Oregon – Page 13 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Wandering

My soul is filled up with green. We have been traveling through long narrow valleys filled with luscious spring greens, reminiscent of the hills of the Carolinas where my family heritage resides. Never lived there, but I remember feeling at home and completely familiar when we drove through the little town of Cherokee in North Carolina, among the hardwoods and rhododendrons. These hidden Oregon valleys are much like that. I can imagine how wonderful it felt to the pioneers crossing the Oregon Trail when they at last reach the verdant, green paradise called Oregon. Familiar, welcoming and nurturing after all those miles crossing prairies and deserts, day after day of brown and tan and gray.

Oregon is many things, but right now, west of the Cascades, it is green, thick, lush, vibrant, neon, chartreuse, every possible shade of green you could imagine and more. The green somehow fills me up, makes my insides vibrate and tingle, makes something inside me expand. Mo and I have spent the last few days wandering slowly through a part of Oregon that we usually pass by at 65 miles per hour on the interstate.

The Willamette Valley is large, and extends from Eugene to Portland, bisected very nearly through the middle by Interstate 5. I can’t count the times I have driven this road, usually to get from one end of Oregon to the other, as quickly as possible.

I was often heading south from Northern Idaho, where I lived for more than 30 years, traveling for the holidays to the youngest daughter in Medford, then later in Corvallis. Then later again traveling north when that same daughter lived in Albany and I was in Klamath Falls, and north again to spend time with the oldest daughter settled in Portland. Always moving as quickly as possible, noticing the green and the blue skies in the spring and the brown and smoky skies of fall, but never really seeing it. Not like I have seen it this week.

Searching for covered bridges is more about the back road journeys than it is about the bridges, although after seeing so many, I find myself feeling great affection for them. At first we thought they all looked pretty much the same, but in actuality there are subtle nuances and each bridge has it’s own personality, its own character. Some are tucked away in little unknown canyons crossing small streams, others on big rivers like the Suislaw in a valley we never knew about before this trip.

There will be more to write about the journey, the places we found, the roads we traveled, the individual bridges, but that will come later, this is just as Erin says, “a teaser”. At the moment, I am still just soaking up the green. Enjoying the rain and the brilliant sunshine between the rains, the wild clouds moving across the skies, and green, always green, everywhere green.

On the Road Again

Seems as though I just got home from Texas, but when I looked at the calendar it has been over two weeks since I returned. Geez. Don’t blink, or life will speed right over you, minus the speed bumps to slow you down!

The MoHo is in Brookings, where the snow never flies and chains are never required, and we try to get over there for a road trip at least once every month. A week or two on the road is always a great reprieve from everyday life, even if that everyday life is really quite wonderful.

For our last few trips we have traveled a good distance, often heading south into California to find warm sunshine and blue skies in the winter. This time we decided that it would be great to just hang out in our own beautiful state of Oregon and explore the hidden nooks and crannies in the Willamette Valley and surroundings that we have missed while running off to the coast and then heading south.

Mo found an Oregon website of all the covered bridges in the state, something Oregon is famous for, so we have the google map with 71 bridges pinpointed to guide us. Will we see them all? Of course not. Who knows how many we will actually see, but it gives us a little bit of something to make us move from one place to another at least. We have no plans, no reservations, no particular destination. We are going to wander for two weeks and see what appears. Oregon is just so beautiful this time of year, especially on the west side. The flowers are blooming, the orchards are blossoming, the grass is green and often the skies are blue.

Here at home, on the east side of the Cascades just south of Crater Lake, spring is just barely coming out. All it takes are a few more warm days and I should have at least the beginnings of flowers and blossoms on our own trees. With a little luck, we won’t miss the tulips coming into bloom that I planted last fall.

I returned from Texas barely in time to take a breath and prepare for Easter. With my oldest daughter in Texas, my middle daughter plying the country with her truck, and my son way back in Missouri, once again I was blessed by the fact that my youngest lives in Klamath, close enough to bring the family for a wonderful day of spring time celebrations. This year they came the night before so they could be here for the early morning festivities. With the kids now 19 and 13 the Easter Bunny doesn’t have to stay up late to hide eggs any more, but we still love that big Sunday morning breakfast and waking up together for coffee and family time.

