kyotesue

It is Rhodie time on the Oregon Coast!

Current Location: Harris Beach State Park, Brookings, Oregon Sunny and 60 degrees F

If you try to plan a trip to the Oregon Coast to catch the rhodies in bloom, the season will almost always surprise you. Either it will be too late or too early, with lots of buds and no flowers, or lots of dried up blooms. With no plans for seeing the famous flowers, or even a thought of the magnificent rhododendrons on our minds, we decided it was time to get “home” again to our favorite Oregon Coast beach.

The four hour drive from home in Rocky Point, through Grants Pass, and west on the winding Highway 199 along the Smith River is magnificent any time of year. This time, however, the closer we got to the coast, the more the steep hillsides were cloaked in gorgeous wildflowers. We have traveled this route many times, but I don’t remember seeing quite the profusion of flowers that greeted us yesterday morning on our trip west.

Oregon boxwood shrubs were tipped in right red foliage that looked just like flowers, and the rocky cliffs were covered with blue penstemon and carpets of low yellow native iris. The closer we got to the Jedediah Smith redwoods, the more flowers we found. Mo was driving, the camera was buried in its case and Jeremy was hugging my shoulder as he likes to do when the road is rough and curvy. No photos of the brilliant clouds of pink flowers on wild rhododendrons that were sometimes more than 20 feet tall.

Neither of us could believe that it has been more than five months since we settled in to Harris Beach, with our last short trip back in early December before we left for the winter for warmer? southern climes. The beaches were gorgeous in Texas and Florida, but as anyone who has seen it knows, the Oregon Coast is unmatched for wild rugged beauty, at least in the US. For us, even the famous coast at Big Sur along Highway 1 in California isn’t as seductive, and definitely not as accessible as our beloved Oregon Coast.

We left Rocky Point in the rain, and were greeted with a mixture of hard rain, sleet, hail and snow as we drove over the pass toward Medford. It was cloudy most of the way west, and with rain predicted for our few days at the beach, we were fully prepared to hole up in the MoHo and listen to the rain, play cards and do mostly nothing. We purposely didn’t bring the bikes or the kayaks with plans for some real R and R, and a respite from house and yard work that has dominated the last month.

Surprise! Not only are the rhodies blooming, but there hasn’t yet been a sign of a cloud in the sky. The ocean is blue and gorgeous, the temperatures are in the low sixties during the day and high 40’s at night.

With the view sites along the front row completely full, we settled into spot A30 and paid for four nights. Didn’t seem too bad, although it was a fairly open site and the playground was right behind us. We were also on a main walking route to the restrooms and the laundry and both last night and this morning were well entertained by the various kinds of people walking past.

For supper, the Chetco Seafood Company was our local fish and chips choice, and it didn’t disappoint. In fact, I talked to the owner and snagged some fresh cod and California halibut filets which he vacuum sealed and flash froze for us to take home to Rocky Point. Yum!

It was good to sleep in the MoHo again, after a month of lots of space and a big bedroom and a bath more than 10 feet away, it was fun to be in the cozy space with just two steps to the bath. Funny. As we settled in for the evening, a very tall class A parked next to us, with a clear open view of our huge yard and the firepit. Hmmmm.

This morning we went for a park walk, oohing and ahhing over the rhododendrons in the park and the surrounding neighborhoods, and found a nice space open along Row A, but toward the quiet back corner of the park. It looked inviting enough that we talked to the camp host about moving, and in a matter of moments we were slide in, jacks up, awning in and moved to the new spot. We can still see the ocean, just a tiny bit, but things here are much quieter and more private.

Interesting, as we were moving, a front row ocean view site came open and we declined. In spite of the view that we have enjoyed many times, the front row now has a lot more exposure since the park has cleared brush around the sites, and there is traffic from both the park entrance road and the main road through the campground.

Mo spent a few days last week getting our new VuCube working at home, and even though we had cable here at the site, she thought it might be fun to practice setting it up. Fun wasn’t the word, with all sorts of strange glitches that we still haven’t quite managed to figure out keeping the thing from working correctly. There were too many variables, and that became our statement for the day. In the end, it almost worked, but then we realized that the signal was getting interference and that was probably the main issue. Trees. For now, it is packed away again and we will fiddle with it out in the desert somewhere to limit some of the variables. It did keep us at home for the day, which was the original goal.

