California – Page 21 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

September 2006 Camping at Medicine Lake

The following was written on my old laptop and saved. At the time, I had lived in Jamestown, California for about six months and was incredibly homesick for Oregon. It was wonderful to go back north for the Labor Day weekend and a long camping visit with Mo.

It’s around 6pm September 1 2006, and I am sitting at a picnic table at the campground at Medicine Lake. We are in space 43 this time. Once more we have a site on the lake with the Baby MoHo. It’s windy and cool however, and this afternoon we spent a lazy time reading and napping, waiting for the chance to kayak in the quiet evening when the lake is usually pretty smooth. Maybe not tonight, however. 02camping 9-3-2006 8-25-52 AM

I arrived in Klamath last Saturday afternoon and Mo and I left fairly soon after that for the Blues Brats and Blues Festival at the Pelican marina. It was smaller than last year it seemed, with fewer people. The brats were good though, and it was great just hanging out there at the lake and listening to the music. They had a hard time getting things going with the sound, but finally we did manage to get some dancing in and stayed until 9 or so enjoying ourselves. It was fun. Mo and I practiced our swing steps and laughed a lot. We got home in time for a great hot tub under incredibly brilliant stars and some quality time catching up. Just a little comparison: This is my survey area near Jamestown, on Table Mountain. Gorgeous in spring, not so much at 114 degrees in the summer.

Sunday morning we got up and had a good breakfast and decided that maybe it was a little bit too much to try to kayak the Wood River and then still get to Jacksonville for the Britt Fest, so we did some house chores together, cleaning up a few things things, blowing off the roof, Mo blowing the roof while I basically hung around to be sure she didn’t fall.

We left for Medford, went to Costco and to Fred Meyer for some food and then over to the festival to stand in line early enough to see the KD Lang show. It was hot, but we parked ourselves under the shade and just waited and watched the people lining up. Even getting there at 3:30 we were number 38 and 39 on the south side and when the gates opened we still didn’t manage to get down in front. We decided that was ok, though, since it was hot and probably crowded down there anyway.

The show actually was really good, and KD Lang reminded us why we like her. Her voice was so smooth and controlled. She made some jokes about aging gracefully in the music business as she sang some of the old standards. It made for a better show, really, and Mo and I love those old Peggy Lee songs anyway.

Driving home again late, over the pass, I was glad it wasn’t snowing and that Mo can manage the night driving thing pretty well. Slept like a rock that night and woke up Monday morning with a plan to drive to LaPine and get a load of wood from Roger’s place there. The drive was nice, still good weather, and I entertained myself with lots of phone calls back and forth with Chris Gebauer, the new project leader for my old soil survey project in Klamath, trying to get a handle on the big diatomaceous soils tour for the next day. 000-DiatomTour 8-30-2006 8-

The tour was excellent, with soils people from all over the west participating. Diatomaceous soils have some specific properties that are very different and at times hard to quantify. Evenings during the tour were spent in town with favorite friends, David Marr and Jeanne Skalka.

Thursday morning was the last day of the tour, and Mo and I loaded up the kayaks early in the morning so that she could get an early start to find a camping spot for us. The drive to town that last morning was gorgeous, with a beautiful sunrise to accompany my commute. As soon as the work day ended, around three so that folks could travel back home, I headed south for the two hour trip to Medicine Lake.

It was a good thing that Mo went to get the space in the afternoon because people were starting to show up by evening on Thursday and by Friday morning there wouldn’t have been anything left for us that we liked. We still like the Hogue campground the best. Hemlock is way too open and Medicine is really open and full with the campsites close together. We just have to be sure to come mid week to get these great spaces on the lake in our favorite spot.

We had both eaten before I arrived that night, so Mo had a fire and we drank some wine and talked before going to bed. Nice to be back in the MoHo, though. I have missed it.

Friday morning we got up slowly and had a good breakfast. When we first got up, it was smooth as glass out on the lake but by the time we actually got out there it was pretty windy. Still had a good kayak though and I remember the lovely patch of knotweed in full bloom on the lake. One time I didn’t take my camera, darn! Back to camp and we went for a little walk around the campgrounds, had some chicken and macaroni salad for lunch and then thought a nap sounded good. Pretty relaxing afternoon for sure, with reading and napping. I really wanted to relax on this trip and we seem to be doing a good job of it. I think I knitted for a bit as well in the early afternoon, but all in all it just about watching the water and the sky and doing nothing. Great.

