Oregon SKP

Looks just like Jojoba... sort of.

The morning after Guys and Dolls, we packed up the motorhome again and drove north about 2 hours to Sutherlin, just north of Roseburg.  This is a small town with no distinctive characteristics except that it is the home of another Escapees RV park called Timber Valley that we wanted to check out.  They don't take reservations, but we had no problem pulling in and getting assigned a spot.  There was a slight problem in that when we got to said spot, someone else was parked in it.  But have no fear... there were maybe 20 or 30 vacant sites to be had, so they moved us next door to a lot that was currently unoccupied.

Timber Valley is set up similar to Jojoba Hills with members buying into the co-op and getting assigned 50 x 70 foot lots.  There is a Friendship Hall, except they call it a Clubhouse, with a library and a pool table.  They don't have some of the Jojoba amenities like a swimming pool or an auto shop.  But they do have large, lush grassy areas and the park is surrounded by forest on three sides.  Every place has its pluses and minuses I suppose.  If they had ping pong on the schedule we'd be tempted to move.

There is quite a bit of wildlife in the park.  Everyone at Jojoba is familiar with the cute little bunnies that hop around there.  Well, if you took 3 or 4 of those and squeezed them together into one animal you'd get a Timber Valley rabbit like this :

Rabbitzilla

There are also wild turkeys here to gobble-gobble-gobble you awake in the mornings, squirrels, quail and even the occasional deer passing through to munch on the greenery.  We've also seen some golden eagles in the area, but not in the park itself.  We have not seen any bobcats or rattle snakes.  But we have seen these:

Vicki wants one for a pet.

I'll take a snake any day over a 4 inch slug.

Historic Oakland - of no historic interest

About 3 miles north of Sutherlin on highway 99 is the even smaller town of Oakland with its "historic" downtown area which these days means a collection of old buildings where nothing of interest ever happened.  One such building is the old Becker Drugstore with its classic soda fountain.  The current owners bought it about 6 years ago, kept the soda fountain and turned the rest of the drugstore into a restaurant.  We stopped in one afternoon and had some ice cream.  The menu listed 20 exotic flavors but they currently had only 6 or 7 of them in stock.  I got a scoop of strawberry, Vic splurged and had a chocolate malt. The interior had really been done up nicely.  You get to eat in antique easy chairs.  That's a nice touch.  If it had been a little later in the day we might have seen what the food was like, but at this point I doubt that's going to happen.

Nine miles to the south is Roseburg, a somewhat larger town that serves as the county seat for Douglas County.  That's where you go if you want to do any serious shopping from Sutherlin.  It is the home of the Douglas County Museum where we spent a pleasant afternoon perusing exhibits of local history and natural history since Christopher isn't with us this year to whine about that sort of thing.  There were a lot interesting artifacts but they were not arranged in any particular order.  I like it when a museum has been set up to tell a progressive story as you go through.  This one was more haphazard.  The day we were there Smokey the Bear was visiting, but Vickie refused to sit on his lap, so I didn't take a picture.

Roseburg also has a rhododendron garden at a park along the South Umpqua River.  A couple of years ago we went to the one in Eugene which is quite a large showplace though the rhododendrons were rather past their prime by the time we got there.  The garden in Roseburg has much more modest aspirations, but at least the flowers were in full bloom, as you can plainly see.

Rhododendron

Rhododendron

Rhododendron

Not a Rhododendron

By the way, I forgot to mention that the Ashland post was the 100th entry for this blog.  It seems like some sort of minor celebration was called for but no one threw me a party or anything.

Bonus Pics

Wild turkeys milling about in our next door neighbor's driveway

Deer snacking at Timber Valley

Ex-drugstore in Oakland, OR

The old soda fountain, popular in the afternoon.

Interior decoration of Tolly's Grill and Soda Fountain

Portrait of Buffalo Bill Cody drawn on an unmarked piece of sheet

metal using a 22 cal rifle at about 20 feet in under 4 minutes by a

local sharp shooter in the early 1900s.

For the Jojoba Hills quilters - pioneer quilt made in the mid-19th century without any giant sewing machine