Found the Roseburg Visitor Center closed during their listed hours. We double checked their…read morewebsite, and they were definitely supposed to be open for two more hours. Couldn't find anyone there, nobody picked up the phone either. We saw three other cars, including two families with children, pull up and leave disappointed, just in the 20 minutes we spent there. If your visitor center isn't even open on a Sunday afternoon, the biggest part of the week for tourism and recreation, then why have one at all? Tourists don't generally show up in town on Monday mornings, on a work day.
They also organized a very poorly put-together geocaching tour, which I discovered was organized without official approval from geocaching.com.
I finally got a hold of them a few days later, to try to get them to mail me the documents I needed from them. First of all, they were very nice, I'll give them that. They could probably show you a whole range of colorful brochures and perhaps even tell you about the attractions. That said, I'm not sure these women even live in the same century as we do.
I simply could not explain to either of the two women there, no matter how simply I said it, that you can email documents to people. I highly doubt either had ever in fact seen email. When I said, in these exact words "Could you perhaps attach the documents to an email?" They said "Whoa, hold on, you're going to have to repeat that, I have no idea what you're talking about". Several more minutes of explaining the concept didn't help either.
So they took down my name and address for a third person to look into it. I am not exaggerating when I tell you I had to spell my first name FOUR times. That's right:
"Claire, C L A I R E, the common girl's name, Claire"
"Sorry, what? Can you spell that again?
"Claire, C L A I R E"
"C L A R I...? Sorry, what is it?"
"C L A I R E"
"Okay, Clarie?"
"No, the girl's name Claire, spelled the way you usually spell it, C L A I R E. Like Claire Huxtable."
"Okay!"
I then spelled out my email address, which has one word plus the name Claire. The next day they called me back: "Hi Clarie? The email didn't go through!" They had STILL MISPELLED CLAIRE. I facepalmed so hard.
How is that even possible? *cry* I didn't bother a fifth time, so I gave them my husband's email address. His name is Rob. I'm amazed that email actually arrived.
I feel bad complaining, because the ladies were nice (well the first two, the third who called me back wasn't terribly friendly), and they're volunteers I'm guessing, but honestly... most incompetent government agency in Oregon. And that says a lot. It's awesome that people are willing to volunteer, but a city the size of Roseburg simply needs to hire at least one professional to manage the visitor center and be present on site.
