Relocating Northward

August 16, 2019

We planned for a shorter drive today of about 150 miles. Our hope was to contact an old friend that had relocated to the Eugene Oregon area. I called his phone number but the lady who answered didn’t know him nor his wife. I cross checked the number with other information and I did have the number listed. Too bad, we would have really liked to visit with him and his wife. Hadn’t seen him for 5 years.

We are getting pretty s……t full of the wildfire smoke. It had been lying in the Truckee meadows for a month and now that we have started our journey the smoke has followed us. It’s thick, yellow brown yuck which is thick enough to hide the hills around Valley of the Rogue State Park. We depart and head north on I-5.

We travel past Rogue River, Grants Pass, Wolf Creek and a bunch of other small communities that the interstate has bypassed. We go over a couple of passes. Although the climb is rather steep and lengthy neither pass is over 2000 feet in elevation. The pine forest becomes more lush as we climb in elevation. The road takes us through steep sided rocky canyons.

Our first stop is the appropriately named community of Canyonville. The town is historically significant as the 3rd oldest town in Oregon. It’s location between mountain passes was an ideal layover location for pioneers traveling the difficult Applegate Trail. More recently it was nothing more than a wide spot in the road with an oddly located and out of place multistory seniors housing community prominently placed next to Interstate 5.

And then a casino was built somewhat recently- the Seven Feathers Casino Resort. In 1992 the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians opened the Cow Creek Bingo Hall which in now the Seven Feathers Casino Resort. Then the lovely Seven Feathers RV Resort was built on the other side of the interstate, and then the Seven Feathers Travel Stop. Today the travel stop features a large auto fueling station, a 6 bay big rig fueling station with associated huge big rig parking area, a market and food for the famished. This little town of 1900 folks have a good thing going for it!

So we have a rig with a 100 gallon fuel tank. I’ve fueled the rig a few times but never topped it off. The fuel gauge shows between 1/2 and 3/4 of the 100 gallon tank. We decide that the Travel Stop is a good place to fuel up- plenty of room for our rig in the big rig fueling area. The pumps will only take company credit cards so I go inside. The attendant asks how much I wanted to debit on my card. I figured with the price of fuel and less than a half tank I’d get change from a $200 bill. Wrongo cowboy! I put 59.999 gallons of fuel out of in the beast and didn’t top it off. My $200 bill fits entirely into that fuel tank! Gads, I wonder how inaccurate the fuel gauge must be? Well, the fuel gauge needle goes about a 1/4 of a tank past the “F” mark. I really don’t want to find out where on the gauge that needle will be pointing when we run out of fuel………. There is a way to figure a 1/4 tank of fuel. The generator uses the same fuel source as the main engine but cannot access that fuel with the tank less than a quarter filled. So somewhere between a 1/2 and a 1/4 I will attempt to run the generator. When it refuses to run I will know that I have 1/4 tank of fuel or less. Or….. I could take the rig into a shop and have the fuel gauge calibrated for a bazillion dollars! NOT!

After fueling we continue on. We’d like to stop and let the dogs walk a little in a place a little nicer than a noisy asphalt sea surrounding a stucco island. We jump off the interstate and head into Myrtle Creek, pop. 3400. The town was established at the site of a mill in 1851. The mill site is now Mill Park, a grassy multiuse facility boasting a children’s play area, a swimming pool, a baseball field and an RV park. It’s a nice place to walk the mutzos. We leave town and head north passing Round Prairie and Green, driving through Roseburg, passing Wilbur, driving through Sutherlin, Rice Hill, Anlauf, Curtin, Comstock, Veatch, Latham, Cottage Grove, Creswell. Whew!

We turn right onto Oregon 58 in Goshen, travel a quarter of a mile to Deerwood Luxury RV Park, Eugene Oregon. We’ve been to this lovely park in the past and it’s beauty does not disappoint. We snuggle into a pull through spot, Jil fires up the washer and dryer, I fire up the Instant Pot and make a pot roast. Our dirty clothes are now clean and we no longer hunger.

Tomorrow we are going to Silverton Oregon which about 15 miles northeast of Salem, Oregon. See you there!