The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

September 6 Broaden your horizons, with KFSL

Fossil, Oregon: Rain and 56 degrees F

We had big plans for today, following winding roads slipping through John Day Country, seeking out one of the more distant units of the John Day Fossil Beds. Instead, this morning it is raining, and we are listening to….cowboy rap….bluegrass…blues…with a bit of jazz thrown in for good measure. This is why people should travel, it broadens your horizons. Not just those big city travel destination kind of horizons, but the small, not so backward farm town kind of horizons.

Where else could you eat your breakfast listening to someone sing about the joys of “Home Grown Tomatoes”, and then a gravelly crazy guy playing an incredible acoustic guitar while he talks about his therapist telling him “there’s something damaged and something missing” and his brain is stuck in the on position and he is stuck in his brain behind his face?? Then comes along a cowboy singing about his mother reading him the Bible.

We could be home watching the news and doing a normal life, but instead we are in the Wheeler County Fairgrounds in the tiny town of Fossil, with only one available radio station, no TV, no internet, no phone even. Instead, we get this great DJ with a great sense of humor, and a few home grown ads thrown in for KFSL radio, and Fossil Mercantile, locally owned and operated. Where in the world does he find music like this?

It is raining and gray today. The road to Fossil yesterday, along another Oregon Scenic Byway, Journey Through Time, however, was bright and clear once we left the Cascades behind us. There are a couple of ways to get to the John Day Fossil Beds, and when planning this trip, I discovered that no matter where we stayed, no matter how we navigated our visit, there would be lots of backtracking.

It seemed that Fossil, and the Wheeler County Fairgrounds would be a good starting point, so we routed up Highway 97 17 miles beyond Madras, to turn east toward Fossil on a less traveled road than the easier Highway 26 route to John Day. The road was fine, narrow, winding, with lots of ups and downs and more than a few drop offs that always make this passenger a bit testy.

Mo is a great driver, and in my head I know things are fine, but that doesn’t stop the adrenaline from running and the body from tensing up as I look at the no shoulder cliffs right below me in the passenger seat. I would rather drive than ride on these kinds of roads, but it was a Mo driving Day.

Last night we had wild thunderstorms to accompany our return drive to the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds. We passed by earlier in the day, deciding that we would return the 20 miles or so to hike after we settled into the fairgrounds. I was hoping for that great sunset light that makes for non-ordinary photos.

The Wheeler County Fairgrounds are up on a hill above the tiny town, and we have a view of the surrounding hills, two beautiful white church steeples out the windows and an American flag flying high above the field below us. There is an empty trailer next door, and another one down the way, our only other neighbors in this 12 spot campground. There are plain envelopes at the old wooden kiosk to use for depositing your 25 fee in the box. It says 3 bucks to dump and 3 bucks to use the bathrooms, but we won’t need either. Our site has electric, water, and sewer.

Yesterday, when we arrived, it was 98 degrees and we were happy to have the air conditioning to cool things down for Jeremy before we drove back to the Clarno beds. The storm was incredibly black, and we looked at each other thinking…hmmm…a hike? Not so sure I want to hike in a thunderstorm, but we decided to give it a try anyway.

On the way, we thought it might be nice to try a back road instead of retracing our path along 218, but the road was hidden and unmarked, and I missed it. It was a good thing I did. Another mile down the highway I saw a guy walking across the road to his barn and stopped to ask him where Stone Cabin Road might be. He laughed, and said, “I have seen that Gazateer map twice now, and it’s wrong. That was the road back there and it is a dead end.” He turned out to be a great guy, owning a juniper log mill, and is the one who did the gorgeous posts on the shelters at the Clarno Beds parking area.

He also showed us another side route along Cottonwood Creek where we could go up and down the mountains and see elk and bobcat and something different as we wound our way back to 218. We checked out our planned route to the Painted Hills Unit portion of the monument with him and were happy to find that in fact, it really went through. Always nice to check with the locals, especially friendly ones.

