Make no mistake, Cape Disappointment State Park on the Longbeach Peninsula is one of the more popular camping and RV destinations in Washington State.  It is frequently full on good weather weekends during the summer months, and we were fortunate enough to stay there for free in a full hook up site due to our volunteering at the North Head Lighthouse.

Columbia River on the way to Cape D State Park

The campground is diverse, with 220 total camping sites, the majority of which (137) are dry camping, though 60 are full hook up, 18 are electric and water only, and 5 are hiker/biker tent only spots.  Unlike many private campgrounds, this state park spreads the sites out quite well.  All of the camps have lots of space and plenty of greenery between them and the neighbors.  Aside from the sites along a row in the front entrance area, most are organized into circles of 10 sites with trails and unofficial pathways leading between the circles or directly down to the expansive beach.  The dry camping areas have a bathhouse close to each circle, though the hot water in the showers was coin operated.

Big Kahuna in his old paint at our spacious full hook up site

The state park grounds encompass nearly 1900 acres of coastal forest and steep hills with numerous rock formations encountered sporadically throughout.  Much of the designated campground sites are in areas formerly underwater until the Columbia River jetties were constructed in the late 19th century, which lead to significant land accretion along the coastal areas on either side of the river delta.  The park boasts several excellent hiking trails, including one that runs along the route best understood to be that Lewis and Clark followed to their first sighting of the Pacific Ocean.

Cliffs to the beach from the North Head Lighthouse escarpment

The park also has a couple of great spots of historical interest, including the Lewis and Clark interpretive center, the North Head and Cape Disappointment lighthouses, and elements of the Washington States Confluence Project, a series or artistic architectural projects along the Colombia River designed by Maya Lin, a sculpture and landscape artist best known for designing the Vietnam Memorial.  The park also hosts a summer concert series in their outdoor amphitheater.  We were fortunate enough to be there during a traditional Hawaiian music and dance concert conducted by a local Hawaiian transplanted family running a dance and music school in the vicinity.

I have a green vest. And a name tag. Respect.

Now I have a grey vest. I am off duty, and contemplating vast things.

I have contrasted two Oregon state parks, Cape Blanco and Nehalem Bay, the former being more rugged in its transition between the land and sea, with relatively steep forest runs from the campgrounds down to the ocean, whereas Nehalem was flatter with large dunes facing the campsites.  Cape Disappointment is about halfway between those two, with relatively flat walking trails from the campgrounds to the ocean due to the aforementioned land accretion, but all of that surrounded with steep hills and rocky cliffs outlining the pre-jetty coast line.  This made for an excellent camping venue, with easy access to the extraordinarily wide beach combined with fantastic cliff views from the hiking trails and lighthouse.  The beach itself was another example of those fantastic Pacific Northwest areas, with giant piles of driftwood lying in desolation along large expanses of mixed traditional whitish and black basalt sand.

The beach looking north towards the lighthouse cliffs

With nearly 1900 acres of sparsely occupied land, the wildlife was abundant.  We saw deer every other day during our drives to or from the lighthouse or our bike rides, bald eagles soaring past the lighthouse, and raccoons so bold that they looked down on our campsite from the large rock structure in front of our bus even in broad daylight.  The north section of the beach just before the lighthouse cliff includes several tide pools, Rosemarie found a fantastic large purple starfish on our first excursion there.

Our weather was fantastic for much of the two week stay, with crystal clear visibility and blue skies. But we also experienced a touch of the typical Pacific Northwest weather with a couple of days of drizzle and fog, which completely changes the appearance and feel of the beach and park grounds.

The other lighthouse, Cape Disappointment

North Head Lighthouse in darker weather

If there is one negative to the park it is the lack of cell phone reception.  As mentioned in our last post, we had to bike a mile to make a phone call and two to get internet.  This can, of course, be a positive, and we treated it as such, allowing ourselves to enjoy a temporary separation from endless texting, facebook, and internet surfing.  This was a place to enjoy day hikes, beach walks, campfires, and the general beauty of the surroundings.  I am pretty sure we will be back.

Driftwood samples pushed inland off the beach

As mentioned in several previous posts, when Nina from Wheeling It put out the word that Cape Disappointment State Park had a late cancellation for one of their planned lighthouse guide couples, we thought that it might be one of the rare opportunities for us to volunteer without having to commit to a month or more like state park usually require.  Sure enough, once we got hold of Stephen, the volunteer coordinator, he readily accepted just a two week commitment since they were in significant need.  He would get two more volunteers, and we would save some money in the form of a free full hookup camping site while enjoying a lot more human interaction than we normally get, all while in one of the more beautiful state parks in the region.

