9/28/08 to 10/10/08

My sister called me today to say that I said I would update our blog weekly so where was my entry for the prior week. Thanks, Jan, I will try to keep our blog updated (love ya).

After several days of dreary skies, it was time for us to move on down the road to our next stop at the Winchester Bay RV Resort. Back in 2002 when John and I were on a driving vacation, we drove around the point from the Umpqua Lighthouse and came upon the largest gathering of RVs we had ever seen. It left quite the impression on us. It was after we left the area that we started noticing all of the RVs on the road and it got us to thinking about "what if?" This was where our open road dreams really started. It goes without saying that since we were coming back through the area, we just had to stay here. They have certainly upgraded this RV park from what we remember it to be. We would give the park 10 stars and two thumbs up. Of course, the nightly fees reflect that upgrade but was well worth it for the week and the views were great. The marina on one side and the bay on the other.

Here is a picture of our site.
This is the view from my kitchen window at the back of our rig.

It seems that the gray skies followed us here and we even got a good storm on Friday night. Holy cow! We had wind gusts over 65 mph and torrential rainfall. I did not sleep well that night with all of the rocking and pounding but it didn't bother John as he didn't lose a wink. Thankfully, our neighbors confirmed the severity of the storm so that John didn't think I was just making it up.

One of the nice things to do is take a drive 8 miles east of Reedsport to the Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area. We were lucky to see approximately 50 elk while they were taking advantage of a bit of sun. They are magnificent animals and we never get tired of seeing them.

Reedsport is only five miles from Winchester Bay so we drove back in to town to visit their wonderful Umpqua Discovery Center. The center has a wing that shows cultural history exhibits called Tidewaters and Time that tells the story of a town where daily life revolved around whether the tide was coming in or going out. This story applies to not only Reedsport but to any other river towns on the Oregon coast. Their Pathways to Discovery natural history wing is like a trail indoors with landings for viewing interpretive environments. It was informative and entertaining with wonderful murals. We really enjoyed ourselves and would encourage others to stop in and see this wonderful center. The entrance fee is $7 for seniors (over 65) and $8 for everyone else. It seems that we were charged only $7 each. Humm, I'm not sure whether we should be insulted or not. It gave us a good laugh and like I told John, we saved $2.

We stopped at a used bookstore to get some reading material and found a gem of a bookstore. Some used bookstores are rather helter skelter in their layout but this one was organized really nicely. The owner was very outgoing and we had a nice conversation with him. For $17 we left with several novels plus a book on Lewis and Clark that John had wanted to read written by Stephen E Ambrose.

We took a drive along the Umpqua River and stopped at a park and got a picture of this maple tree in all its glory. Trees everywhere are changing colors as fall is definitely here in Oregon.

Here is a picture of my honey along the Umpqua River. The poles here are for a boat dock that rises and lowers on these poles according to the river's level.

We had decided that we were tired of the drizzle and dreary skies so we are going to head inland where we should see sunshine and 70 degree weather. Yippee! After some research, we decided to stay at the Umpqua Golf and RV Resort in Sutherlin for the week as they have good rates. So what do we wake up to Thursday morning, our day of departure, but rain. Just before the slides come in and we get ready to hook-up, we have a downpour. Great. . . We had rain on and off on our drive to Sutherlin which took about an hour and a half. We have a nice long site. This park isn't upscale like the one we left but it is clean and quiet. If we played golf, this would be a nice place to come.

We took a drive to Roseburg to do some grocery shopping and later discovered a nice little grocery store here in Sutherlin called Price Less Shopping. I guess we didn't have to take that 12 mile drive. Now we know.