Today is March 7th. I’ve been hanging on to the following post since February 23rd. I suspect it’s time I let it go, right? Part of the delay was because I couldn’t access my photos for some reason. Now I can.

<><><><><>

Greetings from sunny Newport. We’ve been in site B-16 since last Monday, February 20th. The trip was planned years ago by my partner, Diane, so we could spend a few days with friends at the coast. What a surprise to discover that Portland was on the verge of almost breaking an 80-year-old record for snowfall in a 24-hour period.

Really? C’mon. We’re at the beach for crimeny sakes and the weather is supposed to be really nice. It’s expected. But, no, some silly cold front stalled off the coast near Astoria which created a perfect situation for snow in a very large area. Even here.

At home, in St. Helens, the snow got about 8 inches deep and in Portland there was a bit more than 10 inches. That was at the airport, of course. For some reason the only measurements that count re at airports. Some villages in the Portland area exceeded 12 inches. We know this is true because that’s all the news reported on for the past few days. Over and over and over. It’s like it never snows in Oregon so when it does, it’s important news. Every time.

Now, about the beach.

As stated, we are in B-16, just two spots away from the coveted B-12 which has an unblocked side view of the grand Pacific Ocean beneath the bridge that carries Highway 101 traffic over Spencer Creek that empties in to the ocean. That’s all true. I looked it up on Google Maps. Until just not, I didn’t know that the stream had a name. It was just a crick.

The first morning show us an angry sea that did its best to batter down this large rocky obstruction.

Then, suddenly, everything turned nice and the snow mostly went away. You can see the large rocky mass under the bridge arch. Still there.

At the park we didn’t get much snow, but it sure got cold, let me tell you. Into the 20’s, it got and the wind chill made it worse, yet. Consequently, we didn’t do much walking on the beach. We did, although, look at it a lot because it appeared to be in a perpetual state of high tide. There was no beach. Really, there was no beach because it was covered with water for the entire 3 days we’ve been here. Kinda weird, huh?

We left a footprint on the beach to show others we had been there.

Near us were our friends Cliff & Suzie, and Les & Sophia. Terry & Carolann were supposed to be here but Terry thought having back surgery was more important at this time. It was a success, and they are well. We’ll catch up with them later, but we did learn that at their home in Gresham the snow dumped around 12 inches on them. Lucky ducks.

Having only two vehicles we designated our as the Girl Car, and Les’s as the Guy Car. We’ve done that previously and it works OK. The girls go shopping at thrift stores and the guys go look for RV parts.

This time the guys we looking for something to resolve the issue Diane and I have with the inverter in our rig. It just doesn’t work. Therefore it wasn’t recharging the four new 6VDC batteries that power pretty much everything from the floor up. If they don’t get recharged then everything stops – lights, mainly. They are kind of important when it gets dark.

We found a place that could fix the inverter but they couldn’t get to it until tomorrow. That’s the day we’ll be on the road back home. So, we went back to Beverly where Les and Cliff practiced their magic and cut and spliced selected wires to take the inverter out of the system. It was isolated and restored functionality to circuits that were previously not working. To resolve the charging issue, I purchased a handy battery charger at Wallmart and we just hooked it up directly on the battries.

I realize that’s a lot of technical stuff that’s probably less than interesting to most of you. So, we’ll move along.

We only ate out once as a group, at the Rogue Bayfront Public House on Newport’s historic water front on the Yaquina River near the bridge over the Yaquina connecting Newport and South Beach.

There’s a ton of stuff to do in the Newport area and lots of places to get terrific sea food. They even have good hamburgers, if you prefer.

Now it’s late and I must get some sleep. Last night I spent most of my time sitting on the couch nursing my crappy back. Hurts to lay down. Maybe I should have it looked at.

Later.