Andean beauties and the beast of Klamath Falls

Leaving the giant forest of mythical proportions behind us, we moved on to the next US state in the trip: Oregon. First up was an overnight stop at a Harvest Host alpaca ranch near White City (remember, city doesn’t necessarily mean city) in southern Oregon.

The alpaca is the smallest member of the camel family, but about as far from a camel as you can get on four legs. Gentle and adorable, they look at you coquettishly with their big dark eyes and long long lashes, like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

Stroking an animal is well known to be therapeutic. Stroking an alpaca… well, it doesn’t take long to feel the warm glow and inner calm. Is it a domesticated baby llama or Jessica Rabbit in a fluffy white costume? Or maybe just a cuteness overdose on steroids.

Bit of background for you… alpacas are sheared once a year, their shaggy coats are used to make yarn and subsequently lots of other things like cozy socks and woolly scarves. And so we bought some cozy socks and a woolly scarf, and whiled away the evening in the (very peaceful) company of Andean alpacas.

Next up, Crater Lake – deep blue water in a sleeping volcano. Just a quick trip but long enough for the must do pics and to feel the chilly air at 7,000ft pierce the lungs. The snow on the surrounding mountains gave such a striking contrast to the sapphire water, the views were breathtaking.

Still enroute to our work-week destination, we explored some of the non-alpaca related delights of the Rogue Valley. Which amounted to some great hiking, especially around Table Rock, a volcanic plateau with great views of the surrounding area.

The Rogue Valley is also the home of Rogue Creamery, a cheese shop of heavenly proportions. Established in 1933 and still going, they offer a wide range of their own hand-made organic cheeses plus a selectively picked range of outstanding cheeses from around the world. They even have the good business sense to sell all the fancy goodies you could possibly need to create the perfect meat and cheese board. That’s dinner sorted then.

I later realized: we had bagels with jalapeño cream cheese for breakfast, a Rogue Creamery grilled cheese sandwich with Branston pickle for lunch, and a cheese charcuterie board for dinner. Cheese, cheese and cheese. I don’t think I’ve ever had cheese for every single meal in a day before. Isn’t it supposed to give you nightmares or something?

Or maybe a sense of foreboding for our time in Klamath Falls.

We did a couple of nice enough walks along the Link River trail in Klamath Falls, the section of the river joining Upper Klamath Lake and Lake Ewauna (never did see much in the way of waterfalls mind).

And then this happened. My cheese nightmare became reality.

Yup, someone had taken it upon themselves to trash the truck window to break in. Shock, anger, denial, disappointment, frustration. You go through the motions.

Finally comes relief. A realization that it could be so much worse. They took my handbag, which gave them a whole $3 in cash. You’re welcome!

Unfortunately, the car window cost a bit more than that. As for my Green Card replacement, that was $540 and a whole lot of hassle (moral of the story, don’t carry your Green Card in your wallet). But… at least they didn’t steal the truck, then we’d be screwed! And we didn’t have the BaseCamp with us, so no issues there.

I spoke to sooo many call centers over the following days, now there’s a challenge! The hassle of dealing with replacement credit cards was not something I relished. But what was much worse was the violation. That feeling that someone’s breached your personal space and your personal property. Not a nice feeling, actually.

For me, the glass was the manifestation of this violation. And there was glass everywhere, making it impossible to think of anything else until we got it cleaned up. Feeling desolate and broken, me, Darren and the F150 limped into the self car wash place after work and pulled up at the vacuum station. I was dispatched to go get tokens from the attendant.

To my surprise, the attendant furnished me with a handful of tokens and wouldn’t accept a penny for them. He was abashed and apologetic that something like this had happened in his town. In my emotional state, this simple gesture brought a lump to my throat. Five minutes earlier I was convinced that all of humanity in the locale of Klamath Falls was evil. Now, with a few tokens – worth probably, ironically $3, I felt a renewed sense of hope.

And so we paid it forward by leaving a couple of cans of beer for the guy. He was made up, certainly not expecting it, and we were relieved to have a glass-free car and to be moving on. While we wouldn’t entirely rule out a return trip to Klamath Falls, we’re certainly in no rush.