Unable to find anywhere to camp for a busy holiday weekend, we found shelter at friends Rex and Patty’s house on the McKenzie River near Eugene, Oregon. We spent a relaxing three days enjoying home cooking and catching up on laundry and plentiful showers. Luxuries of home, like rapid WiFi, TV, hot showers with lots of water, a washer, dryer, dishwasher and a living room to stretch out in, provided an oasis of comfort that we soaked up while we had it, even better when enjoyed with friends.
The McKenzie River area was verdant and beautiful, but it turned out that Rex and Patty were still traumatized from a major fire that had swept through their area on Labor Day of 2020. The holocaust of a blaze funneled down the valley containing the river and burned most of the community of nearby Blue River and many homes and businesses in Rex and Patty’s neighborhood, as well as untold thousands of wooded acres, all the way to the wall of their garage.
Everywhere we looked lay evidence of the recen…
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