More Days of Miscellany

A delayed report, but we found one of Oregon’s finest Chinese restaurants located in little ‘ol Oakridge. Owner Jeff Lee, formerly of Park City, Utah and Vail, Colorado, established his eatery on the main drag 6 months ago. Exceptionally fresh vegetables, large prawns and succulent beef. “No buffet…cheap food,” Lee says. He’s a hard-working guy, and guarantees that you won’t find a lick of MSG in his place, Lee's Gourmet Garden. If you like that throbbing MSG headache, you better pass on this one. We enjoyed our waitress, whose banter was quick and humorous. Imka and Michael shared this nice meal with us.

Time for some sightseeing, so we headed down to Crater Lake, some 100 miles south. Arriving there, the smell of California forest fire smoke was in the air, casting a grey-brown haze, and somewhat spoiling the view of the lake. There would be no world-class snapshots on this day. Some tourists from St.Louis gaped their first peek at an overlook and were stunned. Didn’t mind the smoke. “There ain’t nothin’ like this in St. Louis,” they commented. We had been at Crater Lake before on pristine days, especially so 2 years ago in April when it was surrounded by snow. It's always a spectacular view.

We were determined to get some exercise, so we hiked down to the lake…about an 800 foot drop in a little over a mile. The excursion boat departed from the beach there, but they were sold out for the day. Get your tickets early for this cruise---looks like a good one, hazy or not. Not many folks have actually stuck a toe (or finger) in Crater Lake, but I added this to my list of accomplishments. We split a sandwich at the Rim restaurant, saving room for our treat a few hours later. Would we drive 50 miles for pie ala mode? Not on your life, unless it was from Beckie’s Café near Prospect. This was our third visit in 3 years….and we normally don’t do dessert. Got a boysenberry pie for the road, too, for sharing with campmates. On the way back, we glimpsed at Diamond Lake, which might be a future sojourn. Many waterfalls nearby on the Umpqua highway.

Played a round at the Emerald Valley GC in Creswell, some 10 miles south of Eugene, while Janice paid a few visits to bookstores (note, IRS). It was also time for us to visit Trader Joes for replenishment of the three-buck Chuck wine cellar, as well as classier vino for the author. Whether it’s two-buck or three-bucks, such grape-swill will not touch her lips. Even gave a bottle of three-buck to camp-mates Enno and Kathy, who were otherwise likely to go blind drinking Crane Lake Chardonnay, purchased for $3.99 at Ray’s in Oakridge. Could be a life–changing experience for these cheap wine connoisseurs.

Power outage last night at dinner time when a nearby tree fell on power lines, causing a transformer to explode. No problem for us, as the fridge just switched over to propane. Not so for the mega-bucks 42 foot coach next to us, whose fridge is electric only. The owner remorsely advised that he would have to run his (stinky) diesel generator to save the filet mignons no doubt in his freezer. His exhaust outlet was next to our boudoir, and we feared sure asphyxiation. Rather than hang out at our rig during the evening, we declared a ‘diesel fume alert’ and schlepped a few glasses of vino upwind at Enno and Kathy’s rig. The power came on after a couple hours, and we were able to sleep healthfully through the night back at our rig.

Today was declared an official cleaning day, so we spic and spanned the rig, inside and out, and I even did the laundry, after a false start when the power went down again. The place is show-room clean again, and the author is ready to begin her visits to bookstores, libraries and other history-focused venues beginning Saturday.

Scrabble update: Jeff 34, Janice 8, one tie. New personal high for Jeff: 535 points.