Today was the day to address Charlotte’s flatulence problem. Our 2008 F-250 has a 6.4 liter engine made by Navistar, which I think is a code name for International Harvester, longtime purveyor of substandard diesel heavy equipment. Back in the dim past, I worked for a logging outfit that used IH (read “Cornbinder”) bull dozers and they were spectacularly mediocre in performance and economy. Now I find Ford farmed (and that’s no idle descriptor) the engine manufacture in their 6.4 liter-equipped diesel to Navistar .
One of the terrible aspects of the motor system is that it requires a DPF (diesel particulate filter) in the exhaust system and, not surprisingly, it eventually plugs up and begins highly wonky operation. Our poor Charlotte has recently liberated some truly impressive clouds of white smoke, always in town where we can let other motorists and air breathers enjoy the design as much as we do. Sometimes the giant miasma of smoke pours out of the twin tailpipes for miles, bringing joy and burning eyes to the masses.
Accordingly, we took Charlotte to Tower Ford in Coos Bay. The mechanic, Ron, pretty much explained what ramifications there are for folks like us who have bought F-250s with the 6.4 liter Navistar engines – replacement of the overly complicated and poorly designed DPF system or, more plainly, $3,306.
Maybe I should reconsider my ardent touting of Ford products based on my wonderful experiences with Charlotte’s motor. We bought the truck used, but it was in great shape. Initially, the motor worked perfectly. We have been into the Pacific Northwest three times, once all the way around the country counter-clockwise, into the Great Basin in early 2016, once to Vegas and a quick 7,000 mile trip to Texas late in 2016 and early in 2017. Up until 2017, the engine did quite well but things have been a bit crummy since. Our first Navistar engine took a shit in Amarillo, Texas, and we were obliged to replace it with another, new Navistar engine in Santa Fe. That cost $21,000+ if we don’t count car rental, inconvenience, additional travel or costs for an extended stay in New Mexico while the engine was changed out. This last May we had to replace the alternator but the little whirring unit had 180,000 miles on it and I can forgive that. Now we are going to replace the DPF system for three grand and a couple month’s allowance. We are scheduled to have our money extracted Friday. This repair will now make the cumulative costs for repairs exceed the purchase price of the truck. As Donald Trump tweets – “Sad.” Might be time to consider (shudder) Chevrolet or, frighteningly, Dodge.
A good part about yesterday was we got to see my brother’s widow who lives in Coos Bay. To make things even better, she took us to a great fish place called Captain’s Choice for dinner and paid. The red snapper was very tasty. So was the clam chowder.

We drove about 60 or 70 miles south to Powers, OR, where we own some vacant land. We were thinking of maybe getting sewer, water and electrical service re-installed at the lots so we can park our trailer there and hang out during the gorgeous summer months. We don’t want to be here in the winter. It rains here from mid-September to the 4th of July and we want no part of that.
We met the guy that controls public works in Powers at our property. After a short chat, we wandered over to city hall to fill in some forms to get the work started. We’ll get back to them in a while. The last time we asked the city to do something, nothing happened so we will have to wait to tell if anything is cooking over in the government building this time.
We spent the rest of the day wandering around Coquille Valley roads. While cruising, our truck started emanating smoke at certain times and it looks like it needs to go into the dealership to make it quit. I hate it when the equipment fouls up – the engine is under warranty and it may not cost us anything but I still don’t like it when the tow vehicle isn’t working perfectly.
Back at our RV park in Lakeside, we were treated to a spectacular sunset. I like this travel stuff.
There’s pix. Click here

We had such a great time up the Umpqua yesterday that we returned today. About 15 miles up river from Reedsport and US-101, we turned off to see a place called Loon Lake. I lived near here back in the Stone Age but I had never been to Loon Lake, at least not that I remember. The road to Loon Lake from OR-38 (the highway that follows the lower Umpqua River) is pretty narrow and has many tight turns but it is beautiful anyway.
At the top of the 7 miles up to the lake, the road passes through a big field of massive boulders (3 bedroom house sized) that let you know you have reached the end of a steep canyon that the lake empties into before running into the Umpqua. The lake is very pretty. There is an RV park up there that must cater to the extremely brave because they are the only ones that would pull a big RV up that road.
After Loon Lake, we got back on OR-38 and resumed our eastward drive up to Wells Creek, basically a pullout along the road where my Dad used to live before he died. Somebody bought his place and they don’t appear to be using the property. The blackberries are going to eat the house. It is kind of sad when I think about how much work my Dad put in at this place.
We then returned toward the ocean, passing by the elk pastures I mentioned yesterday. In Reedsport we spotted a place called Ellie’s Chainsaw Art and it appears Ellie is pretty good with a saw. The town has apparently decided that Ellie is talented, too, because they have chainsaw-created wooden statues all along the sidewalks of the main drag. They also have giant flower arrangements attached to all their streetlights and the flowers are open for business this summer.
See some pix. Click here

