gardens – Page 3 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Tomatoes, Eagles, Pelicans, Klamath Lake, Colorado…it’s life

The title thing is making me crazy, especially when I choose not to post daily when I am home. Maybe I will revert to “Thursday September 22” or something equally as creative. For now, however, I just wanted to hit the highlights. It has been a delight being at home this time of year. I think September and October in the Klamath Basin are the most beautiful months. The days are warm and still long enough to accomplish something. The nights come earlier, but they are cool enough for early bedtimes with good books and the soft summer down comfortor.

Mo has been filling her days with outside tasks around the property, while I have been catching up on work, mostly at home, but going into the office every now and then. Sometimes it’s great to go to town for work, since otherwise I would just think the drive too long and the gas expense not worth it. When I go to town, I get to have great conversations with Chris, my local boss, about all the interesting mapping he is doing, all the soily gossip about what is going on in what survey office, and just general good stuff.

I also have a chance to shop, get fresh groceries and do the (wandering around kind of) shopping that doesn’t interest Mo in the least. Joanne’s Fabrics is always fun, and I walk around feeling everything and daydreaming about the great things I could make if I had a sewing machine. My sister is a quilter, my daughter makes amazing costumes for theater and her pirate gatherings, and for years I used to love to sew. My life changed, and I haven’t had a sewing machine in 20 years. Often I say, “well, if I had a sewing machine I could do X, or Y, or whatever”.

Enter my 66th birthday, and with some various contributions from various folks, including myself…ahahaha….I have a sewing machine! My sister suggested I try to find a used Bernina 1230, her go-to machine even though she has a much newer one. After some searching on E-Bay and on the local Craigs List, I actually managed to win the bid on a machine. After paying for it with a credit card, with my CURRENT ADDRESS on the card, I received a lovely email from the gentleman saying he had just mailed it with full insurance to my CALIFORNIA ADDRESS!?!?! OHNO! I guess that address was still buried somewhere in EBay even though I haven’t lived there for almost two years! With some panicky phone calls and some retracted insured mail, eventually I will get my sewing machine. Hopefully I will remember what X and Y were. We actually have a tiny quilt shop right here in Rocky Point and I have never checked it out. I guess it is time I did.

Beautiful warm days call for tomatoes, and finally I can say that the greenhouse is providing. The heirloom Brandywines I tried to grow are still green, but Yellow Boy is producing bundles of incredibly sweet yellow good sized tomatoes, and the Willamette variety is doing well for big reds and Sweet 100 has provided bowls of cherry tomatoes. With the fresh lettuces, spinach, chard, peas, onions, basil, baby carrots, 3 cucumbers, and a very few green beans, I declare the greenhouse a success.

I actually had enough ripe tomatoes to dig out one of Mo’s old family recipes for Tomato Chili Sauce. It was fun to make, a bit like a relish or chutney, with tomatoes, green hatch chilis, onions, with cider vinegar and some sugar, and then some very interesting combinations of spices including cinnamon, allspice, lots of chili pepper, and other sorts of things that I wouldn’t normally use in this kind of recipe. The resulting sauce/relish is delish on meat as a condiment, and if I ever stop dieting, I plan to try it on a hot dog!

The other major project going on around here is house painting. Mo found an outfit in Klamath that seems to be a bit more thorough than the last folks who stained the big cedar house. Even so, they seem to come and go at odd times, they are getting the old sealer stripped off in preparation for the new stuff. Living in the forest as we do seems to cause a lot of mold to grow on the cedar siding in spite of regular care. They have been power washing for a few days now and hopefully will get it sealed again before the rain starts.

I love this time of year, especially the Halloween season, and fall in general. My orange totes full of goodies are calling to me, and I keep finding little halloween-y things to add to my stash. One of the reasons for a stix and brix, I can decorate to my hearts content and somewhat to Mo’s consternation. I am using all my will power to NOT put out a single fall decoration until October 1st. Just a few days.

We celebrated the gorgeous late September days with another kayak out on Pelican Bay. The water is getting low this time of year, and the water plants and algae are thick. Even so, the water is still incredibly clear in Recreation Creek and out into the Bay. Only when you reach Klamath Lake proper do the weeds and algae get so thick that paddling is no longer fun. We have paddled some incredibly gorgeous lakes, with crystal clear water, and not a water plant in sight. They are beautiful, but then there a no birds, often we are lucky to see a lonely duck in those lakes.

