Grants Pass – Page 3 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

50 years gone, let’s celebrate at the coast

Currently in Rocky Point, Oregon mostly cloudy, breezy, and 57 degrees F, with a chance of thunderstorms with snow? predicted for tonight.

So very glad that this forecast wasn’t around last week when we were on the Oregon coast, enjoying gorgeous sunny skies and nary a bit of fog. When we planned this trip last spring, our comment to our California friends was all about how gorgeous, warm, and fog free the coast usually is in early fall. We had no clue that a huge storm would blow through just a few days before our arrival, or that the predictions for continued rain and wind would be all wrong.

Long time blog readers have heard me mention Maryruth often, my lifetime friend. This month we are celebrating 50 years of friendship. It isn’t often that friends can stay close, much less even in touch with each other after so many years. Especially since we didn’t grow up together, or go to school together. Maryruth and I met over the neighborhood fence in 1963, both of us young mothers with babies. Even though life circumstances took us thousands of miles apart many times, we never lost each other. The friendship cemented in those early days has stood the test of time.

Congratulations to US!

Maryruth and her husband Gerald don’t have an RV, and haven’t been tent camping in some time either, so a yurt at an Oregon State Park was the perfect solution. Especially the great yurt at space C2 in Harris Beach State Park. The site is huge and just a step back from the front ocean view sites, but also boasts a very long, paved RV pad with electricity, water, and cable TV. The yurt also has electric, with a nice heater that came in handy on the cool coastal evenings. Good thing we had reservations, since the fall is high season for yurt camping on the Oregon coast.

Our friends drove from California to spend the night with us in Rocky Point before we caravanned over to the coast on a cool, cloudy afternoon. Of course, we had to stop on the way in at the Chetco Seafood Company for the best fish and chips ever. (Just proves that you can’t always tell how good something might be by the reviews).

Since they were driving their car and we didn’t have ours, we thought it might be a good idea to stop for supper with the MoHo so that Abby could wait ‘patiently’ while we ate rather than leaving her in the park. The restaurant has a big parking lot adjacent to the harbor where she can bark away and won’t bother anyone. Not such a great idea in a campground.

By the time we settled into our comfy site the clouds were lifting and the skies promised good weather for the next few days instead of the gloomy forecast on weatherunderground. Of course, as anyone knows, forecasting the weather on the Oregon coast is not an easy thing to do.

On our second day at the park, we decided to just lay low and enjoy the beach walks, the trails, and sitting in the campsite reading and visiting. We had a campfire every single night thanks to Mo packing up firewood in big bins that just barely fit inside the MoHo, but it was enough. Tuesday evening we finally made it to O’Holleran’s Steak House, an old Brookings institution. We had heard good things about their food and thought as many times as we have been to Brookings, we should at least say we had tried it out.

Dinner was ‘nice’, with the $31. price of the New York Steak special quite high for the ambience of the place. One of the nicest amenities was a note on the menu that said if you want to share a meal, there would be an extra $3.50 charge, which would include an extra plate, an extra potato, and bread, and vegetable. There was still only one salad for this price, but Mo and I shared our dinner and had more than enough salad, and since we can never eat a full restaurant meal, the sharing option was really nice. Maryruth and Gerald shared their New York Steak with Blue Cheese special as well. What a great idea.

The food was decent, the steak was good, but the restaurant itself doesn’t have the atmosphere that I associate with that kind of price. Although I must say that the service was impeccable. Glad we did it, won’t have to do it again.

That morning, as we walked around the park, I passed a great big 40 footer parked up on the front row. Something looked very familiar to me, and I told Mo that I was sure I must know whoever was in that rig. I kept looking and then thought…hmmmm….it is an Endeavor, now who do I know with an Endeavor?! But wait….I thought Nina and Paul were off to the east side of the Sierras on 395 already? Nope…I checked their website and lo and behold they were in Brookings.

After a few years adjusting to this blogging thing, I have learned that it isn’t exactly cool to just bop up to someone’s rig and bang on the door, so I sent Nina a note inviting her over to our fire. Within minutes she showed up with sweet Polly and we chatted up a storm. Of course, Nina and I couldn’t stay off blogging and traveling subjects and Maryruth and Gerald thought the conversation wasn’t all that exciting! Ha! Guess it is like the old days when I would have soil scientist friends to dinner and the spouses would roll their eyes at all the work talk.

