Monday, July 29, 2024
We are now heading north on US Highway 97. The two lane road is very well maintained with very few hills to climb. Our next two night stay will be in Sisters.
Sisters Oregon was named for the Three Sisters volcanic peaks nearby. USPS didn’t want to name their post office Three Sisters and shortened the name to Sisters. Sisters is a very popular place for tourists. Downtown consists of a few blocks of upscale shops and restaurants. The drawback to downtown is Highway 20, a main highway from the east of the Cascade Range to the Willamette Vallely to the west goes right through the business district. Going through town is slow going- and trucks traveling over Santiam pass have the pleasure of passing right through downtown..
We stayed at the beautiful Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort- and they ain’t kiddin’ about a beautiful garden (beautiful flowers everywhere). The amenities are resort quality. Another nice feature is their dog walk along the perimeter of the park and access to the adjacent fairgrounds through a gate in which the dogs are allowed off leash.
We continued on after a two night stay and a walk through Sisters (3013 souls) snagging a couple of delicious ice cream cones, the waffle cones made on site- yum! We are heading over the mountain on Highway 20 to Highway 22 which will take us northwest to Detroit Lake. We couldn’t get reservations at the very popular Detroit Lake Recreation Area. We tried six months in advance but all sites were already taken. Second choice was River Mountain RV Park located 2 miles south of the lake in the tiny burg of Idanha (155 souls).
The Park looks a lot nicer on the internet-
spring time makes everything look good.
River Mountain RV Park has what I suspect are highly ranked reviews maybe made by pals of the owner. The park is located right on the Santiam River but access to it is not good. Steep banks make negotiating to the river’s edge iffy. The park itself advertises cable TV but the cable company pulled out leaving nothing behind. Cell service was non-existant.
Idanha City Park– Old School Playground Apparatus
We have two sisters that are not well so we need access to internet or cell service. The RV park is old style with only service being a bath house and a gazebo. Sites have full hookups except for the tent area. I does have wifi at the office. We found not enough to do for the three days we had reserved a site.
The one highlight was Marion Fork Fish Hatchery located 10 miles south of the RV park. The hatchery raises chinook salmon. It boasts a beautiful day use area and a great forest service campground. We enjoyed our visit to the hatchery.
We felt that our location at River Mountain RV Park did not offer amenities we needed and/or desired. If one wants/desires peace and quiet this is the place! Jil was able to get very weak cell service (once) and made reservations at Premier RV Resort, Salem. So now our plan is to stay at Premier for two days, leaving Idanha two days early.
Relatively Narrow Sites at Premier RV Resort
We’d stayed at Premier twice before but reaching the park requires driving through Salem. I don’t like driving through areas I’m not really familiar with that has heavy traffic. I’d rather drive down a country lane with 10′ wide lanes and no shoulders on the road with my 8’6″ wide motorhome than drive through cities with heavy traffic. I negotiate Salem successfully, cross the bridge over the Willamette River and drive west on highway 22 looking for the entrance to the RV park. Of course I miss the postage stamp sized sign the RV park has at it’s entrance.which my Garmin GPS identifies with a name I’m not familiar with. And no, the park is not visible at all from the highway as it’s behind commercial buildings and quite a bit lower than the highway. 10 miles later I have the gut feeling were are not even close to the RV park, correct Garmin and head back to Premier RV Resort.
It’s a nice park with a big fenced dog run, well maintained grounds. A drawback is the sites are fairly close together (not a problem this trip) and for some insane reason they planted trees close to the pivot point which causes a big problem for longer rigs exiting their site onto the narrow access road. We spent two nights here and felt we made the right decision leaving River Mountain RV Park in Idanha as we have full connectivity with family.
We take some time to explore Dallas. OR, about ten miles west of the RV park. Dallas celebrated Dallas Days the day before our visit, celebrating 150 years since it’s founding. The Polk County Courthouse is here which dates to 1909. The county was named for President Polk, the town for his VP Dallas. We then head to the Polk County Fairground with adjacent county park. The land was donated to the county by the Nesmeth family. The family graveyard is there. It’s a nice park with a large meadow and woods to the north.
On July 29 we will head to Silver Falls State Park for a three day visit. See you there!
Travel With Jil and Mike 