Oregon – TooBusyForWork

Florence, OR and Coos Bay for DRVC rally

We did find two nights at the second Elk’s Club in town, so we stayed in Florence a total of four days. That gave us some time for sightseeing in the area.

This is actually the way I know I am getting near the coast – moss everywhere on the trees! Even the stones grow heavy lichen/moss layers in this humidity and mild climate.

One of my favorite spots is Thor’s Well. It is a circular depression that fills with water from the waves, then the water bursts up before disappearing completely. The picture below shows it in the center of the shoreline.

There is a pretty solid wind that comes in from the Pacific that has sculpted these streets so they are tilted, not straight.

And then there is the marine layer that shows up most mornings.

And we saw a black bear! It was crossed the road without warning and we only caught a glimpse of it with our dash cam. This is a screen capture from a long distance away.

We then got to the rally, held at the Coos Bay Mill RV Park . It is associated with a casino, but the campground is right on the bay. This bulk cargo ship was headed farther inland to fill up with wood chips. The chips are transported to Asia and made into paper. You can see one tow/tender at the stern and another small one on the starboard bow.

A rally is always a busy time, so not really any pictures from that. We had a great time though! Very good technical presentations, fun at meals and games, and just an all-around good time getting to visit with old friends and make some new ones. We left this morning (Friday, 9 August), and decided to stay closer to the coast while we could. We find a decent spot at the downtown Elks Lodge in Florence again. It is noisy from traffic, but the sites are adequate with water and electricity. We will fill up our fresh water tank before we leave Sunday morning, and we have identified a few spots to dump the waste tanks before we get to Redmond since the Expo Center doesn’t have a dump station.

I also did get a bunch more kits cut out for my class so I will have a good collection for the students to choose from. Now I have to get serious with writing the instructions out and doing a partial construction one.

My next post will probably be from Redmond next week unless something cool happens unexpectedly.

Antelope Island views then north

I forgot to post any pictures from Antelope Island, so here you go! The bison herd on Antelope Island is famous. The bulls were looking pretty beat up since mating season was just finishing.

And no set of pictures for Antelope Island is complete without a gorgeous sunset view. The sunset was just orange/red from the smoke haze. Beautiful, but it makes it tough to breathe.

We did get to Island Park, ID and found a great boondocking site on Sunday, 21 July. We stayed there through Thursday night. We obviously took some RZR rides, but we also enjoyed meeting some friends who were work camping in the area, one in West Yellowstone and one at Henry’s Lake State Park. We discovered the osprey nest on a dead end trail we took by accident. Nice accident! There were two young birds. When I snapped this picture (from a long way away!), one adult bird had just flown off to get more food for the hungry teens.

There was quite a bit of water, and we saw lots of lilies.

We also took one day into Yellowstone. We got into the park by 7:00 am. It was cool enough some of the animals like these elk were still close to the road. The other advantage of early, cool mornings is the steam rising from the thermal features is much more visible.

These three elk were just as we got into the park

We saw a number of the primary animals – bison, bald eagle, osprey, elk, deer, and a fat, happy black bear.

We spent Friday, 26 July, at the Y Knot Winery campground, Glenn’s Ferry, ID. It was still smoky, something that had been increasing since the last couple of days at Island Park. The next day was a killer. We had reservations in Burns, OR, but the AQI was over 600! A lot of eastern Oregon seems to be on fire, and there was a big one just outside Burns. The haze was thick, and the air smelled of smoke. We just kept going until we got to Bend, OR where we stopped at an Elks Lodge again. The drive was mostly 2 lane roads with lots of curves. I was tired when we got set up!

The next day wasn’t any better, but we wanted to keep heading west to get out of the smoke. We drove from Bend to Springfield, OR, just outside Eugene, OR. I had a UPS delivery sent there, and I needed to pick it up before our chapter rally. The road from 5 miles south of Sisters pretty much all the way to Springfield was the slowest I have driven the motorhome. It was only 120 miles, but it took over 4 hours. The traffic was very heavy, there was lots of construction, and the mountain roads very winding. Ugh. We hadn’t started until 10:30, because we thought it wouldn’t take long. I was awfully tired when we finally got to the Elks Lodge where we stopped for the night. We have definitely gotten a lot out of our Elk’s Lodge membership! It is nice to have a safe spot to pull into while traveling. Many are dry camping for $5-$10 which is just fine for us. Some have electricity which is nice on hot days, and those are $20-$30 a night, still worthwhile.

