The Ben Vacation 2015 – Mellowing Out in Medford

Banana Slug

"I see dead people crossing the street
all the time!"

Having seen and accomplished everything we wanted to do in the Redwoods and Crescent City yesterday, we decided to sleep in this morning and take our time breaking camp and moving on to our next destination: Medford, Oregon.  Since Medford is only a two hour drive (or so) from Crescent City and our trip to Crater Lake was scheduled for tomorrow, today was basically a mellow, take it easy type of day. J  Before we left, however, Ben and Isaac found a banana slug.  We had found a few slugs during our last visit to the area, but up to this point had found none during this trip.  As we were loading up the car, a banana slug was found!  Funny, it's coloring made it look more like an unripe banana.  The drive to Medford was nice; lots of trees and mountain scenery.  It’s interesting how driving in the opposite direction to Medford caused the scenery to seem new—a different perspective can put a new twist on just about anything I guess. J  One odd thing I noticed, however, was the occasional “congestion” sign we saw after we entered Oregon.  As we drove through the little towns of O’Brien, Cave Junction and Selma a yellow, diamond warning sign with the word “congestion” in bold, black letters would appear, but their place seemed ... well, out of place.  If they were erected to warn people of traffic congestion, then they were pretty useless because they would appear in places where there was no traffic congestion at all!  We started wondering if the road workers in Oregon had the abilities of Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense and they could see hundreds of ghosts filling up the roadways in those areas.  Our other theory was that those specific places had been areas where people had become congested and the road workers wanted to warn travelers to be ready to grab tissues or take a Flonase pill. J

We arrived in at the Medford KOA a little after 1 p.m., the earliest we’ve ever arrived at a campsite.  I almost wondered if we’d be turned away, “Oh, I’m sorry, sir.  We haven’t had a chance to spruce up your campsite and turn down your grass.  You’ll have to come back in an hour or two,” but the lady at the desk checked me in and assigned us our campsite as soon as I walked in with my reservation paper. J  After we finished with the tent, we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves until Jennifer mentioned the need we had to do some laundry.  A pool table was inside the laundry room/game room/store.  While we waited for our clothing to wash and dry, Ben and Isaac asked if we could play pool.  I was the only one with any experience, which made for an interesting couple of games.  We muddled through, but had fun.  Afterward, I went back to the tent to try to find the slow leak in Isaac’s air mattress.  Beginning at Crescent City, he had started to find himself practically flat on the ground by morning.  I pumped his bed full of air and searched everywhere to no avail.  No matter what I tried, the leak avoided detection.  Obviously, the air was escaping from somewhere because the mattress was nearly flat each morning, but I could not figure out how the air was escaping.  Laundry completed, it was finally time leave the campsite.  I apologized to Isaac for not being able to fix his mattress as we prepared to take a drive to the Medford Temple.

During our last visit to Medford, we went to church and then took pictures in front of the gate of the temple (temples are closed on Sunday in favor of regular worship meetings, however, temple grounds with Visitor’s Centers—like Los Angeles, Mesa, St. George, Salt Lake City, to name several—are open on Sundays to allow people to come to the centers).  Today, we were able to walk on to the grounds and touch the temple.  As we were near the front doors taking some pictures, a sister peeked outside and came out to talk to us.  She told us if we needed a drink of water or use the bathroom we were welcome to come use the facilities in the foyer.  We told her why we were there and thanked her for the offer.  I was reminded of the time we visited the Columbus, Ohio Temple two years ago.  Our stop at the temple site was on a Monday (temples are closed on Monday as well), but the gates were open so we walked around the grounds and took pictures.  We decided to take our “touching the temple” pictures near the front door and as we prepared to do so, the doors opened and the temple president peeked outside and asked what we were doing.  When we explained our temple “scavenger hunt” to him, he seemed genuinely pleased by our visit.  He told us the temple was being cleaned that morning and said we could come into the foyer to get a drink or use the bathroom if we needed.  We thanked him and he smiled and closed the door.  We finished taking pictures and continued on our way to Pittsburg and finally to New Jersey that evening if memory serves.

Finished with our temple visit, it was time to think about eating (always a pleasant thing to consider J).  For this evening’s meal, I had again turned to a memory from our previous visit to Medford when we ate dinner at a restaurant called Elmer’s (Isaac has been calling it Elmer Fudd’s—“Be very, very quiet; I’m hunting wabbits!”).  I’m not sure why we chose to eat there 7 years ago.  It may have been as simple as we had returned from Crater Lake, were looking for a place to eat, stumbled upon the restaurant and decided it was as good a place as any since we were hungry and tired and didn’t want fast food.  Whatever the case was, the choice turned out to be a great one as the food was very tasty.  What made the stop even better was the amazing strawberry lemonade!  I consisted of very good lemonade (much better than what comes out of the spigot at a fast food place) with thick pieces of strawberries floating in the drink.  I loved it—raved about it.  Since then, Elmer’s strawberry lemonade has served as a standard for me when it comes to these types of drinks and nothing has been able to top it.  In my preliminary planning, I was reminded of the Elmer’s in Medford and made sure our day’s plans included dinner there.  While our campfire dinners over the last three days have worked out pretty well, I think we were all happy to have someone else prepare and serve our dinner. J

Thankfully, the food was as good today as the memory from 7 years ago.  The boys had hamburgers, Jennifer ordered a chicken and avocado sandwich and I could not pass up the Monte Christo (it’s been years since I last ate one).  We all asked for the strawberry lemonade.  The presentation is different.  Now the strawberries and ice are blended into the lemonade—almost like a smoothie, but the taste is the same as I remembered.  Yum! J  After filling our tummies, we went to the local Costco to fill up the car with gas for tomorrow’s trip.  In doing so I was also reminded that the state of Oregon (along with New Jersey) doesn’t allow a person to pump their own gas.  I’m not sure why this is, but it’s a bit weird to swipe my card, key it in and then watch someone else operate the hose.  I don’t think “full service” at gas stations had completely gone out of style when I was a kid (although I recall my parents always pulling into the “self-serve” isle of the gas station—which makes me think that people paid extra for “full service”), but I have no idea what the reasoning is behind not letting me pump my own gasoline in these two states.  I guess I’ll chalk it up in the “whatever” category and move on.  Anyway, with full stomachs and a full tank of gas, we returned to the KOA to play another game of pool and call it a night.  Tomorrow we’ll be visiting Ben’s favorite National Park: Crater Lake. J