Our Klamath Lake is fecund with life, and has been so since the 1850’s when John C Fremont declared the lake unfit for even horses to drink. It’s not all about pollution, it is about the natural life span of a lake formed many thousands of years ago, and filled with phosphorus rich volcanic ash from the Crater Lake (Mt Mazama) eruption 7,700 years ago or so. That beautiful, rich, smelly, plant life, brings in millions of birds in the spring and the fall, with many spending their summers here getting fat on all that food.

When in Alaska, one of the exciting things for folks are the eagles, with eagle traffic jams and many photographers excited about seeing eagles in the wild. I did take photos of eagles there, but was a bit less excited than some folks because we have eagles here in the basin. There are nesting pairs along the lake, and several hundred birds feast on ducks and fish in the wildlife refuges.

I actually get more excited about my favorite white pelicans than I do the eagles, but yesterday on the lake I was treated to both. We spent a couple of hours on the water and invited a Rocky Point friend to go along since we now have extra kayaks. It was a perfect way to spend a late September afternoon.

This weekend I will be running off to Colorado for my grandson’s wedding. First a drive to Portland to spend the night with my oldest daughter, then the two of us will board a flight to Denver, Colorado tomorrow. There we have rented a car to drive to Sterling, where Deb will hostess (and pay for!) the Rehearsal Dinner for her son and his bride-to-be and about 20 other folks. Saturday is the wedding with most of Jessi’s family, and only some of us from Matthew’s side who can manage to get away to Colorado. It should be a lot of fun, as well as a bit interesting, with all those side stories that go on in families providing some extra entertainment.

Life IS good.

There are photos of the gardens here and photos of the kayak on the lake and the birds here.

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

It is time

Time for what you say? Time to write something again that isn’t related to the Alaska Trip. I know, I know, we got home on the 15th, and I think it now is the 27th of the month. The first week home, of course, was spent cleaning up and settling in. The second week home I had to go back to work and put in a good 40 hours or more trying to get everything to work properly again after a government software upgrade. Can you say “nightmare”? Finally, today, I managed to finish writing about the last few days of the trip. Somehow I just couldn’t make myself write about it, and each morning my ‘todo’ list had on it, “FINISH BLOG”. I am also not sure when I will be ready to change my header photo from that picture of Joe Lake on the Denali Highway. I am just not quite ready to let go yet.

At least I am finally caught up. At least I will be until tomorrow! The MoHo is lined up in front of the Tracker in the driveway tonight as we prepare for launching once more tomorrow morning. This launch is a short one, though, just a 2 night trip to Silver Falls State Park a few hours north of here. We will hike waterfalls, check out all the amazing dahlias in full bloom at the Swan Dahlia Farm festival, and sit by the campfire in the forest, this time under starry skies. We will cap off the trip on the way home with a much anticipated visit with Donna K and Russ from TRAVELS IN THERAPY. I’m tickled about getting a chance to meet our fellow Oregonian blog friends.

As I write, Irene is bearing down on the east coast, and Al has posted photos of the sad damage in the Ontario town of Goderich. So far, everyone I know who is east is doing OK. My daughter the trucker was in Connecticut, but traveled south and is now in Orlando. She managed to get out of the way of the storm. So far, all the RV’rs back in that part of the country seem to be hunkering down and doing OK, at least the ones who can blog about it. Out west all is calm, a few forest fires ignited last week in a thunderstorm are burning in Central Oregon, but everything around here is peaceful. Nights are in the 50’s, days are in the mid 80’s, humidity is low and skies are brilliantly blue. Oregon in the summer, when summer finally comes, is perfect.

Within a few days of getting settled back in, we had the kayaks out for a paddle. It was a gorgeous morning, just cool enough to need a long sleeved shirt out on the water for about half an hour before we started peeling off our shirts. The lake was so calm and there was a bit of smoke hanging over the mountains to the east, but I didn’t care. Snow was still on McLoughlin, and just a bit on the rim at Crater Lake and Mountain Lakes Wilderness. It felt good to be out in the boats in familiar water. The funny part about familiar water is that on Klamath Lake it is never the same twice.

