cats – Page 3 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

August 28 Sunday Camping at Silver Falls State Park

It has been less than two weeks since we returned from our long trek to Alaska, but a short three day jaunt to a beautiful Oregon State Park seemed just so simple. We planned this trip for a couple of reasons: For one, we loved Silver Falls when we visited in the spring of 2010. The real reason for the trip, however, was to see the dahlias in full bloom during the Swan Island Dahlia Festival nearby in Canby.

I grew hundreds of dahlias at one time, selling cut flowers at a weekend farmers market along with my dried flower bouquets and fresh herbs. It was a good time in my life, but oh sooo much work. Here at Rocky Point, I don’t have much opportunity to grow dahlias, although I still plan to at least try. Mo and I plan to downsize by 2020 or so, and my one request is that we do so in a place where I can putter in a real garden with a real growing season and grow dahlias.

As we readied for the short trip, 255 miles total, everything seemed just incredibly simple. The MoHo was spotless and lovely, and I only needed clothes for three days and two nights. With the temperatures predicted for the area in the mid 80’s, shorts were in order, and I didn’t even bother with sweats or long pants. (Oops, we live in Oregon for pete’s sake!). Food was simple as well, just two dinners, a couple of breakfasts, and some hiking food for daytime. Gee. We were loaded and ready to go in no time. After the long preparations for the Alaska trip, this was such a delight.

We took our time getting on the road, enjoying the warm, sunny morning. Dressed in shorts and sleeveless tops, we were glad to have returned home to Oregon in August to enjoy what Laurie and Odel called the “elusive Oregon summer”. Yes, it IS elusive at times, but less so on the east side of the mountains where we live.

Fire is a given in the west, and as we crossed the Wood River Valley just north of home and the Upper Klamath NWR, there was smoke evident to the east and north from the many fires ignited in Central Oregon over the past couple of weeks. The route is familiar and a bit boring at times, especially north on Highway 97. The soils are deep pumice from the eruption of Crater Lake (Mt Mazama) more than 7,000 years ago, and the vegetation is dry lodgepole and ponderosa pine. Only after the route rises to Willamette Pass does the timber begin to thicken and darken to lush Oregon green.

The Willamette Valley is the heart of Oregon, even though the actual area is very small when compared to the entire state. Eugene is the largest city south of Portland in this valley, and as we entered Eugene we noticed the brown pall of smoke in the air from burning fields of blue grass, from dust rising from busy plows, and yes, from cars. I think that is actually smog, although being raised in Southern California I do know that real smog is a bit uglier than what we found on the Eugene skyline.

By the time we got to the park, it was evident that even on a Sunday afternoon, this was a very popular place. I am glad that we made a reservation back in April, since the park was completely filled for the entire week! It was warm and sunny, and we were glad for a shady site with power and water to enjoy the late afternoon. Jeremy was really anxious to get out of the rig and explore, and I put on his fancy city harness and he was out of the rig before I could get down the steps. He is funny, sitting quietly for the harness, and the minute the last snap is done he jumps down to the door knowing it it time! Even at 15 years old, I think he might want to explore farther than I would want, so I keep him harnessed when we are camping for safety.

As the evening progressed, we took the beautiful paved bike trail to the dog exercise area, a special treat in a state park because this one if for dogs off leash! To our surprise, on this warm Sunday evening, there were no dogs there. Families were everywhere, with children playing in the swimming area along the Silver River, bbq’s going at every picnic table, volleyball and soccer games in progress. The park is within easy driving distance of Salem, Albany, and even Portland, and from what we saw on this Sunday afternoon, it is a popular place to spend a Sunday.

The presence of huge, extended families with grandmas, grandpas, babies, aunts and uncles, all enjoying the afternoon together was heartening. Most of these families were speaking languages we didn’t know, but with the din of so many conversations that really didn’t matter. The language of a park on a Sunday afternoon is universal, after all. We had a great time letting Abby run uphill, hoping to wear her out. Later in the day, we expected to have to leave her in the rig while we hiked the waterfall trails where dogs are not allowed.

The Silver River was low at this time of year, and I was surprised to see just how lovely the falls looked even with less water. The stream slips over South Falls in a clear, wispy ribbon, much different from the crashing torrent we experienced in April last year. The trails were full of families, dads carrying babies in backpacks, grandpas with canes (me with my walking sticks!)

One more time I did a stupid crash, this time thank goodness without the camera in my hands! Stepping out of the MoHo I missed the step and bent the weak ankle one more time in a direction it doesn’t particularly like and went down. I know to hold on to the door handle, and had a good grip, so didn’t go all the way down. Mo laughed again, saying I must have bones of steel because with all these stupid falls I don’t seem to break anything. Who knows what that is about. This time again, it was a big divot I didn’t see because it was UNDER our entry rug. Sigh. Hold on tight and keep your eyes down, I guess.

