Chasing the 70’s

We last left you in Yuma nearly three months ago! Here we are, winter over and we're on our way back north. That isn't to say we didn't run into some winter though!

One of our goals this season was to check out a park we have never been to yet have signed up for hosting. Goose Lake state park is located in the south east of Oregon along the border with California (the road into the park from the highway is the borderline). I mention this because in order to pay a visit to the park we needed to divert from our normal northbound route a bit which in turn, took us right into the teeth of a winter storm. Taking 395 out of Fernley Nevada we made the run into the leading edges of the forecasted cold front towards the small town of Alturas, California. Rain, slush and some not so friendly side winds beat us up pretty bad so instead of going to Goose Lake and then onward to Klamath Falls Oregon, we stopped at Sully's RV Park in Alturas for a much needed break. I'm really glad we did as that night the front went through with a vengeance – more rain, sleet, and wind gusts over 45mph slammed into our rig causing a sleepless catnap sort of rest that really isn't a rest.

Come morning we had, according to the map, an easy 4 hour drive up to our destination, Sutherlin Oregon and the Escapee park for a weekend of downtime with visits to our favorite local restaurant, Fusion. Blatant plug: if you are EVER within even 25 miles of this place you simply have to check them out. This very small cafe located on the main street of Sutherlin is a definite keeper. What's the phrase? Oh yes, nirvana!

Okay, back to the trip. Uneventful all the way to Klamath Falls. Changing over to highway 140 we had bare and wet roads and to my shame, I grew complacent and mentioned how nice the roads were. Oops. Within a span of just 5 miles we went from high overcast skies, and as I mentioned a really nice road to a snow covered mess, lowering clouds, and the promise of a lot more snow to come. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, no place to safely pull over. Wouldn't have mattered anyway, we weren't carrying chains.

We learned a few things on this trip. Number 1: NEVER, nope, not EVER travel into a snow storm again. Not even if we have chains (we won't, too much temptation to use them). There is always plenty of time to take our time. Number 2: There is really no good reason to press on in high side winds – period. Why take a beating if you don't have to. Lastly: we have a motorhome. That means we can pull over, heat up some water, make lunch, watch a movie, take a shower, do laundry – virtually ANYTHING other than risk our safety or make a trip less enjoyable. (This last one will require numerous applications of a 2X4 to the side of my head to ensure I learn it.)

Our nearly four months this winter season consisted of visiting museums, arts and crafts shows, small quirky towns, and trying to enjoy what was a cooler than previous winter's weather. I believe, unlike last year, we experienced at least 4 nights where it froze or frosted up pretty good. Didn't matter too much as each day was topping out at 70 degrees or more with tons of sunshine to sit and enjoy.

The title of this blog is chasing the 70's. We really didn't have to do much chasing, just kicked back testing lawn chairs and let the 70's catch up to us.

We're currently two days out from our first hosting gig of 2018 – Lincoln Rock State Park. The rest of 2018 has also firmed up so here's the CnD Travels hosting schedule for the summer season:

April/May: Lincoln Rock State Park, East Wenatchee, WA
June: Goose Lake State Park, New Pine Creek, OR
July: Collier Memorial State Park, Chiloquin, OR
August: travel and goof off month. You could run into us in UT, SD, MT, ID, WA, and OR. Perhaps even CO.
September: Wallowa Lake State Park, Joseph, OR
Oct/Nov: Sunset Bay State Park, Coos Bay, OR

Until next time – and I can assure you the time gap between blogs will be MUCH shorter. Shoot, new campers seem to guarantee it.

Bridges of Lane County

We're closing out week 2 of our visit to the service center and hopefully will be on the road this morning. Stopping here has been one of the best decisions we could have made with the level sites including power and water and an extremely competent, highly trained staff to help and take care of our new home. They have corrected all of the problems we noticed and even more so, some that they knew could be potential problems down the road. To top it off, they were just plain fun to work with.

This has not been all just sitting around waiting for the coach to be worked on either. We had one period of down time last weekend when parts were enroute and the staff was off. In our case it was a trip back to the coast to enjoy the cooler sea breezes and of course the awesome fresh seafood.

To break up the walks on the beach and tours of the town we decided to head a short ways inland to explore some of Oregon's 80 year old covered bridges. Just getting to them was an adventure; driving through narrow country lanes shrouded in trees, passing small farms and cottages that were surely dating back to the late 1800's. The weather in Oregon encourages fast vegetation growth and before you know it can cover a stationary object in green.

The vegetation attracts wildlife like this velvet covered little buck who owned the road. In Lane county where we're staying there are 20 covered bridges and we were fortunate to be able to visit 3 in less than 20 miles.

Our first was Deadwood Creek which was built on a bit of a curving road so the roadbed is slanted for traffic safety. Quite an accomplishment considering the whole thing is wood. Beams of old growth timber squared to 14 inches by 14 inches and running the full length of the bridge, well over 60 feet worth. Looking carefully you can see the squaring cuts that were all done by hand. Simply amazing.

The second bridge was the Nelson Mountain or Lake Creek bridge built in 1928. The beams were just a little smaller 12” by 12” and 79 feet long. Mortise and tenon joints that were still solid and tight speak highly of the skills of the folks who built this bridge.

11 miles on some old logging roads took us over Nelson Mountain to the third bridge, the last of our tour and unfortunately the saddest. Located at the turn-off to Whittaker Creek park is the Wild Cat bridge crossing Wildcat creek.

This was the oldest we visited having been built in 1925 and the construction was of the same quality and grand scale as the other two. The sad part however was since this bridge is close to a popular “partying park” it has provided some inconsiderate idiots a canvas to display their ignorance of exactly what they are defacing.

As I mentioned, we will probably be on the road later today to Bend, Oregon to visit the Thousand Trails Sunriver campgound. This is a little ways north of Crater Lake which we visited last year so this year we'll explore the places we missed and perhaps brave the south rim of the crater.

Or we'll sleep. The agenda is open.