After a great chicken stir fry supper, we are relaxing a bit before heading for the beach for a sunset stroll. Unlike Florida beaches, getting to the beach here requires a bit of hiking down and then back up the steep paths that lead down to water level. Last night we walked to the overlook and watched the beach walkers below. Plenty of time to hike to the beach ahead in the next few days. A trip to Loeb Azalea Gardens, and who knows what else will keep us occupied.

Of course, I do hope that we manage more sitting, reading, and napping than we usually manage on a trip to the coast. Maybe if it rains in the next few days it will encourage us to actually lie around and do nothing except watch the sky.

Late Easter Family Time

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon: Sunny and a predicted high of 74 F

As beautiful as springtime is here in this part of Oregon, I still can’t bring myself to change the header photo to this blog. I love seeing that image of Antelope Canyon. There were many high points on our travels this past winter, but somehow the light shining into the darkness, illuminating everything with wild colors, is the memory I return to most often.

It seems as though we experienced the essence of opposites during the trip, and the other memory that comes back repeatedly is the brilliance of every shade of green that we entered on Snake Creek in Florida. Green water and red desert. I can’t quite pick my favorite, and I guess I don’t have to.

April has flown by with all the springtime chores that accompany the reawakening of the earth. At last the tulips bloomed, the daffodils finished this month in full glory, only now beginning to falter with the warm days and still cold nights.

I love Easter. I have no clue why. As a kid, it was the Easter Cantata at church, the new fluffy dresses, the Easter hats, and Easter dinner. When my kids were little, I made Easter baskets for each one, going way over the top with my own creations filled with See’s Candy that I really couldn’t afford. The actual day should be irrelevant, since we aren’t a “churchy” family. However, this year we celebrated our family Easter a week late since part of the family couldn’t be around on the actual Easter Sunday.

Big surprise. It was a great family time, a lovely day, and yet, it did not feel like Easter. I guess there really is something to the idea that people all over the world, in spite of their particular bent on religion, are celebrating Easter on that particular Sunday. It was subtle, but we talked about it a bit. We could feel the difference. Check out the cat with his place setting! Mo left her chair to take the photo!

I still had all the Easter/Spring decorations up, with eggs and bunnies, and pastel colors everywhere, but we didn’t color eggs. We didn’t have an egg hunt. Somehow it seemed like a bit too much trouble.

Since Deborah has been living in the cottage in Grants Pass, she has enjoyed the friendship of wonderful neighbors. Karen and Glenn have children and grandchildren of their own, but they are all a bit distant. They have taken it on themselves to adopt my daughter, taking her to Sunday brunches, to outings at the Moose Lodge, keeping an eye out for when she gets home from work in bad weather. Not bad neighbors to have around when you are a woman living alone as Deb is right now.

We invited them to join us for our celebration, and they decided it would be fun to drive their fifth wheel over the mountain to camp at the big house with us. The weather and scenery between Grants Pass, just two hours away, and Rocky Point, is fairly dramatic. They laughed and thanked us for adding a bit of snow to the spring mix for their entertainment.

Mo opened up the cabin, and again a pipe was broken in spite of the heat we left on during the winter while we were away. Mo fixed the pipes while I vacuumed out all the spiders accumulated on the ceiling and in the shower for my spider phobic daughter so she could relax and enjoy her little vacation time in the cabin. Once the wood stove was cranked up, the cabin was warm and cozy for Melody and the kids.

Karen and Glenn had so much fun camping at our place in their older fifth wheel that they drove home and the next day bought a brand new fifth wheel! Looking forward to seeing that one!

It seems that the major focus of the non-Easter celebration was eating. Deborah made a truly magnificent eggs benedict casserole, and we slathered it with at least a quart of hollandaise sauce. Karen made another kind of tasty breakfast casserole, so we had two main dishes before the dessert course of fruit crepes, one of Melody’s great accomplishments. She can even flip those thin crepes in the air like a pro. Delish!

