Californee, Here We Come!

It was our last night at Seven Feathers and it rained. It was quiet when we went to sleep, but by 2:30 AM it was raining loud enough to wake us up. It's a good thing we had decided to sleep in the living room again as it was dripping into the pan on the bed...

The picture on the left is one I took the first day we were here of the little stream that flows next to the campground. You have to look very hard to see the water. I took the picture on the right just before we left. It's still not a great deal of water, but it's sure a lot more than it was a week ago!

This is what Interstate 5 was like when we left this morning --

As we left the mountain passes and came into California (and were stopped with all incoming traffic at the inspection station checking for citrus fruit) we began to see blue skies --

Our first glimpse of Mount Shasta --

The closer we got, the bluer the sky --

Mount Shasta loomed cold and beautiful on the horizon when we stopped at the Weed Rest Area --

The trees in California are still golden, holding their color. The ones in the NW have already dropped the biggest share of their leaves and the forests no longer show the contrasts.

Interstate 5 goes south below the Cascade Mountains into the valley between the Coast Range and the Sierras. We began to see flat land fruit and nut trees AND olive groves --

We drove south until about 3:30, ending up at Old Orchard RV Park in Orland where we have stayed many times before. It's a small park and the people who run it are elderly. Since we didn't come this way last year, we weren't sure it would still be open... We'll spend a couple of nights here then continue moseying towards Arizona. We're thinking we'll most likely try to be there December 1st.

The Day After Thanksgiving

This was indeed a lazy day. The only time we got out of our PJs all day was this evening when we went over to the pool house for a swim (me) and a soak in the hot tub (both of us). The pool house is open until 9 PM with the last hour supposedly reserved for adults only. The resort filled up with RVs today and we saw lots of kids running around and riding their bikes.

Which is why we waited until 8 PM to go for our water time. I got a few laps in, but then a bunch of older kids came and started a game of Marco Polo in the pool. They were sort of considerate, saying "excuse me" every time they bumped into me (the one who was "it" had to have their eyes closed), but it soon got too uncomfortable to try to swim, so I joined Forry in the hot tub. Instead of just the two of us as there had been all week, we ended up with six adults in the hot tub plus the older kids coming in and out. We finally just gave it up and headed back to Auntie Violet...

Just because we are die-hard WSU Cougar fans, we watched the Apple Cup this afternoon even though the Cougs have had a miserable season so far. The first half was a good game. The third quarter was kinda scarey when the UW pulled way ahead, but the Cougs rallied and tied the game during the last two minutes! And then they won in overtime!!! What an amazing punt kicker they have!

All in all it was a pleasant last day here at Seven Feathers.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We've had a reprieve from the incessant moisture of the last week. Yesterday there was sunshine and Thanksgiving Day dawned clear as well. We had a late light breakfast and then headed up to Seven Feathers about 2 PM. We checked out the The Gathering Place Buffet, but the line was about an hour and a half long according to the hostess...

Forry checked out the Cow Creek Restaurant (where we had the rib eye steaks a couple of evenings ago) and reported back that it was pretty full, but there was presently no line. We decided that rather than wait in line, we would go back to the restaurant. It turned out to be a VERY good choice. Their special turkey dinner was $9.99 per person and turned out to be way more than either of us could eat. They had an incredibly good butternut squash soup for an starter. Forry opted for the green salad instead, but after a couple of tastes of my cup of soup, he said he wished he's chosen it instead. Next we were served large plates with three thick slices of turkey breast and several pieces of dark meat; large scoops of both dressing and real mashed potatoes and gravy; haricot greet beans with bacon; whole berry cranberry sauce and yeast rolls. We had a choice of pecan or pumpkin pie with the meal, so we ordered one of each.

It was a busy place. I felt a bit sorry for our waitress who seemed a bit harried already when we were seated. She was waiting on quite a few tables, but almost everyone seemed to be ordering the special, so at least there were not a lot of confusing orders. About halfway through our meal, she lost a plateful of the special off her tray, just missing the man at the next table. Everyone kept their cool -- the man she almost hit was quite nice about it. It's tough to have to work on a holiday, but one of the staff told me they had volunteered because they were being paid time and a half. Our bill seemed to be awfully small for such great meals. I did leave a 50% tip...

One of the items I added to my thankful list was "not needing to work on holidays anymore." (Hospitals are open 24/7, so I've worked on many of them...) 

Since we've taken the Seven Feathers shuttle every time we've gone anywhere, we haven't even unhooked Toad II. The lady driver is the same lady who guided us to our site when we arrived. It's been fun visiting with her about her years of working here. She says that times have been tougher since the economy has taken such a hit and they don't have near the perks they used to have. She was looking forward to a complimentary turkey dinner this evening however. Seems to be a good place to work. There's not a lot of turnover.

This is the last of the sunset we saw on our return via the shuttle to Auntie Violet --

 

I hope this Thanksgiving Day was a blessed one for all of you who read my ramblings! (One of the other items on MY Thankful List is all of you who have encouraged me in my writing!)

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?)

A Rainy Day, A Lazy Day

Oh, what a lovely day! We didn't get up very early this morning -- and that felt really good!

After lunch (avocado slices on artisan olive bread toast and fresh California oranges) we took a drive up to Galesville Reservoir about 16 miles from the campground. We only saw a few birds, but it was a gorgeous drive. We saw vultures, ravens, a spotted sandpiper, and tree swallows.

This verdant green country is so different from the mountainous desert that we have been enjoying for the last several months.

It's early spring here with lots of fruit trees in bloom as well as the dogwoods in the forest:

They almost look like patchs of snow in amongst the trees. There are not nearly the wildflowers yet that we have gotten used to seeing in Dulzura, there are mostly California poppies in sunny areas and these early lilies in the shady areas:

We got back to Seven Feathers just before it started raining in earnest (we'd had short sprinkles all day); had an email chat with Grand Daughter Havela; put spareribs into the oven; and relaxed a while before we went over and enjoyed the hot tub for a bit.

Indeed a lovely, lazy, rainy day!