I cooked pork chops and broccoli for dinner and for no reason either one of us can figure out it was pretty tasteless. Then on the way out the door of the MoHo I tripped on the lower step and went crashing to the ground. Bummer. I was so mad at myself and so frustrated and it really hurt, but thank goodness nothing broke. I’m pretty lucky that way, I guess. I hope that luck holds up since I seem to be pretty clumsy more and more lately and always seem to be tripping or crashing or something. Dumb.

My hand hurt most, but we decided to get out on the lake while it was again smooth and quiet and had a lovely kayak toward the swimming beach as the sun set. Perfect timing as we arrived back to camp just as the sun went over the hill and things cooled off. Gave me a chance to drag my hand in the water as well and I think that was good for me.

Mo made another fire for us and we sat outside and watched the evening change to night and went to bed plenty early in spite of the afternoon naps. I still slept well and didn’t have a bit of problem falling asleep. Relaxing! Yes!

Today we woke up closer to 8 than 7 and it wasn’t quite as cold, but by the time we were half way through breakfast the wind was up fairly strong so we didn’t go kayaking today. Decided to go for a drive and explore a little bit to the west and go up the lookout at Little Hoffman and then drove down around Little Glass Mountain and across to the giant Lava Flow and found Chimney Crater. It’s hard trying to scramble around all the crunchy lava but it was pretty dramatic looking down in the crater.

Back to camp in the afternoon, pretty early, but fairly late for lunch, so we ate sandwiches and now dinner seems as though it will be pretty late. The wind hasn’t died down yet at all, and maybe it isn’t going to this evening. We had hoped for a kayak but I am sitting out here at the table and the wind is cold and strong and the lake looks gray and choppy. 01Hoffman 9-2-2006 1-28-43 PM

It’s different not having access to phones and internet and such, no television, no news. No clue how things are progressing out there in the world. Here the world is dominated by our own little space and all the campers that have come in to Medicine Lake for the weekend. Across from us there is a huge family with lots of kids and relatives from Mt Shasta. They must have 5 rigs and half a dozen big pickups and a dozen little kids. What better way to haven fun.

Battery down so I guess I am finished writing for now.

Later: In spite of the choppy lake last night, as things began to darken we decided to go out on the lake. It was a beautiful ride. We paddled toward the sun at the west end of the lake and then turned and came around directly down the center. It was really incredibly lovely with a magnificent sunset as an extra treat. We stayed out an hour and a half or so and returned just as it got dark. Mo built the fire and we cooked our steaks by flashlight in the dark. They tasted fabulous and eliminated any idea that we had of losing our tasters. Great dinner, even in the dark.

To bed after 10 and we read awhile before going to sleep. Neither of us slept very well though, not sure why.

Woke this morning to a rather chilly sunrise and wondered if we were really going to have the guts to get out there on the lake. But it was actually warmed out on the water than it was back in our camp so we took our coffee and wearing jackets we headed out toward the pink flowers. Right away when we got on the water it was warm enough to take off our jackets. I don’t think we have ever experienced such a perfect lovely morning. The lake was like glass, and so crystal clear we could see fish swimming around in the roots of the polygonum plants. The ospreys were catching fish and there were just enough clouds in the sky to give a good reflection on the water.

Sometimes floating along I felt as though I was soaring through the sky instead on the earth. We paddled along the south end of the lake to “our” meadow and then headed straight across for camp. Took just 12 minutes to cross the lake and as we headed in the wind came up really strong. It blew us right home at just the right time. Mo started the fire for breakfast and we cooked bacon and potatoes and eggs again and spent a little bit of time cleaning the MoHo.

By the time we left for Glass Mountain it was 11:30. we drove the back way along Arnica Sink and then walked the old path up to the black obsidian outcrop and then down the road with a bag of some pieces of really nice arrow making rock for Ed’s friend. Then we headed west again along 49 over the rim of the caldera down toward Lava Beds. By the time we got down there we realized that both of us had actually forgotten our wallets so our ideas of going into the park and maybe even driving over to Tunisia to get gas were nixed. We realized that we had to pay attention to our gasoline consumption since the truck was already down to half a tank and I filled it back in Klamath. Always the issue running out of gas and water and power.

Back to camp in the afternoon, we rested a bit and listened to music and then filled the water tank with about 17 gallons of fresh water from the faucet across the street. Nice to have good water around even if we have to pour it in. Mo is going to get a better funnel though so we don’t lose so much water in the process. Our battery was getting low this morning as well. So we ran the generator for about an hour while we charged up the MoHo and I charged up the computer so I could keep up my journal here.

