On to Seven Feathers

We got a fairly decent start this morning in spite of the steady rain. We decided not to drain the tanks as they were only half full, but we did stop to take on diesel as we had decided last night not to try it in the dark.

We stopped at the Pilot near Brooks, Oregon which had quite a bunch of trucks lined up to fuel. I tried to use my RV Plus Charge Card at the pump, but it didn't seem to work. As I started to walk into the store, the young truck driver in the station next to us told me that the computer in the store was down and none of the pumps were working. He said he had been waiting over 45 minutes and that they kept telling him "just a few more minutes," so he was going to leave and drive on down the road. We had procrastinated about getting diesel and were pretty low and really weren't comfortable going much further...

I walked on into the store and just as I walked in, the clerk told me everything was working. So we filled up with 91.53 gallons of diesel at $4.079 per gallon. OUCH! Would it be a bit less painful if we filled more often?

It insisted on raining fairly hard the entire trip as we proceeded south on Interstate 5 --

We kept getting passed by vehicles with Oregon Duck flags flying --

This pickup had four flags -- and a barbecue in the back. The closer we got to Eugene and Oregon State University, the more of the flags we saw. There were cars with duck feet all over them as well as ones plastered with "O"s. We finally realized that the OSU - Stanford football games was this evening (as I write this, it's tied 14-14).

It was raining awfully hard, so I never did get a good picture of all of the thousands of sheep we saw in the pastures along the way. This is definitely sheep country.

We made good time and pulled into Seven Feathers RV Resort near Canyonville, Oregon a little after three PM. It was kind of fun to have the guide who took us to our site recognize us from our previous trips here. She even remembered that we had not been here last year! (She said she recognized my smile?)

Filling Diesel With the New Pilot RV Plus Card

Everyone who has a diesel pusher knows what a hassle it can be to fill up on diesel sometimes. You can pull into the truck area and use their really fast diesel hoses or can risk the low roofs on the auto side with their really slow pumps. Once in a great while you can find a station with designated RV pumps somewhat out of the normal traffic flow.

But our motor homes have big tanks. Most of the pumps have cash limits on how much diesel you can pump. Often it's $50 worth. If you're lucky, you can insert the same card again and it will let you do it one more time. Or you go into the store, get in line with the truckers, give your credit card to the clerk and ask to have the pump turned on. Often they ask how much fuel you want? So you've got to guess: when did we fuel up last? How low was the gauge? How much was it a gallon? So you give them a guess and they fill out a charge slip for you to sign. Then you go back out and tell your spouse they can go ahead and start fueling. Then you go back in, get in line, get your credit card back and get a new charge (for the fuel you actually used). By the time you get back outside, hopefully your partner will have pulled out of the refueling line and is waiting to pick you up.

Then Pilot/Flying J came out with a Frequent Fueler ADVANTAGE card that you could insert at the pump along with your credit card. It allowed the pump to turn on without a trip inside AND gave you a 3 cent per gallon discount. You still had to go in and sign the charge slip. But it was a whole less hassle!

Recently we read about the arrangement that Good Sam Club had made with Pilot/Flying J to issue a new Pilot RV Plus charge card that would give an 8 cent discount. We sent the application in and got an email in a week or so saying we were approved, but they were swamped with applicants and it would be a while until we got our card. The cards finally came during our two month stay at Mouse Mountain RV Park, so we didn't get a chance to use them until yesterday. With the cards was a letter giving us a password to activate the cards. We had also gotten an email telling us the User ID (I think they did it separately so that intercepting one would not have been enough...) and control numbers.

Yesterday we pulled into  Flying J #626 on State Road 2, Exit 305 on Interstate 9 near St. Augustine. They had an RV island over on the right with one side vacant, so we pulled right in. With a bit of trepidation as to what would happen, I inserted the new card. The screen asked for the Control Number, I punched it in and VIOLA! the pump turned on. We pumped $383.95 of diesel (76.628 gallons) with nary a pause! The receipt came out showing the price to be $4.019 a gallon -- 8 cents less then the listed price on the pump. Forry pulled in the fuel slide-out and off we went!

All in all, a VERY GOOD -- and FAST -- experience!