Yesterday was the Memorial Day holiday so we loafed around the trailer. We made a short foray to buy diesel. We started to dismantle our stuff for travel because we are departing from Waiiaka RV Park and the Yreka area tomorrow. We were mostly slugs.
Today we gathered up the remainer of our stuff, collapsed the slide-out rooms and hooked the trailer to the truck to continue our northward progress. Waiiaka RV Park was a great place to set up our temporary home and the area around Yreka was quite beautiful so we regret leaving that locale.
We drove about a half mile from the park and turned onto the on-ramp for I-5. While Yreka may only be at a 2500′ elevation, the mountains and passes around it are substantially taller. Right off the bat, I-5 starts climbing to cross a 3100′ pass, the last in California. We then crossed into Oregon and started climbing again to cross a 4100′ pass before starting a long, seven percent down grade into Ashland. Today was not one of our endurance drives – I think we went about 35 miles from Yreka to Ashland’s Creekside Campground south of the city.
The space assigned to us was a bit skinny but our main problem was one of configuration. If we parked far enough from the trees on one side of the trailer, a big truck rim repurposed as a fire ring was underneath our trailer and in the way of the rear stabilizer jacks. If we moved closer to the trees, our bottom step was into the fire ring, bad news for hobbling old goats like me. The trees were also then in the way of our slide-outs. Bummer.
We eventually contacted the desk and they sent over a guy named Gary, who suggested a simple solution: Gary would dig the truck rim/fireplace out of the ground and struggle to move it out of our way, fill the resulting hole with dirt and bring over a bucket of decomposed granite gravel to smooth out the site. He even raked it flat. We wiggled the trailer about such that the trees would fit between our slide-outs and we could get into the trailer without having to walk on coals. An excellent solution.
Our RV space has full hookups and cable TV, which is fortunate because the whole park is shaded by mature hardwood trees and satellite antenna operation is right out. We arrived so early today, because of the very short run from Yreka, that we had time to wander into nearby Medford where Peggy’s niece Christy, her hubby Ben and their two great kids, Jacob and Travis, live in a very nice house. We hobnobbed for quite a while and drank some Mimosas before sending Jake out to pick up Mexican food for dinner. I am terribly spoiled with superb Mexican food because our real house is right near the Mexican border and we travel to Mexico each year; both places have spoiled me. We are a long way from Mexico so the best I can say about the one try at local Mexican food is that it is okay.
Peggy’s relatives are much younger than us so we bailed out of their place before dark because those unfortunates still have to work in the morning. Hahahahaha.