We didn’t see any elk or bobcats, but did see a large group of big mule deer. By the time we intersected again with the highway, the rain was coming down in earnest. Then it started pouring, and as I rounded a curve it looked literally like someone was dumping a giant bucket of water on the road in front of me. I don’t think I have driven through that kind of rain in a long time. OK then, we are going to hike in the Clarno Beds unit…

I have no idea how this happens for us, but when we got to the parking area, the rain let up. Then it stopped completely and there was even a bit of bright light to illuminate the gorgeous palisades.

Just heard this as I am writing accompanied by music and words I have never heard before. “With 100 watts of antenna melting power, KFSL, spanning the expanse from Butte Creek to something or other Summit” . Then after this little ditty, comes another saying “KFSL, a non profit radio station supported by donations from….” OK Then, they never said public radio, but this seems to me to be the very best use of public not for profit radio, a small town where radio would be non existent without it. So far there hasn’t been a speck of news or even a weather report. Hmmmm.

Back to our visit to the Clarno Beds. With no rain in sight, and thunder in the far distant north, we took off on the short Trail of the Fossils, where the signs indicated that with each step we were crossing about 37,000 years. We traveled back in geologic time to 50 million years ago, when the area was a thick lush tropical forest, much like what is found in Panama now. Fossils of more than 300 species of plants have been found here, including nuts and berries. The Clarno Nut Beds and The Hancock Mammal Quarry are the highlights of the Clarno Unit, but neither of these areas are yet open to the public. What?

Ah well, the short hike to the Palisades was beautiful and interesting. There are actually three short trails in the area south of the Palisades, but we decided against climbing the slippery rocky trail up to the base of the arch in the cliffs. The huge lightning strike just across the valley had a lot to do with that decision as well. I know if you even hear thunder it is time to seek shelter, and shelter was a long way back to the car. At least our hair wasn’t standing on end, but the more I read about lightning, the less I like being out in it.

We got back to the car just in time to miss the downpour. How lucky is that?! And I didn’t get struck by lightning either. Winding back along highway 218 to Fossil we had a bit better understanding of the lay of the land. With the ups and downs and winding roads it is very easy to get disoriented here. Obviously, the maps don’t always tell the story, either.

It was a great day, and I can tell from this morning’s entertainment, this day will be great as well, whether it rains or not. We adjusted our plans from hiking in the Painted Hills Unit to driving south toward the Sheep Rock Unit where we can spend some time in the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center.

Next: Sheep Rock Unit and some great hikes

September 5 Mackenzie Pass Magic

Cloudy and 58 degrees

I woke up on this cloudy morning wondering what happened to all the stars I saw during the night, but it was still warm enough we didn’t need any heat in the rig to be comfortable. My back felt great! We took our time with a simple breakfast and turned on the generator. No worries, not another soul in the campground to be disturbed by us, even at 7 AM!

Our planned route for the day was over Highway 126, toward the Historic Mackenzie Pass Road, and into the sunny eastern part of Oregon at Fossil. Daughter Deanna and her husband Keith took a break from truck driving recently to take the Harleys out of storage and do a road trip from Tri-Cities to Eugene. They traveled over Mackenzie Pass and Deanna warned me that there was a 35 foot total limit on rigs going over that road.

I thought, no problem, we have been over this route before. I was wrong, however. We haven’t been on this road in the MoHo. Nothing seemed familiar. Sure enough, as we turned onto the historic road 242, more signs warned of the 35 foot limit. We are just over 44 feet total from bumper to bumper with the Tracker hooked up, but we thought, “No problem, we have been on far worse roads, I am sure”

Well, so much for that! As we continued up the road, we came to another open gate and a very large sign with very bright blinking lights that notified us, “OVERLENGTH VEHICLE DETECTED!!” Capitals intentional, that sign was doing everything but yelling. Okay then. We thought maybe it might be a good idea to unhook before continuing over the Mackenzie Pass Highway. This is one of the reasons that we chose a motorhome instead of a truck and fiver, we can unhook and BOTH parts of our setup can be driven in tight situations. Has worked out in the past for us, and it worked out again today.