Nina wanted to know about all the exciting things to do in Brookings since we come here so often. I looked at Mo, and couldn’t think of a thing. Geez. We love it here, but most of the time that is because we can do nothing. I wasn’t much good at local recommendations. When Nina asked what to do I said, “Go to Bandon?” Harris Beach is fabulous for just hanging in the campsite, relaxing, walking the beach and the trails and enjoying down time until the sunset shows up.

I followed my own advice and on Wednesday Maryruth and Gerald and I took their car up to Bandon to explore all the wonders of that sweet little town that, unlike Brookings, actually DOES have a cute downtown old town area. Mo thought it was nice to stay home with Abby since she has been to Bandon many times.

It was a perfect day for coastal driving, with gorgeous sunny skies and warm temperatures. Mo suggested that we stop in Port Orford and check out the boat lift, thinking Gerald might get a kick out of it. As many times as we have driven that part of the coast, I had never stopped at the lovely Visitor Center or been down to the docks to see the famous lift, one of only six in the world and only two in the US.

As luck would have it, there was a fishing boat coming into the dock while we were there, and we got to see the famous lift in action. We watched in fascination as the fishing boat was lifted up by a hook and just four ropes and dropped down easily on a big old wooden trailer.

There is much more to do in tiny Port Orford than I realized and I added the Lifeboat Station Museum to the list of future todo’s, in addition to going to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, but on this day Bandon was waiting.

Our first stop in Bandon was Tony’s Crab Shack where I had fresh grilled halibut with cilantro lime, Maryruth had fresh steamed clams, and Gerald had a rock cod sandwich. So fresh, so good! YUM.

Back another block from the waterfront we found the Coastal Mist chocolate shop. As we walked through the door the rich, warm aroma of really good chocolate welcomed us into this beautiful little store full of the most amazing chocolate ever. Trained in Belgium, the owners are chocolate makers par excellence! I had never tasted “sipping chocolate”, and believe you me, it is nothing whatsoever like your everyday cup of hot chocolate. It was beyond incredible, and so rich and so decadent. Of course I came away with a little bag of solid gold/er chocolate truffles and a big chunk of pure Belgian chocolate.

After browsing a gorgeous gallery that almost tempted Maryruth to spend a half year’s salary on a clock, we ambled off to the new Face Rock Creamery, built to replace the old Bandon Creamery that had such a great Bandon history. Sold to the Tillamook Cheese company, the owners lost their rights to the Bandon Cheese name. Bandon Cheese is now made under contract by Tillamook Cheese somewhere in Wisconsin. Check out this website. Sheesh. We still like Bandon Cheese that we can buy at Fred Meyer, but it isn’t really Bandon Cheese.

Face Rock Cheese is wonderful, and the owner is the original Bandon cheesemaker’s son. I asked if there was any cheese that tasted like the old Bandon cheddar and the cashier laughed and said, “No, not yet, We haven’t been open long enough! Just leave it in the fridge for a few months and you’ll have it”.

Hoping for an ice cream dessert so touted by so many visitors, we decided instead that the money was better spent on cheese goodies. The ice cream is great, but it isn’t made by Face Rock, and we can get Umpqua ice cream any time.

Home after a great day, we cooked up a good supper of spaghetti and salad, eating one more time at the big picnic table with another roaring campfire. I think it was a perfect way to celebrate our “anniversary”.

On Thursday we had a leisurely departure from the park, driving through the brilliant light and dark shadows along the Smith River, past Jedediah Smith State Park, and home to the cottage in Grants Pass. The celebration wasn’t yet over. Maryruth and Gerald decided to stay in town for a couple of days to check out the area, see the cottage, visit with Deb (who is almost like a niece to Maryruth) and share some more great meals with us before they went back to California.

