We stayed two nights at the Ashland’s Creekside Campground. Our site was indeed by the creek, and we really enjoyed the sound of the water rushing over the rocks. It felt good to shower and be able to plug into electricity and water. We built a fire, roasted hot dogs and made s’mores like we were experienced campers!
We spent the next morning looking for a park in Ashland to throw some discs. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds – many of the parks were gated and most had “No Dogs” signage. We finally went to a field behind a school and got in some good field work.
The rest of the day was spent in Medford picking up some needed supplies. We were having to corral our pillows all night because our mattress doesn’t go all the way to the back doors on the van – the doors are curved outwards (from the inside), but the mattress has a flat edge…the pillows slip into the garage area which is further than our arms are long which means sleeping the rest of the night with no pillow. Sleeping in a different direction seemed strange so we decided to MacGyver up and improvise. We went to Home Depot and got a couple ¼” pieces of birch and found a Joann’s store where they graciously cut several pieces of foam, we purchased cotton material and fabric glue and on the picnic table at our campsite, created a mattress extender. It works great!
In Medford we had our first In-N-Out Burger experience. Our impression…eh. It was ok, but both agreed it didn’t compare to Five Guys back home! On our way back to the campsite we went through downtown Ashland (on the hunt for ice cream) and wished we had discovered this area of town earlier! There were cool brick buildings, and the vibe was like a mini-Seattle – a vibrant, active downtown center. We got some truly amazing ice cream from Zoey’s Café & Artisan Ice Cream – we agreed the two scoops were way too much ice cream, but in the end, we didn’t have any trouble eating it all up! We learned (a little too late) our brother-in-law graduated from Southern Oregon University. Another lesson learned – share your road trip path with family and friends so they can give you juicy details on what to see and do!
When we were driving on the highway to both Wilsonville and Medford, Phil noticed a slight vibration with the steering wheel at speeds over 65 mph. Since we experienced the low-pressure sensor in Wilsonville, we were a little concerned there might be a tire issue. The last thing we wanted was a blow out in the middle of nowhere – we’ll get the tires checked in Redding, our next stop.
