Today we decided to follow Jack's advice and discovered the route he wanted us to take to Florence was a rather nice, scenic drive that didn't involve going over every mountain in sight. Guess that's a lesson learned. The Suislaw River is very pretty with lots of houses and docks. One thing we've learned in Oregon is that everyone seems to own at least one RV and most also have a boat. The RV and boat are not only at the better properties. In fact, some of the poorer appearing properties have multiple RVs and/or boats, some of which may even be in working order.
The clouds were hanging very low over the mountains along the Suislow River. That created an enjoyable view but could be tough if you were one of the lumberjacks working on the peak.
We passed through an interesting tunnel. It didn't have any height marked but looked tall enough for us to pass safely. After we go in the tunnel we realized it was a slight hill, with both ends lower than the middle. I don't remember ever seeing that in a tunnel.
We finally got to I-5 and headed north towards Portland. We were amazed at the flat land we were seeing. I guess we always envisioned Oregon as one mountain on another. There were some lone hills along the way and they looked strangely out of place. The I-5 corridor from Eugene to Portland is mostly agricultural. There are a lot of very large nurseries and even a cut flower farm. The farm was pretty but did not photograph well at 60 mph.
Then we hit Coburg OR, the home of Monaco, the company that makes our motorhome. Well I should say former, since they have been bought out by another company. We did see several support companies for the motorhome industry and even passed Marathon coach. It had some units in the parking lot but somehow looked pretty deserted.
Oregon prides itself in being a "green" state. I guess this cell tower is their attempt to naturalize the unnatural. We did find there is a nickle deposit on each of the small water bottles when we bought a case and they charged us $1.20 deposit! Of course, there is a deposit on aluminum cans also. The water bottle deposit only started in January. Our last campground had recycling containers for "pop" cans and when I took our last load of trash and recycle over this morning, there were no aluminum cans and very few plastic bottles. We had put at least 8 cans and 12 bottles in yesterday! We think we now know why we kept seeing a couple that didn't look like they belonged in the RV park. ding. Maybe when times are tough visiting RV camp trash may be worth while.
Our campground, The Sandy Riverfront RV Resort, is very nice. There are quite a few permanent sites but plenty of room for us. After we set up and ate some lunch we decided to explore a bit. The Columbia River Gorge is not far from here and that was on our list of things to do. It was crowded so we decided to return tomorrow. But we did see a GSP finally! And it was being walked/dragged along the Columbia River. Years ago there was a famous kennel in this area and they produced some great champions. Don't think this was one of them.
It was hot here today! Low 90's was quite a change from the 60's we were experiencing along the coast. When we were on our drive along hte river, we saw several parking lots full and crowds of people. Apparently the thing to do on a hot day is go on down to the river! Families were wading in the river up to their waist with a few using kayaks and rubber rafts. Very interesting!
Tomorrow Dennis will attempt to get his routine bloodwork done at the Quest lab nearby. I will be contacting a dentist - any dentist capable of regluing the cap that came off on Saturday morning. Once our health needs are tended to, we will do some more exploring and even visit Mt. Hood, which looks beautiful in the distance.
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