Oregon – Page 8 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Of course you recognize where we are

Brookings, Oregon. High today 50F Sunny and breezy. Low tonight 28F

Once again in our favorite front row with hookups, a great Verizon signal and cable tv for a buck extra. The difference is that space A10 at Harris Beach State Park has been cleared and we can see 180 degrees of ocean from our bedroom window. We have been here so many times and posted so many photos that it might look familiar if you have read my blog in the past.

After three productive days raking, burning, cleaning and projecting at the Grants Pass cottage, we headed for the beach. The short two hour drive on Highway 199 was beautiful as always. Nothing to do here but relax, walk when we are motivated and watch the sea. We didn’t even tow the baby car this time. It’s a true quickie vacation.

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Free House With Purchase

And you believe that? Nothing is really free, of course, even if it seems it might be. We only paid what the acre would have been worth even without the house on it in order to build the MoHo shed, so technically the cottage was free. Until we decided that maybe putting a roof on it might be a good idea since it was leaking. We really didn’t plan to stay in the house at all when we bought it, but somehow it just seems to work out that it is fun, kind of like camping with water and heat, and the funky little cottage has something about it that feels really good. Maybe it is the light. Maybe it is the fact that it was built in 1926, and even though small and funky, there are big strong beautiful fir beams in the ceiling that haven’t warped in nearly 90 years.
But a free house definitely must have some “issues”, and of course we found them. The kitchen wall had some mold in it where the roof had leaked. We replaced the roof and decided it was time to take out the moldy kitchen wall. Uhoh. Mo took a sledge hammer to the wall (aka HGTV style) and what should come pouring out but ants! yup, ants. Bazillions of ants. I think the entire ant population of Grants Pass was living in that wall. Needless to say, a simple job of just starting on the wall turned into a must do project of getting it out of there. In the process, we found that what was a kitchen wall had once been an exterior wall, complete with cedar shingles, even an old window, all covered up by several layers of varying wall types. Needless to say, it was a mess.
We had spent the previous two days at the cottage burning some huge debris piles left over from the previous shed and roofing projects. Burn days in Grants Pass are rare, and involve calling at 6am to see if it is indeed a burn day. We haven’t had much luck lately so on Friday morning when the phone call gave us a resounding yes, we jumped into the pickup and made it to the cottage in less than 2 hours from waking up. We had two gorgeous burn days in a row before the inversion set in once again and no more burning was allowed. I raked and hauled leaves for two days straight while Mo managed the burn pile. There is a price to pay for those gorgeous huge oaks, and I never had a chance to get it all finished last fall. We don’t actually LIVE here, remember?! We were a bit worn out, and on Sunday morning Mo said, “Let’s just enjoy a nice easy day relaxing here before we head home”. Great idea. But that was before the ant wall was discovered.
Late on Sunday afternoon we celebrated with another great Abby’s pizza before we headed back over the mountain to our snowy home with the ice covered road up to the house. There is something about being able to leave, to actually get out of the funky cottage and back to our beautiful beautiful well water and warm wood stove and roomy bathrooms and all the goodies of living in a “real” house that make it all fun instead of depressing. The woman who lived in the cottage before us raised many sons there in the 60’s. We still can’t figure out where everyone slept, unless she sent the boys outside to the even funkier bunkhouse. Who knows. People did live differently then I guess. I know I did.
The cottage has a well, but the water has some salts in it, and it only gives about 2.5 gallons a minute. We had a long hose from the well house to the fire and after running it for about 20 minutes, we suddenly had no more water. Uhoh again. Neither of us has a clue how to prime a well pump, so had to go to the internet to discover that we probably had a submersible pump that didn’t need priming anyway. Just turn it off and wait two hours and see if it recovers.
We went inside, and waited, then back out to start up the water and uhoh again, no water at all. As Mo was walking back to the pump house, she discovered what we had missed earlier…a kink in the hose…can you believe that?!?! We never really ran the well dry at all. It was such a relief that we were all excited again about having 2.5 gallons a minute after all. We do bring drinking water from home, though, and there is no way we will put that salty water in our MoHo tanks. Guess we can’t ever really ‘move’ over to the cottage even when we get too old to shovel snow and haul wood at home in Rocky Point.
Ah well, we are home again, and I am working this week, but next week we will go back to the cottage. Only this time it will be what it was supposed to be, just a little stopover place for us to relax a bit before we load up the MoHo and head for the beach. Brookings here we come! Rain or shine. Rumor has it there might be at least a couple of days of sunshine at the ocean and we are going to make sure we find it.

