Eugene, Oregon: I realize this should officially be a "Postcard from the Road" post as we are out of town in our motorhome, but we are only camping two hours from home and this trip isn't so much about a vacation as it is about using our RV as a hotel room. Isn't that just another great reason to own a RV? That, and that whole "there's a storm coming, let's get in the RV and get away"... I am sending out prayers and good thoughts to everyone suffering from tornados and flooding today. We learned this terrible wet Oregon weather is contributing to the tornado season. Our cold weather meets up with the warm weather coming in from the Gulf of Mexico and - bang - a tornado is created. I am sorry to say, cold and wet weather is predicted to continue in the Pacific Northwest. And even though it rained so hard this morning, I was sure our roof would cave-in, our weather is a cake walk compared to a tornado.
We put a few belongings in the Honda and drove south on I-5 to our RV storage garage, hitch-up and continued south to Eugene.
I bet you didn't know we are so classy we have lake-front RV storage. Mercifully, it did not rain the entire time we DT was hitching-up the Honda.It was about forty minutes later - and over half-way to Eugene - that I realized I had forgotten to bring the three batches of cookies I had baked yesterday for Matt! Individually-wrapped, carefully packaged and placed in the freezer... dang, if I didn't walk right out the door without the precious goods. I am an idiot. How could anyone spend an entire afternoon baking cookies for someone, then forget to bring them the cookies? Maybe I am getting old. I always figure if I leave on a trip with my eye glasses, hormones and debit card, everything else will some how work out. Not this time.
I started tweeting, emailing, texting, facebooking... whatevering... on my cell phone and wouldn't you know it - a friend is driving down to Eugene tomorrow and will bring the cookies! Whew!
Crisis averted.
But I am still an idiot.
We are "camped" overnight in the parking lot of Cummins Northwest, just north of Eugene. The Magna Peregrinus has an appointment at 7 o'clock in the morning (is that legal?) for her lube-oil-filter. Cummins Northwest provides a few campsites with water and 30/50 amp electric service for their customers. First come, first serve, no charge.Since we arrived late and I didn't bring any thing for dinner, we decided to go out. Just a few miles away, in Springfield, is the Gateway Area - a collection of chain motels, chain restaurants (Denny's, Shari's & IHOP next door to each other) and a few big box stores - including... try to control yourself... a BRAND NEW Cabela's! Cabela's opened their first-ever Oregon store in Springfield/Eugene a few weeks ago. (You can't miss it - it's right on I-5. Don't forget - no sales tax in Oregon.) Tucked into this mélange of consumerism are a few small local restaurants. We like to visit Ciao Pizza, because they serve a very good pizza from their wood-fired oven, delicious pastas, salads and DT could watch the NBA playoff game on the big screen.
Uuuum. Pizza. (Say that in your best Homer Simpson voice.)Pizza comes in two sizes at Ciao Pizza, so we ordered a large pizza to share. The pizza maker mistakenly made a small pizza for us instead, but caught his error within seconds of the small pizza going into the oven. He made us the large pizza we had ordered and said he would lagniappe us the small (8-inch) pizza "to-go". Fine. That was nice.
What was even nicer is that the restaurant was chock-a-block full with athletes from some of the 200+ track teams in town for the track meet this weekend and it took us about .34 seconds to find a few sprinters who thought a free 8-inch pizza would be a fine idea. If sprinters from the University of Texas Arlington do well tomorrow, thank DT and myself for being so generous with our free pizza. If the Mavericks beat a Duck in a race, you can blame Ciao Pizza.
Until my next update, I remain, your forgetful correspondent.