Kevin, my SIL, brought his Big Green Egg BBQ and smoker out for the day and made some of his famous baby back ribs while Melody followed some great instructions for coloring eggs with silk ties. They were gorgeous! We are all planning to collect more ties for next Easter.

The rest of the day we made an Easter cake for entertainment. With some internet searches, the kids decided on the “bunny butt in the stump” chocolate cake. I had to buy fondant for the bunny and the decorations. That was a shocker! Fondant comes in a tub for about 20 bucks, and then I had to buy the different fancy colorings to go with it. It feels a bit like play-doh and tastes a bit like old gum. Ah well, the cake and frosting were fabulous and the decorating was so much fun. Who cares if you don’t eat the fancy green leaves and cute flowers. My 13 year old grandson was pretty good at flower making, and while I expected my artistic granddaughter to do well with this, the grandsons enthusiasm was a surprise. We had a great day together.

Monday morning I was back to work, again racking up two weeks straight of soil survey work to give me the freedom of another two weeks off so we can amble off in the MoHo. I spent the rainy weekend in between finally finishing the quilt table runner for my friend Maryruth and finishing up the baby blanket I started over a month ago when Mo’s new grand niece was born. Sure glad I got it done before she was too big to care!. An easy pattern with inexpensive yarn that is washable made it a simple gift. It was cuddly!

Blogging of course slipped way back to the bottom of the list. Reading blogs slipped as well. In fact, I realized that I was letting the blog world take up much more of my time than I wanted. I made the difficult decision to stop following many blogs so that I wouldn’t feel as though I was always behind. I have heard other bloggers mention this problem lately. Some have discussed it much more eloquently than I can. The whole thing has just expanded exponentially. I went back to my original reason for blogging, keeping track of my life for myself, my own personal diary, and letting those who care about me know what I have been up to.

Of course, I have made some real friends through this blogging thing, and of course there are some old friends I continue to follow, but I am giving myself permission to opt out, to quit worrying if I am blogging enough, or am interesting enough, or paying enough attention. I refuse to compete for comments or readership. It is just too yukky. If you are still here reading, thanks. In the mean time, I’ll do like several other bloggers have done recently and be really happy that I can look back and see what I was doing this time of year back in 2010 or 2008 or whenever. I can’t count the times that Mo says to me, “When did we do….?” and I will answer, “Let me go check the blog”.

Today and tomorrow we will load up the Tracker one last time before bringing the MoHo back home. The kayaks are coming down and going on top, the bikes are going on the rack in back, we are packing shorts and raincoats, and everything in between. Wednesday morning we will head for Brookings. I haven’t a clue where we will go next except it will be somewhere right here in Oregon.

The long trek home, and breakfast with Donna and Russ

February 24, 25, and 26 Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Once on the road again, we enjoyed the beautiful drive across the Astoria Bridge, once criticized as “the bridge to nowhere”. We crossed the Columbia River for the last time as we traveled its southern shore toward Portland. All routes pointing south encouraged us to cross the bridge at Longview and continue south through Portland on I-5, but we had other plans. As mentioned previously, Mo grew up in Columbia City, and it’s always fun to retrace old steps and check out how the old homesteads are doing.

The drive along the river was beautiful, even on a cloudy day, and traffic was light. Mo’s school still stood, and big old house that Mo grew up in didn’t look much different than she remembered. She laughed as we crossed the steep street that used to serve as a sledding hill when the occasional snow storm would hit. We drove on to the nearby St Helens to see the two houses that her grandfather built. They looked a bit worse for wear, but were still in use. As we drove around she told me stories of her aunts and uncles, grandma, and grandpa, and what it was like growing up in a small town in Oregon.

We kept our NUVI Garmin tucked away for the entire trip, relying on the phone to get us around, but for navigating freeways in big cities, Garmin Girl can’t be beat. Even in a city we know well, it was nice to have the image pop up when it came time to remember which lane we needed to get from the 30 to the 405 to the 5 going south. Traffic wasn’t a problem and Mo maneuvered through the city with ease.

By the time we got to Eugene, the threatening storm clouds turned to heavy rain, and we settled in to our free parking spot just in time. Our choice for the evening was the Valley River Mall in Eugene, reviewed both here by Laurie and Odel and here by Nina of Wheelin’It. I read both those reviews and easily decided we wanted to make use of this delightful free space for our night in Eugene.