The lake levels vary and sometimes the refuge can get pretty low, but on the morning we went out, the water was deep enough that we had no trouble paddling across what is called “The Wocus Cut”, a route that nearly did us in for a late fall paddle last year. At that time we were paddling in late evening and our paddles were scraping bottom. That was a rough ride that I don’t want to repeat! We traveled the beautiful canoe trail through the refuge and so enjoyed all the birds. I packed the camera along in the waterproof pelican case and took bird photos. Since I just bought a serious wide angle lens, battered though it may be, I won’t be getting a fancy bird lens any time soon, so I have to settle for the best I can do for now. I’ll let Judy take the fancy bird photos while mine will at least remind me of what was out there and how lovely they are.

The greenhouse has created a jungle of tomato plants and at last a few are getting ripe. You have no idea what an amazing feat that is at Rocky Point! I planted some more spinach and lettuce for the fall, and am enjoying having a little bit of veggie garden to putter in.The daylilies are blooming beautifully, and so far the deer have left us alone. I sprayed the Liquid Fence almost immediately, and I don’t know if it makes the difference or if there just aren’t any deer around this year.

The birds are back after a few days of filling the feeders, of course there aren’t nearly as many as there were in the spring before we left. It seems the finches and wrens are the most prolific right now, and I have seen several flickers and this morning a tanager graced my office window. For some reason the flicker was harassing the tanager as they both fluttered around in the sprinklers. Strange.

I am not a daily blogger, unless we are traveling of course. I often wonder about whether I need to even write anything at all when we aren’t moving. Then I realize that I want to share the birds, and the lake, and the daylilies, and what better place to do it than here? While on our Alaska trip we gained quite a few new followers, and I thank each of you for checking in and paying attention.

The rest of the photos for our kayak outing are linked here.

Squirrels, deer, rabbits, and mosquitos

“Squirrels are nothing more than rats with fuzzy tails that can climb trees”. This comment was posted on Judy’s blog today and I laughed out loud. Of course, I also feel that way about deer. Cute in the forest, far, far away from where I live, but nothing more than big rats with voracious appetites in my yard.

Between the squirrels, the rabbits, the deer, the voles, and the mosquitoes, I often wonder about the joys of living in the forest surrounded by the lovely wildlife. Thanks to the mosquitoes we also have a healthy population of bats, good wildlife of course, but a bit less so when they buzz our heads in the evenings while lounging in the hot tub.

Oh yes, chipmunks as well, lots and lots of them. Just caught myself in a great big “sigh”. We have a very large hole in the ground along the back property line between the lawn and the forest that also has some kind of critter playing around that is much bigger than a squirrel and I think bigger than a rabbit. Abby’s favorite thing is racing out the door to the back yard in pursuit of whatever furry thing is out there. I have been hearing a lot of owls around lately, many voices of many different types, and am gleefully hoping that they are here because of all the other fuzzy critters that are around. Help!

Yesterday I sprayed the entire property boundaries with Liquid Fence, sworn to work by my friends in a California forest. Gerald said he used it all summer last year and the deer ate everything in sight in the neighbors yards and left his alone till he got lazy and quit spraying. It’s not a cheap endeavor, at 40 bucks for 2 applications, and directions that say “Apply weekly initially, then every three weeks after that”. I am applying weekly, with special attention to my roses, delphiniums, azaleas, and the baby flowering pear tree that the deer decimated last fall. Of course we have the greenhouse for the hidden veggies, “nahh na na NA na”! Other folks who have lived at Rocky Point for 30 plus years have learned to quit trying to grow things that the deer love to eat. I’m still not that smart. I WANT my roses and delphiniums, so I will continue to try to outsmart those pesky critters.

When it comes to the squirrels, I think I have won, at least so far. Of course I don’t have those flying stinkers that seem to be the problem at Al’s place in Ontario.

( If you want to read a great story about Al thinking about simulating one of those flying squirrels, be sure to check out his recent blog.)

I hung a thin wire cable between the trees in the forest, just beyond the grass, and so far the poor squirrels are completely stumped and reduced to foraging on the ground for what is scattered there by the yellow headed blackbirds, voracious eaters who like to shake all the seed out on the ground for entertainment. Lucky for me, the blackbirds all manage to head for the marsh by mid-summer and no longer eat me out of house and home.

