THE WAITING GAME

This is our day in Portland for the list of "have-to's". It is extremely cold and windy. The Columbia Gorge operates in the same way as those canyons in California funnelling the Santa Ana winds westward over coastal LA communities. Only in  this case, they are not funnelling fire and heat, they are funnelling icy cold winds from Eastern Oregon. Luckiy, the campground in Vancouver Washington is out of the pathway. 

We got the last available camp site. This campground highlights a growing shift in accommodation for RV travellers. More and more, the campgrounds in the more seasonal climate zones take on low-income but full-time renters for the winter low-season. In some cases, entire campgrounds have changed into full time rentals all year round. It is one of those sociological adaptations that result from increasing levels of poverty and increasing growth of homelessness, family breakdown, poverty among seniors, and so on.

This nature of campgrounds shifts substantially once we get to the Golden Zone of winter retiree resort living. Those southern campgrounds come with luxury amenities such as swimming pools, large rec halls, 3 hole golf courses, tennis courts and so forth. There is no competition from the homeless and the poor here. They have been banned by such rules as the "ten year rule" that forbids any RV over that age. As you can imagine, we don't stay in those places. But then, I wouldn't, would I,  even if we were younger and more acceptable to their impeccable RV taste (sarcasm folks, sarcasm). It does strike a funny bone in me to think of "pretentious" and "RV camping" in the same sentence. 

This particular campground in Vancouver Washington is spotless, well taken care of but with tiny sites and some very tiny trailers. They have a lovely new rec centre which has well supplied kitchen and several round tables. It serves as a gathering spot. The road in front is a quiet side street. Yesterday we saw a mom with a boy of about 5 or 6 waiting for the school bus. As she stood there with him, several of the RV park seniors came along, all of them (incuding the little boy and his mum) residents of this campground. The seniors stood around chatting, ruffling the hair of the little boy and engaging him in some teasing and chat. I thought "there is nothing that that boy is missing by living here in a tiny trailer with his mum".  When he is 14 and 6' tall, it might become a different issue. What I saw here exemplified to me the resilience of people and their ability to make not just a home but a community, all the more remarkable with such a low level of resources. It is sobering to see this level of human need, but I cannot help but be impressed. Kudos to the human spirit!!

We are well pleased with our select little campsite situated in a dead end corner backed up against a hedge of Arborvitae. Because of our situation waiting for my prescriptions to come in we really don't know how long we need to be here. If it ends tomorrow, we will be leaving immediately for southern Oregon with our next main destination being family in California.

Flossie, on her backseat throne.

Crossing the Columbia River. Almost winter soltice, with low low light levels, and Mount Hood just barely exposed through the

mist. It is noon time.

Flossie loves to watch TV and it entertains her when we are too tired to play "chase the rubber bone".

Here she is watching the TV Channel guide. None the wiser, it all is interesting to her.