Rocky Point – Page 9 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Spring snows and off to the beach!

It’s been a week and a half since I had the chance to sit down to my personal computer and think about writing something about the passing days. They have been so full. The sadness in the southeast, and the devastation and lost lives was heartbreaking. With no time for blogging or reading blogs, the news about Al and Kelly’s Max still came in through Facebook and I was saddened again. Somehow when sadness intervenes I go quiet, it’s hard to write about my “stuff” when others are going through so much. This morning the sun is shining, and Mo and I are packing the MoHo for a trip to the Oregon Coast, and it’s time to start writing again!

Of course, as mentioned in the last post, I have been working three weeks straight through, with last week requiring a trip to town every single day. It was time for the formal Progress Review for the Klamath Soil Survey, and I couldn’t manage that one from home. I loved every minute of it, long days going over all the details of years of mapping the basin, and this time I was only a participant, with no stress, no management responsibilities. Yeah, I am still working after retirement, but I don’t have any of the stress of the job. Chris is a great project leader, had the review well prepared, and the regional specialist who reviewed us is one of my favorites. We have a long history going back many years.

The daily trip to town was a bit daunting, for a couple of reasons. Spring keeps trying to show up around here, but as the joke going around the internet says, it isn’t installing properly. I woke up on Thursday to an inch of frozen snow and ice, and slid all the way to town on that stuff. Ugh. Since I left early, I had time to slow down and appreciate the gorgeous skies and blue waters of Klamath Lake, and even pulled over a few times for photos. I kept thinking, “Just slow down and appreciate the beauty instead of complaining about the snow”. Then I slipped on the ice and managed to keep from sliding under the car with some fairly weird body moves. I was rewarded for my efforts by suddenly looking into the eyes of a blue heron right in front of me, trying to fish, and wondering where the snow came from. Of course, 30 miles each way isn’t bad when the weather is good and the sun is shining, but when gas is at 3.95 per gallon and I am driving my Dakota it gets a bit depressing. The Dakota gets about 15 mpg, so you do the math.

While I was intently focused on work stuff, Mo was valiantly working away on the greenhouse. We had a bit of a funny start with the project, funny unless you are the one wielding the shovel. We decided on a location for the house, and my job was to remove the sod from the 10×12 space. Took me a couple of partial days to get the job done and I was extremely proud of myself. Mo came in the house after I was done, looking sheepish. Seems as though we had located the house straddling the official property line, and half of it would be in the “road” if the county ever decided to enforce the rules. We thought the house would be something we could move around at will, but after reviewing the complex directions, Mo decided that she didn’t really want to ever move it once it was built. So, I got out the trusty sharp shooter spade, and once again lifted a 10 x 12 square foot area of sod. This time, Mo helped move it all after I did the cutting and it only took us a day. When I came home from work the following night, Mo had faithfully replaced all the sod squares in the original site. By mid summer, no one will ever know we tried to build a greenhouse in the road.

The rest of the week, while I worked, Mo patiently fiddled with the instructions and put that thing together. I swear it was like some sort of evil erector set. The directions were ok, but the drawings were a bit weird. I think Mo spent 3 hours trying to understand just how to put the top beam together. The kit is all screws and bolts and straight pieces of aluminum. It’s a good thing I wasn’t the one doing it, or it would still be in a pile somewhere!

I am excited about the project, though. When I got home from work on Friday it was completely finished, and now we are going to town today to buy the raised bed materials for the interior. We also decided to put down a floor of 1/2 inch hardware cloth wire to try to keep out the voles and rabbits. The sun was shining beautifully yesterday, but the wind was cold. I stepped into the greenhouse and reveled in the warm, humid air. I will have at least one 10×12 space of deer free, frost free gardening, at least as long as I remember to never leave that wide door open!

Last weekend we took some time out from work and greenhouse building to celebrate Easter with family. My daughter and son-in-law, my two grandkids, and my sister and niece all came out to Rocky Point for a celebratory brunch and Easter Egg hunt. We had a great time, and I made Mo’s favorite orange walnut coffee cake to go with the zip-lock bag omelets. I love those crazy things, always perfect for fun and laughs in a crowd. The kids then colored all the eggs and Kevin and Melody played Easter Bunny hiding them in the yard. We had some moments of snow flurries, but the sun came out warm and bright in time for our festivities. Then the kids decided to hide the eggs for the adults and we had lots of laughs together over that one.