We chose a camp on the A loop again, but it was more open than I might have liked. Our neighbors were right behind us, with their campfire so close to our back window that I had to close the night shade all the time so they couldn’t see inside. Our fire was far enough forward in the site that we could sit there without being in their back pocket, and we were glad that the folks directly on our other side seemed to be indoor types, so we had a bit of space to ourselves. I couldn’t believe how many kids were in that campground, and dogs, and bikes. It was some kind of biking heaven, I guess, with tiny little kids on trainers with helmets bigger than they were. The sound of screaming, laughing kids and barking dogs was almost deafening.

So often, in this lifestyle, we hang with retired folks in sedate RV campgrounds that are quiet and calm. We are retired ourselves, and live in a community that is composed mostly of retired folks or summer visitors. My grandkids are all teenagers now, and as I sat at our campfire watching all those kids, I realized just how insulated we can be from the din of family life. Have I used the word “din” a lot? Hmmm. Sunday afternoon at Silver Falls State Park was a lovely and noisy place.

Next: the dahlia show!

The rest of the photos are linked here

Squirrels, deer, rabbits, and mosquitos

“Squirrels are nothing more than rats with fuzzy tails that can climb trees”. This comment was posted on Judy’s blog today and I laughed out loud. Of course, I also feel that way about deer. Cute in the forest, far, far away from where I live, but nothing more than big rats with voracious appetites in my yard.

Between the squirrels, the rabbits, the deer, the voles, and the mosquitoes, I often wonder about the joys of living in the forest surrounded by the lovely wildlife. Thanks to the mosquitoes we also have a healthy population of bats, good wildlife of course, but a bit less so when they buzz our heads in the evenings while lounging in the hot tub.

Oh yes, chipmunks as well, lots and lots of them. Just caught myself in a great big “sigh”. We have a very large hole in the ground along the back property line between the lawn and the forest that also has some kind of critter playing around that is much bigger than a squirrel and I think bigger than a rabbit. Abby’s favorite thing is racing out the door to the back yard in pursuit of whatever furry thing is out there. I have been hearing a lot of owls around lately, many voices of many different types, and am gleefully hoping that they are here because of all the other fuzzy critters that are around. Help!

Yesterday I sprayed the entire property boundaries with Liquid Fence, sworn to work by my friends in a California forest. Gerald said he used it all summer last year and the deer ate everything in sight in the neighbors yards and left his alone till he got lazy and quit spraying. It’s not a cheap endeavor, at 40 bucks for 2 applications, and directions that say “Apply weekly initially, then every three weeks after that”. I am applying weekly, with special attention to my roses, delphiniums, azaleas, and the baby flowering pear tree that the deer decimated last fall. Of course we have the greenhouse for the hidden veggies, “nahh na na NA na”! Other folks who have lived at Rocky Point for 30 plus years have learned to quit trying to grow things that the deer love to eat. I’m still not that smart. I WANT my roses and delphiniums, so I will continue to try to outsmart those pesky critters.

When it comes to the squirrels, I think I have won, at least so far. Of course I don’t have those flying stinkers that seem to be the problem at Al’s place in Ontario.

( If you want to read a great story about Al thinking about simulating one of those flying squirrels, be sure to check out his recent blog.)

I hung a thin wire cable between the trees in the forest, just beyond the grass, and so far the poor squirrels are completely stumped and reduced to foraging on the ground for what is scattered there by the yellow headed blackbirds, voracious eaters who like to shake all the seed out on the ground for entertainment. Lucky for me, the blackbirds all manage to head for the marsh by mid-summer and no longer eat me out of house and home.

This time of year I am filling all 8 feeders with four different kinds of food every single morning! So far the black headed grosbeaks outnumber most other birds, but we have a lot of purple finches, evening grosbeaks, stellar jays, juncos, and a very friendly white headed woodpecker. Geez! I am feeling not a little bit guilty about how devastating it might be to our little bird friends when we leave for 7 weeks in Alaska. Hopefully in July and August food will be so plentiful they will somehow manage. I don’t set up hummingbird feeders for just that reason. I have heard how dependent they get on the feeders and how important it is to be consistent if you start putting up food for them.

I have to thank everyone for the lovely comments on my last post photographs. I didn’t mention it because I was feeling a bit insecure, but that was the first day I was out with my new Nikon DSLR D5100. All those photos were my learning experience. I have discovered that my “learning experience” may go on for several years at least. I have stepped up from shooting everything with the “auto” setting, a perfectly acceptable way to take photos.

