{"id":478,"date":"2008-09-23T15:22:33","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T22:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=478"},"modified":"2008-09-24T11:50:28","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T18:50:28","slug":"indian-mary-park-merlin-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2008\/09\/23\/indian-mary-park-merlin-oregon\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Mary Park (Merlin, Oregon)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first overnight stop on our road trip from Petaluma, California to Vancouver, Canada, was in Southern Oregon at the Indian Mary Campground in Merlin. By Google Maps, it’s 410 miles and a 6:30 hour drive. With extensive stops, it was more like 9 or 10 hours.<\/p>\n

Indian Mary Park<\/strong>
\nUninc Josephine County, Oregon
\n7100 Merlin Galice Rd, Merlin OR 97532
\n(541) 474-5285
\nConnected to the Oregon State Park system but run separately, through the county.
\nhttp:\/\/www.co.josephine.or.us\/Page.asp?NavID=491<\/a><\/p>\n

Directions: Take I-5 North or South to Exit 61. Go under the freeway and turn left on Merlin Galice Road, which turns into Merlin Road, for about 3.5 miles. Merlin Road turns slightly left and becomes Galice Road.\u00a0 Continue another 7 miles to the Park entrance on the right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A friend of ours goes there every year with a large organization that reserves a block of spots near the Rouge River and provides all the meals.\u00a0 And for that sort of trip, this place would be awesome.\u00a0 The river is gorgeous and the park has a communal feel because all the sites are very close together.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam

Miriam at the Indian Mary boat launch<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, we weren’t with a group and the closeness of the campsites was overwhelming.<\/p>\n

\"Our

Our tent in the middle of several campsites<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s us in the middle with an RV to the far left, an empty site to the immediate left, three sites behind us, and one RV to the right.<\/p>\n

Between the stifling heat (98 degrees in early evening) and being surrounded by cigarette smokers, I ended up with a fall down asthma attack in the center grassy area at the front of the picture (beyond it is the bathrooms) while trying to escape the smoke.\u00a0 I had my oxygen tank but not my inhaler and Michael was off with Miriam at the playground.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I was able to call for help and, after several tries, some folks (including a paramedic) heard me and got my inhaler and my family.\u00a0 Miriam cared less about the fact that mommy was sick than about the fun of getting to ride in the park’s golf cart.\u00a0 The smokers near to us were very kind and all said they wouldn’t smoke near us anymore.\u00a0 And they didn’t.\u00a0 But the damage was done.\u00a0 I was fragile over the next couple of days and had trouble walking any distance.<\/p>\n

Before the attack, we managed to get our borrowed tent up (first time since the dry run at home).\u00a0 This was my first time dealing with a tent, or camping at all, in over 20 years.\u00a0 Michael had never done real camping.\u00a0 It was Miriam’s first time.\u00a0 Not the greatest (re)introduction.<\/p>\n

\"It

It only took us half an hour to get this baby up<\/p><\/div>\n

The night went more smoothly.\u00a0 I had chosen an RV site vs a plain tent site because the former had electrical hookups and water and we had an electric cooler.\u00a0 The tent sites weren’t very different or less crowded.<\/p>\n

\"Our

Our campsite<\/p><\/div>\n

We ate from the cooler, went to bed, roasted, took off the rain flap, roasted slightly less, tried to block out the partying around us, and fell asleep mostly hating the place.<\/p>\n

Then it was morning.<\/p>\n

Morning at Indian Mary is magical.\u00a0 Everyone else was asleep, the air was cool, and Miriam wanted to see the river.<\/p>\n

\"Rouge

Rouge River in early morning<\/p><\/div>\n

Once we were away from the campsites, the air at the park was very clean and fresh.\u00a0 They don’t use pesticide at the park and they only use herbicide once in a while at the boat launch (most recently 3 or so months earlier).\u00a0 I walked slowly because my legs were still unsteady and my lungs not at full capacity.\u00a0 We made our way to the top of the riverbank, where Miriam, naturally, had to stop for some blackberries.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam

Miriam picking blackberries along the Rouge River<\/p><\/div>\n

Then to the boat launch where she expressed her deep down desire to go fishing (one she has repeated dozens of times since…some day little one).<\/p>\n

\"Miriam

Miriam for a morning walk and yoga pose in her jammies<\/p><\/div>\n

Then of course we had to make our way to the playground, where her visit the day before had been cut short.\u00a0 We couldn’t stay long because the other campers were waking up and the cigarette smoke began to waft over.<\/p>\n

\"Children's

Children's playground at Indian Mary Park<\/p><\/div>\n

Unless I came with a very large, smoke and bug-spray-free, group, I can’t see myself returning.\u00a0 As solo campers who wanted to sleep early and weren’t interested in socializing (drinking beer around the campfire with strangers), this was completely the wrong spot.\u00a0 For someone with asthma and MCS, it was a nightmare.<\/p>\n

Nominally, the park is pretty safe.\u00a0 No pesticides, almost no herbicide, no air freshener in the bathrooms (they told me they use strong smelling cleaning products but we must have been there between cleanings because it wasn’t a problem).<\/p>\n

The bathrooms have flush toilets and small shower stalls with tiny changing areas.<\/p>\n

There is the playground for the kids plus lots of flat grassy areas, a Frisbee (disc) golf course, volleyball, horseshoes, and a place to boat and fish.\u00a0 We were there on a Thursday night in mid-August so there were plenty of free spaces, though it was mostly full.\u00a0 The better sites were of course taken.<\/p>\n

Take a look on the map<\/a>.\u00a0 We were in site 74.\u00a0 If I went again with a child, I’d want site 46 (preferably the entire surrounding chunk).\u00a0 The map is somewhat misleading because those distances are actually quite close (it’s also not entirely to scale).\u00a0 Many other park maps look similar on paper but they fit half as many campsites in the same space.\u00a0 From us in 74 to the smokers\/partiers in 85 was about 20 feet.\u00a0 You can see their white car behind and to the left of us in the two site pictures above.<\/p>\n

We packed up and got on the road by mid-morning.\u00a0 On to another two nights of camping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first overnight stop on our road trip from Petaluma, California to Vancouver, Canada, was in Southern Oregon at the Indian Mary Campground in Merlin. By Google Maps, it’s 410 miles and a 6:30 hour drive. With extensive stops, it was more like 9 or 10 hours. Indian Mary Park Uninc Josephine County, Oregon 7100 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[108,24,92,102,110,99,101,62],"tags":[85,98,51,112],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campgrounds","category-family","category-health","category-parks","category-picnics","category-places-to-go","category-playgrounds","category-travel","tag-mcs","tag-oregon","tag-photos-family","tag-photos-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}