We had a delightful dinner last night with our grand-niece and grand-nephew Brandy and Justin Downey and Brandy's fiance Derek Porritt.  Took us a while to find their house.  The neighborhood has few street signs, the streets don't run in a nice grid, and Brandy said even the pizza delivery guys have trouble.  But we got there.

Iguanaville

In addition to the two dogs, Buddy the golden retriever and Marley (don't know her breed), they have two exotic lizards.  Derek built this impressive multi-level home for their two iguanas.  One was up for the photo op, the other decided to hide in a corner.

Brandy, our hostess

Justin

Justin with Buddy

Mike, Justin, Brandy and Mary Anne

Justin, Derek and Brandy

Getting to see them all was a real pleasure, as we haven't seen them for a couple of years.  We will see them again at Brandy and Derek's wedding in August, as we are staying in the Pacific Northwest to be able to attend.  

We will hang out here in Kelso until Tuesday next week and then head north again for Gig Harbor.

Crater Lake and Southwest Oregon

We are happy to be out of the Portland area with its daunting traffic.  On Saturday June 7 we headed south to Myrtle Creek OR, our staging point to visit Crater Lake National Park.  Sunday was cloudy but Monday was better.  It took 2.5 hours to drive up to the visitor center and another two hours (we went back a different way) to return to Myrtle Creek.  Absolutely worth it.  The drive down followed the Umpqua River, another of the beautiful, clear rivers here in the mountain west.

 Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake is deep sapphire blue.  It's what remains of a major volcano which blew off 6,000 feet of its top about 7000 years ago.  It is still fairly high, 6,600 feet.  Since we have been at sea level or close to it for months, the altitude made me light-headed for a few minutes. Fortunately I didn't have to do any strenuous exertion.  The dogs, of course were fine.  And so was Mike.

The lake is mesmerizing in its intensity.  We were somewhat surprised that the east rim road is still closed due to snow and there were large swaths of snow falling away from the west rim road. The dogs happily rolled around in a snowbank.

 We stayed at a small park with many permanent residents in Myrtle Creek .  One of the rigs had this sign hanging on the front:

We have no plans for further sight-seeing for the next couple of weeks.  We are now in Kelso WA and will be having dinner tomorrow with Brandy Downey (my grand-niece) and her fiance Derek Porritt.

Portland

We found our park in Portland with no difficulty.  In fact, we were at the park at 1:00 pm, which is a new record for us.  The drive from Newport wasn't as slow as we had thought it would be.  We set up the rig and chilled for the remainder of the day.  The weather was overcast and rainy.

Friday's forecast was clear, sunny and warm, with the upcoming week cloudy, partly cloudy, and showers.  Sounds like the day to do the outdoor stuff.  We went east from the park along the Columbia River to Multnomah Falls.  Breathtaking.  Note the red ribbon on the footbridge:  a large boulder broke loose in January and plummeted to the bridge, damaging it.  The official re-opening of the bridge was last weekend, Memorial Day.

Old US 30 Highway is the route through this area.  Next stop was Bridal Veil Falls.  It was a hike down to the falls and a tougher hike back up but the dogs were very brave.  At least as beautiful as Multnomah Falls and far fewer people.

As we were driving out to Multnomah Falls, we saw a sign for Vista House.  No explanation so we kept going.  As we finished at Bridal Veil Falls, we decided to continue west on Old US 30, as it led back to I-84 and Portland.  We passed Vista House on the way.  See photos.  According to the volunteer I talked with, it was built with a budget of $18,000 and actual of $100,000 after US 30 was completed in 1915.  And worth every cent.  It's a magnificent structure which nearly disappeared, as no maintenance was done for years and it was rapidly deteriorating.  

It is situated on a point above the Columbia River gorge and the views are magnificent.

Last fall we attended my 50th high school reunion and renewed acquaintances.  One of my classmates,Gary Schaub and his wife Connie, live in a southern suburb of Portland.  We plan to meet them tonight for dinner.

Later:
Had a great time with Connie and Gary.  They own property in Kansas and we may see them again in Coffeyville when we are through there in October.

It's been a quiet few days, as Mike has gone to Kansas City to check in with the eye surgeon.  The dogs can't figure out where he is, even though I have explained it to them.  He is picking up his free Samsung phone and can't wait to play with it.  Samsung offered it to him as a test model, since he is an unusually knowledgeable user and he travels all the time.  I get Mike's old (last December) phone.

We will pack up Friday and move to Myrtle Creek OR on Saturday.  Crater Lake National Park next week.

Oregon Coast - part 4

As luck would have it, the Sunday before Memorial Day in Newport was miserable.  Windy, chilly, rainy, yucky.  Lots of the folks in the RV park hitched up and left, since Monday wasn't supposed to be much better.  And, of course, Monday was beautiful.

