With our big Northwest RV trip looming only four weeks away, we needed a nearby shakedown cruise to verify that my various motorhome repairs were holding and to discover other issues that needed to be addressed.
Timberlake Campground and RV Park was chosen as our destination. Situated in the Columbia River Gorge, this family-owned facility reads northwest with its thick stands of Douglas fir, under-story Vine maples, and ferns.
We'd stayed in site 26 (electric & water) for $34/night. The roads are gravel, and the staff guides you to your site by having you follow their ATV. We had plenty of room to back into the site. Because the site was on a terraced sloped, I was a little anxious about keeping the rear wheels on the gravel as I backed while turning at the same time. The camp staff kept a lookout and provided ongoing confirmation that I was going OK.
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A very lush RV park. Our son, Sean Mack, and his girlfriend, Madison Bates,
drove up in Madison's car to share Saturday dinner with us.
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As planned, our shakedown cruise proved the new water pump worked fine, but it uncovered some new items to add to the ToDo list. We discovered that it was nearing impossible to get the stove to stay lit, the right rear leveling jack seems to have a slow leak that causes you to have to adjust it every couple of days, and the refrigerator is missing its drip tray resulting in water dripping off the cooling fins and eventually running out the front of the unit. While setting up the awning, I learned that someone had bent the forward support leg just enough to cause the process of extending and retracting to require more force than is normal, so this also went onto the ToDo list.
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Our new mat. Easy to sweep or hose off. So much better than the
artificial turf we used with the tent trailer. |
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The awning pull-down strap broke (UV rot), so I tied a piece of
line to it as a temporary fix (added to the ToDo list). |
We purchased two bundles of firewood when we checked in. Using the foolproof Boy Scout one match method, we didn't have any trouble getting the campfire going after we stacked the kindling and set a match to the newspaper shoved down the center of the stack. Sean and Madison were present to celebrate the accomplishment;-)
Our folding bag-chairs were the next to require repairs. Three of the four had broken plastic feet, so I whipped out my duct tape. The chairs worked flawlessly, but they didn't come home with us, as they were donated to the nearest dumpster at the end of the trip.
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| Sean and Madison joined us for hot dogs and smores. |
The campsite was wonderful. Equipped with a very nice fire pit and picnic table (plastic top and seats). As for the Safari motorhome, it turned out to be very comfortable, luxurious in fact.
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Laura really enjoyed herself. What started as a casual discussion in Ilwaco, WA
eleven months earlier as we browsed Craigslist had become a reality. |
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| Ah, Smores! The faces say it all. |
Timberlake RV Park turned out to be perfect for our first trip. Beautiful location, well maintained and clean facility, friendly staff, and nice guests. We will definitely be coming back. While they advertise WiFi, I found its reliability and performance not good enough to support working from the campground. Cell phone service, both voice, and data were good.
The motorhome performed very well. While the ToDo list grew a bit, that is to be expected with an eighteen-year-old vehicle, no matter how high-end it was back in 1996. The trip was helped by transferring the camping gear of our 1993 Coleman tent trailer to the motorhome. We found we had everything we needed for the trip.
Getting ready to return home was pretty easy. I stowed the awnings, put the outdoor furniture away, disconnected and stored the water hose, and visually confirmed that all the leveling jacks had fully retracted. It had been a wonderful weekend. With Laura and me aboard, we slowly started to pull out when my eye caught a movement on the left side of the motorhome. I'd forgotten to disconnect and stow the shore-power cord. Fortunately, I only dragged it ten feet, and it still had more it could go. With disaster averted, we finally had everything put away, so we headed to the RV dump station at the RV park for our inaugural holding tanks dump, which fortunately when flawlessly.
The 300 hp of the motorhome's Caterpillar 3126 engine combined with the Pacbrake made easy work of the gorge's ups and downs. On the way back to Vancouver, we stopped off at Beacon Rock State Park for a walk. A perfect conclusion to a perfect weekend.
Live
well, Laugh
often, Love
much
