A long post about California

Hello Everyone, I am currently in Valley of the Rogue state park, just north of Medford, Oregon. As far as names go, it's a solid contender for best of the trip so far. Tied with Devil's Den, in Arkansas. Jonny and I got in here this afternoon. There was no sign on the highway that we had crossed over into a new state, I only cottoned on when I noticed everyone's license plates had the big green tree on them that is the symbol for Oregon. It's a beautiful stretch of road coming up through northern California, but a vastly different scene from the southern part of the state. The difference between the two parts of the state has some history. I had to resist buying a State of Jefferson t-shirt, though they are quite nice. Not that many people have heard of this movement, and a more nationalist Canadian than than myself would say that we are so much the superior country that even our separatist movements are better. But I'm much more understated in my patriotism. We stayed at an Off-Highway Vehicle area again last night, similar to the one I stayed at outside of Santa Cruz. They cater to mostly ATVs and dirt bikes, but they are a great deal. $10 per night, with good facilities. The camp host gave us some of his store of firewood - he said he wasn't a big fan of the people who ride motorized bikes, they make too much noise, but was curious about our mountain bikes. We had to drive across the Shasta dam to access the campground, which a pretty cool feature. Given the worries about terrorism and such nowadays, security staff inspected our vehicle before they'd let us cross. I can't imagine a more boring job than spending your day giving cursory inspections to cars filled with families and other assorted camping enthusiasts on the off chance that Al Quaeda decides to try to blow a dam in a sparsely populated area of northern California. The dam is huge though and at night it's lit up all across the top. We camped on the low side, so it made quite a view. Leaving California brings mixed feelings. I'm excited to be moving on and to visit a new area, and I've already spent more than a month here, so it's time to get moving, but it's been a great experience. Coming into the state a month ago, I worried a lot about where to stay and what I would do. In previous states, I only planned to visit one or two areas and move on, whereas here I wanted to go all over. But I didn't know where exactly and worried about missing cool areas or not being able to fill the time. Seems silly to think I was worried about running out of things to do in California, but I did. It was tied in part to worrying about where to stay. I can't afford to stay in a state park every night, but free accommodations are harder to find here than in many places. What happened though, was I found more cool places to visit than I could fit in a month. With a bit of research I found cheap, and often very interesting, places to stay. And I met some great people and stayed in their houses, which was a big highlight of the trip. It would be nice to think that having things work out with a bit of planning and luck would be a lesson I'll take away from all of this. That I needn't worry so much, etc. But that's unlikely. I've already moved on to worrying about what I'll do in the next part of the trip. What is there to even do in Oregon? Wes