Chehalis and Mount Saint Helens

Parked in Chehalis

As I've said before, not all Thousand Trails parks are created equal. One of our eye-openers this month has been the reality that we always... ALWAYS ...have to check two things:  sewer and 50 amp service. Nothing can be assumed.

We arrived in Chehalis on Sunday afternoon, and had a heck of a time finding a suitable camp site. They don't assign spots, they only reserve "a spot"-- we have to go and find the one we want when we arrive. This Thousand Trails park is one of the oldest in the T.T. network, as a matter of fact, it's the very first. And its age is showing. There were zero available sites with sewer, an absolute must for stays over three days, and most of the sites have only 30 amp service. There's only a handful with 50 amp. If you like rustic, this is it.

Just to get our rig out of the roadway, we chose a less than desirable spot, then got in our car and drove around looking for exit dates on campers in the few spots with sewer that were leaving the next day. We found two. One of them was already claimed by another camper, so we claimed the other one (by moving our trailer there) and then moved the motorhome the following day.

The Chehalis week was more or less a restorative week, winding down from our busy time with the family. But we were hoping to visit Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens while there. At first we decided not to bother, since the smoky air made viewing practically impossible, but for something to do, we drove the one hour trip to the Mt. St. Helens National Monument anyway and made the best of it. Smoke or no smoke, it was worth the trip.

Mt. St. Helens from the National Monument
observation deck

There is a small cost to get into the monument site, which is like a little museum of the event, but there are free viewing sights along the road up to the monument.  And if you have a National Parks pass, entry is free.

Viewing the mountain brought back memories of the day. I and my little family were living in Post Falls, Idaho, at the time. We were celebrating Doreen's birthday (my sister who lived in the same town). The sky went dark in the middle of the afternoon, and soon thereafter ash began to fall. We turned on the TV and spent the rest of the day watching the news. We were on the edge of the fallout path, so we only got a quarter inch or so on the ground. Nevertheless, the caution was to stay put for a couple days. Driving cars was not recommended. Schools and businesses closed down and nobody went anywhere. Nine months later, Katie was born. The hospital was more crowded than it had ever been...and everybody was naming their babies something with "Ash" in it. Well, except us. Sorry, Katie. I couldn't bear to name you Ashley-- though it would have been a good story to tell for the rest of your life. :-)

Bridge at the edge of the blast zone

Mt. St. Helens reminds us of the power of the earth. Mankind is of no consequence when compared to it. Man-made global warming? Please! God's overarching power is revealed in every volcano, every hurricane, every earthquake, every tornado, every thunderstorm...in the unseen depths of the ocean, in the immense vastness of the atmosphere. And we're not even talking about what lies beyond this little "insignificant" planet-- what seems to us like an infinite universe. I think sometimes God feels inclined to remind us of who's in charge. This modern event also provided an example to the world showing that what scientists have always thought takes millions of years to achieve can be done in a day. It's as though He's saying, "Let me show you how it's done...since you seem to be confused."

Anyway, back to Chehalis...

When we arrived at our second site, the pad was sloped so much Mark had to go out and buy some wood planks to raise the rear of the coach. Our plastic blocks work okay on the front, but the back of the coach is just too heavy. Even after raising it six inches, we were still walking downhill to the bedroom.

But the worst problem was the electrical. Every time we plugged in our power cable, the surge protector would kick off. This happened at the first site as well.

After messing around with it for half an hour or so, and trying to brainstorm what the problem might be, Mark called the park office and they sent out someone from maintenance to look at it. He right away found a frayed wire in the outlet and replaced it, but the surge protector still refused to allow power to the motorhome. He read the voltage at the power pole and at the end of our power cord where it connects to the motorhome. Both registered 138 volts (way to high), but his final diagnosis was that the problem resided inside our RV.

Well, Mark is not an electrician, so he called our 'go to' service provider, Leisure Coach Works in Fontana California. They thought we should look at the Automatic power Transfer Switch. So we called a local mobile RV service to come out and try to fix what we thought was the problem. After checking the power at the inverter, he decided it was above his pay grade. The ATS is located behind the breaker panels and he was not willing to venture into an unknown. He recommended a more experienced RV electrician, who happened to be located in Lincoln City (about an hour and a half south on Hwy 101). Now we had to switch up our plans and book a spot in Pacific City to be close enough for the RV tech to do a house call.

In the meantime, our only power source was the generator, and that was limited because we neglected to fill up on diesel before we parked...because who needs to run the generator when we have shore power?

New plan:  Hope for the best; plan for the worst.

Fortunately, with judicious use of the generator (i.e., we only started it in the morning long enough to make a bunch of coffee, and in the evening to charge up the inverter), our fuel lasted until we left Chehalis on Sunday morning.

And here's "The Rest of the Story"... we arrived at Seaside RV Resort and plugged into full 50 amp service. Wa-La! Our power problem disappeared.

We are bypassing Pacific City altogether, since we didn't really like the park last time we were there. We have also checked on all the rest of the Thousand Trails parks we had previously booked to find out if they had sewer and 50 amp service. In the process, we cancelled a few bookings and extended our stay at Yosemite.

The Seaside, Oregon, Thousand Trails park is a lovely campground-- mostly. Others must agree because it's packed out. Maybe next time through we'll stay here longer. I started a spreadsheet of all the campgrounds we've stayed at and -- sorry Chehalis, but you're a "do not return!" At least not until you level the parking slabs and upgrade with sewer hookups. On the bright side, the place is loaded with blackberries...and we picked them every day. Well, Mark picked them.

Blackberries galore