Grants Pass, OR

We arrived in Grants Pass on Monday, May 16, and was surprised to hear that our friends from Illinois were already checked into a hotel in Grants Pass and only about 1/2 mile from the RV Park.  We enjoyed playing dominoes on Monday night.  We stayed in Grants Pass in a small park called Rogue Valley Overnighters.  They had a couple of spaces that were long and met all of our needs, it's just the road system in the park is a little tight.  They also had a visitor that Lexie met by the dog walk, which gave me a good excuse not to have to walk her there.

Tuesday, we decided to drive up to Crater Lake and it was absolutely a beautiful day.  Clyde (Craig's first boss at Caterpillar in 1973) and Helen had not been to Crater Lake.  This was our fourth trip and we enjoy it each and everytime we've been there.

On Wednesday we spent the day in Medford catching up on some shopping we needed before heading back to Chehalis.  We then spent the afternoon of Thursday in Ashland.  I had been to the Shakespeare Theatre when I was in High School.  We spent the afternoon walking around the town as we did not make arrangements for tickets to the theatre.

Ashland Springs Hotel

On our way back to Grants Pass we hit a couple of wineries:

Paschal:

Decorative Engine at Paschal

EdenVale: This winery is located on the oldest commercial orchard land in Oregon.  The 1890's mansion is used for special events and the wine tasting room is in the historic Carriage House.

Saturday, my brother needed some downtime from truck driving, so he spent the day with us before he headed south on Sunday.  We took Lexie to a self pet wash and then drove around downtown Grants Pass.  We discovered that they had painted bears everywhere throughout the downtown and below is just a very small sampling of some of their bears.

Sunday we spent the day in Jacksonville, OR.  We took the Trolley ride to hear the history of the town and then walked around the main street area, taking in two of the wineries.  For anyone who hasn't been in this southern Oregon area, there are so many wineries to include many on the Applegate Wine Trail that runs through Jacksonville.  

Jacksonville is an 1850's gold rush town, with gold being discovered in 1851 and the city was started with the name of Table Rock City.  In 1884 the railroad bypassed the town, running closer to Medford and the city slowly dwindled, along with experiencing three fires that wiped out many of their buildings.  Jacksonville was named to honor President Jackson.  The town is a National Historic Landmark town with over 100 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.  The town is also now known for their music festivals and wine.  

We visited the Umpqua Valley Winery which had mostly whites and Pinot Noirs and then we went to Quady North, who was doing a red flight of 5 different Syrahs.  There wines were full bodied reds and the winemaker's wife does the artwork for the labels which were really quite different.

Monday, we headed north to Salem for a couple of days and then on Wednesday we will head north to our leased spot in Chehalis.