Great campground as usual, but unfortunately some jackass decided he needed my ice chest more than I did as we awoke the 2nd day to a empty spot in the grass! When I reported it to the Ranger he mentioned four other poor souls suffered the same fate that night which made me feel a little better; but the cost to replace that Coleman SS cooler will be close to $200. I guess it was due: in our 37 years of adult camping this is only the 2nd time we've had something stolen from our campsite (the other time was in Vancouver BC in 2003). Guess I've have to start chaining up stuff at night to "keep the honest people honest"!

Then the next night we had to listen to several idling diesel emergency vehicles at 3 AM in our loop as they dealt with a domestic issue. After about an hour they fnally hauled away a drunk/high/mentally-despondent woman who felt the need to scream bloody murder at the top of her lungs whenever someone tried to touch her. This happened about 25 ft. from the front of our trailer - how nice! Later that morning the Rangers showed at 7:30 AM and evicted the remaining camper(s) from that site - first time I've seen that happen!

• Added Fort Worden trip report.
• Added Camco® Awning Anchor Kit product review.
• Updated A&E® Awning Tilt Retrofit Kit product review.
• Added Fan-Tastic® Fan Bathroom Replacement modification.

• Added Install larger TV & satellite wiring modification.
• Added Cold Springs CG trip report
• Added Reading lights over Sofa modification
• Added Fastway Flip Jack Foot product review
• Added Barker Electric Tongue Jack product review

• Website improvements: Deleted "Calendar" and "Coming Attractions" tabs. The calendar was really for my use anyway & not visible to visitors. (I've switched to Google Calendar for scheduling events, which is a far better tool than something I could build!)
• Website improvements: Added "Things to Do" tab. This seems more realistic than the Coming Attractions idea because I really intend to do these things!

• Website improvements: Added inline style capability (Bold, underline, links, etc.) to forum postings

We were also happy to find several Tango's on display - in fact right inside the main entrance were several - and inside one we ran into Dane Found, President & COO of Pacific Coachworks! Now that's a pretty good example of manufacturer support! (We actually bought our Tango from Dane's son Ray at this very show in 2008).

I noticed there wasn't a Tango equipped with their new Kitchen Slide-Out on display & asked him about it, which seems like a no-brainer at a show like this. He said the new dealer (now Apache Camping Center, was Johnson RV Sales) “didn’t order any” which suggests the market in Portland is still pretty soft if a dealer doesn’t want to bring in any new inventory. In fact, that seemed to be pretty typical with all the dealers at the show: lot’s of new 2009 models & 2010’s equipped with conservative options. Nobody wants to risk getting stuck with unsold inventory & I don’t blame them one bit!

Our mission at the show was to ferret out the new ideas & innovations to see if I could incorporate some of them into our trailer; but as suggested above there really wasn’t anything exciting. Komfort had a new model called the "Resort" which had a slick new exterior color scheme; sort of a tan/gold accented with black stripes & utilities (I've been curious about these because I drive right by their factory in Clackamas on the way to where we store Wally and finished inventory is right out front!) Not a lot of accessory vendors, probably less than two dozen, and most seemed to be selling time-share campsites. Curtis Trailer had the biggest display with one complete building out of the three in use, which is understandable since they are the big gun for RV’s in this area.

While we weren’t seriously looking for the next rig we were very impressed with a couple of Cardinal fiver’s we toured, in particular the 3150RL & 3625RT. The fit & finish on these was exceptional and the floor plans very livable for a retired lifestyle – something we hope to do in within 10 years!

I just list companies who I feel make a decent product that I typically have patronized. (The exception is Honda since I've yet to pick up a generator - are you listening?). The web hosting stuff on the right side of Welcome tab does earn me points if anyone signs up with Alentus; but frankly the possibility of me actually getting any help defraying the hosting costs is pretty slim.

• Added Fastway Zip Breakaway cable product review.
• Added Port of Newport Marina RV Park trip report.
• Added Rant about poor awning electrical splice.
• Website improvements: Added anchor/bookmark generator links to Trip Reports tab.

• Website improvements: The previous greeting statement has been combined with the update log to create a workable date-stamped blog! Expect to find comments about website updates, recent trips, product reviews, and anything else that comes to mind here!

• Added Grayland Beach State Park trip report.
• Added Benton Oaks RV Park trip report.

• Added Belknap Lodge & Hot Springs Resort trip report

• Added Cape Disappointment State Park trip report.
• Added Xantrex Technologies 851-0178 XPower 175-Watt Micro Inverter product review.

• Website improvements: Added bookmarks with links for Modifications & Product Reviews so I can provide URL's directly to an entry.
• Added Lower Bridge Campground trip report.
• Added Replaced bedroom vent with Fan-Tastic 6600 Fan modification.
• Added Pure Comfort Mattress Topper product review.

• Website improvements: Forums are now active.

• Added Premier Lincoln City trip report

Hello and welcome to our camping blog! This site is intended to chronicle our adventures with “Wally”, our Tango travel trailer and give me a place to document some of the things I've done to (hopefully) improve it! We gave up trying to keep a separate trip diary, photograph libraries, product recommendations, campsite reviews, etc. and instead just stuffed it all here! That way anybody can browse to their heart's content and all we need to do is send them the URL!

As you can see in the Links tab I built a similar site for our previous trailer and people really seemed to enjoy it; so hopefully this new one will achieve the same level of success! You'll quickly discover I'm a fairly active DIY guy and pretty much fearless about tackling nearly anything (often to the dismay of my better half), This trailer is my latest creative outlet and I enjoy puttering around with the modifications nearly as much as actually camping!

Some background: Kris & I are both in our mid-fifties and have been camping in the Pacific NW from a young age - I was about five when my family started dragging me out to the woods! We've been married 30+ years and tent-camped the first 25; then got tired of sleeping on the ground so we moved up to a Chalet folding A-frame trailer in 2004. After enjoying the hell out of that little rig we wanted some more civilized creature comforts (i.e. bathroom, full-time bed, clothes storage, etc.) so last year we bought the Tango at the Spring Portland RV Show. In retrospect it probably wasn't the ideal time to take this plunge because soon after gas prices went through the roof and then the economy tanked; but we're not looking back and have a full itinerary of trips planned this year!

So feel free to look around! I try to keep this site up to date often and always welcome your constructive feedback. I'll even try to keep my acid comments to a minimum.

Enjoy!

PS: for you technical types, this site is a data-driven (SQL) Reentrant Active Server Page that allows online additions & editing. That basically means everything you see is stored in a series of tables - text, URL's to links & pictures, code for the little widgets, etc. - and is rendered into HTML when you view the page! So theoretically once I finesse the core code that performs all this magic I can update this site from anywhere in the world (with an Internet connection of course) without having to remember a bunch of programming. And God knows how hard it is for an old duffer like me to keep up with that stuff (in web years I'm like 118)! Of course, since this is about version 20 that may be more of a goal than reality!