1 July - Rogue River Jet Boat Tour and Ed Wins!!!!

1 July
Doreen did a couple loads of laundry this morning and we did some other routine maintenance stuff.  One joyous task I have to stay on top of is debugging!  The front cap of the fifth wheel RV catches a ton of bugs as we motor down the road.  Some bugs can be corrosive to the finish so it is important to keep it as clean as possible.  Same with the front of the truck.  So I worked on some of those rasks while Doreen was doing her thing.

We then headed into town and I picked up a replacement box of DEF, the diesel exhaust fluid the newer diesel engines use to help control emissions.  If I would run the engine out of this stuff, it would go into "crawl" mode and the speed would be limited to about 5mph.  So, bottom line, don't run out of DEF!  Luckily it is sold in all the auto parts stores, some gas stations and also in Walmart, so it is not hard to find.  But lessons from last year's trip, I always carry a spare box (2.5 gal) with me.

While in town we stopped in the local pizza shop for lunch.  We had a great combo pizza for a reasonable price.  We then headed back to the RV as we needed to potty Liberty good as she is staying here while we go on out jet boat tour.

Show time for the tour was 1430 hrs and we were there a bit early.  We got checked in and looked around the gift shop a bit.  Very reasonable prices here too.  Doreen picked up a nice patriotic tee shirt.  They also sold nice weather-resistant jackets with a liner cheap.  I was eye-balling them but held off.  The jet boat company has a whole rack of this type of jacket you can borrow for the boat ride. (Since then we both agreed we may go back and get a jacket before we leave this area.)

Waiting for the boat we struck up a conversation with a couple from lower California.  He commented on my "Air Force Retired" sweatshirt, and we ended up talking with them the entire trip and also sitting with them for dinner.  Jim and Kim Anderson.  I think the best description on what they do is "property management".  They are contracted to go into failing properties including RV parks and fix the issues.  I mention that because as we talked and they asked where we were from, they mentioned they had been called into Cutty's RV Park in Des Moines and they were supposed to be there for six months, but due to all the personnel issues, violence, alcohol problems, etc, they pulled the plug at four months and departed.  He said it is a real "cesspool" and continues to go downhill from a management standpoint.

Our skipper/tour guide giving us our safety briefing before we shoved off.

 So before long we boarded our jetboat and were on our way.  There were about 36 or so on the tour plus the skipper/tour guide.  As we departed the harbor they had a photographer on an bridge that snapped this picture.

The bridge from which the photo was taken.

  *** More on this picture later!!! ***

Can you spot us?

The boats are jet-powered, like a jet ski, meaning they don't have a propeller and can maneuver in very shallow water.  Planed-out the boat can operate in 10 inches of water! This would become very important a few miles up the river!  If any of you have ridden on a jet boat before or even if you have not, a boat that is flat-bottomed, that goes very fast, and is not down in the water very far basically skips across the water.  It also spins about and does some other really fun stuff, like SPINS!!

So, away from the dock and as we get going the guide passes a sand bar with some spectators looking on.  Something tells me they are very used to tourists as they kind of "ham it up" as we cruise by!

They go in heads-up mode as we pass by and then quickly back in the snooze mode!

So away we go up the Rogue River.  Interesting that the origins of this boat trip are from the days before there were roads and they used the boats to deliver the mail way up river.  They are still delivering mail on these boats today, from what they said!

The scenery was beautiful.  Most of the critters we saw were water foul, eagles, blue herron, some deer and an otter or two.  Doreen was hoping to spot either Yogi or and elk, but according to the guide, if it were later in the summer and the blackberries were mature, we would see them.  Here are some photos:

Osprey nest

RV's dry-camping along the river.

More campers!

Blue Herron

Eagle nest with an eagle up and to the left

Cottage off the grid.  Beautiful overlook of the river.

Do not remember what he called these little critters

Quite a few small waterfalls like this 

Bambi.  Sorry about the finger on the lense

Mom and two babies

 

Another waterfall.

 This boat ride goes 32 miles up the Rogue River, we stop for dinner and then return.  They have two other trips, one goes 40 miles upriver and one goes 52 miles up river.  The longer two trips involve more white water rapids.

A few part way up the trail as we stopped for dinner.  The boat dropped us off and then went across the river to a different restaurant for other that chose a different menu.

Doreen climbing the hill to dinner

The restaurant.  Notice the sign at the peak of the room

The sign says "High Water - Dec 22, 1964"  Apparently there had been significant snowfall, and then a warm rain that melted it and caused a record-breaking flood.  This picture does not do this justice.  UNBELIEVABLE water lever, literally hundreds of feet!

Lunch was mediocre and expensive but enjoyable taking to Jim and Kim. After about 1-1/2 hours we were on our way back.  The skipper did many more "spins" with the boat and some nose-dives which caused us to get soaked, all in good fun!  Hey, if you don't want it to get wet, don't bring it on the boat!!

Skipper had a nice PA system on-board.  Easy to hear, even over the roar of both V-8 jet motors!

Doreen soaked to the bone!!!

We returned to the dock about 1930 hrs, 4-1/2 hours after we departed, but 1-1/2 hours of that was dinner.  They announced that the group photo was available for viewing and purchase at the gift shop.  Doreen said, lets get back to the RV, but something was telling me to go to the gift shop and look at the picture.  WELL, Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!  Guess who won the FREE photo?!

It says no pictures as they sell the picture, but I won the free one!

Great time, beautiful trip!  Got back a bit later and then met some neighbors in the campground that both husband and wife served 12 years in the Air Force.  So later last night and no blog update until this morning.

Today (Sunday) we head north to visit three lighthouses and have lunch with Rob and Tammy Harban.  Rob was one of our First Sergeants I served with at the 132d Fighter Wing in Des Moines.  He is out here working in an RV Park in Myrtle Creek OR.