Timmer's Travel Trailer Tales

This final full day began as normal with clear skies and a full sunrise.  Lessons were completed, and a breakfast of pancakes and bacon & eggs was enjoyed.  It was then off to McD's for our few hours of daily internet access.  Today before lunch we took a little walk around the area to look at decor.  And today's lunch marked the 5th straight day of cheeseburgers.  What was different was that the self service drink machine was off limits. On the way back we filled up with gas at the Seaview Mobil who was selling regular gas for $3.149 per gallon compared to the Texaco at $3.349 per gallon. Back at camp the kiddos mounted up their bikes and I packed a couple kites to try flying them.  At the beach it was simply too windy to fly kites, but the kiddos were thrilled to do some more rock climbing. There were 3 prospectors hunting for gold today. We abandoned the beach and took a different route back to our campsite.  They did a bit ...

Today's weather was spectacular starting with a cloudless sunrise.  Since we face the ocean, it takes a while for the sun to rise above the hills behind us.  The kiddos early morning lessons went well and we were off to get on the McD's WiFi for the kiddos tests and lessons.  I found myself once again playing technology administrator to resolve ways of accessing sites with a collection of Apple devices.  After lessons were done, it was time for our fourth round of cheeseburgers.  We're definitely in a rut. Around 2pm we headed back to the park to explore the North Jetty and Waikiki Beach.  The kiddos were totally enthralled with climbing the large jetty rocks although they can be a bit dangerous.  On the way back to camp we toured a number of other sites and are quite satisfied with our choice.  We even saw a couple of deer. They completed the last of their school work and I escorted them back to the beach where they rode north toward to...

Hump day was a really good day.  We enjoyed French toast & bacon and sausage for breakfast and the kiddos did some schoolwork until I hooked up the trailer to dump the sewage tanks about a mile away.  The grey water tank was the most full at 3/4 of a tank, but I dumped them both.  After re-parking the trailer we headed off to town to find WiFi for the kiddos lessons.  McD's to the rescue again.  We sat in the parking lot and did that.  Jakob's lesson required a flash player which is not a native Apple IOS app.  But I found a browser called Puffin Pro, and it played the lesson well.  After a few hours in the lot, it was cheeseburger time again.  We then headed to find the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse and Lewis & Clark interpretive center.  The parking lot is about .2 of a mile down hill from the center and is built on the site of a former coastal defense battery which ceased operations in 1948 after some 60 years of se...

I'm one to sleep in but the kiddos are early risers.  They were awake a good hour and a half before me and that set up some dynamics that weren't pretty.  But we navigated through them and got breakfast and some schoolwork done before we headed for Long Beach to refill a propane tank and use cell service or WiFi to do schoolwork and catching up on the news.  Along the way we dumped a garbage sack at the main dump station in the Park. At the Propane dealer there was a sign saying 'Closed for Corona Virus; go to the Chevron gas station'.  So we did and the attendant there was surprised to hear that they were closed.  But she filled our propane bottle and that'll probably give us enough propane for the rest of the week. We found an entry to Long Beach where we parked and the kiddos did their online lessons, and I caught up on email and Cruise related matters.  We then made a tourist stop in town to check out some wood carving sculptures an...

We spent the morning doing lessons.  I worked with Jakob and Angela helped Katie.  It's actually rather fun but certainly time consuming.  We then headed to the office to check in.  Parked at the office we discovered we had cell service.  We learned that all Washington state bars and restaurants have to close except for takeout service and the group size ban was reduced to 50 persons from 250.  In King County the limit was reduced to zero. We gassed up at the Texaco in Oceanside before going to the market in Long Beach which adjoins Oceanside.  Like stores everywhere toilet paper was in short supply as were paper towels and hand sanitizer and denatured alcohol were nonexistent.  We headed up the main drag to the Ace Hardware store where I bought a bucket, car soap and a cleaning cloth.  I need to wash the truck and now is a good time to do it. On the way back to camp we stopped at McD's for a shamrock shake and cheeseburg...

With the world gripped in the Covad-19 virus outbreak and two of our grandkids on a 6 week school closure, we decided to use our Washington State Parks Senior Winter Pass and go on a week long camping trip in Tracer, our new travel trailer.  This would be our grandkids first trip in it and our second outing.  They have assignments from school plus Angela, being a teacher, planned our days to incorporate hands on learning at the Park.  Now the only question would be: Would there be cell service at the Park? Our pass provides free camping at Washington State Parks except for a $10/night fee for electrical and water hookups.  We decided to try out Cape Disappointment State Park outside of Ilwaco because of its proximity to Lewis & Clark historical sites.  This Park is about 160 miles from home and located in the extreme SW corner of our State. So I found site #64 which has power and water hookups and made an online reservation.  Six nights cost ...

The second night's sleep was as pleasant as the first one. Overnight there were rain showers but it was just overcast when we exited the trailer. We packed up everything on the inside and I raised the stabilizer jacks to their parked positions and stowed their pads. I'm finding that the manual raising of the jacks works just fine so I'll skip using a drill for now. Maybe later in my advanced age I'll succumb to using a drill mounted socket. I raised the trailer tongue and slipped it over the ball hitch on the truck and secured it. I applied some upward pressure on the hitch with the tinge jack and installed the equalizer bars and anti-sway bar. I disconnected the power cord and stowed it. We did a last check of everything and then headed off to the on-site RV sewer dump station where we emptied out black and grey tanks for the first time. This went well and there was water to rinse the black tank. With the dirty deeds done, we plotted our course to our cruise fr...