Oregon and Washington - August 2019

Saturday, 3 Aug 2019:
Started heading north to Washington on Saturday, August 3rd.  Had to stop in San Jose to see if the camera in my phone could be fixed before going on a trip where I'd want to take a ton of pictures.  (Argh.)

Dropped it off, and then went to REI to buy pants.  Very exciting start to the trip, oh yes.  Well, they couldn't fix the phone, but I did get a new pair of pants that I really like, so it's not a total loss.

Officially started driving north when I picked up the phone, but there was an accident on the Richmond Bridge that slowed us by a bit, and then there was road construction near Petaluma that slowed us even more, so all in all, we were delayed quite a bit because of bad traffic in the Bay Area.  We got off the highway just before Petaluma to have lunch at Olompali State Historic Park.  Pulled over, and made a sandwich at a picnic table in the shade.

[No pictures of this.  But it was a really good sandwich.]

Had planned on getting up near Crescent City to find a campground Saturday evening, but the traffic delays set us back enough that it was already getting dark-ish by the time we got to Eureka.  So we stopped there for dinner - Hawaiian food, of course -  and then got a motel room a little further north in Arcata.

Sunday, 4 Aug 2019:
Driving north on 101toward Crescent City, we had to stop in the traditional Elk Viewing Area.  Don't be ridiculous, we thought, there aren't elk here ALL the time.  I mean, this is what we saw last time we were through here... it ain't gonna happen every time.

Well, I'll be durned.  There's elk here all the time...

Drove into Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park on a windy dirt road through the ... redwoods!  Yeah, bet you didn't see THAT coming.

Driving in

The drive was slow but beautiful.  There's a fair amount of road dust on the ferns right next to the road, but even with that, everything was amazingly green.  It sort of looks like snow in the video.

Hiked the Boy Scout Tree Trail past the tree, out to Fern Falls where we had a sandwich for lunch.

We rode our bikes out the trail with our dog, and camped out at the end for the day.  Good times.

Also, with a devil-may-care attitude, we left the car open with our valuables in it.

Loved the roots of the new tree growing on the old fallen tree

Redwoods and ferns

Ditto

Big tree, little woman

Falls in the background

Why yes, those ARE new pants, thank you for noticing

Purty

Our lunchtime view

Lush!

Dense!

Lynne for scale

Hiked back out to the truck, and then headed toward Oregon.  Northeast on Hwy 199 through Cave Junction, and ... we... didn't... stop!  How did we not stop?  What was I thinking?  Clearly, I wasn't...

I'm sorry, Christian; I've let you down.

Up through Grants Pass, and then continuing northwest up toward Crater Lake.  Stopped at Joseph Stewart State Recreation Area on Hat Lost Hat Creek Hat Lake Hat.  Or just Lost Creek Lake maybe.  Hard to say, really.  We might have had hats on at the time.  They had available campsites, so we settled in, made dinner, went for an evening constitutional, and then slept in the back of the truck on the new platform for the first time.  Which, I'm happy to say, worked out really well.

Starting the evening just right.  Cheers Andrew and Jenny!

(settling in...)

Lake and moon

(part of evening constitutional)

Sun going down

The clouds behind us

Monday, 5 Aug 2019:
Breakfast in the Fairshare mugs (where's yours mom??), and then headed to Crater Lake!

As we kept getting closer and closer to Crater Lake, we kept not seeing smoke, so we were excited that Lynne was actually going to see the blue water of the lake finally!  (This is what it looked like the only other time Lynne was here.  So many fires in Oregon a couple years ago.)

Got to the first turnout/overlook (Phantom Ship), and got out, and ... wow!  It's even bluer than I remember.  All the pictures that you see that look like they're photo-shopped because they're so blue really don't even do it justice.  So blue and pretty.

View of "The Phantom Ship"

A little closer view

Drove around the east side of the lake, where the Mt. Scott trail starts, and ... well, went hiking up the Mt. Scott Trail.  Mt. Scott is the highest point in Crater Lake National Park, and it overlooks the lake.  Pretty cool.

The parking area with the peak we're climbing to in the background.

On the way up.  Great view!

View from the top in panorama.

Little wider view from the highest point in the park.

Awesome.

Pointing back to where we were.

Finished the hike, and drove around to the north side of the lake while stopping and looking at a few viewpoints.

Beautiful!!  

Click here to see the pic of the last time we were in this same spot!

The grey couple

(Hey now, I was talking about our SHIRTS!)

Sightseeing boat on the lake.  So blue!

Mt Thielsen from the south.

This is where the first "this is what it looked like" picture up above was taken.  

Same exact view... 

Nice clouds

Again with the blue...

We left the park, and went to Diamond Lake to camp.  Thielsen View campground.  Not sure why they call it that.

View from the campground

Viewing Mt. Thielsen from the west in the campground

Mt. Thielsen, which we were viewing from the campground.

Oh, uh, right.

