flowers – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Out the door and down the road, another day on the water, Odessa Creek Launch

Current Location: Rocky Point Oregon 59F with a predicted high of 83 and sunny

When we returned from our gorgeous paddle the other day, I thought, “Let’s keep the kayaks on the truck and then we can go out again without reloading!” It isn’t that much trouble loading up our lightweight boats, but it is still nice to put on the hats, grab the sunscreen and simply jump into the truck on a sunny morning for another day on the water.

Mo suggested that we drive down the road a piece to a launch site that we haven’t been to for some time. Odessa Creek Campground is about 6 miles east on Highway 140. It is a quiet little camp with no fees and a small launch site to the wide creek that meanders out to Klamath Lake proper.

It is a pretty place, with lots of cover and shade, but it as usual, for this time of year, the mosquitoes are horrendous. There was someone camping in a big tent and I didn’t envy them in the least. We made quick work of the launch knowing that once we were out on the water, we would escape the nasty little critters.

We were on the water by ten, a bit later than originally planned because we waited for the temperature to rise a bit. The weather was perfect, and the lake was calm and glassy for most of our 7 mile paddle.

We love paddling meandering streams, but being on the lake near the shoreline has meandering ins and outs as well that provide interest. Paddling around the hills west of Bell Bay, we found the little cabin that was one of our first paddle destinations when we got our first kayaks back in 2005.

This time, with the glassy water and good weather, we decided to strike out across the bay toward another peninsula, marking the entrance into Shoalwater Bay. We camped on the east side of this bay back in 2011.

Being on the lake, even as close to the shoreline as we were traveling, was surprising. The perspectives change and shift so much when traveling at lake level. Klamath Lake seems huge! It is a magnificent lake, in spite of its quirks. A shallow lake formed in volcanic sediments, the lake is naturally high in phosphorus, and thus home to lots of algae during the summer months. The algae is actually harvested and sold as a food supplement.

Paddling through some of the green stuff yesterday, I thought how great it would be if we could eventually figure out a way to create fuel from algae. Then again, the empty solitude of Klamath Lake on a sunny warm early summer day is quite a treasure. So many places we have traveled, and many waters we have kayaked, don’t offer that great empty silent solitude.

The only noises we heard were the birds and from 20 miles away across the lake we could sometimes hear the trains that follow along Highway 97 north from Klamath Falls.

The most fun to watch were the grebes, both Western Grebes and possibly Clark Grebe, and either a pair or rednecked grebes or eared grebes. They dove too fast for me to get close enough to them to be sure. The best part was watching the grebes do their amazing water dance, again too far away to photograph, and too sudden to catch them in the act. It is really something to see, however, and worth just sitting around in the water waiting for the pair to do its thing. Of course, I was delighted to find several of my white pelican friends soaring over the water. Such amazing birds.

I did steal this photo from the internet with kudos to whomever managed to catch these birds doing their mating dance, running along the surface of the water. Before they start the run, the pair will paddle beside each other with their heads going up and down, extending their necks and retracting them, and then suddenly they take off in perfect unison. Odessa kayak_044 As we approached the shoreline on the east side of Ball Bay, I was surprised to see eagles in the trees. There were two adults and a very large youngster with the brown and white colors typical of juvenile bald eagles.

By afternoon, as we meandered back to our launch site at Odessa, the sun was high and hot and we were glad we were ready to get off the water. We even had enough time to get back home, unload the kayaks, and fill up the truck for a load to the dump. Our rural dump is now only only open one day a week, and we were surprised that there wasn’t a line of waiting folks. With the price raised to $13. for a small load, I am glad we don’t have to go very often.

Evening was a treat with wine and snacks at Wes and Gayle’s place next door. It is always fun when they come back from Arizona to spend a few months here in Rocky Point. We have some fun plans in the works for the summer with them, including an evening at the Britt in Ashland for Lyle Lovett and His Large Band. Looking forward to sharing our favorite little camping spot with them as well, with a trip to Medicine Lake in the works for late July.

The flowers are blooming, the iris and peonies are opening at last, the lupines are reaching their full height. Ahh…June. Probably the best flower time here at Rocky Point.

It is Rhodie time on the Oregon Coast!