Our place of work

We had two days of preparation before actually starting, which generally consisted of reading a big book of historical material and deciding on division of responsibilities, and then an hour or so of discussion with Stephen before jumping right in at the North Head lighthouse, one of two lighthouses in the park but the only one open for tours.  Rose manned the entry room and cash register, arranging and organizing the groups, while I conducted the tour in the upper portion of the lighthouse.  The structure is 117 years old, but has been heavily refurbished in recent years.  Since it had only been recently reopened after one such project, and since we were there during a weekend with beautiful weather, we were nearly full during all of our shifts, conducting tours in groups of eight in 20 minute intervals.  That pace makes the day go by quite fast.

Going up

The gist of the deal with Cape Disappointment is that volunteers get a free campsite, in this case valued at $45 a night based on season rates and amenities (full power and water) in exchange for working three or four half days each week.  We enjoyed the actual work, loved the ocean side campground, and saved a lot of money, not just on campsite fees but also because we were pretty isolated out at Cape D with few opportunities to spend.  The one downside to the experience was the lack of any cell phone connectivity at our site.  In order to make a call we had to bike down the road a mile, and to use the internet we continued another mile to the one shoppette/restaurant on the grounds, a nice pizza place with wifi for customers.

View from the top

All in all it was a great experience and would readily do i again if the right opportunity comes up. We have been discussing perhaps a gig in Florida during the winter, though the places we would volunteer are apparently pretty competitive.  We shall see…

Stephen and Jack outside the Lewis and Clark center

The original lens, First Order Fresnel

Rosemarie at her station

Back in February we completely broke down for the first time, losing throttle control, which lead to a lengthy tow to Odessa.   That breakdown occurred in a national park (Big Bend) in an area with no cell service but within walking distance of a ranger station, but only because we were able to nurse the bus down the road a ways to the north entrance, where it would go no further.  We just had our second breakdown, this one also in a national park (Yellowstone) in an area with no cell service but within walking distance of a ranger station, but only because we were able to nurse the bus down the road a ways to the south entrance, where it would go no further.

At least we have another beautiful place to await assistance

We had just left our three day campsite in Yellowstone and were enjoying the hour or two ride towards the Grand Tetons National Park when The Big Kahuna began to shake and rumble.  We initially thought it might be a flat tire, but our tire monitoring system did not go off and visual inspection indicated every thing was ok.  With a sickening feeling I assumed it must be the right rear wheel bearing, which recently started leaking fluid; we had determined to get that taken care of as soon as we left Grand Tetons, our next stop.

Ace One Truck Repair to the rescue

Since we were on a two lane road with absolutely no shoulder, we elected to risk continuing down the road at about 10 to 15 mph, which seemed to keep the grinding and resistance down to a minimum, rather than block traffic on this winding hilly road.  We made the Snake River Ranger Station at the park south entrance less than two miles later.  After discussion with the park rangers, we intended to push on two more miles to Flagg Ranch, in between the Yellowstone and Grand Tetons parks, which has a much larger parking lot, a campground, RV park, a small store, and generally would be more suitable to waiting on either a tow or a mobile mechanic.  Kahuna had other ideas, with the grinding and vibration beginning immediately after I started forward, even at minimum speed, and fearing he would lock up entirely we pulled into a turn out after a quarter mile.

Not alone in our misery. Across the street, Brian and Kelli with a bad axle or bearing

The rangers let me use their phone, and I engaged Progressive’s roadside assistance subsidiary in finding me a mobile mechanic.  They came through again, finding what appears to be the most qualified vintage bus shop in the tri-state area.  Ace One Truck Repair owner Bill called me back after a brief wait and he made arrangements to come out that night.  I also connected him to the driver of another broken down RV, a travel trailer parked on the other side of the road from us.   Bill had other jobs and had to do a good amount of research and parts pick up for both of us, and thus did not arrive until five A.M.  He started work right off, immediately determining that I had not, in fact, damaged the wheel bearing, but instead had a flex shaft, u-joint, and connecting bracket failure that he contends was caused by the poor job of whomever last worked on the u-joints since he could see how bad a job they did installing them.  That would be the repair shop from our last breakdown, and we will be pursuing part of our latest bill under warranty with them.

