7 July - Silver Falls State Park & Preparing to Depart

7 July
Today we spent the morning doing chores and taking a break from sightseeing.  Doreen did a couple loads of laundry in the RV Park laundry facility (nice place).

I busted out my new VIAIR 450P-RV air compressor and tweaked the air pressure in both the RV and the truck tires.  The truck tires on the front run 80 psi and the rears (all four of them!) run 65 psi.  All four RV tires run 110 psi.  Tire pressures are critical especially in the RV tires as under- or over-inflated tires can fail catastrophically and tear up the RV severely.  Most serious RV'ers have a TPMS (tire pressure monitor system) in the cab so they can monitor the status of the tire pressures and temperatures.  The TPMS system I have will provide audible and visual alarms if the pressure fluctuates or the temperature increases so much in a given time period.  In theory it gives you time to pull over and check things out before bad things happen. So that was likely a whole lot more than you ever wanted to know about RV tires and air pressures...  Sorry.

I also washed the front of the RV to clean off the bugs and I made some phone calls too.  One of them was to the Coast Guard station at Seattle, which is just a few blocks from Safeco Field where Sunday we will watch the Seattle Mariners play the Oakland A's on Sunday. We received some "intel" that since I am a military retiree, the Coast Guard may allow us to park there inside their secure area and walk to the game.  So I got a hold of the "Officer of the Day" and made the arrangements.  Score!

Another phone call I made was to make arrangements for replacement of one of my front truck tires, installation of my spare on the other front, and a full front end alignment.  I continue to have weird tire wear on the front and especially on the left front.  I am now seeing severe cupping and there is some cracking in between the treads.  I cannot take a chance of a failure out in no man's land out west here, so I have an appointment for Tuesday in Tacoma.

The last call I made was to the GoCars place in San Francisco as we were supposed to receive an adjustment to our rate because our GoCar was so crappy.  They refuse to return my phone calls and I keep getting assured a manager will call me.  Not!  I am done wasting time trying to call these bozo's..  I will address this through social media.  Poor customer service at it's finest.

So chores done, lunch done, let's head south about 15 miles to Silver Falls State Park.

Besides being a short drive from the RV park, they have ten water falls that are within a seven mile hike from the parking areas.  We entered the park and after the modest $5 parking fee we headed down the trail to find the South Falls which is one of the main water falls from what we understand, and just a short hike.

This whole area opened in 1933 after being built by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and has day-use areas with picnic spaces, shelters, volleyball courts, a cafe' on the trail, camping areas, a lodge, conference center and a nature store.  The trail leading to the South Falls winds you down and allows you to actually walk behind the falls!

The trail behind the falls.

Another view of the trail behind the falls

 Awesome!  The trail continues down to the plunge pool created by the falls and across a bridge where you can photograph the falls from the bottom.

The pool from the falls turns into a stream

The bridge that crosses the stream at the bottom of the falls

Then what goes down must come up, so you hike back up to where you started!  The water falls 177 ft from the top to the plunge pool at the bottom.  Click here for a short video (hope this works):  South Falls  Here is a shot from the top of the falls:

We wanted to keep the sightseeing short today after our butt-buster yesterday, so we did not hike to the other falls.  We enjoyed the drive back, stopped into Silverton to fuel the truck and then returned to the RV park to finish preparations to depart tomorrow, 8 July.  I headed up to the RV Park store and they refilled one of my two 30 lb propane cylinders.  That's about it for today.

Tomorrow we pull chocks and head about 173 miles north to our next destination, the Fort Lewis Travel Camp.  After we get the RV set-up we will head back south about 40 miles and reconnect with another long-lost cousin Jim Linch and his wife Michele.  I do not remember the last time I saw Jim but it was likely over 40 years ago.  Jim's family consisted of his dad (my uncle, deceased) Jesse Carroll Linch, his mom (my aunt, deceased) Darlene, Jim's brother (my cousin, deceased) Jesse Jr and his sister (my cousin) Nancy with whom I reconnected with yesterday.  They all used to live in Washington Iowa which was just north of my grandparents in Mount Pleasant.   They moved to Madras in the 60's when Jim's dad took a job as Principal in the Madras OR school.  Anyway, it will be great to see Jim again and meet his wife Michele and their son Tyler.

Next report from the Tacoma WA area!