The Forests of Southern Oregon

Welcome back to our story. Our last chapter concluded on Thursday, May 9^th, when we left Redding, California and moved north into Oregon for the first time in almost three years. Our first stop was the Valley of the Rogue State Park, located about halfway between Medford and Grants Pass and only 45 miles from the California border. This is a beautiful park with lots of trees and grass and very nice sites. One of the best things is they have a number of full hookup pull-through sites, including sewer and 50 amp electric, and they are available on an online reservation system. We can go in months ahead of time, pick our site and make a reservation. The only downside is that they have a no refund policy, so if your plans change you are out of luck as far as the cost.

We didn't get into our site until about 2:00 in the afternoon and it took us a while to get hooked up and set up. We had to wiggle around in the site a little bit to get satellite signal, but we finally got everything working and we just settled in for the rest of the day. It was pretty warm here, well into the upper 80's, and the heat kind of wears you out when you are working at getting set up in a campsite.  The photo is from a couple of years ago, but was taken in the space right next to where we are now.

Friday was also supposed to be a warm day, but we decided that we needed to get out and do some geocaching in the local area. We left the coach after lunch and started caching in the nearby City of Rogue River. It's really more of a small town, but I guess they use the formal title to avoid being confused with the river or the recreational area that incorporates much of the surrounding land. The town has a population of just over 2,100 and an incorporated area of less than a square mile. We got five caches right in town and then continued to cache in the surrounding countryside, ending up with 16 new finds for the afternoon, a pretty respectable total. We also didn't get any new DNFs. One of the caches we found had not been found for 14 months, which is pretty unusual. Normally, a cache that goes unfound in an active caching area like this is gone and people are just not logging their DNFs. In this case, however, it was right where it was supposed to be, and actually pretty easy to spot.

After our caching we went back to the park and stayed around the coach the rest of the evening. I sat outside for an hour or so, enjoying the great weather and the nice views around the park. It was also interesting watching people coming into the park and getting set up in the camp sites. We don't usually spend a lot of time sitting outside the coach, in most RV parks it is not especially scenic, but this park is an exception. It is very enjoyable to spend a little time outside enjoying nature.

Saturday, May 11^th, was forecast to be another hot day, at least hot for this time of year in Oregon, the upper 80's, low 90's. We again left the coach after lunch and drove south through Medford to the city of Ashland, Oregon. Ashland is only about 15 miles north of the California border and is the home of Southern Oregon University, a liberal arts college that is part of Oregon's public university system. The city has a population of just over 20,000 and was founded in 1852 during the gold rush years. It is probably best known nationally for the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which actually runs all summer long at local playhouses and the University. The University has a Shakespeare Studies curriculum as part of its arts programs.

We first “discovered” Ashland back in 2005 on our very first trip as full timers in our new motorhome. We stopped at an RV park just off the freeway, a few miles from Ashland, for a few days over the 4^th of July holiday. A couple of days prior to the 4^th we drove to Ashland to check out the Elks Lodge. The lodge is located in a big, old building right on the main street in downtown. The lodge was very friendly and the bartender told us about the big parade that they always have in Ashland on the 4^th and told us that if we wanted to come he would give us a card so we could get in the private Elks parking lot behind the building. He said otherwise we would have a hard time finding a parking place in town. We took him up on the offer and came for the parade. It was a great, old fashioned, small town parade and we really had a good time. We also enjoyed the town because downtown is still a vibrant shopping and eating area and is still the center of activity in town. Most of the buildings date back to the turn of the century, and it just a nice place to spend a few hours walking around.

Since that first time we have made it a point to visit Ashland at least once every time we come through Oregon. When we were last here in 2010 we were once again in the area over the 4^th of July holiday and again went to the Ashland parade. That one you can read about in the archive for this blog, since we were publishing our travels by that time.

Today we parked downtown and spent a couple of our walking around downtown, going into shops and just enjoying the nice environment of the town. We also walked around the Lithia Park, a very nice park downtown, and found one geocache.  The park is very pretty with a lot of colorful flowers.  After our shopping trip we stopped in at the Elks, which is still in the downtown building, and had a couple of cocktails. We also did a little gaming, since most Oregon Elks lodges have slot machines, provided and operated by the State. Jackie lost twenty, I won twenty, so it was a break even for us. Unfortunately, we won't be around the area for the parade this year.

We finally left the Ashland Elks about 4:30 and started back to the park, which is about 25 miles away. On the way we stopped at the grocery store for some supplies. After we got back to the coach we sat outside with another cocktail for about a half hour before going inside for dinner. A very fun day in a very nice area.

Sunday, May 12^th, Happy Mother's Day. Jackie never had children, so other than our “fur kids” she isn't a mother, and both of our mothers have passed away. Therefore, Mother's Day is not a big holiday for us other than remembering our mothers in the past. We headed out after lunch to take a drive to Medford. On the way to Ashland yesterday we drove through downtown Medford and noticed that they were having some kind of street fair or festival downtown. Several closed streets and lots of white tents. When I looked it up this morning I saw it was the annual Art in Bloom Festival. We like festivals, so we decided to go down and take a look.

We found parking pretty quick and began walking around the festival. It really was an art festival and the vast majority of the booths were artists selling their paintings, sculpture and other art. There were also a few jewelry booths as jewelry is often considered art as well when it is handmade. The festival covered the streets along several square blocks of downtown, so it took us an hour or so to make the rounds. We also spent time in a couple of antique shops that happened to be open.

We actually ended up buying a couple of things, including a really neat hummingbird feeder made from copper wire and an old Absolute bottle. That caught our eye because Absolute is our vodka of choice. We couldn't not get an Absolute bird feeder! Jackie also got some gourmet granulated garlic from one of the booths and 2 sets of porcelain cup cake salt and pepper shakers from one of the antique stores. She got the cup cakes as a gift for her niece, Stephanie, who collects cup cake ketch. We left the street fair after checking out all the booths and thought about visiting the Medford Elks Lodge, which was located less than a block from where the street fair was. However, the lodge was not open, so we will have to visit there later.

We left the downtown area and decided to take drive to just south of Medford on the freeway where we had seen a Lazy Boy furniture store. As we have indicated, our next stop after the Rogue River Valley is Harrisburg, Oregon where we will spend a week or two at a coach shop getting some work done. We are having our floors replaced with a wood laminate, getting rid of most of the carpeting, getting some needed repairs and taking out one of our two couches. A part of our plans is to get a nice recliner so I have somewhere to sit to watch TV. Jackie will have her couch, I will have the recliner.

We have a pretty good idea what we want, a nice recliner, comfortable, but not too big, preferably in red leather. Jackie likes red accents and we have red things all over the coach. On the way into the area we spotted the Lazy Boy shop and we know they make good stuff. We figured we would check to see if they had any good sales. We had checked out some other brands in a couple of stores over the last few weeks and knew that you could get a pretty decent leather, or leather-look, recliner for around five or six hundred.

We were met in the store by a nice saleslady named Cindy who, after hearing what we were looking for, took us to the corner where most of the recliners were. We told her about living in the motorhome full time and that space was an issue, and we went around at sat in a number of chairs. There were some nice chairs, but all the leather ones were either brown or very dark burgundy, neither of which enthused Jackie. We talked briefly about custom ordering a chair just like the Lazy Boy that Peggy and Vernon just bought, and the prices were over a thousand dollars. Way over. The one like they have, rocker, swivel, red leather, was over $1,300. Kind of out of our league. In fact, almost all of the chairs on the floor were in the $900 to $1,000 range. We were getting discouraged and were about ready to leave, but Jackie needed to use the restroom. Cindy took Jackie in tow to guide her to the ladies room and I was left to walk around the floor on my own.

Low and behold, over on the side of the store, away from the corner where most of the other recliners were, was a medium sized, red leather recliner! Real red, not burgundy or dark red. I sat in it and it was very comfortable, and it was a rocker as well. I was shocked when I looked at the price tag and found that it was on sale for $599. I was still sitting in it when Jackie came back from the restroom. She immediately got as excited as I was, especially when she saw the price. It turns out the fabric was faux leather, a mix of fabric and leather pieces, but you couldn't tell the difference in feel or look. The original price of the chair was $1,100, but it had been marked down a couple of times because it was a discontinued item. Cindy almost had a look of, “gosh, I didn't know that was here,” but she came around and gave us the sales pitch anyway. I suspect she works on commission and didn't want to show us the “cheap” chair early on.

After a few minutes of discussion Jackie and I agreed this chair would work. It was the right look, the right color, the right brand, and the right price. We asked Cindy if we could put a deposit on the chair and have them hold it for us until the remodel is done in a few weeks. She said that was not a problem as they had a big warehouse in the back of the store. We paid a deposit on the chair, took some pictures and left the store very happy. Once the remodel is done we will drive back down here with the coach, minus the big couch now, and have the store load the new one in the coach. Yea, one less thing we have to look for with regard to the remodel.

With the paperwork for our new chair in hand we left the store very happy and headed back to the coach. We relaxed for a while before putting a couple of nice big steaks on the BBQ for dinner. After dinner we watched TV and congratulated ourselves on our shopping savvy.

Monday we decided we needed a stay at home day. Both of managed to get a whole slew of little chores done, chores that we both had been putting off for a while. Mine were mostly minor repairs to the coach and minor maintenance stuff. When I have one of those five minute jobs I have a tendency to just say, it won't take long, I'll do it later when I have time. Today I put about a dozen of those five minute jobs together and made an afternoon of it. Yea! Jackie did a lot of mending, cleaning and clothes alterations too. All in all a satisfying and productive day.

Tuesday, May 14^th, we left the coach around noon and drove into Medford to run some errands. Our first stop was the Tin Tin Chinese Buffet for lunch. We had seen this place the other day when we were in Medford and when we checked the Yelp reviews we found that it was very highly rated. I was hungry for Chinese, so we decided to give it a try today. The ratings are very well deserved. From the outside it doesn't look like much, a door in a strip mall with a big marquee sign. Inside it is quite large, very tastefully decorated, and remarkably clean. One of the things about Chinese buffets is that they tend to be a little grubby inside, lots of people walking around with plates of food dropping stuff on the floor. This place was spotless and the service was great.

The food was also very tasty. Most of the entree's were chicken based, very little beef and almost no pork. The sauces were all good and the chicken dishes were real pieces of chicken, not bits and bites held together by breading. Jackie complained that the food was not quite hot enough for her, but there are limitations to the ability of a steam table to keep some dishes hot. We ate our fill and the price for lunch was only $8.95. I can really recommend this place if you find yourself in Medford, Oregon craving Chinese. It is on the north side of town, across the street from the big Fred Meyers store on Highway 62.

After lunch we did a little shopping for craft supplies. Jackie finally found some of the stuff she has been looking for in a local craft shop that was right next door to the chain store, Jo Anns. Once we were done with shopping we drove to the UPS Customer Service Center to pick up our mail. We had a pretty big box because among the things being forwarded were our replacement MiFi. You may recall that when we were in Santa Maria the battery in our old model had swollen up and Verizon couldn't provide a replacement for it. Since it was still under warranty they finally decided to just send us a newer model MiFi.

We unwrapped the various parts and drove to the nearby Verizon company store to have the folks there activate the device. I could have probably done it, but I know I would have been on the phone for an hour with customer service. As it was it took the professional at the store a half hour to finally get the changeover completed. Once we were done at the Verizon store we started back towards home, stopping along the way to pick up a few geocaches. We actually ended up with six new finds for the afternoon. We had done two in Medford while doing our errands and picked up four others, along with one DNF, on the way back to the park.

Once we got to the park we had fun opening the mail and checking out the new MiFi, which works great. Since we had such a big lunch we didn't bother with a formal dinner, just had snacks as we watched TV.

Wednesday, May 15^th, Happy Birthday to Jackie! We don't exchange gifts, but she got a nice card and a big birthday kiss. It is also Benji's birthday. Our new kitty is now a year old. I read somewhere recently that the second year of a cat's life is the equivalent of the teen years in a human. I hope he doesn't start to hate his parents, smoke, drink and stay out all night.

