The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

May at Home in Rocky Point

(Remember to hover your mouse over photos for captions or click on them for the larger version)

I love May. It seems that no matter where I live, or where I am, May is the month that brings out the best in me. October is probably a close second. When I make travel plans for the best time to be just about anywhere, it is usually May or October. Sometimes, though, here in the Klamath Basin, May can be a mixed blessing. This year we had beautiful days early in the month, and of course, when Memorial Day rolled around, it decided to snow. I laughed and thought, “What’s new?” Snow in the basin on Memorial Day is only a touch more predictable than snow on the Fourth of July.

Once we arrived home with the MoHo after our meandering Covered Bridge Tour, life just settled in to a daily routine of gardening, cleaning up “stuff”, and working at my “real” job. (I may not have that real job much longer after the end of the fiscal year September 30, so I am trying to appreciate it instead of complaining about having to go to work all the time). How dare I complain anyway!? The job is something I love to do and I get to do it from home in my jammies if I want to most of the time.

I think it took the two of us the better part of a week to get the MoHo completely cleaned up after all our winter travels. It was nice to get her back home where I could really vacuum and scrub and clean the cupboards out, while Mo washed and shined the outside. She looks beautiful, (the MoHo) although now the spring pollen is coming and I see a light film of yellow on that shiny exterior, even with her tucked away in her shed.

In spite of the sketchy weather, May is the month when Mo and I spend most of our time cleaning up what is left of winter and getting ready for the prettiest time of year. We live in a beautiful forest, and that beautiful forest means we have beautiful (or not so beautiful) pine needles everywhere. Lots of them. It seems we are raking pine needles year round and my least favorite job is picking pine needles out of the rocky paths that meander around the property under the trees.

In the midst of chores, we took some time off for a little Mom’s day celebration at my daughter’s home. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and it was wonderful to be treated to a lovely brunch and some delightful family time. The following weekend we attended the annual Taste of Klamath celebration. Our little town has a lovely theater, and each year the “Taste” benefits the Ross Ragland and we get to amble around eating amazing little bites of various restaurant tastings and drinking our ten tickets worth of wine. It is always fun, and as often happens, the sun left and the skies clouded up for the event. Thankfully, most of the food is now inside the theater and under big tents.

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The days flew by, faster than we could track, with lots of time spent each day working away in the gardens, raking, digging, planting, cleaning, more raking and more cleaning. In between, when the skies were rainy, I took some time to quilt and to knit, and even managed to finish a little blanket for an as yet unborn baby girl coming to Mo’s family.

We traveled back over to Grants Pass one day to look around at some ideas for winter storage for the MoHo and pick up some plants from my favorite nursery, and discovered a magnificent restaurant on the banks of the Rogue River. The morning we left, the snow was coming down at home, but Grants Pass was sunny and gorgeous and it was a great respite from the cold. I had no idea there was such a beautiful park right on the north bank of the river and the Taprock Northwest Grill was incredibly beautiful. I could see why the town is touted as the “Best River Town in America”.

Finally, as the month drew to a close, the weather started to warm up for real, and on June 1st, the morning dawned sunny and bright with daytime temperatures expected to be in the 80’s. Plants were waiting to be planted, mulch was waiting to be spread, more needles were waiting to be picked out of the rocks and instead we just said, “It is TIME!”

There is nothing quite as wonderful as getting out on the water so close to home. So little effort, really, just the ability to walk away from the chores and take advantage of our beautiful location minutes from Pelican Bay on Klamath Lake. The snow on Mt McLoughlin was brilliant, the water was clear and the lake is up and the wocus had just started to bloom.

We heard more birds than we saw, with blue herons, great egrets, and sandhill cranes all calling in the tall bulrushes but staying well hidden except for a single heron feeding along the edge of the marsh. I saw at least 50 white pelicans soaring high in the distance toward the north but none where we were paddling on this sunny morning. It was a perfect time on the water and once back home I happily finished up a few garden chores before relaxing into the evening.