The water photo that folks seemed to like was an attempt at aperture priority slowing down the shutter so I could get that silky movement. This photo of the east side of the yard early in the morning is my first attempt at HDR. So much to learn, and so little time. Sigh. My knitting has been languishing on the shelf while I play with the camera and fight the critters and garden! I think I started the perfect easy little scarf back in Eureka with gorgeous hand dyed yarn, and am still barely half way through the skein. Maybe I’ll have a chance to knit when we are back on the road, although I would imagine it won’t be on those bumpy frost heaves on the Alaska Highway.

Off to Brookings on May 2

That is Mo’s old condo over on the cliff across from our campsite at Harris Beach

The trip to Brookings is a familiar one. I didn’t even plug in Garmin Girl to show us the way. The route is the fastest way to get to ocean from where we live, less than 200 miles, and we know it well. Over 140 to Medford, north on I-5 to Grants Pass, then west on the beautiful Highway 199 toward Crescent City in California before turning north on 101. After meandering through the pastoral Illinois Valley, the road descends along the wild and winding Smith River and is designated a Scenic Highway for many miles. The route passes the magnificent Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park a few miles east of Crescent City, but we had other fish to fry and just passed through. Even with a few errands to run in Medford, our 10 am departure dropped us into Brookings by 2:30 in the afternoon.

We had reservations at Harris Beach, not wanting to take any chances, but they really weren’t necessary. While the front A loop with ocean views was all full, the rest of the park was very nearly empty. Our site was perfect. Just one space in from the view sites with a lot more privacy, and I can see a “peep” of the ocean from the bedroom window. It’s quite enough, and the big open private site is lovely. After settling in and setting up, we took the baby car to town to look around a bit and see how much has changed since Mo sold her condo a few years ago. The condos look just fine, with new paint, and only one for sale. Surprisingly, the prices are only about 25 percent less than they were in 2006.

We drove up to Azalea Park, a special pride of Brookings. Even though we have been here many times, I haven’t seen the rhodies in bloom the way there were on Monday afternoon. The park is lovely, and a special treat is a small chapel that seems to be some kind of memorial, with a view of the ocean in the distance. It was closed when we were there, but the architecture is amazing, even from the outside, with soaring windows, and glass and wood and metal woven together in a magical work of art.

Brookings is a great little town, in what is called the “banana belt” of the Oregon Coast. When we arrived on Monday, there was just a bit of residual cloudiness in the skies, but by the time the sun set, it was beautifully clear. After a stop at the very large Fred Meyer store for some minor supplies (chips!) we settled in to a beautiful sunny evening.

We took Abby for a walk on the beach, and I took way too many photos of breaking waves. I always think I will delete most of them, but then I have a terrible time with that cutting knife. I like first one, then the next, then another, and before you know it, I have a dozen photos of the same rocks with a different wave breaking just a little bit differently than the first. ah well. It’s digital, and doesn’t hurt anyone but me when I try to organize my photos and make sure I have enough storage for all of them.

…

Mo built a great campfire and I heated up leftover turkey pie brought from home for supper. Jeremy joined us outdoors to explore the campsite, (on his leash of course). Even though it was 8pm and the sun was shining, the breeze came up and I had to give up and go inside before the fire was all the way down. With cable tv for an extra buck, we enjoyed an episode of Dancing with the Stars before falling into a great night’s sleep. I do think I probably missed about half the show, since I was all worn out with the fresh air and relaxation. Amazing how relaxing can wear one out, isn’t it. Of course, I took many photos, so if you want to see lots of flowers and rocky Oregon coast, click here. Oregon Coast Day 1 (67)

The Best Laid Plans and all that

After posting yesterday about our departure plans, I continued to check the internet for road conditions and weather cams. Our original plan included visiting some good friends in Tehachapi, traveling east along Highway 58. After reading about 6 inches of snow accumulation and predicted winds on Sunday of 40 plus miles per hour with gusts to 85! yes that is 85 mph, we thought we should possibly reroute. Next plan, instead of driving over 58 toward Laughlin, we could just stay south on 5, get through LA hooking up to the 210 and the 10 heading east and go straight to Borrego Springs, saving Laughlin for the latter part of the trip and skipping out on our visit to friends. That’s a bit sad since we haven’t seen them since 2007.

So, once again to weatherunderground.com and the web cams and the severe weather reports. What??!! 85 mph gusts at Bakersfield, Frazier Park, and 6 inches of snow possible over the Grapevine on Sunday??? Big Sigh.

Jeremy doesn’t care whether we are traveling or home, just as long as he can be warm and snooze.