Grants Pass has a great downtown area, with historic buildings, some nice art installations, and several annual festivals. Saturday and Sunday was the annual “Art Along the Rogue” festival, a celebration of street art. I guess that street artists are a genre of their own, and I only saw them some time ago when visiting downtown Pasadena. I loved having such a cosmopolitan event right there in our second adopted home town. Both main streets were shut down to traffic so the artists could create these amazing images with chalk on asphalt. Ephemeral, beautiful, like a sand castle, they are created, we enjoy them, and they then disappear. I actually do wonder just how long they last after the traffic opens again.

Maryruth and Gerald left for home, and Deb, Mo and I wandered the town, discovering the fabulous Saturday market where I bought more goodies than I really wanted to carry. We then met up with our neighbors, Wes and Gayle who were also at the market, and wanted to come and see the cottage before they leave for their winter home in Arizona this week. We then ran into a bunch of folks from Rocky Point who were visiting the festival as well. So much social stuff! Geez, for someone who isn’t very social, this was a LOT of interaction. 10-05-2013 Art on the Rogue

When we got back to Rocky Point on Sunday afternoon, I was so very very glad to be home where I didn’t have to talk any more. Except for one little surprise. My sister Sal, who was a medical transcriptionist, lost her job to changing technology, and instead of sitting around moaning, decided to go to truck driving school and become a truck driver. I hadn’t seen her since Easter, and she was in Klamath Falls for just a quick turn around before getting back out on the road.

My baby sister, at 63 years young, is now a big rig driver! Sheesh! the girl has guts, always has. She is trying to get her tractor fixed up a bit with some girly stuff, and asked me to make a quilt for her that had LOTS OF COLOR!. So I did. I was glad to have the top finished at least to show her when I drove into town for our quickie visit.

So now, finally, it is Tuesday, and I really don’t have to talk any more. Once I hit the PUBLISH button for this blog, I don’t even have to write any more. I don’t have to do a dang thing! At least not today. Tomorrow it might be time to pull out the Halloween decorations, trim back the summer foliage for winter, wander around taking photos of the fall colors, and maybe catch up on the Homeland DVD’s that showed up in the mail yesterday.

Oregon Fires

Photo Credits to the Douglas Forest Protective Association from their (Facebook Page Link )

