(locations align with the map showing our route)
We were driving down Hwy 101 to see the Redwoods and around a bend there was a herd of elk, just grazing along the side of the road. We pulled over to get some pictures (so did several other cars) just as they started to cross the highway. Here are some pictures we got:
While in Klamath we drove through an area containing very large coastal redwoods. First, a drive down the Newton Drury Scenic Parkway where we saw several incredibly large trees right on the roadway. Then, a drive to the Lady Bird Johnson grove, for a mile hike through a beautiful forest of ferns and more really, really large trees.
There aren’t really words to describe the size and majesty of these ancient, huge trees. I did write a haiku (click here to see it). Here are pictures we took:
We’re in Klamath this week and not too far from the beach where the mouth of the Klamath River empties into the ocean. We drove to a beach where there were lots of cars parked along the road and walked out to the waters edge (over 1/2 mile in the sand, that was a workout!) and were astounded to see that people were not swimming or surfing…they were all salmon fishing. Probably a hundred people lined up along the shore of the river – every few minutes one would get a bite and pull in a 20-30 pound salmon! They were HUGE! The best part was the sea lions, seals, pelicans and seagulls right at the mouth in the surf – the seals, pelicans and sea lions were also fishing for salmon and steelhead trout and the seagulls were fighting over the guts whenever someone caught a fish. Many of the fishermen were from the local Yurok tribe and they would gut the fish right on the beach and toss the guts to the birds and bury the fish in the sand to keep it from spoiling in the sun. We learned that the salmon were heading upstream but the river is too warm this time of year so they would head back. There were also two Fish and Game people at the entrance to where people were parked, and they would measure the fish (many were 35-40 inches long!) and scrape some scales and write down the person’s zip code that caught it. No checking of licenses. I asked what the scales were for and was told salmon scales have age rings just like trees, so they are able to determine the age of the salmon that are caught.
Interesting!
The weather report said that today would be partly cloudy, which we took to mean party sunny, so we took a chance and drove up the coast to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, 50 miles to the north of us. We drove up Hwy 101 to get there early and avoid the crowds we heard about, and drove back along the coast to see the sights.
The cheese factory was interesting, although there wasn’t a guided tour and the self-guided tour was quite short. The highlight was the samples of different cheese that were free and the ice cream which wasn’t free but was really good!
Our drive down the coast didn’t work out too well due to the fog. Also, the road through one area that we wanted to see was closed and we had to take a detour that wasn’t right on the coast. It was way too foggy to see much of anything! Here are a few pictures:
Yesterday it was a little less foggy than it’s been all week, so we took a drive south along the coast to see what we could see. The coast along here in Oregon is rocky cliffs, but in several places there are beaches at the foot of the cliffs.
We saw rocks literally covered in cormorants, but no whales or seals or otters. Otters used to be plentiful around here but no one sees them anymore.
We saw one area at low time where a lot of people were clamming, which was interesting to watch.
We stopped at the Yaquina Head lighthouse. It’s not a working lighthouse, although I was surprised at that because of the heavy fog in this area. You can’t go into the lighthouse except on a tour, but we were able to walk around it and look down at the water from the cliffs. Thank goodness there were good fences along the edge, because it was a sheer drop-off! As we walked back to our car from the lighthouse, the fog which had been a short distance out into the ocean moved in, by the time we pulled out of the parking lot you couldn’t even see the lighthouse anymore!
With the fog getting so heavy, we headed back home. Hopefully in a day or two the fog will clear more and we’ll be able to see more of the coastline. Here are some pictures:
I’m taking a walk every day and a couple of days I walked along Hiway 101 (too foggy to walk into the next-door state park which is very densely forested). There are LOTS of raspberries bushes just growing wild along the road and quite a few have ripe berries on them. Here’s a picture:
We’re here in Depoe Bay, OR this week, which is right on the coast. It’s a beautiful coast area, part beaches and part rocky cliffs. We haven’t taken any pictures yet because we’re finding that it’s very foggy … all day the fog never lifts and we can barely see the treetops because of the heavy fog! We’ve gotten our winter coats back out as it doesn’t get very warm either.
We’re hoping the skies clear in the next few days so we can drive the coast before we have to leave! We did walk to one of the beaches the other day and while we were in coats, long pants and I had my gloves on, kids and people were in shorts and bathing suits! It was in the 50s! I guess to the locals it’s beach weather just because it’s August! LOL
The manager of the park said that it gets more foggy here when it’s warm in Eugene and Portland and they’ve been having a heat wave. It’s supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow (Saturday) and he thinks that will cause it to clear up a bit.
Well, I am glad we’re here with cooler weather rather than in Ariz or Miss where it’s in the 90s and 100s!! 🙂
The RV Park where we’re staying is one I consider “rustic”. It’s older and there are a lot of permanent trailers and a couple of small manufactured homes. Of the 53 spaces, more than half are permanent people. Many of them are older and the manager said they need a lot of assistance and checking up on. We’re finding that happening in a lot of the older, “rustic” RV parks – people are moving in permanently! Maybe we’ll end up doing that somewhere!
Here’s the link to the RV Park: http://www.fogartycreekrv.com/.
Yesterday we travelled from Chehalis WA to Depoe Bay OR. It should have been about 3.5 hours and we left at 9am, expecting to get to our destination and set up in time to have lunch before 1pm.
