This morning we visited a Beaver dealership in Bend and checked out the 40 and 42 foot Patriot Thunder and Marquis. The Marquis wins hands down and we took a test drive. We're going to check out the 45 foot at the factory in Coburg. The salesman was quite unique - he used to be the warranty and service manager for Beaver in Bend for 19 years before Monaco moved manufacturing to Coburg. This guy was very knowledgeable and not full of the usual salesman useless "tell 'em what they want to hear".
We then headed over the Cascades, planning to stop at either McKenzie Bridge or Blue River so I could fish the McKenzie River. It turns out that the river flows quite fast in these areas, and was not conducive to wading. So we kept going and are now back at Premier RV Resort near Coburg, OR.
The trip over the mountain was uneventful but spectacular. There was still snow on some of the peaks, as you can see from the photo I took from the navigator's seat.
When we stopped at Blue River I talked with a lady who was born there, but now lives in southern Arizona. She was taking photos of her birthplace. Interestingly, she was of Scottish descent and a couple of years ago had taken a trip to Scotland, Wales and Ireland. She'd been to the small North Wales town that has the second longest place name in the world (I used to think it was the longest, but found out a couple of years ago that a town in New Zealand has a name that's a couple of characters longer): Llanffairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwindrorbethllandysiliogogogoch and she was quite excited that I could pronounce it. She'd also visited actor Richard Burton's birthplace, a half mile from where I grew up.