Morning fog over the Snake River

Found a walking path down to the banks of the Snake River

Make the best of our two days and one night beside the Snake River

Since our work would require Bill to return to Idaho and get parts ordered or manufactured, he moved on to work on Brian and Kelli’s wheel bearing and axle problem.   We had met their entire family, including children Bryce, Kate, and Savannah, the day prior as we mutually supported each other during our breakdown misery.  Bill was able to get them on the road that afternoon.  He then towed us the two miles down the road to Flagg Ranch using his F-350 superduty pickup and a length of chain.  This was not a pleasant experience as I was riding 15 feet from his bumper going up and down hills while he used his horn to direct me when to break and when to coast.  We made it without incident, pulling into the lot behind the Headwaters Lodge at Flagg Ranch.  We settled in for what we thought might be a full week of parking lot camping as we awaited Bill’s word from his parts research.

Early stages of the repair process

Bill gave us the good news the next day: Musselman’s would manufacture a complete new flex shaft and couplings within a day.  Bill brought it out the next morning, and after five hours of healthy labor, much of it in the rain, he had us up and running.

Back on the road and in the Grand Tetons National Park

This was not a cheap repair.  Bill cut us slack in three areas, splitting the mileage distance cost on day one between our bill and Brian and Kelli’s, giving us a referral discount for them as well, and waiving his usual credit card fee, but it still cost us over $4,000 to get on the road, though I can say Kahuna rides smoother than he has in months.  We would like to thank Bill for working well outside normal working hours for the several days or our repair, and we intend to be at his shop Monday morning for some additional elective and preventive maintenance, taking advantage of the much more affordable in shop rates he offers.  We also hope Mrs Ace One Truck Repair let’s Bill off the hook for how much after hours and late night work he did for us.

Following Bill to pay

We also had great support from the volunteer ranger employees at Snake River and Flagg Ranch, as well as the staff at Headwaters Lodge.  They were universally supportive during this entire affair.

This was always a high priority Oregon destination for us, and is likely to be near the top of any review list of Pacific Northwest state parks.  Like Cape Blanco, it is right on the ocean, but the beach experience is completely different.  Rather than Cape B’s rugged green hills rolling down to low cliffs over the water, Nehalem is lower, with only a short lush tree line followed by couple hundred yards of large sand dunes and associated dune grasses separating our site from the ocean.  The beach itself is much more… beach-like than Cape Blanco, with light fine sand.  If it were not for the rugged coastline in the background, one could almost imagine being on the Florida Gulf Coast, perhaps St George Island.

The RV spots were partial hook up, 30 amp power and water only, but they were level and very spacious with plenty of greenery between them.  The roadways were well paved, each site came with a picnic table and fire ring.  At $29 per night plus an $8 reservation fee, it was well worth it, as seems to be the case with most Oregon state parks.  Contrast the full or partial hook up rates of Cape Blanco ($22) and Nehalem Bay ($29) with the drycamping cost in California’s McKerricher ($35) and Jedediah Smith state parks ($35).  We loved both of the latter two, but the Oregon price structure is certainly to be appreciated.

Our spacious green site

We had a fantastic and relaxing time here, and took full advantage of the clear if chilly in the evening weather, setting up our hammock and Rosemarie’s outdoor craft and jewelry station.  She refreshed herself on Dremmel use and also started a shelled mirror project, while I supervised from a prone position.  We finished the evenings with a fire and the clearly audible sound of the ocean a quarter mile away.

Setting up Rosie’s work station

Supervising is exhausting

One last note especially for any current or future camp hosts out there: This was the first and only park we have visited where a camp host drove around in his golf cart in the late afternoon and early evening selling firewood and meeting the guests.  Most state parks, aside from those in high risk wildfire zones, have some sort of firewood sale system, but this method seems like a major win win. Sales and profit are surely higher, the camp host meets people, and the visitors receive a convenient firewood delivery service making their stay that much nice.  After our fantastic experience volunteering at Cape Disappointment, we are looking into possibly camp hosting down the road, and intend to incorporate this little nugget into our sting if at all possible.

Rosemarie found the ocean! Hurrah!

We have written a little about Jantzen Beach RV Park, mainly in the context of getting our bathroom remodel done while in Portland, but have never actually reviewed the place.

