It's Beginning to Feel Like Home (Sutherlin, OR)

We are back in Timber Valley Skp (Escapees Co-Op) Park in Sutherlin, OR and I am surprised to admit that it is beginning to feel like home.  We are #14 on the waiting list for a Timber Valley site.  We were #80 in August of last year, so we have moved up faster than planned.  We should have a site by this time next year at the latest, giving us a place to stay - a home base.   We will still travel in the future, but have our own site here as a home base.  After 11 years of wandering around the country, I am looking forward to having a place to call home.   

We have already established our doctors and dentists with annual checkups.  Next, we will get our cats a veterinarian.  They all need a checkup.  Shhh!  Mum's the word!

What did you say?

This comes at a good time. We were starting to notice a couple of years ago that it was getting harder to make reservations for more than two weeks during high-seasons.  Even the military FamCamps stay busy during their high-seasons.  Some are first come first serve while others have a reservation system.  

The first site before owners returned

We have spent some of our time in offseason areas by going south during the summer or to the northwest coast for the winter.  Staying in half-filled to almost empty RV parks was great, but that can get challenging while traveling through bad weather or dealing with heatwaves for long periods of time. 

Deer watching Dan work on our coach

This year, RV sales skyrocketed due to the lockdown.  Families are finding it easier to pack up kids along with pets into their own rigs traveling to their favorite getaway spots.  No hassles with waiting for flights or hotel reservations.  And that's great, but there are so many more RV sales and not enough campgrounds to accommodate the sudden interest in the RV lifestyle.

Our second site with a creek behind us.

At this time, there are very few new campgrounds being built and existing ones are not expanding, causing many to be booked up to a year in advance.  Not to mention that many RV parks are now doing short and long term leases to people that are only present during the weekends - if that - leaving travelers with slim pickings for available sites, especially with our 40ft coach. 

Cats enjoying their outdoor time

Dan spent weeks looking for RV parks with more than a week opening when we started traveling north this year. As soon as the lockdown ended, most opened RV parks were booked solid every weekend or worse for the whole summer with only a few scattered days left for travelers.

Our neighbor's site with Gert the Goat

Definitely great news for RV business profits!  I am hoping this will encourage small business owners to build more campgrounds across the nation.

Street views of the park

Please understand that I'm not complaining.  I'm just explaining why we will not be traveling as much in the future which I'm already starting to miss because there are so many places I would like to see again.

Summertime blooms in the Timber Valley

We do plan to keep traveling, but it will be more structured and planned in advance.  No more spontaneous travel plans of "which way shall we go this week" and "hey! this sounds interesting, let's go this way and stay a week or two".

Love the color and the fence

 So, you are probably wondering why we picked this area for a home base. This part of Oregon is green with lot's of animals wandering around.  Sutherlin is working hard to maintain their small town, and Roseburg is nearby for shopping trips as well.   There are also many Thousand Trails and Oregon state parks to travel to for getaways in Oregon.  This Skp co-op is on I-5 south of Eugene  and just north of Roseburg.

 You probably noticed that our site looks a little bare from the above photos.  Each site comes with full-hook-ups, a shed, and a concrete patio. Park leaseholders manage and run the park, with only a few employees. Leaseholder committees and volunteer groups do much of the maintenance and daily work in the park.

 A bare site will more than likely be our first site.  They tend to be a transit site and are often on the list for travelers to rent for short periods of time since their owners are still on the road or in this case they are still working and have a house.  We can trade to a more developed or better-located site as soon as one becomes available that others do not want.  We will be at the bottom of the trading list that is based on how long the leaseholder has been in this park.    

A family of turkey come for a visit

I'm already scoping out other people's developed sites, taking mental notes of what I like about their landscaping.  

Tired Dusty

The sites on either side of us have gardens and patios.  I really like the site with Gert the Goat.  The owner has kept her area simple and yet cool and inviting with bark instead of rocks, plenty of plants/flowers, and a wood deck.  We know her site is kitty-approved because ours keep going over for visits. 

On The Cutting Board

I'm still focusing on getting my SW quilt done.  No side distractions!  I'm so proud of myself.  Usually, by this time, I have started two new projects.  It is a slow process and of course, my mistakes are slowing me down especially when I discovered one major mistake that included a lot of ripping out seams. 

Wrong order - dark alternate block in the center

In my last post, I showed my first finished row (above).  All blocks quilted with front and back seams sewed together.  I realized my mistake when I started my second row.  I had my alternate blocks in the wrong order!  After separating the blocks, I used our bed to layout the whole quilt in the correct order and number the rows.  This became quite a challenge with cats wanting to help by rearranging my work.

Correct layout - dark alternate first

My next problem was backing.  I had bought this fabric backing for a different quilt top for our bed.  The old quilt top wasn't going to be big enough for the bed in our new coach.  I'm happy to say that I had just enough to cover all the blocks with a 4x18 inch piece left!  Whew!  

Basting Hummingbird block

I decided to sandwich then baste all the blocks and stack them all in the correct order.  Now I have this huge pile of blocks sitting in the living room.  

All blocks sandwiched and basted

It does keep me motivated to get them all quilted! 

Kokopeli

I'm quilting each block in the correct order and I plan to wait until the blocks are done before I start sewing them together.

Hand design for center quilting

Most of the quilting is in the ditch.  For non-quilters - I am quilting close to the seams.  I'm keeping the sashing designs simple for fast and easy work.

Second alternate block

Alternate block

I'm feeling better about my work-in-progress!  I'm halfway through the pile.  With any luck and no more major setbacks, I hope to post photos of the blocks sewed together....at least a couple of rows.

Happy Quilting!