Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 22:26:10 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: rickgo@halcyon.com (Rick Gordon)
Subject: oregon trip
Just back from a week-long trip in the EV down the Oregon coast. Although
it was nice and sunny *most* of the trip, I did appreciate that furnace at
night.
If you want to cruise the coast, this is the season to do it, in my
opinion. The crowds have not yet arrived - mainly only RV'ers and a few
other Van people out.
(For those without campers, Oregon rents out yurts in the state parks that
are pretty nice - $25/nite for up to 5 people.)
Trip went something like this:
Sunday:
Seattle-Corvallis on I5, then out to Newport, spending the night at
Beverly Beach. Good fossils on the beach, campground is huge, but sparsely
populated.
Did around 19 mpg, cruising around 70-75 mph down I-5.
Checked out the Rogue Brewery under the bridge in Newport the next day. By
accident it - we had tried t hit the aquarium but it had huge lines.
Brewery was a pretty small scale operation - 6-8 fermentation tanks, a wort
cooker, mash tun, and a bottling line. Tasting setups too.
Then, down 101 to Florence, spending the night at Honeyman State Park.
Hiked out into the dunes and got caught in a horrendous hail storm while
right on tp of one. Just got off the ridge and ducked down, hoping that no
lightning would hit.
Good restaurant in Florence: Morgans Country Kitchen. Actually just a
little south of Florence, on the west side of 101. I had eaten there last
in about 1985 and was really pleased to find that they *still* made
excellent omelettes!
Down 101 to Coos Bay, then out through Charleston to Cape Arago, spending
the night at Sunset Bay. This was our favorite stop - an old Simpson estate
converted into a state park in the 40's, really incredible rock formations,
secluded bays if you were willing to hike out to them. A few hundred sea
lions were pupping on the rocks off the Cape, we could hear their barking
drifting in and out through the night.
Wednesday:
Down 101 to Brookings, staying at Harris Beach. This was a nice beach as
well, unfortunately the battle between the local loggers and the California
retirees is swinging towards the "California Greys". The town itself is
turning into a strip mall, I talked to a couple of locals that said it was
great if you liked service jobs. Housing prices have skyrocketed, etc. Nice
beach though.
Anyway, next day we swung down to California border, then back around,
spending the night out at Sunset Bay again. This time our stay was slightly
less enjoyable due to a California RV (extended) family with kids that were
taught to communicate using those loud shrill tones which they are so
capable of generating - especially when they were roller-blading around the
park at dusk!
But the beach was real nice, and we climbed way out on the rocks.
Friday:
We did a long haul from Coos Bay to Cannon Beach, getting stuck for an
hour in Newport due to bridge work, getting lucky that 101 around
Neahkahnie Mt was actually open - they're doing blasting and so its only
open on weekends!
This took about 4-5 hours of actual driving, but counting the bridge and
another stop at Morgan's in Florence elapsed time was about 7 hours!
Back to the VW content:
This was the first week-long for the EV, it held up pretty well.
I still need a better organization for foodstuffs in the cupboard - the
Vanagon had this nice flat seat/box mounted in it, that was easy to find
stuff in.
We just packed stuff into the cupboard, and then spent lots of time digging
through it. (Same for clothing actually - maybe I'll go to stuff sacks for
that though.)
Mileage - averaged around 18 mpg, lots of in-town driving mixed in so its
hard to say. I've been feeding it 89 octane stuff, Chevron Plus.
Oil: I added another pint just to keep it on the higher side of the halfway
mark. This was at around 2700 miles - I'm now up to all of 3200~ miles!
Time to change the oil soon. This is its 3rd pint of oil - but the first 2
were in the first 1000 miles so its slowed its consumption down quite a
bit.
Power: Well I still have to down shift to 4th (grin) on some of those mts
along 101, but I can still at least do the speed limit on them!
Camper stuff:
I still don't like the water pump - and its noisier from the outside than
the inside! The fridge works perfectly. The furnace is great. The CO
detector refuses to shut off - I think the sensor is defective as there
were no sources of CO. The narrower bed is less comfortable if you get the
van too far off level, but still quite usable. I've taken to sleeping with
my feet toward the rear now - exactly the opposite from the Vanagon.
well, enough for now.
-rick
Rick Gordon
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
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