The park is high end, and one of the few very centrally located within easy mass transit distance to downtown Portland.  During our eleven day stay we benefited from a weekly rate of $199 four our first seven days and a Good Sam/AAA rate of $31.50 per day for the additional four we stayed, which for the quality and location of the park seems very reasonable.  It is very well managed, with clean everything, manicured landscaping, good condition roads and sites, and three pools.  It is full service, with power, water, sewer, cable TV (requires hooking up a digital/analog converter box), and free wifi via Tengonet, though it was completely unusable for half our stay due to a couple of down access points.

Our spacious site

They run a tight ship, zealously guarding access to the pools (must have your pass), and changing the shower and laundry codes weekly.  Apparently they have had problems with non residents using the pools and facilities. Given how stringently they enforced the pool access, I expected some problems from the amount of renovation work I had going on for nearly our entire eleven day stay, but since we were at the very back of the park and I did my best to befriend the immediate neighbors and let them know what I was doing, we had no complaints.

Beautiful trees and landscaping

The park is pet friendly, has excellent Verizon reception, is within walking distance of a small grocery, Target, Home Depot, Michaels, Ross, and various other stores without it feeling like you were in the middle of a strip mall area at all.  Within biking distance are several restaurants and the riverside.  The people were very friendly, many of them seasonal or long term, to the point that a number of them had established beautiful gardens in the areas in or near their spacious sites, even taking to watering the lawns with their own sprinklers and hoses.

Nearby waterfront

If there is any ding on the park it would be the multi-day wifi outage.  Even though this problem was present before my arrival, they did not inform me of it, even while providing me the Tengonet access certificates and instructions.  Once it was up it was better than “RV Park Typical” but still far short of a good quality hotel wifi, with very slow speeds during peak hours.

Another view of the big site we had in the rear of the park.  Unlike several nearby, I didn’t water the park lawn or set up a garden, so trust me that many of the other sites were quite a bit more beautiful.

Bottom line, this was a great park, especially for the price and location.  If we have need for an RV park in Portland again, this is almost certainly where we will stay.

Rosemarie and Big Kahuna with the old paint

The Distance: 695 miles, one of our shortest months, which was to be expected since we spent two weeks in one place at Cape Disappointment and another six days in Portland.  Most of this mileage came in the last two days of the month when we began our run towards Yellowstone National Park. Total distance for the year: 8,482 miles.

The Places:  We only went to four places after departing Jantzen Beach in Portland.  We had a perfect three day stay at Nehalem Bay State Park, one of the top reviewed coastal campgrounds in Oregon.  After that it was on to our two week volunteer stint at Cape Disappointment State Park just over the border in Washington.  From their it was back to Portland and On Time Painting while Rosemarie and I stayed in a couple of hotels, mostly on points.  Once we picked up The Big Kahuna we did the first leg of our eastward sprint, stopping for one night in Nampa, Idaho.  We had power and water hookups for 24 days and stayed in hotels for six.  No dry camping at all this month.

The Budget:  Finally!  We were well under budget, nearly 14% under!  If we can put a few more months like that together we will have a chance of coming in on budget for the year, though with our planned route and another non-RV trip coming up I am not particularly optimistic about repeating June’s success.  The primary reason for our budget success this month was our 14 day Cape Disappointment volunteer time, during which we stayed for free, were rather isolated and thus could not go out and spend much money, not even via online shopping since we had almost no connectivity.  Add to that the lack of diesel purchases since we didn’t drive the bus much, and finally our hotel stays in Portland were mainly on points rather than cash.

The Drama:  I don’t think we will ever have a month without some kind of RV related drama, and June did not disappointment since we had to contend with the previously reported problems with our contractors in Portland doing the bathroom remodel and the first attempt at new exterior paint.  We were at least able to get most of the bathroom done and the paint followed later that month with a return to Portland.  Lastly, our macerator is acting up again, but this time I can’t figure out the problem even after taking it apart twice, meaning we have to dump the old fashioned way with our short drain hose.  Ah well.

The Improvements:  As mentioned above, we got most of our bathroom remodel done, and at the end of the month our brand new paint job.

• January Report
• February Report
• March Report
• April Report
• May Report

Keen eyed readers will note the new header picture above, featuring The Big Kahuna’s brand new paint job!  While the old paint scheme was in pretty good condition, the “rabid Cleveland Browns fan” look was never going to be “us,” and the mural on the back had no relevance to our lifestyle.   Once we finally sorted out the engine, auxiliary, and house systems, we felt we could finally move on to some of the less critical but nice to have projects.  We had planned to have just the orange and brown stripe converted to a teal shade in Portland before we began our volunteer stint at Cape Disappointment, but that did not work out, and worse we had a partially sanded Kahuna looking particularly wretched.