Just across the parking lot was one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, El Torito. We had soup thawed, but it was time for a Marguerita and with our luck it was still Happy Hour at the bar. We had drinks for $3 each and a tremendous plate of fabulous nachos to share that made dinner completely unnecessary. The place was jumping busy and our cute little bartender asked us if we intended to “party like rock stars”. Hmmm. Not so sure I remember what that even means any more!

The next morning we were up just in time to button up the rig and see Russ and Donna drive up to our door. Their plan was to take us to their second favorite restaurant for breakfast since it was right on our route. We met the two of them once before in Eugene, and knew that a visit would be full of fun and laughter. Russ and Donna are really so much fun to be around. Russ is always doing something silly, cracking jokes and one liners, and Donna knows just how to bring out the best in everyone. We all laughed and played a bit in the remnants of snow on a parked truck. No, that snow wasn’t on our road, thank goodness!

Back on the road again, we traveled through all sorts of dramatic weather, including snow, sleet, rain, sun, and wind on the way west to Florence. Once there, the sky was gorgeous and we found blooming camellias lining the road next to the Joy of Quilting, where I decided another stop was in order.

In no time we were back at Harris Beach State Park, where once again our A10 site was the only one available on the front row with a view and cable. With the gorgeous sunshine and hardly any wind, we were thrilled to take another walk on Harris Beach as the afternoon turned toward evening. Finally, after carrying that firewood I bought originally the first night we were here, and carried the entire trip in the baby car, Mo built a big campfire. We sat outside enjoying the clear but chilly evening with our supper.

We have an ending routine that works pretty well for us. On our last night in Brookings, I do laundry at the park, where the machines cost just a buck and a buck quarter to dry. Mo gets everything cleaned and stashed for the night and we usually sleep without sheets since I want them clean for the next trip. In the morning we dump the tanks, add the smell prevention stuff to the gray tank, and head for town unhooked. We fill the MoHo, assuming that gasoline will be more expensive when we return for the next trip, and drive across the street for a McDonald’s breakfast before heading for the car wash to clean off the salt spray from the rig before slipping her back into the storage shed. This time our little routine was thwarted with the car wash all closed up, and it’s the only one in town. Since we are planning on coming back in three weeks, hopefully that salt residue won’t hurt anything till then.

Then with everything piled into the baby car, dog, cat, ice chest of fresh food still remaining, clothes I can’t bear to not have in both places, and other assorted flotsam, we make the 4 hour drive back over the coast range to Grants Pass and over the Lake of the Woods pass to home. Last year our routine was a bit different, traveling south to get the MoHo in Redding. We both have decided we like this routine much better. In fact, Brookings and Harris Beach are so darn nice we could just unpack the MoHo from storage and stay there without traveling anywhere. But not next time. Next time we will again travel south to California, hoping to find some warmth and some blooming wildflowers. I do love love love that RV life.

North Coast explorations, Astoria, Fort Clatsop, and Seaside

February 22nd

The wind blew all night and the rain came down in buckets but we were happily camped on asphalt, not a bad thing in the Oregon Coastal climate. After a cozy breakfast in the MoHo, we jumped into the Tracker and headed north to explore Astoria. Costco is conveniently located right in Warrenton on 101, between the entrance road to Camp Rilea and the road to Fort Stevens. Even with our 10c discount at Freddy’s just up the road, Costco gas was still a lot cheaper, and we paid 3.65 per gallon/regular to fill up both rigs. I suppose that will be considered cheap by the end of the coming summer according to the news pundits.

We did as we often do, seeking out the local Visitor Information Center for Astoria before beginning our tour of the town. Of course, the most famous attraction is the Astoria Column, an impressive sight with equally impressive views on a clear day. Mo and I paid our dollars and climbed the steps back in 2004 when we visited Astoria on our first cruise together, so didn’t feel the need to go up there again.

Instead we purchased an auto tour CD for a buck to tell us some of the stories about the historic sites around town. It took a bit of doing to figure out how to get to the sites on the map while trying to listen to the CD. The numbers weren’t in order on the map and it made it hard to appreciate what we were hearing while Mo was attempting to navigate the narrow hilly streets. Too late in the process, I figured out that we should have simply driven to the spot and then fast forwarded the CD to the correct track. Hindsight!

