Salem and Eugene: OR

Day 77

Time to continue our tour south. The weather is dropping to a chill and the leaves are just starting to turn here in Oregon. We depart from our plane parking lot without a plan on where we are going. I set the GPS for a park in Salem. Something that is always on my mind is where will this big beast fit without having to back it up for an escape. The park is crowded and the drive in and out were a real pain in the ass. Low slung trees scraped along the top and sides of ROO. A quick walk with the dog so he can do his business is all the time we stick around for. Off to see the capitol building. Why? Because it's free, that's why. The building is all drab gray marble with little to look at on the outside. The front is adorned with some sculpture work to break up the monotony of it all. 

Stepping inside changes the feel even more. Pink marble has been used throughout the facility and is complemented by salmon colored walls and fixtures. It's not particularly pleasant to look at. The walls are quite sparse which only add to the odd feeling of this place. A door closes in the background. The echo fills the halls for a few moments. At least this place sounds official. 

There wasn't much else worth looking at in Salem for us. Back into the wheeled house to head further south. Another hour clicks by until we hit the outskirts of Eugene. We detour into the local camping world to dump our tanks and check out some RV's. After dodging the salesmen we scoped out the lot and poked our heads into a few rigs just out of curiosity. It's weird this time around. The last time we did this was to find our home for a year. Now we look at other designs and say "yeah that would work, or no this is terrible". With window shopping complete we return to our RV in the parking lot. This big girl feels different than the rest. It feels like home. 
On the road again for the last stop of the day. This time the GPS takes us to a huge piece of asphalt. The River Valley Center mall allows RV's to park in the lot for 48 hours. It is a well run operation with some good rules. 

1. You can't be a local
2. Only 2 days out of every 30
3. You must be self contained
4. No BBQ outside
5. You must lock up all your valuables

Now step number 5 may seem like a no-brainer to most people. I put this in here because Ms. Security guard specifically said to lock up our stuff. We are in a high theft area. It's nice to know that the mall cop told us "Yeah we're security... but we suck at our jobs, so lock your stuff up." As far as I'm concerned safety is a relevant statistic. What may be a big deal out here in a town of 175,000 people is in comparison nothing with say south Chicago, or east St. Louis. 
The day had nearly faded away and we needed some time apart. Katie went into the mall to watch the new-old horror flick IT. I hate horror movies. Yeah, I said it. This 31 year old man doesn't like scary movies. So I didn't go. My time was much better spent outside in the parking lot. I grabbed a rag and a bottle of spray detailer and went to work wiping down the RV. After that I busted out the metal polish and started on something I've wanted to do for a long time. Polish the wheels on this beast. 
To the average person this is dumb. I'm not average. I'm a car guy. A complete gear head who spends his free time working on the RV and I had finally caught up on the maintenance repairs. Now it's time to make it look as good as it runs.

Gross dirty wheel

Pretty shiny wheel.

Those massive 22.5 inch semi wheels are not easy to polish by hand. It took me 20 minutes just to do the first one. The other front should be easy to finish. The back ones... those are going to suck.