It's cooler in Oregon

Today we continued our journey north.  From Weed, CA we drove 262 miles to Harrisburg, OR, over the highest elevation on I-5, Siskiyou Summit.  The Siskiyou mountain range is the travelers introduction to Oregon from the south and is both beautiful and intimidating.  Miles and miles of 6% and greater grades, both up and down, with one devastating 7%, 6 mile long downhill into Ashland OR that will warp many an unsuspecting brake rotor! The scenery is wonderful, so it's easy to loose focus on driving.  Combined with a large commercial trucking presence, you can see why it's a deceptive stretch of road.

Harrisburg is a small (3700+/-) town on the Willamette River about 209 miles north of the CA/OR border.  It's claim to fame is a company that manufactures pre-stressed concrete panels. Since today is Sunday, we didn't expect the business to be operating, but it was, at a quiet noise level, and we spent some time watching the huge mobile cranes move stuff around the outside yard.  Quite an operation.

We drove five miles south on Hwy 99 to the town of Junction City, OR.  We've ordered a new love seat for the trailer and expect to pick it up tomorrow, so we wanted to scope out the area.  JC isn't much bigger than Harrisburg, but it has a large RV presence.  The town was the home of Country Coach, Monaco, and Marathon motorhomes back in the day, or so the locals told us.  Most of the buildings are closed up now, but small businesses have sprung up that cater to RV remodeling and refurbishing operations.  A number of woodworking/cabinet shops are going full bore, and the furniture, flooring, and exterior body shops are busy.

We visited one of the last large motorhome dealers in the area, Guaranty RV, in JC.  They were at one time the largest Country Coach dealer in the west.  Now they're number 2 in the MH and Trailer business, with several stores in town selling everything from Chevy's to spare parts to tent trailers to million dollar motorhomes. Sounds like they pretty much "are" Junction City, OR!

On the way back to the RV park, we stopped at a park along the Willamette River. We'll come back in the next few days and have a picnic here, and let Pris play.  She's been a very patient pup, but will soon need some playtime. This picture is from a gazebo overlooking the river.

Just looking at this picture is cooling!  It's quite a bit cooler in Oregon than in California when we left two days ago.  We're hoping for a continuing cooling trend!