I had some Key Lime juice brought home from Key West and this was my chance to make a Key Lime cheesecake to share with family. Yum! We were all too full to eat much of it, so I had some to share with the Quilt group on Tuesday. Perfect. Now I want to make another one, cut it up into nice small servings, and freeze them. Just for me. It was that good, and made me smile as I remembered all the great Key Lime stuff to be found in Florida. Still hoping to make some Key Lime hollandaise someday when I get around to it.

I have been quilting on the fabulous new Bernina in the mornings when it is too chilly to be outdoors, and then going outside for gardening time. The greenhouse needed some spiffy work, and the soil was a bit hungry so I added some organic manure/compost to the raised beds. Mo and I will get the roof back on today, removed over the winter to keep it from caving in due to the weight of the snow.

Still working on the photo project, importing all my photos into Lightroom and publishing them to my SmugMug website. I think my most favorite feature of the SmugMug site is the ability to sort and organize my photos into folders and sub folders. Unlike Google, where there is no ability to do that, it makes it so much easier to find stuff. With thousands of photos on Google over the last few years, I really hate having to scroll down and down to find something from long ago.

On Smug Mug, I can go to a fold called “Holidays”, down to a folder called “Easter”, and then find each celebration listed by year. I have chosen to keep family celebrations private unless you have the link, however the photos from our trip are “public”. SmugMug also has a feature that keeps people from grabbing my photos with a right-click. Pretty nice. The website was recently updated and I am still trying to learn about all the features. It sure does make it a lot easier to share photos and to find them online. Also, SmugMug doesn’t mess with my photos the way Google does. (PS. I just noticed that I have TWO logos on the lower right of these photos. Hmm…seems as though I did it once in Picasa and then again in Lightroom. As I said, I am still learning!)

Mo ordered a VuCube portable satellite receiver almost five months ago from Camping World, and it was an excellent price. We had hoped it would be delivered in time for our winter trip. Nope. Mo’s willingness to wait saved her a couple of hundred dollars. It was finally delivered a few days ago, and yesterday we managed to figure out how to hook the thing up to the TV in the cabin. It is now working great with our extra Direct TV receiver, and the next job will be to figure out how to get it all hooked up in the MoHo. Since the rig was built prior to 2007, our TV isn’t digital, and there is an input for cable but not for satellite. Also, with a smaller rig like ours, we have to figure out how to add two more boxes that require a power outlet to the TV which is built in to a fairly tight space. Stay tuned.

I did finally manage a day in the MoHo to get her all spiffy again after three months of wandering. Deep vacuuming, polishing and carpet shampoo were part of the mix. I found myself sitting in the lovely sunshine at the dining table, feeling as though I was right at home again. Time to go on another trip!

In a few days, we will head west to the our favorite campground at Harris Beach State Park. As much as I loved the Florida beaches, Mo found herself missing the wild rugged Oregon Coast. We thought about traveling upcoast toward Florence to camp at Tugman State Park, but the weather may be a bit iffy, with rain and wind predicted for a few of our days, so we might just sit tight in our favorite place and enjoy the wild coastal weather without adding a bunch of extra driving to the menu.

We will be back in time for another celebration, this time a Mom’s Day brunch in Grants Pass with Deborah, and Melody and the kids coming over from Klamath Falls to celebrate with us. More food! Good thing I am getting outside most days to garden!

April

Current Location Rocky Point, Oregon 55 F and overcast today with rain coming tomorrow

When I look through the previous years of journaling my life, April is notoriously empty. I looked at the calendar and couldn’t believe that we have been home almost an entire month and I haven’t written a single word about ‘life’. Thinking I could do a bit of comparison, I traveled back through the blog and found that almost every single year since I started blogging has just two posts or even less during the month of April.

One is usually about Easter, and the other one is about gardening. In fact, I could almost post last years blog from April and it would fit this year without a hitch. I can remember times in my life when everything shifted at such a pace that there would most certainly be huge differences from year to year, even from month to month. I have to say how grateful I am for a life that is just a bit more predictable, a bit more calm, a life where April means gardening, cleaning up the pine needles, and decorating for Easter.

If I had lived a safe, predictable life for the last 69 years, it might be different. I could be hankering for change, for adventure, for variety. I have been blessed with more than enough adventure, more than enough variety, with parts of my life so long gone and so unrelated to this current existence that I barely recognize myself in those old stories. Instead, I am celebrating sameness, celebrating the repeat of the seasons, celebrating watching planted trees mature and gardens fill in over the years. You might have had to have lived a mixed up life like mine once was to really ‘get’ this. I now have adventure and unpredictability in small manageable doses, enough to keep me energized, but not enough to make me crazy.