Current Location: Harris Beach State Park, Brookings, Oregon Sunny and 60 degrees F

If you try to plan a trip to the Oregon Coast to catch the rhodies in bloom, the season will almost always surprise you. Either it will be too late or too early, with lots of buds and no flowers, or lots of dried up blooms. With no plans for seeing the famous flowers, or even a thought of the magnificent rhododendrons on our minds, we decided it was time to get “home” again to our favorite Oregon Coast beach.

The four hour drive from home in Rocky Point, through Grants Pass, and west on the winding Highway 199 along the Smith River is magnificent any time of year. This time, however, the closer we got to the coast, the more the steep hillsides were cloaked in gorgeous wildflowers. We have traveled this route many times, but I don’t remember seeing quite the profusion of flowers that greeted us yesterday morning on our trip west.

Oregon boxwood shrubs were tipped in right red foliage that looked just like flowers, and the rocky cliffs were covered with blue penstemon and carpets of low yellow native iris. The closer we got to the Jedediah Smith redwoods, the more flowers we found. Mo was driving, the camera was buried in its case and Jeremy was hugging my shoulder as he likes to do when the road is rough and curvy. No photos of the brilliant clouds of pink flowers on wild rhododendrons that were sometimes more than 20 feet tall.

Neither of us could believe that it has been more than five months since we settled in to Harris Beach, with our last short trip back in early December before we left for the winter for warmer? southern climes. The beaches were gorgeous in Texas and Florida, but as anyone who has seen it knows, the Oregon Coast is unmatched for wild rugged beauty, at least in the US. For us, even the famous coast at Big Sur along Highway 1 in California isn’t as seductive, and definitely not as accessible as our beloved Oregon Coast.

We left Rocky Point in the rain, and were greeted with a mixture of hard rain, sleet, hail and snow as we drove over the pass toward Medford. It was cloudy most of the way west, and with rain predicted for our few days at the beach, we were fully prepared to hole up in the MoHo and listen to the rain, play cards and do mostly nothing. We purposely didn’t bring the bikes or the kayaks with plans for some real R and R, and a respite from house and yard work that has dominated the last month.

Surprise! Not only are the rhodies blooming, but there hasn’t yet been a sign of a cloud in the sky. The ocean is blue and gorgeous, the temperatures are in the low sixties during the day and high 40’s at night.

With the view sites along the front row completely full, we settled into spot A30 and paid for four nights. Didn’t seem too bad, although it was a fairly open site and the playground was right behind us. We were also on a main walking route to the restrooms and the laundry and both last night and this morning were well entertained by the various kinds of people walking past.

For supper, the Chetco Seafood Company was our local fish and chips choice, and it didn’t disappoint. In fact, I talked to the owner and snagged some fresh cod and California halibut filets which he vacuum sealed and flash froze for us to take home to Rocky Point. Yum!

It was good to sleep in the MoHo again, after a month of lots of space and a big bedroom and a bath more than 10 feet away, it was fun to be in the cozy space with just two steps to the bath. Funny. As we settled in for the evening, a very tall class A parked next to us, with a clear open view of our huge yard and the firepit. Hmmmm.

This morning we went for a park walk, oohing and ahhing over the rhododendrons in the park and the surrounding neighborhoods, and found a nice space open along Row A, but toward the quiet back corner of the park. It looked inviting enough that we talked to the camp host about moving, and in a matter of moments we were slide in, jacks up, awning in and moved to the new spot. We can still see the ocean, just a tiny bit, but things here are much quieter and more private.

Interesting, as we were moving, a front row ocean view site came open and we declined. In spite of the view that we have enjoyed many times, the front row now has a lot more exposure since the park has cleared brush around the sites, and there is traffic from both the park entrance road and the main road through the campground.

Mo spent a few days last week getting our new VuCube working at home, and even though we had cable here at the site, she thought it might be fun to practice setting it up. Fun wasn’t the word, with all sorts of strange glitches that we still haven’t quite managed to figure out keeping the thing from working correctly. There were too many variables, and that became our statement for the day. In the end, it almost worked, but then we realized that the signal was getting interference and that was probably the main issue. Trees. For now, it is packed away again and we will fiddle with it out in the desert somewhere to limit some of the variables. It did keep us at home for the day, which was the original goal.