I think the funniest moment of the day, however, was trying to explain to my daughter’s Thai exchange student why a rabbit would lay eggs. It’s hard enough to explain to our own kids, but when you add the cultural differences it’s even funnier. We finally went to the internet to discover that the tradition goes back to the middle ages and morphed into the Easter Rabbit sometime during the 18th century in Germany. It was perfect family time, even though I rarely manage to get all my family together at once, I am still so grateful for the ones that live close by.

The sun finally came out and in spite of the cold temperatures, Mo managed to get the MoHo all washed and shiny and I cleaned out the interior. The MoHo is five years old, and now and then something needs replaced. We had the original CO2 detector that is supposed to only last five years. Sure enough, it started screaming at strange moments having nothing to do whatsoever with CO2. The problem is that the original unit is no longer made, and the new one is a different size than our original. Mo had to cut out a bigger square in the wall to install the new one, but now all the green lights are on and there are no weird screams in the night. She had to find the replacement on the internet, since the local RV shops only carry the type that have both CO2 and propane detectors in one unit. Dumb. We already have a propane detector near the floor and the refrigerator, where propane might actually show up. Now we are all good to go, with safe detectors. I remember the explosion in an RV at the Sands RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs last winter that was caused by leaking propane. Good detectors are important!

I now have a whole week without work, and Mo and I decided it was a perfect time to head for the coast. We miss the beach, and this time we are going to Brookings, where Mo once had a condo overlooking the ocean. We will camp at Harris Beach State Park for a few days, and then drive north to South Beach where we will meet her brother and his wife for a couple of days of more family fun. Of course the kayaks are going on this trip, and we hope to test the waters in the Chetko and Pistol Rivers and maybe Brookings Harbor. The best part of this plan is that we have sunshine and temperatures predicted in the 70’s! On the Oregon Coast!! Some of our fellow RV’rs haven’t been so lucky lately, so our timing is perfect.

Kayaks on our lake at last

The weather has been so changeable lately, but the change that hasn’t yet happened is warm sunny days. Often we have our kayaks in the water as early as March, but this year has been long and cold. We even hauled the new boats to California in February, hoping for some good estuary kayaking, but it was not to be. The boats got lots of miles on top the Tracker, but not a single dip into the water thanks to high winds and low tides.

In the midst of soaking rains and occasional snow flurries, we had a day of brilliant sunshine, with temps maxing out at 50 F. At first I thought about trying to get out on the water around 11, good time for a lunch break from the home office for me, but a short step outside indicated that 40 degrees and a 10 mph wind wasn’t exactly conducive to being on the water. I finished my day of work, and by 4pm, while the sun was fading into the clouds of a coming storm, the winds had died to practically nothing.

Home for us is just south of Rocky Point in the forest.

For the first time since we got our new kayaks, we loaded them up in my truck and drove the long 1/4 mile to the boat launch at Rocky Point Resort just down the road. When we got the new boats, we also bought new lightweight Werner paddles, and during the first few minutes on the water, they took a bit of getting used to. It felt like there was nothing to hold onto as I paddled, but after a couple of hours out on the water, it was wonderful. The new Swift Adirondacks are a foot longer and maybe a couple of inches wider than our old Perception Acadias, but they are 15 pounds lighter. We did manage to launch them last fall right after they arrived, but this was the first launch on our home territory, and my first launch of the replacement boat delivered by Swift in January. I wrote about why I needed a replacement boat back here in November.

Ahhh. I can’t explain that feeling of gliding silently, and rhythmically along still water, surrounded by mountains only accompanied by the water birds. The sandhill cranes are hollering in the marsh along with blue herons. The Canada geese are everywhere, and many types of ducks. My little camera isn’t so great at the long bird shots, and as I slid along yesterday, I really looked forward to my coming ‘DSLR with a telephoto’ days. We spotted an eagle not far from shore, and some ospreys were fishing for their evening meal.

