June 10, 2013
Tahkenitch Landing Campground
Gardiner, OR
It is Monday morning in beautiful, sunny, cool, gorgeous
Oregon. The lake is rippling with the
breeze, soon to be wind, which is normal, I am told, for the coast of
Oregon. In the early morning, there is
almost no air movement at all. The
temperature is in the mid 50’s or so.
And as the day progresses, the temperature difference between the
coastal region and the central valley of Oregon begins to widen, the wind picks
up, sometimes substantially. I ran an
errand last week, on Wednesday (6/5), to Roseburg, OR. Roseburg is about 70 miles southeast of the
campground. When I passed through
Reedsport on my way to Roseburg, it was 59 degrees on the bank sign. When I drove through Elkton (35 miles from
Reedsport), the bank sign in Elkton was showing 93 degrees. When I arrived in Roseburg, the temperature
was showing 95 degrees. With this large
temperature difference, the cool moist air along the coast begins moving toward
the east as the warm air inland begins to rise.
Happens every day, except those days when there is a cloud cover
(generally). The wind is always blowing,
Northwest to Southeast, heading inland.
I would think this place would be great for sailing, but no one seems to
be bringing sailboats to the lake.
On my drive to Roseburg, my route takes me east on Oregon
Hwy 38 to Elkton, then southeast on Oregon Hwy 138 to Sutherlin. From Sutherlin, it was is 7 mile drive down
I-5 to my destination. Along this route,
for the first 17 miles or so, I drive along the south bank of the Umpqua River.
I cross the river to the north bank at
Scottsburg and continue to Elkton, another 17 - 18 miles away. It is a beautiful drive, most of it next to
the Umpqua River. And the discussion of
the drive along the river, I will save for another day, so that I can include
pictures of the drive. Well worth
waiting for. However, on the day of my
drive to Roseburg, I encountered some road construction on Hwy 38, about 3
miles east of Scottsburg. Apparently,
there had been a landslide and the road had been severely damaged
recently. There was only one lane of
traffic available. When it was our turn
to use the one lane, the drive was only about two miles of one lane, the
evidence of the damage was quite obvious.
The hillside to the north was mostly gone. There was plenty of hillside left, but the
portion close to the road was now on the south side of the road, along with
many trees and bushes. The road itself,
had been torn up and was being resurfaced.
The damage to hillside and road was about a mile long. The estimate for the completion of the
repairs is Fall/2013. And, the
construction zone is being manned 24/7.
Those rains that I spoke of in the earlier episodes of the blog inflicted
some nasty damage.
It seems that I am going to be having some visitors in the
next week or two. Some friends from
Phoenix are traveling the Oregon coast and will be in Coos Bay (about 35 miles
south) during the week of June 24th.
After their stay in Coos Bay, they had planned to drive north on U.S.
Hwy 101 to Florence (about 13 miles north) for a stay. They are traveling in their motor home and I
am looking forward to a chance to see them.
 |
| Mt. Shasta, from the Weed, CA, rest area. Looking SE at the mountain. |
June 11, 2013
Tahkenitch Landing Campground
Gardiner, OR
Today is Saturday, at least for me, and it is a day of
errands. Drive to Reedsport to talk to
my boss, go to the P.O. to check for Snail Mail, stop by the Sugar Shack for a
couple of doughnuts and a maple bar, and then hit the road for Eugene. The drive from Reedsport to Eugene takes you
along the Umpqua River to Elkton and then to Drain, OR (passing through the
community of Hardscrabble, OR, on the drive).
From Drain, OR, the road turns northward and in about five or six miles,
you merge onto the I-5 northbound for the 30 miles or so to Eugene where I made
a stop at Costco for some supplies and then a visit to the Eugene Public
Library (100 W. 10th Avenue) to finish this episode of the blog. The rest of the day will be driving back to
Florence for doing laundry, making a stop at the RV shop to see if the part I
need has been ordered, and the rest of my grocery shopping at the Safeway. Round trip will be about 150 miles and use up
most of the day. But, I managed to pick
up three bottles of wine, some batteries for my headlamp (not truck or RV
headlamp, but my personal, wear it on your head, headlamp), and some food for
my tummy.
This library is very, very nice. Lots of room to sit at table with lights and
power if I need it for the laptop, quiet as a library should be, stained glass
windows for effect and very nice folk
for help if needed. The one drawback to
using the library wifi (almost any library wifi) is that the wifi systems are
always unsecured. They don’t use any
passwords, so anyone could be around. I
don’t like using any of my secured websites on an unsecured wifi system. So I use my Verizon tablet as a hot spot and
use my laptop connection through the hotspot for my internet connections.
My conversation in the writings from June 10th (above), discussed the wind blowing around the lake. Well today, the skies are cloudy and guess what? No wind. The lake when I left on my errands this morning, the water was dead flat, barely a riffle...and there is no wind blowing any where else with this cloud cover. Kind of interesting isn't it?
Tell me what you think about anything you read on the
blog. You folks watching and reading the
blog surely have some questions, ask them.
If you have been here before, to the Oregon Coast and have some
suggestions for places to visit and people to see, let me know.
More to come…
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