In spite of the technical difficulties, we did have a good time listening to the stories of the early maritime history of Astoria, founded in 1811 as the first white community on the west coast. There are many beautiful historic homes, including the Flavel House, considered one of the finest examples of Victorian architecture in Oregon. Our CD tour guide told many stories about the folks who were influential in Astoria history, and the biggest surprise for me was the strong influence of the Finnish population that dominated the fishing and canning industry here in the early part of the century.

Being a Wednesday, during the winter season, we were disappointed to see that many of the cute little shops we remembered from 2004 were closed for the day, and the main street just didn’t have enough zing to get us out of the car to stroll and shop. I think I may have been a bit shop worn from the previous quilt run anyway. Instead, we wandered around some of the side roads, attempting to get a feel for the folks who live here, and found that the north facing very steep slope that is so visible along the river and from the highway is just a taste of the winding back streets that lead to charming neighborhoods filled with 20’s style Craftsman homes and less charming subdivisions filled with 70’s ranch style houses. Astoria is bigger than it looks!

Our trip out of town led us back toward Business 101 instead of the main freeway, and we wandered among wetlands and idle agricultural land for a few miles to discover we were right on the road to Fort Clatsop. In our Lewis and Clark National and State Historic Park brochure, Fort Clatsop was among the main park sites, scattered on both sides of the Columbia in Oregon and Washington, so we were delighted to have found it without any effort at all.

The visitor center was lovely, with a great movie about Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Capt. William Clark, who were only 29 and 33 years old when they departed from St Louis at the order of President Thomas Jefferson to find the most direct water route to the Pacific, making scientific and geographic observations along the way. Even though a Lewis and Clark fan for many years, I newly discovered that Sacagawea was NOT along on the trip for any kind of guidance, but was more an emissary to the various tribes the Corps encountered, proving that they were coming in peace since they had a woman in their party.

I also learned the the Corps of Discovery, and the Lewis and Clark expedition, was the forerunner to our present day Army Corps of Engineers. I have two distinct impressions of the COE. The best impression is of the wonderful campgrounds that we enjoy thanks to the COE. The other impression is one held a long time by university earth scientist types who hold up really horrendous examples of COE projects that didn’t take into account any kind of common sense. My favorite geology prof in college always showed dramatic slide shows of landslides precipitated by COE projects cutting of the toe slope of some great mountain along the Salmon River and then wondering why the road kept getting buried.

The Fort Clatsop site is fascinating and lovely, and as I stood at the spot where the explorers set their canoes for the home trip back to St Louis, it was easy to imagine it was 1806. The expedition wintered at this fort, of course now a replica stands here, but the stories of their winter and their interactions with the Clatsop people was fascinating. I was curious, though, as to why we hear so much about their trip to the Pacific, and very little about the trip home. Interpreters at the center got into a lively discussion about this, and one of them thought it was probably because the fun was over and they were basically really bored on the trip home. Sound like RV bloggers maybe?

We then backtracked past Camp Rilea to explore Seaside, a town that is definitely NOT the answer to Carmel. Seaside is more funky and down to earth, with a very long beach and a lot of touristy shops and souvenirs. Again, on this windy, cold, midweek winter day, it was quiet, with many shops closed, but I did slip into the Carousel Mall to see the famous carousel, one of the big attractions in the summer. Interestingly, the carousel is inside rather out in a park, so that is a testament to the possible windy, cold conditions of this part of the Oregon coast, no matter what time of year you visit.

Tomorrow we leave Camp Rilea and travel north across the famous bridge at Astoria, to cross the Columbia and explore more of the National Park sites on our way to Long Beach, Washington.

The Mighty Columbia

(This post is from February 21 and 22 )

After two days of quilt shopping all along the Oregon Coast, it was time for us to relax back into our original plan to explore places yet unseen by both of us. Fort Stevens, Fort Clatsop, Astoria, and Long Beach on the Oregon Coast all have one thing in common. The incredible history of Lewis and Clark and their journey to the Pacific is the thread that ran through the rest of our time during our coastal road trip. Being winter, the beaches were beautiful, but cold and windy, and lazy beachcombing explorations were cut short when we would look at each other and say, “OK, Enough!”

