In Sutherlin, Oregon 4-15

First….Happy American Tax Day, I hope you all got you papers filed!

Second, I better get caught up before I fall further behind. We are in Sutherlin, Oregon, we arrived yesterday and compared to where we have been, it is really cold…green, but cold.

Monday we pulled out of Ukiah at 8:24, it was a beautiful day…sunny and no wind. We found a nice turnout overlooking Clearlake to have our toast and for me to make my coffee…I had to take a few pictures of course.

We arrived in Williams on I-5 at 10:55 and we pulled around into McDonalds RV/Truck parking lot to wait for Daryl and Vickie Stockdale with the fresh from the factory communications trailer. Larry and Daryl were meeting to design the inside so it could be outfitted at the cabinet makers to their specs.

Daryl called just as we arrived and they were still a ways out so we took a walk around Williams, we have driven through it for the past 20 years and with a lot of small towns it seems to have stalled at small and tired. Their old main street buildings appear to be around a hundred years old. As we walked we found some gorgeous roses in bloom and this large Victorian house back off the main drag. Granzella’s seems to be the biggest enterprise in town and in all these years we have yet to ever set foot in it. We thought it had gone away but it had moved and seems very popular, it is a deli and Italian restaurant.

Daryl and Vickie snuck in next to our rig out in the parking lot while Larry and I were in McDonalds picking up a little “snack”. Vickie and I spent the time visiting while the guys brainstormed. That cute smiling face is Bodie the Pug…isn’t he the cutest? Being at McDonalds we let them do the cooking for our lunch!

It was 4:20 when we headed north from Williams, we weren’t sure if we would make it that far, but we were trying to reach the last rest area in California on I-5 north of Yreka on the Klamath River. I had read that it was an okay place to sleep over for the night.

The drive was so pretty with all the different greens of the trees, and grasses and everything in between leafing out; there were lots of flowering trees and wildflowers too in places. Lake Shasta had more water in it than the last time we had seen it, which was good and I got several great pictures of Mount Shasta as we were driving down the highway.

We made it to Yreka as it was getting dark to fuel up and hit the Randolph Collier rest area at 8:30. The rest area is below the highway so it isn’t as noisy and has lots of truck/RVparking pull-throughs. We were lucky to find an end one with a planting area on the driver’s side so we could put our slides out as needed and not be in anyone’s way. We had gone 399 miles and we were tired so we rustled up some grub, showered and hit the feathers.

So yesterday we woke to the sound of rigs heading out and it was COLD. We have a lovely down flannel encased comforter and with flannel sheets and two afghans we were toasty, but as Larry had suspected our batteries were shot and didn’t hold their charge much past our bedtime. They are only three years old which makes Larry cranky that they didn’t last as long as he thought they should and we have solar panels so they are always getting a charge, but Larry just had to brave the cold and fire up the truck and we were able to get the forced air furnace going to take the chill off. The low was 35.

It was cloudy and looked more and more like rain or snow the further north we traveled. Every mountain pass we climbed was cold and snowing, but the roads were clear…it was 27 degrees at the tops. We just take our time and Larry always lets the transmission hold our descent speed steady which saves our brakes. We would be in green spring countryside and then climb up into snowy winter and then go back down into spring and then back up into winter, it snow flurried on us all the way to Roseburg in between the occasional rain shower…gotta love Spring!

We arrived at one of our favorite RV parks…Timber Valley Escapee Park at 11:55 and of course it started pouring. Larry dislikes setting up in rain…who wouldn’t, it being Oregon rain is just liquid sunshine, but it let up after we got checked in so Larry only had little sprinkles to set up in. We had traveled 153 miles.

We spent the afternoon relaxing. We took a walk in the evening as the sun was setting but it was really really cold…we still have warm Yuma blood. I couldn’t bring myself to put on my winter coat so I wore my knit cap, gloves, scarf and shawl with my heavy overshirt and I was okay until the sun sank away, but we pressed on a few more rows before heading back…we needed the exercise. I think the high was like 53…brrr. We saw the turkeys, deer and jack rabbits on our walk, but no people…they were all tucked in their warm walls.

This morning we were awakened by the gobble gobble of turkeys going under us. Larry did yoga and I didn’t do anything…I have gotten out of the groove of exercise for right now. We spent a few hours visiting with my Aunt Millie and Uncle Marty…they were both recovering from nasty respiratory infections and are stubborn and don’t take instruction well. We told them not to go to any trouble, but we had beans, cornbread and ham for dinner and dessert. We got all caught up on the family. I took a lot of pictures on the way out to their place and of the flowers that were in bloom in their yard. You’ll see those later…I haven’t had a chance to go through all of them yet. We are a couple of weeks too early to see the full flower display that they have every spring. We stopped at Walmart to pick up a few things we needed and headed home.

So, I should get this posted, and maybe a few of the pictures I had planned but raw and unedited, so I apologize, though I think they are still pretty good.