09 Saturday Mar 2024
Posted in Uncategorized
Sometimes memories are hidden away until something shakes them loose. Such were my memories of walking under and behind a waterfall. It was an intriguing experience as a child. Recently a friend described such a place to me. Silver Falls, Oregon.
08 Friday Mar 2024
Posted in Uncategorized
I headed off on my spring trip – heading south along I-5, not anywhere close to the middle of nowhere. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Along the way I managed to see some wonderful grist mills. Where things were powered by water and used belts and pullies to transfer the power through the mill. Ah, mechanically engineering by the common man before technology.
17 Tuesday Oct 2023
Posted in Fall 2023
Tags
Where to go next? In looking at the map, I saw a curious feature – a paved road in what appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. Having never explored the area east of Seneca, Oregon, I decided that it was time to see what the area has to offer and drive Road 16. I explored slowly. It took me three days to drive the road.
14 Saturday Oct 2023
Posted in Fall 2023
I had been uncertain about spending the effort to view the eclipse. I had heard that there may be crowds which I have an aversion to, and the weather forecast was semi cloudy. But I wanted to keep my options open, so I slowly headed west. Having some spare time, I drove the road to the Warm Springs Reservoir to look for agates and petrified wood. I found lots of agate type rock but no petrified wood. I also found some blue rocks that I have no clue what they are.
21 Thursday Sep 2023
Posted in camping site, Fall 2023
Yes! After a year of not going on a trip, I left the Pacific NW and traveled eastward. I first started by slowly going through Washington and Oregon, then I was off to explore Idaho. I was in no hurry. My first stop for the night was Long Lake a tad bit south of Mosses Lake.
01 Sunday May 2022
Posted in Spring 2022
I camped at Summer Lake in 2013 and have wanted to return for years. Last fall I was planning on returning but with a weather forecast of bitter cold and snow, I aborted that plan. On this trip, on my way south I was going to stay. Instead I only saw Summer Lake as I hurriedly drove south working to keep ahead of a bitter cold front descending from the north. Now today. As I drove north I was driving through dark gray skies and snow. In places there was a couple of inches of snow covering the ground. The wind was blowing cold. I made the decision that if I could find a place to fill my propane tanks for the furnace, I would turn off the road and stay. I was able to get the propane tanks filled – I ventured to Summer Lake. It was better than I remembered.
21 Sunday Feb 2021
Posted in camping site, Winter 2021
Tags
Back in the fall of 2020 I hatched a plan to head south the first of February in 2021. The plan was to get away from the Pacific Northwest cold and wet weather. I would drive south on I-5 to Bakersfield and then head eastward towards Death Valley and explore. Then covid hit California hard. Driving through California didn’t seem responsible with the ICUs full and I didn’t want to drive down the east side of the sierras pulling a trailer with the potential of icy roads. Surprisingly, California started recovering from covid in February. I made the decision to go south.
I started driving from Seattle and it took me five days to get to what I thought of as the beginning of the trip – Red Rock Canyon, California. This included an extra day waiting on the north side of the Siskiyous for the road conditions to improve. When I read the Oregon DOT site at 1:00 pm; it was 30 degrees at the pass, snowing hard, bumper to bumper traffic with a 60 minute delay. It was not a hard decision to check into the Valley of the Rogue Campground to wait the weather out. The next day was much better.
It was a long slog south, but I made it to Red Rock Canyon.
16 Wednesday Oct 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
When I asked people for a recommendation of what to do around John Day, the first recommendation almost everyone made was that I should go to Strawberry Lake.
Strawberry Lake
15 Tuesday Oct 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
I headed south, wandering around looking for fall color, fossils, and views.
Larches
06 Sunday Oct 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
I’m staying at John Day for the month of October volunteering at Kam Wah Chung. While there I’m exploring the area.
The tourist brochure for Grant County listed the top 20 tourist sights and included the Humongous Fungus with a note to see the chamber of commerce or forest service for more information. My interest was perked. The Humongous Fungus was in the top 20 sites to visit in Grant County! I located the chamber of commerce office and went in to get the information on this interesting site. The gentleman there had heard of it but couldn’t find any information on it. He couldn’t remember if he had ever visited it. He suggested I visit the forest service office, so off I went. At the forest service office the lady looked around a bit and then found the information for me. Then she pointed on the map (that she gave me) where I should go to see the Humongous Fungus. When I pointed out to her that the area wasn’t where the map located the Humongous Fungus, her reply was: “it is all the same.” I was getting more intrigued about the Humongous Fungus. It didn’t appear to be a hot tourist spot.
Armillaria ostoyae, the humongous fungus. Photo from Scientific America.
searching for the middle of nowhere 