Oregon Summer 2025

Hi All,
I won't be posting daily this summer, but I will keep you updated on our summer volunteering at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the southeastern part of Oregon. We will be there 3 months so back in Missouri in early September.

It is crazy that Phil and I could live out of a tiny backpack with 2 changes of clothes each for 3 months in Europe, but to go to Oregon, we need an entire pickup and camper load! I am sure we are overpacked.

We got away from Gainesville about 8:45 this morning. There were a couple of things that made us late as we had hoped to be on the road at 8 am. First, we misjudged the height of the camper hitch and had to jack the trailer up with the trailer dolly and put another block under the tongue before we could hitch it to the pickup truck. This happened because we turned the camper around by pushing and pulling it manually in our narrow driveway, and the tongue was lower than it had been when it was facing the other way. The trailer jack alone could not get it high enough to attach it to our ball hitch.

Then, we started having problems with the key not coming out of the pickup ignition when we stopped. A couple of times today, we had to leave the key in the ignition and lock the car with my key set. Then the next time it would be fine. We've been researching online and think we've identified the issue and a possible fix fingers crossed, and I will report back on this.

We stopped in Raymore for a quick visit to my Mom and Mike. Then we took a long cut through town, avoiding I-435 and I-470 with the camper in tow. It worked, and we are now camped at the Basswood RV Resort near Platte City, MO. There are not too many other campers about, but I bet that will change over the weekend. We are here for one night. Tomorrow, we will stop at Kearney at a place we've stayed before.

This year, we have a new camper. It has a little more room and a few more amenities than our teardrop, but it is still very simple. It does have an air conditioner, which we may be glad for this summer. We have the teardrop camper in storage and might use it next summer again. It was easier to set up and a little easier to pull.

We have allowed a full week to travel to Malheur. We completed our background checks and defensive driving courses and should be ready for orientation when we arrive next Wednesday!Weiterlesen