Today we had an open agenda so we took a cruise up the Smith and Umpqua Rivers and took a side trip to the Umpqua Lighthouse south of Winchester Bay. The Smith River dumps into the Umpqua near Reedsport, OR. Back in a previous age, I did some logging in the Smith River watershed but it was about a million years ago. The trip up the Smith today was to see if I could recognize some of the sights and roads that seemed so vivid to me but, alas, I could not identify anything. The drive up and back, however, was gorgeous. We spotted a massive bull elk with unwieldy antlers looking up at us from the shoreline. He was magnificent.
After about 20 miles on the Smith, we headed back toward the ocean until we made it to US-101 in Reedsport. About a mile south on 101 and we turned east again, this time up the lower Umpqua River to where we knew the Roosevelt elk from the surrounding timber hang out. No sooner had we spotted the pasture where we sometimes see elk and there they were. It appears there are either two large herds or one really humungous herd that have wandered down into the roadside pasture where they know they won’t be shot by some overzealous hunter or poacher.
The big bulls were dutifully chasing off the young suitors interested in their harems. Much grunting and whistling and chuffing was being used by the big guys trying to keep the youngsters way out at the edge of the cows. They augmented the noises with some road work as they chased the young bulls off into less interesting parts of the pastures. Mating season is next month and I suspect the big bulls will become more feisty with the punks come fun time.
After quite a while, we finally moved off and headed back west toward the coast. We made it to 101 again, turned south and pulled off going west about 5 miles later in Winchester Bay. We took a long drive into the impressive Oregon Dunes which run from North Bend to Florence. They are big dunes – some Sahara-sized specimens were spotted, many of them with fancy dune buggies squirrelling around.
Standing above the dunes at the mouth of the Umpqua is the venerable but still operating Umpqua Lighthouse. It is the last human-manned light on the Oregon coast. It is also unique in that it puts out both white and red light so the beacon at sea looks like it does a couple whites and then a red. The lighthouse looks out over the ocean but it is surrounded on the other three sides by conifer trees. If you stand near the lighthouse in the evening, you can see the slowly rotating lights on the trees and then the beacons blast out to sea. It is a gorgeous old structure allegedly architecturally quite similar to the Heceta Head Lighthouse north of Florence. We will probably return here to see the facility doing its thing at night.
There’s some lighthouse and elk pix you can see if you click here

We had an open agenda for today so we started by taking a cruise east of our current RV park in Lakeside, OR. However, before we even left the park, we noted a kite festival or some type going on in the adjacent city park and the kites were very spiffy. They even had an enormous kite shaped like a whale shark and it looked like it was swimming when it flew.
Since we got out engine replaced back in March, the function it performs called “Cleaning Exhaust Filter” has been weird. Sometimes, at low speed, the truck puts out clouds of gray smoke when it is cleaning the filter, choking anybody foolish enough to tailgate. It quits after a few miles but anyone behind us when it is doing it had best fall back.
After leaving a pall of stinky smoke down the main drags of Lakeside, we turned out toward US-101 where we could punch it and get the engine running a bit harder. Sure enough, after a bit of freeway speed, the smoke quit. We had driven as far as Winchester Bay and we were going to wander out to the Umpqua Lighthouse when we got a call from our daughter. It turned out she was only about 10 miles from our current digs at Osprey View RV Park. We agreed to meet there.
It was a complete surprise to me since the next time I expected to see my daughter was going to be in late 2018. We got to chat a bit with our kiddo before she had to continue her drive back to her soon-to-be former lodgings in Mukilteo, WA.
We hung at the trailer for a bit before getting bored and going out for a walk around the RV park. It is actually quite nice here, other than the puny RV spaces. The weather is being quite cooperative with temps around 72, sunny skies and nice breezes. I was so delighted with where I was that I even agreed to accompany Peggy to the local market for supplies. We are now stocked up, set up in a place we want to be and ready for some more of the ravages of retirement.
We took some pictures and you can see some of today’s sights if you click here

In violation of my “no backtracking” rule, we reversed direction from our generally southbound progress and headed north, but not very far. I know I was bad and I gave myself a stern scolding before ignoring the policy. We left Bullard’s Beach State Park, turned north on US-101 and headed back through Coos Bay and North Bend. We continued another 15 miles after crossing the Coos River until we turned east toward the small community of Lakeside.
Despite living about 20 miles away for ten years earlier in life, I had never been to Lakeside. It is sort of a disorderly conglomeration of houses and small businesses, at least at first and only glance. The town is built right along the edge of South Tenmile Lake and I see there is an North Tenmile Lake, at least on the map. We will explore to get more info tomorrow.
In Lakeside, we pulled into the Osprey View RV Park. The park is built on a flat peninsula that is bordered on one side by a canal and on the other by South Tenmile Lake. The spaces are a bit small (we just barely fit in ours with our gigantic trailer and massive pickup truck) and close together. However, the crowd seems to be quite sociable with big chair circles surrounding portable fireplaces in those spaces with any room. There are lots of friendly dogs passing by the trailer and I think that’s always a good thing. There are also lots of ducks, geese, swans, songbirds, a few blue jays and some big cool ravens. The park has full hookups, 50 amp electrical service, paved RV spots, good roads, cable TV (we use our satellite dish because we get more and better channels), wifi, big shower and bath facilities, a store, a laundry, an arcade for kids, a meeting hall, an ATM and, best of all, a pub and pizza joint. It is not rustic.

We have been fooling around in the Pacific Northwest since May. During a substantial part of the time, there has been smoke in our environment sometimes obscuring our views and almost always clogging our lungs. 2017 has been a horrible year for fires in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon and a persistent high pressure weather pattern has kept the smoke marching toward the sea. High heat cowards that we are, we have kept to the west side of the Cascades and, for the most part, have avoided the high temperatures that now plague almost the entire Pacific time zone.
Despite staying in hot scaredy-cat appreciation regions like Puget Sound and the Willamette Valley, we have still encountered stifling high temperatures and gray stinky skies. That may have come to an end today. When we arrived in Bandon the day before yesterday, the temperature was a reasonable mid-70s but smoke still obscured the sun or made it look like a spiffy fuschia orb. Yesterday, the smoke was almost completely cleared by some refreshing onshore breezes but it was still overcast except at the beach, where it was foggy.
Today we awoke to overcast skies, mid-60s temperatures and very light breezes until about noon when there was a sudden and pronounced darkening of the skies. Being a circadian type, I immediately headed for the crapper for some important business. Minutes later, it started to rain torrentially and not two minutes later the entire trailer interior was filled with a dazzling white light instantly followed by a very impressive roar that sent Peggy darting across the trailer. I thought, momentarily, that she was going to join me in our electrical panel-sized toilet enclosure. Peggy is not real skookum on electrical storms.
For the next hour, the storm raged. Brilliant flashes of light illuminated the otherwise dark and dreary skies. Huge blasts of thunder gave the impression that the sky itself was being ripped apart. It was great, from my standpoint. I am a big probability and statistics believer and have always assumed that lightning must strike somewhere but this is a big planet and there are plenty of places I am not where jagged arcs of lightning can go to ground, leaving me unscathed. Peggy has different beliefs. I still love her.
The rain and fog continued for the rest of the afternoon. We left the campground about 2:00 PM and headed to the Bandon Baking Company which is exactly the kind of place we should not visit. Peggy went in and bought some things we shouldn’t eat. From there, we headed down the coast, chewing and checking out all the state and county parks lining the Pacific. The scenery was gorgeous but most of the government parks were pretty full; many folks living in nearby communities have been evacuated due to recent fires and have retreated into the parks. We also checked out some private parks and they are also busy, despite the reduction in occupancy during normal years encountered during the fall. Maybe when we pass through this area in a week or two, space will be available for two ancients with a big trailer. We only went south as far as Port Orford, so we did not check out any Rogue River camping locations. I hope that part of the world has not burned in this year’s horrible fires because the places we have stayed up the Rogue previously were gorgeous.
We got a few pictures along the way. Click here

Last night there were some soft breezes from the west, off the ocean, and they did an admirable job of clearing the noxious smoke from the coastal skies. It was still overcast but it didn’t stink and the sun, when visible, was not orange. We took leisurely showers and then another spin into Bandon in search of food prepared by others. We found the Minute Cafe in the tourist section of town and, surprisingly, the food was great. Peggy did a fish and chips basket and I had the chicken fried steak and we still got away for around $25.
We strolled around the downtown area and Peggy went into some shops, looking for booty. I found much public seating along the pretty main drag and was not required to attend while Peggy shopped. The downtown area is quite pretty, the river is right over there and Peggy found some stuff she wanted. I was even clever enough, in my dotage, to act like I didn’t mind shopping and Peggy was nice enough to acknowledge that my behavior was not naughty.
We also got the oil changed in the truck, ran our beloved Charlotte through the car wash and acquired some tobacco for the one of us who hates shopping. We also made a couple of stops at the Bandon Marsh federal wildlife refuge to spot birds, ogling some hawks, a night heron, some trumpeter swans, a great blue heron, an osprey and a gaggle of swallows busy ridding us humans of the scourge of flying insects. We also made a trip to the north jetty along the Coquille River and took a walk along the beach in the fog. It was a good afternoon.
Check out some pictures by clicking here

We were obliged to leave the Remote Outpost RV Park today since our reservation expired and some other soon-to-be delighted campers can move in. Initially, we were baffled about where to go today. We don’t want to go south yet because it is hotter than hell. Going west will put us in the ocean and that’s bad. Going east will put us directly into the fires currently trying to consume and/or suffocate the entire state. We got here from the north and I don’t like to backtrack, covering the same ground twice. It was perplexing.
We finally settled on going west but not all the way into the Pacific. The roads from Remote heading west are limited to one – OR-42. We turned out of the park, headed through Myrtle Penis and Coquille (the county seat and “seat” is no idle descriptor) before connecting with US-101 near Coos Bay. From there we headed south about 20 miles to Bullard’s Beach State Park located just a few clicks north of the town of Bandon. Bandon is a quaint little assortment of shops and businesses intended to efficiently separate tourists from money. It is also located on the south shore of the Coquille River right where the river empties into the ocean. It is visually quite attractive. At the time of this writing, it also had considerably less smoke in the air; we can’t smell the smoke here but deep breathing can generate terrifying paroxysms of coughing from the elderly.
The park is very nice but there are limited sewer hookups and we didn’t get one. We will be departing, therefore, in four days or less because that’s about the extent of the holding tanks’ capacities. There is no wifi but our satellite antenna can get some satellites in its sights and we have a pretty good assortment of TV channels. The drive over here from Remote was short so we were all set up by about 2:00 PM. We climbed into the trailer and turned on the air conditioning but soon became bored and mutually decided to go into Bandon for some looking around.
While driving down the waterfront, we spotted a place called the Bandon Fish Something and we pulled in for some seafood. The food was very good and they also served Black Butte Porter, our favorite brew. There is outside seating so customers, like us, can have a seat right along the south shore of the Coquille River. Across the river we could see the old Coquille Lighthouse which is…uh…old. And scenic. And white, except for the rusty parts.
After lunch we took a drive through the part of Bandon that faces the Pacific Ocean. There are wide sand beaches, magnificent sea stacks protruding through the surf and ample state-owned access to the beach. A while back we were in Washington and they have a different concept of public access to the state’s beaches – there isn’t any. Here in Oregon, access is not a problem because there are shoreline parks, parking lots, wildlife refuges, restrooms and miles of stunningly beautiful beaches and bluffs easily accessible by both normal people and old farts like me.
We finally got back to the trailer in Bullard’s Beach in time for the evening news where our feelings that the president is insane were reinforced for about the 200th day in a row. I hope this yahoo doesn’t get us all killed because he is thin-skinned.
There’s pix. Click here

The temperature came down today into the high 80s but the smoke remains unabated. The air available for breathing here in Remote is very shaky and we kept ourselves mostly inside the trailer, choosing to waste time indoors in the air conditioned air without the gas chamber-like effects of breathing outdoors. For most of the day, the sun was obscured by the almost-opaque layer of yuck above us. Drawing a voluminous lung full of the outside air results and moderate coughing and a subsequently irritated airway. The Weather Underground app we have indicated the air as “very unhealthy.” We pity the fire fighters. TGFA/C.
Fortunately, Sundance TV had a M*A*S*H marathon for Labor Day and we were witness to many episodes we have seen before, choosing reruns over asphyxiation. I also held my breath and went outside to dump the tanks but I kept it short. We will head for the coast tomorrow so we can maybe go outside and find a suitable environment for humans or a “Class M” planet as they called it on Star Trek. I know I’m old but that doesn’t mean I want to tempt fate by filtering out the sludge in the air for others. I’m greedy that way.