Florence to Newport, Sept. 5-7

Monday morning we decided to move north continuing along the beautiful coast. From Florence the coast was clearing so we had a much prettier view of everything.  Along the way we stopped for a photo op of our little yellow house with the Bauer family TenMile Cabin in the background. (I know it doesn't show much in the photo, but it really is there!)

Once we got to Newport, OR we found a beautiful campsite at Beverly Beach State Park just north of the city. Huge park!!! Chose a sunnier site away from the beach to try to stay a bit warmer. The park had the most unusual trees, much like a baryon tree...with huge exposed roots about 4-5 feet tall. Never did find out what they were.

We took our bikes out for a ride around, totally bundled up! The fog was really blowing in at the beach

That night Paul was busy baking his first batch of chocolate chip cookies in the motorhome, which served also to keep us warm inside while the oven was on.  We are still amazed at how well everything works so well inside and out of this old Southwind! What a lucky find...











Tuesday morning we had full sunshine again and a perfect day to see Newport.  From Nye Beach to the old waterfront area it was beautiful.  Another beautiful Art Deco bridge

Though we are not fishermen it was fun to watch the morning boats coming back in. What a gorgeous afternoon! Think we'll only be here these 2 nights and then move on.  We do have one motivation to keep moving as we want to see a concert in Portland next Tuesday evening, Pink Martini with the Portland Symphony. Just wish we had 2 more weeks along the coast before going inland. It's so hot and smokey there.

LABOR DAY on the Oregon Coast

Sunday our weather changed from the warm sunny skies to the coastal fog which is more typical for this area, felt a lot like home.  We had made plans to meet Jane Haskell and her son, Ben, for lunch in the nearby town of Yahats. Jane was teaching 5th Grade at Los Ranchos the first year I was there but I haven't seen her in over 25 years. Marian Gregory knew we were in the area where Jane now lives, Newport Or, so with her email address we made plans to meet for lunch.  What a nice couple of hours visiting and reminiscing, she hasn't changed at all!

After lunch we headed back towards Florence stopping off at Cape Perpetua but with the fog hanging along he coast the views were limited. Still a beautiful ride along this forested coast. Back in Florence we took some of the coast roads to see different areas and found an amazing county campground right on the coast, fully wooded. Full of campers for the Labor Day weekend but I'm sure there will be plenty of empty campsites after today.

Not feeling like going back to our own campsite we decided to check out Florence for a light appetizer in one of the restaurants along the waterfront.  Boy, did we hit the jackpot! As we walked down the street we could hear a sax and jazz music so following the sound we came to the Travelers Cove Cafe, full of locals listening to a jazz quartet. We squeezed in, standing to listen, and ended up staying for the full evening of fun and wonderful music. Such friendly folk and talented band members, all of who have played with well known groups, even Aretha Franklin. What a fun evening!!! You know when you find where the locals hang, you probably have found the best. The music also included vocalists who were visiting Florence and a fantastic 16 year old blues guitar/singer. Would love to return here next Sunday evening to do it all over again....but time to move on north today.

Not sure how far we'll go, but time to see more of this beautiful coast.

HERE IN FLORENCE...JUST NOT IN ITALY!

Today, Thursday, was a big day of driving! Much longer than I had thought it would be from Medford to Florence back on the coast of Oregon. Since the weather is beautiful and clear here for the next week we decided to adjust out plans to do the eastern Cascades 2 weeks from now and catch the good weather while we could. Hopefully by then the fires near Sisters will be contained and out.

Beautiful drive today, but 3 hours on I-5 is more than enough.  Turned off at hwy 138 for a very peaceful ride west along the Umpqua River, with stunning views. That is one really wide river!!!

Can't imagine it in spring with snow run off.  We passed through the little town of Elkton, guess my connections to Elks just keeps on keeping on! Even came along another Elk preserve outside of the city of Reedsport. Our destination was the Elk's RV Park just outside of Florence.  Another AMAZING campground!!!! Full hooks ups, beautiful spaces and gorgeous forested landscape.

