rivers – Page 5 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

September 15 The Ohio River Scenic Byway

I learned about the Ohio River today, as we traveled from Ohio, and across the southern boundary of Indiana. The Ohio River Scenic Byway covers three states along 967 miles of natural and cultural history. Leaving Casstown this morning, our route took us south toward the river, and we chose to follow the blue dotted line, curves and all, in order to see the countryside. The first part of our route wasn’t too impressive, and I wondered what the “scenic” really meant.

We had been on winding roads so much of the time, and decided to take a bit of a break around Louisville, and followed the Interstate for a time before dropping back down to the river again. It was a great decision, because from the town of Sulphur on state route 66, through Evansville, we followed the river through forests and farmlands and river towns rich with history.

The town of Madison was especially inviting, with 1500 buildings and all 133 blocks of the town listed on the Historic Register. A point of frustration for us, especially on a scenic byway, was the lack of places to stop and park and actually see the river. The road was incredibly narrow and winding, with no shoulders at all, and no place to stop.

But finally at the tiny town of Derby, we found a lovely park along the river, and a big barge happened to pass by at just the right moment. I love the signs telling about the history of what we are seeing, and as silly as it seems, these sign photos really help me to remember the stories of where we have been. This sign was especially good, with a clear panel that made my photo look like something framed rather than an actual scene. Made me laugh.

We followed the barge along the river until we came to the Cannelton Locks, where again there wasn’t any place to park or pull over. High on a hill above the locks, however, is the Eagle Ridge park, and as we walked out to the overlook, we got to see our barge going through the locks.

Today was my 65th birthday, and it was great to spend it exploring some part of the world that is new to me. Sometimes birthdays are strange, and I find myself waiting for the band to come marching through. Most of the time, there is no band, but in this case, since I was traveling, it didn’t matter! I talked to my children and to my dearest friend back in California, and the chance to connect with family and friends was a good thing. Cell phones are an amazing thing.

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here.

September 13 Mercer PA to Casstown OH

Leaving the western edge of Pennsylvania, we traveled toward the Ohio River, attempting to stay on back roads in order to see the countryside. Once in Ohio, however, the challenge was on. Southeastern Ohio is formed in the worn down foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, in addition to narrow winding roads, there are many small towns just a few miles apart, surrounded by meandering rivers and rolling hills.

Our maps were too small a scale to have all we needed, the iPhone didn’t work at all, so I had only the GPS to figure out our route. Garmin Girl was as frantic as I was, because trying to type in a town and a street took some time, and often we were there before I could get it all figured out. Mo was driving, and I think by the time we got to Casstown I was more worn out from navigating that she was from driving all those curvy roads.

Another reason for driving the back roads, was to drive far enough south to see a bit of West Virginia. Just across from East Liverpool, on the Ohio River, is the small West Virginia town of Chester. We saw the big bridge crossing the river, and managed to find our way across, meandering through town thinking we could cross back to Ohio on the Newell Bridge. Maybe not! The Newell bridge was very narrow, had a weight limit, and a toll! Instead we meandered back across the interstate bridge and again found our way south and west through the back roads of Ohio. Of course, we did this in order to add the state of West Virginia to our travel map! I have heard several ideas about how this is done, but the one we follow is that if you drive in the state, you get to claim it!

The forests in this part of Ohio have been logged and burned repeatedly, and are somewhat scraggly. We were on a road that showed a dotted blue line, meaning it was a scenic route, but we couldn’t find any signs saying what scenic route we were viewing. We spent the day winding along the hills, through small towns and farms, until we reached the portion of Ohio that is reputed to be a center of Amish culture.

The AAA book on Ohio listed the restored town of Roscoe as a “Gem”, and being directly on our route we stopped in to view some of the shops and buildings. It was charming, with a nice visitor center, and a living history museum that might have been interesting if we had the time to actually spend. Instead, Mo dropped me off on the extremely narrow street at one end of town and picked me up at the other, after some time for me to shoot photos of some of the structures. It was very hot, something new for us, since we have had cool rainy weather for most of our trip. At this point, we followed Mo’s friend Millie’s advice and detoured north to Berlin.