This morning we woke to weather alerts saying that the snow level is dropping to 4500 feet on Tuesday morning and the temperatures are dropping to 28 degrees. Sigh. I have just finished planting a ridiculous number of tender annuals in my flower beds and tomatoes and beans are in the greenhouse. The hot tub needed her bi annual cleaning and we thought it might be nice to get it done before the snow hits again. Mo repaired and painted the garden furniture while I finished scrubbing out the tub.

It seems as though I have traveled to town entirely too many times this month, especially with gasoline still running 4.29 per gallon for regular here in Klamath. What’s with that?!? Only in the east has the price actually been falling but the news keeps saying how great it is that gas is going down. Down? not here! I still have been driving in to work a couple of times a week, and then having to make a few additional trips with the small trailer to pick up loads of nice fine bark mulch for the flower beds.

On the way home yesterday, I stopped to check out the new interpretive signs installed along Highway 140 on Doak Mountain, my route to and from town. We do live in a magical area, and the signs reminded me again how special this part of the world really is. When driving that route so often, sometimes I just wish I lived closer to town and forget just how many folks would come to drive the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway for recreation. Even as many times as I drive this road, every time I come over Doak Mountain and look out over the lake, I feel a tug on my heart. It is home, it is beautiful, I am so lucky to live here.

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June 1 Back on the water at Rocky Point

It takes about 5 minutes to get down to the boat launch from home. On a warm, sunny, gorgeous day, we looked at each other and said, “Gardening? Housework? Time to get the boats on the lake!” And that is exactly what we did.

Who has time to write anything when waters like this are waiting just around the corner?

I will write something soon, of course. Don’t want to forget what we have been doing lately! Till then…..

The Bridge of Marion County

After so many days wandering the back roads of Oregon, searching for bridges, we decided to spend our last day out taking things easy. One lovely bridge was on our agenda for the morning after a great rainy day breakfast at “The Gathering Spot” . On the menu were crepes with Black Forest Ham and swiss with arugula, and home fries with fresh baked pastries. I even had a perfect cappuccino with floral designs in the foam in a big ceramic cup.

Before traveling north the short distance from Silverton to the bridge, we walked around town a little bit, checking out the antique stores and a few other shops. I still don’t quite understand why there are always antique stores in these little towns. Is it a low overhead to run an “antique” store? Most of the stuff was certainly less than antique…more like oldish and used.

Gallon House Covered Bridge was one of the older bridges we saw on this trip, built in 1916. We now recognized the old Howe trusses, and noticed that the portal was large and square, an indication that it had been redone to accommodate bigger logging rigs over the years. The roof was especially lovely, fresh with new lumber from a recent restoration.

Back to the park for a relaxing afternoon in the rain with books and movies felt wonderful after all the running around we had been doing. Silver Spur RV Park was a good place to be on a rainy day. The park was only about 1/3 full, with the majority of rigs grouped along the upper boundary near the fishing pond. The lower area with huge pull-through sites was nearly empty. We found out later that the upper sites are for longer stays with metered electricity. In spite of the cloudy skies, the rain came and went and made everything look so fresh and clean.

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The next morning we planned a visit to the beautiful Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, right on the way via the back roads from Silverton to Mo’s brother’s place in Beaver Creek. Our trip was coming to a close, with a night at Dan’s spent visiting family and picking up the log splitter that Mo had taken there previously to benefit from Dan’s amazing welding expertise. We were treated to the most amazing display of tulips I have ever seen at the farm.

Even though the “official” dates for the Woodburn Tulip Festival ended last weekend, the fields and store were still open for a few more days before closing up shop until fall for the Pumpkin Festival. Most of the huge fields of early tulips were long finished, but the display of late tulips still in bloom were breathtaking. Mo especially enjoyed the old wood burning steam powered tractors.

After spending a relaxing night at Dan’s, we put on our traveling shoes and headed straight home down I-5 and 140 over the pass to Rocky Point. Using the power of the MoHo to pull the trailer loaded up with the splitter, I followed along in the Tracker. Not a speck of ambling, even though we knew there were bridges waiting for us near Myrtle Creek and other points south that we hadn’t yet explored. Another time. We were like horses going to the barn, ready to get back to Rocky Point to see if our very own tulips had opened. Sure enough, all was well, and we didn’t miss that ephemeral moment of tulips in full bloom.

