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travelaround said:
My daughter got the tags for her skoolie today! Looks like I'll be headed to Idaho sometime this week. Cool deal. I'm looking forward to a traveling adventure. Will be weird with her spouse with me, but when there he will probably help me load my van and he will have his skoolie to drive back south, so I'll be alone then.
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Wishing you a safe and joyous aproad trip adventure. I am sur you will enjoy some safe distance visiting with your church community membets. :)
 
Wetather was mostly cloudy today. Nice and cool but not cold. My solar panel kept the battery to 78% which basically offset the fridge runnig.  The fridge takes it down to about 78% overnight. On sunny days it brings the battery up to 100% by 8 am. I have not yet hooked up the amp meyer directly to the battery. 

  Finally have my tank pump empting sorted out for all but one fitting. It can wait for a while. Tomorrow I will get back to hooking up more wiring. That will be my primary focus for a while. The wood trims and cabinet doors and drawers will be nice to have but are not as essential to daily life as the wiring work.

I am still hanging in the fairground at Port Townsend as the state camping is booked up. But I will make it help pay for itself by running my vinyl cutting machine making inventory for my Etsy store. I got the cutting mats mostly cleaned up today. There was not time to get to tghat task before I left Seattle. If I get the inventory done now that means I dont need to haul as much water or run the generatorbas much later this fall. I just hope some people are in the mood to celebrate the holidays and do crafts this fall. It is difficult to predict what people will be feeling other than restless and bored and looking for activities to do at home.
 
Took the morning off left the trailer whdere i am currently staying to do a bit of exploring of a not too far away state park and a county park which allow camping. The state park was way overcrowded both in the sites near the beach and the ones in the woods. Fort Flagler is a nice park but not a good situation with so many people in a Covid 19 pandemic. The county park by contrast only had a few RVs at the beach sites and a few in the upper campground. I guess the difference is no electrical hookups at the county park but some sites do have water. plus only the locals know there is a county campground But I would take the peace and quiet at the county park on a weekday. I will hang out where I am until Saturday. It is not overcrowded. I have electric, showers. The beach is not that far of a drive and it is a far more beautiful beach.
 
I just looked for Port Townsend on Google maps - sure looks like a nice place to spend summer days!

In Idaho I won't be contacting my church friends because of the Covid problem. It grieves me to go that far and not be able to see them, but in the situation this is better. It will just be me and the son-in-law... taking our food from the market here, not going into stores. That is the plan... not to be in contact with people there, or to be in only very limited contact.
 
Cooler temps and rain off and on in Port Townsend the next few days. My cell phone signal amplifier is supposed to arrive on Saturday at a BestBuy store. . Hopefully it does, I need a good signal for my business.

I  hope everyone is having a good week. The most stressfull thing in mine was hearing a really loud metallic sound while driving at 50mph. So loud it made my ears ring. It took me several seconds to figure out a rock had hit my windshield at high velocity. when I got into town I pulled over to look up a repair place. Being a small town it was located at the persons residential location. He was not sure if it could be filled as it had 20 radiating little cracks! But he knew his stuff and had good equipment and got the job done without having to replace the windshield.

I am at the Goodwill store as their parking lot gets 4 bars of Verizon signal.

I had better get back to my camping spot now as I had a large order from Australia come into my Etsy store. It will be my first try at dealing with it using my on the road setup. Glad I have shore power at the moment and a post office close by.
 
Hope it goes well for you, Maki.

Qxxx - it must have been some other part of California. Hope lightning stays away from here. I have to leave day after tomorrow. Will be gone most of the week. May check in with you if time and cell signals coincide.
 
I checked Incident Web after hearing the NPR report. SoCal around LA has some nasty fires and there are recent ones just north of SF. Nothing new in Jefferson, but you have to keep on watch. They said dry lightning storms, apparently little rain. I didn't see any large fires in OR, except one 20,000 acres in the far southeast corner. I'm guessing you will go up 97 past Bend then across to Spokane, rather than through Portland or over to Boise and up 95. ???
 
Right - I'm planning to go from Medford to Bend, then Mt. Vernon, Pendleton, then Spokane. Hopefully if there's any danger ahead someone will block the road. I'll check with Inciweb before we leave.
 
Well, while I'm here, let me ask everyone about this. I have a high roof Transit (high center of gravity) and have a concern about driving on the very-windy Columbia River highway. Do you think this is an irrational fear? Is it less dangerous if the van is fully loaded, as it will be on the way home? I already know that the man I'll be with (my daughter's man, not mine) will be driving back in his 35' skoolie and he plans to travel the Columbia River to Portland then south on Highway 5. His vehicle is much more stable and sturdy than mine, as it is a bus built for carrying children. Any thoughts on whether I'm right or wrong to be trying to avoid high winds?
 
travelaround said:
Well, while I'm here, let me ask everyone about this. I have a high roof Transit (high center of gravity) and have a concern about driving on the very-windy Columbia River highway. Do you think this is an irrational fear? Is it less dangerous if the van is fully loaded, as it will be on the way home? I already know that the man I'll be with (my daughter's man, not mine) will be driving back in his 35' skoolie and he plans to travel the Columbia River to Portland then south on Highway 5. His vehicle is much more stable and sturdy than mine, as it is a bus built for carrying children. Any thoughts on whether I'm right or wrong to be trying to avoid high winds?
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I would definitely try to avoid traveling on very windy days. Keep all heavy stuff on the floor to keep the center of gravity as low as possible and drive slow if in a high wind area.
Transits are made to drive on all kinds of weather like the rest of the vehicles. I haven't seen any flipped over by winds so far.
Take care
 
I can't really answer about winds and the van, but will keep watch on possible fires along the route. Bend - Mt Vernon - Pendleton looks like a nice scenic route. 395 between Burns-Mt Vernon and Pendleton however is quite wind-ing, curvy.

If you stay north on 97, then go east on I-84, you'll be along the Columbia for only about an hour.

You could also stay on 97 north, and cross the river on to Yakima and then onto I-90. I've not been on that little stretch in WA, but it looks fairly easy on google maps.
 
Sofisintown said:
...
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Ha, she really is back. Managed to find her way back to the very bottom of the forum, lol.
 
A vans center of gravity is a lot lower than you think. The engine (heavy), transmission (heavy) rear end (heavy). All the heavy stuff is down low. It is just lightweight sheet metal up high. Now the high sheet metal is good at catching wind and if from the side and gusting can make you swerve around a little. It will not blow you over unless it's a tornado or maybe a cat 2? or more hurricane.
 
Most of a vans weight is down low. The engine, transmission and rear end are heavy. Sheet metal is a lighter and is what is up high. The wind will not blow you over unless you are in a tornado or hurricane.
 
Looking more at the SF Bay Area fires tonight. Just incredible, the 1st link says 10,800 lightning strikes in past 72 hours started 367 fires. In just 2-3 days, the LNU and SCU fires grew to 215,000 and 157,000 acres. The Calfire map shows the huge LNU all around Lk Berryessa and crossing I-80 at Vacaville, and the huge SCU just east of San Jose. Jeez, they explode in size so fast. Currently 0% and 5% contained.

https://abc7news.com/lightning-comp...a-vacaville-evacuations-bay-area-map/6374881/
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents
 
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