Back to the Desert

On I-80 between Winnemucca, NV and Wells, NV

We have spent a lot of time this past year traveling the coast and the western valleys of Oregon and California. Our little winter time jaunts to Desert Hot Springs require a lot of traveling south along interstates. One of the advantages of living in this part of Oregon is that the northern high deserts are just a skip away to the east. For this trip to Colorado, we decided to follow our infamous Highway 140, (the one we take to Medford all the time) due east toward Lakeview, over the Warner Mountains, and south to Winnemucca.

At the moment, we are on I-80 heading east from Winnemucca toward Wells, where we plan to find a resting place. Interstate traveling at its mind numbing finest, but the visions of the last evening and this morning are still fresh in my mind. We are on our way to a family reunion, and Mo’s brothers are traveling east this morning as well. Original plans included all of us leaving this morning, and Roger and Nancy planned to come south to Rocky Point to caravan with us. Instead, they traveled north to caravan with Dan and Chere, and pick up brother number three, Don on their way east past Umatilla, Oregon.

Mo and I were almost ready to go on Saturday night, with only a mid-afternoon Sunday anniversary party to attend, and we looked at each other and said, “Why wait till Monday”. The original plan also included a driving day of more than 500 miles, not something we were particularly excited about. Instead, we dropped in on the party, and dropped right back out again and were on the road by 2:30 Sunday afternoon. Made for a bit more of a rush on Sunday morning, but well worth it.

We haven’t traveled 140 east for some time, and spent much of our conversation trying to remember which routes we had taken on which trips and during which years! What we both remembered, however, was that the road east of Lakeview was narrow, but quiet and beautiful and we knew there would be someplace where we could spend the night on the boonies.

This route is the one we have taken a few times, visiting the amazing Hart Mountain Reserve, camping at the mysterious and magical Steens Mountains, and returning through the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge looking for wild horses. We love the desert, and yet somehow we had forgotten just how much we love it. The vistas opening out to nothing, the roads empty of anything but stray cattle, the spacious skies all make for spacious open mind thoughts, uncluttered. Love that.

We got gas in Lakeview, at $3.73 per gallon, after realizing that the next reasonable gas was more than 200 miles distant in Winnemucca. Driving over the Warner Mountains was quick, and in no time we were dropping down the basalt canyons toward Adel. The meadows opened up to the south of the highway, and a wide level pullover shaded by a single juniper called to us. By 6:30 pm we were settled in with the slide open, the jacks down, and dinner in the skillet. Both of us were happy to have an extra 150 miles under our belts so our Monday drive to Wells would be a manageable 350 miles or so.

The silence was beautiful, and Mo and I just relaxed, and read a bit, talked a bit, and then started laughing when we couldn’t figure out what the animals outside our rig munching happily on the grass should be called. I wrote to Jenna and hopefully she can answer me. We called them cows, but then thought that cows are only females. Then we had the conversation about what is a heifer, and what animal do you castrate to make a steer if it isn’t a cow, and it is obviously a boy.. We went down the lane with a cow moose, a cow buffalo, a cow elk, and the a cow cow, of course. Then a bull cow? like a bull elk? This is the kind of silliness that can overtake at a boondock site in the middle of nowhere.

The goal is to reach Rock Springs, Wyoming on Wednesday where we will hook up with the brothers and their rigs and camp with hookups at the KOA. Then we will all caravan east toward Laramie, and then south to Lakewood and the rest of the family. I would imagine this first night in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Oregon was possibly the quietest night we may have on the entire trip. Our only sounds were the cows and a very occasional car passing by. The stars were brilliant, even the ones low on the horizon, just as I remember from so many years ago at Hart Mountain.

This morning we were treated to high pink wispy clouds to greet the day, and then even a bit of rain between Denio and Winnemucca. I haven’t seen rain in this part of the desert for a very long time, in fact, I don’t remember ever seeing rain in this part of the high desert. I drove this morning, Mo took over at Winnemucca, and before long we will be hunting for another desert boondock site.

