Day 43 - In search of some heat relief

 Despite being tired last night, none of us got a great night of sleep and we were all grateful we weren’t going to need to repeat it.  As we were trying to sleep, we had a number of extremely loud campers that made it difficult to fall asleep - especially with the slightly elevated temperatures.  Then as they quieted down, the sounds of I-5 and trains took over.  While KOA is a great option for us at times, this was not the one for us.  Thankfully, we had gotten a different  option for tonight.

Today was going to be a pretty easy day without much planned as we tried to avoid the heat.  I woke up early and had noticed Papa’s Donuts in town so I drove over hoping to get some.  Unfortunately, Papa had some health issues so the store had been closed for a few months and was not open.  So I waited for the grocery store to open only to find that their bakery hadn’t yet started to make the donuts.  Enough of that - back to camp.


We dragged the boys into the car and backtracked over to the McCloud river to see the lower, middle and upper falls.  Clearly other people also had this idea on a Saturday morning because it was packed when we got there.  Luck was on our side though as someone pulled out just as we pulled in.  The hike was spectacular even if it was crowded with all the people.













Once back to camp, Amy and I packed up while Robinson and Sebastian went back to the lounge.  It turns out someone was watching the Hunger Games so the boys came back with questions about this.  Maybe this will be our next book series?  Anyway, we finished packing up and started north.


The drive was pretty short, but as we approached mile marker 800 on I-5 in California, we never made it because somewhere after mile marker 795, we entered a new state - Hello Oregon!  It was also a fairly dull drive down I-5, but after all the mountain roads we had been on recently, I was ready for dull.  One site we did pass was the highest elevation point of I-5 at ~4,500 feet.


We arrived in Shady Cove at a very pleasant RV camp that sat on the Rogue River.  It we scenic, but the boys only cared about going swimming.  So the boys and I did that while Amy went grocery shopping for us.  



At the pool, we met four guys on fishing trip.  We exchanged stories about our vacations and they ended up giving us some recommendations on Portland as well as telling us to watch the river as there were still some salmon heading up stream.  Sure enough, once we started paying attention, there they were leaping out of the water on their way upstream.  It was neat to see them on the Pacific rivers after having seen them coming upstream out of Lake Michigan.


After the pool we met Amy back at camp.  The camp was full of extremely friendly people and Robinson tried to meet every dog in camp.  We had some dinner and then walked down to the local ice cream shop for some delicious soft serve ice cream.  Once again though we met some amazingly friendly people and Robinson met SO many dogs.  We played some pinball at the ice cream shop (the boys got to hear the “pop” of a free game) and then walked back home.  It was still very warm so we turned on the A/C (worth finding the new location for!) and we were soon out.





Miles traveled - 6,850

# States/Provinces - 15!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts after a month back home

Image
It's been a month since I got home.  I wanted to put some notes of reflection on record, but I also wanted to have a chance to re-connect with the normal world before I did.  30 days feels like a good number of days to have the perspective to come to some conclusions on the trip and life in general.  So, here goes. Main notes from the trip     - The USA has a LOT to see in it.  As a family we only entered ten states and really only entered two of them (Idaho and Arizona) in passing on the highway.  We spent almost eight weeks in these eight states and saw snow capped mountains, farmlands, deserts, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, rain forests, sandy beaches, rocky coasts, and volcanoes.  There are many countries that can't offer half of this list.      - Despite having nine weeks to do all the exploring we did, it felt rushed.  We covered almost 7,500 miles in those nine weeks so there's a reason it felt rushed, but when I left, of...
Read more

Day 2 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - Dolphins and a Water Park in a State Park

Image
 7/19 - Chesapeake, VA to Killens Pond, DE Well the anticipated storm as we went to bed arrived and dumped LOTS of rain on us.  AS such, we had a damp start to morning. Amy woke early and had gone out for coffee (I forgot to pack ground coffee - first discovered mistake) and gas us up. She encountered lots of closed stores that early, but persistence paid off.  We enjoyed bagels for breakfast and then boys explored park while Amy and I packed up trailer. We had a long drive day so we didn't linger.    After a minor detour, we found the route to the bridge tunnel highway. After a quick inspection "are your propane tanks closed?", we were onto the bridge/tunnel.  As our first surprise of the trip, before we reached the first tunnel section, we saw 30-40 dolphins in the water!  Unfortunately, only Sebastian and I got to see them before we drove past.  However, we all got to see many kayakers/boats enjoying their Saturday on Chesapeake Bay. We enjoyed...
Read more

Day 1 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - On the Road Again

Image
7/18 - Raleigh to Chesapeake Well, we're underway, but no thanks to me. I SIGNIFICANTLY underestimated all the things left to do to get underway this evening. I started the day with maintenance on the camper (always best to do the day of travel) and then worked my way to other activities.  However, when Amy got home, there was still a LOT of material that had not been packed in either Rover or Dover.  As such, our packing became more of a "throw it all in the camper and figure it out later". And, in an auspicious start to the day, this new technique was done in the middle of a random downpour. Since we were now starting in the middle of Friday rush hour, we learned that there was traffic on our route.  So we diverted and got a tour of eastern Wake county. I can say that corn looks good, but the beans look GREAT.  Given the potential, this start to the trip turned out to be a really nice way to start the drive. We were cruising along on 64, which had surprisingly low...
Read more