Eugene

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First Impressions of Eugene

My friend Joan came down to Eugene today to take me out for lunch (which ended up being brunch). We’d met briefly at the Seattle RV show. We talked about our current projects. She is at the stage I was at in late spring of ’08, on the cusp of major life changes and not sure exactly what shape they will take. How exciting!

After eating, she took me out around Eugene so I could get a feel for what there is around the area where I’m staying. I’m in a rather industrial and lower income neighbourhood. A lot of the homes are brightly coloured and buildings housing former businesses have been repurposed. Another thing I noticed is the large number of RVs permanently parked on the side of the road. I don’t have all the details about Eugene’s policy about RV parking, but it seems laxer than in other communities.

There are tons of restaurants, cafés, and art galleries within walking distance. If the weather is good tomorrow morning I will go for a long walk. I was going to do that this morning, but I’d been given the wrong gate key and was locked into the RV compound. Oops!

One of the places Joan took me that I would need to drive to is Trader Joes. I have heard so much about this chain of stores and now I can’t wait to go back there and get some groceries! Lovely products, and at very reasonable prices. I wanted one of every kind of cheese they had!

I’m really grateful to be able to park in this location for the week until my appointment. I’m just waiting for one more puzzle piece to fall into place before I’ll feel comfortable talking about that.

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Changing the Toad Windshield Wipers

I have a confession to make.

I am an independent, DIY savvy woman who can change a flat tire, install a new toilet, add an electrical outlet, and use power tools, but in my nearly sixteen years of driving, I have never had to change my own windshield wiper blades.

With my cars, I’ve always gone to Canadian Tire, where they install them at no charge. When I had service done on the vehicles in Campbell River, I let the service tech replace Miranda’s windshield wipers for me.

The blades on the toad’s windshield wipers were coming off, so it was beyond time to replace them. Being in the Pacific Northwest, good wiper blades are a necessity! So last night I picked up a pair at Walmart with the intent to install them the second I got a clear window of weather.

Figuring out what size to buy was easy. There’s a little computer in the wiper blade aisle. I used it to select the make, model, and year of my car and it told me “Driver: 22, Passenger 16.” The numbers are lengths in inches. Much easier method than the old one of looking up the information in my car manual or in a book on site!

This afternoon, the weather let up, so I went out. One of my friends joined me. We were stymied. The trilingual instructions on the back of the packages were too generic. I pulled out the car’s manual and the very clear English instructions were useless. But the French were worded just a tad differently and I figured out that ‘down’ actually meant ‘kind of up and sideways’ and I was able to side the old blade off the passenger side.

It took a bit longer to figure out how to fit on the new blade, with extra parts contained in the package serving only to confuse us. But I finally got the new wiper to click, and, oh, what a satisfying feeling! I had to relearn everything for the driver’s side, but it only took a couple of minutes to put together.

Such a small job, but it took about a half hour. Next time, it will go much more quickly!

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Chehalis (WA) to Eugene (OR)

I awoke to pouring rain that offered no promise of letting up. I try hard not to drive in those conditions, but the forecast told me that I could be camped out at the Chehalis Walmart until the end of the world. So, I took off, slowly and cautiously because of not only the pounding rain but also the wind. The worst was when the big rigs would pass me; the draft was nearly enough to send me into the ditch. It was tiring work and I pulled into each rest area I passed for a ten minute breather.

Croft advised me to take the I-205 bypass around Portland, so I was spared at least some potential trouble today. The drive into Oregon was easy, weather notwithstanding, and the rain finally let up around Salem, capital of Oregon. I was about forty-five minutes from Eugene when five cars passed me, making motions that there was something wrong with the kayak. I pulled over soon as I could to tighten the straps and went back to the rig to find that I’d locked myself out. Fortunately, I learned something from the last time I did this and had a spare set in the toad!

I made it to my friends’ place around 2 and waited patiently with a book until it was possible for me to get settled in. I’ll be here until the 17th.

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How Quickly a Month Goes By…

I feel that I’ve only just gotten comfortable here in Blaine when the time has already come to move on! Friends in Eugene, Oregon, have graciously invited me to stay on their RV pad during my time in the area, so there’s no reason to hang out here. I’ll be in Eugene until at least the 18th since I’m having work done on the rig in nearby Springfield on the 17th.

I’ll pull out around 11 on Tuesday and head south slowly. I could get to Eugene in one day, but knowing there is an RV-friendly Walmart mid-way makes me want to stretch out the trip a tad.

I still don’t know what’s happening after. My first instinct is to hoof it back to Canada and get some work for a few months, but doing so in southern BC makes no sense at all; the cost of living would outweigh any income. So, I’ve planned a weather-dependent itinerary through eastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana to take me into Alberta. The lower cost of fuel in the States and in Alberta as well as the lower sales tax at Alberta customs would not make this route much more expensive than a straight shot back to the Fraser Valley from Eugene.

I have absolutely no commitments at this point and have concluded, to my immense surprise, that I’d be okay with not going back to Yukon and Alaska this summer if something else pans out. In short, I’m open to the vagaries of fate and willing to go anywhere they take me. I love my life!