It was a gorgeous drive, deep and dark under the overcast skies, with forest thick and lush as any you might find in the rain forest. The pavement was surprisingly perfect, with brand new yellow lines, but of course, no shoulders. Our dual tires just fit between the center line and the edge of the road, and yes, there were a few places where the Tracker may have been a bit too much. But I still think we would have made it OK. Monitor Pass from California down to 395 was much more difficult, and we didn’t encounter any over-length signs on that road at all. Still, it is good to follow the rules most of the time at least.

Once near the summit, we encountered huge lava flows and distant view of Belknap Crater across the black expanse. Since I was driving the baby car, I stayed behind to take photos while Mo continued to the summit.

Another huge surprise on this road that we never drove before was the Dee Wright mountain observatory built by the CCC in the 30’s. I’ll let the photos tell the story.

The observatory is beautiful, and even on the slightly overcast day, we could see most of the mountains through the labeled portals inside the observatory. I think that the legacy of what the CCC created is one of our greatest treasures. It saddens me that today we can’t manage to do anything of this magnitude with our tax money.

The Observatory is right at the summit of the pass, and the narrow road continues down and east toward Sisters. I followed along in the Tracker, waiting for an opportune moment to hook back up, and was surprised that it was a very short time before we were actually in Sisters, where we pulled over and hooked up the car to continue east toward Redmond. Hi again, Loree! Once again we are in Redmond and you are still traveling back home from your journey east. Eventually we are going to get together!

Next post: Highway 126 to 97 to 293 to 218 to Fossil Oregon and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

September 4 If a Tree Falls In the Woods…

Delta Campground on the Mackenzie River Overcast and 58 degrees F

…and if no one is there, does it make a sound? According to our camp host at Delta Campground, it not only makes a sound but it shakes the ground like a large earthquake. Lucky for us, this happened in site 28, and we are camped in site 21. Of course, lucky for us as well, it happened last May, although even more lucky for the campers in site 27 when this giant ancient cedar went down.

I guess that is one of the wonders of an old growth forest, technically more the 200 years old, but this one has trees up to 1000 years old tucked away. It is amazing to see what an old growth Douglas-fir forest actually looks like, since almost all of our forests in the west have been cut or burned over in the last couple of hundred years.

So, how did we end up on the Mackenzie River on the west side of the Cascades when our travels were taking us east to the John Day country? Two words: Junction City. Fellow RV’rs who come west are probably familiar with this RV sale and repair location in Oregon. For us, Guaranty RV in Junction City is where Mo found the first baby MoHo back in 2005. A sweet little used 2001 21 foot Dynamax Starflyte, the baby MoHo served us well, and hooked us on the Dynamax brand.

We have had our “new” MoHo for nearly six years now, and she has served us exceptionally well. However, there are just a couple of little things that after six years we have decided to change. For one, the mattress was one of those cheap things with old springs that would sag to the plywood foundation with a little weight. We added a memory foam topper, but it still sagged and was the source of many a 2am Advil run for me.

New mattress on the agenda! I had researched online a bit, and came up with a specially made mattress for about 800 bucks, including shipping. Seemed a bit spendy, but cost was irrelevant when it came to my back.

Second thing that we finally decided to change was our lovely leather FlexSteel sofa that makes out into a queen sized air bed. Beautiful sofa. We never once made out the bed. When we first got the MoHo it looked so nice and classy. And it is comfortable enough, but really just for one person who wants to stretch out and watch tv. The seat is curved in a way that makes the middle the only easy place to sit, and of course when company comes we bring in the folding chairs. Our driving and passenger seat don’t swivel.

We have some nice little folding tables that we bring out for meals, but the configuration isn’t really optimum. Solution? Let’s get one of those big u-shaped dinette units that we see in some of the newer rigs! So again, a little research led me to Countryside RV Interiors in Junction City. They didn’t have those big FlexSteel units, but would gladly build us a very nice U shaped dinette for about 5,000. Yeah, that is dollars!

