#74 – November 2020 – Oregon and Utah
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| Arches National Park |
We had two weeks between leaving Nehalem and arriving in Salt
Lake City, so we decided to dally in Eugene and Ashland for a bit.
We’ve stayed at Armitage
Park Campground just north of Eugene
a few times and have always enjoyed it. The rabid Oregon State
football fans usually make it impossible to book space in the Fall, but due to
Covid the campground was less than half full. Our site was a spacious pull through
with no one behind us. Armitage is only a few miles from Trader Joe’s, Costco,
WinCo and the best carwash we have ever found. We took immediate advantage of
all four to replenish our larder and wine cellar, and to restore the car to a
semblance of respectability.
The impact that Covid has had in Eugene was easy to see in large and small ways.
Shops were closed, inside dining was restricted, which is certainly hard on the
people who own and work at those places. But, on the flip side traffic was
always light and parking was readily available, two issues to deal with in
normal times in Eugene.
The maintenance at Armitage was clearly suffering from reduced budgets. The
lawns were heavily weed-choked and gopher infested. Windrows of leaves were
everywhere. Camp host sites were vacant, and had been for quite awhile. Laundry
and shower facilities were closed, too. I’m sure Lane County
is having to make painful decisions in the face of stark revenue reductions.
I think both of us needed a break. We just wanted to unwind
a bit. Unlike years past, we didn’t schedule a visit to Kaiser for work on Ripley.
AFAIK, nothing needed attention, so I decided to wait for Spring to do the
annual service. Eugene
is one of our favorite cities and despite Covid closures and restrictions we
got to visit a few places. New Zone Gallery
hadn’t officially opened when we wandered in, but the folks working on the
place were happy to let us see what was already set up. An artist’s
cooperative, New Zone offers an eclectic collection of works in traditional and
contemporary mediums by local artists. We will certainly return the next time
we are in Eugene
to see the full range of exhibitions.
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| No water in the lake, but still great views |
Freshly resupplied and rested up we headed south to
Emigrant Lake County
Park in
Ashland
for a few nights. We thought the lake water level was low when we were here a
couple of years ago, but this year it was just pond sized. The picture on the
park website was taken several years ago. I would guess the lake is 100’ lower
now. That notwithstanding, the campground is great and the views are still beautiful.
It sure was cold, though. While we didn’t have the park to ourselves, one night
there were just three campers.
Ashland
has a neat downtown area that is fun to walk around. Most of the shops were
open and we did some browsing and Xmas shopping. We have become quite leery of
inside dining, so reluctantly passed up several promising-looking sushi bars.
For years we have been passing thru Medford on our way to and from the coast, but
aside from a brief visit a couple of years ago hadn’t really looked around. It
is close to Ashland,
so we decided to drive around and do takeout lunch. Medford isn’t a dump, but it didn’t have much
appeal for us. Significantly, it doesn’t have a college or university of any
note, and we’ve consistently found that those institutions make a very positive
impact to the cities and towns where they are located. Absent Covid we would
have visited a local winery or two, so we may have missed something important,
but nothing we saw in town inspired us to return.
The fires in September swept through several small towns to
the east and south of Medford.
One of the hardest hit was Talent,
where over 1,000 homes were lost in one day, leaving more than 25% of the town
homeless and wiping out many, many small businesses. I don’t know how people
recover from that. It was appalling and heartbreaking to drive by, much less
have to live through it. I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures.
Then, it was time to head to Salt Lake City to see Liesa and spend
Thanksgiving with her and Cory. We have made the trip from the Oregon coast to Utah
for several years. The weather this year was colder than any I can recall, and
the forecast for central and eastern Oregon
was not encouraging, with night time temps dipping into the low teens. That
prompted me to take the longer “southern” route down I5 to Reno
and then east on I80 across Nevada to Salt Lake
seeking warmer temps. We spent the first night at a Walmart in Fernley, NV.
