Returned from Ashland, OR

[Stefrobrts]

Hi all, I just got back from our annual trip to Ashland Oregon to catch some plays at the Shakespeare Festival down there. Excellent plays as always. Without a doubt my favorite was Much Ado About Nothing, which I just adored. I went into it with no idea what it was about, and it actually turned out to be a very sweet romantic comedy. Who knew?

We stayed at Emigrant Lake again, and were surrounded by giant white boxes and monsterous diesel pusher motorhomes. No one said so much as a hello to us. We said hello a few times when we had a chance, but no one seemed much interested in talking. I don't know why not, I think I'm a friendly person!

For the first time every everything in the trailer worked. Well, mostly worked. We got the trailer leveled correctly using a level on the top of the freezer coil in the fridge, and so the fridge worked better than ever, but still couldn't keep it's cool. As the temps outside rose close to 90, the temp in the fridge crawled up to 60 (even with the new cooling fans running all day), and then dropped back down to 20 in the evenings. The water heater worked great, and it's new reignitor kept it lit even when it got very windy. We heard the reignitor kick in and relight the pilot a few times. I even got the city water hooked up so it wouldn't leak in the trailer, so we had a constant source of water. In the year we've owned the trailer we've only had water from the freshwater tank, so having city water was nice. I was still paranoid though, and turned it off whenever we left the trailer for a few hours to go see plays.

So I had a wonderful week of sitting in the shade of a tree by the airstream, reading a book and watching people play on the lake (I can't swim, so I don't actually play on the lake, I just watch). Saw an Osprey catch a fish! I brought my bike along, but the first morning I crashed and tore up my elbow, and didn't much feel like biking around after that. We did spend a day at Oregon Caves National Monument, and enjoyed the cave tour and a little hiking around there. It's way out in the middle of nowhere, but it was a pretty neat cave to visit, so worth the trip. All in all, another great week spent with our airstream!

[jordandvm]

Glad to hear you had a good trip! I've seen "Much Ado About Nothing" there also....it was set in the 1960's genre as a backdrop! Really enjoyed it also. I know the feeling about being in a campground surrounded by "big white boxes"! We tried the 1000 Trails in Bend/Sunriver area, and all our neighbors were "huuuuuge" SOB's. Made our 22' seem really small! But everyone seemed friendly enough. The campgound wasn't crowded in May. Maybe that was the difference. As the season progresses, I think the campgrounds become more crowded, increasing stress levels. Who knows! As we were pulling out of the campground, a huge motorhome pulled up behind us at the dump station. I immediately went back to warn him that it might take longer than normal, as this was only our "Second Dump Experience". He frowned at me, like I was subhuman, so I hurriedly completed my "Dump"! There are just some folks out there that are not very friendly......Go figure! We're all out there to have a good time!
Looking forward to my first Rally in Sisters! Thanks again for the tips....only 10-15 units registered....maybe I should join the Oregon Unit instead of the Western Oregon Unit. I guess I could change if the folks aren't so friendly!
Jim

[Stefrobrts]

The Oregon people will welcome you no matter which unit you join! I wish we could make it to Sisters this year. Hopefully we'll have the chance to run into you at another rally sometime!

The people at the campground were interesting. When we arrived on Tuesday the place was full of seniors, not a family in sight. Thursday morning we went to the Oregon Caves, and when we came back in the afternoon the whole campground was pretty much cleared out. Everyone had picked up and left while we were gone! Then Friday the camping families started arriving, dragging along boats and sea-doos, and hoards of kids which poured out of their SOBs wearing swim trunks and dragging along all manner of watertoys. We were laughing that the seniors must have known they were coming! Still, we said hello to the folks around us when we saw them out (we got a laugh out of how at night everyone was holed up inside with the AC running and their windows glowing blue from the TV sets inside - we were sitting out watching the stars). I guess folks were just out to enjoy their weekend, not necessarily be sociable. But we had a good time either way.