Six Covered Bridges East of Salem

This is the last time I am going to post this paragraph! Just in case you haven’t seen it already.

Clicking on the linked bridge names will take you to Bridgehunter.com with historical information about each bridge, location maps and photos. Hovering with your mouse over the photos will give you the name of the bridge as well. Again, the google map and link to our tour is here. My picasaweb/google photo albums have many additional photos of the bridges and our trip.

As someone noted in a recent comment, the Benton Oaks RV Park was a fairly pricey stay. Although expensive, we wanted a location central to the western area bridges and the fairgrounds were the cheapest deal around. We really weren’t up for boondocking in cold rain in the forest, and were glad at least for electricity to power the little electric heater we have for cold nights. It is so much nicer and quieter than the big noisy furnace.

Corvallis is the home of Oregon State University (the black and orange colors for the Beavers are sooo much prettier than that yellow and green Duck thing (University of Oregon). Just thought I might mention that for a couple of my more regular readers. 🙂 Very important that folks don’t mix up OSU and O.

As is often the case in a university town, expenses are high. In fact, Corvallis has the highest cost of living of any community in Oregon. It is a beautiful small city, with a vibrant and interesting downtown with lots of restaurants, breweries, great local shopping venues, and a fantastic live theater. Of course, not as fantastic as the one in Albany, but darn nice. (Yeah, my daughter sang and acted at Albany Civic Theater for years.)

It also has a beautiful quilt store, and of course I had to check it out. Again I was thrilled at the incredible variety of fabrics and styles and came away with another pile of amazing gorgeous fabric. Who knows when I will ever get a chance to actually quilt it, but my newbie stash is growing exponentially.

After our two day stay in the somewhat funky expensive campground, we decided to head for Silverton and the fairly new Silver Spur RV Park, one of the few parks in the area that honors our Passport America discount. Being the middle of the week, we didn’t worry about a reservation and simply knew that after a long day of bridge hunting, we had a nice park to go to with all the amenities we might need for half the price of what we paid to stay in Corvallis.

There are six bridges not far east of the interstate north of Albany and south of Salem. I had some difficulty trying to map out a route that didn’t include a bit of backtracking, so we just let it be and backtracked as needed.

Our first bridge of the day was the Hoffman Bridge near Crabtree, (pictured in the first collage above). Not far from Crabtree, this bridge is on a main route to the highway, and with its asphalt decking seemed to be pretty popular with bikers. Instead of worrying about dogs this time I had to be careful to stay out of the way of the bikers when I was taking photos. The route to the Larwood Covered Bridge (above) was a bit less straightforward. We had dropped the MoHo off at a wide spot in the road just before the Crabtree bridge (which was a good thing since it only had a 10.5 foot clearance!) and picked it up before traveling east to find Larwood and the Roaring River. I was driving the MoHo and Mo was following in the baby car as we attempted to find a place to turn around. In the entire six miles from the highway to the Larwood bridge there wasn’t a single turnout, wide place, or even a road to turn around at all. Crabtree Creek at Larwood Bridge Instead, we drove all the way with both rigs, and thankfully there was parking on the far side of the Larwood Bridge at the most lovely little park I have seen in a long time. We stayed there a long time, enjoying the river, the park, and the beautiful setting of this lovely open bridge.

The GPS wasn’t much help, but I had cell service and was able to navigate back to the highway and the town of Scio without having to turn around. Wandering the back roads of Linn County gave us a chance to see some lovely farms and fields, freshened by the spring rains.

Back to the town of Scio, we once again left the MoHo parked in town and drove the few miles to the Gilkey Covered Bridge (above) about 3 miles back west along Goar Road. The countryside was lovely, and Gilkey was another bridge with open sides showing off the weathered trusses. In addition, the roof rafters were still visible and quite lovely. More bikers were using this country road as well and enjoying the asphalt paving. Of course, after seeing so many bridges with wooden pavers, we didn’t appreciate the asphalt as much as the bikers did.

