Travel Day Through Oregon [260604]

(Posted 260608) Thursday was scheduled to be "just a travel day", but we ended up making part of it a work day as well.

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Being the equivalent of several blocks away from the freeway, the Rain Rock RV lot was a relatively quiet place to spend a night - until 7 a.m., that is, when we awoke to what sounded like a very large piece of construction or farm equipment passing slowly (and loudly) right behind our heads (i.e. the back doors of the van).  After that, a truck seemed to pass by every 5 minutes or so.  When we finally got up and looked out the window, we saw what all the commotion was about.

Perched on the edge of the RV lot (right next to the road that leads up to the casino) was a sign that we had completely not noticed the night before that proudly declared "Future Home of the Rain Rock Travel Plaza".  Apparently, the construction crew resumes excavation work at 7 a.m. in the morning, and the dirt haulers travel through the RV lot to get to/from the dump site.

We had decided the previous night that since it was just a half days' drive to our next nights' stopping place - and the Rain Rock lot had decent WiFi - that we'd spend the morning here and leave after lunch.  So while we worked on our computers (Christine planning, and Tom setting up this new blog and working on its first post), Squishmallow Snoopy had a great view of the various types of dirt haulers that drove to and fro from his perch in the dinette.

At around 10:30 the really loud bulldozer that we had heard first thing in the morning finally made its return trip, and we were able to put a name to our pain.

After lunch, we headed out.  Despite having run our inverter for that last hour of our stay to charge our laptops, the Volta was still at 91% - thanks to plentiful solar charging that morning - which was a pleasant surprise.  As we continued up I-5 we were treated to views of the west side of Mt. Shasta.

Just north of Yreka we passed a dragon by the side of the road.  It happened a bit too fast to get a photo of, but thanks to the magic of the internet we were not only able to fine one for you that someone else took but also learn the dragon's name: "Priscilla (or Penelope), Dragon Queen of the Sierras".

And speaking of "things that somehow snuck up on us and we didn't get a photo of":  we crossed the border into Oregon at 1:50 p.m.  Normally we'd have a nice photo of the sign to commemorate the occasion, but we're apparently we're way out of practice so we'll all have to settle for a screengrab from the dashcam instead.

The most notable event over the next few hours' drive (other than the free tea at the Ashland Rest Area, which was a nice continuation to the free Cafe Mocha that Christine had gotten from the Rain Rock Casino on her morning walk earlier in the day) was that our old "engine shuts down on its own" gremlin made an appearance again.  Having happened half a dozen times during our East of the Rockies Trek, Tom knew exactly what to do when the warning tone and "Vehicle Not In Park" message came up on the dash as the engine shut off while we were were cruising up the freeway at 65 mph, and he drifted into the emergency parking area, shifted to Park, re-started the engine, and then merged back into traffic.  We had hoped that one of the two RAM recall / firmware updates we had received after returning from the Trek had fixed the problem for good (especially since we hadn't had a problem during the subsequent Arizona or Nevada trips), but it appears the gremlin was just sleeping and is alive and well.  If it follows its past pattern, though, we should be good for at least several months now!

We also chatted with our daughter on the phone for the last 3+ hours of our drive, which made the time fly by and before we knew it we were looking at Mt. Hood in the distance . . .

. . . and then at 7:15 pulling into our stopping place for the night:  the French Prairie Rest Area.  French Prairie has to be one of the largest and prettiest rest areas we've ever been to - something like what we imagine a rest area on Endor would be like.

It has a smaller lot in the front and a larger lot in the rear, and some reviewers had said that the rear lot was quieter.  However, since there was only a single one way path through it all we decided to hedge our bets, park in the front lot, and then walk to the rear lot to compare, since there'd be no way to drive back from the rear lot if we took the T42 back there and didn't like it.  That turned out to be a good strategy, because we liked the front lot much more:  while the back lot was slightly further away from the freeway, the freeway noise was the same - and the layout in the back was essentially a wide path with truck parking running down the center and auto parking running along either side, which puts you much closer to the trucks (who are are likely to be idling their engines all night - several already were during our walk-through).  We much preferred the front lot, with its completely separate truck and auto sections.

We had dinner (Aldi tinned fish with leftover rice and canned peas for Tom; salad and leftover grilled pizza for Christine) and then did dishes - which is unusual for a boondocking night, but we were willing to expend the water and tank space since a dump/fill was scheduled for the next day anyway.  Then we did some experiments with our Starlink Mini to try to determine "how usable is the low-bandwidth Stand-by Mode", but despite the fact that we were able to get "perfect alignment" (which we practically never bother trying to get, since we set the dish up on the dashboard and are limited in how we can aim it) our transfer rates were still pretty abysmal - which we attributed to the dense tree cover, and we gave up on the experiment for now.

Tonight was supposed to be a big aurora viewing night (which was highly coincidental, since we were in Aurora, OR), and even though most maps showed that we were still too far south for viewing we decided to go out and see if we could get an unobstructed northern view anyway.  It was a lost cause, though, because clouds had started rolling in and the sky wasn't even visible at all.

We returned to the T42 and fired up a hotspot on Tom's phone.  Christine worked on trip planning, and Tom continued to work on the first blog post, completing it just before heading to bed at 1 a.m.  Our stay tonight would earn us the Oregon sticker on our tracking map.