We can go about 3 days without recharging things and we each just took one shower and had to get more water. Our propane is holding up ok, maybe down one notch after 4 days of running the refrigerator. The waste tanks are still just at 2 lights each so we should be fine to make it for the full 5 nights and 5 days out without using shore power. When we go to canyon country we are going to have to remember to try to bring a lot of extra water along.

I’m missing Southern Utah canyon country a lot. I can’t believe that it’s been two years since I’ve been to Utah. Last year Shera and I didn’t go because it was too much for her by then. (Shera passed from cancer in early 2006). I miss it, although the lake here is wonderful and after such a long hot summer it is pretty wonderful to be by water and have cool breezes and cold nights for sleeping. I love it that Mo handles the fire, although at the moment she is moving a big log around and I keep wondering if it’s going to flip on us. My fire lady! It’s so nice to wake up in the morning and have her out there building the fire when I can’t make myself get out of the warm bed.

So here we are with the sun setting, the dusk coming, the fire warm and crackling and the music playing on the MoHo porch. Shania. Oh yes, this afternoon we decided to go for a walk before dinner and walked up through the campground and then across the road along a motorcycle trail that we didn’t have a clue where it went. Sure enough after a mile or so we came to Arnica sink, which surprised us because we thought it was a lot farther away. It was a really nice walk and Molly did just fine, although she is sleeping now and will probably sleep well tonight.

Great day. And more to come tomorrow.

Monday evening

I am standing at the sink boiling some navy bean soup from a mix, bear creek something or other. It smells as though it will be really good. We put our steak and pork leftovers into it. Today was lovely. Fun watching all the people leaving as the holiday weekend comes to a close. We slept better last night than the night before.

This morning we did our morning kayak before breakfast again, and it was great. Got some really nice photos of the ospreys. Came home to our last campfire breakfast, we have used everything up pretty much this time. The morning went by simply and we decided to go for another kayak ride to go to the swimming area that we had seen earlier. It was pretty windy, and even though it was shallow over there it was still too cold to swim. I did manage to go in for about a minute and it never really warmed up at all!

Molly was Mo’s wonderful dog who went to Doggie Heaven not long after this trip in October of 2006

Came back and walked around the campground and found some good firewood and Mo got a maul and a hammer. Left Molly in the MoHo for another walk while we took the main trail out of Hogue camp to the medicine glass flow. We aren’t sure if we have done this before, but I laughed and said I would write it down this time so we don’t forget!

Played cards today, but neither one of us could remember the rules exactly. Mo beat me anyway though. 2 out of 3. Right now she is playing savage garden on the outside speakers, the house is clean the air is fresh and lovely, and we both decided that we really don’t want to kayak again tonight.

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We had a great evening fire and Mo put all the wood we had on there so it was big and warm and really beautiful. We also had a little ceremony of burning her Birkenstocks bought back in the 60’s. They were somewhat worn, and she decided to let them go in the fire. It was fun, and we even got a photo of it.

Tuesday morning we woke early and decided against trying to kayak before I left for California, a good decision since it was only 34 degrees anyway. Managed to get out of camp after a cereal breakfast by 9:30. Drove together to dump and the new dump station on the Arnica Sink road. A great trip!!

Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to my life in Sonora, heat, smog, traffic, too much to do. Ah well. Hopefully I can remember these peaceful clear lovely fresh days when I am back there in all that.

Thanksgiving trip to California

Just a quick note to anyone following my blog, I am not sure if this post will show up in all your blog rolls or not. I am backtracking here a bit, and decided to put some old journals and photos into the blog so that Mo and I could have our travel history all in one place. More times than once lately, we have wondered when we did something and gone to the blog only to realize it happened “pre-blog”. So any of you reading, if this pops us with a date of 2005 or even earlier, don’t worry, you aren’t time traveling and it isn’t a mistake. My actual hope is that it won’t show up at all. Guess I will find out if anyone starts commenting! You might notice a different “MoHo” and a different dog. Molly left us in 2006 and we didn’t pick up the new “MoHo” until December of 2007 on our cross country winter travels that year. I still lived in Klamath Falls and was working full time and Mo lived in Rocky Point. We started traveling together back in 2003, so eventually I hope to all our trips right here.