What we found after arriving, was that Berlin is merely a very commercial central area for “Amish Country”, and the only way to really experience this area would be to travel much more slowly. It takes time and a small vehicle to actually savor the slow lifestyle, to amble up the country lanes to visit farms and purchase Amish goods. Instead we parked in a big parking lot advertising Amish tours, buggy rides, and crafts. We stayed a very short time, since everything seemed incredibly generic and commercial and we wanted to arrive at our host’s home at a reasonable time.

Traveling west again toward Dayton, the roads finally leveled out. Long, straight, level, and headed due west into the setting sun. The blinding sunlight served to illuminate nothing but the giant bug splatters from goodness knows what cloud of species battered our windshield along this route .Passing Urbana, blinded by the light, we got a glimpse of rows and rows of huge mansions along the main highway, quite close to the road, and incredibly close together. Photos were impossible, but I discovered later that these kinds of homes seem to be very common in this part of the Midwest and would present more than enough photo opportunities for me.

It was with grateful and worn out hearts that we pulled into the long winding driveway of Mo’s friends Don and Millie. The connection goes back more than 40 plus years, and Mo has attended the weddings of each of their three daughters, worked on her Master’s with Millie, camped with the family many times, and shared many life experiences during the time most everyone lived in the Bay Area of California.

Don and Millie relocated to Ohio a few years ago in order to be close to their three daughters, all living here with their husbands and families. I had visited Don and Millie with Mo when they lived near me in Oakhurst, California, near Yosemite, and was delighted to see them again. The driveway led to a beautiful brick home on 7 wooded acres, with huge lawns, a creek, and an RV pad for the MoHo, complete with water, electric, and sewer. Perfect!

Millie fed us supper and after a bit of visiting these two weary travelers settled into a much needed rest.

Photos for the rest of this day are linked here

September 12 Watkins Glen to Mercer, Pennsylvania

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here.

It was good to have two nights in one place, but it was also good to know we would be on the road again this morning. Most days we only drive 200 to 300 miles or so, and even with only a night, we still have some time to settle in and enjoy. We also took a bit of time in Wellsboro to upload photos and post all the blog posts that were backing up. We had no clue where we would spend the night, but with it being a Sunday and long after Labor Day, we hoped for something simple and accessible.

Before that, however, the Grand Canyon of the East called. It was raining, and I knew that it would be difficult to peer into a deep canyon under those conditions. But with no idea when we would be this way again, it was not a drive to be missed. Shortly after we crossed into Pennsylvania, we came to the Pennsylvania Welcome Center, one of the best centers we have seen since the South Carolina Welcome Center during our 2007 cross country trip.

The Pennsylvania Welcome Center was one of the best I have seen in the country

Matt, the attendant on duty, was friendly and helpful, and even called around to find out where I could get free WiFi.

The attendant, Matt, was helpful and informative, and gave me a bag full of maps, directions, and brochures to help manage the day ahead. Scenic Route 6 is a beautiful drive rated by National Geographic as one of the best in the nation. It is over 400 miles long, following a route through several geographic divisions from the east to the western border of the state. We joined the route about midway and followed it as far as the Allegheny River.

The side trip to the canyon was lovely, in spite of the rain, and the state park had no entrance fee, so hiking around in the fog was OK. The canyon was shrouded in mist, except for a few moments when Pine Creek appeared thinly. I bought a great book, however, that I read aloud for the rest of the route. I learned about the geology, the landscapes, the history, both natural and human, of the great forest we drove through. We approached the highlands of the Allegheny Plateau, and for the first time I understood the relationship of ancient inland seas and glaciations in this part of the world.

It was a beautiful green day, punctuated by charming small towns filled with unique houses, and main streets that looked like they came from a Rockwell painting. In the afternoon, along the Allegheny River, Mo had a spontaneous moment and decided suddenly to cross the river to a small town called Tidioute. I still don’t have a clue how to pronounce that name, but I won’t forget the town!

We drove across the river and down the main street, continuing toward the edge of town, and the street just kept going. And going. And going. It kept getting more narrow, and there were no turnarounds to be found. After a few miles the trees started closing in and we finally decided to unhook the baby car and get turned around. whew. Once we hooked up again and headed back through town, I became enamored with the homes and buildings, and suddenly we realized that we had missed the bridge. The road was once again getting narrow and wandering off into who knows where. Garmin Girl showed a single road, with no side roads, no turnarounds. So once again we drove into a gravel driveway near the city reservoir and tried to unhook. Problem was that we were on a hill, and backing the MoHo with the car behind it isn’t as easy as backing a trailer. After some tries, we finally managed to get unhooked, turned around, managed to get rehooked and finally back across the Allegheny River!

