Mountain View RV Park

After leaving Alturas, we drove 100 miles to Mountain View RV Park in Susanville.

Susanville is one of our favorite little towns in northern California. We have always stayed at this RV park...when we first started coming here, it was new, but it is well kept up. Plus, they now have free WiFi, so I used that while we stayed here rather than setting up the Direcway dish.

While we were in Susanville, we did laundry, grocery shopping, washed and waxed the Honda and washed the Lazy Daze, and Earl went golfing at Diamond Mountain Golf Club. We also had dinner at the Apple Peddler and lunch at the Teriyaki House.

We also received all the paperwork from the realtor in Arizona who is listing the 20 acres we own, together with my sister, near Mobile (south of the Phoenix area, and east of Gila Bend). We've owned this land for over 16 years, and the price per acre in that area have increased significantly, so we figured this might be a good time to put the land up for sale and, hopefully, make a tidy little profit.

Sully's RV Park, Day 2

We had lunch with Claude Singleton at the Mexican food restaurant down the street from the BLM office. Unfortunately, Carman Prisco, the BLM ranger who was our main contact when we were camp hosting at Pit River Campground, was in New Orleans helping out with law enforcement down there, so we didn't get to see him...or David McKirahan the BLM engineer who was the head of the crew who was responsible for the reconstruction of the campground, as he had responsibilities elsewhere.

Sully's RV Park

On our way to Alturas, we stopped in Lakeview to have lunch at Jerry's Restaurant and put gas in the Lazy Daze at Lakeview Truck Stop, the cheapest place in town to get gas each time we've been in Lakeview.

We also stopped at the Safeway store to pick up some items for Claude Singleton's next fishing trip to Steens Mountain. When we'd run into Claude at the Lakeview Safeway in August, he showed us a can of bean dip, some chips, and a can of soup. He says he sets the soup out in the sun, and by the time he comes back from fishing, it's hot enough to eat! So we picked him up a can of soup, bean dip, and chips!

Sully's RV Park is listed in the Escapees Directory as offering a 15% discount to Escapees. However, when we were here in April, they didn't give us the discount...they did this time! Apparently, at least according to the explanation I got when I questioned why we didn't get the discount in April, the RV park had changed hands in the intervening period. That still doesn't explain why we didn't get the discount earlier, even though it was listed in the Escapees Directory.

Silver Creek Marsh Campground, Freemont National Forest

After leaving Hole-in-the-Ground, we stopped at Fort Rock State Park north of Fort Rock.

Fort Rock is one of about 40 small volcanoes that erupted during the Pleistocene at around the same time as Mount Hood was building its main edifice and Newberry carter pumped out its main basalts. Fort Rock's eruption boiled from a circular vent, creating a donut-shaped extrusion, known as a tuff ring.

The southern portion of the Fort Rock tuff ring was carved away by the wind-driven waves of Fort Rock Lake, the largest of several Pleistocene lakes which covered southeastern Oregon. Fort Rock Lake covered almost 1,000 square miles and reached a maximum depth of about 200 feet.

We then drove on to Silver Creek Marsh Campground in the Freemont National Forest. This campground is located south of Silver Lake on CR-4-11 (which changes to FR-27 at some point). There was a large youth group camped there, so we almost didn't stop, but as the campground extends quite a ways north and south, we camped at the far southern end away from the youth group. It turned out to be a very quiet.

Hole-in-the-Ground

Hole-in-the-Ground is located off SR-31 almost directly south of Newberry Crater. It is a circular, 500-foot-deep crater about a mile in circumference which was formed when hot ascending lava encountered cold groundwater. This type of eruption produces only steam and leaves behind a round depression in the ground, called a maar.

We found a place on the rim where we could back up and have a great view of the depression. We attempted to take our toad down the road that goes into the crater, but got only a little ways down it before we had to turn around and come back...maybe a "true" 4-wheel drive could make it (or an ATV), but it was much too rough for our vehicle.

Gold Lake Sno Park

After leaving Sutherlin, we drove north on I-5 (one of our few ventures onto the nation's Interstate system) to SR-58 south of Eugene where we headed east. We decided to go this way because we've never driving SR-58 before...and we like traveling new roads when we can instead of going the same old way.

We stopped to spend the night at the Gold Lake Sno Park at Willamette Pass. This is a nice, large area where you can pull off out of sight of the highway...and it's free, too!

Timber Valley

Before leaving North Bend, we stopped to put gas in the Lazy Daze, and then headed to Timber Valley, the Escapees park in Sutherlin. On our way there, we stopped at Kamper Korner to pick up a new door handle/locking mechanism for the rig, since the one on the rig had broken.

When we got to Timber Valley, we check to see where we were on the Hot List for a lot at the park. When we'd signed up on February 4, we were number 234. As of today, we're number 190 -- so we've progressed on the list 44 places in less than eight months. If it keeps up at this rate (which, of course, it won't), we'll be up for a lot in 3.5 years instead of the five to six years we were told.

