The Big City of Roseburg

          I don’t know what exactly freaks me out about driving in Roseburg.  The population is less than half of what I’m used to – but I’m also used to driving on a grid – and having streets that are numbered rather than all names.

          Oregon drivers (as a whole) seem a lot more courteous than Utah drivers – not that Salt Lake accounts for all Utah drivers.  But Salt Lake County makes up for over 1/3 of Utah’s population at  1,029,655. The entire Douglas County has a population of 107,667 with Roseburg population at only 21,181 but still the largest city in the county with the next largest city coming in at 7,810  and then Myrtle Creek at less than half of that – and the numbers go down from there.

          Overall, the state of Oregon has a higher population than does the state of Utah; Oregon residence are just more spread-out throughout the state making their largest counties from 300 – 800 thousand people and most of their smaller counties with still a higher population than the average Utah county (the largest after Salt Lake has less than 600,000 and goes down from there)

Oregon is a very large forest dotted with cities.  Except for the Portland area, it seems you have to drive through a huge amount of forest before the next city.  In Salt Lake it is often not known when you have passed one city and entered another as there doesn’t seem to be a break between them. That's always nice when either your car or stomach are acting up - unlike the county where we currently live.  Can't say the same for the entire state of Utah - as there seem to be a lot more rural cities than what we've found in Oregon.

We’ve been to Grants Pass and Eugene – both in other counties – both much larger than Roseburg.  In fact, Eugene is the second largest city next to Portland, with Oregon’s state capitol, Salem, coming in 3^rd.  Roland is usually always behind the wheel.  I've driven to Canyonville by myself - but I still don't like getting on the freeway - even though I5 has a dense population of cars (at least in Douglas county) as opposed to I15 (the Salt Lake to Provo commute) and one doesn't have to wait in line just to get on the ramp or merge at the speed of light. 

The speed limit posted is 65 except for Semi trucks which is posted at 55.  Often I just stay in the lane with the trucks - except for when they are really slow and have their blinkers on and are  moving in the shoulder lane.  The highways are steep.  They go up and down and wind all over the place.  Our car is even less used to it than I am.  And pulling over too far on the shoulder makes for an unpleasant drop.  I don't understand why there are so few guard rails. 

Some Oregon drivers are ruthless - like tonight.  We were returning from Roseburg when all these cars passed us as though we were standing still - and it was Roland behind the wheel - not me.  Usually we do not see that many cars wiz by.  But the county fair is on - we don't know how far they may have traveled to get to Roseburg in the first place - or how far they have to travel to get to work. 

The big city of Roseburg is not actually all that big.  I just refer to it as such because of the rural area where we are currently living.  It's a 17 - 21 minute drive from where we live.  It is where we go to do major shopping, visit the hospital, attend the cinema, stuff like that. Somebody had told us that Grants Pass was about the same distance and a better drive.  It wasn't.

It took twice the amount of time to get  to Grants Pass as to Roseburg - and though it didn't seem quite as steep, it was definitely a lot more smokey the particular day we chose to go.  I had a massive headache - but I can't complain.  There are firefighters among others who are much closer to the elements than I.

Grants Pass pride in the bears.  Local artists create bears to be displayed along the streets for the summer.  We were told that by the end of summer the bears are auctioned off and new creations are made with each summer.  I know we didn't see all that are found on Google.

Two Down, One to Go

        

         We had been told by our friend (the one who lives in McMinnville) that we would have two months to reside before changing over to Oregon plates and driving.  We’ve been here for almost two months now.

         We somehow believed that we would have to take the tests in the big city of Roseburg, but someone had suggested that we go to Canyonville.  I hadn’t thought of a DMV even existing in Canyonville.  What an awesome thought.

         Roland happened to be off work for pioneer day as he is still on Utah clock.  The South Umpqua ward tries to do something for the days of ’47 to honor the pioneers who traveled across the plains.  I’m told that the pioneer celebration always takes place a week earlier than it does in Utah as Myrtle Creek has its own celebration around the same time as Utah has theirs. 

         So on July 24^th, we went to Canyonville so that Richard could take his test first, and I went across the street with Jenna to take pictures of her playing in the park.  We weren’t there for very long.

Yesterday Roland received his Oregon driver’s license in the mail.  He now has two valid driver’s licenses – one from Oregon and one from Utah.  His Utah was never punched.

         He had seemed nervous about the test for some reason.  I do not know why.  Roland is a great driver.  If he thought he would not be able to pass, what chances would I have at passing?

         The questions had mostly common sense answers.  There really wasn’t anything to be nervous about.  I actually did better at the test than he did.  My Utah driver’s license was punched and I was given a temporary piece of paper.

         Now we just need to change our car plates from Utah to Oregon.  NOT an easy task. ALWAYS red tape in Utah.  It hasn’t ended for us.  I wonder if it ever will.