The Applegate Wine Trail

The Applegate Wine Trail (link)

applegate wine trail I enjoy a good glass of wine, two buck chuck or a really fine glass of Pinot Noir, it’s all fun. I spent a lot of years in California, and went wine tasting with friends in the Napa Valley when tastings were free. I am certainly not educated about wine, and usually have to read the label to know what I am supposed to be thinking when I taste something. My palate is just barely sophisticated enough to recognize oak-ey, which I love, and a few others now and then. Going wine tasting always seems to be a bit more than I want to tackle on my own, and Mo and I will drop into a tasting room now and then if it isn’t pretentious and looks like fun.

Enter our neighbors and friends, Wes and Gayle. We couldn’t ask for better neighbors, but I am a bit sorry that they are only here in the summertime. The advantage of this is that we can visit their gorgeous Tucson home during the winter months if we get down that way. Having them here in the summer is great for selfish reasons as well, since they are our house sitters when we are gone and Wes does a mean job of taking care of the lawns.

Wes and Gayle know how to travel and how to have fun, and one of the things they do periodically is travel the Applegate Wine Trail between Medford and Grants Pass. We all decided to spend a sunny summer day together enjoying the beautiful vineyards and wineries on the Applegate. It was fun for us since Wes did the driving and they both know the area well, including which wineries we wouldn’t want to miss and which ones might be something to save for the next trip.

beautiful gardens at the Fiasco Winery I spent most of the day in awe of the incredibly gorgeous blue skies, with just enough puffy clouds to make it interesting, breathing in the fresh air and trying to capture the brilliance of the summery moments with my camera. I couldn’t capture the smell of the grape vines, and hard as I tried, I couldn’t capture the feel of the summer breezes filled with the fragrance of rich soil, moist riverbanks, lush flowers, and leaf heavy maples, oaks, sweet gums, and all the other unnamed deciduous trees we can’t grow on our side of the mountain.

Of course, the happy ambience created by a few tastings of vino certainly added to the warm, fuzzy feelings that I carried around with me all afternoon. Spending time with good friends doing happy things was wonderful as well.

We started at the southern end of the valley, near Ruch, Oregon, just a few miles west of Medford and Jacksonville. Valley View Winery was one of the first in the Applegate, and while the website says it was first established in the 1850’s, the attendants mentioned that when they opened their tasting room in the early 70’s they were one of only 4 wineries in the valley. Now there are 20 and more coming every year.

inside the Fiasco Winery is a very nice raked gravel floor I discovered that the websites tell what the tasting room policy is for tasting fees, which might have been nice to know ahead of time. Wes and Gayle thought that almost all the wineries they visited a couple of years ago had no fees, however things have changed as the Applegate catches up to the rest of the wine tasting world. Still, a few had no charge for tasting, and a few refunded the tasting charge with a purchase, and the standard $5. fee was certainly less than the $25 and more fees in Napa or Sonoma.

While searching about for the winery links, I also found this little treasure about Tasting Room Etiquette. Might have been a good idea to read this before we embarked on our day trip!

there is a book, After a lovely flight of whites and reds, and a purchase of a 2006 Anna Maria Cabernet, we ambled on down the road to the Fiasco Winery. I am not quite sure how the name came to be, but with another tasting fee and an attendant who wasn’t quite as personable, we decided that we were happy enough to check out the tasting room and move on to the next winery.

The best part of Fiasco was the winery dog, and in their tasting room shop was a little book called “Every Winery has a Dog”, with some great photos and stories of the companion dogs that many wine makers seem to have. We even met a few more as we continued on our way.

The prettiest winery, a new one called the Red Lily, just opened last fall With a few stops in between, we came to the newer and incredibly lovely Red Lily Vineyards . Only opening their tasting room last fall, they have been making excellent wines for several years from their own vineyards around the valley.

The grounds were gorgeous, and the attendants delightful. We tried a taste of their beautiful and tasty Lily Girl Rose and decided it would be the perfect choice for our picnic wine for the day. I am still wishing that I had purchased a few bottles of that lovely summer wine, but I’ll know where to find it.