Time for a little bit of update now that we are back home in Rocky Point. We planned a few days in Grants Pass, and as luck would have it, we arrived the morning after more than 3,000 lightning strikes from a summer storm ignited at least 54 fires on private and BLM lands in Southern Oregon. Living in the west as we do, keeping track of the fire situation is part of the routine, and we aren’t surprised to see smoke rising from one direction or another. Some years are worse than others. The year I moved to Klamath Falls in 2002, the Biscuit Fire burned more than 500,000 acres in the Siskiyou National Forest and the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Much controversy continues to this day about whether or not to allow salvage logging in these wild areas.
Several times in the last few years we have cancelled an August camping trip to one place or another due to smoke, and some of you may remember our travels last summer in the upper West that were marred by smoke from huge fires in Idaho and Montana. There are many good resources to help keep track of fires and smoke, the best of which is found at the Incident Information website, http://www.inciweb.org. This year, however, it was several days before the webmasters of this amazing site were able to keep up to date with all the rapidly changing information for the Douglas Complex fires. Another very helpful website related to fire and smoke is on Weather Underground, where the WunderMap for an area has a layer for active fires that shows the current fire situation and the extent of smoke cover.
Actually, by the time we reached the pass last Saturday morning we didn’t need a website to know that smoke was probably going to be an issue for the entire time we planned to work at the cottage. Once these fires start, it takes some serious weather to calm them down, and our rains don’t usually show up until October. In the mean time, we get thunderstorms, with or without dry lightning, and very little real moisture. Sometimes a marine system will come in and cause a shift and the smoke clears a bit, but it is usually around one way or another after a fire like this gets under way.
Our main goal for the trip was to make sure we got the wood split from the trees we took down last month before it got too dry. Mo loaded up the splitter in the big trailer and hooked it up to the truck for the trip. We took the MoHo since daughter Deb is now living in the little cottage (one bedroom only) and we didn’t want to completely invade her space.
It turned out to be an incredibly productive trip, in spite of the heavy smoke. We got all the wood split, with close to a cord of oak and about 3/4 cord of madrone, probably the best firewood around in Oregon. The big rounds were heavy, but with the three of us working, (Mo does the splitting part) we managed to get it all done on the first day we were there. We have a good ten cords stored here at home already, so plan to let the hardwood dry at the cottage before bringing it back here in a year or so. We heat with wood in Rocky Point, but the cottage has a gas heater that works just fine. No fireplace.
We had a great time with Deb, and she had a chance to show her strength and skill at demolition, tearing out a lot of the old wood and shelves and yukky “stuff” that was in the old bunkhouse. We will eventually tear down the bunkhouse add-ons, but the main part of the building will be saved for Mo’s workshop. Mo worked a lot on the sink plumbing again, and on building the wall and new cupboard that separates the bath and kitchen. Finally we don’t have to hang a quilt for bathroom privacy! Of course, her projects are not made any easier by the fact that nothing is even close to plumb in the little cottage and the reclaimed wood she is using is rarely square. Lots of measuring and sawing involved.
Deb and I managed to get a full load of metal for the recyclers and made almost enough money to pay for the full load that we took to the dump the next morning. I have no idea how many dump loads we have hauled out of that place, but sooner or later we will get it all cleaned up. In the midst of all the work, we cooked some good meals and enjoyed sitting at the table in the old fashioned kitchen in front of the windows. Deb and I took time to play some rousing games of Hand and Foot, my favorite! I taught her how, but she is fast catching up to me. Dang!
We also took an evening to go see “The Lone Ranger”. Mo didn’t want to go, so we had a mom and daughter night with popcorn and one of the most entertaining movie experiences I have had in a long time. There were some great sight gags, gorgeous photography of very familiar places I have traveled, including the exact spot where I built a campfire in Valley of the Gods back in 2004. We both love Johnny Depp and his performance was great. I am really glad that I didn’t let some of the negative things I have heard about the movie keep me from at least giving it a try.
We came home to Rocky Point to discover smoky skies on this side of the Cascade crest as well, and our first night back included another big thunderstorm that ignited a few more fires on this side of the mountain. One bolt hit right on top of us, and I had an especially good view of it through the skylights! Do you suppose that lightning could come in through those roof windows??
We live in the forest. Fire happens here. It could happen to us. This part of Rocky Point hasn’t burned in more than 100 years. I hope I don’t ever have to live through what so many have endured in the last few years. I read about Nan trying to help her daughter save her cabin near Idyllwild, and Gaelyn returning home to her lot in Arizona with sadness. But for the grace of God, we could be there as well. I am thankful every single day.

April and Time to Get on the ROAD!