The rest of the evening was uneventful, meandering through small towns until we reached I-80 and I-79 towards our chosen campground at the little town of Mercer. The camp is pleasant, with enough space between sites, with electricity, water, cable tv and seriously good WiFi! I made some chicken quesadillas for a simple supper and have enjoyed the time to read and write a bit, catching up with my kids and friends, checking the weather, and basically reconnecting with the world again.

August 31 Devils Lake ND to Bemidji MN

The rest of the photos for this day of travels are linked here.

When I woke this morning, I knew I loved North Dakota even more than yesterday. The skies had partially cleared and the sun was illuminating the park in a sea of iridescent green like a vision from a long forgotten fairy tale. The park was still very nearly empty, with only four campers stretched out over the more than 100 sites on the east side campground. After morning tea we unhooked the bikes for a very windy but exhilarating ride through the park, along the whitecapped lake, and around the west campground.

Have I mentioned the battery problems with the Tracker? Sometimes, completely unexpectedly, the battery will be dead. Totally silent kind of dead. Since that first time back in Spokane, it has only happened when it is still hooked up, but is more of an annoyance than a really serious problem. This morning it was dead again, and Mo decided that maybe she wasn’t doing something wrong and she just needed a new battery. We were in luck. Checking the Road Atlas for a Wal-Mart showed one right in Devils Lake, just a block away from our already planned stop at the Exxon for propane. Details. However those details did slow down our travels a bit and after buying propane and a battery, we didn’t get out of Devils Lake until after 11am.

It was to be an easy day, though, with only 200 miles to Bemidji, our planned destination. The roads were clear and straight, with huge wide medians filled with green. Have I mentioned green? And blue? There is so much sky in this part of the world, and even when it is half covered by clouds there is so much blue. In fact, seeing sky that goes brilliant blue all the way to the horizon in all directions is a treat that I was looking forward to and could only imagine. I know the west is beautiful. Westerners always have to make comments about this part of the country, “but it’s so FLAT”. “I couldn’t live without the mountains.” Well, I do love the mountains, and I love the west, but with mountains in the west come fires and haze and murky skies during much of the summer when it should be blue. Today was blue. And green. And white. It was an amazing day of brilliant color and sky. Yesterday I fell in love with North Dakota, and today I fell in love with Minnesota.

Now my daughter will accuse me of being a soil nerd, but I also had a blast using the iPhone SoilWeb application developed by Toby O’Geen at UCDavis. You just hit the screen, and in a minute your gps location finds the soil that is mapped there and a screen pops up with the soil profile, the description, and the classification. The application is essentially using web soil survey, but it’s great fun to get it on the fly. So when the phone tells me I am crossing a fine smectitic frigid Aquertic Argiudoll, I know by this name that the climate is fairly cold but not in summer, that the soil has wetness issues, that is has cracks in it from the fine clays, that the surface is deep and dark, and that it gets summer rain. I am not sure if any other scientific classifications explain so much about the thing they are classifying.

We stopped in at a visitor center just inside the state of Minnesota and while I continued to drive, Mo reviewed some of the possibilities for the next few days. She started reading about the Itasca State Park, where you can walk across the Mississippi, and we couldn’t figure out just where it was, but she thought we needed to go there. A conversation ensued about timing, and how we were going to make it to Niagara Falls if we kept wandering off to do other things than what was originally planned. About that moment, a sign appeared, Itasca State Park, 21 miles south, and within a moment we made the decision to go there. For me this is the best part of a road trip, that spontaneous moment when you just take the turn down the road, unplanned.

Itasca State Park is where the headwaters of the Mississippi River emerge from the lake on their journey to the Gulf of Mexico. The river is the third largest in the world, and it drains more than a third of the entire United States. Here in the park, the river is just a riffle without a thought of what she will become. The interpretive center had excellent maps and posters describing the area, the river, the history, and so much more. There were campgrounds there, and initially we thought we might camp, but then decided that we could still get to the park in Bemidji by six or so and it would be a bit further down the road so we headed back north.