We stopped to talk with one of the marina employees who told us a guy had to be helicoptered out of the drink Sunday.  He was salmon fishing and his boat went down, not just capsized, down to the bottom.  He's lucky the Coast Guard could get to him quickly.

Since Monday was splendid, we walked down to the end of the South Beach jetty, dogs in tow.  Interesting things going on.  Scuba divers with spear guns, families, shore birds,fishermen, and other items too numerous to mention.  On the way back, Lola plopped herself down and refused to take one more step.  (In fairness to Lola, it was a long walk for little stumpy legs.)  After a few minutes she recovered and was ready to continue.

The Rogue Brewery is on the perimeter of the marina/rv park.  We had lunch there and were mystified by their selection of 38 different kinds of beer they brew.  They also have a distillery and make a dozen or so different liquors. The restaurant had the best clam chowder we've had all the way up the coast.

We took the dogs for one last long walk down to the fishing pier.  The seagulls perch on the railing of the pier and don't move until you are almost even with them.

We packed up Tuesday and prepared to leave Wednesday.  Of course, it was raining cats and dogs.  Mike got soaked.  When we got into the park at Portland, he was almost finished setting up and it started to rain again.  Soaked again.  Now the sun is shining.  He is beginning to feel picked on.

We had a great time driving the Pacific Coastal Scenic By-way.  I recommend it.  Perhaps one day we will do the other piece we missed, San Francisco south to Los Angeles.

Oregon Coast part 3

As we were packing up the rig at Gold Beach, I walked over to the people across from us to kill some time.  As it turned out, they are both Irish, Bob born in Belfast and Jess born in County Down. They have been in the US for decades but still retain a faint Irish brogue. Mike and I spent an hour talking with them about RVing and especially about Ireland.  What a great way to finish at Gold Beach.   They live at Point Robert, Washington, so we may see them later in the summer before we go to Port Townsend.

The drive up the coast to Newport was relatively short, 170 miles, and very beautiful.  We were stopped for 15-20 minutes while traffic was held for construction at a tunnel.  Fortunately we had a great view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

We are staying at the RV park associated with the Newport Marina.  There is another spectacular bridge, this one also originally built in the 1930's.  Mike said the sign said it was a WPA project.

You can see the marina and part of the RV park below and behind the bridge.  A little boy next to us on the viewpoint told his mother, "It's a roller coaster!"  And it does look like a roller coaster.  

The crowds are beginning to gather here, as this is a big resort area and Memorial Day is Monday.  We went out today, got exasperated with the crowds, and wound up at the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse Park, Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.

Yaquina Bay Lighthouse

I continue to be surprised at how deep these Oregon beaches are.  My "better" camera got water inside the lens and I'm using the little camera which has a short telefoto.  People out on this beach look like ants.

There are people on this beach.

I had to laugh at the sign at the entrance to the path down to the beach.  It lists a couple of dozen warnings and "DO NOTs". Nothing like fear of death to make for a great day.  Note the sign at the right about the debris coming ashore from the Japanese tsunami.  The camp host told me an entire dock washed up here and it is somewhere in the harbor, secured so it won't take off again.

There are two replica sailing ships in the harbor.  In the afternoon, they sail out into the Pacific off the beach and conduct mock sea battles, complete with black powder smoke and cannonfire.  My telefoto is so anemic that you can barely even see the ships.  It was fun to watch, as we had binoculars. 

Black specks in center left are the ships.

Once again we have been the recipients of the kindness of strangers.  Last night I walked out to the trash bin to drop off what was left of the steamer clams we had fixed for dinner.  There was a multi-generational family across from the bin with a big pot over a propane burner.  Curiosity being a major component of my psyche, I asked the oldest guy what they were cooking.  It was crabs which they had caught that day.  He opened the cooler and pointed out Dungeness crabs and rock crabs (?) and said they had been lucky as they had a whole bunch.  We chatted back and forth and he was surprised we were a) from Kansas b) full-time RVers.  An hour or so later, there was a knock on the door.  Here was the gentleman with a whole gallon bag of cooked crab for us.  That's twice now that a local has given us cooked crab.  

Sunday 5/24:  It was supposed to rain all day today but it appears to be clearing.  All the people who came out to Newport for the holiday and to fish/crab will be happy to get a good day.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a big installation here in Newport.  I walked the dogs down to the river this morning (Yaquina River is very wide and deep as it approaches the Pacific).  There are two large and technologically advanced ships tied up at the harbor.

NOAA

What do to in case of earthquake.

Just in case any of you are in need of earthquake/tsunami emergency preparedness.  

