Oregon

We arrived in Grants Pass, Or. on May 17 with the initial intention to visit Ted and Paula. Unfortunately timelines got crossed and they flew to Turkey a day before we arrived. Another reason for going to Oregon was to see Crater Lake. Oregon is absolutely beautiful with mountains and pine trees everywhere. We stayed at Riverpark RV Resort with a site looking at the Rouge River. It was a beautiful location, we could see the river from the kitchen window; unfortunately the maple bugs and Cottonwood pollen at our site put a little bit of damper on the experience. While in Grants Pass we drove to Crescent City, Ca to see the Redwoods and the coast. It was about a 90 minute drive and the closest point to the RV park of all our stays. We hiked the Grove of Titans in Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. It was a beautiful drive into the park then an easy 2 mile hike that circled around large redwoods and was filled with ferns on the ground and some on the trees. After that we drove to Battery Point Lighthouse. We were not able to visit the lighthouse as it’s only accessible during low tide. Oddly there is a museum in it but you have to time that to low tide to get to it! It was a pretty coastline and we popped into Sea Quake Brewing for a local taste of brew.
There are several wineries in the area of Grants Pass and I picked Edenvale as it had a comedy show that we went to after the tasting. The red wine was good but high in sulfites as we both got a headache. The Chardonnay was horrible! Another night we attempted to go to a new place called “Steam Distillery” that the RV park owner recommended but they were closed, on a holiday weekend no less! Instead we went to Code 4 Taphouse and had one drink but it wasn’t really our vibe so left and went to The Horny Goat Gastro Pub, which was more our style. On another night we went to Abby’s Pizza only because Kevin went there 40 years ago when visiting Ted over Christmas break. On May 24 we drove to Chiloquin and stayed at Waterwheel RV Park on the Williamson River. The drive to Crater Lake was beautiful with tree lined roads and a gentle but noticeable incline up the mountain. It’s still spring that high up and the park is not fully open but we went on a sunny day and were able to view the entire lake. I was so excited I felt like a kid when we got to the parking lot - I couldn’t wait to see it! It is as breathtaking as the photos; the blueness of the lake and the volcano rim around it is like nothing else you’ll ever see. In another area of the park are views of pinnacles; cylinder shapes of harden ash created from gases escaping from the flaming hot ash that erupted from the volcano 7700 years ago. We also hiked into the park and crossed over several snow patches and springs. With the rest of our time we went to the Train Mountain Railroad Museum and Collier State Park to tour the logging museum, both up the road from the RV park. The train museum is the largest in the world located on 2200 hundred acres with 32 miles of 7.5 gauge railroad track that train enthusiasts can bring their trains to run on. We only saw a small part of the property but it was impressive. The Logging Museum taught about the history of logging from the cutting of trees using hand saws and ox drawn carts to power driven equipment and transporting by trains. Most impressive was a log loader built in 1900 to accommodate loading logs onto trains. It was rolled over the tracks, its wheels pulled up to allow a flatbed to roll under it then a boom lifted logs onto the flatbed. There were seven log cabins pulled from various locations around the area to display how people live, one of which was built in 1870 and lived in up to 1955.Read more