After a great chicken stir fry supper, we are relaxing a bit before heading for the beach for a sunset stroll. Unlike Florida beaches, getting to the beach here requires a bit of hiking down and then back up the steep paths that lead down to water level. Last night we walked to the overlook and watched the beach walkers below. Plenty of time to hike to the beach ahead in the next few days. A trip to Loeb Azalea Gardens, and who knows what else will keep us occupied.

Of course, I do hope that we manage more sitting, reading, and napping than we usually manage on a trip to the coast. Maybe if it rains in the next few days it will encourage us to actually lie around and do nothing except watch the sky.

Summer Doings

I am writing this post in late August, the 22nd actually, and a large thunderstorm has just passed over the east side of the Cascades. We don’t often get moisture this time of year, so it was a surprise, lovely and luscious and more than a little bit scary. Hopefully there is enough rain in the storm to offset any chance of lightning strikes starting more fires. The temperatures have dropped considerably this afternoon, and I had to actually put on a pair of sweat pants.

The month of August seemed to fly by, and somehow one of our favorite little gatherings slipped by without even a mention. For the past 11 years, Klamath Blues Society has hosted a Brats, Brews, and Blues Festival at the Pelican Marina in Klamath Falls. It usually runs from early afternoon to about 7 in the evening, with local blues bands on the venue for some delightful entertainment. The bands come and go and are at various levels of excellence, but for a small out of the way town like Klamath, it is still great fun to go listen to music on the shore of the lake and pay 20 bucks for a bratwurst and 6 beer tickets.

Each of those tickets buys a very small sampler of beer. but It’s all for a good cause, with proceeds from the event go to Camp Evergreen, a youth bereavement camp run by Klamath Hospice for children who have lost loved ones. A couple of local breweries are there to peddle their wares and this year the midges were absent and the weather was perfect. This year the event was in early August, and for once, Mo and I weren’t off traveling somewhere.

Even more perfect, my daughter Melody and son-in-law Kevin were the emcee’s for the event and my daughter Deborah now lives close enough to join us for a great afternoon. It was sooo much fun. We ran into our neighbors, Wes and Gayle, who enjoyed the event as well. Not as much as I did though, since I had my daughters there to get me up out of my chair and dancing. Once I started, there was no stopping. I would try, but then that dang beat would keep me going and laughing like crazy and trying to keep from falling on my face, I just kept on dancing with my girls. Haven’t had that much energetic fun in a very long time.

The other summer doings around here have been a bit less delightful. Our giant ponderosa pines have very long needles, lots of them, and every summer it is a big job getting them off the roof. Mo is the ladder climber in the house, since I get wobbly and goofy up there. I can do the roof part, but that part where you get from the ladder to the roof not so much. I watched her up there, holding the ladder for her ascent and helping jockey the blower cord around so it didn’t get in the way.

Other excitement around here has been even more subtle. I have been watching flowers bloom and trees grow while Mo mows. She built this place a year before I knew her and I was comparing some of the photos of what it looked like in 2002 and what it looks like now. It is so much fun seeing tiny little trees that were a foot or so high now reaching for the sky at more than 30 feet. Something has “grabbed” in the last couple of years and everything is growing like crazy. Starting to look like a jungle out there in spite of the challenging climate we have here in the mountains.

Somewhere toward the end of July we traveled a few miles east to the Running Y Resort for their “big” garden tour. One of the gardens there was carved out of all that rocky basalt with an incredible amount of work and planning. She won “gardener of the year” for some sort of statewide thing, and said she was amazed that she won over some of those lush Portland landscapes. We drove through the resort roads from garden to garden, marveling at the variety of stuff that could be grown in a dry rocky landscape.

The Running Y Garden Tour Winning Flower Bed

I also thought that I should have a garden tour of my own! Instead, when the kids come to visit, I just take them on the “garden walk”, telling them how things are doing and what is what in my Rocky Point landscape.

