Scotty Odyssey—Willamette Valley

“Smile, this is a friendly place,” proclaims a paper-plate placard as we enter an out-of-the-way mobile home and RV park about ten miles west of Eugene. Green lawn leads to the water’s edge and a wide-open view across the expansive Fern Ridge Lake Reservoir to low hills on the opposite shore. We stop here for the night.

The weather is pleasantly warm, in fact the hottest it’s been since Yosemite. We’ve been on the road about two weeks now, and it’s time for laundry (again) and a major reorganization of supplies in the Ford and the Scotty. Dave unpacks and re-packs the extra clothes, tools, food, fire and barbeque supplies stored in the truck bed while I clean and reorganize the dishes, clothes and foodstuffs we keep in the trailer. Later, I find a shady spot on the grass behind the trailer for some yoga. Afterward, I head across the road for a hot shower. All the talk of salmon fishing in the coastal river towns has given us a taste for the rose-fleshed fish, so for dinner we poach a little tail and serve it with garlic pasta and a simple green salad.

In the morning, we walk Basil along the shoreline. Six geese fly overhead, calling to each other with the wild, harsh sounds they make. “Like rusty gears that need oil,” Dave says.