The camp was on the west side of Diamond Lake, and had a great view of Mt. Thielsen.  Well, our site didn't because there were so many trees.  What's that old saying...?  "You can't see the mountain for the trees?"  Sure holds true here.  No, wait, it was, "You can't see the lake for the trees."  No wait, "The mountain can totally see the lake because it's above the trees?"  No?  There's a forest in there somewhere, too, but not sure I can see it because it didn't make a sound.

Aaaannnyway...

Here's our campsite....

See the forest?

How about the mountain?  Or the lake?

There WERE mosquitoes here which was a bit of a drag.  It wasn't too bad, though because of Lynne's smart thinking to buy some netting before the trip!  We got a few bites (mostly ankles), but we slept in the back of the truck again, and the netting worked great!  Also, Lynne's head net worked great too, to keep the little buggers from biting her face.  Sure, it's supposed to be used with a hat, but it still worked!

The net over the back of the truck

We kept the whole back open for fresh air, and didn't get any mosquitoes

Lynne and her head net

Camp with the lovely colorful string lights

Tuesday, 6 Aug 2019:
Had some breakfast at camp...

Breakfast is served, says dorky chef

... and then drove back out and up to Bend.  Got some groceries and had lunch at the Worthy Brewing Company; I like that place.

Worthy Brewing Patio

And their hops garden

Of interest to pretty much no one else but me probably, Worthy is also the co-sponsor of Floyd's Pro Cycling team.

We continued driving north and then west to cross over the Cascades toward Silver Falls State Park.  Stopped near Mill City at Fisherman's Bend Recreation Site.  Great campsite!  Everything was super clean, and we were camped right next to the Santiam River.  Jumped in to cool off in the evening, and then relaxed and read while overlooking the river.  Saw a bunch of birds, and a whole lot of bats later when it was getting dark.  No mosquitoes at all, and just a really nice spot.  R12 for future reference...

Super nice

Campsite

Um, "settling in"

Relaxing and reading.  

Who the hell is THAT guy with Lynne?!?!?

Ducks

Duck

(Juvenile Common Merganser, we think)

Hairy woodpecker puppy

Hairy woodpecker adult maybe

Adult again?

Okay, it's not really called a puppy

Flickers!

Photo for campsite reference!

Wednesday, 7 Aug 2019:
After breakfast, we went to Silver Falls State Park and hiked the big loop.  10 falls in 7 miles.  Except that it ended up being just over 10 miles.  Really beautiful walk.

Just starting.  

The first little section out of the parking area is (non-)yellow brick road.  

Uh oh...

Upper North Falls

Upper North Falls with pool you can swim in

(if you don't mind turning blue)

Reflection

It's possible that this will work; I've never tried it before.  Hopefully you'll see it moving below:

via GIPHY

Falling down... and up.

North Falls

The view of the falls is just 136 feet up the trail!  C'mon!  We're almost there!  Oh, the falls are 136 feet high?  Yeah, that makes sense.  I'm just not very bright...

Not very bright...

(But I've got new pants!)

From one side

Overhead

Other side

Middle North Falls

People in there for scale

Beauty and the Falls

So green

Drake Falls

Peaceful

Double Falls

Love to see this one when it's really flowing

Lower North Falls

From the top

Down at the bottom

(people up top for scale...)

Lower South Falls

Lynne's in there

Now she's behind the wider part

From behind the falls

Wow

Again, who's the guy she's with??

South Falls:

Whoa.  Awesome.

Still green

Lynne for scale in there

From the other side

(Lighting on the vertical panorama not so good, but I still like it)

Time for a shower?

Better lighting

People up top, too.

After the hike, we went to our camp site to have dinner and relax a bit.  The sites were so close together, we were practically sharing a site with some other people, though.  Definitely not as nice as the previous night.  They were as close to our picnic table as where we were going to have to set up; these sites were so packed so close together.  And we probably could have made it work, but the people next door said there were a lot of mosquitoes because of the muddy creek right next to the camp.  And... and... well, there was a whole domestic dispute brewing with the dad drinking fireball (eww) straight out of the bottle, and getting angry because the mom had left with his van to get toys for the kids and some other stuff that should have taken an hour, and it had already been over six hours... so we made dinner, and re-packed stuff up, and decided to get north of Portland tonight, so we'd have a shorter drive to see mom the next day.  A lovely motel in Vancouver Washington is where we landed.  And we immediately ran upstairs, changed, and went down to the hot tub!  Ahhhh.

Thursday, 8 Aug 2019:
Well, it WAS a lovely motel, but not such a lovely sleep... there was a shopping center that had picked that night to resurface a bunch of the parking lot right behind the motel, and therefore, right outside our window.  Resurfacing might have been okay, but they actually had to break out the old concrete/asphalt/whatever with some loud machinery before they could lay the new stuff down with another loud machine.  Alas...

