Hello Friends,
Yes, we are still in Oregon, but as it starts to get cooler and damper, we're leaning to the south! We plan to leave here (Bend-Sisters area) on October 6, traveling with our friends Mel & Katie. When we get to Reno, we will be joined by friends Mike and Mary, who will help us drive down my new 2018 Ford Escape! I managed to convince Ben that I need a "drive-around-town" car in Baja, and this is what we found! Its peppy, 4x4 and a beautiful red color, which I am partial to. If you come visit someday, I'll most likely pick you up at the airport in this beauty (if you don't have too much luggage!)
This picture was taken east of Salem during the horrendous fires that happened in early September here in Oregon. We were in Bend when they started, and had planned to go over to the Willamette Valley to visit friends again. All of the mountain passes from Bend to Salem & Eugene were closed, except Highway 58 to the south, which we took. Everywhere we went during that week and a half was extremely smoky and hazardous breathing. Many people lost their homes and businesses to the fires, and there was also loss of life. Our daughter pointed out the news articles about the 13 year of son of Chris Tofte, Wyatt, who died with his dog and grandmother trying to escape the flames. Chris was Rebecca's classmate in school where she attended in Salem. Oregon forests will take years and years to recover as the fires were huge and intense, and still burning. The picture below is typical of the atmosphere during that time. This was between Salem and Portland on I-5.
We also took a trip to western Oregon in August, before all the fires. We visited family and friends in Eugene, Salem, North Bend, Medford and Cathlamet, Washington. While in Salem at friends George and Carolyn, Ben and George replaced awnings on both of our trailers, theirs and ours. That was an interesting job, prefaced by watching YouTube how-to videos!
At Ben's brother John and sister-in-law Sirkka's, we took a drive down the coast to Bandon and Port Orford. Bandon has some really neat sculptures made out of "stuff" found on the beaches. Amazingly, they turned out beautiful! Here's one example.
There are more examples posted in our 2020-09-September album. John led us on a fun hike at Port Orford with beautiful views...at least in one direction. The view to the south was fogged in! But the view to the north was gorgeous.
Next we traveled over to the Medford area to visit our friend Pat. On the way there, we happened to visit 3 or four vineyards to sample some wines, and buy a few bottles of our favorites. We stopped at three in the Roseburg area, and one near Jacksonville.
We had a lovely time visiting with Pat (and sampling some of our new wine). She took us shopping at Harry and David in Medford (evidently the only retail outlet open any more) so we could buy cheese and (more) wine and all kinds of goodies that they sell there. Then we went to Central Point to the Rogue Creamery, which sells world famous Blue Cheese. See -
https://roguecreamery.com/rogue-river-blue-2020/ I'm not a big fan of Blue Cheese, but this one is so good and creamy! This is the building where it's made and sold. Don't blink, you'll miss it!
After we got back to Salem (where George and Carolyn had graciously kept our little trouble-maker doggies and let us park our trailer), we took off again sans trailer to visit Sandy and Debi on Puget Island in the Columbia River. They have done extensive remodeling, and allowed our little doggies in. We had some more great eating, boating, and exploring. They are great hosts, but don't tell anybody...they were so busy with company this year they're probably looking forward to going back to their place in Baja for a forced vacation!
This is the slew in front of their place...the Columbia River is just right over there! You can see barges going by.
I finished my quilt for our daughter Rebecca and got it sent off.
Then we took one final camping trip with friends John and Marilyn. She had bought a used Tango trailer that is ultra light, and several years old. They had made some modifications (improvements) to it, and wanted to go on a "shakedown" trip out of the smoke. (They live in Stayton, which was in the thick of it during the fires. In fact, they were in an area that was "be ready" to evacuate). Anyhow, we looked at the smoke map and decided that Lakeview was our best bet. We spent two days with them first at Ana Reservoir (the north end of Summer Lake), because there was a wedding being held at our favorite Lakeview RV park that weekend! When we drove into the park at Ana Reservoir, we noticed a red Minnie trailer. Ben went over and knocked on the door and yes, it was our friends Gary and Debbie, escaping from the smoke in Bend! So we spent Saturday exploring with them as well. We went to Christmas Valley, Crack in the Ground, and Fort Rock! (See the
September photo album for more details).
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Fort Rock
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At the Fort Rock museum. It wasn't open (closed after Labor Day), but we still got some good pics of the buildings.
Here's a picture Marilyn took of our camp. Our trailer is on the right, theirs is on the left, and Gary and Debbie's is the red one across the road. We also spent 2 nights at the Juniper Reservoir RV park west of Lakeview and did some exploring in that area.
So, now we are again parked in brother Ken's driveway, packing up, waiting for our latest internet orders, and trying to get organized. We hope to put the trailer away for the winter on October 3, then leave here October 6. If we missed seeing you this year, we're sorry. Covid-19 managed to put kinks in many plans, and we'll pray that next year will be better.
We'd love to hear from you, and hope someday to see you at our casa in Baja!
Your soon to be traveling south amigos,
Harriet, Ben, Sam & Zoey