I was so tired of the bad air quality, so we headed for the coast instead of staying in Springfield a few days like we had intended. We are currently at the Elk’s Lodge campground in Florence, OR 1 mile off Hwy 101. Beautiful place for $35 a night with electricity and water. We could only get 2 nights here, but they also have dry camping where we hope to spend the next nights before our FMCA rally in Coos Bay. I intend on hitting the local fabric shop for some more fat quarters and interfacing for class samples. I am teaching a class on collapsable fabric storage containers, and it is easier to show students some of the steps than describe them. I have the kits cut for the students, but I will partially make some more as examples.

Now to clean up!

Motorhome updates and the High Desert Museum

We were just lazily getting around on Friday, taking our time on a cold morning. We did exciting things like some laundry, and then we got our the tape measure again to see how different motorhome furniture would fit in the coach. We currently have one recliner and a huge sofa, and we really want two recliners and a much smaller sofa. We had gone to Countryside Interiors, a big RV furniture company, a few weeks back, and we came away with possibilities and a bunch of spec for sizes. We talked to some remodeling folks in Red Bay, AL, and we just couldn’t get the timing right to order and install the things we want. So we finally decided what models of furniture we want, and we decided to go back to Countryside to order it. The complication was it was 2 1/2 hours away over Santiam pass! We did it though, and we will get the furniture installed when we are at Quartzsite, AZ this winter. I am really excited! We would be able to sell our current furniture fairly easily there too. Then in April we will go to Alabama and Mississippi to get updated carpeting done (what we have now is really inexpensive and it spots dreadfully) plus some cabinet work including a television elevator installed. Yeah! We will then be comfortable for our hopes for trip to Alaska next summer.

Saturday we went to the High Desert Museum south of Bend. What an outstanding place! We started with the exterior exhibits which include a lot of native plants, but the high point for us was a turn of the 19th century farmhouse and sawmill. The interpreters were fully in character, and the entire thing was fantastic.

Sheep were everywhere in the area, so of course they had a sheepherder’s wagon

World War I meant labor shortages, so Caterpillar tractors came into use by “Cat skinners” similar to mule skinners

The sawmill was only used a few times a year for the family and neighbors.

And I do think the chickens ruled the roost

We spent well over an hour visiting the outside exhibits before coming into the indoor exhibits. I don’t have many pictures of them because they keep lighting low to protect artifacts, therefore no flash photography. I did get a picture of some of the animals though.

There was a heat lamp right above where this guy was lying

There were lots of other animals too, but too many people around them to get good pictures. The interpretative exhibits were phenomenal. The Native American one was unique in my experience. It wasn’t oriented toward history alone, but how natives had incorporated their history and culture with that of the Europeans. It was amazing. Summary: if anyone is in the Bend area, make sure you take a few hours to go to this museum.

Today we are just hanging around and doing some repairs and housework. We are leaving tomorrow morning, making our way to Boise for a few days before heading to Salt Lake City. We will see how far we get.

Cascade Scenic Byway

We woke up to nice temperatures (mid 50s), but that was the best part of the day. A storm front is moving in, and temperatures are going to get much colder over the next few days. We figured we had better get moving on our next scenic drive. The problem was there were so many clouds we couldn’t see a lot! We drove right by Mt. Bachelor, and all I could see was the bottom of one chair lift. Sigh. There was some natural snow left from last week’s storm in the shady spots, and the ski resort was obviously making snow too.

We did enjoy one detour on the route. We went to the historic Elk Lake Guard Station from 1929. It is owned by the Forest Service and serves as an interpretive center these days. Sadly it was closed for the season, but we took the old road around Elk Lake anyway.

The big thing today was definitely lava. There were lots of cinder cones and lava fields everywhere, either huge flows or fingers that snuck in here and there.