Hmmm, maybe not. We looked around a bit more, and Mo found this great looking dinette from Flexsteel that still makes down into a bed in case we might need one for whatever reason. The leather matches our existing driving and passenger seats, and there are drawers for a bit of storage as well. We took the MoHo over to Junction City for consultation, measurements, and we ordered the nifty FlexSteel unit, scheduled to arrive in October sometime. Just a little over half what the custom made unit would have cost us.

Steve and Terri at Countryside Interiors are great, they have a good inventory, and can order anything and install it for you. They pointed us to American Mattress in Eugene to find a mattress. They actually make mattresses there, and have an entire showroom for testing. The salesman tried to point me to different kinds of foam, but I know they will break down and I wanted a real coil mattress. Finally I found a firm one and knew that it what I needed, no sagging coils, no bending on the sides, but cushy enough on the top for old bones. That’s it, I said.

Ok then, give us a couple of weeks and we can cut it down to fit. Our mattress is one of those 3/4 full things that has an angle cut off on the end. Perfect for the tight space, but a bit weird to replace. Long story short, that is why we traveled to John Day via Eugene and Junction City. I now have a new mattress and it feels great!!! Finally. And the cost was just over $400, less than half the price of the mattress replacement I found online. Good job American Mattress!

Of course, if we were going to be in Eugene, we would have to get back over the Cascades to go east. I thought we had traveled up the Mackenzie Highway in the past, so planned that route and found the Delta Campground on the internet at the Willamette National Forest website. It looked like it would be a good stop and it was.

We landed at 3:30 in the afternoon, under cloudy skies. There wasn’t one single camper in the entire campground of 37 sites and the camp host was nowhere to be found. We wandered through trying to decide, you know how it is with too many choices. Site 21 appeared, with a nice big tree between us and the road, a pull through site, and closer to the picnic table than most. We just pulled in and didn’t bother looking at the rest. Turned out great, because it was one of the best sites.

After settling in, we walked back two sites to the head of the short interpretive trail through the forest. With three wooden bridges crossing Delta Creek, and a meandering path among the old giants, it was a beautiful, gentle walk. I don’t think I have ever seen Douglas-firs this huge and the one old hemlock that was 1,000 years old is definitely the biggest I have ever seen. These trees aren’t as big around as some of the redwoods, but they are more than 200 feet tall. Just amazing. This collage is four photos of the same tree, bottom to the top

A tree that doesn’t look quite as impressive, but just as old are the western yews, source of the cancer drug Taxol, and almost completely endangered by the illegal harvesting of their bark. People would strip the bark all the way around, killing the trees, instead of taking only small amounts and saving the tree. These trees only grow in old growth forests, and thankfully a synthetic has been developed so the remaining trees are safe. At least as long as the old growth is safe.

We heated up navy bean soup from home and had a nice campfire before settling into the dark forest for the evening. The camp host showed up as we were sitting by the fire to regale us with stories of the campground, the area, and the big tree that fell in space 28 last spring. He was a nice guy, very talkative, and never said a word about Abby being off leash while we sat around the fire.

We ended the outdoor part of the evening with a nice swim for Abby just down a short walk from our picnic table. The night was absolutely silent and completely dark except for a few winking stars that showed up sometime during the night as the clouds lifted.

Who said planning is the fun part?

Clear warm evening in Rocky Point at 83 Degrees F

When I first imagined what RVing would be like many years ago, I pictured an idyllic ramble around the country, taking my time, staying wherever I felt like staying for as long as I wanted, and just picking up and leaving when I felt like it. That might work in the desert southwest now and then, but not so much for a three month sojourn through Texas and Florida and back, during prime season.