This time of year I am filling all 8 feeders with four different kinds of food every single morning! So far the black headed grosbeaks outnumber most other birds, but we have a lot of purple finches, evening grosbeaks, stellar jays, juncos, and a very friendly white headed woodpecker. Geez! I am feeling not a little bit guilty about how devastating it might be to our little bird friends when we leave for 7 weeks in Alaska. Hopefully in July and August food will be so plentiful they will somehow manage. I don’t set up hummingbird feeders for just that reason. I have heard how dependent they get on the feeders and how important it is to be consistent if you start putting up food for them.

I have to thank everyone for the lovely comments on my last post photographs. I didn’t mention it because I was feeling a bit insecure, but that was the first day I was out with my new Nikon DSLR D5100. All those photos were my learning experience. I have discovered that my “learning experience” may go on for several years at least. I have stepped up from shooting everything with the “auto” setting, a perfectly acceptable way to take photos.

The water photo that folks seemed to like was an attempt at aperture priority slowing down the shutter so I could get that silky movement. This photo of the east side of the yard early in the morning is my first attempt at HDR. So much to learn, and so little time. Sigh. My knitting has been languishing on the shelf while I play with the camera and fight the critters and garden! I think I started the perfect easy little scarf back in Eureka with gorgeous hand dyed yarn, and am still barely half way through the skein. Maybe I’ll have a chance to knit when we are back on the road, although I would imagine it won’t be on those bumpy frost heaves on the Alaska Highway.

Can you leave the MoHo at home to go on a picnic?