We do some productive things in Bend like going to the grocery store and pharmacy. Great fun /sarcasm. But it has to be done. We have been having bad luck with grocery stores, but I picked up some good ground beef and some salmon. I made meat loaves in individual silicone cupcake holders tonight. The pound of hamburger made 10 cupcakes. I used the combo setting on my convection/microwave to cook 5 of them, and they were yummy. I am freezing the remainder for a later meal. Tomorrow night I will bake the salmon. I have discovered I am much better with baked salmon that I ever was cooking it in a pan or on a grill. Even Kevin, not fond of most fish, likes it baked.

It is going to be cold enough tonight (25 degrees) that Kevin put the water and waste hoses away in the bay. Those freeze easily since they are narrow. The motorhome itself will be fine to 25 without doing anything else since the wet bay is heated by the same furnace that is used in the living space. It never gets as warm since it is only one vent, but is does fine with a low in the mid 20s. However it will be much colder the next two nights (15 and 19) so he also put an incandescent trouble light in the wet bay. We keep a remote thermometer in there to monitor, and that should be enough to keep the water flowing. The daytime highs will be 50 or above, so that helps too.

I think we are just staying close tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a quilt cut out. Oh, and I got a request for some toys from my daughter, so I may do some there too. It might even let my back recover some. It has really been killing me since I got a bad back spasm a week or so ago.

Out of the rain forest!

We spent the weekend at the KOA outside of Albany. It was time for full hookups and laundry! We were able to get some prescriptions refilled, stock up on some more food, and generally just enjoyed staying “home”. We had hoped to go directly to the Bend area, but the weather was just too iffy.

Sunday we headed north on I-5 back towards Portland, Sandy, and Mount Hood to get a less strenuous climb over the mountains. We don’t have traction devices for the motorhome, and the ODOT website said we needed them to drive Santiam Pass on Hwy 20 towards Bend. It wasn’t a bad drive, and the views of Mt. Hood were again spectacular. We decided to stay in Redmond, north of Bend a few miles, at the Deschutes Fairgrounds. Very nice full hookup sites with long concrete spaces, a small patch of grass, and extra pad for the car, all for $35 a night. My back has been acting up again, and I was in real pain, so we planned on just hanging around the motorhome again. Warmth and lots of acetaminophen have been helping, so we decided to drive the McKenzie and Santiam Passes Byway after a lovely brunch at the local Pancake House (yeah for Dutch baby baked pancakes!).

The Road climbs out of Sisters to give some great views.

Mount Washington through a bit of haze from a proscribed burn

Toward Santiam Pass we took a detour to Camp Sherman, a lovely little community of (mostly) summer homes along the Metolius River, a National and state scenic river.

Camp Sherman along the Metolius River – gorgeous

After crossing into the west side of the Cascades at Santiam Pass, we were back into the dark, cold, and pretty dreary rain forest. It did have a few redeeming features though.

Sunlight through trees on the west side of the Cascades

These little mushrooms seemed like they were growing out of this low rock edging, though it was covered with moss

I really do appreciate the rain forest, but I am very tired of feeling closed in with greenery everywhere. Luckily the forest did open up as we headed back east.

The lava flows neat McKenzie Pass were amazing. Kevin describes them as having the appearance of a huge plow being used in wet ground, leaving grooves and big clumps of rock. It is astonishingly rugged, and some are very recent. This flow is estimated to be only 2000 years old, but a few trees were trying to take hold.

At the edge of a lava flow, a tree is trying to grow

Mount Washington from the other side showing the scars of the big fire and lava flows

The foreground of this picture is lava, the middle ground the remnants of a huge fire in 2003, and then Mount Washington rises up again. Impressive!

Tomorrow we plan on driving the Cascade Lakes Byway and going to some museums and interpretive centers.

Highway 101

We left the Marina RV Park on Sunday just before noon and moved an entire 2 miles down the road to South Beach State Park. We did do a few things around the Marina area. Here is a picture of he bridge I managed to drive over. It might not seem to big to many, but I am terrified of heights! I psyched myself up before hand, stared only at the roadway, and did my calming breathing.

There are a number of lighthouses around. This one is a state park just the south side of the bridge. It is no longer operational, but pretty cool to see.

There is a newer light on the north side of the bay. I couldn’t get a decent picture because of the rain and my lack of mobility, but you can at least get an idea about it.