Garmin Girl has been silenced, but she still is giving directions that are usually very good. Yesterday she tried to take us across some very wet dirt roads on the way to Devils Lake, but today she navigated the way to Bemidji State Park without a hitch. This park is much more closed and shaded than Devils Lake, but still isn’t crowded at all at the moment. We were offered a pull through electric site and took it happily. After a simple setup and pizza for supper in the convection oven we took off walking the Homestead Trail to the Rocky Point Overlook on Bemidji Lake. The trails are extremely well maintained, wide and well planned, surrounded by deep, moist hardwood forest. I do love the hardwood forests, and I am sure that before this trip is over I will have many more photos of sunlight backlighting the leaves through the shadows.

Once back at camp, I discovered to my amazement that here, in the middle of the forest, in Bemidji Minnesota, I have free internet access compliments of the Minnesota State Park System. So while Mo built an evening campfire, I uploaded the last couple of days photos, and finished writing blog entries as well.

Who knows when I will have access again, but for now, this is great. The humidity is high, but not unbearable because it is cool. The mosquitoes aren’t as big or prolific as I thought they might be, although we did put on some DEET for the first time since we left on this trip. The night is quiet and still, with no rain in sight, no thunder to wake us. Maybe a really good night of sleep awaits!

The Oregon Coast (the rest of the story)

As sometimes happens, I wrote many pages full of eloquent descriptions and exquisite details about the next few days that we spent on the Oregon coast, only to lose it all in the publish/review/draft/publish process. After a big sigh, I just gave up and continued on to the next adventure. The problem with that plan, however, is that the next few days on the coast were filled with incredible kayaking experiences. Now, instead of all the details (which I write for myself as much as anyone) this post will merely try to remember the best parts, the highlights of the rest of the week.

When we explored Pacific City, we saw the Little Nestucca River and Nestucca Bay, and made plans to return the next day for a kayak adventure. On the Little Nestucca River, we put in at a boat launch east of Highway 101, about 3 miles upriver from the bay. It was a bit exciting to put in on a new river, something unknown, and I was especially tickled to have five bars with 3G coverage on my iPhone. I could zoom in on the Google Maps and see our route as we cruised down the river. Fabulous.

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The river flowed through the Nestucca Bay Wildlife Refuge and into the bay. We chose our paddling time well, with the current and tide taking us down and the tide turning and again taking us back upstream, with only a little bit of effort required the last mile or so as we returned. Nestucca Bay was beautiful, with a long peninsula protecting it from the open ocean. Our route took us to the mouth of the bay, to the surf, and to a small beach almost completely empty of people. Across the river, a group of horsemen gathered on the beach, and some crabbers trolled the waters, but it was quiet and clean, and beautiful. A perfect kayak adventure for us.

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The day after that we returned to a park that we found on the Salmon River, near the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology south of the little community of Neskowin. We were surrounded on three sides by reserves, conservation centers, Nature Conservancy preserves, and beautiful wildlands. Even in the misty overcast, it was an amazing experience. On this day I discovered a completely different relationship with rain, I loved it.

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We kayaked downriver, not a long way, to the breakers, and found a tiny tidal island where we docked and cleaned out our boats. The island slowly disappeared with the rising tide as we stood there, and we pushed off again and headed upstream. Once again, we were very nearly alone on a gorgeous beach on the Oregon coast on a summer day. Not many places where this kind of beauty can be found in the midst of solitude. It was perfect.

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We moved our camp to Beachside State Park for a couple of days, spent some time in Florence, in the old town part of the city, enjoying cappuccino and shopping, and had another great seafood meal at a different Mo’s. Mo and Abby and I had a wonderful time walking the beach and I took way too many photos of the gorgeous Solstice sunset on the 21st.

When we left the coast on Wednesday to head back home, the skies were really gray and dreary, but sunshine and hot summer temperatures waited for us as we traveled inland.

I wish I hadn’t lost what I wrote, but hopefully the photos will remind me of the very best parts.

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A link to the photos of kayaking the estuaries is here, and a link to the photos of Beachside State Park and Florence is here.