May 21, 2007:

Holly and I finally got our new truck and travel trailer ready to go, and we did a quick trip to the beach this weekend. We had made several trips to various stores to get our new rig outfitted, and we wanted to check to see if everything was roadworthy before a longer trip. I made reservations at South Beach State Park which is just south of Newport Oregon. The campground is nestled in the dunes just off the coast. I went through the online reservations process through Campamerica which went flawlessly. I reserved the biggest, most secluded site I could find for Saturday night. I figured a one night trip to nearby Newport would be a good maiden voyage.

We got on the road at about noon on Saturday after loading the rig and hooking up to the Dodge Ram. Our plan was to get Sadie's nails clipped and to get some coffee for Holly, and then we were planning on replacing the mattress that came with our trailer. The one that was in there was more of a medieval torture device than a mattress. You would need a very heavy day of hiking and/or several cocktails in order to get to sleep on that lumpy thing.

About two miles down the road we it a bump, and I heard something dragging behind the trailer. There was not a good place to stop, so I continued to the next stoplight. Chinmay Betrabet, a colleague of mine from graduate school, happened to be right behind us when we hit the bump. He pulled up beside us and signaled frantically to me to pull over. I saw a safe place just past the stoplight which happened to be right beside a Bi-Mart and a block from the Doggie Day Spa. I pulled over on the wide shoulder, put on the hazard lights, and inspected the rig. One of our stabilizer jacks had come unfastened from the frame on one side. The two screws that held it in place had sheared cleanly, off. I attached the jack to the frame with some wire and told Holly to bring Sadie to the doggie spa and get some coffee while I worked on a repair that would get us to the campsite. I was able to get the trailer parked in a nice big spot in the back of the Bi-mart parking lot. I was able to extract one of the screws that sheared off in order to get the proper size for a replacement. I went into Bi-Mart, got enough screws to replace all the screws on all four jacks, picked up some wire and cable ties as well as some additional hardware for the portable doggie-run I was going to make for Sadie, and I got some rawhide bones for Sadie for good measure. I went back to the trailer with my goodie bag, grabbed some tools out of my toolbox, and got to work. I started to work on a temporary fix, but realized that it would probably be easier to extract the additional screw, and make the permanent fix right at Bi-Mart rather than to try and do it at the campsite. 5 minutes later, it was done, just as Holly and Sadie came strolling across the parking lot with a Latte. Sadie's nails were clipped, Holly had her coffee, and we were ready to hit the road.

The next stop was Ed's couch county. We are regular customers now, since we picked up a new mattress there last fall, as well as several other pieces of furniture since we moved to Corvallis. We picked out a foam top mattress, and with a little bit of difficult manipulation, had the old mattress out and the new one in place. Next stop, Newport.

We got to the far end of Philomath, and found that there was major road construction on highway 20 and a detour which brought us through side streets and narrow country roads. We managed to squeeze our rig through the detour without clipping anything or anyone about 5 miles to bypass a couple hundred yards of roadwork. I guess I needed the practice driving with the rig. Once we got past the roadwork the drive on highway 20 was a breeze. Highway 20 has several rather steep hills and a couple of curvy sections to test the towing capacity of the Dodge. The truck and the V8 hemi performed flawlessly. We didn’t go above 4000RPM one time and maintained at least 50MPH on even the steepest uphill sections. We should have more than enough power to go through the Cascades later this summer.

We got to our campground a little early, but there was an early check-in drop box for anyone who registers in advance. We arrived at the site and I was totally pleased with both the condition and size of the site, but also the weather. The weatherman predicted clouds and showers, but we arrived to a warm sunny day. It was one of those days where it was cold and cloudy in Corvallis and beautiful at the coast. Also the site was clearly marked as being reserved in our name, it was also spotless. There was a huge sandy meadow just behind our site and a nice, unobstructed view of the woods. We backed the rig into place, connected the electricity, leveled it out, and put out our slide-out. As I was getting the rig prepared, a couple of other campers came by to say "hello" and admire our new truck and camper. One of our neighbors was also a "Dodge man", and he was very pleased with his older model, although he and his wife preferred the new metallic grey paint on the 2007 model.

I prepared an appetizer plate and dinner in our nice kitchen, and cooked up some steaks and grilled vegetables on our new portable grill. After some good wine and a nice dinner, Holly and I took Sadie for a walk around the campground. I made a fire after the walk, and we watched a movie before a solid night's sleep on our new mattress. It was raining torrentially on Sunday when we got up, so we abandoned our plans to walk along the beach. We had a quick breakfast in our warm, dry trailer. We were really glad we had the trailer, as we were pulling out of the campground watching the soaked tent campers pack up their soggy gear. I successfully emptied out the black and grey water tanks on the trailer before we hit the road, and we completed the uneventful drive home by noon. We are looking forward to many more trips in the coming weeks and years.