My Flower Bed

I still have issues with the deer, spraying the very smelly Liquid Fence at least every two weeks to keep mama deer and her babies out of my flowers. When we got back from the last trip she had nipped a couple of flower heads off the rudbeckia sunflowers, a plant I thought deer didn’t eat, but she hadn’t touched anything else. Next door at Wes and Gayle’s, she even ate all the herbs on the porch. I didn’t think deer liked strong flavored herbs, but I guess since all my flowers tasted like rotten eggs and old milk she figured something was better than nothing. Go me! Sorry, Gayle.

August 29 Monday The Dahlia Festival

Seems as though there is always some kind of festival going on during the summer months. Usually named for a flower, a fruit, or a vegetable, these festivals are really worth the effort. The Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California and the Asparagus Festival in Stockton are some down-home country festivals that got completely out of control. Thousands of people crowd the hundreds of booths and the original concept is lost. Can you count the Apple Festivals and Strawberry Festivals that are dotted all over the United States and Canada? A google search will open your eyes to that one!

Our short little camping trip north was inspired by one such festival. The difference with this one is that it isn’t a town or village thing, it is a chance for a local grower of dahlias to open their land for just six days a year to the adoring public. I had no clue just how adoring the public was until we arrived at the parking lot on Monday morning and found row after row of cars, buses, vans, and fields filled with folks admiring the dahlias.

Let me backtrack a bit. When we woke up Monday morning, the skies were cloudy and overcast and the temperature was in the low 50’s. A very light mist created a chilly, damp atmosphere. Remember I said I only brought shorts? Even though the forecast was for 85 degrees and sunshine for the entire week, I should have known better. Digging around in the few clothes I brought delivered my kayak pants, just in case, so I donned the kayak pants and the one sweatshirt I managed to pack, and I was ready for the day in spite of myself.

Even though I had no WiFi in the park, my iPhone had 5 bars and 3G, so I loaded up google maps to locate the Swan Island Dahlia Farm. It was just about an hour north in Canby, an agricultural paradise between I-5 and the mountains in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. We took our time, and when a sliver of lavender blue appeared in the distance, we ambled off the course to find amazing fields of annuals grown for seed by the Silver Falls Seed Company.

I used to grow annual larkspur for drying, and always had trouble finding seed that was an individual color not a mix. Lying in front of me were gorgeous fields of blue, lavender, pink, and rose, all perfect tall lush flowers of larkspur. Other fields were filled with godetia, one of my favorite little annuals, and other flowers that I didn’t quite recognize. In a way I was delighted to have subdued skies so the colors would show up more dramatically in the photos.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the Swan Island Dahlia Festival, to join in the admiring crowds with their oohs and aahhs. Even little kids were getting into the thrill of seeing a truly amazing huge dahlia bigger than a dinner plate, amazed at the sensory overload of row after row of flowers bred in every conceivable shape and color.

Swan Island Dahlias is the largest and leading dahlia grower in the United States. The farm is now located in the town of Canby, in the rich soil of the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The farm was originally located in Portland, Oregon, with some buildings on Swan Island, which is where the farm derived its name. There was also a roadside stand in Sellwood, a suburb of Portland, so the business was known as both Swan Island Dahlias and Portland Dahlia Gardens at that time.

Swan Island Dahlias was moved to Canby, Oregon on rented land in the 1940’s. Around 1953, 20 acres of farmland was purchased in Canby, and the business was relocated to its present site. This particular bit of information was helpful because Mo grew up near the real Swan Island and picked beans there and she couldn’t understand why the dahlia farm in Canby was called Swan Island Dahlias!

If you have ever grown dahlias, you know how much work they can be. A difference in this part of Oregon is that the climate allows you to actually leave your dahlias in the ground over the winter and still have flowers come up in the spring. Where I lived, I had to lift my hundreds of dahlias one by one every winter, divide them and pack them carefully in sawdust in the root cellar. I treasured those flowers, believe me. So I was like all those little kids ooh-ing and aah-ing through the fields, thrilled and amazed, and especially excited when I would find an old friend variety among the bunch that was still in cultivation.

After we wandered the 40 acres of fields, we visited the big storage shed where one of the granddaughters in this family owned business demonstrated how to arrange dahlias while she talked about every possible cultural need. Many folks asked lots of questions and I was amazed at her knowledge. Grandpa passed away in 2007, but the family carries on with this beautiful family business.