This time, instead of traveling north along Recreation Creek to the springs, we took a southern route into Pelican Bay along the western edge of Upper Klamath Lake. It has been a great water year, and the lake is higher than I have seen it in many years. We kayak here often, but everything looked completely different with the high water. The snow on Mt McLaughlin was thick and deep, and looking up, I remembered the hot August day that Mo and I hiked to the top of that mountain.

Even though McLaughlin is only 9450 feet tall, it stands majestically above the surrounding Cascade Mountains and is visible from Medford, from Klamath Falls, and even from California along Highway 97 north of Weed. It’s the remnant of an old volcano, glaciated to it’s current shape, and most of the time, has a snow-capped summit.

Back in 2003, Mo and I had only known each other a few months when we decided it was time to climb that mountain. My sister just laughed out loud when I asked her to join us. “I’m not crazy enough to even THINK about trying to climb that mountain”. That summer Mo and I were of course just young things, of course, and we were up for anything. At 63 years old, Mo was younger than I am now! It was a long day, and a gorgeous climb. Many people say they have climbed McLaughlin, but often they only go to the last landing before the steep rocky summit to the peak. From the landing, there is no trail, only huge boulders with faint arrows painted here and there. The forest service tries to remove those arrows since McLaughlin is in the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area, and they don’t help much anyway.

It was a daunting climb, and about 200 feet from the top, I got sick and weak, and gave out. Mo climbed on ahead of me to the peak while I tried to recuperate. A couple of climbers came along, one of them saying, “You should go down now, because you will only get sicker if you go higher and altitude sickness lasts for hours”. Another one said, “You should go to the top, because you will hate yourself if you don’t”, and gave me some Gatorade. I decided that I was going to do it, no matter what, and just about that time Mo returned from the summit and said, “Sure, I’ll go up with you.” You gotta remember, Mo is almost 6 years older than me, and even though I worked outdoors in the field for most of my career, she was a PE teacher, so often is in the lead on these kinds of excursions!

So we hiked over the huge, room sized boulders to the summit, where I crawled out across the dizzying space to sit with Mo for our summit photo. The 360 degree view was amazing in all directions. The mountain is visible from the road very near our house, and often we look up at the sharp summit and say, “Gee, I’m glad we did that and don’t have to do it again.” It took us 12 hours round trip, and our knees didn’t much like the down part on the return trip.

Yesterday as we kayaked across the bay with McLaughlin towering over the landscape, we thought again, “Gee, I’m glad we already did that!”

Cameras, computers and other such stuff

It’s been a busy week for me, working a bit more than 40 hours like real folks, although I still managed to do more than half of that time from home. Working with the current project leader for a soil survey project I managed a few years ago is actually a lot of fun. Chris is a great guy, a smart and savvy soil scientist with good ideas. We spent two full days this week putting our heads together to refine the detailed descriptions of the geomorphology of the area.

Understanding the landscape and how it was formed is crucial to understanding the soils that form on those landscapes. Part of the data associated with a published soil survey is detailed information about the landscape for each soil that occurs in the area. After our review, my job this week is to get all that information in NASIS, the big database in the sky. It keeps my brain running at full speed and makes it a bit hard for me to sleep at night.

But now it is the weekend, and I promised myself I would refrain from firing up NASIS and trying to keep looking at all that data. Yeah, probably boring as heck to anyone but the few of us involved in the process, but it explains why I speed read blogs and sometimes don’t take the time to comment. Sorry folks, really, I love your blogs. I am praying that I never need a knee replacement after reading Laurie’s detailed account of what she and Odel have been doing after his operation. They are doing a great job, both of them, I just hope I never have to do it. I have been enjoying the migration of the Canadians back to their home territory and the folks still wandering across Texas trying to avoid the fires. There are several women RV’rs who are departing on their big full-time journeys, and several buying new rigs. I love reading about their adventures. I can’t possibly link to all my favorites without missing someone, so I won’t even try.

It is wonderful to have the MoHo safely at home again.

