Westward, Ho!

September 17, 2007
Salem, Oregon

Well, we’ve made the trek cross-country once again, ending up here in Salem, OR. To recap since the last update (we were Internet-challenged for a good part of the last week), we spent several days in Grand Junction, Colorado. After doing some touring on Sunday, Monday was a planned “catch up day”. We needed to do some shopping and relaxing. Well, things don’t always work out as planned, of course. On Monday, Merlin’s itching problem got worse, so we scheduled time at a local vet to have him looked at. Maya Lynn’s been itching as well, but not as bad as Merlin. In general, he checked out OK, with the usual conclusion that he’s suffering from an undetermined allergy. It could be climate, could be food, could be environmental, etc. He got a dose of antibiotics and prednisone and they sent us on our way. We did get our shopping done, though, so we were ready to hit the road on Tuesday as planned.

The weather continued to be quite nice, so we had a good drive on Tuesday, leaving Grand Junction early in the morning and heading west on I-70 and soon crossing into Utah. We used a shortcut near Salina (we’re not in Kansas any more; this was Salina, Utah), heading north on US-50/89 and UT-28 until we connected with I-15 near Nephi, just south of Salt Lake City. We continued north on I-15 until it merged with, and then split from, I-84. We headed west on I-84 into Idaho, and ended the day after almost 570 miles, boondocking near Jerome, ID, for the night. It being September 11th, I was struck by how similar the weather was for me on “September 11th” (clear skies and roads). For some reason, we weren’t able to get a Hughes-Net signal from the satellite; we’ll have to keep an eye on this, as I just had to replace the wireless network router. Hopefully, everything’s OK and we were just in a bad spot.

On Friday, we put in another long day on the road, covering 434 miles and ending up in Bend, Oregon. We stayed in a nice park, Crown Villa, which has extra wide, pine-shaded sites. Each site is done with pavers in an area about 70’ long by 30’ wide, quite large for RV parks. Of course, the park is slated to be torn out for a housing development at some point. They got a reprieve this year because of the poor housing market, but who knows what will happen in the future.

We spent three nights in Bend, but we didn’t plan to do much local touring. Instead, we spent a day cleaning the inside of the coach and the rest of the time relaxing and taking care of any remaining shopping. Geri was able to get her hair and nails done (not without a struggle, but I’ll let her post on that). We found a nice upscale organic market (they advertised dry-aged steaks but didn’t have any, but the wet ones were tasty) and picked up a few things, so that was good.

Unfortunately, the canine problems continued, this time with Maya Lynn. She must have gotten into something that upset her tummy, because she yakked (a technical term) all over the coach while we were shopping. Fortunately, most of it was on the tile (good thing we changed from carpet to tile!) so clean-up was relatively easy, but we had to watch her closely for a good 24 hours. By the next day, she was taking water and starting to eat, and by the next evening she was ravenous, and her normal, alert, bark-at-everything-that-goes-by self. We’re watching her intake and output still, though.

On Saturday, we left Bend for the three hour drive over to Salem. It was another beautiful day for driving, at least until we crossed the Cascades. We followed US-20 and OR-22, back roads all the way, and started to pick up the clouds on the western side of the mountains. This is pretty normal, since the mountains tend to wring the water out of the moister Pacific air. Actually, the Bend area is considered “high desert”. We made plans to catch up with Wayne and Eva Gilbert, friends we’d met at a rally almost two years ago, so we stopped in Salem to meet up with them. They’re attending the rally with us, but unfortunately their coach is still at the service center, about an hour away. They are staying at a local hotel until their coach is ready (hopefully, today). We parked at a commuter lot and had dinner with them at a local Vietnamese restaurant (beef soup with tripe – yum!). Since the lot had “No Overnight Parking” signs posted, we drove over to the rally site, the Oregon State Fairgrounds, around sunset. There were about 30 coaches boondocking in the staging area, so we pulled into line and called it a night.

On Sunday, the parking for coaches at the rally was scheduled to start at 8:00 AM. Wayne and Eva had made arrangements to park together with two other couples, so we pulled out of line at 6:30 AM and waited for them to arrive. They came in about 7:15 and we got back in line for parking. We were in and all set up by around 9:00 AM, so that was great. It was a pretty gloomy day, with some showers, but we didn’t have much planned anyway. Geri and Eva made a Costco run, and we ate outside buffet-style with the other couples before calling it an early night.

Today was another relatively quiet day for us, since the rally activities start officially tomorrow. We walked around a bit and spoke to some of the other attendees. We met Chuck and Mary Boros, members of the Monaco-oriented Yahoo groups we participate in; I’m sure we’ll meet some other members over the next few days. Wayne headed for the service center to pick up his coach, and Geri and Eva went off exploring and signing up for things that require same. Geri picked up a rental scooter to help her get around (we left hers in Arizona, since we didn’t know we’d be “rallying” when we left in April), and made arrangements for a wash and wax for the coach while we’re here (mobile services have great rally prices). The festivities start at 5:00 PM with cocktails and snacks, and the weather’s been better (cooler and breezy but some sun and no rain). There seems to be plans for dinner, so I’ve had a chance to blog for a while, catch up with Dave Thompson on the phone, etc. so I’ve had an easy day.

Tomorrow, we’ll be up early to sign up for services from the various vendors (we’ll aim to be in line at 7:00 AM – ouch! I’ll take the camera around and get some photos, too.