Author: kyotesue

Soil scientist/mapper working for 35 years in the wild lands of the West. I am now retired, enjoying my freedom to travel, to hike without a shovel and a pack, to knit and quilt and play, to play with photography and write stories about all of it.

A short weekend jaunt to Eureka

Transcribed in April 2011 from our old leather journal

This is a record of the first year that Mo and I knew each other and started traveling together

October 19, 2003

Image005 Image001 Sometimes even a short weekend can be fun.  I love it when Mo says, “Hey, let’s go on a road trip”.  This time we decided to travel down the Klamath River from Klamath Falls, through Yreka and to Happy Camp and across the 299 highway to Eureka.  The trip took most of the day on Saturday, with lots of stops along the magnificent rivers, and a visit to a wonderful rock shop in Happy Camp where I bought a truly beautiful piece of California jade, or serpentine, with a polished surface on one side.

As we traveled across the pass toward the coast, we saw a medium sized black animal crossing the road and leaping up the slope above us.  We couldn’t figure out what it was, too small for a bear but too big for anything we recognized.  A bit of research later revealed images of a fisher, a rare animal in this part of the world that we were privileged to see.

We didn’t arrive in Eureka until quite late, but after settling in to the Motel, we decided to try to find a beach somewhere.  Mo drove us out on a spit of land near Arcata and in the dark I ran out on the sand Image011to smell and listen to the ocean in themoana02river dark foggy night.  It was magical.  On Sunday morning we went to downtown Eureka for breakfast at a great little Mexican fast food place on the wharf, with lovely fresh breakfast burritos.  We walked around the wharf a bit, taking photos of the famous Victorian and then got back on the road toward home.

On the way back, we stopped along the Trinity River to watch some kayakers going down the rapids and thought of my friend Jeanne who does this kind of kayaking.  Not for me, that’s for sure!  We watched a couple of boaters make it and then saw one of them flip and have to swim the rapids.  The sun was gorgeous, and the weekend was just the respite I needed before going back to another week of soil survey in Klamath Falls.

Off to Reno for Sue’s birthday

Transcribed in April 2011 from our old leather travel journal

03_Sep_Reno Trip005Mo showed up at my house at on Friday at 7am and we took off right away for a great planned long weekend in Nevada.  Drove first south on Highway 39 to Alturas and then took the back road through the Warner Mountains, high, rugged, and truly beautiful.  We just ambled along checking out side roads and campgrounds in the forest land along the route.  03_Sep_Reno Trip015Stopped in Gerlach, Nevada, near the Burning Man site and had lunch at a little cafe.  Found a cool desert lake for Molly  to take a swim and another great tent campground just east of the Warner Wilderness Area.  Would love to go back there and camp someday.

We arrived in Fallon in time to go to the PX there and then back to Reno for the night.  Mo had reservations at the Motel 6 there in Reno because they allow pets, but somehow the reservation was for another town in Nevada.  There was some sort of air show in town and all the hotels were completely booked up, but after a bit of negotiating, Mo found us a place to stay that would let us have Molly.  It was late so we had a simple dinner and settled into our room for a relaxing evening.

03_Sep_Reno Trip03603_Sep_Reno Trip020 On Saturday we got up early to a magnificent fall day in the desert.  Took the Winding Hill road to Virginia City, stopping to take lots of photos overlooking the valley and climbing around the rocks.  Had some early morning mimosas at the Bucket of Blood saloon and shopped in the little stores in town.  In the afternoon we drove down to Genoa and the valley south of Reno just looking at homes and properties where Mo’s friend Kathy lived. We had a great late lunch at a BBQ restaurant in Carson City before going back to the motel to dress for our evening entertainment in Reno. The show, “The Best of Broadway” was great, with excellent singing and dancing and I enjoyed having a chance to get all dressed up for a change.

03_Sep_Reno Trip038 03_Sep_Reno Trip039 Sunday morning we left Reno and stopped at Boomtown for an inexpensive breakfast and a little slot play.  On the way home via 395 we used our new book, “Nevada Gem Trails” to do some local rock-hounding and found quartz crystals along the highway, and carnelian and jasper on a back road just north of Alturas. By late afternoon we were starving, but nothing was open so we found ourselves settling for some really bad packaged burritos from the gas stations in Merrill around 9pm.  We were pretty tired when we pulled in to my house and Mo left immediately for her home in Rocky Point while I settled in to get ready for work the next day. 

