Ah, home again! Thurs/Fri, 9/23-24/21

 

We packed it up this morning.  Time to go home.  Even though fires are still burning and smoke still stings the eyes and burns the nose, we need to get back.  As the saying goes, we have other fish to fry and home is where we need to be.  We've had a glorious almost-two weeks in Oregon with lots o' fun hangin' with our friends, and we're sad to say goodbye.  Yes, this out-of-focus sign, below, is welcoming us home. 

On Sept 13th, on our way to Oregon, we encountered thick smoke in Northern California (and southern Oregon) -- we couldn't even see Mt Shasta, which at 14,179 feet, is easily seen from the I-5 freeway!

On our way home we were thrilled to see Mt Shasta standing proudly -- what a difference!  Little smoke obscured the region.  This potentially active volcano dominates the landscape, and it appears that the rain we enjoyed in northern Oregon also supplied a nice dusting of snow to the mountain's summit.

Look how beautiful this is!  There are seven named glaciers on Mount Shasta ... perhaps we're seeing one or more in this photo.

We were done driving by the time we reached the town of Weed in NorCal, having driven close to 300 miles from Florence, Oregon, so we pulled into a campground for the night.  Tomorrow we'd have another 200+ miles to home, but that'll be an easy drive.  After dinner, Jimmy and I went out for a walk, hoping to catch a glimpse of a mountain sunset.  Oh my!  Look!  We stood transfixed, watching the red sun creep up toward the crest.

Finally, the sun is ready to surrender the mountain to the night.

* * * * *

Friday morning, we set off again.  Meanwhile, we knew a new wildfire blew up north of Redding.  And we'd drive right through Redding on I-5 to get home.  We could get little information from any news source, so we just up 'n left Weed, leaving Mt Shasta, headed south, heading home.

These things are horrible to see.  We were safe enough, and I-5 was open, so we drove past the Fawn Fire.  It seemed perilously close to the freeway.  We were glad to get away from it.  All the pics here were taken on the move in Tergel.  I was driving and Jimmy manned the camera.

It was weird that the smoke from the Fawn Fire hadn't reached Shasta Lake (now a mud puddle) -- the wind was carrying the smoke to the east.  The water level in this lake is wicked low.  The drought is killing us.

But we were still driving next to fire.

We saw the helicopters dip into the low lake water to fill up their buckets.

Firefighters everywhere are heroes.  This is what they face.

And then, again, to the west was clearing.  Above and below, this looked like one of the wildfire staging areas.

Now in Redding, the city was smothering in smoke.  We had recirculating A/C on in Tergel and our new Medify air purifier going full blast.  We are lucky ... we can drive through and get to the other side.  Clean air.

Summer was hell for many, so many.  I say good riddance to summer.  Greetings to autumn.  Unfortunately, our fire season really ramps up now, but I can't imagine it getting worse than it has been. (Don't go there, right?)

We drove in our driveway 2:30/ish and began unloading Tergel.  It's what we do.  Soon the W/D will be going full tilt.  And the yard cleaned, and so on.

In two weeks, Jimmy and I will take to the air, flying to Lisbon, Portugal, where we'll join our friends, Bernice and Ibby, for two back-to-back Road Scholar trips (postponed from last year).  Maybe we're taking a chance, maybe not.  Booked months ago, we weren't sure we'd be going on these trips, for several COVID reasons.  We'll be gone a month, visiting Portugal, Spain, and Morocco.  I know things will be different from past trips, and I don't even know how, but here's hoping everything is open, that all will go well.  I hope to post from time to time in Europe, so please stay tuned!

Coasting in Oregon, Tues/Wed 9/21-9/22

Leaving the tippety-top of Oregon, Jimmy and I had a choice between returning home via Interstate-5 or driving the two-lane, twisting, slow-going, world-class Pacific Coast Scenic Byway. Oregon's coastline stretches for 363 magnificent miles, and an amazing landmark state law ensures every inch of it is open to the public! Cliffs and sandy coves, crashing waves, and craggy headlands!  Throw in sunny days with cool temps and we're hooked.  For us the choice was "no contest!"

We weren't in a hurry as we had a reservation at Chinook Winds RV park near Lincoln City, so we could pull into "viewpoints" and gawk to our hearts' content.  We were standing at the pull out for Neahkahnie Mtn -- at 1661', it's one of the highest points on Oregon's coast.  Kudos to whoever figured out how to build Hwy 101 with obstacles like this mountain to surmount!  Below is how the road people made Neahkahnie Mtn navigable.  Wowzers!

Chinook Winds is a Passport America park, which boasts good prices, but I didn't care much for the park, as we were on top of our neighbors ... however, for one night with FHU, we could do it.  Located on the Siletz River a couple of miles inland from Lincoln City, the park was full of fishermen and boats.  The guy or gal above was looking for a freebie, and, why not, the river was beginning to fill with salmon!

