How I came to love and live in SW Oregon (an unsolicited personal testimonial)

I'd always intended to live along the Oregon coast; these days I do. Having grown up along the Atlantic coast, there seemed to be saltwater in my veins that never quite evaporated. But for nearly seven years I lived in the SW Oregon interior. Most of those years were spent on a woodland in Kerby. Had it not been for the good fortune of discovering Country Hills Resort, I'd never have known about the beauty of the Illinois Valley. Passing through the city of Cave Junction on the way to somewhere else...that's what most people seem to do. I and the man who was my "partner" at the time had gotten our hands on a small pamphlet describing the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and we became completely fascinated...we just had to stop somewhere in the vicinity of this place and have a look around. We were looking for property, for a place to build a home. We had not a clue that the Kalmiopsis was not a place to go hunting for property! It's funny, looking back and remembering how innocent we were of so many things we (perhaps too quickly) came to take for granted. I still had my heart set on living near the ocean, but the lure of the Kalmiopsis drew us toward Cave Junction, which was the nearest city of any size...although now in 2007, Cave Junction still feels like a town and not a city. I guess it's all a matter of perception.

We had spent a night in an RV park in Grants Pass where the people who ran the place were nice enough and the place was clean...but to the point of sterility, as it was primarily asphalt and concrete, with very few trees. It seemed to me that every space was filled with another rig. Each rig was just several feet from the next one, so privacy was difficult (make that impossible) to come by. I was very unhappy there, feeling much like a caged animal might. In fact, I was so unhappy, felt so penned in that I had a panic attack and quarreled with my partner (now "ex-friend"...not my choice of terms, but one which I consider ever so ridiculous and extremely misleading it deserves a 'dishonorable mention'): "Get me OUT of this horrible place. I HATE it here! I want to get to the OCEAN!" Well, we left that popular yet soulless park the next day and started driving West toward the ocean. We got a late start...my fault, as I am not one of the great Morning People.

Opening the Woodall's Guide, I went in search of places that seemed more out of the way. By now it was mid-September. Many of the campgrounds in the interior were closed. Others were on the main highway through the Illinois Valley and staying just a few yards off the main drag seemed like it would be a serious mistake. And it would have been! I happened across the listing for "Country Hills Resort", called and spoke with Judy Kelley. How very nice she was (and still is)! She asked what size our rig was, understood that we were "newbies" and gave us a wonderful 30-amp spot out on the campground that would be easy to pull into and we could "pull through" when we left. It was dusk as we drove in, so we didn't get to see all the splendor of the place where we were staying, but we'd noticed driving South on Highway 199 just how beautiful our surroundings were becoming. The mountains, hills and forests, the rivers, the beauty of the sky was simply astounding.

The next morning, getting out of our rig and into the bathrooms and showers, we had our first real glimpse of Sucker Creek. Wow! And this at the very beginning of Fall, when the creek is at its lowest flow. There was whitewater! Beautiful plant life and forested hills! And I noticed the colors of Autumn, leaves beginning to turn in the hardwoods. How many years had it been since I, who'd grown up in the Northeast, had seen the trees change color? It had been such a long time ago, I couldn't remember.

When we'd lived and worked in Silicon Valley, we used to have to drive great distances to parks outside the big cities and suburban sprawl for a glimpse of such pretty places...and then we'd have to share the view with hundreds of other people who were trying to escape the same things at precisely the same times. The times of "getting away from it all" were few and far between. And there we stood, miraculously, the only people at the creek. In fact, for a time we had the campground completely to ourselves which seemed like a dream come true. For the first time in a very long time, I felt a sense of peace and contentment as the stress of living and working in overcrowded places fell away from me. We arrived a the decision that we would look for property in this area. My partner preferred the idea of living in the woods. We found a piece of property with a good amount of acreage out in Kerby and the place really seemed to cry out to me as one that needed people who loved it to be living there. And so I gave up my desire to  continue traveling on to the ocean. I believed that if we didn't take place, someone who didn't have such strong feelings for it would buy it and treat it as poorly as the current owner had.

We dealt with the realtors and filing of papers, made an offer that was accepted, found a builder and got construction on what was to be our home underway. By this time I knew that I was not a "happy camper" living in a 25' RV with a man nearly 6'4" tall. It seemed that every time I decided to occupy a certain place, I'd managed to choose the most inconvenient location from the standpoint of my partner. And so we spoke with Don and Judy and arranged to rent one of the cabins on a month-to-month basis. This was great! While construction was taking place on the property, we could stay nearby, could cook meals in the kitchen without having to unpack the boxes we'd put into storage and sleep in a big, comfortable bed. We got our own telephone put in and dialup service with the local ISP. And here we lived quite happily from November of 2000 through May of 2001.

We still had a few months of living in the RV before we were able to move into the cabin, but it was a lot easier to handle with warmer weather and the ability to move around outdoors quite comfortably. The cabin was finished before the rains "kicked in" in the Fall. Since I'm no longer living there, I try not to think of the place very often. I still come back to the Illinois Valley from time to time and I always stay at Country Hills! The first time I returned, I felt such grief it could barely be contained. I walked out on the campground and screamed and cried like a wounded animal and the creek was kind and absorbed all the noise I could make. Now I can look back on the good memories while strolling along Sucker Creek and walk back to that RV space where we'd parked nearly seven years ago, when it seemed that my partner and I, for all of our difference, would have a bright and wonderful future together.

There was and is something healing about looking into the waters of Sucker Creek, something magical about crying out all of your sorrows on days when the rain in pouring down and the creek is rushing by and you suddenly recognize a spark of hope has come alive within you, feeling that sense of loss flowing away on the rapidly moving water, being replaced and replenished by fresh streams of possibility flowing to any number of future destinations. What is gone is gone, what will be will be. But how wonderful to know that when I arrive at Country Hills, there are the good and friendly people who know me and I'm in a secure and familiar place. In this sense, in this place, there is a gift: I am able to return Home again. ~ js