I love Rick’s detailed instructions and comments about the state of the current computer/internet world. I searched his blog to find all his posts about Windows 7. One of the comments that he often makes has to do with all the new software that will only run with 7 and won’t run on XP. I had to pay big bucks to take my old computer from Vista back to XP so I could run the government software that will ONLY run on XP, so I have been missing out on some of the newer bells and whistles that Rick discussed, specifically the new Live Writer and Internet Explorer.

While we were traveling last month my Dell Inspiron kept feeling really hot, and I worried that if that computer goes (it’s five years old) I would be in big trouble. Ahhh. Solution. Buy a new laptop with Windows 7. I have a great friend here in town who is an IT dude and he put me on to a business machine, a lightweight Dell Vostro, with all the bells and whistles and a shiny cherry red exterior to boot. Also, when I got home from our trip I discovered that the government has updated NASIS to a new version that will run on the XP that is hidden inside the Professional Windows 7.

Bingo! I ordered the new machine and decided to keep the old one just for NASIS, but if it dies, I’ll have a backup. Whew! Of course, a new machine always means more computer time, and I have been moving programs and photos and documents and re-installing programs and trying to find old disks for programs that I forgot I had. I do love Picasa, and immediately downloaded the newest version to my new Windows 7 computer, only to discover that all the “people” tags did not migrate to the new Picasa with the 60 gig of photos that I have been tagging diligently. Big sigh on that one. I wonder if anyone knows anything about that? Rick?

Lots of lawn to rake

I am working as much as I am allowed as a retiree, and saving up the bucks for our big trip to Alaska this summer. It’s only two months away now, with a departure date of July 6th, after the Fourth of July holiday.

Klamath Falls is having a huge celebration this year, with some changes to the parade and a big family bbq in Veteran’s Park before the fireworks. I am so glad to be here for that to share with my kids and grandkids. I love that holiday, and always insisted on family day picnics where I made the teenagers do three legged races. They always rolled their eyes and thought I was nuts, but it was a holdover from the church picnics of my childhood. Melody called me up all excited. She is on the town committee planning the picnic and said, “Mom, we are having three legged races, you HAVE to come!”. I’ll be there and will race with my daughter and probably laugh till my sides hurt.

Lots of trees makes for very few sunny sites to locate the greenhouse

Sitting here at my desk this morning, I see dirty patches of snow on the shady part of the road, but bright sunshine on the grass. I raked a lot last weekend, and Mo finished up all the lawns during the week. It’s beautiful except for the vole damage. Those dang little critters just make a total mess of the grass when the snow load is heavy, deep, and long lasting.

One area they tore up especially is the 10 by 12 space where the greenhouse will be. We are going to stake that area off today, and my job will be to get what is left of the sod up and leveled. The chickadees are here in force, and the squirrels are already raiding the feeders. Big sigh again. One more year of squirrel battles, rabbit battles, and deer battles are ahead of us. Hopefully we can keep all those critters out of the greenhouse!

Like many of us out there, I read Al’s (The Bayfield Bunch) often, gleaning information about all sorts of things, not the least of which is photography. If you search his blog for the word “camera” you will get 8 pages of posts about this topic! I once was a “photographer”, darkroom and all, but now I just “take pictures”. My old fabulous film camera Canon A-1 lies buried in a case in a cabinet. I haven’t had it out for years now. Al’s photos inspire me, though, along with lots of other great blog photographers, and I decided that I can no longer be satisfied with my little Nikon point and shoot. It takes nice photos, but the fine detail and perfect focus isn’t there, the telephoto isn’t enough, and the lens bends ocean horizons on the edges. No amount of Picasa fiddling will fix that. My choice of camera was the same as Al, I decided on the Nikon D90, and have been searching for the best price, hoping to manage a purchase before we travel the wide open landscapes of Canada and Alaska, hopefully filled with wildlife that will require a telephoto and vistas that will need a wide angle lens.

