Home in Rocky Point, Oregon
Current temperature: 40 degrees F, with melting snow on the ground. Lo tonight: 30 degrees F with a chance of snow
Yes, we are going camping. We are leaving tomorrow for the eastern side of Oregon, planning a combo boondocking/rv park trip to the high sagebrush desert. We did plan to leave on Tuesday afternoon, but some severe weather warnings were a bit daunting, and we decided to postpone our little journey until the weather shifted a bit. Good thing! Yesterday afternoon the snow hit and by 5pm we had snow on the trees and even some snow sticking to the ground. The weather report optimistically says that “with warming temperatures and longer days, the 
ground temperatures should be warm enough that the snow will not stick”. Ok then. It is now almost noon in Rocky Point, and true to the forecast, most of the snow is melting, but more may be coming tonight.
Mo is bringing the MoHo up from the shed to park in the driveway, ready for loading. As much as we love having the place in Grants Pass, it sure is wonderful to have our rig right here when we are ready to travel. No trying to remember what to take, what is at the cottage, what is in the MoHo. Just walk outside, check the cupboards, and pack accordingly. Nice.
Speaking of weather, my daughter who relocated to Texas last year has now relocated again to Grand Junction, Colorado. Closer to me, closer to her son, and better jobs for both her and for her sweetie. She drove north through Texas with a U-Haul the day of the tornados. She missed them. My son lives in Joplin Missouri, and while he was hit by the last big tornado
May flowers on May 22
there, the small twister that touched down in Carthage missed him by 15 miles. Truck driver daughter and her husband are delivering jet engines to Winnipeg, and so she is also out of the line of fire. I just can’t imagine what those people in Oklahoma are going through. Can’t imagine.
Mo and I watched the news, and said our thank you’s for the gift of living in a place without tornados, hurricanes, or major floods. It can almost make you feel guilty for being so lucky in the midst of such horror, but I do feel lucky, and blessed, and sad for those people who have lost everything. Of course, disaster can strike anywhere. We live in Earthquake country, are surrounded by volcanoes that could decided to heat up at a moment’s notice, the wildfires of our hotter and hotter summers could strike anywhere, and of course winter can deal some pretty angry blows. Nothing like a tornado though. However, I often talked to people from hurricane country or tornado country who looked at me like I was crazy for living in earthquake country California. It is all about where family is and what you are used to, I guess.
May flowers on May 19
Since we got home from Death Valley, we went over to the cottage and worked a bit, mowing and trimming and fixing up little things here and there. I was treated to a Mother’s Day brunch by my Klamath Falls daughter and family, and Mo and I did our annual outing to the Taste of Klamath event in town that we have enjoyed for several years now. Small town stuff, but nice, and it supports our local historic theater, the Ross Ragland. We are gardening, and until yesterday, the weather cooperated perfectly. It has been unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the 80’s here at Rocky Point. That is a lot more like July and less like May, but it made working in the yard an absolute delight. 80 degrees and sunny skies with a nice breeze is just about perfect as far as I am concerned. 
The only thing that seems to keep eluding us is a kayak outing. On the days when it might be something to do we seem to always have something else more pressing taking up our time. Ah well….eventually those kayaks will get on the water again. We actually planned to take them on this trip to the east side, but the weather predictions have us thinking otherwise. Why load up the kayaks if it is going to be in the 50’s with possible rain?! Nah…we will wait for better days. I guess you could call us fair weather kayakers, although I do have photos from years past when we are on the water as early as March!
I did manage to get in on the Google Plus Hangout that Rick set up for us to learn a bit more about how it all works. It was great fun seeing everyone online and joining in on the conversation. I haven’t managed to do the Skype thing very much since I didn’t think I had the bandwidth. Maybe I can manage hangouts now with distant kids and friends. I hope so.
On our agenda for the next few days: Plush, Oregon, home of the famous BLM sunstone diggings. Hart Mountain Refuge, home of hundreds of pronghorns and some beautiful natural hot springs and a small developed hot spring pool. Summer Lake, Oregon, home to another wildlife refuge, more hot springs, and untold numbers of waterfowl. Ana Reservoir RV campground, on the Ana River and the reservoir, not far from summer lake will provide us with electric and water and a place to dump after three nights boondocking on BLM lands. Should be a nice trip. I don’t imagine there will be any kind of internet, or even phone connections to speak of, so I’ll just have to get caught up on photos and stories when we return to Rocky Point.
In the mean time, I thought it would be fun to put in a couple of photos from our very first camping trip to Hart Mountain back in 2004, before we had any kind of motorhome. I think this may have been the last time we tent camped. In spite of discussing carrying tents and sleeping bags in the motorhome for getting really out in the boonies, we have yet to actually do that. Somehow the comforts of home win out. I spent a bazillion years tent camping, and I do love it, but oh oh oh….it is so nice to have shelter and a bed off the ground. If I could just figure out how to see the stars at night from the MoHo the way you can seen them from a tent it would be perfect. My best memory of Hart Mountain is sitting by the campfire watching the stars come up right on the horizon, just as big and bright as they were in the entire huge sky. It was amazing.
