Sutherlin Oregon Timber Valley Escapees co-op

We have been busy exploring the area surrounding the Escapees (SKP) co-op in Sutherlin Oregon. 

 

The Co-op is within walking distance of Sutherlin's downtown area, and just north of thriving Roseburg Oregon with good shopping and medical facilities.    This park is another place where we can own our own long term (lifetime or until released) lot to live part time and eventually retire from our travels, and become part of a community of full-timing RVers. The waiting list here is running 3 to 4 years wait for a lot to become available to us. 

This is the spot we are renting right now. Most of the lots are the same except for different tastes in landscaping.

The lots are big.

The people here have been very friendly and helpful.

View down the street

So far, we love the location: close to the Oregon's coast and the mountains with plenty to do. It is nice to be surrounded by hills covered in green trees instead of desert sand and brush. Just two hours away and we can be back in one of the Thousand Trails parks along the coast or to the east. But, it is further away from our kids and grandkids than the co-op in Benson AZ where we are on the waiting list (6-7 year wait). 

What?! Eh?! Who?! Gobble?!

We also like all the critters. It is a regular wildlife preserve inside the park with deer, wild turkey, quail, and big jack rabbits on steroids. We were told that cougar, bobcat, bear, raccoon, and fox have also been sighted inside the RV park as well.

On our walk yesterday morning, we spotted quite a few deer hanging around the apple trees except for one deer.

He was busy munching on the greens inside someone's fenced garden.



Uh, oh! Humans!

Once we were spotted, the deer moved off towards the apple trees. This seems to be their favorite hangout.


No worries of apples rotting on the ground here!

One of the downsides is the town of Sutherlin. The bad economy leaves this town struggling a bit.   However  Roseburg is just 20 minutes drive south, and Eugene/Springfield 1 hour north for shopping and any future medical needs.  Roseburg has a large VA hospital complex for Dan.

The only major downside inside the park is the sheds. The sheds are all the same except for 3 different colors in similar tones. No bright or bold colors. No individual artistic imagination allowed and no Casitas or extra living space allowed in this park. The sheds cannot be expanded so basically they are used for storage and a few have workbenches in them. On the upside, the buy in is less here than many of the other co-ops.



 As in all the SKP co-ops there is a large community center, community activities, and a laundry facility.

There are several quilt shops and quilt shows within a radius of an hour's drive. Sutherlin actually has a small quilt shop. Sonja's Sewing Basket is more of a sewing machine and long-arm center, but she does have fabric and some supplies.



Another view down the street and the back side of this lot.

We plan to visit two more SKP co-ops in California and go back to the Benson co-op for one more comparison between the parks. We can add our names to as many park's waiting lists as we want, with a small non refundable administrative fee, and a refundable deposit should we change our minds.  All the co-ops offer the entire buy-in fee back when the lease is released by us, or upon our deaths to our estate for the kids.  

 

So after the buy in (refundable) the only cost to these co-ops is a annual fee voted upon by the membership to maintain the park, pay for roads and buildings, pay for water, sewer, garbage, cable tv etc.  Our cost would be this annual fee plus electricity used on our lot when we are present, and propane. 

 

 Annual fees are running $1,000 to $1,200 per year at both Benson and here in Sutherlin (includes water, sewer, garbage service, and cable tv).  For both this park and for Benson AZ, we can add our lot into the rental pool when we are not on site, and earn cash back split between the park and everyone in the rental pool.

 

So, for now at least, we are on two waiting lists:  Benson AZ and Sutherlin OR.  We may or may not drop one later, and could even add one more.  We do think though that when it comes time to buy the actual long term lease we will do only one  (some people have mutliple lots across the country).

 

Southward tomorrow for a two day run to Coarsegold CA.

Florence Oregon and Environs

We drove to Shore Acres State Park to see the botanical gardens left from a timber baron's home. His mansion is gone, but the formal gardens and the caretaker's house is still there.

 

We started with the ocean viewing area because we were hearing sea lions. Instead, we were awestruck by the view. We just stood there watching the waves crash against the most unusual rock forms.  

Shore Acres State Park

I know I was puzzled over this landscape. Did it happen all at once or over time from weather and sea?

One woman walked up to us and said, "Don't you sometimes feel like you have just walked into another world?"

We could only nod a yes.

But, wait! Where were the sea lions? We could hear them. Maybe in a cave or in a nook? Dan usually spots them swimming, but not this time.

Hmmm.... We followed a path along the shore...no sea lions, so we decided to go see the gardens.

We have seen trees like the one below a couple of times during our travels along the NW coast. It looks like a twisted pine tree until we get close to it.

