Harrisburg, OR
Thursday was another relaxing day. The weather was typical for Oregon at this time of year: some morning clouds from a marine layer, then sunshine. We didn’t have too much planned other than getting ready for Friday’s departure, and it all went according to plan. I took care of the outside and Geri got the interior ready. I repacked the “garage” (that’s what the back of the Range Rover has turned into, with folding chairs, a mountain bike, the gas fire ring we picked up at Canadian Tire, and a few other odds and ends. I put away the grill and rearranged a few items in the storage bays to see if I liked the placement better. We’re due for a full analysis of what we’re carrying and where we’re carrying it when we get home. I’ll do that before we leave for Alabama in mid-November.
I also took care of a few maintenance items, checking the oil, coolant, and hydraulic levels, and making sure that all the tires were at the right pressure. I also applied lithium lube to the outside door locks, and cleaned up the “poop pipe” fitting (it’s a crappy job but somebody has to do it).
Geri did a huge amount of laundry, with both the machine in the coach and the park’s facilities. She’s got all the clothes done and took care of the sheets and blanket from the bed, too.
Since we’d gotten everything ready for departure, we decided to go out for dinner. I turned to one of our most reliable guides: the Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards list. It’s usually a reasonable bet that a restaurant that’s invested enough in their wine program to submit it for consideration will have reasonably good food as well. We’ve yet to be disappointed. Last night’s selection, Ringside Steak House, was no exception. It was reasonably close to the park, had great steaks and the wine list was robust. We were offered a glass of sparkling wine at the front door, so this was definitely our kind of place.
I had the Porterhouse (no real surprise there) and Geri had a bone-in Filet Mignon, which you don’t see often. Geri ordered a salad, but I was saving myself for steak, so I picked around the edges of hers. We each had a glass of Pinot Noir (we liked the Christopher better than the Robinson) but knew we needed to focus on Cabernet Sauvignon with the entrees. The wine list was on the expensive side, with most everything from France in the $250+ territory, so I knew we weren’t going there on our fixed income. With some searching, I could see that there were some values in the US section. I finally decided on a 1988 Dunn Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, which was wonderful. The server broke the cork in two trying to open it, so she had to go get her manager to complete the job. She decanted the wine using a strainer funnel, so we were fine. I must be getting soft in my old age, since I asked her to bring two extra glasses so that she and her manager could have a taste.
They had a pretty good after-dinner drink selection, and we ended up getting two glasses of Port from producers I’ve never heard of before (and can’t remember now). One was a 1937 and the other a 1940, and both of them were like aged Tawny. This is OK if you’ve ordered Tawny Port but not so much when you’ve ordered a Vintage Port. They were decent, so we didn’t let it ruin our good time.
We got home in time to watch CSI and went to bed happy. Around 3:00 AM, the forecast rain started to fall, although there was a lull when we got up around 6:00 AM. Since we’d done such a good job yesterday, we were in great shape for departure and actually left a few minutes early. The morning’s travel was relatively short, taking us from Fairview, just east of Portland, to Junction City. It mapped out at about 2½ hours and we needed to be there by 10:00 AM, but I wanted to leave a little buffer for traffic. We didn’t run into as much traffic as I expected, though, only some construction around the junction of I-205 with I-5. We ended up rolling into Junction City about 30 minutes early. We had our appointment at Les Schwab Tire to have the tire pressure sensors on the Range Rover upgraded, and we were on the road again around 11:30 AM.
We didn’t have far to go, since the Monaco Service Center in Harrisburg is about 7 miles away. We checked in even though we’re not scheduled to be here until next Tuesday, and it looks like they will have a space for us in their 42 site parking area. If not, we’ll just dry camp here in the staging area. I filled the fresh water tank and dumped the waste before we left Portland, so we can live “off the grid” for over a week if we needed to do so. The service writer said that they may want to get started on Monday afternoon, which is a good thing for our schedule. We’ll just spend the afternoon reading, relaxing, and maybe squeeze in a “power nap”.
As we were driving down I-5 this morning, it rained all the way but we could see a large wedge of blue sky following us just to the west. It cleared nicely while we were at the tire shop, but started to cloud up again in the early afternoon. Soon, the sky was almost pitch black and we could hear rumbles of thunder in the distance. A storm passed right by a few miles to the north, with quite a bit of lightning and thunder for 15-20 minutes. As it passed, the trailing edge had a batch of pea-sized hail that fell for 2-3 minutes. Of course, now it’s an hour later and the sun is shining brightly, but we can already see the next batch of storms gathering in the distance. Typical Oregon weather…
Tonight, we decided to head to the local Safeway to pick up dinner. Geri wanted Chicken Pot Pie and I wanted a Rotisserie Chicken, so we compromised on a Roasted Turkey Breast (OK, that's a "married person" compromise). We picked up some sides and headed back home. As we were driving up OR-99E, we saw a rainbow, as showers were moving back in. A little further on, it turned into a relatively rare double rainbow. I wish I was able to grab a photo, but we were camera-free at that moment. When we got back to the coach, the double had disappeared, but the rainbow was still there, so I grabbed a couple of shots:
I even shot a little video:
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