The site was fine, but the temperature fell below 20 degrees. The Aquahot
system has to run nonstop to keep up with that, so we ran the generator all
night to also use the electric space heaters. That worked great but used about eight gallons of fuel, which prompted me to find an RV
park with electric hookups for the next night. Valley View RV Park in Elko, NV
was a real bargain at just $15 for a 50 amp connection allowing us to run both
electric heaters for less than the cost of the fuel we would have used.
We planned to leave early (for us) the next morning, but had
to wait for the sun to warm the slide covers to melt the ice that formed
overnight. The slides won’t come in right and may break something expensive if you don’t wait for them to thaw. We know that
by painful experience. Then, when I started the engine most of the dash gauges,
cruise control and several other things were dead. I’ve seen that before and
was smart enough to carry a spare solenoid after the last failure. Replacing it
took over an hour in a cold mist. I’m chilly again just thinking about it, but
when I restarted everything worked. I immediately ordered another spare solenoid.
It was great to see Liesa. She manages a local market and we
worry constantly that she will catch Covid despite being meticulous about
taking all precautions, including tossing non-maskers out of the store. So far
so good. Cory works from home and is equally cautious, so we were reassured. We
got together several times, including a visit to the
University of Utah Natural
History Museum that Kayeanne and I both enjoyed.
We discovered catered Thanksgiving dinners last year and it
was so good and so easy that we opted for it again. The local WinCo market
provided a whole cooked turkey with all the sides for $49! Everything was good
and the price was certainly right. Lots of leftovers, too.
Covid certainly tore up our plans this spring and the rapidly
worsening situation in California
did it again. For six years we have returned to Simi
Valley, Perris and Hemet in December to visit friends and spend Xmas with Kayeanne’s family. As we followed the
news it became clear that keeping that same routine would be subjecting us and
everyone we contacted to increased risk. In early November Salt Lake was
reporting worse numbers than southern California,
but CA was ramping up quickly. As many of you know, we ultimately decided to
cancel all of our plans and head to our site at the co-op in Benson AZ to
ride it out.
Kayeanne and I had decided to begin looking for an area to
settle in when this odyssey winds down. Rather than make a beeline from Salt Lake to
Benson we decided to take a somewhat circuitous route through Albuquerque
and Las Cruces, NM, just to look around. Those areas seemed
to offer an appealing combination of climate, services and affordability. The
clincher was that Moab
lay right on the best route south. And, there were camp sites available in Dead Horse
Point State
Park, one of the top 5 places we have ever seen.
Clearly we were fated to go, or so we rationalized.
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| Almost 2,000 feet down to the Colorado River |
Dead Horse Point was just as spectacular as we remembered. We also revisited Arches
National Park to be sure
that the rocks hadn’t fallen down. If you haven’t been to this area, put it right
at the top of your bucket list. Pictures simply can’t do it justice, the scale
is just too great. And, we didn’t even try to go to Canyon Land
National Park!
We like Moab, this was our third visit. Unfortunately, many of the shops we visited previously
had closed for the winter, or had closed permanently due to the pandemic. A
number of restaurants had also closed, so we were glad to see that Giliberto’s
Mexican restaurant was still open and we had good tacos for lunch.
As we were packing up to leave Dead Horse on December 1st, a
ranger stopped by to tell us that we were the last campers on the last day of
the season. They would close the park until April when we left. I thought the
place was quiet. A few minutes later we pulled out, headed south.
Costco and Trader Joe’s in Eugene yielded several good wines. From
Costco we got Pundit Columbia Valley Syrah and Chronic’s Purple Paradise Paso
Robles Red Blend. Trader Joe’s delivered Emma Reichart Dry Riesling from Germany and Trader Joe’s Reserve Pinot Noir from
Anderson Valley.
As I write this we are in Benson and plan to stay into
April.
Best wishes to you and yours for the Holidays.
Please stay safe. More soon,
Bob
More pics:
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| Liesa's mask says Vote |
As we were packing up to leave Dead Horse on December 1st, a
ranger stopped by to tell us that we were the last campers on the last day of
the season. They would close the park until April when we left. I thought the
place was quiet. A few minutes later we pulled out, headed south.