Predictably, this year in April, we have been working daily at the big house in Rocky Point. The beautiful forest makes for lots of springtime debris to be raked and burned. Gorgeous flower beds must be uncovered, trimmed and weeded in order to once again be gorgeous. Grass needs mowing and fertilizing, raking and over-seeding. (Mo handles most of the grass stuff and I do most of the flower bed stuff.)

In between all the yard work, I have been quilting. When my sweet little Bernina 1230 needed some serious repairs (she is after all more than 30 years old), I succumbed to the siren call of a new sewing machine, the Bernina 550 Quilters Edition, outfitted with a special stitch regulator for free motion machine quilting, and a superb walking foot for getting through all those thicknesses of fabric and batting. Mornings are cool enough that I can spend them at the machine working on a springtime quilt I started a year ago before going outdoors as the days warm up for afternoon work.

We took a few days early in the month to work at the Cottage, with a chance to mow and rake and share meals with Deborah. While Mo and I were gallivanting around the country this winter, Deb was busy painting the cottage interior, making things look so much cleaner and brighter. Mo and I loaded up the tractor to take over the hill so we could do some dirt moving and tear down an old building or two. The burning season will be short this year, with the serious drought, so we needed to do this job as soon as we could manage it. More to come, but it is nice to see the place looking cleaner outside as well as inside.

Daughter Deanna and her husband Keith managed an I-5 run through Medford, and we celebrated with a spontaneous morning breakfast. I can’t believe just how quickly those two move back and forth across the country. Just two days prior to our breakfast, she and Keith were having breakfast with son John and his dad back in Missouri. Deanna and Keith are dealing with new rules for California emissions that have created epic troubles for their truck and for them. They haul to Canada and Alaska, haul all over the country, have to have a heating system that will work in sub zero temperatures, but the new law requires some sort of emission thingy that is giving them tens of thousands of dollars worth of headaches. Deanna is needles to say, furious. Once again they are back at their home base in Washington, waiting for Cummins to get the dang thing fixed.

It is amazing to me that after three months on the road, with almost daily writing, that I have no desire whatsoever to track my life with a journal. Or maybe not so amazing. After sewing all morning and gardening all afternoon, I fall into bed much too early, attempt to read some blogs or a book and am usually asleep within minutes. Now and then I attempt to make a comment or two with the ipad fingers, but that usually results in some stupid sort of typo that I can’t undo, so I just give up.

To all those loyal readers out there, who followed along on our travels, I am glad you have so many other places to go for entertainment. To all those bloggers who may or may not have noticed my comments, sorry. I am trying to read, but commenting isn’t coming very easily these days.

I decorated the house for Easter almost immediately after taking down the Christmas tree in early April. That felt just plain crazy, actually, and I hope I don’t have to do that again. If we travel quickly after Christmas in the future, I will make an extra effort to get the Christmas decor put away before we leave!

It has been nice this year to have Easter late in the month, and for us it will be even later. Due to some family commitments, we are having our traditional Rocky Point Easter celebration next Sunday. The weather has been gorgeous for the entire month, with moderate daily temperatures and nights barely near freezing. The sun has been invigorating, an unusual thing for April in this part of the world. There have been times when we are still looking at snow on the ground in April. It is beautiful, but does engender a bit of concern for the coming summer season. The predictions for mixed snow and rain next weekend will be a bit of a damper for our Easter celebration, but are definitely a good thing for the water situation here in the Basin.

Another little extra time user in my life has been the addition of the Adobe Lightroom software. I started shooting RAW format photos while traveling, but didn’t have the time or the computer hardware to handle them well. Once home, I installed Lightroom, and with encouragement from both Erin and my daughter Deanna, I have learned to import, develop, and manage the huge RAW files into something useable. Of course, with all those old files from the trip, including several hundred from Antelope Canyon, I haven’t picked up the camera once this month to shoot anything new. The few photos on this blog were actually shot with my iPad. In addition to taking a break from journaling and reading, it seems I also have taken a break from carrying the camera around!