Category: Oregon
Sometimes going to the coast isn’t about the ocean
Harris Beach State Park, Brookings, Oregon. 52 degrees F and clear
Of course, it is always there, in the background, low rumble below the cliffs. On a chilly, sunny, breezy day, however, it might be about the coastal forest. It is our lazy, do nothing but enjoy day, and after a slow morning, we decided to walk some of the trails around the park.
The light was beautiful, that brilliant contrasts stuff that makes all photographers crazy. Backlit moss that looks very nearly fluorescent against the dark, wet spruce bark. Shamrocks every shade of green on the forest floor. I left the Nikon behind this time, telling Mo, “Just how many photos can I take at Harris Beach, anyway?”. “What in the world can I possibly write about or blog about that I haven’t already done a dozen times?”
Yet here I am, with only the iPad, trying one more time to capture that backlit brilliance. Sometimes in that place between sleep and dreaming I let my mind wander to moments of light in my life, simple moments that have this brilliance. It is better than counting sheep.
We will go down to the beach this afternoon, but for the moment Mo is outside reading, and I am here writing. Supper will be easy and we will eat by the fire. Today we won’t wait until chilly dark for the camp fire, we will start it early.
I filled out my morning talking with friends and daughters on the phone, leisurely phone calls that were heart warming. Or maybe that was yesterday. I am on ocean time, even if it isn’t about the ocean.
Posted with BlogsyOf course you recognize where we are
Brookings, Oregon. High today 50F Sunny and breezy. Low tonight 28F
Once again in our favorite front row with hookups, a great Verizon signal and cable tv for a buck extra. The difference is that space A10 at Harris Beach State Park has been cleared and we can see 180 degrees of ocean from our bedroom window. We have been here so many times and posted so many photos that it might look familiar if you have read my blog in the past.
After three productive days raking, burning, cleaning and projecting at the Grants Pass cottage, we headed for the beach. The short two hour drive on Highway 199 was beautiful as always. Nothing to do here but relax, walk when we are motivated and watch the sea. We didn’t even tow the baby car this time. It’s a true quickie vacation.
Free House With Purchase
And you believe that? Nothing is really free, of course, even if it seems it might be. We only paid what the acre would have been worth even without the house on it in order to build the MoHo shed, so technically the cottage was free. Until we decided that maybe putting a roof on it might be a good idea since it was leaking. We really didn’t plan to stay in the house at all when we bought it, but somehow it just seems to work out that it is fun, kind of like camping with water and heat, and the funky little cottage has something about it that feels really good. Maybe it is the light. Maybe it is the fact that it was built in 1926, and even though small and funky, there are big strong beautiful fir beams in the ceiling that haven’t warped in nearly 90 years.
But a free house definitely must have some “issues”, and of course we found them. The kitchen wall had some mold in it where the roof had leaked. We replaced the roof and decided it was time to take out the moldy kitchen wall. Uhoh. Mo took a sledge hammer to the wall (aka HGTV style) and what should come pouring out but ants! yup, ants. Bazillions of ants. I think the entire ant population of Grants Pass was living in that wall. Needless to say, a simple job of just starting on the wall turned into a must do project of getting it out of there. In the process, we found that what was a kitchen wall had once been an exterior wall, complete with cedar shingles, even an old window, all covered up by several layers of varying wall types. Needless to say, it was a mess. 
We had spent the previous two days at the cottage burning some huge debris piles left over from the previous shed and roofing projects. Burn days in Grants Pass are rare, and involve calling at 6am to see if it is indeed a burn day. We haven’t had much luck lately so on Friday morning when the phone call gave us a resounding yes, we jumped into the pickup and made it to the cottage in less than 2 hours from waking up. We had two gorgeous burn days in a row before the inversion set in once again and no more burning was allowed. I raked and hauled leaves for two days straight while Mo managed the burn pile. There is a price to pay for those gorgeous huge oaks, and I never had a chance to get it all finished last fall. We don’t actually LIVE here, remember?! We were a bit worn out, and on Sunday morning Mo said, “Let’s just enjoy a nice easy day relaxing here before we head home”. Great idea. But that was before the ant wall was discovered.
Late on Sunday afternoon we celebrated with another great Abby’s pizza before we headed back over the mountain to our snowy home with the ice covered road up to the house. There is something about being able to leave, to actually get out of the funky cottage and back to our beautiful beautiful well water and warm wood stove and roomy bathrooms and all the goodies of living in a “real” house that make it all fun instead of depressing. The woman who lived in the cottage before us raised many sons there in the 60’s. We still can’t figure out where everyone slept, unless she sent the boys outside to the even funkier bunkhouse. Who knows. People did live differently then I guess. I know I did. 
The cottage has a well, but the water has some salts in it, and it only gives about 2.5 gallons a minute. We had a long hose from the well house to the fire and after running it for about 20 minutes, we suddenly had no more water. Uhoh again. Neither of us has a clue how to prime a well pump, so had to go to the internet to discover that we probably had a submersible pump that didn’t need priming anyway. Just turn it off and wait two hours and see if it recovers.