In the midst of all the other doings around here, I have been trying to get a handle on those plans. Usually I like this part, and open up the various apps that Nina discussed so well in a recent post, start up my old copy of “Streets and Trips 2011”, open up Google Maps and my Google Calendar, and start planning a route. Even for our trip to Alaska, this was a fairly straightforward process. We didn’t even make reservations for that entire summer on the road.

Florida in February is a completely different story, and as Sherry warned me, I should have started six months ago! I not only have to plan a route, I have to know EXACTLY when I plan to be in any particular place and make real honest to goodness reservations. Ack! How in the world can I be sure that I’ll be in Chiefland, Florida on a specific date when there are many months and thousands of miles between me and that date?

I have dreamed of a winter in Florida with my kayak in tow ever since I started visiting Bel in Ocala back in 2000. Mo and I got our boats to Florida on our cross country trip in 2007 for one magical float on the Silver River before we trundled on back west to buy the new motorhome in Texas and continue toward home. I have read the blogs avidly, ‘pinned’ campgrounds and rivers and events, and they created the beginning of my google map. The problems only begin when I try to link them all up, figure out the route and the miles and the DATES…and then make reservations. Only by now, I have been working on this for a few months, and I am too late for some of the places I wanted to go! Yup. Sherry was right. I should have started this six months ago, but somehow I was too busy TRAVELING then to be thinking about what I was going to be doing in 2014.

Before I go into the ‘plans’, I want to remember the fun things I have been doing NOW.

Would you eat dinner in this place? We did, and it was a fantastic experience. The Cowboy Dinner Tree used to be just that. It was a big old juniper tree out in the Oregon Outback near Silver Lake where they parked the chuck wagon for the cowboys. It has evolved a bit, and now people come from who knows where to fill this place up every weekend. Reservations required, two choices: chicken or sirloin. Dinner comes with salad, rolls, bean soup, potatoes, iced tea or lemonade (oops another choice) and dessert.

It isn’t cheap, and it takes two hours to get there. We rode with some local Rocky Point friends so the distance was irrelevant, and the experience was priceless. It is a “thing” and I am glad we took the time to do it. Although I brought the completely ridiculous steak home and made fajitas two nights in a row and then two more dinners from the chicken. Sheesh!

This week was bittersweet in a good way. I worked the very last time for soil survey. Sequestration and budget cuts and no federal budget all combined to end my contract career, so I retired for the second time. So I am really really retired now. Completely. It makes for some nice travel time, and is the reason I can manage to be off work long enough to take off next winter for three months instead of just a few weeks at a time. I’ll be poorer, but richer in time. I am pretty sure it is a good thing.

Another delight this week was a visit from Vermont friend Jeanne, (yes the famous adventure woman, Jeanne, that I have written about before). Only this time she brought along her sweetie, Alan, and he won Jeremy over in about two seconds and won me over about two seconds after that. Jeanne, you done good!! As did you, Alan. A pair made in heaven, or as all Jeanne’s friends say, a Danielle Steele novel. It is just romantic beyond imagination. He is a forester, she is a botanist, they both had basically given up on finding a soul mate, and they met in the woods at work! Isn’t that just incredibly perfect?!

We were on the water by 7 with beautiful partly overcast skies, perfect water, and lots of birds. Jeanne and Alan planned to see Crater Lake later in the day, but weren’t in too much of a hurry to miss out on pancakes and bacon for breakfast before they left.

After all the smoke that has been here, I was so glad to see perfectly clear skies by the time they got to Crater Lake, blue and smoke free and gorgeous. At least on the web cam. I had to keep checking to be sure that Alan’s first view of the lake would be wonderful. Jeanne wanted to show him all the cliffs she used to ski down when she lived here. Crazy woman.

Now back to the planning thing. Which is pretty much how that planning thing has been going. I work on it awhile, then something comes up and I get back to it later. Which is why I missed out on Myakka Springs and a couple of other places I wanted to see in Florida. Completely Booked!! We did manage to have a conversation with John and Carol from Our Trip Around the Sun who are going to be at Ding Darling Refuge on Sanibel Island and yes, I arranged a day, at 7 in the morning, when we will meet for a refuge trip that will hopefully turn up some spoonbills. Big on my bucket list. And yes, I have planned that specific day and specific hour from 3500 miles and six months away.