This time last year I was still working part time, and as most full time retirees say, how in the world did I have time to work? Hopefully after next Sunday I will manage at least one more post for the month of April with photos of our belated Easter celebration.

04-02-2014 Home Run

In Rocky Point Oregon, sunny and 42F at 10AM

We are home, and “home run” can mean more than one thing. First, the trip was a classical “Home Run”, meaning a great success. Secondly, we “ran home” pretty darn fast once we were heading that way. The weather was spring-like throughout the west, completely unpredictable.

I have been trying to keep up with fellow bloggers, many of them Canadians, who are also on the trek home. Many of them are meandering, with a month or so to get north. Others are bookin’! I especially loved reading about Peter and Beatrix’s homecoming. Sheesh. Made me really appreciate coming home to Rocky Point with just gray skies, a skiff of snow here and there, but nothing to speak of on the ground. Lucky us.

With high winds predicted all along our route from Edward’s AFB north, along highway 395, we hunkered down for a day, waiting for a break. The morning we left, things were reasonably quiet, and we traveled north towards the back side of the Sierras without any difficulty.

We had seen several reader boards touting high wind advisories, and when I had access to the internet, I saw chain requirements on several stretches of 395. Somehow we missed all the bad stuff, both before us near Mammoth when we got through without chains which were required later that night, and the next day when we waited long enough for the chain requirements to be lifted north of Susanville.

In spite of all the dire warnings, the trip home was a piece of cake! Sometimes our luck is so incredible I have to trust that it is someone watching over us more than mere luck. We drove 350 miles or so the first day before spending the night at Silver City RV Resort in Minden, and completed the second leg of our route home with ease the next day.

For me, coming home was a bit strange. I felt completely loose, ungrounded, disconnected and weird. I suppose that is to be expected after more than 3 months away, but it didn’t seem to bother Mo in the least. We were both really happy to be home, but I was rather disoriented. Today I am fine. It took a day or so, and a hug from my daughter and granddaughter for me to come down to earth, but now everything feels normal again.

Recapping the trip, going over the numbers, helps me to put it in better perspective. We traveled 9,179 miles/14,772 km in the MoHo, with an additional 2,500 miles of explorations in the Tracker. Our total fuel cost was $4,179.55 an average of 46 cents per mile. Fuel for regular gas ran the gamut from 2.99 at the lowest in New Mexico and 4.99 the highest on the California border.

We camped 84 nights (not counting our 8 days on a cruise ship) with an average cost per night of $17.39. Our expensive campgrounds in Florida were offset by several nights boondocking and discounted National and Passport America parks.

Now it is time for doing taxes, starting on the winter yard cleanup, putting away the Christmas tree decorations, and getting ready for Easter with the family here at home. Today I’ll fill the bird feeders for the birds that are returning. The hot tub water is balancing nicely and tonight will be our fist soak under the stars in a long time.

I have some amazing memories of the trip, images in my mind that stick and come to me when I am still. I also have an untold number of images on the computer to go back to when I want to remember our travels. There are a few days and some great experiences that I didn’t manage to write about during the trip, and those stories are waiting in the wings, but they will be backdated as catch-up posts.

Any fears we had about being gone for three months never materialized, but it was a long time to be away from home. I am not sure we will do that again. A month or two at a time might be enough for us in the future. For me, the most noticeable feature about traveling for that length of time is the ability to live in the moment, not worrying much about anything except where the next stop might be, or the next hike.

Life does require a bit more than that when back in the “real world”. Unlike full timers, we didn’t take much of our “real world” with us, leaving those concerns back home and putting most everything on hold. Sure, we had the internet, and Quicken, and a printer when we needed it.

We had telephones for communication, and yet when I talked to my closest friend Maryruth in California a couple of days ago, she exclaimed, “I am so glad you are home! I missed you!”. We both laughed about how different it felt to talk on the phone from home than it did from our “vacation” home. Just different somehow. My daughter said the same thing yesterday when we had lunch together in Klamath Falls. I can’t explain it, but I am glad I am home, really home.

3-28-2014 Boondock Sites and Camping in Mojave National Preserve

This post is specifically about what we found when wandering around the preserve this past few days. If you aren’t interested in boondocking, just skip it. I have included more detail than usual for some of the folks that I know who are definitely interested in boondocking.

