Shut out of California 12-27-07

Last night after we got back from saying our good-byes at Michelle’s we got the trailer ready to hit the road. The weather was supposed to get bad again in the morning and Larry wanted to avoid doing all the outside putting-away of stuff in the rain. Freezing in the dark was bad enough. He hooked us up to the truck and disconnected us from everything except the electricity.

This morning it was raining again and mixed with snow. We pulled out around 9:45 and headed south on I-5. He was hoping we would make it over the Siskiyou Summit today. We had rain and high winds for awhile and then it was slushy rain and the hills all around the valleys were white. South of Roseburg where we start climbing the little passes was where we started seeing heavily coated trees; the roads were clear but everything was white. We stopped at a couple of rest areas and once for fuel in Center Point and we heard the attendant tell someone that south was not good…bummer.

We scanned the Highway Patrol and the CB on the scanner and what we were hearing wasn’t good. Serious chain controls over the summit and they were going after people that didn’t comply, so we stopped at the rest area south of Medford and contemplated our options. The rest area was already filling up with trucks and rv’s that were going to wait out the restrictions. By now it was three, three-thirty and we didn’t figure the restrictions were going to be lifted because it was still snowing lightly where we were and as it got dark it would most definitely be freezing over the pass.

We had seen a couple RV parks back at the next exit and we opted for comfort instead of “roughing it” at the rest area or a parking lot somewhere. As expected a lot of rigs were diving off the highway, we pulled into the Holiday RV Park in Phoenix, Oregon behind a couple other rigs and there were two behind us…how lucky were we feeling. Phoenix, Arizona would be the place to be right about now, but as I haven’t mastered teleportation yet, we are stuck here. Oooh we lucked out, we were the last one in.

We pulled into our site at four and had gone 220 miles today. After getting settled in and “connected” we scoped out the highway cameras and we were glad we decided to stay put for the night. We’ll see what tomorrow brings! Storm is moving south so we’ll have to decide what route we’ll be taking tomorrow!