My kids are scattered around the country, and this year we decided that everyone didn’t need to make the long trek to Klamath Falls for Thanksgiving and Mo and I could go on little MoHo trip. I took off work early on Wednesday and Mo picked me up in Klamath. The MoHo was rolling along toward California by 3pm. It was our first attempt at boondocking at a Wal-Mart. We wanted to get far enough into California on Thursday to find a nice restaurant for dinner. It was dark when we arrived and we didn’t see any signs saying we couldn’t park, so settled in, turned on the lights and within an hour an employee security person was knocking on our door saying we couldn’t stay there. Redding evidently has some laws about store parking that we didn’t know about. He was nice to us, however, and told us that we could simply move to the east of the official parking lot into the dirt and safely park there. We put up the TV antenna, hoping for some diversion, but for some reason nothing worked. We walked Molly around the parking lot before going to sleep.

It was a bit of a restless night, but not bad, and by 8:30 on Thursday morning we were coffee’d up and ready to hit the road. We decided to travel west to the coast via Highway 299 through Whiskeytown and then along the beautiful Trinity River. The day was cloudy but a balmy 55 degrees, which felt warm after the cold Klamath fall air. Whiskeytown and French Gulch were pretty little towns we visited along the way, then crossed the mountains to Highway 3, to Highway 36 and finally to Highway 101 on the coast. At the top of one of the passes we saw a large cat-like black animal streaking across the road and up the hill beside us. Later I searched the internet and finally figured out that we had seen a fisher, a rather rare animal in this part of the world. I glad we both saw it.

The roads were narrow, winding and long. It was raining hard when we reached Fortuna on 101 and we decided to eat our Thanksgiving dinner at Peppers. It was a nice turkey dinner with all the trimmings and certainly not expensive. We even had leftovers to take with us, which of course are necessary for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Even in the rain, the town of Ferndale was interesting to visit. Most of the stores were closed because of the holiday and it was a bit drab in the rain, but I would love to go back there someday and shop. Later we took the road to “Centerville” which turned out to be nothing more than an empty beach. We followed a very narrow winding road up the steep hills south of the beach for a distance before deciding to turn around after talking with a local who said the road eventually came to a dead end with nothing to see.

Returning to Highway 101 we traveled south toward Humboldt Bay, looking for a place to camp in the Redwoods. the Burlington Campground showed up just after dark, and there was a space for us. We tucked the MoHo into the small spaces between huge redwood stumps and settled in for the evening. Some of the stumps were actually as big as the MoHo! It was a surrealistic place, and in the dark even more so. I went to camp headquarters to pay and managed to lose the MoHo and myself for a time before finding my way back.

We slept great in the deep dark forest, with the sound of the pouring rain keeping us in bed until quite late. Even at 9am the forest was still dim and dark as late evening. I made omelets for breakfast and we took the slow beautiful drive along the Avenue of the Giants, stopping at the visitor center. The displays were excellent, with stories of a man named Kellogg and his van made entirely of one redwood log.

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We drove south all day on the winding highway 1, through many dark and winding forests, and many signs that said “road narrows”. It was hard to imagine how the road could get any more narrow. Eventually we emerged from the forest to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The Mendocino coast was wild, rugged, and beautiful, but the roads are incredibly narrow with very few places to pull over, and no shoulders at all. I was car-sick most of the way and was very happy to finally get to the little town of Mendocino. We did stop along the way to hike the half mile down to the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse, beautifully restored.

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Continuing through town just in time to settle into space 11 in the Van Damme State Park just as darkness settled in. Our late lunch of leftover turkey sandwiches at an ocean overlook should have been plenty, but Mo started a campfire and wee cooked burgers. They were great! Venus was huge and brilliant over the ocean and Mars glowed red through the redwood branches, forecasting a sunny day to come. I knitted while Mo read until lights out at 9 or so.

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The next morning we were up at 8 and after a good home cooked breakfast we packed up to go explore Mendocino. It was a gorgeous clear day, but cool and windy. we walked the town, checked out the Art Fair, I found some wonderful yarn at the perfect little yarn shop, and had a delightful cappuccino.

We decided to travel south on Highway 1 until we found a place to spend the night. Instead we saw a sign that said “coastal access” and followed it to the tiny perfect little hamlet of Point Arena. Supper at the restaurant overlooking the ocean was perfect, with rock cod and a perfect salad. Beautiful. Our plan was to continue as far south as Sea Ranch before heading inland but we hoped for someplace along the beach. Sure enough, high above the ocean, we found a wide turnout in the road, level and safe, with no signs saying we couldn’t park there. As we were settling in, a man drove up and let his dogs out of his car. Suddenly the peace was ruined by a huge tussle of dogs with his aggressive animals attacking Molly, who ended up scared, shaking, and limping a bit. I was furious! Thank goodness he left.