There is another lighthouse, an active one (entirely automated, no lighthouse keeper) a little further north up the coast.  That was today's objective.  As you can tell from the photos, our beautiful weather has now deserted us and it was VERY CHILLY AND WINDY on the point.  Mike and I are both amazed at the number of people who are running around in shorts/t-shirts/sandals.  We were cold in pullovers, jeans, and jackets.  

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

"To those lost at sea with special affection
for the fisherman of the Pacific Northwest."

Oregon Coast part 2

The Rogue River borders Gold Beach on the north.  There's an art nouveau-ish bridge (Isaac Lee Patterson Bridge) which spans it, built in 1932.

In the marina, out of the traffic pattern, is the wreck of the Mary D. Hume.  Quite an interesting story.  Mary D Hume

Today (Tuesday 5/20) is our last day in Gold Beach.  As you can see from the photos, we have had brilliant weather.  Only one day has been rainy.  We had no particular destination in mind today, just got in the truck and headed north through Port Orford.  We saw a sign for Elk River Road and turned east.  See photos. Eventually we ran out of road and hit gravel so we turned around.  This was a beautiful drive.

Note to Wyatt:  There is a state fish hatchery on this river.  

And one last thought:  we have been in tsunami territory most of the past couple of weeks.  The RV'er closest to the beach in this park knows what to do.

More later.  Tomorrow we are headed north to Newport, another OR beach town.

Oregon Coast part 1

Redwood Highway is a definite must.  We spent all day Wednesday (5/14) driving Hwy 101 from just south of Willits, CA, to Gold Beach, OR.  I lost count of the number of state redwood parks (6 or 7) and the Redwood National Park.  The day was perfect, sunny and clear, with very little traffic.  Spectacular scenery, especially for those of us flatlanders accustomed to less dramatic country.

We will be here at Gold Beach OR for the next week.  Our park is within 100 yards of the beach so we can trudge over the dunes and we're there.  Mercifully it is cooler than California where we were dealing with temps in the 90's.  (Might have been in Kansas.)  I saw on the news that the San Diego area is fighting wildfires so we left there at the right time.  Gold Beach gets 80 inches of rain a year, as compared to KC's 40 inches.  The climate here must be a lot like Ireland, cool to chilly but seldom below freezing and lots of mist/drizzle/rain.

The dogs don't quite know about the beach.  Muppet discovered he can dig and dig and dig and throw sand all over Lola.  There's a lot of driftwood on the beach.  See photo below.

Can you find the dog?

Under the general heading of oddities, here's another one.  Mike and I were sitting outside this morning when an elderly lady in a wheel chair rolled up.  She needed a ride to the local jail (where she was recently a guest) to pick up her sunglasses which they had neglected to give her when she left.  So I said I would take her.  All the way to the jail, a couple of miles, she pointed out all the places where the sidewalk/curb was not disabled-friendly and that's why she keeps getting jay-rolling tickets.  This apparently is why she was in jail.

She lives in an RV to which we are adjacent.  There is no vehicle associated with her old RV and she clearly didn't get it here on her own.  She belongs in assisted living someplace, as she is both mentally and physically disabled.

When I got her sunglasses, she asked if I could please let her out as a grocery store and then pick her up a couple of blocks down at another grocery store.  Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.  I dropped her off and got an cream cone across from the second market and waited.  Here she came, with two young hitchhikers and a pit bull in tow.  She had promised them lunch if they would carry her groceries. Okay, so now load up the elderly lady, the wheel chair, two hitchhikers and a dog for the ride back to the park.  Mike was amazed when I pulled up.

I do like this little park.  It has a faux lighthouse you can climb which provides a great view. This is the time of year when gray whales migrate from the Sea of Cortez in Mexico  to the feeding grounds off Alaska.  As I sat on the beach with the dogs, I could see passing whales exhaling.

We spent all day Monday going back south to visit scenic points in the Samuel Boardman State Park.  I have so many photos I am having a hard time figuring out what to post.  It's one breath-taking scene after another.  Parts of it remind me of the Irish coast.  

Before erosion

After erosion

We stopped at the Thomas Creek Bridge viewpoint and hiked a trail I thought would lead somewhere I could get a photo of the bridge.  It's the highest in OR at 345 feet.  We hiked and hiked until we came to the edge of a cliff...no photo.  We did have fun with the dogs.  They were most interested in the giant plants that seem to thrive here.

Does this plant eat animals?

We continued south to Brookings OR and located the marina, thanks to a helpful police officer.  We were way past eat o'clock so we tried the Hungry Clam.  Good fish and chips (not as good as Spuds) and average crab cakes.

This post is getting long so I will end it and open a new one for the last couple of adventures in Gold Beach.