"The undiscovered vortex, from whose bourn no traveller returns..." (apologies to Shakespeare).
I don't know what it is about my home town, but every time I go up to Medford, time seems to move so slowly it almost stops. After we had been there for four days, Cindy said, "How long have we been here? A month?" Every day seems like it's a week long, at least.
Time dragged on this trip because of car trouble. We had trouble with the Saturn's reverse gear on the way up to Medford, but got that fixed in Sacramento and made it to Medford on schedule Monday night. Then Tuesday, after visiting my mom, we were cruising down Central Avenue, the main north-south drag in town, when the car suddenly just... stopped... going. We managed to coast into a vacant parking space on the street, but couldn't get the car started again. So... another call to AAA, a tow truck and a friendly couple of ex-San Diegans who now live in Medford who gave us a ride to the repair shop. Sigh. More visions of expensive repairs.
My brother came and picked us up in the Camry wagon we were trading for the Saturn and we went back to the house to drop him off. We drove off in the Camry and got about a mile from the house when we started hearing a noise that sounded like metal dragging. We got out and looked under the car but couldn't see anything hanging down. So we drove the car to a different repair shop and rented a car. Three cars and two repair shops in one day--that's a record for us, one we hope never to exceed.
Turned out the Saturn just had a loose fuel hose clamp, but the Camry needed brake work. At least it all happened in town where we could get things fixed, and not out in the boonies. But we've now collected more mechanics' business cards than we ever thought we would need.
Still, Southern Oregon does have its compensations. We bought some Oregon Blue Cheese and Smokey Blue at the Rogue Creamery in Central Point and several of the delicious tortas from Rising Sun Farms in Talent. I am particularly fond of Rising Sun's Marionberry Cheese Torta, but we bought a couple of others, as well.
We didn't get to go to Crater Lake, but at least we brought some goodies back with us.
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