Eugene, OR (Again!)

April 22…. it kept changing. We ended up leaving on April 30th.

We had to drive back to Eugene, or Cogburn to be specific, to have the slide on the RV repaired. This was the closest and best repair shop we could find from Cannon Beach. We arrived on Sunday night and spent the night in the parking lot waiting for the shop to open at 7am Monday morning.

I may or may not have been the cause of the side breaking. I’m really blaming it on my salt craving and needing to satisfy my chip fix. Road trip food people! You see we keep the chips in a high cabinet above the TV- seems like a perfect place for them, right? Junk food and watching a movie go hand in hand. Well when we bring the slides in, to secure them for moving days, the cabinet is hidden behind the slide. As I am riding comfy in my passenger seat I get up to go try to maneuver the chips from the blocked cabinet. I’m thrilled with my maneuvering of the chips without crushing them to badly. I enjoy munching as Chris drives. When we arrive at our destination and Chris pushes the button for the slide to go out it makes a grinding noise and stops moving on the right side near the cabinet. Whoops! I didn’t secure the cabinet door all the way so it opened and it wedged the slide to a halt. For 7 months we would check on all sides and the floor around the slides before we moved them in or out for a safety measure. There had never been anything in the way, so we had gotten lazy and didn’t always do this. With tears running down my cheek and repeated apologizes, I pushed the button to bring the slide back in, closed the cabinet door and then tried to put the slide back out. Chris had to physically push that side of slide while I pushed the button. On the day we had to move, three men came out to help Chris push it back in.

Lesson learned- move the location of the chips for easy access on moving days. He, He.

Since we had it in the shop we made a list of things for them to look at and maintenance to perform. We had a full inspection, the generator serviced, the A/C’s serviced, the Aquahot serviced, our extra (3rd water filter) disconnected (I like clean water but 3 was excessive and it took up valuable space under the kitchen sink), the front TV repaired (it had stopped working two weeks prior), the freezer drain cleared and the shower door seal replaced.

We dropped off our home- that’s weird to leave all your worldly possessions with strangers in a repair shop. We then headed over to our rented apartment with an early check in. We stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment we found on Airbnb. It was a brand new listing so we saved 20% for the 3 days we thought we’d need it. It only cost $84 a night! The girls loved having a normal sized bedroom and a queen bed to share. But on the second night Mackenzie made a bed in the closet and slept in there. This is where she slept the third night as well (we guess she’s grown accustomed to her small space). Abby was happy to have the whole bed to herself.

They also enjoyed the bathtub. They even put on their bathing suits one night and pretended they were 2 and 4 years old; playing in the tub together.

I love having a huge kitchen and living area. Chris enjoyed having an ‘office’ to close the door.

We met up for dinner at MOD Pizza with our new friends (the best kind of friends- Gator fans!) we met last time we were in the area. This is the first time we have met people on the road that we planned to go out to dinner with. It was a lovely time! We forgot to take a picture. 😦

Cascade Raptor Center was only 3 miles from us so we visited this one afternoon. In my opinion it was over priced for the small area but we still enjoyed the family time and bird watching.

We found a great playground for the girls to play (visited twice) and right next door a great spot for dinner.

Errand day. Post office, Little Free libraries, Menchies. Menchies is like Chick-fil-a for us. If we find one we have to stop!

On Thursday morning we checked out of the apartment and headed to the repair shop to pick up our RV. We ended up waiting all day for them to finish only to find out they couldn’t get it down at 4:00pm- quitting time. We spent the night in the parking lot. Friday we woke up expecting only an hour left of work and that turned into 4 hours! After the girls were done their school work, Abby played dominos and Mackenzie and I worked on a 500 piece puzzle of Seattle. We were quite disappointed that we didn’t get to complete the puzzle, OCD runs in the family, but we were happy to be leaving.

We were finally released, excited to spend the weekend in Mount St. Helen’s for my birthday. It was a rainy drive north on Hwy 5. An hour and half into the drive Chris started getting water droplets on his shoulder while driving. Oh the joys! After trying to investigate while Chris is driving we decided to pull over and discovered the seal on the roof was cracked…something the repair shop said they found in the inspection and resealed. Obviously, it wasn’t resealed properly or completely! We called at 3:30pm- 30 minutes before closing time and they said to come back and they would apply the sealant. This meant hanging out in the parking lot all weekend again waiting for them to open Monday morning. We scheduled the appointment. We drove our huge RV into a Lowe’s parking lot and walked over to an Outback for dinner so we could think straight on full bellies. We couldn’t find the right sealant anywhere in the area so we bought Gorilla tape- the duct tape wasn’t working because the roof was really wet and we couldn’t get it dry enough. We turned around and headed south for the weekend.

“Look kids, Big Ben” We passed this sign 4 times….

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me!

Since everyday feels like my birthday I wasn’t upset to spend this rainy day in a parking lot with Chris suffering from a sinus infection. I just stayed in yoga pants all day and chilled. I did open a few awesome gifts from my family. I received new accessories for my iPhone, a GoPro Hero and amazing origami creations from my girls. You know the one from Wrinkle in Time? Mackenzie made that one for me! I loved all my cards and enjoyed talking on the phone catching up on family and friends back home. Being on the road, it’s hard to talk on the phone because of so many reasons; Chris is in the RV Mon-Fri working which includes video and phone calls, we home school, we have been on a 3 hour time zone difference since November and when I am driving I have to be following GPS to get to our location. I am thankful for text messages and social media so I can still feel connected. So my birthday was a great day to just talk on the phone.