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We randomly selected Grants Pass, Oregon as our next stopover point. Yeah, we made it to Oregon! It is located off I-5 about one hour north of the California state line. The city slogan is “Its the Climate” in reference to the usually mild temperatures but lucky us, our week in Grants Pass was a hot one. We keep driving north but can’t seem to escape the heat. Ah, the irony. Word from back in Tucson is that its been mild and rainy! Well, good for them, Tucson certainly needed the rain.

We checked into Rogue Valley Overnighters RV Park and promptly hooked up in the wrong space. My mistake but one that was easily rectified. What a welcoming place; convenient to I-5 and downtown, great facilities, quiet and there was even a “comfort station” replete with free coffee, books, games and cable TV. We would definitely stay there again if we ever return to Grants Pass.

Grants Pass received its name in a rather roundabout fashion. In 1865 settlers that were traveling along the Applegate Trail, a section of the Oregon Trail, brought word that General Ulysses S. Grant had captured Vicksburg. Delighted with the news residents named their small town Grants Pass. For those of you who aren’t total history buffs, Grant captured Vicksburg in 1863! I can’t imagine waiting that long for news. What would the residents have done if the rest of the war didn’t go their way?

Grants Pass is in the heart of the fertile Rogue River valley where timber, fruit orchards and tourists are the big money makers. The world famous Harry and David gourmet fruit company still has its home in nearby Medford, OR. We were thrilled to catch part of blackberry season. We had picked some in California earlier but these berries were amazing. And they were everywhere, berry bliss! On one of our bike rides we discovered some abandoned fruiting pear trees, they weren’t the best looking pears but they made up for it with flavor. We were quite regular during our stay in Grants Pass, if you know what I mean.

Grants Pass really owes its existence to the Rogue River, a nationally designated Wild and Scenic River. The Rogue begins in Crater Lake and provides water for farming, whitewater thrills, carries placer gold, and offers excellent fishing with Chinook salmon, Coho salmon and steelhead runs. (Did you know that a steelhead is a rainbow trout that decides to move to the ocean but returns, like a salmon, to its birth river to breed?) The river was indirectly named for the area’s original inhabitants, the Takilma Indians. In the early 1800s fur trappers and settlers who moved into the area found the natives to be rather defensive (Gee, I wonder why?) and took to calling them ‘rogues’.

It was the fishing that drew big names in the 1930s, Clark Gable, Zane Grey, Herbert Hoover and even Ginger Rogers spent time along the Rogue. We spent a lot of time by the river and never ran into anyone famous but we did see an osprey nest. It was a heavy work week for Lance but we rode our bikes down to the river everyday. The main draw for Lance was the disc golf course on the south bank, I just loved watching all the water birds. Some of the hot afternoons we stopped into the Grants Pass Pharmacy Historic Soda Fountain. The prices were really historic, at 25 cents each, you could try every flavor of phosphate on the menu and only be out a couple bucks. My favorite was the orange-vanilla phosphate it tasted just like a creamsicle, yummy!

Our week flew by and soon we were on our way north to Corvallis. When we stopped for gas we were reminded that yes, this is definitely Oregon. The only state in the nation that doesn’t let you pump your own gas!

Photos: For more pictures of Grants Pass and the Rogue River see the Grants Pass album in our photos section.

Dates: We enjoyed a wonderful visit in Grants Pass, Oregon: our stay lasted from 08/14/06 – 08/21/06.

Notes: Lance enjoyed playing the small but fun Riverside Disc Golf Course. He only had to retrieve his disc driver from the river once…