Friday morning was re-organizing time...slowly learning what really needs to be where in our little house, so it's an ongoing task moving things around. When we took off for this adventure we weren't quite sure what things we'd really be needing along the way, so slowly we will sift through items and donate.

The newest addition to my traveling garden is this beautiful hanging basket and stake.

Spent Friday afternoon driving around the beautiful Mercer Lake just up the road from our campground.

Might be a great place for the kayaks. Then south to the old town of Florence for views of the bay and dunes.

This is the Art Deco bridge built in 1936 that leads into Florence. Just gorgeous!

Friday night was an experience...dinner with dancing at the local Elk's club. Great prime rib dinner. Gotta love being an ELK!!!!  Though we were pretty much the youngest ones there, and not being waltzers we did sit out a ton until a good ole rock n roll tune came along.  Fun evening!

Today, Saturday we got on our bikes early to ride to a near by botanical area to view Darlingtonia Californica...also known as the cobra plant or the pitcher plant. A most interesting plant that devours insects

I thought that was the end of the bike ride, but PK suggested we get on the Oregon Bike Route (also know as the main highway) and head back to Florence. Along the way I always have to stop and check out campgrounds so we stopped at the Sutton Recreational Area. Just always wondering what other campsites are out there.  Once we get passed the Labor Day weekend, we will have plenty to choose from and if they are National Forest we have a 50% discount.  Pretty cool!  From here we continued into town stopping at our new favorite shopping stores, thrift shops.  So we found the Habit for Humanity ReStore and Paul was in contractor heaven looking at all the parts and pieces.  But he did find a fabulous buy: a small (motorhome size) space heater for $2!  he was tickled and it fit easily in my bike basket.

 Too fun! We did go on into town and had a little lunch

before heading back and stopping off at the Garden Shops we'd seen along the way.  So now...back at our campsite with my BBQing husband in charge of dinner...chicken cooked using his 6 briquet method! He cracks me up! We're very proud of our day of bicycling...15 miles!!! More than we've ever done and maybe some day I'll be riding with the Big Guys.... Ann, Tony, Sheri or Paul.

Smith River Weekend

This trip has been filled with wonderful family visits and reconnecting with old friends. We left Crescent City Friday afternoon and drove the 20 miles north to visit Lynn and Les Odom, friends from Shell Beach that we haven't seen in 10 years. The fog had cleared by the time we got there so we had a wonderful chance to see their new home in Smith River right along the coast. Absolutely stunning moorish architecture! Les is a master with tile, which is how he and Paul first met. He has really worked his magic on the walls and floors and columns of this new house.

After catching up on our new lives we had a tasty lasagna dinner with a fantastic ocean view. Saturday we took a ride up into Oregon to visit Gold Beach and do a little shopping at a huge Hospice resale store...Paul picked out a little Halloween decor for the MH. From there we stopped at a beautiful overlook at Natural Bridges Cove. So amazing to see the power of water which has carved both a natural bridge and an opening in the huge rock.

I did get a photo of Paul with Les and Lynn along the path.

Once we got back to the house we put on walking shoes and headed to the beach.

The sun was still showing slightly through the fog.

After the long walk on the beach we changed and went to dinner at a darling cafe:  The Art Grill Gallery
Wonderful dinner and lovely surroundings. A fun evening.

Sunday morning we were up early, leashed Foster and headed right back down to the beach for an early morning walk.





Wow...even prettier than the night before and the tide was out much further so we saw even more rock formations, large piles of drift wood and so many sea creatures.

After another wonderful breakfast at the Odom Kitchen Cafe we said good bye, loaded us up again and headed east to Medford. By accident we took an alternate route, Hwy 197 that was so beautiful and got us over to Hwy 199 very easily. Then we were following the Rogue River with fantastic scenery all the way to Grants Pass.The drive was windy and narrow but so beautiful and it only took us two and a half hours to

get all the way to Medford.

