Eugene OR

Thursday, 7 July Eugene

17C when we wake up this am - much more to our liking, although the sun is ducking in and out from behind some thin cloud cover.  Maybe the forecast will turn out to be right and we can expect some rain over the next 2-3 days.

After breaking camp we head down to Junction City which is actually just a small town with four or five RV repair/service centres.  We buy diesel here at a good price.  Talking to the pump jockey we learn that in this state it is illegal to pump your own petrol but OK to pump your own diesel.  It’s a big farming community and farmers can do what they like with diesel but having the petrol rule creates employment.  We have found Oregon in general to be a state inhabited with honest, friendly likable residents.

We check out one of the repair places on our list, they can’t help us with our Caterpillar issue but recommend someone.  We spend half an hour or so looking through their used RV’s which are all displayed inside a huge building.  They all are in beautiful condition even those which are  7-8 years old.  Didn’t find one which we wanted to swap ours for : )

We then head towards the I5 for a Camping World where Kim ticks many things off his list, adds to his list and ticks those off too.  Before we know it we have spent an hour wandering the aisles.

There is a camp in a County Park very close by but it is full for tonight so we look for option number two.  I find one on the Allstays app called Valley River which is another 4 miles away and is free.  Would you believe it – it is a shopping mall carpark and there are already four other campers here.   Woohoo, I think I am in heaven!  We pick a flat space close to the other campers and a long way from the buildings.  I go over to see the office as we apparently need a pass from security.  Lady phones security man,  I phone Kim to let him know,  security man is already pulling up alongside coach.  Now I am at the furtherest end of the mall so take my time wandering back home, making mental notes about where I need to spend some serious time tomorrow. 

Managed to get the lid off the huckleberry jam and it is quite delicious!  Had it with cheese and it was a lovely match.

There is also a movie theatre here so now we have been to the American movies, Kim won the toss so we saw Tarzan!  We played the ‘old’ card and it was $6.60 each, the icecreams were just about the same price, no age discount for those!  But while we were waiting we found Candy Tyme, a whole shop full of sweeties.  You’ve heard the old saying ‘like a kid in a candy shop’ – well that was Kim to a T!

We had a few spits of rain going into the movies but it was clear when we came out.  Had a quiet night, it was bright from the street lights but our night time blinds kept most of that out.  There was a train in the distance but otherwise a pretty quite night, maybe just some voices and cars leaving the mall was all we heard.