Slow rolling out of Oregon

We are at the Camping World in Wilsonville, Oregon (map).

We had a great time Friday night with friends Brad and Kathleen and their new puppy Jackson. The Valley River Center agreed to let us stay another night (a simple matter of flagging down security and asking permission), and we all met there at the bus and then walked over to McGrath's Fish House for dinner, which was excellent. After dinner we returned to Odyssey for coffee and conversation.

We let Jackson, who is a ~80lb Australian Shepherd, just a year old, come in the bus to socialize with Opal. I have to say, the interaction really seems to have reanimated the old girl, and she wolfed down a bunch of wet food when the evening was over, the first signs of a healthy appetite that we'd seen in days. She, as usual, quickly informed Jackson of her status as lead bitch, even though he outweighs her by a factor of four. They managed to work things out pretty quickly, and then were mostly pleasant all evening.

Yesterday morning we strolled over to Marie Callender's for breakfast, since, horror of horrors, we had run out of milk for coffee the night before. That made four different restaurants to which we walked from our lovely spot on the river. Shortly thereafter, we packed up and headed out, just in time, as we were completely out of fresh water.

We had several shopping errands yesterday, including picking up a replacement DirecTV receiver at the Best Buy in Eugene (I've been trying to do this for months -- very few stores still carry the base-case "standard" receiver these days), a gallon of TranSynd synthetic transmission fluid at the Detroit/Allison/Freightliner dealer in Coburg (where, we discovered, they even have hookups for their RV customers who are stuck in the shop overnight, in stark contrast to many of our Detroit/Allison and Freightliner shop experiences), groceries and supplies, including a new batch of wet dog food, at the Wal-Mart in Salem (no overnight parking, unfortunately), a replacement CB antenna at the Pilot truck stop in Halsey (where we also took on water), and, ultimately, a couple of new mylar thermal window covers right here at Camping World.

Our plan had been to spend the night here, then continue north on the Oregon side of the Columbia, crossing into Longview, Washington to try to hit the Department of Licensing first thing Monday. It turns out, though, that all the DOL offices I looked at, with the sole exception of a "limited service office" in Vancouver, are closed Monday. So now it looks like we will roll a little more slowly along that same route, likely spending one more night in Oregon, and hit either the Kelso or Chehalis DOL office first thing Tuesday.

Opal is still regaining her strength, spending a lot of time sleeping, and moving very slowly when we walk her or even call her to another part of the bus. But at least now she is eating more and more regularly, albeit wet food, which is probably exacerbating the colitis a bit. She's still turing up her nose at the cottage cheese and rice, which is the bland diet she needs to get past the digestive issues, but right now we just want to get the calories back into her.