Today is our 30th wedding anniversary! We celebrated by going out to dinner at Si Casa Flora next to the Ray's.

While staying at Timber Valley, Earl went golfing and replaced the door lock. We also visited with friends Jerry and Darleen Hatch who have a lot here. Jerry and Darleen are friends with another friend I worked with with Earl and I lived in Chicago.

Mills Casino

After bidding everyone goodbye, we drove north on US-101 and spent the night at the Mills Casino in North Bend. The Mills Casino offers free overnight parking in their large lot. However, this time when we were there, they had the rear section blocked off and were doing some work. I've heard on some of the RV forums I read that they were putting in an RV park. I don't know if that's true, but they're definitely up to something! Hope if they put in an RV park, they will still allow free overnight parking...but probably not.

Honey Bear RV Park

Stopped at McDonald's to have breakfast, and then drove on to the Honey Bear RV Park which is located south of Ophir. This Lazy Daze get together is "Phase 2" of the Ladeze get together -- the woman's Lazy Daze group. There were a lot of people here who I had met at the Ladeze get together earlier in the year, and a few people who both Earl and I knew...plus we had the chance to meet a lot of new friends. That night, we went to dinner at the restaurant in the RV park, which is a German restaurant.

Brookings Elks Lodge

We stopped here to spend a couple of days while waiting to go on to Ophir for the Lazy Daze get together. Had dinner at the Best Western and did some grocery shopping.

Patrick Creek Campground, Six Rivers National Forest

Henderson's was done with the front end alignment on the Lazy Daze by noon or a little after, so we headed south US-199, stopping for the night at Patrick Creek Campground just south of Patrick Creek, California. Since we were back in California, Earl walked down to the river to do some fishing, but didn't have any luck.

Henderson's Line-Up

Henderson's is in Grants Pass and is a well-respected company that does alignments and offers other automotive and RV services. Our appointment is for tomorrow, and, since they allow customers to spend the night in their parking lot, we set up, unhooked the Honda, and did some grocery shopping. We also drove out north of town to an RV dealer to look at some RVs. That night, we had dinner at Si Casa Flores, a Mexican food restaurant.

Pear Tree RV Resort, Day 2

We drove into Medford to do some shopping at Costco, Wal Mart, and Safeway.

Pear Tree RV Resort

Originally, we were going to stay at the Medford Elks Club campground, but there was some type of festival going on, and the campground was packed...we barely had enough room to find someplace to turn around. We stopped at Pear Tree RV Resort in Phoenix, Oregon, east of Medford, stopping in White City first to do laundry.

Broken Arrow Campground, Umpqua National Forest

Broken Arrow Campground is south of Diamond Lake which is north of Crater Lake National Park. We were thinking about staying here a couple of days, but it was cold and rainy, so we just spent the night.

That evening, we drove down to Diamond Lake Resort and had pizza for dinner.

Point Campground, Day 2

Yesterday, we were originally planning on staying at Soda Creek Campground, but couldn't find it, so we drove back up the Cascade Lakes highway to see if we could locate it. As we discovered, the reason we couldn't find it was because the sign out on the road didn't say Soda Creek -- it said Sparks Lake Recreation Area! The campground is on Soda Creek, but unless you're familiar with the area, you'd pass right pass right by it, like we did. As it turned out, we liked Point Campground a lot better than Soda Creek, anyway. Our campsite at Point has a great view of Elk Lake.

Point Campground, Deschutes National Forest

Point Campground is on the shores of Elk Lake on the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. Once we'd set up and walked around the campground, we noticed another Lazy Daze parked there, too! It belonged to the Delfantis who are the original owners of their 1992 Lazy Daze. We stopped and had a nice conversation with them.

Cascade Meadows RV Resort, Day 2

We drove up to Bend, toured the Host Camper factory, had lunch at the Ranchero Restaurant, and stopped at Macy's so that I could by some new jeans.

Cascade Meadows RV Resort

Drove a whole 20 miles down to Cascade Meadows RV Resort, one of our Coast to Coast parks, at the junction of US-97 and CR-21, the road that goes up to Newberry Crater. We'd decided to stay here for a couple of days to clean up the rigs, and relax with water and electric hookups for a change.

Little Crater Campground, Day 8

Since yesterday was cloudy and cold, we decided to get out today and walk the trail around Paulina Lake -- at least part of it. The entire trail is 7 miles long, and we walked only about a quarter of that.

Little Crater Campground, Day 6

We hiked Little Crater Trail which goes from the campground to the top of Little Crater from where you can see both Paulina Lake and East Lake.

Little Crater Campground, Day 5

We took the Lazy Daze down to dump tanks, and then went on to La Pine to pick up mail and do grocery shopping.