We had decided to try to stay as close to Medford as we could so we chose the Medford Elk's RV Park.  What a perfect place!!! It is about 7 miles outside of Medford near White City.  It was the Elk's Picnic Grounds and they've added the 10 RV parking spots.  Well, lucky for us...no one else is here! There is a care taker, Merle, who has lived out here for 30 years and is a sweetie pie. There is a river nearby but mostly all we hear are crickets at night and the cows mooing in the morning.  I never had any idea my new Elk's membership would be so fantastic!!! For $15 a night we have power, water and beautiful scenery all the while being only 15 minutes away from my Mom.

Once we got set up we headed into Medford to meet my brother Harry and his wife, Mary, for dinner.  Another fun night...they suggested "Shoji", a Japanese Tapenyaki Restaurant.  So fun!!! All the food was prepared with style right in front of us and was delicious!

We've been spending the last few days visiting my Mom and getting to see a little bit more of Medford.  We saw a play yesterday afternoon in Ashland's Shakespeare Theater, always a treat! Mom's doing well and we loved being here. Can't believe she'll be celebrating her 89th birthday in November!

Morning along the Klamath River

It's early Thursday morning and a great time to do a little blogging. Our mornings have fallen into a pattern not much different from when we were home.  Paul gets up early, makes the coffee, takes Fossie out for a walk while I get the pillows all in a corner of our bedroom ready for my morning coffee.  Then PK sits in his driver's seat (turned in towards the living room).  I get the big laptop, he uses the iPad and we are set for an hour or so…as long as we have internet.  Guess what happens here at some campsites is they get a certain amount of service, so many GB, and it is shared throughout the park so if too many people are using at the same time, the service is much weaker.

Today we'll go south a little ways south to the Elk Reserve and then along the coast for  a walk.  It's been nice to have the cooler weather, we can leave Foster here in the MH while we go out, dogs can't go on trails. We did take a wonderful loop walk along a lagoon and out to the sea

By mid afternoon it was so warm and beautiful. I wanted to go further but Paul doesn't have good walking shoes and sandals aren't the best for hiking so we did a shorter version, but so pretty.

          

Yesterday we made the stupid mistake of actually stopping at the Trees of Mystery…tourist trap! We have passed this place for years and never stopped but we had nothing pressing us this time, so in we went. With senior discount it was only $10 so we figured not too bad, we'd give it a try.  Well, after being in gorgeous forests these last weeks, this left a little to be desired.  Basically they named unusual shaped trees…the candelabra tree, the elephant tree, the cathedral tree, the family tree etc. Guess most of the folks going through must not ever take a real walk in the real woods cuz they thought it was pretty amazing…go figure.  Talking speakers along the way, so hokey. But the entrance price included the gondola ride to the top of a peak so we were seeing the trees from the top down rather than looking up.

From there we could see from the ocean to the farthest peaks and with binoculars we saw and osprey atop a tree snag in the distance. You could see where logging had taken out this area 60 years ago and has been reforested.  Another part of the place that we really enjoyed was the Indian Museum with a very large collection of indian baskets, clothing, pottery from all parts of the country, so interesting to see such a extensive collection from all different tribes.  That was free…we should have just spent more time in it rather than the tree thing. So, all in all, not so bad and another reminder that if it looks like a tourist trap it most likely is exactly that!

From there we went on up to Crescent City for groceries, cell service and internet…OMG…even after just 10 days with limited service, to be in a Starbuck's with full speed internet was so addicting.  We sat for 2 hours playing on the computers while Paul drank a small cappuccino. On the way back we saw cars stopped not the roadway which means only one thing up here…ELK SIGHTING!

This time the herd was all around the yard of a beautiful private home set in a meadow. They are beautiful animals to watch, and I am kinda partial to them now, so we watched for a few minutes and drove on.   When we got back home again, made our 2nd berry pie, warmed up some leftovers and had our campfire.

We wanted to watch a Modern Family episode but not enough service to run it on the computer, so shut everything off and went to bed. We are in such a secluded area when we turn off the lights it's totally dark other than the stars peeking through the branches. We'll miss this wonderfully private campsite when we move north tomorrow...but guess there are so many out there yet to be discovered.

A Walk in the Rhododendrons, well, kind of...