Link to live google map

First, I have embedded a live Google Map I created with labels for sites and intersections. Hopefully if you click on the map, you will be redirected to Google and will have the ability to zoom in, mouse hover over the points to read the labels. Eventually I will figure out how to actually “embed” the map so that it shows rather than just the link, but this will have to do for now.

The rest of the maps are clipped images for each area.

When we first stopped off at the visitor center at the Depot in Kelso, the attendant was a bit vague about RV camping in the area. The words in the brochure say “Roadside camping is permitted in areas that have been traditionally used for this purpose: Sites with existing rock or metal fire rings should be considered suitable for roadside camping.”

He pointed vaguely to a couple of areas on the preserve map, including the area near the cross, and the area at the dunes, but didn’t tell us about the other two sites, or have any indication of road conditions getting into any of the sites. The only developed campground that is suitable for larger RV’s (even our size at 26 feet) is the Hole in the Wall Campground where we spent one night.

I do have to correct the last post. It is Hole in the Wall, not Hole in the Rock, and I will edit the previous post accordingly, but anyone reading has probably already read the post and will not see the correction.

The first site where we camped was actually a small developed campsite, with a picnic table provided by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and a fire ring, at the base of the white cross WW I memorial. We attempted to enter via the eastern side of the road and found it rutted and too rocky for the rig, had to unhook and back out, and continue to the west side of the small loop to enter the site.

Some folks with pickups had traveled from this spot to the other sites I have mentioned, but we wouldn’t take our rig back there from this direction.

Walking around checking roads the next day, we found the easternmost entrance to the camping area, and walked the road back to the pavement. Here we found two great sites.

Site number 2 on the list was the very best, with a dirt road access that we could easily handle in our rig. It was my favorite.

Site number 3 is just west of site 2 on the same side road, however there is a bit of a rough patch that might be trouble for clearance for motorhomes. We probably wouldn’t try it in the rig, but some might. I would highly suggest that before taking your motorhomes to these sites, that you check them out with your toad.

We were exploring on foot, and there may be other sites on the road toward the mine north to discover if you have the time and a toad to do so.

The Dunes road, as I mentioned, was incredibly rough, but after we turned around we discovered if we kept our speed to less than 5 mph, literally, we could have traveled the 3 miles to the campsite. A previous commenter mentioned this site, so I included it in the map if you are willing to drive the road.

The Granite Mountain sites are incredibly gorgeous, just incredible. With any kind of small rig with high clearance you could probably get back in there and it would be worth it.

At the Hole in the Wall campground, there is a dump station and potable water with a hose to fill your water tanks. We didn’t see anything requiring campground registration in order to use the dump or take on water. It may have been there. At half price for the senior pass, it would have been worth the $6. fee to dump and get water if we wanted to stay out longer in the area.

The Wildhorse Canyon road that travels west and then north from just south of the Hole in the Wall visitor center is also good dirt road. It isn’t nearly as rough as the Dunes road to sites 4 and 5 on the map.

These sites are big and flat and are close to the Ring Trail and some fascinating volcanic rock cliffs. They could accommodate 2 or 3 rigs if you were friends. There was only one fire pit at site 4, but plenty of space.

The road from this area north toward Mid Hills campground is also dirt, and rough and narrow. We were in 4 wheel drive, but probably didn’t need it. I wouldn’t take a motorhome that way. A truck and camper could manage it OK. Mid Hills wasn’t nearly as charming as the other areas of the park. Once a juniper woodland, there was a devastating fire in recent years that has left the place feeling desolate and rather depressing.

We did see the entrance to the Black Canyon Group Camp, near the main Hole in the Wall campground, and I would imagine this is where the rally that Carol spoke of will be held. There is no camping anywhere around the Kelso Visitor Center or on any of the major paved roads in the preserve.

The Mojave National Preserve is a treasure land of wild desert space. We visited in late March, which I would imagine would be the high season before summer heat. There were some flowers blooming, the winds were extremely high, but that was case all over the southwest on the days that we were there.

If you want a true desert boondocking experience, and like to be alone in the wild open space, this a a perfect place to be.