For several days now the weatherman has hinted at lovely spring weather just over the horizon, and we thought it would be great to take a day trip and just enjoy the sun and warmth. It’s been such a long, cold spring, with very little sunshine. With a 70 degree forecast for last Sunday I decided that a nice little road trip to explore the Applegate Valley and Jacksonville would be fun. We woke to gray, cloudy skies and a thermometer that struggled to get to 50 degrees. Around 11 there was a bit of a break and we decided to make the break ourselves and go for it. I made egg salad sandwiches and loaded up our backpack picnic kit with wine, chips, and cherries, and we jumped into the Lexus for a comfortable car trip over the mountain.
Even though it was cloudy all day, we had a good time and enjoyed doing something different for a change from gardening and working around home. Although we do drive to Medford fairly often, there are some side trips around Southern Oregon that we still haven’t seen. The Applegate Valley is one of those trips. The route took us over 140 as usual, but we left the main highway to travel through Eagle Point and then took another side road from Eagle Point through Gold Hill to avoid the standard Interstate 5 route to Grants Pass and the beginning of the Applegate Valley Trail.
The trees on the west side are fully leafed out now, with myriad shades of verdant green. Most of the flowering trees are past their prime bloom while those we have at home are just barely starting. I think Rocky Point is at least a full month behind the Medford area when it comes to the spring season. We ambled along Highway 234 west through the Sams Valley, crossing the Rogue River with a stop for photos of a local bridge.
The river was running wild and full to it’s banks, but even with all our rain this year, I haven’t heard much about flooding. Continuing west through Gold Hill, we found ourselves in the midst of some kind of “Gold Hill Days” with the main street north completely closed off by vendors and booths and many antique cars. If it had been a bit easier to park, and if the day had been sunny and warm, we may have allowed ourselves to digress from our planned destination and check out the events. Instead, we routed back over the river and under the interstate to wander peacefully along meandering old Highway 99 until we reached the turnoff for the Applegate Valley just south of Grants Pass.
The Applegate Valley Wine Trail is one of Oregon’s newest “appellations”, with a climate that is warmer and drier than much of the Willamette Valley wine areas. The vineyards follow the river along the higher stream terraces and support Chardonnay, Syrah, and some Bordeaux red wines. Oregon is famous for some of its Pinot Noir’s, so the valley offers something a bit different. Mo and I enjoy good wine, but sometimes the pretentious aspect of “wine tasting” will keep us from dropping into these little wineries. This time was no different, we drove by the beautiful signs, enjoyed the gorgeous views, and enjoyed the ride without stopping for a taste. I think that sometime I would enjoy touring the wineries with friends, or even with a group. Our summer neighbors in Rocky Point often travel this route and come home with cases of really good wine. I think we may go with them sometime to get our wine tasting feet wet. Except for our little foray in the Finger Lakes District of New York last fall, the last time I really did some extensive wine tasting was in the Napa Valley back when the pours were free!
Of course, I have no such reservations when it comes to nurseries. Near the tiny town of Murphy, we passed a riot of color along the highway and within seconds, Mo whipped around and we checked out the most beautiful nursery full of hanging baskets I have seen in years. The owners were wonderful about me walking around taking photos, but I still felt I should at least buy something token to thank them for just being there. She laughed when I told her we were from Klamath Falls, since she had raised her children in Klamath, and was really loving her long growing season there along the Applegate. I left with some perfect fuchsias for the baskets waiting at home for sunnier, warmer weather.
After a nice stop for Abby on their grassy lawns (doggie bags of course!) we continued down the highway south toward Ruch and Applegate Lake.
Another thing that Oregon is noted for are the covered bridges throughout the state. There are several along many of the routes that we drive, and some folks even make a tour of seeing them all. South of Ruch, only eight miles north of the California border, is Oregon’s southernmost span, the McKee Bridge. Built in 1917 by John Hartman of Jacksonville, it served mainly for mining and logging traffic until 1956 when it was finally declared unsafe for vehicular travel. In the early 1980’s, townsfolk were troubled by the strength of the bridge, and in 1985 more than $40,000 was dedicated to repair the bridge and keep it open for pedestrians.
The bridge has a 122 foot span, 45 feet above the Applegate River and is supported by a Howe truss with beautiful flying buttresses. The scenic little park, built by the CCC in the 1930’s nestles into the west bank of the river by the bridge. An amazing special touch were the wooden panels installed on the original bridge siding, specifically dedicated to folks who wanted to add their own touch to the bridge, aka graffiti. The best part was that the graffiti was actually confined to the dedicated boards!
It was here that we found a perfect place to pull out the sandwiches and wine. I guess I should have taken photos of the signs posted on nearly every single tree and table and fence post, proclaiming loudly in capital letters, NO ALCOHOL. Thank goodness I don’t have as many readers as Al, who was lashed for talking about lemons, or Rick, who was castigated for doggie’s off leash, because I opened my bottle of wine and poured it into the little plastic picnic glasses with relish. We sat by the river at the substantial old picnic table for a long time, enjoying the water and our lunch. We were even treated to watching a couple of folks walk down to the river, drop in their lines, and seeing a good sized trout jumping on that line after the first cast!
After relaxing, walking, eating and just enjoying the park and bridge, the hour was getting late, but we didn’t want to miss a visit to Applegate Lake, just south toward the California line. So much of the history of the Applegate River and valley are associated with gold discovery, and gold mining, and there are still many folks who dredge parts of the Applegate River for gold. On the banks of the lake, which is dammed, are several campgrounds, and we wanted to check them out. The day was still cloudy and dark, and the campgrounds were very nearly empty. We saw one park, right on the lake, that was basically an asphalt parking lot on the beach and could only imagine just how crowded it might be in summer. The other two parks weren’t very rig friendly and too far from the water’s edge to comfortably carry down our kayaks. It might be fine to go to the parking lot campground early on a weekday in the summer to try kayaking the lovely lake with it’s complex shoreline.
The rain didn’t start up until we drove through Ruch on the way to Jacksonville. I love Jacksonville, an historic little town with shops and restaurants and beautiful trees. The Britt Festival is held here each summer, and Mo and I have been to many great shows on the lawns of Britt. Today, however, we just drove through, deciding to save more explorations of Jacksonville for the last of summer Whole Town Garage Sale. Jacksonville is lovely, and also very expensive. The homes are either new and gorgeous, or old and even more gorgeous, and I swoon over the perfectly restored Craftsman bungalows, many of them which serve as Bed and Breakfast establishments.
By the time we got back to Rocky Point it was late evening, still light thanks to the summer twilight, but late nonetheless. I was glad that we made our little trip in the “big car”, rather than in the little tow car. The Lexus comes out for special occasions and local trips, but will never be towed behind the motorhome! It’s comfortable and roomy, although I have to say that the big leather seats in the MoHo are my favorite. That’s a good thing, since within less than a month we will be embarking on our Alaska journey and I will be in those seats for several weeks!