Before

After

As it happens, a fellow camper at Cape D chatted us up about our bus, and strongly recommended we look in to On Time Painting in Portland to do the job.  We made inquiries during the few times we had cell and internet connectivity at Cape D, and received a fantastic estimate, $1950, for doing not only the stripes but also all of the white, taking it from the off white, nearly cream to the brilliant pure white you see above.  Our lead painter, Bruce, got the job done in just over three business days despite a crammed packed lot full of other rigs awaiting work.

On Time Painting in Portland

On time painting is not a car painting place, it is industrially focused, for trucks and big rigs.  They had Fed-Ex delivery vehicles and full size semi haulers all over the place. I don’t know what one of their high end paint jobs would cost or look like, but we made it clear we were looking for basic truck type paint, not automotive show quality work, and they delivered.  We brought in a teal color sample from Behr’s extensive interior paint rack at Home Depot, and OTP color matched it with their $10,000 machine and software.  We defaulted to pure white we could see on a freshly painted Fed-Ex truck.

Before with mural of fishers in a canoe. We don’t fish and don’t have a canoe…

After, a blank canvas, hmmm…

On Time Painting had to do about $650 of prep work that was not included in their sight unseen estimate, but it was not unexpected as we had discussed the rough spots that would require significant grinding down and filling on the phone and that they would need to see it to account for that work.  They also did a quick repair and paint job to two of the storage doors I scratched up rather badly getting into their lot.  Bottom line, For $2600 On Time Painting gave us brilliant new polyurethane paint on 3/4 of our bus.  We will definitely come back to them if we decide to update the silver on the lower sections.

So, what do you think of the new color scheme?

Yes, we are trying to match the paint scheme

Bit of a late entry here, but in light of our battle of the contractors post, I thought we would go to an “all ‘versus,’ all the time” format here at Shell On Wheels.  So submitted for your consideration is this combined review of Winchester Bay RV Resort “versus” Sea and Sand RV Park, both of which we enjoyed during our trip up the Oregon coast.  It’s not a particularly fair comparison as these two seaside RV resorts are not serving exactly the same market, but let’s not quibble over such details in pursuit of a manufactured competition post.

Rather than take a chance on the “first come, first serve” weekend availability at one of the great (and popular) coastal Oregon State Parks, we followed the advice of our short term neighbor and one of the camp hosts at Cape Blanco State Park and instead made reservations at Winchester Bay RV Resort.  He and his wife described Winchester as their “gold standard” for how a private RV park should be run. Winchester  Bay RV Resort: The resort is located at the Salmon Harbor Marina in, you guessed it, Winchester Bay. As you drive in there are a couple of other RV park options within the marina area, including a county park and spots associated with the marina itself, but Winchester Bay Resort is by far the highest end of those options, as well as the priciest at $42 per night for our bay front view (a few dollars cheaper for an interior site.)  The area is in a hugely popular ATV recreation area, which we found to be a negative aspect since we had to dodge the large numbers of sand bikes and buggies while out for a walk.

The resort is very well managed, with beautiful manicured spots in a terraced pattern allowing great views of the harbor.  All sites are full hook up including cable, wi-fi, a fire ring and picnic table. The tiny town of Winchester Bay includes several restaurants and a couple of shops all within easy walking distance of the RV resort.  The bath and shower rooms were some of the cleanest I have ever seen in an RV park.  We were also fortunate enough to be there on movie night when management provides a free viewing of a recent blockbuster, popcorn included.  The wi-fi was extremely shaky, generally unusable except during odd early morning or late night hours.  Some might call that “RV Park Standard” but I think we need to start holding places accountable for their bad wi-fi when the advertise supposedly free internet access as a benefit. All in all, we liked the place, but it is not our style of RV park since we much prefer a greater view of nature or at least some sort of interesting quirkiness. Sea and Sand RV Park:  Just under a hundred miles up the coast, this RV park is truly ocean front, with a portion of the sites situated along three terraced levels directly overlooking the Pacific.  We weren’t able to secure one of those spots given our short notice reservations, so we had to actually walk nearly 30 feet to see the ocean as we ambled down the short path to the beautiful seven mile beach. Management was quite nice and helpful getting us situated, and like Winchester Bay the sites are full hook up with cable and wi-fi. The difference is that Sea and Sand’s wi-fi actually worked just fine even during peak hours.  They manage it through Tengonet, which has not always been the most successful or accessible for us, but in this case it worked as advertised.

