Blogs from Oregon, United States, North America - page 4

We woke up early this morning and finished cleaning out the fridge, cabinets and packed away all of the kitchen items. After breakfast we hit the road at around 9, with our first stop in downtown Stevenson at the local ACE hardware store to have our propane tanks filled. The young man that was helping us said that he was sorry that we were not able to view this area, The Columbia River Gorge, as it was quite beautiful. As you would expect the visibility did not get any better the closer we got to Portland, in fact, it only got worse. We arrived at Mt. Scott Motor's at 10:45 to drop off the RV's. The check in process was quick, and the people could not have been any nicer. While seeing a major part of ... read more

Well. seeing as how we had an extra night to plan for due to our cancellations at Coos Bay and Crater Lake, we decided to continue heading East today on Oregon's Scenic byway called Hell's Canyon. The plan was to traverse the entire 42 mile road and then proceed to LaGande, OR for the night. There is still smoke in the air out here, but is much better than previous days. We were able to enjoy the scenery a whole lot better today. We headed out on Rte 86, and passed through a few small towns. The area is completely covered in huge cattle ranches, with grazing land that stretch as far as the eye can see. The land here goes from rolling hills and prairies to mountainous along the whole route. It is very beautiful, ... read more

Well, as we stated in the interim blog for today, we arrived at a plan B, and hoped it would work out in our favor. We left Sisters at 8:10 am. The smoke seemed a little less than the night before and we wondered how far East we would have to go to lose it entirely. We spoke with others that had altered their plans, and many of the RV parks were getting cancellations. As bad as we felt about not seeing some of the sites we had planned on, we felt worse for the many people that had to leave their homes and lost them to the fires. I thought I'd do a section here on RV life, at least the life that we've experienced in 30' RV's. First off, if you can't stand being ... read more

Opened the blinds this morning hoping that the visibility was better, but it was actually worse. We check the current road closures and found that Rt 101 was now open so we hit the road at 8:45, destination, Coos Bay. It didn't take long to realize that it was going to be another day of no scenery. The smoke was very thick and we could even smell it in the RV. After driving through it for a few hours and not seeing a thing, we began to wonder if it was worth staying on the coast highway. We stopped for lunch in Newport and Ray immediately started making calls. He found that all the roads to Crater Lake NP were closed and the campground was preparing for a possible evacuation. It then made no sense going ... read more

Colleen and Paul are staying at Fort Klamath. The campground at Crater Lake National Park, Mazama Campground, hasn't opened yet for the season. Unfortunately, that means the drive to see them (or their drive to see us) is a little over half an hour. Fortunately, they are staying at an adorable resort (Crater Lake Resort) with a lot of activities for families. It seemed like a great place to spend part of our day. The kids enjoyed a quiet morning with their grandparents. They ate breakfast, played Exploding Kittens, and had a bit of screen time. Andrew and I did a little laundry, and then we decided to check out the canoes with the kids. The canoe holds three people, so I bowed out at the last minute. Colleen and I watched from the shore as ... read more