Returning to Scio, we passed the MoHo parked safely along a side street, and drove 6.5 miles back east toward the Hannah Covered Bridge (above). Another open sided bridge with visible trusses and an asphalt deck near an open road, the redeeming quality of Hannah was its beautiful setting on Thomas Creek.

In all our circling around, we had actually passed the Shimanek Covered Bridge (above) twice, seeing it from the main road and decided that we would visit it last. Just a few hundred yards north of the highway, this little red bridge somehow only seemed “OK” to us. Easily found, with asphalt sporting a yellow line down the middle, and fresh red paint, I only took one photo of this little bridge. The traffic was coming and going and there was no place to stand with a camera that felt very safe.

For our last bridge of the day we drove north of Scio to the town of Stayton. I had never been to Stayton before and was surprised to discover a delightful, clean, charming little town tucked away amid green fields and open roads. The lovely Stayton-Jordan bridge (photo above and collage below) is housed in the city park and has a great story. It was built, lost, saved, moved, rebuilt, lost again, and then finally rebuilt again.

From Bridgehunter:

“Prior to 1986, the Jordan Bridge spanned Thomas Creek in neighboring Linn County several miles east of Scio. The original bridge location had once been the site for a dam, a cheese factory, two mills and a general store.

When Linn County announced the aging Jordan Bridge was to be replaced in 1986, Stayton residents asked if they could take title to the structure. A covered bridge preservation company was formed, enlisting the help of numerous volunteers and Marine Corps reservists for the 6th Engineering Battalion in Salem. The span was rebuilt over the Salem Power Canal to serve as a foot bridge connecting two parks. The process of rebuilding the Jordan Bridge occupied nearly two years, culminating in a dedication ceremony in June 1988.

In the Tuesday, December 27, 1994, edition of The Stayton Mail, the headlines read “A community dream in ashes.” The bridge had caught fire December 20th at 2:00 AM when Christmas lights ignited the roof. Photos of the still standing charred trusses depicted the scene. The city decided to demolish the trusses and burn what remained of the bridge.

Local citizens toiled throughout 1997 and 1998 to construct a new covered bridge at the site. The new bridge incorporates glue laminated members for added strength and was dedicated in September 1998.”

Next Post: Silverton, the Woodburn Tulip Farm, and the last bridge of our trip

Six Covered Bridges, Corvallis and Points West

Are you getting tired of this paragraph yet? Ha! I still have two more groups of bridges to write about!

What a wonderful night we spent at River Bend! Everything was incredibly quiet until the storm came and the skies clouded up. We took our time getting on the road since it was a bit of a gloomy morning and the MoHo was all cozy and comfy. Traveling west on US20 toward Lebanon was uneventful and we continued on US34 across the interstate toward Corvallis. We chose the Benton Oaks RV Park at the Benton County Fairgrounds as our resting place for another two days of bridge hunting. When we arrived, the park manager was off site, but quickly answered his phone with instructions for choosing a site. We managed to get settled in just before the heavy rains started up again.

Benton Oaks is an adequate park, but for a county fairgrounds park, certainly not cheap at $34 per night. That included full hookups, WiFi which was surprisingly good when it worked, and cable tv which had about 20 channels. I gave up on the WiFi and hooked up my Verizon MiFi instead and we watched local news to catch up on what had been going on in the world during our several days without TV. Not much! Somehow, with the storms and pouring rain, I completely forgot to take any photos of this park.

Harris Covered Bridge near Wren With a long afternoon ahead, we decided to travel west to the little town of Wren and the Harris Covered Bridge (above). We drove west along US20 through the little town of Philomath and down a back roadway to the bridge. Once again we were very happy to be in the Tracker, since the road was narrow and the bridge small, even with its 27 ton load limit. As we have discovered, often there is some kind of home or dwelling near the bridges, and this time it was the Harris Bridge Winery. I have learned to watch for dogs and people when I get out of the car to check out the bridges!

Returning to Corvallis, I discovered to my delight that the Irish Bend Covered Bridge (above) was just half a mile from our campground on the Oregon State University Campus. With the winds blowing and huge black storm clouds threatening, we decided to walk the campus trail before the weather turned any worse. It was so beautiful, and the sun came and went at perfect moments and the rain once again held off until we were back home.

