The Trip South

We decided to make the trip to Medford/Ashland about 90 minutes before we left Portland. We had hotel reservations in Roseburg, a sort-of halfway mark that we've adopted in the last few years as our first stop on the way, just for the heck of it. It's very nice to get up the next day and only have a couple of hours to drive.

Driving down was not too much of a problem, but it was slow. There was certainly plenty of potential for a problem -- the freeway was pretty busy and mixed with cars without chains (us) and cars with chains (struggling on the sometimes bare pavement of the interstate highway). The worst section by far was between the I-205 junction north of Wilsonville and the rest area that is just south of the Willamette River, past Wilsonville. That last hill had big trucks slippin' this way and that, and traffic was just c r e e e e e p i n g along.

Three hours after leaving Portland we stopped in Albany (70 miles) and had potato soup at Mom and Dad's house. I think I set Dad straight and he will no longer have wacky opinions and crazy ideas. No time to work on Mom, however, as we had to hit the road.

South of Albany it was fine, easy travelling. The snow abruptly disappeared just south of Salem, and from there to Roseburg it was clear and dry (some snow on the sides of the road at the higher elevations).

We checked in to our rooms, we later ordered some pretty darn mediocre pizza from Abbey's -- the guy delivered it to our room, and he first handed me a lunch-sack sized paper bag, saying "here you go." I said, "what is it?" and he said, "Ranch. Some people like it." I took the pizzas, gave him the money and he left.

I looked into the paper bag... and found this:


There are ten 2 oz. containers of ranch dressing in the bag. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do with ranch dressing and pizza.

Ah, but 20 ounces of ranch dressing must be worth something.

And, for now, good night from Roseburg, Oregon.