Well...what a hiking day we had! Sunny skies were all around us as we woke this morning, a surprise for this part of the coast.  The manager at the park here said they'd had fog for a week straight, so sun was fun to see!

We did our usual slow start to the morning  but before leaving for a day trip along the coast we wanted to check out the very cool chicken coop near us.  Isn't this the best?  Guess if PK designed one for us we could pull it along behind us and have our own fresh eggs every day. Too fun!

From our campground we went toward the overlook of Klamath River.

Then up a very narrow gravel road to see some great sights. Our first stop was what the park host had called "The Farm that Wasn't", a very real looking cinderblock farm house with shingled roof and gabled windows that actually housed a radar and gun location during WWII.  When we walked down the path we could see that it was under renovation with new wood shingled roof.


 We drove further hugging the cliff, kinda like driving Highway 1 except on gravel not paved road. The views were spectacular and the air crisp. Too funny that we actually had a little bit of cell power along this stretch, so we call Burt and Diane to see how they're doing with their move.




A little further down the road we came to another turn in the road for The Bluff Overlook with more gorgeous views down the coast, very rough and rocky.

Back to the main highway we had this look across the Klamath River, set with 2 large bears on each side.  This is the place where a bridge once spanned the wide river until the floods here in Dec. 1964.  The power of the redwood trees surging down the river was too much pressure for the bridge to withstand and so it collapsed and was washed away as was the town of Klamath. Today it was peaceful and very calm, hard to picture a raging torrent that had once hit here.

Our road trip took us further south to the scenic alternate route on the Prairie Creek Parkway.  A slow, forested ride, again with very little traffic.  Beautiful! We picked a spot for our lunch under a grove of trees, then once refreshed, stopped for a hike in the redwoods.  The trail we chose was called the Rhododendron Trail, of course! I knew it was out of season for the flowers to be seen but still wanted to see the plants. Well, after a 3 hour hike through some of the most beautiful undisturbed forests we have ever seen, there  very few rhodies but so many incredible trees.  The hike was an uphill of switchbacks for a mile then over and under several fallen giants before heading back in a slow 2 mile route.

We met 3 groups of similar hikers along the way.  One a family from Portland who were traveling with their 2 sons and gave us tips for routes in the Cascades of Oregon not to miss.  Next we came upon a single hiker thinking he was on a hike that would lead to the beach, NOT! He decided to go back the way he had come so he would find where he had left his car.  And lastly a very sweet young couple from SF who shared their salmon jerky with us as we visited.

As we walked, it was fun to actually see the delicate white flower of the Redwood Sorrel (which I had always thought was some kind of clover).

And...3 Banana Slugs!!!! A first for me! (other than the band called The Banana Slugs from Santa Cruz that used to come and perform for the kids at school. )

After the hike we  continued further down to the Information Center at Prairie Creek where you are able to view the Elk herd, if they are there...but not for us.

By now it was 5:00 and we were looking for a grocery store, the nearest one being 8  mi south to the little town of Orick. Well, that turned out to be a great plan!!!! As we came around one corner tons of cars were pulled to the side because a herd of 30-40  Elk were crossing the road.


We pulled into a nearby parking area and the herd came right in front of us!!!! Several large antlered males, the rest much younger. So incredible, we just sat there and watched them nibble on the grasses.

So, onto Orick we went, got our groceries and turned back north.  There was a turn off to visit the Lady Bird Johnson Grove of redwoods and we couldn't pass that up, so turn we did! The grove was dedicated to her in 1969 for her continued support for preservation of our natural resources.  The walk was only a mile long and so beautiful once again with an interpretive guide book provided. So glad we stopped because we saw enormous rhododendrons all along the trail! Some probably 10 feet tall. They must be amazing to see in bloom! We were surprised that when we left at 6:30 the weather was still warm and others were still walking the trail,  though the fog was circling. On our walk we saw this beautiful snail. I know I usually don't call snails beautiful but this one was so large and colorful.

Finally got back to our campsite and Foster about 7:00. What a wonderful day...for a walk in the woods!

