Overnighter at the Coast

March 1-2, 2026

Shake down cruise, er camp. Found us a teeny, tiny camper van to run about the countryside wreaking havoc wherever we go. Meet the new money pit. God help us it’s another Dodge, or rather a Ram. A Promaster with the infamous terrible transmission. What can we say it hit a price point that no Sprinter could meet. We actually adore her. I just hope she doesn’t fail us on some dark and lonely road. 

We spent too much time and money getting her appropriately outfitted, then took ourselves to the coast for a night of camping in the rain. If anyone knows our past camping history you would know it always includes rain. Fortunately the rain wrapped up over night and the next day was pretty nice. 

Spent some time at Yaquina Bay on Monday. The sea lions were busy hunting lunch and having a very successful hunt. The water was this wonderful color of blue and turquoise. Didn’t know it at the time but per another post the color is from herring that are spawning in the bay at this time. Pretty cool. 






 



Finished up our visit with a rather sketchy walk along the beach at high tide. Wasn’t a lot of beach left to walk along. 




Edited to add: well of course the videos don’t work. I suck at tech stuff. Just imagined sea lions barking when you look at the photos. That pretty much sums up the videos. 🙄

Comments

  1. RichardM3/5/26, 9:25 AM

    That’s a nice looking class B. Much more modern than a VW bus! Do you follow Michael and Layne? They are in Paraguay with their Promaster. We were thinking of a class B but ended up picking up a former Cruise America class C as a smaller second RV. The van would’ve been nicer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bluekat3/5/26, 7:38 PM

      Thanks. It’s a well used one with pretty high miles, but is in relatively good shape for all the miles. We looked at small class Cs, but couldn’t find any in the used market that we could store our bikes inside.
      Yes I do follow Michael and Layne. Have since back in our motorcycle days. I love seeing their adventures in S. America. 🙂

      Delete
  2. redlegsrides3/6/26, 10:33 AM

    Nice van camper, hopefully you got one that performs well....no idea re RAM transmissions but I'm sure you had it checked out? I'm curious though, why the requirement to store bikes inside? Worries about theft?

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    Replies
    1. Bluekat3/6/26, 8:37 PM

      Yes, mostly worried about theft. We like to stop and explore/hike on road trips. Some places I’d rather have the bikes inside out of sight. Kind of a false sense of security though, since it’s pretty easy to break into a vehicle, which seems to happen at a lot of trailheads.

      Delete
  3. SonjaM3/18/26, 2:15 AM

    Tiny campervan? It's huge compared to our VW camper. I miss the wild we(s)t coast. If your transport of choice fails you somewhere in the middle of nowhere you can at least cook a meal and have a place to sleep. Keep always looking on the bright side and enjoy your travels. Cheers from the other side of the pond. SonjaM

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    Replies
    1. Bluekat3/18/26, 9:34 PM

      Cheers Sonja. I love your camper! I’m not sure we can get the newer ones over here. Our son is into old VWs and has a 1968 bus. Not a camper though. Our Promaster is small compared to the giant motorhomes the US seems found of. I must confess when we drove it home it felt huge compared to our minivan.

      Delete

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