2: It's time to give our motor home a test

In blog #1 I gave some reasons why we chose an Orion 21 RS for our motor home.  One of the reasons that I listed was that of its size and its comparative ease in maneuvering about.  During this blog (#2) I thought it might be interesting to show how this is affecting us.

In early January my wife had some major surgery.  As an incentive to a rapid and complete recovery, I promised her a trip down to California to see her kids and gkids.  We left for our quick 9 day trip in late February and arrived back home in early March.  We had anticipated spring-like weather for our trip and would have probably delayed or canceled it had we known that our winter was going to come so late this year.

Our first night’s RV stop had to be changed several times due to the power outages and snow in the parks we had chosen.  We finally found one at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Roseburg, OR.  Our little MH was easy to situate here for the night.

Our second night out we spent down in the Sacramento Valley at a regular RV park.  Our plan “A” didn’t materialize, so we bit the bullet and slept in a more pricey campground along the overflowing Sacramento River.

The third and fifth stops of our trip were at the same place, going and coming.  My wife’s son lives in some apartments in a small down northwest of Sacramento, CA.  They don’t allow any RVs in their parking lots.  So I found that if I parked crosswise at the dead end of one of the streets to the parking lots, our MH would fit just perfectly.  There are no “No Parking” signs there and a patrolling sheriff passed right by our coach several times without stopping.  An added benefit was that our queen bed slider is high enough that it would extend perfectly out over the chain link fence and into the field behind.  So when we slept there, the upper halves of our bodies were actually over a farmer’s field.  Of course, we had no utilities here.  But if it were really necessary, our generator was pointed towards the field.

 

We spent the fourth stop, and three nights, in the High Sierra foothills at my wife’s daughter’s house.  Once again, our small coach just fit onto one edge of their parking area.  Their driveway went down and turned abruptly to the left.  Our MH fit in there perfectly whereas a larger one or a trailer would have had a harder time maneuvering about.  It made life much easier for them and us having our own small “home” waiting outside in which we could sleep or eat.  Plus, it was very convenient to hook up power and water….thanks, guys!

 

On our trip back to Washington, our sixth stop was at Emigrant Lake just SE of Ashland, OR.  This is a new park here in Jackson County and it is beautiful with full utilities.  Each site is paved, level and with a view of the lake.  Since the weather was cool and wet outside, there were only about a half a dozen RVs in the park and that gave us many sites in which to choose.  The park is very popular in the summer with many family activities including water-slides.  It is a fairly large lake that water skiers and fisherman enjoy.  Our little unit was right at home here and we felt snug-as-a-bug-in-a rug when the rain and wind came up during the night.

The drive through central Oregon still showed the effects of the earlier heavy snows that they had received.  Many trees were broken or completely down and there was still much snow on the ground.  Many areas still had no power.  We found an RV spot at a trailer court that bordered the Willamette River.  The river was running very full, fast, and deep.   There is something a bit unnerving about having that monster noiselessly traveling by not too far from our little MH.  Oh, well…

After this short 10 day, 1600 mile trip, we finally were able to see that our Orion MH choice was the right choice for us.  We were even happier enjoying the many modifications that I had done to the coach to make life better for us.  I will soon start to show and tell of some of these improvements.  Stay tuned.