I know, I know. I have no right to complain. If you haven’t read Erin’s post about her plans for the next three months go check it out. That is planning on an Olympic scale! I think they have so many vacations nested in their vacation that it reminds me of those little Russian dolls. Ours will be just a bit simpler. We only have a simple vacation with a cruise vacation buried in the middle there somewhere.

We will amble through California, Arizona, New Mexico, and into Big Bend country in Texas, wander off to the coast at Port Aransas where I will get to walk the beach with Erin and watch her with that famous camera! We will continue east toward New Orleans, where we will take a 9 day break for a little cruise to the Western Caribbean, and after returning we will amble off to Florida for a month of kayaking and beaches. There is a saying about Florida, “I came for the beaches, but I stayed for the rivers”. Ahhhh. We will go as far as Key West, then amble back up the coast.

I have mostly reserved everything along the way. I think we will be in Blue Springs on Monday morning, March 3, at 10:02 AM. Or something like that. I know, the best laid plans can be severely disrupted, and I am trying to accept that with equanimity. Still. Those reservations are all prepaid, for Pete’s Sake! When we leave Blue Springs a few days later, I have no plans except for going north and west. I have no reservations. I have lots of blog posts about COE campgrounds and great places to see along the way, but we are going to actually stay loose during this part of the trip. For the month of March, we will just move gradually west and north toward home, following whatever route the weather and our mood dictates. I’ll let you know how that goes as well.

It is so great to have Deborah here to house sit for us while we are gone. She wants to keep the home fires burning and I’ll leave my truck with her so she can get back and forth in the snow. We will be bringing Abby, but I have decided to let Jeremy stay with Deborah for the trip. At least for now that is what I have decided. I’ll let you know how THAT goes as well. Sigh.

Lots coming up. More to tell, but this post is entirely too long so I’ll save it for later.

Next: MoHo interior renovations and we are soon off to the far northeastern part of Oregon!

Six Days off the Grid

Waking early Wednesday morning, I looked out over Medicine Lake, smooth as silk, without a ripple anywhere.

The skies were clear and only a faint bit of smoke remained on the eastern horizon. Our days of doing nothing were about to begin with a meandering 3.5 mile loop around the perimeter of the lake.

Our campground site is at the upper mid right of the map above, the swimming beach is the far right marker, the best fishing hole is on the lower left on the lake and the Brownell Cabin in on the lower bottom left on the shore. The good bike trail goes to Little Medicine Lake on the upper left shore. Somehow slipping into a kayak in the early morning feels like nothing at all, no effort, just a silky glide across water so clear I can count fish and silence only broken by the cry of ospreys.

I don’t know how long we were out there that first morning, maybe a couple of hours, but by the time we returned to camp the wind had picked up a bit and the smoke was disappearing completely. The day began with french press coffee and tiny donuts before we went out on the water and waiting for a mid morning hearty brunch seems to work best for us on this kind of trip.

The day would have continued without much fanfare, but as we settled onto the beach for a bit of sunny doing more nothing, our neighbor approached us all full of conversation and questions. She wanted to know where we were from, where we got our kayaks, and if we wanted to join up with their kayaking group from the Medford area. Martha was a very gregarious, talkative, and friendly woman and by the time she left, we had exchanged emails and had plans to contact each other for a day on Recreation Creek.

Not long after that conversation, she and her friend pulled out of the site just next to us, number 43. Earlier, when we found out they were moving, I asked Mo if maybe we should relocate, and she said, “No Way!!” But after they left, and we walked over to the site, the very easy, not steep, and not rocky path directly to the beach from the camp spot changed her mind. Ok, let’s do it!