Gayle had come prepared with a wonderful spread of cheeses, crackers and flat breads, amazing gourmet pickles, olives and a feta olive oil garlic spread she had made, all with fine little dishes and pretty napkins. The winery has a delightful picnic area by the river with shady tables and a bandstand for music. They even provided us with a bucket of ice and glasses to enjoy our purchase with lunch.

After our relaxing and tasty repast we ambled on up the highway to Gayle and Wes’s favorite winery, the big old barn housing the tasting room for Bridgeview Vineyards and Winery. With no tasting fee here we enjoyed a flight of excellent, very reasonably priced wines, and discovered the great Pinot Gris and Dry Reisling that the valley had made famous. After another purchase of some nice wines, I walked around in the vineyards trying once again to capture the feeling of that air and light. Impossible.

and a winery cat In our happy haze ( the girls, not the driver!) we continued north along the east side of the valley to Wooldridge Creek Vineyards and Winery. We had all decided that perhaps we had tasted enough but that didn’t dampen our enjoyment of the beautiful grounds and tasting room. Again we met a winery dog and even a winery cat.

Passing several more vineyards, we stopped in at Troon Vineyard to check out the digs and appreciate the beautiful gardens and vines. Skipping the tastings for the rest of the afternoon was just fine. After awhile it all starts to run together and I have no idea how you could keep on tasting all day. Must take practice!

We ended the afternoon at the Schmidt Family Vineyards , another of the oldest in the valley and possibly the most beautiful gardens of any of them.

The tasting room was constructed in the old roundhouse for the railroad that once traversed the property and was gorgeous.

The porches were cool and inviting, with views of the gardens and many comfy chairs and tables set about for relaxing with a glass of wine, or just relaxing and enjoying the conversation and the views. Once again I tried to take photos of the breeze. I am sure some great photographer knows just how to do this, but not me. Still, when I look at the photo, I remember that warm breeze even if no one else has a clue.

I took a LOT of photos, and if you want to check them out they are here.

Here is the google map of our little day trip in case you are ever in Oregon and decide to do a little wine tasting in the lovely Applegate Valley.

our map with wes and gayle We are now packing up for our three week jaunt to Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming and by this afternoon the lush green of Oregon will give way to the wide open deserts of northern Nevada as we head east on curvy Highway 140 and then south to Winnemucca. Yay! We are on the road again!!

From the Heart

“It shifted from being written directly to my family and friends to something with more explanation and less from the heart, if you know what I mean. “ “paying too much attention to the reader community and not enough to my own preferences. “

Words this morning from a trusted friend brought me up short. I know the feeling, and I fight it sometimes. Case in point: my last post and this one. There is enough going on around here that I have some things to write about, some life to share, and yet I found myself liking the way the last post looked so much that I didn’t want to upstage it with a new one that wouldn’t have those photos of my pelicans. Now just how silly is THAT?! Mo said, “Well, why don’t you just put the pelicans up on the header photo?” Yeah, ok, I’ll do that, and yet the thoughts behind why I didn’t want to write a new post were still somewhat interesting to me. Sounds like I may be slipping into what this friend described in that last sentence I quoted in the first paragraph!

My Goal: write from the heart. Write about stuff, explain stuff, but keep the heart in it. Write as if I were writing to a trusted friend. Of course, some stuff I wouldn’t even write to a trusted friend so I won’t write that part in here. Those parts are saved for private journals that even my kids will never see. The good thing about this goal is that when I go back and read (and I DO go back and read my own blog), it will be entertaining and fun, and will help me remember not only what I saw and what I did, but how I felt about it. At least that is the goal.

Personal journals, on the other hand, can be incredibly depressing to read later. I journal a lot when I am angry, depressed, or just plain falling apart. Not fun reading. On another note, I don’t seem to have a lot of personal journaling going on now as I did when I was younger. Life is less full of angst and worry and frustration. I guess after 66 years, it is about time, right?

I think especially of this kind of “from the heart” writing when I think of Sherry’s story of David’s journey. I have mentioned them often enough that anyone who reads my blog has probably found theirs. Good news today with 8 million stem cells in his collection! Then, again from the heart, Laurie Brown’s eulogy to her Dad. Semi-True Tales of the Road has been one of those that stands out so far above so many of us that it is hard to see it wind down a bit. The only blog I read for years, I still always watch for a post from Laurie. Many folks mentioned her great campground reviews, but when I think of Laurie, I think of great food stories, seriously funny moments (aka Desert Hot Springs), and the clay oven.