We enjoyed just sitting by the beach in Newport and watching the people. I was hobbled to much to join them, but it looked like they were having fun.

South Beach is a lovely place with big sites, most with quite a bit of shade. It is very quiet at night, though it has been too cold and rainy to do much sitting outside. We planned to ride our bikes a lot here, but I got another back spasm! I was completely hobbled most of Monday and still some today. The beach is only a 1/4 mile from the campground on a combination bike/pedestrian path, so hopefully I will get better soon.

We have found some interesting plants. This is a Western Strawberry Tree. Even the red (ripe?) berries were hairy and hard.

Another one I had never seen before was this one with tiny pink/white flowers. I have no idea what it is, so if anyone know, please tell me!

Yesterday we took a trip to Junction City to see about some furniture options for the motorhome. We currently have a huge sofa with a queen sized bed plus a single recliner. We would really like a smaller sofa and two recliners or theater seating. They did have some options, but it sure needs a lot of thought. On the way back we drove 101 from Florence back to Newport. There are some famous sights along here, especially Thor’s Well and he Spouting Horn. We were lucky to catch both when the tides was right to show off.

Thor’s Well fills some from the surf on top, it mostly from holes in the rocks below the surface. The video link needs to be clicked to view.

Not quite centered, but after the water runs away

This mist from Spouting Horn comes from surf forced into a tiny crack that explodes upwards like a geyser.

Today we drove north from Newport. A few sights.

Devil’s Pinchbowl fills through the caves below it.

There were lots of people on the beaches. Note the two trees on a barren rock island.

We basically just pulled into every wayside we found, and there were lots of them. We were happily surprised to see four gray whales too – two singles and another pair. We kind of followed them south down the coast for a good while. You can always tell where the whales are when you see 4-6 whale watching tour boats in the same area. 😀 Both Washington and Oregon have gone to great lengths to provide access to their beaches. One spot we stopped at even had some Tillamook Ice Cream! I had chocolate with more chocolate. Yum.

Ainsworth State Park and the Columbia River gorge

This is being written on a rainy Thursday afternoon, and I am way behind. Be prepared for a long post and lots of pictures.

Sunday we drove to Ainsworth State Park. Going through Portland was a piece of cake on an early Sunday morning, as expected. I wasn’t thrilled with the campground though. While the sites are long enough for a motorhome, the roads have low vegetation and I scuffed up the sides and top of the coach. No real scratches, but you can tell where the bushes and tree limbs were. I can’t blame the park since all the reviews said the park was this way. Guess I will just have to blame the person who made the reservation – Kevin! We got to our site and the coach absolutely would not level, no matter how many blocks we had under the back tires and the levelers. Yup, the reviews said that too. The nice park ranger put us in an overflow site that worked with only minor leveling so it was ok in the end. We wanted a full hookup site so we could do laundry, and this is nice for that.

Monday we decided to just do a drive up and back the Columbia Gorge. First we went across the toll bridge at Cascade Locks, a cool little town where there used to be big rapids. The rapids are now washed out by the Bonneville Dam, but some of the old locks are still visible.

The Bridge of the Gods is an interesting view

The old locks are mostly washed out. Note they are made of stone.

Interesting history of the bridge and it’s name: When Lewis and Clark came through here, the natives had a legend about an earthen bridge that cross the Columbia here many years ago. They called it the Bridge of the Gods. Geologists say a massive landslide happened in the mid 15th century that dammed the river for some period of time. Eventually the river eroded through the dam leaving the rapids there. Lewis and Clark wrote they were the worst of all they encountered, and they were smart enough to portage around them. The locks were key to navigating the river until the Bonneville Dam was built. The bridge was named after the land bridge the natives described.

We crossed the river to the Washington side and drove east on Washington 14 which mostly hugs the shore next to the rail road. We did get a nice view of Mt. Hood. Quite impressive!

We drove up the road past lots of interesting sites, and we crossed the river in The Dalles to go back downriver. We saw a sign to the Gorge Discovery Center and Museum, and we decided to take a look. My, oh my, oh my! It was a wonderful place with outstanding interpretation of pre-historic native life, Lewis and Clark history, non-native settlers, and best of all, a great section on the geology of the gorge. We were fortunate that we saw this early in our trip since it made the rest of our sightseeing so much more meaningful. I highly recommend a stop if anyone is in the area.