Need I tell you what Jimmy is doing, above?  Can you say, picking blackberries?  Yes, indeed, yummy  berries beside the river were ripe and ready!

After picking berries, we drove into Lincoln City and found a parking space for Smartie, so we could (yup, you guessed it), go walking on the beach.  Happiness is:  being Out and About on such a beaut of a bluebird-blue-sky day ... at the seaside. This gull must have the same thought.

A Common Murre seemed to be beached.  Eventually a wave caught the poor thing and it floated away, but I'm sorry to say that I don't believe it could fly, meaning it might be someone else's dinner.

The gull chased a cormorant away!

* * * * *

We left Lincoln City Wednesday morning, with no particular place to end up, just coasting south.  We stopped in Newport 'cause we wanted to visit the Hatfield Marine Science Center again, something we did ten years ago.  (I was going to type "several years ago," till I looked it up on the blog.  My how time flies!)  I sort of fell in love with an octopus in a tank there (name:  Amigo), and I think the love was returned.  Too bad today was Wednesday, they didn't open till Thursday, so we drove on.  No octopus sighting for me.

From our new campsite, I watched this hummer check out every fuchsia flower.  My camera doesn't take the stop action shots like a high-powered lens would, but you can certainly see a hummingbird whizzing away.  Very cool.

Oregon has a lot of state parks, both with and without campgrounds.  We've camped in a good number of them over the years, but not Jessie Honeyman Memorial St Pk, known simply as "Honeyman," located a few miles south of Florence, Oregon.  This is where we stopped for the night, in a quiet, treed site with no near neighbors.  Perfect.  No problem getting a site, either, we saw plenty of vacancies.

We thought the park was on the ocean, but it turned out to be two miles from the water.  What they had, however, was sand dunes.  Miles of sand dunes!  We were in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.  We were in for a treat!

As soon as we finished lunch, we set out from the campground on a trail leading to where Jimmy is standing, above.  It appeared that others trekked down that hill and into the trees, and so did we.

Still on a path of sorts through the trees, we spied this opening.  You can't see the top of the dune where Jimmy is -- it's too high!  We looked straight up to the top and said, what the heck, let's give it a go, and so we did. 

Sandals came off first and we scrambled up and up.  Pretty soon we were moving crab-like in the soft, thick sand to make any headway.  Eventually I put a sandal on each hand to help me reach the top, digging in with all four!  I wasn't at the top when I took this picture (I'd stopped to breathe!)  Good workout on this one!

Almost at the top.

This was what we saw when we reached the top.  More dunes!  Lots of tire marks on the sand meant OHV's come ripping through, and, in fact, we saw several buggies with paying customers yeehawing as the OHV's became airborne and then dropped back to earth, sand flying everywhere!  Looked like fun.  Next time.

I know it seems like I should've straightened the top left picture, but that's what it looked like, straight up.  We climbed a few more dunes, stood near a knife edge with a sharp drop (scary), and dug our toes in the sand.  We toyed with the idea of plodding to the ocean in all this sand, but ixnayed that idea.

Looks like a sidewinder wiggled across the sand.

If you weren't paying attention,

it could be easy to lose your bearings and get lost.

Luckily there's dudes like the guy above.  He spotted us from afar and zoomed over our way to ask if we were all right or needed anything.  We assured him we were doing fine and he roared away.  Actually, I think he just wanted to show off his OHV skills.  I mean, he ripped across a dune and up and over!  So much for people getting lost, thank goodness.

We could see a snippet of ocean sparkling in the afternoon sun, as you see above, under the word "ocean."  Certainly we could hear the surf crashing ashore.  This is a neat place to explore.  We knew we'd feel this sand-trudging tomorrow, somewhere, either in our feet or muscles unused to this kind of walking. (and so we did!)  We found our way to the first big dune and saw a different, easier way down to the trail and eventually to Tergel.  This c/g is almost as big as Ft Stevens, which I've heard is the biggest in the state.

"Formed by the ancient forces of wind, water and time, these dunes are like no others in North America, and extend for 40 miles along the Oregon coast between Florence and Coos Bay. Wind sculpted dunes tower almost 500 feet above the ocean shore."  I didn't realize when I said miles of dunes, that we were talking about 40 miles of dunes!  Can't do it all, so we were content with our little escapade.

Tomorrow we'll continue on towards home.

Ft Steven St Pk II, Mon, 9/20/21

 

During the night, a heavy dew or fog left everything wet, wet, wet.  This is one reason why the landscape is so green:  Lots of rain and fog/dew on many nights.  No rain today!  Early morning clouds will dissipate and the sun will shine!

