From The Valley of the Rogue

Ah, at long last we’ve found some moderate temperatures!  And we’ve found them in Grants Pass, Oregon whose city motto is “It’s the Climate”.  But, as it happens, just before we arrived, Grants Pass too was suffering from temperatures well up into the triple digits and with the humidity all this greenery is bound to generate.  A nice rain has changed all that and temperatures are back to normal.

But first let’s back-track.  After a slight cooling off period in the Verde Valley, we headed for a few days in Bullhead City, Arizona where we continued to roast at desert temperatures.  Our activities were confined to recreational shopping in air conditioned facilities.  The trek from Bullhead City to Pahrump, Nevada is through some of the bleakest most boring terrain you can imagine.  It makes West Texas look downright scenic.  If it weren’t for the stripes on the highway, there’d be no color at all.  Even the sagebrush refuses to grow.  I’m not sure what possessed us to plan to spend the 4th of July in that part of Nevada.  The “flip side” of Death Valley is hardly welcoming that time of year and this was no exception.  The outdoor thermometer seemed perpetually stuck at 111.1 degrees.  Fortunately we had good solid 50 amp electrical service and so could run both air conditioners when necessary (which was almost constantly). 

We’ve enjoyed 4th of July festivities in a variety of small towns over the years but this year was just plain too hot to venture out of the coach.  Rumor had it that there were activities at the town park on the morning of the 4th but we opted to stay indoors and drink gallons of iced tea.  Our campground was just across the road from the town’s major casino and they had planned a big fireworks display for the next night.  Even though we were facing the road and would have had a fine view from the coach, we hauled our chairs out to the street and enjoyed a grand fireworks display up close and personal, as they say.  We were so close to the staging area that it often felt as if the bursts were raining down on us. 

We also availed ourselves of a “two-fer” coupon for the all-American buffet at the casino.  When will we learn not to eat at casinos?  The food was bad but the air conditioning was good.

Driving through Nevada is so mind-numbing that the trip needs to be broken into several segments; we  made a two-day stop in Mina.  Suffice it to say that the campground is the very nicest thing in the whole town.  The two-day stay seemed much much longer.

Our next stop was Susanville, California where it was marginally cooler, being at a higher elevation, then on to Lakeview, Oregon.  Once again we stayed at the campground in the middle of an 8,000 acre cattle and timber ranch.  The last time we stayed here, there was a terrific thunderstorm and heavy rain.  Not this time…and they could certainly use some rain.  Unfortunately the county historical museum was closed on our only full day in town so we weren’t able to learn much about the region.  But they do have a wonderful jam-packed to the rafters antique shop which we trolled to our heart’s content.  They had several eggcups which have since joined my collection.  And Lakeview has a magnificent new library with a very complete used book shop where I discovered a copy of a book that’s been on my “read it next” list since the mid-‘90s.

The air in Lakeview was pretty hazy from nearby forest fires and the haze continued as we trekked across the bottom portion of Oregon, a route we had not traveled before.  I had it in mind that we needed to tour the museum in Klamath Falls so we could see what I recalled as “the world’s largest fire opal”.  The whole stop in K Falls (as it is known to the locals) was an exercise in futility.  To begin with, it was blazing hot, by Oregon standards, and our campground was 'way below par.  The voltage was so low that we had to keep everything (and I do mean everything) turned off just to have enough juice to operate one air conditioner. Although it is advertised that the campground had free cable t.v. that wasn’t exactly the case.  After making a $50 deposit, you are given a cable box and expected to install it yourself.  Two boxes and two hours later (including a 30 minute call to the cable company), we still didn’t have cable and gave up on that notion.  And the daily rate was well into what we’d expect to pay at a fine RV “resort” with all the amenities.  The amenities at this dump consisted of train noise, road noise and the odor from the horse pasture next door. 

With only one full day in town (thankfully we hadn’t made reservations to stay longer) we headed off to the Klamath County Historical Museum which is housed in a poorly-lit old armory.  There were a few interesting displays but most were too poorly lit to appreciate.  Their collection of antique washing machines was housed in a loft and had to be admired from a distance.  We did come across one small but very interesting display pertaining to a little-known fact of WWII.  The only Americans killed by the Japanese on U.S. soil were a group of teen-agers having a picnic near Bly, Oregon.  They were killed when a balloon bomb exploded.  The Japanese had been releasing balloon bombs in an attempt to set the forests on fire and thus distract troops from other war efforts.  The project was not effective because they started the bombing in May before the snows had melted. 

When we inquired about the fire opal we were greeted with some blank stares until it was realized that we were referring to a fire opal arrowhead which is housed at a local art museum.  A quick check showed the admission fee at that museum was well beyond what we consider “worth it” and so we went off to do some recreational shopping instead.  We wrapped up our brief visit to K Falls with an evening of non-cable t.v. and insufficient air conditioning.

And if ever there was a study in contrasts, our campground in Grants Pass provided the “Good” to K Falls’ “Bad and Ugly”.  It’s a lovely park with terraced sites and plenty of flowers and shrubbery.  Grants Pass is just the right size – big enough to have all the essential emporia, small enough not to overwhelm  and with super friendly, helpful citizens.  We got in plenty of recreational shopping and scored a fistful of eggcups for the collection.

We hope you’ll join us for the next leg of our journey around Oregon.