I fertilized the rhodies a lot last year, looks like we have flower buds

Talking with my other daughter yesterday, the one now driving airplane engines all over the country with her husband, yielded a surprise. In one of her other lives she was a professional portrait and wedding photographer and she offered her high end Nikon equipment to me for the Alaska trip. Whew! I can’t even remember what the models are, but it’s top notch, one with a metal body that will be heavier than the D90 but will give me the chance to see if I really want to lug a DSLR around while traveling.

She also made very clear that her telephoto lens is an auto focus anti vibration thingy that is about $2,000 worth of fancy. Whew again! I just hope I don’t get mugged while traveling. She laughed and said, “Now Mom, the only bad part is that you have to drop it off on your way back from Alaska.” Well, Duh! But at least I don’t have to come up with plus or minus $1,000 bucks for the D90 before we leave. Yay!

Pahrump to Fernley and home to Rocky Point

I can’t believe that I am once again sitting at my desk in Rocky Point, looking out the window at snow. The snow came down in big fat flakes all day yesterday but didn’t stick, but this morning we woke to more than a good inch covering everything as if it were winter and not April. Somehow luck was with us all the way home, and we slid into Rocky Point on bare pavement under blue skies on Tuesday afternoon. This storm blew up the next day and now will be with us for a few more days according to the weather predictions. I am hoping that all the folks on the road heading north are warm and dry and avoiding this latest round of weather from the Pacific.

We left Pahrump early in the morning on Monday, driving hard and straight north on Highway 95, through the tiny town of Goldfields, and passing Tonopah, the Nye county seat, in the blink of an eye. Somewhere in all my western travels, I don’t think I have traveled this route, usually preferring to go west to 395 in California. We were rewarded with decent gasoline prices, at 3.69 per gallon for the $172.00 fill-up in Fallon, Nevada. I heard rumors of prices well above 4 bucks on 395, but will have to see what Donna and Russ have to say about that, since I believe they traveled that route south in their pretty new Lazy Days called “Therapy”. I think we must have passed each other somewhere close to Susanville.


*Goldfields, Nevada in the process of restoration by the local folks*	*We were on the other side of Tonopah before we knew it*

The skies were clear all the way north, but the temperatures were only in the high 40’s as we traveled through Nevada. Our plan was to boondock for the night, but when we reached Fallon, it was still only 3 in the afternoon, and once on the major east-west route of ALT 50, boondock sites were in short supply. The lovely BLM land, great for boondocking, all seemed to be considerably south of Walker Lake, another spot that I would have liked to explore, but it was much to early in the day. Like horses heading for the barn, we were on a roll and wanted to get as close to Reno as possible before stopping for the night.

A quick search on Streets, turned up a CampClub USA park west of Fallon in Fernley, Nevada, right on our route. My visions of camping in the open desert on a big alluvial fan with never ending vistas was only partially realized. I was still on an alluvial fan in the desert, with a decent view only obstructed a bit by the RV next to us. By 4pm we were settled in to a very nice little park called Desert Rose. In addition to our CampClub discount, this park had just about every other club discount, including Escapees. It wasn’t fancy, but clean and lined with level concrete pads, new trees, grass, and “the best cable TV this side of Michigan”, according to the very gregarious caretaker. We even had decent Wi-Fi where I was able to post the last couple of blog entries.

We slept well, after staying up much too late catching up on cable news and the internet. Tuesday morning dawned clear and gorgeous again, if a bit cool, and we were on the road by 7:30. Our route was straightforward, through Reno on Alt 50 to I-80 to 395 north to Susanville, Alturas, and then on 39 home to Klamath Falls. The skies were still gorgeous, with puffy clouds and snowy mountains in the distance as we approached our mountain home.

We love to camp at Medicine Lake, and the snow covered barren slopes of Glass Mountain, formed entirely of black obsidian, beckoned us as we passed the familiar turn-off on our route.

Once in Klamath Falls, we gassed up the MoHo at Fred Meyer for 3.72 per gallon, picked up some vet only cat food for Jeremy, and took the Lakeshore route home so that we could stop in at Moore Park for our free dump site. Klamath Lake seemed especially full, and the A Canal delivering water from the lake to the farmers on the Project was also full, indicating that for the first time in a couple of years, we are having a good “water year”. The farmers will get their irrigation from the Project, and the salmon will have enough water to make it back up the Klamath River. We will have enough water to get the kayaks back out in Recreation Creek hopefully very soon, at least if this snow ever melts.

