Day 2 Salem Golf Club & I-5 to northern California

3/9/20 - Day 2 Salem Golf Club & I-5 to northern California

     After a good night's sleep (a full 8 hours!) we got up and headed for Salem. I don't believe I had ever been south of Portland in the Willamette Valley. I have driven down to California a couple of times, but always took the Klamath Falls/HWY 97 route.

Thank goodness for I-205 and the fact we were coming from the east! I-5 southbound was down to one lane (somewhere in Portland) according to the radio. The 205 was packed, but except for one merge point it was always moving and after we crossed the Willamette River it moved along nicely. We had intermittent fog so at times we couldn't see a lot around us, but with the traffic I wouldn't have been gawking much anyway.

     The Salem Golf Club is open to the public and also has a club membership so some areas are off limits to the public. It was established in the 1920s and is Salem's oldest golf course. Huge evergreen trees (lots of deciduous trees too!), a creek through part of the course, an old fruit orchard, GREAT GREENS and soggy clay ground are the main features of this golf course. Most of the people we saw playing the golf course were walkers. We were told cart paths only and that's the way we played it so Randy & Margaret got their exercise this day.

     The course is not long, but played really long for us as the ball stopped quickly on the wet clay. Both of us require some fairway roll for any distance and we didn't get that. The greens are tricky (at least for our first time there!) and faster than they look. The golf course kicked both of our asses as we had a hard time with the pretty much all of the elements of the course.

     We started behind two groups of the local BOYZ group and plodded along behind them for most of the way. A twosome caught us on the back nine and we asked them to join us for the last six holes. One in a cart (Steve) and a walker (Ed). Both were friendly and fun to play golf with. I talked quite a bit with Ed. He said the ground was actually fairly dry for this time of year. and in the summer the clay dries out and the course plays short and fast. I would recommend this course under those dry conditions, but NOT in the wet like we played it!

     They have a beautiful old southern-style clubhouse/pro shop here and the restaurant next door is built in the same style. After golf we ate a late lunch at the club's restaurant, "Whiskey Browns". It has a great menu, beautiful decor and the service was good. Best meal of the trip thus far (I wrote this on 3/12/20, but in the end it was the 3rd best meal I had in the 22 days I was on the road).

     After lunch we drove down I-5 to Redding, CA to spend the night. A long haul, but we didn't want to have a long drive the next day as we had a couple of things planned. I-5 through southern Oregon's mountains is really quite scenic. There are several mountain passes and truck, after truck, after truck on the road. The car traffic thinned out a lot a bit south of Eugene (at Creswell) and dwindled to almost nothing south of Roseburg. It was a great drive until the sun went down and all the watch for deer signs popped up.

     It was a 15 hour day, but still easier than Sunday as we had gotten a good night's sleep. Let's see if that's a lesson I will remember.

     Great golf hole! #4 at the Salem GC, with tees at 335, 390 & 395 yards it is the #1 handicap hole (toughest to score well) on the golf course. This par 4 has a wide driving area and probably plays easier in the summer when the ground is firm and you get some roll on the tee shot. If you are not long (that's us!) you must lay up because there is a creek that pools into a fairly wide water hazard you must cross it to a green that is quite uphill from the fairway. The closer you get to the hazard, the more downhill your lie will be to an uphill approach shot. There is a landing area between the far side of the pond and the green, but it is sloped fairly steeply and downhill away from the green and the ball can roll back into the pond! The green has about 3 different levels to it and slopes pretty hard from back to front. Neither of us handled this hole well at all and I'm sure it's a challenge for all golfers.

     Pictures are of Margaret with her hot chocolate mug in Whiskey Browns coffee shop prior to golf, Margaret in front of the clubhouse and the 10th tee, where we started, in the fog! And YES, my hair was perfect!