The rate was also comparable to Winchester: we paid $43 for our one night stay, reflecting the spring season, hilltop area, and Good Sam rate.  It would have been a couple more bucks for the actual ocean view sites, a bit less for the further back forest sites, and we slid under the peak summer season rate window by a couple of weeks.  Bottom line is that we would not only come again, but really look forward to doing so for a longer stay if we can get back here to the Oregon coast some time in the future.

By category:

• Price: Roughly equal
• View: Sea & Sand all the way
• Amenities: A tough call, but Winchester Bay’s common room with the free movie night takes it
• WiFi: Sea & Sand, no contest
• Nearby things to do: Winchester Bay due to the restaurants within walking distance, though only by a nose since the the beach at Sea & Sand was excellent

Two days ago, while one of the Cape Disappointment State Park employees was driving us to our volunteer duties at the North Head Lighthouse, we had an interesting conversation about various animal intrusions that campers had experienced in the area.  Primed by this discussion, Rosemarie woke me with some degree of frantic concern early yesterday morning to investigate rather loud and aggressive scratching noises coming from what sounded like the storage area directly under our bathroom.  Even as we walked around the bus, even flushing the toilet, whatever was under their continued to sporadically claw or gnaw at something quite solid.  The more we listened the larger the thing grew in our imaginations, or the worse the location seemed; we even began to suspect that something was trapped in our sewage holding tank and trying to claw its way out!

I went outside armed with a broom, jerking open the storage compartment under suspicion and immediately flailing about inside with the broom while making helpful Hiyaaaa! sounds.  I saw nothing, even after carefully moving most of the items out of this particular storage.  I backed up to think through my next move, when suddenly a small Douglas squirrel dropped down onto the rear tire just behind the storage compartment I was investigating.  He looked at me with some indignation before fleeing.

Upon further investigation I realized that my simplification and renovation of the strange plumbing arrangement installed by the previous owner had opened up a squirrel sized hole in the wheel well, were the old shower drain used to come down.  This rodent had found it a nice and cozy place to nest and had been busy expanding his new home by gnawing and scratching away at the flexible supporting mat under the fiberglass shower pan.  There was no use sleeping after this adventure, so with much grumbling I made coffee and filled in the hole as best I could with expanding Great Stuff foam.  Let the word go out far and wide to the entire rodent nation: we shall take no riders, not stowaways, no free loading hitch hikers.  When we are ready for a pet we will buy one.

By day two of the unending high volume blather coming from the mom in the adjacent site as she alternated between detailed narration and haranguing critique of her three small children, we were desperately hoping that she would carry out at least one of her many threats aimed at the tykes. After hearing for at least the twelfth time that if little boy 1, equally little boy 2, or even smaller girl did not do, or stop doing, some trivial thing then they would most certainly pack up and go home, we privately though whole-heartedly endorsed the appropriateness of following through on said threat. Indeed, we would have stood up and applauded her firm but fair, clear-eyed approach had they done so.

Alas, it was all words, as was the score of other threats leveled at the children that resulted in no action.  Surely she must realize that her children are not complete idiots, being capable of at least stimulus response reactions on the level of, say, puppies.  It may be improbable that a five year old will logic his way through the “we’re all going home” threat by examining the campsite, the multiple tents, the five coolers, the outdoor toys strewn in every direction and conclude that no, no we aren’t going home even if I light the entire campground on fire.  But, after having been told that unless you do or stop doing X, you will go home, and then seeing that despite continuing to do or not do X, we are still, shockingly, here at this very same campsite, then even a toddler will recognize the emptiness of your nonsensical attempts at coercion.

Which brings me to my question:  Is this a case of a parent desperately in need of an audience, wanting everyone within distant earshot to know, with absolute certainty, that she is mothering?  Or is it a case of audible narcissism; a sort of intense love with her own voice and words such that her ever-present dialogue, despite no one else participating, can never be cut off? Perhaps a frothy mix of the two?  Either way, she is about one set of quadruplets away from her own self aggrandizing reality TV series.