I tend to get a bit low when it is gloomy, but somehow the rainy skies that greeted us on our second morning in Corvallis didn’t trouble me at all. The nice thing about these spring rains is that there are shifts and changes in the light, the sun comes and goes, the rains dump for awhile and then everything is brilliantly green and backlit. Still, when I woke up to another rainy day, I was really happy that we had the bridge hunt to keep us occupied. If we had planned a lot of hiking, biking, and kayaking on this trip as we usually do, we might have been disappointed!

We traveled west along US34 toward Alcea to see the Hayden Covered Bridge. As usual, there was a farmhouse nearby and a beautiful old barn silhouetted against the dark skies. We were even treated to a large herd of elk grazing near the river.

Hayden Bridge at Alcea We then found the forest road that led to the Fisher School Bridge, several miles along a narrow but paved route that let to one of the sweetest little bridges around. The fresh red paint and the obvious love that went into the restoration of the remote little bridge was endearing.

Leaving the Fisher Bridge, we thought perhaps we could find our way to the coast over the mountains to the North Fork Yachats Bridge, but after several unfruitful attempts to find the road (even with the GPS) we gave up and drove back north to Highway 34. It was only another 20 miles or so to Waldport and then just another few miles to Yachats, so once more we decided we could cheat a little bit and go back to our beloved Oregon Coast. Even on this rainy day, after being away for a few days, the ocean looked incredible.

We meandered into Yachats and then up the river to the North Yachats River Covered Bridge. I may start to sound a bit repetitive because again, THIS was one of my favorites. Another one!. The neighborhood seemed a bit “iffy” with all sorts of creative looking dwellings tucked in along the river, but it was another piece of Oregon I have never seen, as many times as we have passed through Yachats. The other really wonderful part about this remote little bridge was the old growth huge Douglas-fir growing on the slope just south of the bridge. Truly a magical little setting. From Bridgehunter:

“Located just seven miles from the salt water of the Pacific Ocean, this trim little bridge is one of the few to escape the “graffiti artists” so common in many other covered bridges. Since the covered span is the only access for families in the area, the bridge roof was removed to allow a mobile home to cross in the early 1980s. In 1987, a loaded fuel truck crashed through a weakened approach on the bridge and the accident ruptured a fuel tank. Luckily, no fuel reached the river, and county crews soon repaired damage to the bridge. The bridge was rehabilitated in 1989 when work crews replaced the trusses and approaches. A new roof and siding were also added.”

I t was getting a bit toward mid-afternoon, and the leftover quesadillas were a bit cold though adequate for a traveling lunch. Then again, we WERE on the coast, and what is best on the coast? Clam chowder of course. As we crossed the bridge into Newport we decided that a bit of chowder at the original Mo’s would be a perfect afternoon treat. Now I heard someone, a blogger or two, recently unhappy with Mo’s chowder, maybe Laurie? Of course, Laurie is a true foodie, with exquisite taste, but I still love Mo’s and on this cold rainy day, it didn’t disappoint in the least. The chowder was potato-ey, and creamy but not too much so, perfectly seasoned, and loaded with lots of tender juicy pink clams. For dessert I succumbed to the famous Mo’s marionberry cobbler. Ahhhh. Not gooey or sticky, just perfectly sweet fat huge marionberries and tender cobbler crust. Topped off with a great cup of coffee, we were ready for the last bridge of the day.

Back on the road, we traveled the familiar route along 101 from Yachats to Newport and again headed east toward Corvallis on US20. The Chitwood Covered Bridge is just off the highway spanning the Yaquina River about 20 miles east of the coast. It is one of those bridges that actually has a street view on google. It was a pretty red bridge, but with its accessible location and utter visibility there wasn’t a great deal of excitement when we found it. Do you suppose it was because it was the end of a long rainy day? We were happy to roll into the fairgrounds in time for a bit of relaxation with our 20 meager channels of television before getting ready to roll to a new campground the next morning.

Next post: Six bridges east of Salem