So, ya know how I said we were leaving for a Road Trip for somewhere warm? Hmmm?
LMBO!! As you can see above, that DID NOT HAPPEN.
First we headed to Eastern Oregon, and the snow and cold decided to follow us wherever we went! We headed to Christmas Valley and Fort Rock and were gonna spend the night. Well, the snow was coming so we just drove thru (without my picture of Fort Rock for the 2nd time!).
Then we headed to SE Oregon, and he had a map where he had found a regular road that cuts across and would save us 80 miles (wait-it gets better!). So we went from Silver Lake, a really small town, and headed over. There was a sign that said something about not maintained in winter (but it is Spring, right?) It wasn't snowing too bad there, so we started across...it was probably 4 or 5 pm by then. Needless to say, and to make the story shorter-we got stuck in the snow by a swamp, at around 10 pm!! We high centered and the snow had gotten soft earlier (yes, I did tell him 'let's not go this way, let's go back the way we came!" before we got stuck-I DO NOT like snow, night and mountain roads I don't know...wonder why?). So he tried to get us out that night and the next morning, he also started walking trying to find a homestead out in the middle of nowhere! The cell said 'no service', but I thought what the hell-never know till you try! I called 911, we miraculously had a bad but working signal, and we had to be "Search & Rescued"!! We slept pretty good that night, wasn't too cold even-we only started the truck for the heater a few times.
After that we headed more SW, on THE HWY! We went to my Grandmother's in Dorris, Ca. and visited for a while, then we headed over to the coast. We left Dorris when the sun was just setting, and we took a very windy road over to Ashland from Klamath Falls. Did I already say that the snow was following us wherever we went??? Yeah, there was snow-sometimes too much to see. And the road was windy, and it was dark and we had just about had ENOUGH! LOL We went over two very high summits and had a long ride down to get to Ashland.
We made it to Ashland around 9:30 pm, had dinner and went up to Rogue River to sleep at the rest stop/park. (Yes, we sleep in the car-we're cheap!) We both slept horribly last night and were cold-we've decided it was because we were in the opposite seats than we usually do, LOL. Around 5:30 am we headed to the coast via the Redwood Forest, Scott had never seen it.
The drive thru the redwoods was beautiful, of course-but it was the northern part and not as good as the lower area. I wanted to take him to the tree you can drive thru that I remember from my childhood (my Dad had to back the van thru the opening so we could take a picture that looked like we drove thru, the van was too big! LOL)--but we were in the wrong part and didn't get to. There's always next time, I guess.
Of course, if it wasn't snowing-it was raining. We got very little sunshine this weekend! We hit Crescent City, Ca and headed up Hwy 101 toward home. We drove up the Hwy all of the way, we stopped a few times to see nature, get some dirt to pan for gold and to go thru some art galleries and antique shops. We stopped a couple of times to see the ocean, and it was freezing and rainy! (but of course!) I think we were right out of Newport and he decided he wanted to head to the valley, so we headed towards I5 and home. We weren't sure we were going home today until we saw that the rain was just not going to go away, and we gave in to Mother Nature!! A hot shower, our warm beds and being home was just too irresistable.
It was an awesome 3 day escape, even though there were a few glitches (but it could have been WAY worse!). We needed this time alone and away, and we came home feeling refreshed, relaxed and exhausted. Tomorrow he will be making up some 'Oyster Chowder/Stew' with the fresh oysters we picked up in Newport, and life will all be back to normal! I'm thinking the next road trip will not be till MID SUMMER...
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