A couple of years ago before covid I bought tickets for a favorite artist, Chris Stapleton, who was planning to play at an outdoor amphitheater in southwest Washington. This venue serves the greater Portland area and attracts some good musicians. I had seen him once in Seattle already, and was looking forward to hearing more. But then, like all the other shows, it was postponed. Finally this year it was time to bring back the music and he rescheduled for June 3rd.

This venue is about 3 hours from home, so I knew we didn’t want to drive all that way after a late show. I called a local RV park and got lucky that one of the monthly folks had just decided to leave and a spot was open for the concert night (now I know, book the RV spot before you buy the tickets). The entire park was full of country music fans that night.

We had planned to only stay overnight and head home in the morning, but what we needed time for was Rob to study for his Captain’s license. When we pulled in and saw what a lovely park it was right on the Columbia River, we asked to book a spot for the following night. What that got us, in the end, was not only a great day in a new place, but we got to see our pals Bill & Dara for dinner that night.

We belong to two Facebook groups for ORV owners, and usually do a post when we find somewhere new or interesting. As we pulled into our new spot on Saturday, there was another ORV exactly like ours just 2 spots away. We don’t see many as small as ours, and fewer without any slideouts, so it was surprising to see our exact twin. The owners were heading out so we didn’t really get a chance to chat much, but hope to see them again in the future.

As it turns out, this is a very popular park and the ORV group has had several postings about this site. Who knows, maybe we’ll get an ORV rendezvous planned here? One comment on our FB posting made by someone in the group was how nice it was to have a small trailer and be “nimble”. And that’s really what we’ve achieved. It’s super easy to pack up for a quick overnight or weekend and not feel like it’s a big to-do getting the trailer and truck on the road.

I will make one comment about the concert. When I first started going to concerts back in the 1970s there was no big screen. Supertramp and David Bowie in the late 70s were the first big screen experience, and it was essentially a pre-filmed movie. Then eventually there were cameras on the band and a big screen live show of the stage. Now, Chris Stapleton has brought it to an entirely different level. He’s added some really nice artistry and made the screen watching almost as interesting as the band. We were up close with a good view, but also enjoyed looking up at the screens to see what they were creating to enhance the music. It was quite delightful.