Back in the Northwest

Another move just north into Oregon, wow do we enjoy seeing all the trees and green again. The desert is beautiful but now that we are back in the NW it sure is great.

The Montana Owners (MOC) rally continues to stop number 2 at the Valley of the Rogue State park near Grants Pass, Oregon. We arrived on Wednesday the 27th, set up camp along with lots of Montanas and watched the temperature gauge rise and rise. Normally this is no big thing but our AC is on the fritz and it sure gets hot inside when it gets into the high 90s. Makes for some long restless nights. We paid for 3 nights but after the second we decided to get out of town and head for stop number 3 on the rally tour. We left on Friday and headed over the mountains to the ocean, and arrived at Mill Casino in North Bend Oregon to a wonderful 65 degrees and sunny sky.

We set up got our lawn chairs out and just relaxed in the cooler climate. More on the 3rd stop on our next blog.

On Thursday about 29 of us thought it would be great to get out onto the water and take a 2- hour boat trip to Hellgate on the Rogue river. Here the boat is just about full except for one row of seats. Our delegation is all behind that empty row. Can you find us in the picture? We boarded the boat and headed out under the bridge where this picture was taken. Thanks Carl for the copy.
Dick was able to turn around and get some pictures of our group before they all got wet.

Look at the concentration, trying to see some wildlife along the shore and in the air.

Is John taking a nap behind those shades?

We did see some deer along the side of the hill and this eagle sitting in the tree above the river. We also so lots of large nests and birds along the way. The water was pretty smooth but there were a few areas of white water.

This is the entrance into hellgate; it continues to get very narrow with maybe 10' on each side of the boat. Again the water was pretty calm even going through this cut. Lots of water flowing here.

A little further through the canyon it looks like a dead end ahead. We did make it through and then turned around for the trip back to the landing.

On the way back we played leap frog with another boat and the skipper would jump the wake and then put the boat into a 360 degree spin, trying to see if he could splash everyone in the boat. Being in the 90's, the cold water sure felt good. It only took us a 1/2 hour to get dry after we got back to the beach.

All this white water was made by the two boats to see how wet we could get. We had a great time with a great group of people but it will be good to get out of this heat.

To be continued...