Last day by the Rogue River

Today is our last day near the beautiful Rogue River.    After our wild jet boat ride the other day we wanted to spend our last afternoon sitting peacefully next to it, not on it.

We discovered a nice county (Josephine County) park directly west of Grant's Pass.   Whitehorse Park is a lovely green park with large shady areas for picnicking, a boat launching area and a stony flat beach area.    We saw a small campground attached but it looked like mostly tent camping.

What we were interested in was river access and Whitehorse Park fit the bill.  No one on the beach area on a hot Sunday afternoon = heaven to us!     We set our chairs up in the shallow water and commenced to enjoy the rushing water.

Lewis begins to look for something "to do"

Quietly enjoying the scenery isn't exactly what Lewis had in mind.   We should know better.   We didn't bring anything to play with so he naturally assumed he could play with us.

Dave is always a sucker for a little water play so he kept Lew happy for quite awhile.    Tossing stones into the swift current sent Lew in hot pursuit and throwing water in his face made him mad with happiness.

He looked like a drowned rat but didn't seem to mind much.  He's never been a vain dog.

We knew the Hellgate Jet Boats would eventually pass by us so we just enjoyed our spot while we waited for them to roar by.

After awhile two jet boats roared into view and passed us in a spray of white water.

The waves they generated made little difference to our spot on the shoreline, they drifted in lazily.    Earlier, on our drive to the park, we had seen four boats pass so we knew there would be a few more coming back past us.

A few minutes later the other two boats came into view and they were going a little faster and seemed to come just a bit closer.   We scrambled to our feet as their waves raced toward our little chairs.   Yep, we got wet, wet from the Jet boats once again!

Once we were all wet it was agreed we were done for the day.   On the way home we stopped for a quick look at one of the wineries we missed.   No tastings this time, we'll be back.

Their tasting room is in a beautiful old hotel built on this site in 1865.   Del Rio Winery is a large vineyard with over 300,000 vines producing 12 varietals.

although this hotel was 40 years newer than our old farm,
its graceful countenance still made us a little homesick......

Tomorrow we make the short drive to Emigrant Lake County Park in Ashland, Oregon.