Tent camping at Medicine Lake

Written in April of 2011.
P1010061 Mo and I have been camping at Medicine Lake, located just a bit south of the California border, for several years now, and this story is about the first time we traveled there together in 2003.  In those days I didn’t have a blog, and would try to keep track of our shared travels in a thick red leather journal.  At the time, I was still working soil survey in Klamath Falls and lived up on Pacific Terrace in town.  Mo lived in Rocky Point, and we had only known each other for a few months when we embarked on this trip.
P1010002 We left for Medicine Lake from my house around 4 in the afternoon.  It is only about 2 hours from Klamath Falls to the campground, so we knew we could get settled in before evening.  Mo pulled the sailboat with her Chevy van, but had a little bit of trouble with the hitch because it was too high to track properly until we added all the weight of our camping gear to the sailboat.  We drove south to Tulelake and then west up the hill to the lakeside campground.  We immediately found a great site on the north side of the lake on a rocky promontory by the water.  It didn’t take long at all to set up our big tent and cook a great supper.  The campsite wasn’t big enough to store the boat, so we parked it in the lot down by the boat launch about half a mile away on the east side of the lake.
P1010009 Friday morning we woke to a brilliant, sunny sky, but the wind was blowing too hard for sailing so we decided to go hiking instead.  We drove south to the lava caves and tubes, walked the obsidian flows, and explored Glass Mountain where we found some huge chunks of snowflake obsidian.  In the afternoon we drove the narrow dirt road up to the Hoffman Mountain Lookout with views in all four directions, with Mt Shasta to the west, and Klamath Falls in the northern distance.  We saw the beginnings of a large forest fire that we learned later started that afternoon at Hagelstien Park north of the Klamath Lake.  Our evening was topped off by a nice supper cooked over a lovely campfire and sleeping to the sound of the wind outside the tent.
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P1010045P1010056 On Saturday, we got up to another perfect sunny day and drove to the caldera rim for another long hike on the obsidian flows.  Finally by afternoon the winds died down to reasonable breezes and we launched the sailboat.  We were the only boat on the lake and the winds were perfect for practicing our come-abouts. We laughed a lot on this day about our morning plans, with Mo saying, “Well, first we can eat breakfast, then we’ll do something, then we’ll eat, and then do something, then we can come back and eat”. In the late afternoon we took off exploring again with the boat in tow behind the van and laughed a lot about how funny that must have looked to the few people we passed on the high narrow dirt roads miles away from any kind of water.
P1010035 Sunday morning after our campfire breakfast we went for a little hike to a tiny hidden lake where Molly could swim and followed the trails back around the lake to our campsite.  We packed up camp about mid day and traveled home by way of Mt Shasta and the tiny logging town of Bray along Highway 97, with it’s little matching houses lined up in cute little rows.  Back in Klamath we stopped in to Old Town Pizza for supper.  Mo dropped me off at home before she headed back to Rocky Point. 

P1010017

Our first camping trip together was a complete success, and a whole lot of fun.

Caesar laid to rest on Frog Day at Hauser Lake

from the past:Sweet Caesar, my old cat, was laid to rest yesterday. The vet came to my house and put him gently to sleep while I held him in my arms. The neighbor kids came last night and brought some flowers for his grave. He is buried behind the bench that Bel made for our garden. I couldn’t sit on that bench for a moment, and he would be there, purring loudly, wanting to be in my lap, but content if I only wanted him beside me.


He represents unconditional love to me, total commitment, he was always there, beside me in the bed, always choosing to be in whatever space I was in at the moment. Except the car, perhaps, which he hated. Which is why is insisted that the vet come to my house. No more car rides, Caesar, no more trips to the vet.
I know you are beside me in spirit, as always.

at Hauser 2001

There is a very special day here on the lake…I call it “Frog Day”. It happens every spring, usually around mid-March, but this year I kept listening for them and they didn’t come. On this very wondrous day, the sun comes out and everything smells different, it is warm and the night is slow in coming for a change. The earth smells like damp moss and dirt and all things magic going on unseen. Then, late in the evening, after it is dark, I hear the frogs. The lake has finally melted and warmed enough that they are awake.  It is a sound like childhood, or neighborhoods never lived in but remembered, a sound of new beginnings and summers to come.  It is as reassuring as the sun rising every morning when it comes.  Las night, sitting on the bench Bel made by Caesar’s grave, I heard the frogs.  It was Frog Day.