Within minutes we pulled in the slide and backed the MoHo down the 50 yards or so to the much bigger, much more level, much more private site even closer to the lake. The funniest part of all was later when I was reviewing my photos, I realized that we had camped in this site back in 2005. How could I forget?!? Rather than hooking up the trailer, we just rolled it down the hill by hand to the new site, and floated the kayaks over to their new beach..

So much for doing nothing! After getting all settled in again, I had to run around in a flurry trying to take photos of the new site to remember why we made the move. It was a great plan and for the next several days we said over and over how happy we were that we didn’t have to get up and down that rocky trail to the beach from 45. Funny, I think I remember saying yesterday that 45 was such a great site. Well, it is, but only if you can’t get into 43.

A bit later we were down on the beach again when another woman came up to us asking questions about the boats and our rig. Seems as though she and her husband were camping and were hoping to eventually retire and buy a small motorhome of some kind. Before long we discovered that her husband was the base commander at Kingsley Field back in Klamath Falls and she was some kind of retired air force officer who now had three kids. I swear this woman didn’t look a day over 35. I guess some people make all the right choices at the right moment. She talked about her travels in the world, her husband, being active duty parents, and all about how much they loved living in Klamath Falls. People in campgrounds are just so incredibly friendly.

It wasn’t long afterward that another couple moved into our vacated site 45, only they at least were camping with a tent. Next thing you know, they are coming down the trail asking about the kayaks. They were from San Francisco, at least that is what they said at first. When we responded with “Oh, where in San Francisco?” she said, “Pacifica”. Then when Mo said she had taught in Pacifica for 25 years, they started talking about driving Devils Slide and the new tunnel, and then it came out that they actually live in Montera, just a few blocks away from Mo’s ranch in Montera where she lived for that 25 years while teaching. We all laughed about how you just say “San Francisco” to folks you assume won’t have a clue where Montera actually is located. How does that happen anyway?

It turned out that Barbara and Ansel were a highly entertaining couple, with some crazy quirks and a LOT of stories that they liked to tell with gusto. They also had a brand new inflatable kayak and were fairly new kayakers and wanted some advice about where to go on the lake. By this time it was very windy and there was no way anyone was going out on that lake in a kayak. We knew there was a small window of quiet usually in the morning for silky boating and told them to be up and on the water by 7 if they wanted to take advantage of it.

We spent the rest of the day doing our usual nothing, which includes some reading, some sitting and watching the sky, throwing balls for Abby in the water, watching the lake, and eating. We used the Weber Q for our suppers and the days just seemed to run all together. I had taken the computer with me, thinking that I could at least write for the blog with the inverter or when the generator was on, but sure enough, I had forgotten the plug! I am having to remember all this several days later since writing with a pencil is something I just can’t seem to do any more at all. I didn’t even take photos for two entire days and the only way to remember what we did is to go back over the photos.

We kayaked every morning and some evenings, had a big campfire every night where I roasted marshmallows and filled them with little pieces of chocolate that would melt perfectly. We had great dinners, and wonderful big breakfasts that were closer to lunch and never bothered with lunches the entire time.

We went for short hikes up to the Glass Flow, rode our bikes up to Little Medicine Lake on the lovely bike trail. We tried to ride to Arnica Sink on the not so lovely bike trail that was deep sandy pumice mined with fat lava rocks. We turned around on that one and decided that riding on the road was much more fun.

The birds are always a highlight, and after a few mornings I actually recognized the two blue herons that flew from shore to shore. It is always a decision as to how close to get, with the rule being if the bird is uncomfortable and starts to look nervous, you are too close. I think I got too close to these herons. I felt guilty, and then would think, well maybe if I am really slow and still it would be ok, but it wasn’t, they flew away, and dang! I need a longer lens.

The lake is populated with at least a dozen ospreys, perched on snags on the east and west shorelines and always entertaining with the diving and fishing. We also saw one bald eagle on the west side one morning, and a couple of red tailed hawks and another hawk that I couldn’t identify.