I know that life is either very good or very bad when I don’t have time to write. This time it is very good. Thank goodness. It was the same way when I kept all those handwritten journals so many years. When things were good there are very few entries, when things were bad there are pages and pages of them. If my daughters ever find my journals after my death they would think I lived a horrible life if they didn’t know otherwise. That seems kind of sad to me in a way, but I suppose journaling is a form of self therapy and when things are good who needs therapy!
More than a month has passed since I last wrote in this particular journal, but the one that is now getting filled up is the Google Calendar, with what the weather was doing, where we were, and all those dang dentist and doctor appointments. I guess that is what life can be reduced to sometimes. I love going back to the blog to remember what we were doing, however, it is a lot more fun that looking appointments on a calendar, and I don’t want April to be a giant black hole.
The calendar looks really good today, with reminders of what to do next. “Pack for trip” “Send in last timesheet” and other such exciting little things. I have worked in town all week, so Mo has been taking care of home stuff, including setting up the complex sprinkler system and washing the cars. We finally have spring weather here in Rocky Point and the grass might need some watering while we are off wandering around the desert. Friends are back to house sit, but they don’t have a clue how to work with Mo’s intricate battery timed watering system, so by the time we leave it will be all automated and running and hopefully no hard freeze will mess it all up again. You never know in this part of the world.
Easter was so dang early this year that I barely had time to put up decorations before it was over, so I decided that April was Easter month and the decorations only came down a couple of days ago. Now all is quiet until Halloween and the only yard decorations will be whatever happens to be blooming. We had a simple Easter dinner and egg hunt here in Rocky Point, and then Mo and I spent a lot of time over in Grants Pass taking care of cottage chores. I even managed a bit of quilting here and there in between trips and chores and work and appointments.
I think I raked a total of twelve full days to get all those oak leaves up and burned. We tore out the old wall between the kitchen and the bathroom and Mo got a new one framed and drywalled, and it is ready for taping. The roof no longer leaks, the kitchen floor is now dry with no hidden wet surprises appearing, and the little cottage feels nice and cozy. We like staying there, especially this time of year. More than once this past month we left spitting snow and icy roads to drive over to Grants Pass and green grass and blooming spring flowers. Ahhhhh. Spring is one of my favorite times, so it is a kick to have spring extended this way as we drive back and forth between home and the cottage. Daffodils over there have been gone for three weeks and they are just now coming into full bloom here at home.
This last week was our annual progress office review and I delighted in the role as a worker bee rather than the supervisor. No stress! I love that part of working as a retiree part time. I am no longer in charge. Another ahhh.
After a couple of trips to the cottage and a lot of work around home, we are both ready to make use of that great motorhome that is sitting over there waiting for us. This time the decision is to head back down 395, the back side of the Sierras, the eastern slope of California. Our destination: Death Valley. We haven’t been there since 2004, although several times in our travels we have passed by it on both sides. This time we will just explore the valley. Our route home up 395 will bring the MoHo back to Rocky Point and her home berth, ready and waiting for summer camping trips. No more snow to worry about.
On the way south we have a couple of fun stops as we amble toward 395. It is that blog friend thing that I treasure, we will visit old and new blog friends in Placerville and Nevada City. More to come on that after I get photos and permission to post them! Then it is over the mountain and into the desert. Abby will be with us, but this time I decided to let our 17 year old kitty Jeremy spend the time at his cozy little home at the vet’s. I’ll miss him, but desert heat can be daunting, and if we take Abby in the Tracker with air conditioning, it is worrisome to leave Jeremy in the rig, especially if we don’t get a spot with hookups. Our route can have weather running the gamut of freezing nights to days over triple digits.
Furnace Creek now has 21 sites with full hookups, but we can’t reserve any because the season officially ends on May 1, our arrival date, so we are taking our chances. Worst case scenario can be that we will have to return to higher ground and lower temps. Either way, it will be great. We are planning a loose trip with options open to whatever fits and whatever works. Just a trip with some time in the desert! It is one of the reasons Mo and I like where we live. We have ocean coast within a short drive, and desert just the other side of Klamath on the Nevada side. The other delight for me will be heading east from the I-5 over the Sierras and not having to slog our way south through the San Joaquin Valley as we do every winter on our way to Desert Hot Springs. ahhhh.
On another note…reading blogs seems to be slipping away from my list of priorities. Of course there are still a few that really matter to me a lot, and so I wade through the long list to check on those few, how many of you do that as well? There are some writers that make me laugh out loud and I look forward to that. Others who have photos that take my breath away and I am always waiting to see what is next. Others I have come to care about, for whatever reason, and I want to know they are ok, or where they are, or what is happening for them.
I am not going to list them here, or link to them because somehow that just doesn’t seem fair. Each writer spends time and energy putting themselves out here for whatever reason and that should be respected, I think. But as I do this, and read so many blogs of “stuff”, I totally recognize that my blog is also full of “stuff” that is only relevant to me, and trying to write for anyone but myself is a waste of time. Someone is looking at my header on google reader or feedly and cruising right by whatever I have to say.
Some have the skill to write daily in ways that I don’t want to miss, but whether I have the skill or not, I certainly don’t have the desire. I have no need or desire to put up ads, so what do I need to worry about readership for anyway? It is so easy to get sucked in by the stats, who is reading, where are they from, what do they look at. I HATE that, I hate it that I still look at the stats and that I think, “Gee, I should post something so people keep reading”. Dumb, just dumb! I should post something just because I want to know what I did in April of 2013. We all talk about this now and then, I know. I see little blurbs of people saying they aren’t reading as much, and more blurbs of apologies about why they haven’t written. I catch myself thinking that way as well, that I should say why I haven’t written, but nobody really cares, do they?? If they are friends, they know why I haven’t written, and we have probably been emailing all along. If they aren’t friends, they don’t care why I haven’t written!
Ah well, enough of my little rant here….it is time to pack! Here is a little photo of us back in 2004, the first time we visited Death Valley together, pre-blog of course.