From the Humboldt Redwoods to the Klamath River

Monday night by the camp fire!!! Not singing songs tonight just relaxing and writing this Blog.  We are here along the Klamath River in a perfect campsite at Kamp Klamath RV Park, another great find using our Passport America 50% discount. I asked for the prettiest site that also has wifi and here we are...surrounded by trees, and totally private with a huge area around us. We only drove 125 miles today but it seemed to take us most of the day, as we do go slowly.  This is an area we've only passed through on travels before but this time we want to stay a few days and see some of the coast and sights along here. We were lucky to have blue skies when we got here and slowly the fog has come back in. But  we've noticed there are NO mosquitoes here!!! YES!

But, back to the weekend first.  We decided to take a walk in the Founder's Grove last Saturday morning. We came across one redwood that had fallen in March 1999, the Dyerville Giant. A park neighbor who lives a mile away, reported hearing a large crash and thought it was a train wreck.  A tree 50 feet away had mud splattered 15 feet up its trunk from the impact of the Giant hitting the ground! Before it fell it was 362 feet tall, 2 feet taller than Niagara Falls and probably weighed over 1,000,000 pounds! it is amazing to stand near the exposed roots and try to understand the size of these amazing trees.

 The walk through the grove was beautiful.

 From there our plan was to hike the trail at the Roosevelt Grove with some of the largest remaining redwoods,  but as we drove out that way the day was so warm and lovely with the top down on the car we changed the plan and decided to take the "Scenic Route" I had read about in one of my travel guides.  According to the guide the drive is about 65 miles long and would take only 2 hours. Along the way we would come to a small dwelling called Honeydew...sounded like a perfect little drive. Well, after 4 hours of the twistiest up and down hill roads we've ever been on

we finally saw the welcomed sight of civilization once again in the little town of Ferndale with its charming Victorian architecture.

The road is also called The Wildcat Ridge by locals and they sure know how to drive it!!! They would pass us in their huge pick up trucks like we were standing still and down the continuing curves they'd go! Every time I thought we'd gotten to the top of the last hill, down we would go with another bigger climb ahead of us. We both began to watch the gas gage as we climbed higher and higher with nothing in view but trees. 

But along the way we saw such beautiful country side, passing the little town of Petrolia where the state's first commercial oil wells drilled in 1865. On through orchards, redwood groves, the Lost Coast of  Humboldt and even Cape Mendocino, site of many shipwrecks and one of the continent's most active earthquake zones. We drove for 5 miles beside this windy beach that rose 4 feet during the April 1992 earthquake, giving the appearance of perpetual low tide.

So glad we did the drive but it is definitely a one time trip for me. I added our notes and date in the guide book and then turned the page. And...very glad we never contemplated doing that scenic drive in the motorhome!!!! Another RV learning lesson...scenic drives in car only! We took in a Ranger Campfire Sat evening, which always makes summer camping fun.  The one camper who had traveled the farthest was from Hannover, Germany...how about that, Friederike! And when we saw him the next morning he was traveling the coast on bicycle.

Sunday we took it easier and decided to stay out of the car if we could.  So instead we rode the bikes up the Avenue of the Giants, something I've always wanted to do.  There is so little traffic on the road making easy for us novice bike riders to enjoy it. We stopped and picked a basket full of berries again for pie #2!

That afternoon we hauled the kayaks down to the river for another couple of hours. (Actually, Paul carried the two large bags that hold the kayaks, I only carried the 2 chairs.)  The kayaks are inflatable and really quite easy to put together once we got to the river, just pump up with a hand pump and they're all ready to go, once in the water they are strong and very sturdy. Everything is stored in a carrying bag and it all folds down to such a small size. The best part is that both the bags fit in the truck of the car. I think I'm getting the hang of kayaking...Paul's so patient with my limited skills. He'd love to be riding down some rapids somewhere rather than paddling around in calm ponds of water.

Since I couldn't get my photos to load last night it's now sunny Tuesday morning. How nice to wake up to clear skies. We're planning on a drive down the road to view the Elk , the largest herd in the world I was told. A must do for me as I am now an Elk myself!!!