Thursday, April 7, 2022. Grants Pass OR to Corning CA
We were up with the sun at 7:30am, and while Janet was a little concerned we might have ended up too warm at night, keeping the roof vent open and the small window in the slide cracked open, kept the inside of the RV quite comfortable without need for either air conditioning or heating. The batteries were reading fully charged by the time we were ready to pull out of the Climate City Brewery at 8:00am.
We drove through Grants Pass across the Rogue River and got in work outs and showers at the Grants Pass Planet Fitness. We were also able to refill our drinking water bottles with their filtered water dispenser, and Ben got a 10 minute massage in as well.
Our next stop was the Valley of the Rogue River State Park where we took a nice stroll along the Rogue River. The far bank was lined with modest dwellings built atop tall cinder block foundations on the steep bank. The trees are all budding out, but the oaks carry prominent balls of mistletoe in their canopies. Weather was perfect with temperatures in the 60’s and a cloudless sky.
Our next stop was the Costco in Central Point, just north of Medford OR. We topped off the fuel tanks with diesel. The hill climbs dropped or fuel economy back down to 14.1mpg. When we got there, we saw someone in a very expensive and over 40’ long class A RV had parked near the entrance to the warehouse taking up 8 parking spaces. Well, he whole heartedly deserved what came next when cars parked in the spaces directly in front of and in back of his sideways parked rig, trapping him in. We went inside and got hot dogs for lunch as well as some apples. He was still boxed in when we left. We, like most considerate RV’ers had parked far from the entrance where there were plenty of open pull through parking spots.
The drive through the mountains between Oregon and California was quite scenic, despite stands of blackened trees from recent wildfires, because the undergrowth was spectacular. It is striking just how perfect a cone Mt. Shasta has. It’s like our local version of Mt. Fuji. But what is startling is how low Lake Shasta is. The water is more than 125’ below capacity, leaving hundreds of yards between the shoreline vegetation and water’s edge.
We made another diesel stop at the Clear Creek Market in Redding CA where the Gas Buddy app showed a correct price of $5.87/gal. Many California stations are over $6/gal.
We arrived at our destination for the night around 4pm, the Moonbeam Lavender and Loofa farm. This is another Harvest Host site where members can spend the night in exchange for patronizing the business. Tonight, there are 4 RV’s in their very spacious parking area including a Sprinter Van conversion, Airstream 22’ foot towable behind a crew cab 3/4 ton truck, a class B+ Leisure Unity Sprinter based van, and our Sprinter based Class C.
The owner gave us a tour of the Lavender and Loofa farm. Ben had no idea there were so many different kinds of lavender and that some are used for fragrances, while others are used for culinary flavoring. Ben also had no idea that Loofas come from a Chinese okra, which starts off looking like a summer squash, but then develops the tough and flexible skeleton that becomes the Loofa you see in stores and catalogs. We stocked up on a variety of lavender soaps.
The owner has grand plans for her little farm, including more permanent camping facilities, an Air B&B, event venues and a Farmer’s Market.
We had ham and cheese sandwiches with chips, carrot and celery sticks and apple slices for dinner.
There was wifi that was just adequate to allow video streaming from where we were parked, near the plant nursery. This allowed us to watch another episode of Better Call Saul and some of the evening news.