         For some reason we arrived in Oregon without the title to the car we are currently driving.  We sent an application to Utah to get a replacement title.  Paperwork sent back with the reason that we still owed our credit union for the car.  We DON’T owe our credit union.  The car had been paid off over a year before we moved to Oregon.

         So we get the credit union to send a letter that says we have indeed paid for the car and we return the paperwork to the state of Utah.  It is returned to us again because the letter clears us of a car – it doesn’t give the make or model number. So we call the bank again. 

      They said they would send a certificate for the lean.  They also sent an email so that we could print it up and resend off again.  But the printed copy seems distorted, as we appeared to be out of blue ink.  So I expect that Utah will send it back to us. 

       Meanwhile we have the hard copy – which does appear to be a lot more acceptable than what we printed out.  Meanwhile our two months are running out.  Fortunately I don’t think it will be a major concern right now in Myrtle Creek.  There are certainly more pressing issues going on in our surroundings at this time. 

       There have been so many ideas come to mind about what I’d like to post, but I find that if I don’t write it down the second that I think about it, it often doesn’t get written at all. 

         This morning I take Jenna to school for registration.  She is not excited.

Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House, Eugene Oregon

       Today we decided to take a ride up to Eugene and look around.  Roland checked the net before we left so that we would have a specific destination. 

came out extremely small because it was taken with my cell phone

       The historical landmark sits upon a hill.  Many stairs lead to the house.  It reminded Jenna and I of a veggie tale's Sock Drawer in which one feature is a reinactment of the three stooges moving a piano

The initial look on their faces as they look up to see all those stairs

 

I couldn't find a picture that showed ALL the many stairs

watching larry do all of the work

       The history of the house and owners was interesting.  I took a lot of pictures - though the majority of artifacts were actually just condusive to the time period and not the house itself.  It was still very quite interesting. 

        The pictures are not in order of how I took them.  Different rooms, different floors - but as most all of the artifacts were donated to give a visualization to history, I don't suppose it matters

taken in the girls room

taken in the office - all three owners had dr. breadwinners.
 all three doctors died in this room.  I thought that was interesting.

the McMurphy family

was obviously not taken from the best angel

this came out darker than I expected.  Our guide said this room
would be equivalent to what we call a family room

not the original fireplace. But it looks authentic

part of the girls room

miniature in the attic part of the house.  Our guide said
 that it took eight years to create and ended up
costing more than the actual house that we toured

kitchen stove

parlor

Jenna nearing the top

may find a better picture off the internet. 

time period kitchen ware

       You can read more about its history here 

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Beautiful

Jenna does NOT deal with change well.  She is horrible at it.  Horrible.  I don’t even remember what it was she was complaining about last night.  I told her that whatever we do, wherever we live, no matter what, there are going to be some things that we like about our current situation and some things that we don’t. 

I told her to write a list of pros and cons with living in West Valley and with living in Myrtle Creek.  I didn’t suggest for her to include Kearns – after all she was only five when we had moved. There was probably more drama about that move than there was with this last one.

After reviewing her lists, I decided to make some lists of my own.  Thus for this post, I have decided to share each list that was created (or started at least)

Jenna’s pro list for living in West Valley

1)           school friends

2)           church friends

3)           good principal (Mrs. Randolf is truly amazing)

4)           FAMILY

5)           More time with dad (they had actually eaten breakfast together)

Jenna’s con list for living in West Valley

1)           a certain individual from school

2)           church friends live in apartments

Jenna’s pro list for living in Myrtle Creek

1)           same answer as number one on last list

2)           swim lessons (pool in general)

3)           friends made

4)           a library

5)           a bike

6)           good people

7)           Netflix

 Jenna’s Con list for living in Myrtle Creek

1)              mom forced me to be in band before school even started

2)             have to practice the clarinet

3)             missing friends from West Valley

4)             Barely anything to do (EVERYTHING IS IN ROSEBURG)

5)             Missing family

6)             Less time with dad [who’s still working according to mountain time and eats breakfast at his desk or long before Jenna gets out of bed]

My pro list for living in West Valley

1)           public transportation

2)           conveniences (driving locations)

3)           playing games with family members

4)           dual immersion

My con list for living in West Valley

1)           dry air

2)           traffic

3)           construction

4)           small house

5)           no sidewalks

My pro list for living in Myrtle Creek

1)           I can more easily breathe

2)           Low crime

3)           Best house

4)           Strong ward

5)           Opportunities that Jenna will have in this school as opposed to Salt Lake (such as low income rental on instrument and swim lessons that didn’t get cancelled due to a lack of numbers)

6)           Overall friendliness of people

7)           Low key traffic

8)           New Friendships

            9)         that Roland was able to bring his job with us

My con list for Myrtle Creek

1)           windy roads without guard rails

2)           family members live so far away

3)           outrageous water bills

4)           lack of public transportation

5)           library hours

6)           variety