Red Bluff KOA Journey

We stayed at Red Bluff KOA Journey in Red Bluff, California. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Our second stay here. One of the nicest KOAs, though a pity about the location near a noisy freeway and train track. We enjoyed walking across the road to a Shari’s for dinner.

Dates:

Check in: 2025-10-19
Check out: 2025-10-20
1 night

Weather:

Sunny
High temp 78°F, low 52°F
Some wind, gusts to 22 MPH

Noise:

Nearby freeway noise
Occasional train horn noise
Little neighbor noise (some dogs)

Site:

#114, pull-through, concrete
Didn’t need to disconnect toad, and didn’t, since only one night
Level site; used hydraulic leveling, since on concrete
Concrete driveway about 63 feet long by 15 feet wide
13 feet to neighbor on passenger side
0-23 feet to road on driver side
Picnic table
No fire pit
Some trees
Clean site
Elevation 280 feet, front facing west

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
70 PSI water, conveniently located
Didn’t connect sewer

Internet (in usage priority order):

Starlink: 80-134 Mbps down, 24-30 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
RoamLink: 44 Mbps down, 14 Mbps up, 145 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
AT&T: 340-360 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up, 40 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
Campground Wi-Fi: not used

Amenities:

Garbage pickup from site
Pool

See our previous review on Campground Reviews.

Campground map:

Map

An interactive map:

Our site:

Our site

Other sites:

Other sites

See our first visit for more photos. We’d be happy to stay here again.

Video

Video: Sutherlin, Oregon to Red Bluff, California motorhome travel timelapse

A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 285 miles from Sutherlin, Oregon to Red Bluff, California.

Travel from Sutherlin, Oregon to Red Bluff, California

We drove our coach 285 miles, about six hours of driving, from Sutherlin, Oregon to Red Bluff, California.

A long drive, but all on I-5, so pretty easy and familiar.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading south:

Route

An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:

I-5 South:

I-5 South

Rainy:

Rainy

“Slow Down”:

Slow Down

Misty mountains:

Misty mountains

Examples of various solutions for transporting a side-by-side — motorhome towing, toy hauler, and truck camper towing:

Examples of various solutions for transporting a side-by-side

Rest area:

Rest area

Crossover intersection:

Crossover intersection

Fuel stop:

Fuel stop

Me taking a photo of Jenn taking a photo of Paladin:

Jenn taking a photo of Paladin

Jenn’s photo:

Jenn's photo

Southern Oregon hills:

Southern Oregon hills

Ashland:

Ashland

Southern Oregon hills

“Siskiyou Mountain Summit, elevation 4310 feet, highest elevation on I-5”:

Siskiyou Mountain Summit, elevation 4310 feet, highest elevation on I-5

Hills

“Oregon Thanks You, Come Back Soon”:

Oregon Thanks You, Come Back Soon

“Welcome to California”:

Welcome to California

Agricultural Inspection Station:

Agricultural Inspection Station

Mount Shasta:

Mount Shasta

Junk cars in a rest area:

Junk cars in a rest area

Shasta Lake:

Shasta Lake

KOA:

KOA

Our site:

Our site

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

We visited Disneyland for our pre-Christmas holiday lights this year. The blog post about that visit won’t be published until March, but here’s a seasonal sneak peek:

Disneyland

Jenn and David at Disneyland

It's a Small World

Christmas tree

Sutherlin/Umpqua Valley KOA Holiday

We stayed at Sutherlin/Umpqua Valley KOA Holiday in Sutherlin, Oregon. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A KOA in an old drive-in movie theater, which still shows movies on the projection screen, and provided a viewing area with chairs and fire pits. The movie sound is played out loud, and can be tuned on a radio station for people who want to watch from inside their RV (for the sites that have a view of the screen, as ours did).

Dates:

Check in: 2025-10-17
Check out: 2025-10-19
2 nights

Weather:

Partly sunny
High temps 62-70°F, lows 45-47°F
Little wind, gusts to 13 MPH

Noise:

Little road noise
No train horn noise
Little neighbor noise
Movie noise in evening

Site:

#86, pull-through, gravel
Didn’t need to disconnect toad, parked behind coach
Mostly level site; a little high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
Gravel driveway about 55 feet long by 12 feet wide
12 feet to neighbors on both sides
Fence between sites
Patio table and chairs
Bench seat
Propane fire pit
A tall tree
Clean site
Elevation 540 feet, front facing north

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
40 PSI water, conveniently located
Loose sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

RoamLink: 40-52 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 140 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
AT&T: 60-260 Mbps down, 14-16 Mbps up, 40 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
Campground Wi-Fi: not measured
Starlink: not used

Amenities:

Garbage dumpsters
Movie screen

Campground map:

Map

An interactive map:

Our site:

Our site

Hey look, the driver-side slide out for the first time in four months!

Our site

A nice fenced patio:

Patio

Convenient utilities:

Utilities

Movie screen, viewed from our site:

Movie screen, viewed from our site

Other sites:

Other sites

The movies were a bit noisy, but over before quiet time, and a fun novelty. We’d be happy to stay here again.

Video

Video: Eugene to Sutherlin, Oregon motorhome travel timelapse

A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, just 68 miles from Eugene to Sutherlin, Oregon.

Travel from Eugene to Sutherlin, Oregon

We drove our coach just 68 miles, about one hour of driving, from Eugene to Sutherlin, Oregon.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading south:

Route map

An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:

Leaving Oregon Motorcoach Center:

Oregon Motorcoach Center

Joining I-5 South:

I-5 South

I-5

A nasty parallel-parking rest area with no real space for us:

Rest area

Trees starting to turn:

Trees starting to turn

Arriving at a KOA:

Arriving at KOA

Check in:

Check in

Drive-in movie screen:

Drive-in movie screen

Our site:

Our site

Oregon Motorcoach Center repair of hydraulic slide-out

We took our coach to the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, for them to fix a few issues, most importantly the broken hydraulic slide-out.

Our front driver-side slide-out got stuck back in mid-June, when we were staying in Youngstown, New York. You can read about our adventures of diagnosing the issue and manually pushing the slide in. In late July we also went to HWH in Moscow, Iowa, the manufacturer of the hydraulic piston, but while they weren’t willing to do the repair, they did sell us the needed part.

All the way across the other side of the country from New York, and many month later in mid-October, the Oregon Motorcoach Center (OMC) was able to fix the issue.

We dropped our coach off at OMC, and stayed (with Paladin) in a nearby hotel. A hassle, but much nicer than hanging out in their waiting room. When they said they’d need a bit longer to fix all of the issues, we headed down to Ashland, where we had planned to camp, and stayed in another hotel.

Oregon Motorcoach Center

Here’s the piston we got from HWH:

HWH ram

Disconnected hoses, which I labeled to enable to the techs to reconnect:

Disconnected hoses

Here’s our coach in the OMC workshop:

Coach in workshop

HWH had thought that we’d have to drop the fuel tank in order to replace the piston, but OMC determined that that wouldn’t be feasible, due to the shape of the tank and how it was positioned above the front axle. But they came up with an alternative (and better) solution: they removed our house batteries, and cut a hole in the back of that compartment, and were able to reach the piston that way. They added a plate over the hole when they finished.

Since they had to remove the batteries, they plugged our fridge directly to the shop electricity; very nice of them:

Fridge connected to electricity

The working slide when we picked up our coach:

Working slide

So nice to have that working again! Much bigger inside now.

While there, they also replaced the entry step motor, as previously mentioned, and replaced a connector in one of the headlights. Both good fixes, but the slide was the big one. Four months without that working was frustrating, but at least we were still able to travel.

Video