Free House With Purchase

And you believe that? Nothing is really free, of course, even if it seems it might be. We only paid what the acre would have been worth even without the house on it in order to build the MoHo shed, so technically the cottage was free. Until we decided that maybe putting a roof on it might be a good idea since it was leaking. We really didn’t plan to stay in the house at all when we bought it, but somehow it just seems to work out that it is fun, kind of like camping with water and heat, and the funky little cottage has something about it that feels really good. Maybe it is the light. Maybe it is the fact that it was built in 1926, and even though small and funky, there are big strong beautiful fir beams in the ceiling that haven’t warped in nearly 90 years.
But a free house definitely must have some “issues”, and of course we found them. The kitchen wall had some mold in it where the roof had leaked. We replaced the roof and decided it was time to take out the moldy kitchen wall. Uhoh. Mo took a sledge hammer to the wall (aka HGTV style) and what should come pouring out but ants! yup, ants. Bazillions of ants. I think the entire ant population of Grants Pass was living in that wall. Needless to say, a simple job of just starting on the wall turned into a must do project of getting it out of there. In the process, we found that what was a kitchen wall had once been an exterior wall, complete with cedar shingles, even an old window, all covered up by several layers of varying wall types. Needless to say, it was a mess.
We had spent the previous two days at the cottage burning some huge debris piles left over from the previous shed and roofing projects. Burn days in Grants Pass are rare, and involve calling at 6am to see if it is indeed a burn day. We haven’t had much luck lately so on Friday morning when the phone call gave us a resounding yes, we jumped into the pickup and made it to the cottage in less than 2 hours from waking up. We had two gorgeous burn days in a row before the inversion set in once again and no more burning was allowed. I raked and hauled leaves for two days straight while Mo managed the burn pile. There is a price to pay for those gorgeous huge oaks, and I never had a chance to get it all finished last fall. We don’t actually LIVE here, remember?! We were a bit worn out, and on Sunday morning Mo said, “Let’s just enjoy a nice easy day relaxing here before we head home”. Great idea. But that was before the ant wall was discovered.
Late on Sunday afternoon we celebrated with another great Abby’s pizza before we headed back over the mountain to our snowy home with the ice covered road up to the house. There is something about being able to leave, to actually get out of the funky cottage and back to our beautiful beautiful well water and warm wood stove and roomy bathrooms and all the goodies of living in a “real” house that make it all fun instead of depressing. The woman who lived in the cottage before us raised many sons there in the 60’s. We still can’t figure out where everyone slept, unless she sent the boys outside to the even funkier bunkhouse. Who knows. People did live differently then I guess. I know I did.
The cottage has a well, but the water has some salts in it, and it only gives about 2.5 gallons a minute. We had a long hose from the well house to the fire and after running it for about 20 minutes, we suddenly had no more water. Uhoh again. Neither of us has a clue how to prime a well pump, so had to go to the internet to discover that we probably had a submersible pump that didn’t need priming anyway. Just turn it off and wait two hours and see if it recovers.
We went inside, and waited, then back out to start up the water and uhoh again, no water at all. As Mo was walking back to the pump house, she discovered what we had missed earlier…a kink in the hose…can you believe that?!?! We never really ran the well dry at all. It was such a relief that we were all excited again about having 2.5 gallons a minute after all. We do bring drinking water from home, though, and there is no way we will put that salty water in our MoHo tanks. Guess we can’t ever really ‘move’ over to the cottage even when we get too old to shovel snow and haul wood at home in Rocky Point.
Ah well, we are home again, and I am working this week, but next week we will go back to the cottage. Only this time it will be what it was supposed to be, just a little stopover place for us to relax a bit before we load up the MoHo and head for the beach. Brookings here we come! Rain or shine. Rumor has it there might be at least a couple of days of sunshine at the ocean and we are going to make sure we find it.