I was surprised to see several vultures as well, as I don’t remember seeing them at this kind of high altitude before. There was one Great Egret in the meadow on the first morning, too far for a photo, and he wasn’t there again. Ducks were surprisingly few, with just a little group of young ones without a mother paddling along on the east side of the lake.

Mo and I don’t fish, but we had a great time searching for fish in the clear water, with some great success along the southwest shoreline where one of the springs comes up. Sometimes we could see six to ten trout, maybe 14 inches or so, swimming around beneath us. We also love paddling into the knotweed with the happy pink flowers standing up above the water and making for some great photos with my pink kayak.

On one of our days the winds blew so incredibly hard I decided to spend a large part of the day inside the rig knitting a luscious wrap that I have been working on for much too long. The sound of that wind was fabulous, and the clarity it brought to the sky was breathtaking. I loved it, even though it made it too wild on the lake to take out the kayaks or try to take a swim.

I completely finished reading a great book about cheese, and Spain, and slow food, and betrayal. It was written so well that I had to highlight phrase after phrase of beautiful words to remember. I highly recommend “The Telling Room”, by Michael Paternini. Reading that makes me feel like I have read something worthwhile is great. We even had time for watching a couple of movies in the evenings, with the inverter handling it just fine without having to run the generator. I laugh to remember that we had this rig for several years before we knew it would do that.

Finally on our second to the last day, the wind died down completely, and I managed to slip into that crystalline water for a great swim. Cold, but great. Barbara and Ansel came down the hill to join me, but neither one of them could manage to get all the way in. I probably wouldn’t have stayed in as long as I did if I hadn’t been trying to convince them to swim with me. The day heated up beautifully, but with the warmer temperatures and no winds, before long there was a bit of smoke in the air again. Nothing like Grants Pass a couple of weeks ago, but smoke nonetheless.

On our last morning kayak, we took our slow time meandering around the lake. While admiring the old historic cabin on the southwest shore, the owner came down to the shore to visit with us. I must say I haven’t had such a busy social life in a very long time! He regaled us with stories about the cabin, built in 1928 by his wife’s father who saved the life of the original owner of the property. When asked what he would like in return for saving his life, the man said, “If you ever sell the property, sell it to me”. Sure enough that is how he got it. Now there are three sisters who share the space with extended family who have memories of staying there as girls in the 1940’s. They live there 3 months out of the year and then return to Morro Bay in California.

He told us that the first trout were brought to the lake on mules in 1880 and by the 40’s there were huge browns in that lake that the girls remember catching. In the 60’s however, chubs were winning, and the Fish and Game decided to kill the lake and start over. Now the fish that are planted each spring are fairly well fished out of the lake with no big old boys left. The deepest hole in the lake is about 150 feet, but the rest of the lake is quite shallow. It was great to get local stories from the local folks. He even said we were welcome to hike up behind his place to Brownell Meadows but we will have to wait for the next trip to take him up on the offer. Besides, this was the camping trip for doing nothing and we were getting a bit carried away with all the somethings that we were doing.

When it was time to leave, once more the campground was very nearly empty, with only a few occupied sites even over in the busy Medicine Campground. Our Hogue camp was almost completely empty. How often can you find an empty campground on a lovely lake in the middle of August!?! We read on the campground sign that there was an RV dump nearby but turned the wrong direction and ended up going south on 49 instead of where we were supposed to go. As many times as we have been to Medicine Lake, I still needed to get out the map to be sure we were on the right road heading home.

Down from the Highlands, summer set in again, with temperatures rising ten degrees in as many miles and smoke thickening the air as we approached Klamath Falls. bummer. At least we got a nice break from it, and Rocky Point has enough thick forest to help oxygenate the air a bit. I just read that Janna and Mike tried to see Crater Lake this week. Such a bummer and bad timing. I an only imagine how disappointing it must be for folks who travel from all over the world to see the beautiful lake and its gorgeous blue. Ah well, Medicine Lake isn’t quite as blue, or as big, or as dramatic, but it was lovely and perfect and I am so glad that after five years we finally took our Medicine.