We don't set an alarm.  We flow.  Possibly we've held up Marlene and Cliff on occasion, but we all seem to gravitate to our vehicles around 9am.  Today was no exception.  Today we'd explore Ft Stevens, learn it's long history and eyeball its fortifications.  This park is so big that walking from one site to another is nigh on impossible.  We drove separately again to the fort entrance.

We've seen elk several times on this trip.  At the fort entrance, three elk were grazing the grass.  By the time I got my camera in hand, one of the elk escaped into the heavy foliage.  Above is Mom and her offspring.  These are Roosevelt Elks.

I've been sort of stunned at the lack of visible bird life on this trip.  Except for the usual suspects (geese, pelicans, jays and blackbirds, etc), birds are either elsewhere or hidden.  This morning as we entered the fort, I heard a Downy Woodpecker pecking away at tree bark.  While not the best of photos, at least its proof I saw something!

Fort Stevens is situated at the mouth of the mighty Columbia River.  Because of its strategic location, the fort was once the primary military defense installation in the Harbor Defense System. The fort was in service for 84 years, beginning during the Civil War and closing at the end of World War II.  Believe it or not, a British-built Confederate navy ship sank Union ships up and down the Pacific Coast, including near San Francisco, attacks which worried the Oregon and Washington leaders.  

Whenever an empty building was open, we walked in and through and looked around.  Most were for storing military equipment of one kind or another.

This volunteer was "buttoning up" a large space on the bottom of this swivel gun.  Kids (probably boys!) had been crawling beneath and climbing inside the gun and, though it doesn't work, it would be a safety hazard.  He was welding heavy gauge wire over the hole, but stopped to visit with Jimmy and me.  He was a delight to talk to.

Another view of the gun aimed at the river.  If you can spot a yellow something-or-other at left, not far from the water, then you're seeing a guy on a lawn mower.  A small gray thing below and to the left of the gun barrel is (of all things) a disc golf basket.  The park has a disc golf course!  We watched one guy pick out a disc from his "golf bag" (a pink one, 'cause he liked pink) and pitch it toward a basket.  He got close.  He had a slew of different colored discs in his bag.  Who knew?  I thought you just threw a frisbee. 

We walked and walked, on trails and off.  The park has 15 miles of multiuse trails, in addition to what we were using at the fort.  Above is the opposite end of the old train trestle I showed yesterday, which used to connect to the South Jetty.

We'd just finished reading the signboards (above), including the one below, and were trying to figure out what the pole was.  If this lone pole was a smaller representation of a cedar plank house, somebody stole the rest!  We'd shed jackets by this time.

We made it down to the water from the trail, and stood watching the sailboat for a few minutes.  In the background is the bridge from Astoria OR to Washington.

Marlene is ahead of us, above, walking toward the earthworks exit.

The gun Jimmy is standing next to is plastic!

(but representative of the real deal that would've been here)

Jimmy and I browsed through displays ranging from the Civil War to WW II at the military museum.  We watched a brief flick about the submarine attack on the fort during WW II (it felt good to sit down!).  Isn't the sign above amusing?  Always provided salmon!  We returned to our rigs for lunch (no nap), then hopped in our vehicles again for a visit to nearby Astoria.

The City of Astoria, Oregon is an attractive, maritime, 100% up and down city!  Above is a view from the top of the column.

When Cliff asked what we wanted to see in Astoria, I immediately thought of The Column.  Neither Cliff nor Marlene had been to Astoria, and I thought they might be impressed with this 125 ft beauty.  It was built in 1926 and its exterior has a frieze of 22 significant events that occurred in the region, done in a bas-relief technique called sgraffito.   Jimmy and I climbed to the top in 2011 and ten years later we climbed again (they didn't), all 164 circular steps up (and then down)!  The 360° view is spectacular.

Can you see us?

The best selfie we could make way up here.

We didn't go anywhere else in Astoria.  So many places, so little time, truly.  Marlene wanted to see Fort Clatsop, site of the winter encampment of the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark), from Dec 1805 to March 1806.  Jimmy and I couldn't remember if we'd ever been at Ft Clatsop, so we said, "sure, let's go!"  Hi, Jimmy!

Cute picture, you two!

From the VC/Fort replica, we made our way down to the Canoe Landing through a spectacular Sitka spruce forest, and then we kept going ... like Energizer bunnies.  We walked another half mile or so to this bridge, and (even though you can't really see them) Marlene, Cliff and Jimmy are waving to the camera.  We turned around, and then back to the vehicles and home to our campers.  Tired people.

This was our last day together.  Tomorrow morning Marlene and Cliff will continue north into Washington, while Jimmy and I start our homeward south trek.  We've had fun hanging out with you guys this past week, from Umpqua to Tillamook, inland Vernonia, and finally Ft Stevens.  What a great get-away!  Thanks for your company!  Safe travels to you, always.