Back on the Road…

After a five month visit in Fairview, it was time to head south. Winter is approaching and I wanted to get to warmer climes before the Portland area began it’s famous 9 month rainy season (though that’s changed over the decades…it’s not as bad any more).

And this would be my first towing expirience beyond the 35 miles I’d put on the RV/Car combo a few days before in late September. I had everything set up, the car was all wired up, had the towing equipment ready to go.

Go here to read my lengthy towing write up: Towing a Saturn

One thing that changed a bit was I finally gave up on the LED replacement bulbs for the Running/Brake lights in the Saturn. They just did not work worth a damn and I was always modifying or repairing them. The last straw was when I noticed one was flickering! Gah! Enough!

So I jerked them out and reinstalled the incandescent bulbs that had come with the car. Since all the other bulbs needed for towing had been changed to LED, like the upper brake lights in the rear window, the side markers, the left and right turn signals, I knew I still had nice low operating current so no strain on the RVs alternator or towing wiring. The incandescent bulbs I put back in would bump up the operational current, true, but not enough to worry about since I had originally designed in some operational headroom. I had also wired for and installed a 50 Amp Schottky diode for isolation between the RVs 12 Volt system and the car’s battery. It will keep the car’s battery charged up while it’s being towed.

Anyway, off I headed towing southbound. Took I-84 West, then South on I-205, join up with I-5 south of Portland. Carefully checked the car in the monitor and rearview mirrors every few seconds for the first hundred miles or so. Really tracks well. Looks nice back there. No shimmy or shaking the RV, so that’s good.

So there’s my electronics these days…a new accident recording video camera with sound (got one for the car too, only $25 at Amazon) with a continuous recording loop feature; an old used Garmin that cost me $12 at a yard sale; a nice gooseneck clamp and suction thingy to hold it in place on the dashboard; and the built in backup monitor. With sound! Only wish it was in color. But the sound from the monitor, I’d turned it up one time and forgot to turn it back down. Road noise was driving me nuts ‘cus I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Took almost 90 miles to remember.

Nice suspension walkway. Down in Eugene…used by people heading for the Ducks games at Autzen Stadium. Lots of walkers, runners, bicyclers here in Eugene.So a few hours later, I pull into the Myrtle Creek area looking for a PassPort America 1/2 price park, and following camping signs, inadvertently pull into this city park by mistake. The manager came right out, I was tired of driving, it was only $20/nite here so I paid. The guy helped me unhook so I could back into my space. Turned out to be a little difficult because one of the pull pins on the tow bar was stuck, but only added a couple minutes to the procedure.

Nice…Myrtle Creek RV Park, with surprisingly good WiFi. The old mill and city park is off in that direction in the below pic.  And both the Umpqua River and Mill Creek over there somewhere. I visited them the next day. There’s an old time covered bridge there too.

Ended up staying 3 nights as the price was right, had blazing WiFi, and one day was nice sunshine so I got the Eternabond applied up on my front and rear end cap seams (prevents future leaks because bouncing around on the highway can cause the seams to open up), and there were places to explore nearby. No OTA TV or cable though. So I had to stream. And it worked for hours at a time.

I did go visit that other RV park up the road, turned out they were remodeling and 6 of their short term sites were ripped up with heavy equipment sitting on them with the old parking pads all busted up. Because of that, they had no space for me anyway. Happy I didn’t bother to go up there the evening I arrived in town. I found an Abby’s pizza place in town too. I like those because the Abby’s chain restaurants always have a nice ‘make your own’ salad bar, and serve craft beers.  And pretty good pizza as well.

Next morning, did a little sight seeing. This is the old mill. Didn’t see any way inside.

Well, whatever, I went to this local cafe for b’fast. Pretty good food, but the coffee was sucky.One of those evil looking storm clouds rolled in while I was eating.
Not a very big place, but comfy. 

Starting to look like a big ol’ storms comin’… Headed back to the RV park, the storm held off for me so I could stop and check this out…this is one of the few remaining covered bridges in Oregon. Looking upstream from the bridge. Kind of a lazy creek now days. Probably dammed upstream a ways by a hydroelectric project. See that all over the Pacific Northwest. With the steep sides to this creek, seems it use to run lots of water most of the year…which explains the old mill here. Now it’s pretty quiet. It feeds into the Umpqua river to the west of here. Standing in the doorway of the covered bridge. Some of the town. I never did get a picture of the actual town of Myrtle Creek. It’s not very big, but it does have an old timey downtown section. Downtown would be quarter of a mile headed left in this next pic. Here’s a link to a street view: Downtown. Nice. But the pigeons have left their mark, that’s for sure. Over that way is the ballpark, and my RV is somewhere over there…

Here’s the Saturn being a PCC (Pretty Cute Car) after I got back from sightseeing.

RV looks good too. Can’t see the Eternabond tape up on the roof but it’s there. Helps that the tape is a nice bright white color. Later that night and into the next day, had a yuge rainstorm, it was yuge I tell ya. I was running south to avoid the worst of it, which was suppose to mostly hit the Portland area, but here in Myrtle Creek I did get some of it. Winds weren’t as strong as Portland. The storm is rotating up from the south off the Pacific so I’m doing the RV’ers drive to avoid it. Just meandering south, la la la la la, taking my time, enjoying the trip. Dodging the worst of the storm. The weather reports had all sorts of warnings as it shaped up to be a damaging storm, mostly due to wind, and mostly along the coast. But with buckets of rain and slightly lighter winds inland too. They were predicting 5″ rain over 3 days with 40 to 80 MPH winds. Yikes! That’s why I jumped on getting the Eternabond tape up during those few hours of sunshine. I got lucky that the sun came out early enough to dry everything, then stayed long enough for me to climb up on the roof to get the job done. Timed it perfectly. It was late that afternoon, about an hour after I finished, when it clouded over again and started drizzling. Than heavy rain most of the night. Then one drenching downpour woke me up around 3 AM, but I was able to get back to sleep. Big ol’ noise from over there. Never did find out what it was. Sasquatch? Heh.

With the latest reports on the storm in hand, I decided to make a dash into the northern valleys of California the next day. The bottom edge of the storm would be rotating around there too, but it was far enough south that it was more of an annoyance than a problem.

[The national news had several reports about this storm I’m dodging, as it caused lots of damage, flooding, high wind issues. Spawned a couple tornados. The coast of Oregon got the worst of it. You can see at that link how it’s southern edge swirled into northern California and southern Oregon.]

And the next day, back onto I-5 southbound, heading for Redding California, the wind was not my friend. Full frontal on the RV. Most of the day. At least in the California valleys. The mountains you pass through in southern Oregon were fairly calm and the rains light. At least early that day. But in California, after I’d dropped into the valley, there were scattered showers, and a nearly continuous 20 MPH wind. But, it’s only 228 miles so not too exhausting fighting it. And I discovered that the RV really handles well in the wind. Doesn’t require much muscling of the steering at all. Very happy about that.

And that’s where we’ll pick it up next posting…the trip from Myrtle Creek to Redding.

Thanks for reading.