Day 1: Sunday 13th June 2010: Ashland, Oregon to Elk Grove, California (Miles to Date: 312)

We woke to another wonderfully sunny day in the Rogue Valley. Our plan for the day was to finish packing up our apartment (which is in Talent, the neighbouring town to Ashland). Emily and Jack had sleepovers from the night before so they were not around to help (or hinder). The alarm went off at 6:00 am so we could maximise our time and set-off sometime shortly after lunch. As usual, or at least for us, our planned time to pack up everything and get our possessions to their various final destinations; storage, charity shop or the trash, was significantly under estimated. When we last moved from our house in Ashland back to our motorhome, we returned our most valued chattels to the storage unit and took the opportunity to get rid of a lot of things. Somehow there still seemed to be much to be got rid off!

The hours slipped past, and before we knew it lunchtime was upon us. There was still a lot to do! A phone call later and we had an invite to a barbecue at our friends the Pritzlaffs, which was too good an offer to refuse. We piled things into our two cars, to be delivered to friends, storage units and charity shops. Karen had an additional chore. We were looking to sell the lovely old car we had bought on arriving in Ashland; a 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis station wagon. This car is a maroon colour with wood-veneer panelling. For those out there who are old enough to remember the 1970s TV series “The Brady Bunch”, it is similar to the family car they drove. We had originally planned to bring Mercury with us on our cross-country trip, but sadly it was suffering increasingly with the wear and tear of age, so we chose the Jeep for the journey. For a while we had been thinking about donating our cars to a charity, who could sell them and make some money, but Mark had left it too late to get this organised. Luckily, Lisa Walker, who works with Karen at the Middle School was potentially interested. So after clearing the Mercury of its contents Karen took it over to Lisa and her husband to have a look at. After a half and hour they called us back and said they would take it! Result!

Mike had spent half an hour lovingly polishing the old girl and she shone like new! They are going to use it to pull their mobile Aloha Grill around all the fairs and affairs! The car and the grill looked made for each other! Mark in the mean time had gone to collect Emily from her friend Sophia and Jack from his friend Max. There was a lot of sadness, particularly with Emily and Sophia, on saying goodbye. Even Mark was close to tears watching Jack and Emily say their goodbyes. Before emotion took the day, Karen was collected from the Walker's and we headed off to the Pritzlaff's for the barbecue. For the first time this day,Karen and Mark had the chance to relax and the pressure melted away, at least temporarily. We had a lovely time and filled our bellies.

We said our goodbyes to the Pritzlaffs and headed back to our apartment in Talent for a final clear-up. Finally we completed the cleaning task and headed back to the Walker's to pick-up our money, and then at last it was time to leave Ashland. This was a hugely sad moment for all of us. We have truly loved the nigh on two years that we have lived in this wonderful town. We made some fantastic friends, had some great experiences and had made the most of the Shakespeare festival, seeing virtually every production over the last two seasons! Despite our original target of leaving early afternoon it was now 6pm before we pulled out of town.

Our route took us south into California, along Interstate 5, towards the city of Elk Grove, just below California's State capital Sacremento. We still had over 300 miles to go, which was likely to take over five hours, giving us an estimated time of arrival after 11pm! We headed out of Ashland towards the State line with California, climbing up and over Siskiyou Summit, a four thousand foot pass through the mountains. As we crested the summit, Karen saw plumes of smoke pouring from the exhaust of our car. Calamity! Were we about to break down only 20 minutes out? Luckily the smoke stopped and we carried on.

It was a glorious evening and we were treated to a splendid view of the magnificent, 14,000 foot plus Mount Shasta, still capped with snow. We stopped at a viewpoint for some pictures. Mount Shasta was our companion for a lot of journey, from first sighting it as we entered California until we passed out of Redding, California some 120 miles to the south. As expected we reached our hotel at 11:30pm and fell into bed.