sonoma, the worse it gets. While I am still several days away, maybe even weeks, there is plenty of fire danger in Northern California to make me hesitant. It would be easy to be on 101 with fire to the front, fire to the rear, mountains on the left, the sea to the right. Even if they get rain and the winds stop, they won't be able to absorb tourists for a while. I'll continue watching, but now my plan is to...
It rained a bit last night, and there are plenty of light showers around here, but further south it's still dry. I'm watching the fire situation in Sonoma and Napa, as well as other Northern CA counties because that's my planned route. I won't go into an area under direct threat, nor show up when folk are recovering. Assuming the fires don't happen in Oregon, I'll go east from Coos Bay and pick up I-5 at Roseburg if there are still fires ahead...
It was a very quick drive to get here, adjacent to Seaside. Very pretty beaches here, and quite an over-the-top tourist shopping district. I'll be here a few days to see downtown Seaside, but also waiting out some rain showers. My goal for this leg of my trip is Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, which looks like it could be problematic. The last thing I expected was a fire hassle in Napa and Sonoma counties. Note that it's both grape and cannabis...
There is an rv shop in Seaview, and I wanted to stay at Andersen's in Long Beach. Unfortunately the entire shop's staff was out of town, so now I'm staying here until a rain event passes through. Long Beach is a tourist trap that looks like all the others along the coast. The actual beach is quite long and very driveable, a good alternative if you want to drive around the downtown area. Tonight is a negative tide, so folk are here to go clamming...
I dropped into an RV shop to finagle some advice about my slide. I was hoping that an experienced eye could pick out something simple and obvious that I missed. "It's probably the gear box" was the guess without tearing everything apart, the same thought I had yesterday. The slide goes about a foot and stops with a loud rattling noise. Then, it does not come in all the way at the bottom, same noise. So going down the road the bottom is out a few...
I'm at the Quinalt Casino in their duneside RV parking overlooking the ocean. All dry camp, but free. Only about one of five spaces is occupied. It is as a warm a day as you could want in August, the skies are clear, and the sea is flat. For sure I'll go beach driving tomorrow. There aren't a lot of people of here, but most everything appears to be open for now. This is very reminiscent of the Gulf Coast, except the houses along the beach are...
I noticed while looking around on Passport America that the casino near Shelton has an RV park, available at 50% discount, so I'm trying it out tonight. Nice park in a handy location. But my slide didn't go out. I've battled my slide for years, but this time I can't figure out what is wrong. I'm suspecting the motor gearbox. I'll head to Ocean Shores tomorrow and pull into a repair shop, then wing it. Good weather ahead, though.