We drove from Vancouver WA past Mount Rainier (which we never saw because of low clouds) to where mom was staying at Rimrock Lake.  Funky rustic spot, and it had a view of the lake.  On the way up the dirt road to the cabin, we got to change the tire for a woman that ... never. shut. up!  At least she was profuse in her thanks for everything we did for her.  Oh wait...

View of the lake from the deck

We walked down to the little resort store with mom and Linda.  Looked around and bought ice cream to make root beer floats.  Which we didn't end up doing that night.  Or the next night, actually...

Made some lettuce wraps that were yummy.  We even had lettuce for them!

Friday, 9 Aug 2019:
Happy birthday mom!
Made breakfast in the cabin, and then Lynne and I headed out to hike to the top of Round Mountain.  Mom and Linda had done the hike a day or two earlier, and said there was a view of Rainier at the top.  Since we hadn't seen it on the way in, and it was sunny, we wanted to get up there to see it.  Boy it was steep and rocky in some spots... damn, Mom, nice work!  (You too Linda.)  Clouds started coming in on the hike, and we actually got sprinkled on a little bit, but we did get that view of the mountain finally!

Lush and green in places

Hard to tell, but this is pretty steep

There's Rainier!

Again

Looking the other way... Goat Rocks maybe?  I'll have to check

One more look

Looking back down at Clear Lake (closer) and Rimrock Lake (uh, further)

This purty little feller landed on my pack

Came back from hike and Gloria and Martha had shown up, so we all drove up to Rainier National Park to do another walk that was recommended.  Another beautiful place.  Grove of the Patriarchs Trail.

Linda and Gloria on the suspension bridge

Not quite as high as the Capilano Suspension Bridge, eh, Craig?

Mom with big trees

So green

Burly wood!

I like ferns

The whole gang

Again

Heading back to safety

Almost there

Stopped at Clear Creek Falls on the return to the cabin (because we definitely haven't seen enough falls yet).

228 feet high

"We" made dinner (quotes meaning I didn't really have anything to do with it...), and then we all had drinks and dinner out on the deck while looking for bats.  And we saw some, too...

Saturday, 10 Aug 2019:
Loudest.  Thunder.  Ever!!  At some point in the middle of the night, the storm that we'd been hearing got awfully close to us, because, wow... really really loud.  Whole place shook.  Crazy loud.  Super loud.  Wow was it loud.

It was loud.

Anyway, in the morning, Lynne and I walked down to the lake to see ...

Pollywogs!

AKA tadpoles

Lots of 'em!

Really

We then had to get ready to go.  Sigh... didn't we just get here?

One last look off the deck

A goodbye selfie with the four of us that weren't out hiking

We drove out the east side through Yakima, and then down US97.  There wasn't a heck of a lot to see from what we could tell, but maybe there was a little too much smoke/haze/clouds to see distant mountains, or something.  We were thinking we'd get a motel in Bend because it was dumping rain on us for a lot of our drive, and we decided that we didn't want to camp in that.  The problem was, there were no motels in Bend.  Or Redmond.  Or... anywhere but Klamath Falls which is a longer drive than we wanted.  But that was all we could find, so we made a reservation there.  We stopped at a rest stop/park north of Redmond to, uh, rest.  And there was a beautiful canyon right next to the park.

Looking west

Looking east

And then somebody on the end of a big rubber band jumped off the bridge

Whee/eek/whee/eek/whee/eek!

We stopped in Redmond at a brewery that had some permanent food trucks on the premises and got some Caribbean food, and some tacos.  But no beer (sad face) because we still had to drive three hours.  Gotta go back to THAT spot!  Was a really cool place, it seemed to me.

Here's the patio; food trucks are right behind us

Sunday, 11 Aug 2019:

Awoke to bad motel coffee.  Went out and tried a local(?) coffee drive through.  So so so weak.  Drove to a chain coffee place where you always know what you're getting, but I won't name it, and finally got a decent cup of coffee.  Left Klamath Falls, and headed south to California where we passed Mt Shasta, which is the second highest peak of the Cascades.

Mt. Shasta and Shastina

Again

And again

And and again

And and and again (artsy-ish this time)

Sipping coffee and pondering the place in the universe that ... well, sipping coffee, at least

Bet you're wondering what the highest peak of the Cascades is.  We made some sandwiches at another rest stop while sitting in the shade just north of Shasta Lake before starting down I-5.  I hadn't actually realized that Shasta was even IN the Cascades.  We made good time until near the Bay Area again, where we hit some stop and go on I-80 (duh... is there ever a time when there ISN'T stop and go there?).  You know, Mt. Lassen is also in the Cascades; I'd always assumed it was in the Sierra Nevada, but it's not.  Finally got through the traffic on 80 and headed south through the east bay.  Lassen isn't the tallest in the Cascades though either, if that's what you were thinking.  Finally got home, and started unloading the truck.  Another successful adventure!

Mt Rainier.  Mt. Rainier is the tallest.

Moose's costume by LandP.