Escape

Lodi, California; 7PM; clear and 60 degrees F
The snow started way back in early December, gave us a beautiful white Christmas, and didn’t let up. When it did finally stop, the temperatures plummeted to morning lows near zero for days in a row and clear sunny skies that warmed up to all of 12 degrees. It has been great fun. Mo and I did a lot of shoveling and plowing, managed to move almost 6 cords of free wood that we inherited from a neighbor, and kept the fires burning and the house cozy and warm.
I love winter. For awhile. I have had some knitting and quilting time, and truly enjoyed the ability to telecommute for work when the roads were icy and treacherous. I finished the queen sized quilt I have been working on for a few months and took it to the quilter. I almost finished a soft luscious shawl for Melody, just waiting for the hand dyed silk to arrive for the fringe. I almost finished a baby quilt that I will deliver next month to a beloved friend about to have a little boy.
But enough is enough! Every night when we go to the hot tub, the bare feet freeze on the porch and the entire ten feet of distance from the back door until we are in the hot water is a challenge. No matter how beautiful the pristine cold snow looks outside my window, and no matter how warm and cozy we are with our wood stove, I am tired of it. I am ready to be somewhere warm. I am a bit tired of the thick fence of icicles between me and the view out the bedroom window.
Yesterday we loaded up the dog and the cat and and supplies for our escape and drove the two hours over the mountain to the cottage and the waiting MoHo. Instead of temperatures in the teens with clear skies, we drove into temperatures in the 30’s with icy fog shrouding everything. It is one of the famous temperature inversions that make the cold winter fogs of the Rogue Valley legendary. At the cottage, there wasn’t a speck of snow on the ground, but that icy fog is COLD! Mo said, “Are you complaining about the weather here too?”. Well, yeah, I guess I am. I am envisioning warm sunshine, not icy roads and steely gray skies.
We had most of the afternoon at the cottage to fiddle around a bit, and Mo decided to tackle the moldy cupboard wall that she wanted out of the kitchen. It kind of reminded me of those shows on HGTV where they take a sledge hammer to the walls. It is sort of fun tearing a house apart. While we were demolishing the kitchen wall, the roofer was outside tearing off the 4 different layers of roofing down to the rafters. The cottage was built in 1926, and wasn’t a high end build even then, but underneath all that stuff, we found what looks to be solid, beautiful redwood beams. Kinda nice.
We enjoyed a simple supper, a game of cards, and some evening reading before turning down the heat for the night. Saturday morning would come soon enough.
This morning, the icy fog was still thick as we hooked up the MoHo and headed south of the Five. First, however, we decided to stop for a good breakfast at Elmer’s, close to the interstate onramp. It is the second time we have had breakfast there and it wasn’t a fluke. The restaurant is wonderful, with really great food. Again we split a breakfast of potato pancakes with applesauce, bacon and green onions, applewood bacon and great coffee. We were on the road by 9:30 with an estimated time of arrival at Flag City in Lodi around 4:30. I think we pulled in here at about 4:15.
The drive was lovely. Traffic was light, the I-5 surface has been redone since our last trip south, and once we were out of the Rogue Valley, the temperature inversions were behind us. By the time we got to Redding it was 65 gorgeous, sunny, luscious degrees. As we rolled down the road, both of us realized that the destination is almost irrelevant, it is just that desire to get rolling that makes it what it is. The Journey, not so much the Destination. Although I think the destination is nice, and we are looking forward to it, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to just fly south. It is the road. I may have said this before, but the realization always seems to come to me anew when we get back on the road. I love the movement, the changing scenery, the companionable silence of rolling down the road.
We covered an easy 375 miles today, rolling right through downtown Sacramento without a hitch. We took a chance without a reservation for Flag City, and when we arrived, in spite of a big group being here, there was a nice, level pull through waiting for us for $27. (half price) with our Passport America card. Tomorrow another day on the road, an easy 250 miles or so before we pull into the Orange Grove RV Park near Bakersfield. I am looking forward to those sweet oranges everyone keeps talking about. I really hope the cold snap hasn’t wiped them out!