So we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to just north of Oxynard (which is where most of our off season fruit and vegetables are grown) and then we cut over to Highway 101. This took us through beautiful Santa Barbara again. But this time we continued past the lovely town. Ray said he thought a good place to stop would be Gilroy as he was familiar with the little town from his motorcycle trip in June.
Gilroy is situated in the country of Santa Clara. It is a small town with approximately 49,000 people. What puts Gilroy on the map are the crops of garlic! The air is heavy with the smell of garlic. So much so that the next morning when we left, I was craving Caesar salad!! I mean really,,, you can smell nothing but garlic in the air!!! We had bought some olives stuffed with garlic and some pickled garlic, and I am telling you I would have opened up that pickled garlic and ate a couple but I thought if I had asked to Ray to pull over so that I could get the jar out of the trailer at 7:00 in the morning, he would think I was nuts. Yup we do love our garlic! Every year there is a Garlic Festival in Gilroy. I think it would be great fun to be in Gilroy during festival time! Imagine the garlic products that you would be able to taste!! Gilroy also grows other things such as mushrooms, but it really is the garlic that has given the town the name of "Garlic Capital of the World".
When we woke up on Wednesday morning Ray told me that we were going to drive to Roseburg Oregon which was about a 500 km drive. It was getting cold in the mornings even just being 6 hours north of Malibu, and I was a bit concerned about hitting the Shasta Mountain pass which is in the southern end of the Cascade Range, and the Siskiyous' which Grants Pass is in. In years gone by we have come across snow in both of these passes, and I was not looking forward to dragging a 5th wheel trailer through if there was any sign of snow on the road. Mind you, it was Ray dragging the trailer, not me and he was not concerned at all. But all the same, I would have been sitting on the edge of my seat!
Although the Shasta Mountains had snow at the higher levels, it was clear of snow in the lower levels and with the sun shinning, Shasta Lake was a beautiful sight to behold. The water is so green that it looks glacier fed. The lake is extremely low which we comment on every time we go through there. You can see the previous water lines in the rocks on the shoreline.
Mount Shasta is 14,179 feet and is a volcano. It last erupted in 1786, so I doubt that it is still active. But I do think about it every time we go through there. Mt Baker will likely erupt before Shasta ever will and it is Mt Baker that I should think about. Funny thing is though, I never think of that when I am at home.
We had very little rain and with just a bit of clouds so our drive was very uneventful. We did not however make it to Roseburg as by the time we got to Canyonville Oregon, Ray was getting pretty tired. Canyonville is only about half an hour or so, south of Roseburg, and as the opportunity for free RV parking was up for grabs, we decided to stop. We stopped at the Seven Feathers Casino, which has a full RV campground complete with all hookups. Or you can chose to "dry camp" in the lower parking lot of the Casino for free. We opted for the free camping. We selected our spot in the parking lot and let out our slide. Ray put the furnace on low as it was quite nippy out. At an elevation of only 750 feet, Canyonville is nestled in the forests of Douglas County. At this time of year it can get quite cold, especially during the evenings. With the furnace on, we headed off to the Casino. The walk was refresh but chilly, but once inside we quickly warmed up. We decided to each take $20 and put it into some machines. Yeah we are big time spenders for sure!!! Well I blew $20 instantly without winning a dime. Ray found a machine and put $20 in. He played on that for about 30 minutes and got bored very quickly. I am not sure how you can get bored when you are winning. He was just winning some amounts, just enough to keep playing. He eventually lost his money so we decided to go and grab something to eat. We went into the lounge and shared some nachos and each had a beer. Every few minutes the waitress would come over to see if we wanted another drink and each time we declined. Finally she came back over to our table and said that we had to move on as they were going to be opening the lounge for the entertainment and if we didn't have tickets, then we would have to go. Now why would they not tell us that to begin with? And why was she trying to sell us more drinks? We finished up our beer and left.
We decided that we had had enough of the Casino and headed back to the truck and trailer. It was freezing outside!!! As Ray was only wearing a sweatshirt and I a light denim jacket, I was wishing that we had worn our winter jackets, which I had packed under the bed. It was slightly warmer in the trailer, so Ray cranked the heat up a bit more and I threw a sleeping bag on the bed so that we would not freeze to death during the night. About the time we went to bed, I was questioning myself as to why we had not gone to the full service campground?
We did survive the night and headed off at 6:45 in the morning. We stopped about 20 minutes up the road for some breakfast and hot coffee and then we were off. At about 9:00 we had just gone through Salem and as we were passing a semi truck, Ray says "I think we have a flat tire". All I can see is the semi we are passing and thinking, OMG we are going to hit that truck! But our truck was not weaving at all,,,, Ray just got ahead of the semi and pulled off on to the shoulder of the highway. We both got out and checked all the tires, which seemed to be fine. I asked Ray what he had felt that would make him think we had a flat? He said it was a clunking feeling in the drivers side. We get back into the truck and Ray pulls back out onto the highway. We had not even gotten up to 50 kms and he pulled back off onto the shoulder and said "There is something definitely wrong". He got back out and looked under the truck. He came back to the truck and still was not sure what the problem was but said that we were going to have to be towed off the highway.
Last year we had switched from BCAA to Good Sam, simply because BCAA will only tow you a certain amount of miles, where Good Sam will tow you to wherever you want to go. They would even tow us home, if that was our request. We chose to have it towed to a Chev dealer in Lebanon which was about 20 minutes off the highway. To make a long story a bit shorter, we had to wait for an hour and a half for a tow truck that would be able to tow our truck and the 5th wheel to come and get us. At 10:50 the flat deck tow truck arrived and loaded us up.
Loading up the heavy Chevy...
All ready to go,
We arrived at the Chev dealer, which incidentally had said that depending on what the problem was, we could plug in and camp out in their lot if need be.
Once Ray spoke with the mechanic and told him what had happened, the mechanic told us that it was good that we did not attempt to drive any further as the wheel bearing was going and had we driven further we could have lost the whole wheel, which would have cause a lot of damage and even possibly an accident.
The dealership had us out of there and back on the road within a couple of hours. We lost 5 hours in total which meant that we would not be crossing the border at 4:00 as we had hoped.
We arrived at the Lynden crossing at about 8:50 pm. Ray was so tired, but answered all of the CBSA guards questions to his satisfaction and we were sent on our way. We pulled onto our street at 9:30 and left the truck attached to the trailer parked on the roadway beside the house. Friday morning we started the big task of unpacking everything.
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