We went inside, and waited, then back out to start up the water and uhoh again, no water at all. As Mo was walking back to the pump house, she discovered what we had missed earlier…a kink in the hose…can you believe that?!?! We never really ran the well dry at all. It was such a relief that we were all excited again about having 2.5 gallons a minute after all. We do bring drinking water from home, though, and there is no way we will put that salty water in our MoHo tanks. Guess we can’t ever really ‘move’ over to the cottage even when we get too old to shovel snow and haul wood at home in Rocky Point.
Ah well, we are home again, and I am working this week, but next week we will go back to the cottage. Only this time it will be what it was supposed to be, just a little stopover place for us to relax a bit before we load up the MoHo and head for the beach. Brookings here we come! Rain or shine. Rumor has it there might be at least a couple of days of sunshine at the ocean and we are going to make sure we find it.
Back to the Desert
On I-80 between Winnemucca, NV and Wells, NV
We have spent a lot of time this past year traveling the coast and the western valleys of Oregon and California. Our little winter time jaunts to Desert Hot Springs require a lot of traveling south along interstates. One of the advantages of living in this part of Oregon is that the northern high deserts are just a skip away to the east. For this trip to Colorado, we decided to follow our infamous Highway 140, (the one we take to Medford all the time) due east toward Lakeview, over the Warner Mountains, and south to Winnemucca.
At the moment, we are on I-80 heading east from Winnemucca toward Wells, where we plan to find a resting place. Interstate traveling at its mind numbing finest, but the visions of the last evening and this morning are still fresh in my mind. We are on our way to a family reunion, and Mo’s brothers are traveling east this morning as well. Original plans included all of us leaving this morning, and Roger and Nancy planned to come south to Rocky Point to caravan with us. Instead, they traveled north to caravan with Dan and Chere, and pick up brother number three, Don on their way east past Umatilla, Oregon.
Mo and I were almost ready to go on Saturday night, with only a mid-afternoon Sunday anniversary party to attend, and we looked at each other and said, “Why wait till Monday”. The original plan also included a driving day of more than 500 miles, not something we were particularly excited about. Instead, we dropped in on the party, and dropped right back out again and were on the road by 2:30 Sunday afternoon. Made for a bit more of a rush on Sunday morning, but well worth it.
We haven’t traveled 140 east for some time, and spent much of our conversation trying to remember which routes we had taken on which trips and during which years! What we both remembered, however, was that the road east of Lakeview was narrow, but quiet and beautiful and we knew there would be someplace where we could spend the night on the boonies.
This route is the one we have taken a few times, visiting the amazing Hart Mountain Reserve, camping at the mysterious and magical Steens Mountains, and returning through the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge looking for wild horses. We love the desert, and yet somehow we had forgotten just how much we love it. The vistas opening out to nothing, the roads empty of anything but stray cattle, the spacious skies all make for spacious open mind thoughts, uncluttered. Love that.
We got gas in Lakeview, at $3.73 per gallon, after realizing that the next reasonable gas was more than 200 miles distant in Winnemucca. Driving over the Warner Mountains was quick, and in no time we were dropping down the basalt canyons toward Adel. The meadows opened up to the south of the highway, and a wide level pullover shaded by a single juniper called to us. By 6:30 pm we were settled in with the slide open, the jacks down, and dinner in the skillet. Both of us were happy to have an extra 150 miles under our belts so our Monday drive to Wells would be a manageable 350 miles or so.
The silence was beautiful, and Mo and I just relaxed, and read a bit, talked a bit, and then started laughing when we couldn’t figure out what the animals outside our rig munching happily on the grass should be called. I wrote to Jenna and hopefully she can answer me. We called them cows, but then thought that cows are only females. Then we had the conversation about what is a heifer, and what animal do you castrate to make a steer if it isn’t a cow, and it is obviously a boy.. We went down the lane with a cow moose, a cow buffalo, a cow elk, and the a cow cow, of course. Then a bull cow? like a bull elk? This is the kind of silliness that can overtake at a boondock site in the middle of nowhere.
The goal is to reach Rock Springs, Wyoming on Wednesday where we will hook up with the brothers and their rigs and camp with hookups at the KOA. Then we will all caravan east toward Laramie, and then south to Lakewood and the rest of the family. I would imagine this first night in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Oregon was possibly the quietest night we may have on the entire trip. Our only sounds were the cows and a very occasional car passing by. The stars were brilliant, even the ones low on the horizon, just as I remember from so many years ago at Hart Mountain.
This morning we were treated to high pink wispy clouds to greet the day, and then even a bit of rain between Denio and Winnemucca. I haven’t seen rain in this part of the desert for a very long time, in fact, I don’t remember ever seeing rain in this part of the high desert. I drove this morning, Mo took over at Winnemucca, and before long we will be hunting for another desert boondock site.
The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales 