Just arrived at the Narrows RV Park in Princeton, Oregon. Don’t look up Princeton – you won’t find it — ha ha. We’re about 25 miles south of Burns. We found it because on our trip TO Oregon, we wanted to visit Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
They offer 41 30-50 AMP full-hookup sites. It’s a great, out-of-the way spot, ideal for visiting the Refuge, but also for the beauty and solitude of the wide-open spaces of Southeastern Oregon. We’re just staying one night this time. Our charge was $41.77.
Malheur NWR consists of more than 187,000 acres, a tremendously important source of wildlife habitat. The Refuge represents a crucial stop along the Pacific Flyway as a resting, breeding, and nesting area for hundreds of thousands of birds and other wildlife.
There is a 42-mile self-guided auto tour we enjoyed in June, but we won’t be doing that this time. We’ve positioned ourselves to take a different route back to Boise. The distance and time is about the same, but it will be mostly new roads for us. Even to this day, when we see a new interesting-looking road while we’re out and about, either D.A or I will say, “Wonder where that road goes?”
We’re putting the smoke behind us, but not the summer!
Our summer was not what I suspected, but still outstanding. D.A. did a lot of fishing – although plenty of it was on smoky days when I had little interest leaving the safety of the RV (speaking health-wise). We made three escapes to the coast and agreed on a spot for next summer, the Port of Siuslaw at Florence. The central Oregon coast is spectacular. Now we’ve seen it from the CA border to Walport, which is about 40 miles north of Florence, so next year we’ll explore further north. D.A. is excited to return – he’ll salmon fish in the ocean and learn to catch crab. We got fresh cracked crab at the Krab Kettle, next to the Visitor’s Center in Florence. They were $26 each, and we also bought fresh chowder. Tossed a salad and we had a feast.
Crescent Junction RV Park was the spot we’ve been looking for – absolutely everything we wanted BUT the smoky conditions started almost as soon as we arrived and continued until just days before we left. We thought about leaving early several times, but our next stop was Boise – and Boise had hot and smoky conditions all summer! We believe the coast is the answer.
Keeping our boat at Shelter Cove was super-convenient. D.A. could just get up and go any time the urge hit him, so he had an awesome summer of Kokanee fishing.
For me, it was awesome to have time to learn about YouTube. We have 38 videos up now – which are getting very little attention, but we’ll just keep plodding along. It gets easier. Originally, we just made videos on what we thought people would be interested in, only to find that people weren’t interested. Ha ha – Humbling experience!
Honestly, there are so many people making content similar to ours… So many younger people who are making their living on YouTube. I’ve spent a lot of time watching some of those videos. Many have been doing it for a long time, so though I’ve been watching lots of full-timer RV content over the years, it of course was not with an interest in learning how our we might do it. But that’s exactly what I’m doing now. We gear our content to folks who are retiring – folks just like us ten years ago. I’m not trying to make a living (thank God), but I want to contribute and create community.
If I ever wanted to create the perfect job for myself, it would be researching on the computer, taking photos and videos. Now the video part is new, but I couldn’t design all that other stuff to be more in line with my interests. I’m finding it a wonderful, fun and enriching way to spend time.
We’ll be back in Boise tomorrow for several weeks and a great reunion we’ve been looking forward to for a long time.