The evening settled into a peaceful sunset with music on the stereo, Mo reading while I wrote and Molly sleeping peacefully.At dawn, the skies over the ocean were all shades of pastel pink and lavender and the rising moon was visible in the east. We tried out the new toaster oven with some corn muffins which tasted ok, but I burned them a bit too much. Driving all day east from Gualala through Annapolis where the signs said “no rv’s” but with our little 21 footer and no tow car we did just fine. The road was really steep and curvy but not much worse overall than all those curves on highway 1! Continuing to Clear Lake and Williams we hit the interstate by 1pm to take us back north to Oregon. Stopped for a steak dinner in Redding before the last long leg into Klamath over highway 97, leaving the interstate at Weed. It’s a long stretch to do in a day, but since I had to be to work on Monday morning, it was necessary. Mo is retired but I am not, so sometimes these little trips with me are much quicker than either of us would like.

Traveling the California Coast

Copied from our old leather travel journal in April 2011

February 27 through March 7 2004

February 7^th, Friday morning we left Klamath in the Chevy van at 8AM and drove through snow and rain over Mt Shasta down I-5. Stopped in at the Rolling Hills Casino and then had breakfast between Corning and Williams. Drove to Calistoga via Clear Lake. The road was really curvy and narrow with a 16% grade! The valley was green and beautiful and Calistoga had great shops. We took Molly in the French shop for wine and hors d’oeuvres. Enjoyed a great dinner with wine and cheese in our Motel 6 room in Santa Rosa, a really small room. Gas in Santa Rosa was 2.09 per gallon.

February 28, Saturday morning we were up early and drove from Santa Rosa to the great pastry shop in Sebastopol. What a lovely little town! Drove out to Jenner, hiked around Blind Beach and collected driftwood. Drove down the coast, had lunch in Bodega Bay watching all the water birds from our table by the water. Drove over the Golden Gate, past the Presidio, and down HWY 1 to Pacifica and Moana’s old school, her ranch in Montera, the Moss Beach house, and then over 92 to Belmont. Had a great dinner at Fresh Choice and went swimming and hot-tubbing at our hotel.

February 29 Sunday. We spent the day in San Francisco hiking up Coit Tower, walking Lombard Street, and down to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. Went to Pier 45 and the great museum with all the old arcade games. Went to Bubba Shrimp for a great dinner at a perfect table while we watched sailboats in the bay. Home to watch the Oscars in our motel room drinking wine and laughing a lot together at the silliness.

March 1 Monday. It was raining hard today. Moana dropped me off at a fabulous mall in San Bruno while she did her taxes and took Molly to the vet. We drove highway 82 back into San Francisco, Union Square, with the great Williams Sonoma store where I bought some wonderful Valentine plates on sale for only ten bucks. We took the cable cars up California Street to Chinatown and had a wonderful Chinese dinner at Yee’s. We were the only non-Asians in the restaurant. We had fun shopping at found dominoes at one of the little Chinese stores. Also explored some of the big hotel lobbies and took some linen towels from the Ritz. Bad! Home to our hotel for a hot tub under the moonlight again.

March 2 through March 7 Sunday

The little red journal goes silent for the last five days of this trip, so I went to the photos to try to figure out what we did and when we did it. I am so glad that we now have the blog and that I have learned to keep regular updates. The photos tell a bit of the story, but for some reason the dates aren’t set properly, and nothing seems to be in order so that was no help either. From the photos, it seems that we spent a lot of time in the Arboretum in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park, and then traveled down the coast to visit the roller coaster at Santa Cruz and then on to Monterey to have a great dinner on the wharf and join a morning history walk through the town. We traveled down Highway 1 to Carmel and Big Sur and went hiking along the ocean cliffs there. Mo took my photo next to the huge artichoke in the Artichoke Capital of the World at Castroville.

We stayed mostly in Motel 6’s because we had Molly with us and they are easy and inexpensive. It was a wonderful trip and a great respite from the cold wet late winter days back in Klamath Falls.

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

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 to smell and listen to the ocean in the 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.

Tent camping at Medicine Lake

Written in April of 2011.
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.
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.
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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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.
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.