Holiday Inn Express Roseburg, Or

Went back to Eugene then I headed to the Umpqua Forest which is central Oregon in the mountains. Ahhh, it was beautiful. Great campground with fun people who liked to play music. Great river, lakes, forest, meadows... can't really describe it all, it was nice.

One of my highlights ...

... sleeved cotton shirt and a fleece jacket. On top of this my jeans and motorcycle jacket. This was still not warm enough so I put on my rain suite which kept the moisture (fog) out. The highpoints of this part of the trip was hugging a redwood tree, walking amongst them and driving though the Redwood National Park. You can see from the pictures just how big they are. I went for a trail walk (.8 mile ...

We are up early as we have another long day of driving. Weather is foggy but dry and still quite cold. I go down to the Chevron Station get us some coffee and after walking the dogs we push off. The farther south we go the better the weather and we have a nice drive down I-5 with easy traffic and pretty country once you are past Salem. We find a roadside diner and get a brunch and a chance to give the dogs a run. We have spoken to our ...

... mountain of Mount Shasta. By that time we were already almost 10 hours on the road, but since it was only about 3:30 at that stage we decided to push on, and make this day a really long trip - while tomorrow will then be much easier. We pushed through to Roseburg in Oregon - 12 hours later we are sitting in a road side inn, exhausted, and glad that tomorrow's trip will be much easier, and shorter too Seattle.

Today the plan is to travel to southern Oregon. After taking advantage of some more of Tom and Lisa's graciousness and hospitality in the morning I leave Cool and put about 400 miles on the bike over mostly freeway miles. Passing through Chico (again) I note that all my sweat glands seem to be in good working order. It's 111 degrees F! Whew!! I'm very grateful to start up into the mountains, traveling past Mt. Lassen, a dormant ...

... itinerary changes constantly. The thought of actually experiencing the places I have read about seems like a nice daydream..... I am both excited and nervous. I can only aniticipate the experience and cannot wait for the reality of being back in the homeland, a place I have never known but I feel it inside of me somehow. Kelly

... through Bend (see picture). Ann rafted down it during her summer in the Northwest in '96. No winner, participation was down, but we are hoping for some renewed interest. Answer to bonus question from yesterday: Kansas. So said a roadside sign. Probably has something to do with Eisenhower. We awoke to a great day in Bend, found a quirky coffee shop for Ann, had breakfast in a park and left south. Since this was a National Park-centric day, Paul will ...

We made it to Mick's home about 7 PM.. Mick and I met in Key West about fifteen years ago, we had identical sailboats. I was pulling into a marina in my boat after a 50 mile sail from Islamorada and he caught my lines as I entered the dock. We started talking about our vessels and decided to go to dinner and have been friends since then. He was on the first sailing trip I ever made to Cuba and sadly on that trip the US Coast Guard cut our ...

Ruthanne was sick. very sick indeed. She'd been fighting off a cold since Christmas, and it had slyly transformed itself in the time we were gone to a full-blown sinus infection. The sticky bloom of sickness hovered like a cloud that threatened to take captive San Francisco and hold us as prisoners of misfortune, ruining our chances of a beautiful relationship with our destined California town. we would not have it. Though we woke Ruthanne up ...