Ashland, Oregon

We are so gone! Do you see our backs?

It was rainy, cold, and slushy when we left home yesterday. It was a little dicey getting out of our driveway, but we were able to do it without too much trouble. Not without having just one more thing break, however. When Mike set our alarm system, there was no delay to allow him to get out the door without setting it off. (Sigh.) The whole thing worked fine five minutes earlier. Without understanding the ins and outs of the thing, I can't tell you exactly what the problem was; but it required another 30-minute delay to fix it. I haven't gone on here in too much detail about all the things that have broken as we've tried to leave. If I did, however, I feel certain that you would agree there is some sort of conspiracy at work.

In any case, our plan was to get to Ashland, Oregon, the first day out, and we made it without any more trouble.  (Whew!)  We both really like, Ashland, although we haven't spent much time here.  Ashland is the home of the famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and also to Southern Oregon University.  With those two things going for it, is it surprising that Ashland is a cultural hub?  We've visited only once, but we enjoyed it very much.  There are dozens of excellent restaurants in town.  We had talked about eating out last night, but then we were just too tired after a long day, and so we ate what I'd already prepared ahead of time for us.  There are two quilt shops in town, according to my trusty reference, the Quilter's Travel Companion.  Sadly, however, their hours are fairly limited during the week to just 10:00 am until 5:00 pm.  We got in too late to visit last night, and we'll be leaving too early this morning, I imagine.  (But not necessarily!  Stay tuned.)

There isn't really much to say about yesterday.  It was a lot of driving down Interstate 5.  It is, however, directly in the path of the Pacific Flyway.  We were treated to the sight of thousands of birds, including dozens of hawks perched on the trees and fences, all along the way.  I'm sure there were many varieties, but the ones we identified for sure were Red-tailed Hawks, Rough-legged Hawks, and American Kestrels.  They are such magnificent birds, and when you can see them perched so close by, you really get an idea how big they are.  The I-5 corridor runs through miles and miles of agricultural area, and so I'm sure they were waiting around for their next meal of field mouse to wander by.  I really hope they don't make little spring lambs into dinner, because we saw lots of those too.

We don't have a plan for our day today, except that we are on our way to Death Valley.  I imagine we'll get somewhere near Stockton today.  We want to stop in at a Target somewhere and purchase another space heater for the trailer.  We've always had one so that we can heat using the electricity of the place we happen to be staying, rather than the propane we are packing along with us.  The one we had before sounds like a million buzzing bees.  Mike was able to pick up one that was much, much quieter.  We'd like to have another one to put back by the bed.  Our fifth-wheel is about 34 feet long, and so one heater doesn't quite make it.  George and Gracie get cold at night and disturb us while we're sleeping.

Speaking of George and Gracie, they've done enough traveling that they take it all in stride.  The first time we took them with us, they were frightened of everything that moved outside our windows.  Now, all they want to do when we arrive is get the curtains opened and a window cracked open so they can smell what's outside.  We call that a "sniffer."  Once we'd determined that everything was ship shape outside our windows, Gracie helped George clean his fur:

It's good to have a friend in life.  And with that, I think I'll stop for now and see what happened in email-land yesterday.  I hope this finds you all doing well.