Speaking of bloggers, last week brought us another blogger meet-and-greet treat, with Merikay and Craig visiting our world. They spent a long time hiking the trails of Crater Lake, many that Mo and I who live an hour away have never traveled. Then they camped a couple of nights right here in Rocky Point, giving us the chance to get Merikay and Craig out on Recreation Creek in the kayaks.

I love showing someone how much fun it is to get out on the water in a kayak and this was no exception. We had a perfect day with water smooth as glass for our morning adventure. Getting into a kayak for the first time can be a bit daunting, and once out on the water, it sometimes takes a few moments to get used to that wiggly feeling. Within a short time though, that feeling goes away and your body settles into the balance much like it happens on a bicycle. We had a nice, short paddle for their first run, and I do hope they will try it again. It is such a great way to get up close to the birds and feel a silence on the water that is hard to find any other way.

A little benefit of blog meet-and-greets are the photos! Loree has photos of Jeana on her blog since they met up as Loree traveled east, and we got a great photo of Loree on Jeana’s blog as well. Now isn’t that just fabulous?! Somehow the photos that others take of you are quite a bit different than the ones you might put up on your own blog.

Later that afternoon I invited Merikay and Craig to the house for supper, along with our closest neighbors, Wes and Gayle, our Tucson friends who live here in the summer. We had appetizers on the porch, dinner inside at the dining table, and dessert back on the porch, all accompanied by a few different wines supplied by each of us. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially since hostessing a meal is a favorite thing for me to do. I was having so much fun I forgot to take photos of the table, the food, and my guests. I guess that is a good sign.

Fourth of July was wonderful. I do love the Fourth, not for any particularly patriotic reason, but for its ability to bring up happy childhood memories and to create small town joys. As I spent the morning making potato salad and meltingly perfect chocolate cupcakes, I remembered my foster mother, who loved all holidays and taught me to appreciate them with huge church picnics, decorations for everything, and always always great holiday food.

With Melody and family in town, Mo and I drove in for the celebrations. Klamath Falls once again scheduled the holiday parade for 5 in the evening, ending in Veteran’s Park, where the fireworks were scheduled to go off at ten pm when it is finally dark here. It is much nicer to have a later parade and only have to drive to town once. When the parade was in the morning, it was harder to figure out what to do with ourselves while we waited for the fireworks twelve hours later.

This time, the parade was nice, but I still wish we could get more marching bands to come. There was only one. Parades need music! There were lots of red white and blue decorations, however, and the Shriner guys in their little cars always make a parade seem like the real thing. Of course, seeing my son in law and my grandson representing the Klamath County Sheriff’s department was a treat. Kevin is a reserve deputy, and Elric got a big kick out of being in the cop car in the parade. UhOh. Elric is now Xavier, but I keep forgetting. I have no clue why teenagers think they have to change their names, but I am trying to get with the program. Seems to me that Elric is enough of an interesting name, but n-ooo-ooo. He has to make it more interesting! He is 13. What can I say…

Hillary/Axel (remember that other name change I mentioned in the last post?) spent most of the time between the parade and the fireworks volunteering for the face painting booth. Terrible me, I can’t remember what the booth was promoting, but it was some sort of socially redeemable venture, I am sure. We had fun watching her and as the evening wore on, the line grew exponentially. Word was getting around that she was painting some fairly radical faces, unlike the typical butterflies and such. Well, with a name like Axel, who would expect butterflies anyway?

By the time the fireworks started, we were all starting to get fairly chilled, but the bugs weren’t out this year so that was a blessing. Why don’t I remember that even if it is 90 during the day, the air will require sweats, jackets and even gloves by ten pm. I hate to say it, but when the fireworks began we were pretty disappointed. It may have been because of the high winds that evening, but once again the big booms couldn’t seem to rise above the trees lining the lakeshore at Veteran’s Park.

It made for some interesting photos, especially with the full moon rising right where the big fireworks were exploding, but it also made for a few unhappy folks hanging around all evening waiting. Next year we may just give it up and go check out the fireworks at Lake of the Woods, closer to home for us, but not part of that small town Klamath thing that we love.

I guess the small town Klamath thing means there isn’t enough money for a big town fireworks show.