Day 8

The plan today was to head down to Brookings, OR, right on the Oregon-California state line. Brefore we left, we needed to swap the oil in the truck and we needed to give Mo's Restaurant one last goodbye. Brett also managed to coupon shop for cigarettes (imagine that coupons for everything). By chance, we got a $10 off coupon for Oil Can Henry's, an oil change chain here in the US. After that was done, we headed down to Oldtown in Florence OR to Mo's restaurant for lunch (more chowder in a bread bowl). By chance, they had a farmer's market set up down the street. We toured that, specifically looking for some fresh baked goods, but none were to be had. Oh, they had lots of custom glasswork and stuff, but they were short on fresh produce and baking. And lots of tie dye. We didn't know that tie dye still existed, but we have found a place where it is very very popular!!

After lunch we went back on the highway and started driving. We looked at the map and realized that the Redwoods National Park was much closer than we thought. So with a change of plans (and a change of GPS directions), we were California bound. As we got to the state line, we hit an Agricultural Inspection Site. We maintained our honesty and proclaimed our blueberries, but once again, they were only interested in citrus fruit (and Jolly Ranchers still don't count). We passed the inspection with flying colors. Aparently we are not the scary characters that we thought we were. I guess we will have to work on becoming more unsavory characters for the next Inspection Site.

So again down the highway we went, looking for really big trees. We passed the main campsite Jedediah Smith, because of the scary line up (and the GPS didn't tell us to stop). Brett boldly followed the GPS directions and soldiered on to Gaspe or something, a little town about 20 miles past the state park. The map (yes the old fashioned map and Rhonda reading it. TAKE THAT GPS!!) told of 2 campgrounds just past that town, so we headed onward down the highway east. We ended up missing the first campground, but pulled into the second (and last) one. After a quick drive through, we decided on looking elsewhere. The highway was just too close to get any peace and quiet. We knew we missed a campground so we doubled back, and soon found ourselves in Panther Flats Campground. We ended up scoring the last site in the campground, and it wasn't too bad a site. This place had showers, at least... until we saw the low water level warnings posted at every tap in the park. At least they just suggested some water conservation, and it wasn't a big emergency yet. And we were going to have our showers!

We still needed dinner, so we doubled back to Gaspe and hit their tiny general store. Sadly, it was picked pretty clean. We couldn't make any big extravagant meal with what they had, so we settled on hot dogs over the campfire. Brett managed to score the LAST hot dog buns in the store, too! One of the store customers struck up a conversation about finding some camping in the area. We told him that we got the last site at Panther Flats. Now we're the jerks! And it was kind of a good feeling.

We drove about 400 kms today. And everyone is still in the truck.