Once home, we were happy to see that almost all the snow was melted and the road looked fine. The grass was starting to green up except for extensive areas where the voles have tunneled a virtual city protected by our 4 month snow cover. Daffodils are starting to appear, and the buds on the trees look good. Mo backed the rig into her waiting berth and in no time we were unloaded and back home with the fire going, checking the recorded shows on the DVR and laughing at Jeremy racing around the house after all the invisible ghosts that must have taken over while we were gone.

Something wonderful about rounding this bend in the road and seeing our home turf across the lake

I spent all day yesterday washing bedding and rugs and clothes from the MoHo and tried to get adjusted to being back home while I watched the snow fall and remembered the 100 degree afternoon in Laughlin. Sometimes that re-entry can be ambivalent; I’m so happy to be home, yet somehow feel a bit disoriented. Mo doesn’t seem to get as confused by all this as I do, and she just settled in easily to our home routines without a hitch. By this morning, however, all seemed just fine to me, in spite of the deep snow. I have no clue if I will be working next week, thanks to the government shutdown rumors, but either way, it’s good to be home.

It’s snowing and we are leaving tomorrow!!

Today winter returned to Rocky Point with a vengeance. Just a few days ago, while doing our bi-weekly wood haul to the back porch, I noticed stiff little green spikes poking up through the old leaf litter in my flower beds: rows and rows of miniature daffodils along a stone wall, and several large groups of naturalized bigger daffodils under the aspens down by Mo’s handmade water wheel.

Yesterday Mo drove over the mountain to Medford to pick up a nice little greenhouse for us from Harbor Freight. Super sale price for a 10×12 structure made with sturdy aluminum framing and some kind of semi-rigid plexiglass walls. I am sooo tickled about this. Last year we spent most of the summer trying to outsmart the deer and guess what, the deer won! We also live in the mountains, where nights just don’t warm up enough to ripen things much. Even the lavender that I planted at my old house back in Klamath Falls (where my daughter lives now) grew five times as big as what I can grow here.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………… Isn’t this just the picture of optimism?

This year we will put up the greenhouse in late spring and I will use it as the main garden, safe behind walls that will keep the deer out, and warmer at night so I might actually get some tomatoes and peppers, and yum! some fresh basil, and… and…and… Since we plan to be traveling in Alaska during June and July, I am curious to see just what kind of garden will greet me on my arrival back home August 1st. I will optimistically plant goodies in raised beds filled with rich soil, make sure everything is ventilated well, and Mo will hook up an automatic watering system. We will have someone caretaking the big house and mowing lawns, but I certainly wouldn’t expect them to handle the greenhouse garden. Even if it all goes to seed, or gets too hot, or if the rabbits and voles find their way inside, it will still be a great experiment, and I’ll know better what to do next time.

Ah well, for now the snow is coming down in thick huge heavy flakes, piling up on the trees until the blustery winds dump big solid white cascades of cold wet stuff. Better make sure you aren’t standing under any trees out there right now. Mo brought up the bins for loading up clothes and food and all the other “stuff” we need for our 2 1/2 weeks on the road and I am making lists and checking off items as we load them up. I think I do need to make a “real” list, something permanent somewhere, and then I can just check everything off as we load up, whether it is in the baby car or in the MoHo directly. This time will be the last for awhile that we have to haul things back and forth, because after this trip we are bringing the MoHo home again. Let’s pray that early April doesn’t send another snowstorm like this one. If so, we might have to come up with another plan as we travel toward home on 395.

Tonight we will brush the snow off the hot tub for one more soothing soak before getting a good night’s rest in anticipation of an early morning departure. Tomorrow should be great fun, in spite of the predicted rain. After picking up the MoHo in Redding, 160 miles south, we will continue south on I-5 to Sacramento, where we plan to stop in for a visit with Laurie and Odel at Cal Expo before we settle in for the night a bit farther on down the road toward the desert and sunshine!!