Thoroughly overloaded with dahlia heaven, we were still in for a big surprise when we entered the indoor display, with three rooms of dahlia arrangements. I knew about the indoor rooms, but imagined something a bit like a county fair, with vases of flowers. What an understatement. The huge displays in the three large rooms were mind boggling, huge lush over-the-top craziness, piles of dahlias of every color and type. Hundreds of flowers in a single arrangement and literally hundreds of arrangements. It was a great way to pick your favorites and then go to the order desk to buy tubers for spring delivery. It’s a good thing I don’t have a lot of room or a long growing season, or I would have parted with a good chunk of money.

When we finally left the farm, the sun was warming up a bit and we ambled around Canby to explore the town and the area. We found Molalla River State Park, a perfect place for Abby to run in the off-leash dog area, with many trails along the river, but no overnight facilities. Just north of the farm, we found the Canby Ferry crossing the Willamette River and saving many miles of travel for folks going north. The ferry is free for pedestrians, but we just chose to sit on the bluff above the river and watch for awhile. I couldn’t help comparing the gentle crossing with the wild currents of the Yukon River at the ferry in Dawson City. This crossing took all of two minutes, and the cars lining up on either side of the river had at most a 5 minute wait in line. I love how these remnants of older times appear on the back roads of Oregon. Many of the old ferries have been replaced by bridges, so it was nice to see this little piece of history still in operation.

We traveled home through Silverton, with a stop at on of my favorite grocery stores for a few supplies. Back in camp, we decided we had time for some good biking on the beautiful trails and enjoyed the emptiness of the day use area even though the campground was still full to the brim. No one was swimming, and no one was out on the bike trails either, and the waterfall trail was nearly empty. Abby is pretty good at going along on the leash while we bike, but now and then she gets a bit excited and crosses over to the wrong side. We have learned that if I stay in front of Mo, Abby will try to keep up with me and not dawdle. The best part of this for Mo is that Abby actually helps pull her up the steep parts of the trail! I finally said, “My turn to have Abby, this hill is steep”! We switched, and I couldn’t believe just what a difference she made. Mush! Abby!!

Home to camp and grilled veggies and another beautiful campfire.

The rest of the dahlia photos are linked here

Tomorrow: We meet Russ and Donna and hike the Mackenzie River waterfalls

Alaska Bound 4 Days and Counting

Four days. 4 DAYS. How many lists do I have? Certainly a lot more than 4! I am blogging about this why? I have no clue, other than the fact that it helps me to write things down. It helps me to remember. I love to journal about times past, to write the stories as they happen, to sometimes summarize the stories years later, or summarize the year past. I also like to write about what I am planning, because it’s so much fun to go back after the planned event and read what I thought it might be like.

Alaska. We are embarking on the “epic journey”. Although as I follow along as other RV’rs travel this road I am thinking maybe it is no longer quite so epic. The highway has been tamed a bit, it seems, so I am not really expecting epic. I expect long, I expect a bit of monotony, I expect frost heaves and gravel.

I remember once about 40 years ago I saw the Canadian Rockies west of Calgary for the first time. Of course I had seen photos, but nothing really prepares you for the magnificent mass of those mountains. The closer we got to them, the less I could breathe, with their weight lying heavy in my chest. Truly breathtaking. I expect moments like that one to come in completely unexpected places.

Recently there was a blog discussion about places folks wanted to go in their RV, and Alaska was the subject of many comments, both pro and con. I don’t know why I want to go to Alaska, but I realize that it isn’t so much that I want to go to Alaska, as it is that I want to do the road. I want to know that I “did” the road. I know many people who did it in the days when it was a wild place, when gas was hard to come by, and the animals were everywhere. Now, as I read the blogs, I see the standard tourist destinations come up, the photos and stories, each with a different perspective, but still very similar. Has the road been completely tamed? Will we be one in a long line of RV’s plying the highway?

We haven’t made any reservations, wanting instead to stay flexible in our route and our timing. We have “plans”, though, thoughts about where we want to stay, and places we want to see. For me, big on the list are the lakes along the Cassiar Highway and a soak at Llaird Hot Springs, and I want to put my kayak in as many BC lakes as possible. Sure, I want to see “the mountain”, but I am not attached to it, and reading about the crowds in Denali makes it a bit less exciting.