The morning was overcast with a slight threat of showers. It was still warm enough to wear shorts, low 70's, but just barely. I spent a little time in the morning taking down the outside attachments getting ready to travel tomorrow. We left the coach after lunch and drove to Grants Pass, about 15 miles west of the park. Originally we were going into Grants Pass to do laundry and maybe a few geocaches and some sightseeing. However, Jackie decided she wanted to visit an urgent care to check on some stomach pains that she has had, off and on, for a couple weeks now. She was getting a little concerned that the pains have not gone away. We found an urgent care that was well rated online and got Jackie checked in. She was there about two hours, but was relieved that the diagnosis was diverticulitis and an unrelated mild urinary tract infection. Diverticulitis is a fairly benign condition where little pouches or indentations develop in the intestine, usually the colon. Certain foods, especially hard things like nuts and seeds, get caught in these pouches and cause irritation, swelling and pain. Once Jackie heard the diagnosis she realized that she had been eating a lot of almonds lately and that likely caused the flareup. The treatment is basically stop eating things that irritate the condition and the inflammation will pass. She left the doctor feeling much better knowing that it was not serious. The doctor gave her a prescription for some antibiotics that would treat both the urinary infection and help with the diverticulitis.

After we got out of the urgent care we found the coin laundry we had selected from an internet search and did our laundry. By the time we finished our laundry is was about 4:00 and we still needed to stop at Walgreen's to pick up the prescription the doctor had phoned in. When we got there they had not even started to fill the script, which was kind of poor customer service. After a half hour we finally got out of Walgreen's and decided that we would stop and pick up a pizza for dinner.

Normally our favorite pizza is Round Table, and we had seen at least one in Medford, so we knew they were in Oregon. However, there was not one in Grants Pass. We settled on Abby's, which is a large chain in the Northwest and was rated pretty well online. There happened to be one in the same parking lot as the Walgreen's. We went in and ordered our pizza and were ready to head for home by about 5:00. We stopped and picked up one geocache, which was in the same parking lot, just so we would have at least one Grants Pass cache on the record. We then drove back to the coach and went in for dinner and TV until bedtime.

Thursday, May 16^th, another moving day. We packed up the coach and were on the road by about 10:00. We were headed for Harrisburg, Oregon, a small town just north of the city of Eugene, on Interstate 5. The trip was about 170 miles and we had off and on rain showers for much of the trip. The rain was not heavy, but enough to need the wipers from time to time. The truck traffic was very heavy and the trip went through a lot of low mountains with a lot of grades, so we were stuck behind slow trucks a lot. We made it to Harrisburg about 2:00 and got checked into the River Bend RV Resort. It was still raining, so we got the basics hooked up and got the inside of the coach settled.

We are here in Harrisburg for our long awaited coach remodel. Elite Coach Repair is just around the corner from the RV park and it is where we are going to have the work done. The company was recommended to us by Ray Babcock, who has had a lot of work done by them. The owners and primary technicians are three old Monaco employees who formed the company when Monaco went bankrupt a few years ago and closed most of their Oregon operations. Back in it's heyday, Monaco had headquarters in Coburg, Oregon, just down the road from Harrisburg, and had manufacturing facilities in Harrisburg, Coburg, and Junction City, all towns within a ten mile radius. The company still builds trailers at a plant in Harrisburg and has a service center in Coburg, but all the other facilities have been closed. There are several coach repair places in the area that have been opened by ex-Monaco employees since the company's problems.

After we got the coach set up we drove over to Elite to visit with Mark and Erik, two of the owners with whom we have been in contact by phone and email for the last couple months. Our service appointment is actually Monday, but we wanted to get in a few days early to get settled and to be able to pick out flooring materials before the work actually started. We had a little trouble finding the facility and actually had to call them for directions. It is only a half mile from the park, but it is tucked away behind some buildings and you can't see it from the road.

We were able to talk to Erik, Mark was not around. They didn't seem to be too busy, but they said they were. We got the information on where in Eugene to go to look at flooring and carpet and talked a little about Monday. It seems that Monday will probably be mostly inspection of the coach and clarifying what work we want done. We still need to work out the details. We really don't know how long we will be here, how many days we may not be able to stay in the coach, and how much of what we want done can be done with the amount of money we have to spend. I don't like all this uncertainty, but I guess a little bit can't be helped at this point. After our conversation with Erik we went back to the coach and just relaxed the rest of the night.

Although it has only been a week, I think this is a good place to close this chapter so I can concentrate on the remodel work in the next episode. This should be interesting. Until next time, remember that it's important to never do anything that you wouldn't want to have to explain to the paramedics. See ya next time.