Change of Plans, more of Cape Blanco, it is always something

Our friend Sue took this picture of me up at the Lens while she was on a tour.

Once again it looks like the blog has gotten away from me.

Change of plans:

We have had a slight change of plans, rather than moving from Cape Blanco Lighthouse, back to Coquille Lighthouse on July 1st and then back to Cape Blanco in August we are just staying here at Cape Blanco.

We were contacted by 2 of our blog readers, Nina and Paul, they said they would be coming to Cape Blanco as volunteers for July. Ever since then I have been following their blog Wheeling It.

Well it turns out Paul hurt his back toward the end of June. I talked to them and  they were concerned about him doing a lot of standing. At this time of year here at Cape Blanco we are so busy we are standing all or most of the time at each of the 4 different stages of the tour. 

Paul and Nina were already staying at Bullards Beach State Park (where the Coquille Lighthouse is) and I came up with an idea to help them out.  They were ecstatic when I told them of my idea.

My thought was that we switch jobs for July. We would stay here for another month and they would be Lighthouse Hosts at the Coquille River Lighthouse. At Coquille there is a chair up in the Lantern room. The person doing that job can just go up once and stay for the entire shift. There are less steps to climb at Coquille and you work 3 hour shifts. Plus at Cape Blanco Lighthouse there's the up and down the steps from the Watch Room to the Lantern Room with each group of 5 visitors. That's a lot harder on a sore back. Also Paul would be closer to his treatments.

The only downside is that Bandon is a real town, where as Port Orford is barely a town. We drive the 60 miles round trip to Bandon every week to get groceries and do the laundry. Although, Cape Blanco isn't as convenient to shopping and restaurants as Coquille is, it is a very quiet campground. Also we get 3 days off a week rather than 2 at Coquille. This will also save us the hassle of moving twice.

Since we were already scheduled to be here for August and September we will end up being here for a total of 4 months. It will be the longest that we ever stayed in one place since we started full-timing. I hope we can say we still like it here at the end of the 4 months. :-)

4th of July Parade:

We were off for the 4th of July and attended the Port Orford Parade. There is nothing quite like a small town parade. There are as many people in the parade as there are spectators. Here at Port Orford the biggest group in the parade and the only band was the “Friends of the Library Kazoo Band”.  The slide show has the entire parade, which was 45 minutes long, down Main St. that is also Hwy 101.

Volunteering at Cape Blanco Lighthouse:

Since we are into our second month here I guess things have settled into a regular cycle. The weather for the most part as been surprisingly good with very little rain. Our weather cycle is pretty much: clear & windy, foggy & windy, foggy & not windy and REALLY WINDY! We continue to meet a lot of interesting people. Being at the height of vacation season, we are very busy.

It is always something:

After 4 1/2 years on the road we had our first mice invasion! One evening while reading we heard a noise under the sink. Kathy looked in and found a mouse trying to jump out of the trash pail, but he was too short to get out. He was tossed outside. The next morning we awoke to find we had 3 more mice in the trash pail. They were relocated down the hill. Off to the hardware store for traps and month balls. We caught 2 more mice over the next 3 days. It has been 2 weeks now so apparently we have won the mouse war.

After getting groceries on Monday of last week, we found out that our refrigerator wasn't working on Tuesday morning. We had thought that it hadn't been as cold as it should be. We were only 18 days out of warranty from having it replaced last year.

Spent a lot of time Tuesday talking to Porter's RV in Coos Bay. We were hoping that they would just order a new cooling unit without me taking the rig to Coos Bay, so that they can look at it to say "yes, need to replace the cooling unit". Last year it took 10 days for the part to arrive! Taking the rig to Coos Bay is a big hassle,and will delay the ordering the new cooler by days. We were also hoping that Norcold would still honor the warranty.

Thursday we made the trip to Coos Bay, as we thought, the cooling unit is definitely out again in the refrigerator. Even though we were 18 days out of warranty Norcold said that will replace the part, but will not pay for the labor to install it. Like last year they say 10 days to get the part to Coos Bay. We aren't sure if they are counting from Friday or Monday and we don't know if they are talking just days or "work days". Then of course, we need to fit the installation into our work schedule and another 120 mile round trip to Coos Bay. So we are looking at a week or two with out a refrigerator. It is a 24 mile round trip to the nearest store to get ice! Currently it is a double wide ice box!

Bird List: Brown Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant, Brandt's Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Red-tailed Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, Wild Turkey, California Quail, Snowy Plover, California Gull, Western Gull, Caspian Tern, Common Murre, Band-tailed Pigeon, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Rufous Hummingbird, Violet-green Swallow, Barn Swallow, Cedar Waxwing, Pacific Wren, Swainson's Thrush, American Robin, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Steller's Jay, American Crow, Common Raven, European Starling, Orange-crowned Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, Savannah Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Lincoln's Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, American Goldfinch

Wildlife List: Field Mouse, Chipmunk, Squirrel, Deer