For me, it is about the journey, about the feeling of the road opening up ahead to vistas I have never seen. Flat and boring spruce, or magnificent take-your-breath-away mountains and turquoise lakes. Either way, it’s new, and it’s far. I like the idea of “far”. I like actually being on the road, the driving part, the riding part, the moving part where your body is vibrating with the engine, where the unknown road opens up ahead of you, with the extra benefit of a bathroom ten feet away, and the dog and cat with us.

Mo has been the one checking and rechecking the MoHo, making sure all is well. All wasn’t well with the house batteries, they were five years old and heating up. Scary. Especially with all the photos of RV fires that have been in the blogs lately. Last minute trip to Klamath to buy new batteries. So many folks have talked about batteries, but I couldn’t remember where to find the discussions, so Mo just did her own research and came up with two 12 volt Trojans, for some reason not sealed, but supposedly the best. Once a year maintenance. Then, while installing the batteries, she blew the big 110 amp fuse on the inverter. No clue what was wrong, but after fiddling for a long time, she made an appointment at Central Point RV.

With the holiday weekend coming up, we were a bit concerned, but she drove down early yesterday morning and was back in less than 6 hours with a new fuse, the generator problem solved, and the MoHo is mechanically ready to go. The technician said that the linkage to the carburetor in the generator was stuck, and that it needs to be run every few weeks to keep it clear. Mo thought the problem might have been related to the battery/inverter issue, so was glad that she had checked the generator before she went to Medford. They charged Mo 80 bucks for labor and 45 bucks (ouch) for the fuse. Hope we don’t blow that one very often. It was great to call the night before, get an appointment for the next morning, and have all the problems solved so quickly.

The other funny story is about the Protect-a Tow. We wanted to do business locally, and RV Trailer Warehouse in Medford finally agreed to order some in and promised to save one for us. The folks there weren’t too good about returning calls, or giving us any idea of when they might actually get one in, so Mo finally ordered one on the internet directly from the Canadian manufacturer. It was actually cheaper even with shipping that the local guy quoted. It was supposed to arrive within 8 to 12 business days via expedited mail. According to the tracking number, it was only processed through Toronto, Canada, on June 29th. When Mo went to Medford, she picked up a Protect-a-Tow from the folks who had ordered one and saved it for us. He said the return policy was good if we didn’t use the one we bought. We will hopefully return the one that shows up in the mail after we are long gone. Apologies to the local store, but if he had been more on top of keeping us informed, he would have had the sale, even if it WAS more expensive.

Our trip looks to be somewhere in the vicinity of 7,300 miles, just a little bit more than our cross country trip to Niagara last summer. Streets and Trips has been tweaked and shoved and waits patiently on the laptop. Lists like this: laptop, plug, external drive, baby laptop for Mo, plug, phone, plug, charger, camera, plug, charger, baby camera, plug, charger. GPS, GPS cord, tripods, Mo’s phone, plug, charger….GEEZ when will someone come up with a wireless charger and wireless power for all these toys. Oh yes, Kindle, and plug.

Another list: passports, animal certificates, copies of important documents saved to an external,cancel the TV, cancel the paper, cancel the mail. Mow the lawn and spray the Liquid Fence once last time. Make sure the house sitters have all the relevant phone numbers. Dog food. Cat food. Dog leash. Cat leash. Clothes for rain, clothes for being cold, clothes for being hot while still traveling through Oregon and Washington and maybe the first part of BC. How many shoes and what kind of shoes for each situation. Walking sticks. Dry bags for the kayaks. Find a dry bag for the camera in the kayak!

I finally resorted to paper lists, on those 5 inch hot pink lined Post It notes. One for each of the next four days, lined up in a row along the counter with the piles of stuff to go to the motorhome. More lists. Mo install the Protect-a Tow, blow the pine needles off all the roofs today. Make cookies. Make spaghetti sauce for freezer. And yes, “go to July Fourth Celebration in Klamath”. That one is on Monday, and thank goodness the parade and festivities don’t actually start until 5pm, so we have all day Monday to do “stuff”. Then Tuesday more stuff, and then finally Wednesday morning we are off.