Hey, welcome! Wed, 3/23/22

 

Jimmy and I are happy that the States of California and Oregon are next door to each other, mostly within a day's drive. Both have gorgeous coastlines and good people! We're fortunate to have friends who live in Oregon and who are willing to come see us and our quaint town -- new friends made through our overseas travels and our blogs. As they come here, so we go visit them. Win-win. We've become pals!

When Sheila, who lives in Bend, Oregon, wrote to say she'd be in town for a few days and would love to get together, we were delighted.  This was a postponed trip from two years ago when COVID canceled everything.  We were due for a visit (last time we saw her was in Switzerland in 2019).  She was traveling with her hiking buddy, Leslie, and they'd be staying in a B&B near downtown Nevada City.  We arranged to meet for dinner at Lefty's Grill on Sunday evening -- great food and conversation.  The four of us decided to leave a day open for hiking ...

... agreeing to meet on Wednesday at nine in the morning.  Yet, I tell you, by afternoon we wished we'd had an earlier start!  Nevada City has had some warm weather, but we'd been in record-breaking territory for a couple of days, and it looked as though today would be the capper on heat.  Nobody likes hiking in the heat.  We did all right, but I think everyone was done in by the time we headed home.

Above you see me, Leslie, and Sheila in front of the covered bridge at South Yuba River St Pk.  Jimmy and I hike these trails a few times a year and are always ready to come here.  Besides, spring is wildflower time at this park, and the women were eager to see what was blooming.  We were in for a treat today!  This day we'd hike both the Point Defiance and Buttermilk Bend trails, roughly six miles.

But first was fish -- a whole school of fish in the So Yuba River.

Big fish.  Trout? 

It wasn't long before we spotted bloomers.  I think we were all amazed at seeing wildflowers we'd not seen before, or at least not on these trails.  L-R, Globe lily, Twining snake lily, and Sierra fawn lily.

Whoa, then there was this guy -- Western Fence Lizard.

Four pairs of eyes is much better than two.  One of us was looking either up or down all the time, luckily, and Leslie spied this Bald Eagle at the confluence.  Never saw a baldy in this park before (zoomed in).

The Yuba before the confluence appears placid and richly colored.

And the flowers just kept on coming!  Top L-R:  Dutchmans Pipe; Bowl-tube Iris -- lots of Iris.  Bottom L-R:  Foothill Shooting Star, California Saxifrage; and Zig-Zag Larkspur.

Leslie leads as we return to the Point Defiance trailhead down the green-green-green switchbacks.  The oaks had leafed out and we appreciated the shade (any shade!).  Leslie was followed by Sheila and Jimmy.  My Jimmy is such a good sport. 💗

Yikes, I almost stepped on this fella!  I think it's a Gopher snake.  First time we've seen a snake next to the river.  It turned tail when it saw Jimmy's foot.  We spotted this guy on our way to eat our packed lunches on the other side of the river, between the two trails.

The beautiful aqua-blue South Yuba River,

decorated with masses of flowers on its banks.

Look at all the Narrow-leaf Lupines,

beauteous blooms!

I couldn't include all the photos of flowers, but here are a few more.  It was a stellar wildflower hike.  Top L-R:  Canyon Dudlea (fixin' to bloom); Pretty Face.  Bottom L-R:  Chinese Houses; Woodland Star.  Correct me if I'm wrong on idenification.

Tufted Poppies!  A gazillion of them.  How could anyone feel ill-humored around so much cheery color?  Poppies and Lupines, what a combination!  Purple and gold, Nannie!

Walkin' the Buttermilk Bend.  Wishing for shade.  When we reached the end of the trail, we zipped down to the river.  Sheila and Leslie took off their lightweight over-shirts, dunked them till they were soaked, wrung 'em out a bit and then put 'em back on ... to cool off.  I plucked a bandana from my pack and did likewise, draping it over my head and neck.  The temp was 84°-85° (in March!), and the spring sun was hot and bright.  At trail's end, one mile later, our wet cotton was dry.

Yes, the water level is low for this favorite river.  Weather prognosticators offer little hope for needed rain/snow this late in the rainy season.  But we can hope, anyway.

Sheila came to eat with us Wednesday night.  (Leslie didn't make it.)  We ate (hot dogs!) and talked, and it was nice to sit (really nice to sit) and plan more trips!  By gum, we did, too!  Sheila and Leslie pulled out the next morning, Oregon-bound, after what I can only assume was a good night's sleep!  I know Jimmy and I were dead to the world early and didn't know a thing till eight the next morning.  Thanks for coming, you two!  We enjoyed your visit.

Plus, early next month we'll get to spend time with another fellow traveler.  Aren't we the lucky ones?

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.