We kept going and took part of the old Highway 30, one of the first roads in America specifically designed for beauty. Lots of nice pictures were taken, but I will spare you.

Late Monday I bent wrong and got a dreadful back spasm. I was in a lot of pain when I moved, so we took drove the Mt. Hood scenic byway. Lots of waterfalls on the way, but it was raining so we only took pictures of two.

Multnomah Falls, the second highest permanent falls in the US

Luckily the weather cleared as we got closer to Mt.Hood. The area was crowded, even on a rainy Tuesday in late September. I can’t imagine it would be enjoyable on a summer weekend! We had trouble finding any place to park which is why both pictures were taken from the car.

I was feeling a bit better by Wednesday which was the day we booked a 5 hour tour on the stern wheeler “Columbia Gorge.”

Isn’t she pretty? We had a great seat at a table next to a entry way. They opened up the entry doors just before we got underway. It was totally chance, but we had an almost unobstructed view from the starboard side.

Just a cargo net between is and the river

Mount Hood again, this time from the river

Lots of trains on the main line to the northwest

Yes, it was hazy, but the Cascades are lovely

A passenger ship that was supposed to spend a week on the river between Lewiston and Astoria. Stuck because the Bonneville Lock is closed due to emergency repairs.

In the last picture you can see native fishermen pulling salmon from their gill nets. They held up a few as we passed. Those were big fish! Only natives can use gill nets, and only a certain number of days a year. It is from the old treaty rights, and it provides a reasonable amount of cash.

Today I am still recovering from my back injury. I can now move fairly well, but I have a hard time getting out of a chair. We had planned on going back to the waterfalls, but it has been raining all day. Instead we went to lunch at the Multnomah Lodge. Nice place. My salmon was delicious as was the Creme Brûlée. Kevin said his fish and chips plus cheesecake was also good. Looks like no cooking tonight!

Tomorrow we head back to the coast to Newport, OR. We will spend a few nights in a campground at the marina and then see what to do. We have reservations at South Beach State Park after the marina.

Lewis and Clark history plus modern forts too

We have tried to stop by all the Lewis and Clark sites we have been near. Wednesday we decided to go to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park near Astoria, Oregon. Fort Clatsop, named after the helpful nearby Indians, was where the Corps spent their second winter. They started out at the mouth of he Columbia, but it is dreadfully rough in winter, so they retreated up the river to a more sheltered tributary to settle. The NPH was a bit of a disappointment in the amount of interpretation and historical accuracy they demonstrated. Fort Mandan in North Dakota, where they spent their first winter, was much better presented and historically accurate. Still, we made it to the end of the Corps journey, and it was interesting.

Outside of the recreated fort. Natives thought it odd they locked themselves in at night. Historical inaccuracy: absolutely perfectly placed caulking and uniform logs. Really?

Bunk room for the crew. There were also bunks on the other side – 8 to a room.

We ended up having a light lunch in Astoria then dinner in the casino’s non-smoking restaurant. Food was really quite good, service was lovely, and it was correspondingly expensive. Worth it for a really nice meal though.

Thursday we continued our historical trips, but we moved forward in time to Fort Steven State Park in Oregon. It was built in 1862 because President Lincoln was worried the British would try to take back the Pacific Northwest. A series of 3 forts were established, and we had already visited Fort Canby. Fort Columbia had most of its area closed for the year, but we did get to see it across the river. We luckily got to the visitor center 5 minutes before they were starting a guided tour using an old military transport. Great fun! We got a guided tour that included areas otherwise off-limits. The fort closed not long after WWII.

The newest of the artillery types came just at the end of WWII.

Older guns were in one of three bunkers of this type

I think this was a protected command center

The piles supported rails used to move the rock for the jetty. They were they repurposed to bring artillery, shells, and mines to the fort.

The second set of bunkers after the earliest earthen works from the 1860s.

We came home by way of the beaches in Ocean Shores, the nearest town. I have always wanted to drive on the beach, and we did! Being September and mid-weeks, there were only a few people around. The original plan was to pull out the lawn chairs and read, but we decided to stay in the warmer comfort of the car with the windows open.