Monkey Puzzle Tree

Then we would see the needles are leaf-like and very thick. The sign called the tree a Monkey Puzzle Tree. If I had a yard, I would love to have one of these trees for my garden.

The gardens are gorgeous! The Rangers do a great job of keeping up the formal gardens. I took a lot of photos. I don't want to overdo the photos so here's a sample of the pond, the roses, and the dahlias.

Oh, and we finally found the sea lions further down the road. They were all over the rocks and some were swimming (little black spots)...:0) They were barking so loudly that it was echoing down the coast a couple of miles away!

 

We drove into old town Florence on a weekend and stumbled upon a car show.

Our plan was to take a walk and do a little window shopping. Florence was bustling with a small Farmer's Market and a car show. We bought some fruit and Poblanos. Then we saw the small pies...okay, I had to have the small peach/blueberry pie. Such an unusual combination and yes, it was gooood! Sorry, no photos of the pie, but here are some of the peaches that might end up in another pie....

The car show was fun and interesting. I love the colors on the ones I posted here. Very eye-catching, don't you think?

Even the dogs were having fun. There were two of these gentle giants, but the other one was behind a car being petted by another admirer.

 

We walked down to the bridge at the west end of town. This is another of Conde McCullough's bridges except this is a draw bridge. The two bigger obelisks on this side have control rooms for the draw bridge.

There is so much detail in each bridge and each one is very unique. Even the under side that most travelers never see has a lot of thought put into the design. I love this cathedral looking arches.

We drove a bit eastward to view some new areas.

On Umpqua Scenic Drive along the river, we saw a couple of herds of Elk in the Wildlife Viewing fields near Reedsport. They were very close to the fence just grazing and totally ignoring all the people taking their pictures.

 

The males were in one field and the females were nearby in another field, but not close enough to see each other.

 

I'm so happy that I took along my 500mm lens and with some cropping, I got some great photos.

Smile!

The best part was watching the young bucks practice fighting. Even though, they were not fighting all that hard...no rearing or running, more "Push Me-Shove You". We could still hear their antlers banging together once in a while.

Had enough? Yea, me too. Same time tomorrow?

Next post will be from the Escapees co-op in Sutherlin Oregon, and after that we will head southbound on I5.

Catching Up On Our Travels (Florence, OR)

Robin is getting some tail wind.

Here are a couple of photos of the wild rabbits in this RV park in Pacific City.  Don't they look like domestic rabbits?

How cute am I?

They were so tame that they would hop right up to us looking for food.  Even the babies came hopping up to us. Aren't they cute?

Baby bunnies everywhere!

Doesn't this look inviting?

Sandy recently found out that the western Oregon area has quite a few covered bridges.  We visited Drift Creek Covered Bridge that is privately owned now.  We might try to look for a few more before we leave here.

Drift Creek 1914

 

 A few views along the highway.  Can you blame us for driving up and down Hwy 101?

 

Before we left Pacific City, we walked the Cape Lookout trail.  It is 4.8 miles round trip with 400 feet elevation.  The toughest part was navigating the big tree roots and thick mucky mud...yuk...but the views were fantastic.  We were a little disappointed when we got to the point and could not see both sides, but it was still worth the hike.

 

Path among some interesting trees

View along the way

Looking down and to the north

Elves live here.

Newport seems to have two downtown areas.  There is the Historic Nye Beach area with lots of access to the beach with shops, restaurants, hotels, and other services.
 

Beautiful murals scattered throughout the downtown area

Then, there’s the Historic Newport Bayfront area with lots of fun attractions for the family along with shops, restaurants, the marina, and commercial fishing fleets.  You can buy fresh catch-of-the-day right off the boats.  Here are some of the sights from the Bayfront.......too bad we can't do smells and sounds too.  It was very fishy smelling with sea lions barking.
 

Gotta scratch that itch..

Of course, our favorite part was watching the sea lions on the docks.  They were being quite loud the day we were there.  We could hear their barks echoing down the street.

Barking Sea Lions

Funny...no one argued with this big guy when he came out of the water and said this is my spot.

Lots of battle scars on this one

I was here first!  No, I was!

More sea lions on the jetty...

 

We were wondering if they planned on the whale's mural to look like it was doing a trick...

A whale of a mural

A great view of McCullough's Yaquina Bay Bridge
in the background from the marina

 

No marina is complete without a couple of sea birds.....

Immature Seagull

and one Sea Lion..:0)

We moved to Florence on 6 September.  We are here for two weeks.  Sandy has updated our Travel Map Page.  It is nice to have a good WiFi connection again, so we will try to post again before we leave here.