So here I am this morning, in my jammies typing away on the computer instead of driving south to Redding as planned. We wrote all our friends along the route saying, nope, not this time. We are packed and mostly loaded, watching the weather. At first we thought we might wait until Monday, but looking a bit more closely led us to deciding on a Sunday departure. Yes, high winds and rain all the way to Sacramento tomorrow, but not 85 mph. We will hole up tomorrow night near Lodi, amble south on 5 toward the Grapevine and hole up again at a truck stop and wait to see what the road is doing on Monday morning. Sooner or later we are going to get to all that hot sun and warm temperatures that everyone is talking about, right?

One of the very best things about retirement and the RV life is the ability to re-route, re-plan, and stay flexible. Today, instead of driving, I am going to cook up a bunch of stuff for our trip that I hadn’t the opportunity to do last week. Today the house will be filled the the smell of pulled pork in the crock pot, some chocolate chip and some peanut butter cookies, a big pot of spaghetti sauce to freeze, and a luscious turkey pot pie with a biscuit topping made from some of our leftover freezer turkey. I won’t have to cook for a week while we are on the road!

One more wild ride and then home Friday and Saturday Feb 11 and 12

Once more the skies were brilliantly blue when we woke in Eureka. The winds were calm and there wasn’t a bit of fog, but the 32 degree temperatures were still a bit daunting. We read the forecasts and knew that it wasn’t a lot warmer in the Sacramento valley to the east, and that we had snow and rain to look forward to once back in Rocky Point. Our decision was to drive the winding 142 miles of Highway 36 across the mountains, to stop for the night in a forest service campground along the way if it was accessible. If not, we would continue on toward Red Bluff and possibly go park at the Rolling Hills Casino about 20 minutes south.

Timing our travels sometimes gets a bit confusing. My ex mom-in-law lives in Red Bluff, and wasn’t going to be home until afternoon on Saturday, so we needed to plan accordingly since I wanted to stop for a visit while passing by. We wanted to spend the night in Redding on Saturday night before we spent Sunday morning getting the MoHo ready for her last month in storage. Even though we had a bit of a schedule to figure out, it was nice to just take off on the highway with the options open.

Highway 36 is 142 miles of wild road indeed. While it doesn’t have quite the grades that our Lost Coast roads had, and didn’t have quite as many hairpin curves, the big difference was that this time we were in the MoHo towing the baby car. If it had been hot, we would have unhooked the car and both driven the steepest grades, but the cool temperatures were in our favor and the MoHo did just fine. Jeremy once again settled into his dash position and it only took us 4 hours to go less than 100 miles to a small forest service side road leading down to the Basin Gulch forest service campground.

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Another wild ride

We were smart enough to unhook and take the baby car to check out the campground before driving the MoHo down that side road, and once we looked around we thought, ‘Sure, no big deal”. With our Golden Age Pass, camping was a hefty 5 bucks for a lovely little campground, completely alone in the middle of nowhere without another car or camper anywhere in sight. A mile or so before the campground, there were a few summer cabins, but we didn’t see any cars or people at all. It was only about 2:30 in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to settle in, go for a nice walk along the stream and relax a bit before supper. I slept better and longer that night than any in very a long time, with the absolute darkness and silence of the forest around us.

The next morning we continued the last 50 miles or so to Red Bluff, and thought we might go park at the Red Bluff Lake Recreation Area to wait for Gen to get home. To my surprise, there was an RV park at the lake. The campground however, was federal, and our Golden Age Pass got us a site with water and electric for $12.50. By the time we settled in again, it was time to go visiting. Gen is 87 years old now, and spiffy and lovely as always. We enjoyed our visit before driving the mile or so back to our waiting home. The warm sun felt fabulous.

Sunday morning we took our own sweet time packing up, cleaning up the MoHo, and driving north on I-5 to Redding to our favorite credit card operated self car wash. This time we got the entire rig washed for a mere $6.50. Love it when we don’t have to keep messing with the quarters to keep the spray going. For the last time this year we slid the rig into the big shed, piled everything into the car, and headed north to Klamath Falls. It happens to us every single time. As we drop down from Mt Shasta into the Klamath Basin, in the midst of quiet contemplation, one or the other of us says out loud, “I love this place”. It certainly isn’t perfect. Winter time can be brutal and spring can be long in coming. It’s the interface between desert and mountains, and can be brown and barren at times. But the vistas are wide, and now, even in February, the Pacific Flyway birds are returning. The fields and marshes along Highway 97 are already filling with thousands of swans and ducks, and the snow geese are back.

We were home by 5, and the car was unloaded and unpacked before 6. We are getting good at this back and forth thing. It’s so good to go, and it’s so good to come home. So far, I love not having to choose between one or the other.