Mo’s family, originally from North Dakota, relocated to the small mill town of Columbia City on the Columbia River north of Portland when she was just a toddler. She grew up with that truly mighty river in her backyard, a playground for homemade wooden rafts and watching the passing freighters. In spite of this, she doesn’t remember thinking much about the passage of Lewis and Clark down that same river.

I relocated to Idaho in my late 20’s and spent the next 25 years or so mapping soils throughout Lewis and Clark territory, sometimes actually walking on the trails they walked north of the Lochsa River and over Lolo Pass, and having lunch at Canoe Camp along the Clearwater. I mapped Nez Perce lands and in the process learned much about their interaction with the Corps of Discovery. I was fascinated then by their story, and for me this trip to the final destination of that amazing journey was extra special.

Our campsite at Fort Stevens was cloaked in mist when we woke on Tuesday morning. Our plan was to explore a bit and then move south to Camp Rilea, a Military Family Camp with full hookups and good television for a mere $20 per day. I can see why Fort Stevens is such a popular camp in the summer, with more than 500 spacious sites, lots of history and long stretches of open beach. For us, on this windy and cloudy morning, we decided to first check out the wreck of the Peter Iredale, one of the more than 2,000 ships claimed by the treacherous Columbia River bar since 1792, earning the bar the name “Graveyard of the Pacific”.

We had the beach to ourselves, and I worked very hard to get my photos to show something other than a seriously gray landscape. Even Abby wasn’t too interested in running on the cold, wet beach. The sands on this part of the Oregon coast are much finer as well, and darker in color, so with all the storms, the water was thick and muddy as the waves crashed inland.

Following our map of things to see at Fort Stevens, we drove north to the South Jetty and the ocean and wildlife viewing platforms at Clatsop Spit. As we approached the jetty, huge waves were crashing over the rocks and we were glad for the viewing platform to at least get a glimpse of the wild ocean.

The north and south jetties at the mouth of the river were built between 1885 and 1895 and served to keep beach sand from clogging the river. The sands have built up over time and the shoreline is now actually a full mile farther west than it was when Lewis and Clark arrived in 1805.

We drove through the State Historic Site portion of the park, with it’s tiny museum, but chose to continue to one of the historic batteries to get out and explore. Fort Stevens was actually constructed in 1862 during the Civil War and remained active until shortly after World War II. Although the guns have been removed, the concrete batteries remain.

We climbed the moss covered steps of Battery Russel and walked alone among what was left of our nation’s defense against a Japanese invasion. In fact, Fort Stevens was the only military installation on the continental United States to have been fired upon since the war of 1812. If you enlarge the photo on the left, (by clicking on it) you can read the information on the sign we found at the site. There is so much to see at Fort Stevens, and I can see how lovely it might be on a summer day, but because of the season, we had it almost all to ourselves. I know the weather here can be iffy any time of year, however, so even a summer trip would require plans for rain and wind and fog.

With most of the morning gone, it was time to get back to the rig and move our camp south to Camp Rilea. Just a couple miles south of Fort Stevens, Camp Rilea is an armed forces training camp first established for the National Guard in 1927. Even though there were only ten sites, all on pavement, I think we enjoyed it more than any other MFC we have visited. Once settled into our spot at the end of the line, we had wide open view of the pristine white buildings and red roofs surrounded by acres and acres of perfectly mowed grass, occasionally dotted with a large herd of Roosevelt elk that casually wandered through the grounds.

Once again settled in, we decided to return via Highway 101 to Cannon Beach, where I hoped to get a view and a photo of the famous Haystack Rock, the oft photographed icon of the Oregon Coast. By the time we got there, it was late afternoon, but in spite of the rain and wind, there were a few hardy souls walking on the beach and exploring the town that calls itself the Oregon coast answer to California’s Carmel. With some effort, we found beach access and walked down to the famous sea stack.

Cannon Beach was delightful, even in the rain, but Mo waited in the misted up car with Abby while I explored beautiful galleries and colorful candy shops. We then found the historic Driftwood Inn just in time for a happy hour Irish Coffee before going back north in the waning evening light.

Tomorrow: Astoria, Fort Clatsop, and Seaside