Our Jefferson State Birthday Bash 2012 trip report....

[Martinjmpr]

First off, my apologies to the TNTTT'ers out there for the lateness of my post. I had hoped to get this up earlier but life has a habit of getting in the way!

Also those of you who scan both Tearjerkers.net and TNTTT aren't seeing double - I'm posting this in both forums so it gets maximum exposure!

Anyway, this is more or less a copy of an email I sent to a friend of mine, but wanted to share it with the group here as well.

Liz and I got our little Teardrop camper “bubbles” in January of 2012, with the idea of doing a lot of camping this year.

Our first trip was a single overnight in March at a local lake, just to figure out how we wanted to set things up. We followed this a month later with a two-night trip to Buena Vista in the Central mountains in early April, when things were just starting to warm up.

In June we took our longest trip yet – 7 days and 6 nights to a Teardrop gathering in Southwestern Oregon (on the Rogue River.) It was an incredible trip and we saw some amazing sights.

Started out by heading North on I-25 and stopped for breakfast. If there's a better breakfast than a maple-bacon donut, I don't want to know about it.



I have to say, Eastern and Central Oregon is incredibly beautiful and there’s almost nobody there! Truly spectacular. Our trip up took us through southern Wyoming (which was definitely NOT fun – fighting headwinds across I-80 not only were we buffeted severely by the winds but my MPG dropped into the range of 10-11!) From there it was through Eastern Idaho to our campground in Pocatello. Next day we took off across I-94, which is a pretty boring drive in Idaho, but once we crossed the Snake River into Oregon, it was a different story. We took Highway 26 across the North/central part of the state to our campground near Redmond. The area starts off dry and desert-like but quickly climbs into some incredible mountains.
We tried to take a picture with Bubbles at each State Line sign we crossed:





We also liked murals, and there are quite a few little towns that have nice murals. We posed with this one in Eastern Oregon (I think the town was called Vale):



Some of the gorgeous scenery we saw in Central Oregon:





Nice juxtaposition of our "covered wagons"





...to be continued....

[Martinjmpr]

Two things about Oregon that any traveler should know: Towns are very far apart, and you are not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon. What this means is that you might get into a small town figuring on filling up with gas and find out that the gas station is closed because their only gas-pumper goes home at 5pm. And as a result of this, we ran out of gas about 6 miles East of Prineville, OR at about 6:30 pm!





But the weather was good, the scenery was gorgeous, and I have roadside assistance through USAA (and we fortunately had good cell coverage) so we just pulled into a driveway and had a little picnic while we waited for the tow truck to show up with a can of gas.



We made it to our campsite, and then left early next morning bound for our final destination, Grants Pass.

When we got there, we found that we weren't the only one there with a Teardrop:



The trailer in the background is a "Little Guy", a kind of commercial teardrop. We had assumed that the owner was on his way to the Teardrop Rendezvous in Grants Pass, but he wasn't - he was an amateur astronomer who was just passing through.

Coming down through Central Oregon, we noticed a lot of old, classic cars. We even saw this car dealership that seemed to specialize in them. Not sure what it is about Oregon and old cars but we saw more than a few.





We decided to go to Grants Pass through Crater Lake National Park, since I’ve always wanted to see it (and owing to the fact that it has a very short season, it’s hard to get to.) We took a long drive East of the Oregon Coastal range and then turned West towards the park. As we climbed up to the park, we realized why the “open season” for Crater Lake is so short. It gets so much snow that it’s hard to believe! By the time we got to the visitor center, the piles of snow on each side of the road were more than 10 feet high and it was snowing on us.



Remember, this is the first week of JUNE!

At the top of the crater rim (about 8100’ above sea level) the snow was so deep that the trails we walked on were level with the guard rails on the trail. Still it was amazingly beautiful, probably one of the most beautiful parks in the National Park system!






...To be continued...

[Martinjmpr]

The trip continues...

After that, we headed to our campsite in Grants Pass. It was much nicer at that altitude, but still not hot.

Liz cooking a meal in Bubbles. You can see the "bubbly" decorations Liz has been putting in the Galley.







We spent a couple of days socializing with the other “teardroppers” and checking out their very different trailers!





We were "welcomed" by the Jefferson State Tearjerkers in their traditional way!





Very cool trailers, some manufactured but most were home made.









You don't need a car to pull a teardrop - a trike will do!




...to be continued....

[Martinjmpr]

Some teardroppers go whole hog with their tow rig. There were two trailers that were being pulled by classic cars.











Sharon built her own "pop up." We also saw her in Wyoming in August.





In addition to socializing, also drove down to the California coast to dip our toes in the Pacific ocean (I figured “Why come this far West and then not go all the way to the coast?”)









...To be continued...

[Martinjmpr]

The story concludes:

From Grants Pass we headed home via California, where we passed by the amazing Mt. Shasta, then crossed the Sierra Nevada range until we hit the Great Basin desert North of Reno. From Reno we headed straight East along US 50 “The loneliest road in America.” A long drive, interesting in a way but we were both pretty tired by the time we pulled into our campsite in Ely on the Eastern edge of Nevada.



"America's Loneliest Road:" US Highway 50 across Nevada.







Next day it was a long (but scenic) drive home via US 50 and I-70. Somewhere in Eastern Utah we even saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!



Finally got to Colorado, although of course we were still 3 1/2 hours from home!



It was dark when we pulled in, exhausted. The trip was a great one, and we learned a lot. The two biggest things we learned were that we needed to find a better way to waterproof Bubbles, since she leaked (and it rained on us 4 out of 6 nights on our trip) and we learned that as nice as my ’99 4runner was, it just wasn’t adequate as a tow rig for a heavy trailer like bubbles, so as soon as we got back, the 4runner went up for sale.

[DrCrash]

Looks like an awsome trip out west.

I am having a hard time wraping my head around "you cant pump your own gas in Oregon."

[S. Heisley]

Great pics; good story! It was fun, seeing you two and Bubbles in Oregon and Wyoming, too!

Thanks for sharing your trip report and pictures.

[Martinjmpr]

thought you guys looked famailer!!!!!!!! I think you were camped beside me at walk the winds?

I regonized that teardrop!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was the one that helped you find the group site at walk the winds.

Yes on all counts. In fact, my next "trip report" will be from our Walk the WInds trip. Should be up next week.