Well! about 9:30am as we were driving along, a car pulled alongside Jeff and the passenger pointed repeatedly to the trailer. Hm…? Her actions were rather frantic, so we pulled to the shoulder on I-5 and Jeff got out to take a look. One of the trailer tires was flat!…not only flat, it was shredded to the point where there was a little rubber and some cording and we were driving on the rim!
Luckily our trailer has 2 axels and four tires but that was a large load on that remaining tire on that side. Our trailer weighs about 10,000 pounds!!
Luckily the bad tire was on the outside, cause we couldn’t drive any longer on that rim, even to the next exit about a mile further.
So, Jeff pulled out the spare tire and the jack that came with the trailer, and started working to change the tire. That jack was useless!! It was way underpowered to left a fully loaded trailer! So, our next idea was to call AAA – we pay for it after all and our trailer is included in the services. They said it would be an hour till a towtruck arrived with tools to change the tire.
Just as I hung up the phone a towtruck pulled up! Wow – that was fast! Not really, it was the WSDOT (Washington State Dept of Transportation) that has trucks driving around looking for road hazards and people in trouble. He said he knew we were up ahead as he had stopped to pick up the remains of our tire about a mile back.
His jack couldn’t even lift the trailer! I told him we had already called AAA, so he left and we waited. A state trooper stopped to see if we were okay and we chatted for a few minutes.
While we were waiting I gingerly stepped up into the trailer and fixed a couple of sandwiches and some fruit for lunch – no way we were going to make it to our destination by lunchtime!
Ok, the tow truck arrived about 11:15 and got the tire changed out in about 15 minutes. Their jack made it look easy! There were two guys, one was being trained and both were very nice! Once the spare tire was on, both tires on that side looked a bit low and when he checked the pressure, yep, both were under-pressure about 20 pounds each. They offered to drive with us following to a Les Schwab dealer about 14 miles down the road, and we took them up on that offer!
So, at Les Schwab they looked at all our tires and all were cracking and in pretty bad shape! So, we decided to buy 4 new tires and avoid more problems. We were there about 1.5 hours and by the time we left it was 2pm.
The guy at Les Schwab suggested an alternative route to our destination so we could avoid Portland, although he said we’d be through there by about 3pm and should miss most of rush hour.
So, we get on the road again and within just a few miles see a LED sign indicating “Wreck ahead – prepare to stop”. Traffic inched along for about an hour and we only got a few miles. Ok, it’s now 3pm and we’re not even close to Portland yet.
We hit the major rush hour through Portland! Then we had 2 more hours to go to get to our destination so we ended up stopped at a Subway for a quick dinner.
We finally arrived at our destination RV park at 8pm, right on the Oregon coast although we couldn’t tell because it was very foggy! Got set up and finally in the comfort of our home as it was getting dark.
Whew! We don’t like to travel with the trailer for more than 6 hours, but this one ended up being an 11 hour day, which much of it sitting in slow traffic or on the side of the road or in a waiting room at Les Schwab. Hopefully we don’t repeat this experience anytime soon!
Jeff writes: August 3, I finally got to ( a sixty year wait) ride on a steam locomotive, something I wanted to do since first seeing one in 1954 when we moved to Long Island. We are in Chehalis, Washington, about 75 miles south of Seattle.
We went to the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum. They have a 1916 Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotive. The engine uses recycled crank case oil as fuel. It takes about 1000 gallons for the 1-1/4 hours ride. It also carries 4000 gallons of water to create steam using about 1000 gallons for the ride. This engine was used to haul timber in the area. I actually got to ride in the cab with the engineers and learned about the propulsion system and brakes. As we were about to get going, they ran into a problem that took 2 hours to repair. We finally got going. Boy, what a bumpy ride but exciting.
I got some really good pictures of the engine at rest and along the track (see below) . I also got a short video as we started out. Here’s the link to the video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8pEikxFeXc
The day we visited Mount Rainier was cloudy and it never did clear up. We were disappointed in that because our pictures didn’t turn out as well as we wanted, but the views of the mountain were all we hoped for and more.
As you drive up to Mount Rainier you don’t see the mountain because of the old-growth forests and the hills between you and the mountain. We were on some switchbacks and at one point we were driving south (away from the mountain) but I saw a hill appear to the north that had some snow on it, so I turned to look more and THERE IT WAS! It was HUGE! It was REALLY HUGE and RIGHT THERE!
Jeff couldn’t see it and there was no place to stop for a while, but when we did come to a parking area and got our first real view of the mountain we could only just stare up at it for a few minutes. It’s over 14,000 ft and nothing else around it is anywhere near that tall so it sticks up there by itself!
We’ve been to Mount Whitney which is higher (highest point in the lower 48 states) but it’s surrounded by other tall mountains and what you see is the mountain range…and also depending on your viewpoint other mountains appear taller quite often. It detracts from the awesomeness, I feel.
We’ve also seen other mountain peaks that are standing by themselves (Shasta, Lassen, McLaughlin, Baker) but this one was truly impressive!!
One thing I was impressed with is that there are 25 very large glaciers on Mount Rainier. That’s as many glaciers as there are in the entire Glacier National Park, which is spread out over many miles and many peaks. One glacier, Nisqually, feeds a very large riverbed full of boulders that you can see in one of the photos below.
Here are the photos we took:
