Oregon Camping Vacation - June 2005

It was coming up on our 25rd wedding anniversary, so Jac and John decided to dump the kids in Portland to spend some quality time with their relatives, Annie, Tim, and David (Michael having fled to Germany for the summer), while WE spent some quality time together by ourselves, for the first time in .... we can't remember when. We made a rough counterclockwise circle of Western and Southern Oregon over the space of about a week.

The obligatory Oregon Lighthouse pic - this one near Waldport, on the central coast.

Jac finds the wind.... windy, at the lighthouse overlook.

Looking back down the beach to out B&B, which was cozy and isolated. And thankfully above the maximum tsunami level.

The sun going down over a beach rivulet.

John climbs the rickety staircase - the only way up the cliff to the B&B. Perhaps they rebuild it after every big storm....?

Jac took about 50 shots as the sun went down that night - the sky changed every few seconds.

Last sunset pic.

Examining the tide pools the next morning - there were starfish everywhere.

Harbor seals basking just off the surf line.

Our first glimpse looking south into the Oregon Dunes area - a vast, sandy playground encompassing three river estuaries.

Tourist map showing the Oregon Dunes region. Much of the area is open to motorized travel such as dune buggies and ATVs. 150 years ago there was nothing here but sand -  the first settlers quickly introduced European grasses in an attempt to keep their properties from being engulfed in the constantly shifting sands. Today the main dunes along the surf line are solidly anchored by trees and non-native plants and no longer march inland. In another century, the entire area will be forest. The vehicles keep at least some of the area in its natural state.

John sits on the  rental ATV, feeling under-whelmed by the experience up to this point.

Jac posing atop a 400 ft dune. The amazing thing about the entire day was that she said "Sure, why not?" to the suggestion of renting some ATVs. She is still full of surprises. Once we got away from the busy "throughway" and the  beach, and into the open dunes themselves, we enjoyed ourselves. The machines were 250cc 2wd Polaris quads, and underpowered is too kind a word to describe them. At least when you got stuck, it didn't take more than a quick push to un-stick.

Moving east and inland through the Umpqua River valley toward Roseburg, we spotted this pretty waterfall along a side trail. We were beginning to get tired of West Side Damp by this point in the trip.

The plan was to find a spot to camp in the National Forest north of Crater Lake. Unfortunately, foul weather, a marked lack of campgrounds, hordes of skeeters, and fatigue set in strongly enough to force us to drive on to the busy hamlet of Chemult. The 65 year old B&B we found was delightful, with fresh baked cookies waiting for us at the front desk when we arrived worn and frazzled.

Since John was determined to get into 4WD Low, we headed into the first promising forest road north of Chemult. It led us through a recent fire area that was being restored under contract to the forest service.

"Crazy Cascade Beardog: In Memory of Sparky the Legendary Beardog of Davis Mt". This memorial was standing forlornly in a burned out turn-around area at the top of the peak. And it definitely was a 4WD Low sort of road.

An anonymous Oregon volcano. There are so many along the spine of the Cascades that they aren't remarkable after the third day.

Parked along a Cascade pass, heading for Bend, for a photo op and to check out the rocks.

Two friendly ground squirrels eating Krispix in our Bend campsite. They are ground squirrels because the stripes don't extend over their heads, like chipmunks.

While mountain biking along the Deschutes River we encountered even more of the wee beasties. Here John gives directions to a lost squirrel.

  Jac cruising by on her Gary Fisher mountain bike..

A rangerette at the High Desert Museum near Bend, with a juvenile bobcat.

Jac poses next to a lava cast in the moon-like lava fields north of Newberry Caldera. The tube formed when a downed tree was engulfed in molten lava - the lava immediately next to the trunk cooled quickly, and the organic material burned and rotted away. This is an especially eerie place.

Stopped along the steep climb up to McKenzie Pass, west of Sisters.

McKenzie Pass panorama. This 450 degree shot was made using 14 individual pics "stitched" together into a single image using Canon PhotoStitch.  Just looking at the place makes your feet hurt!

What looks at first glance to be an untidy pile of rubble is in fact an observatory, built by the CCC in the late 1930s when they cut the highway through this inhospitable region. It is consists of a single room with view-slits opening up onto key features around it. The roof is open for night sky viewing.

Jac perches in one of the windows.

View of the parking lot from the observatory roof. "4WD Low" would not be 4WD Low Enough for that terrain.

Yet another volcano. Where does Oregon get them all?

Heading back to Portland near the south flank of Mt Hood, we stopped for a picnic. The aluminum rod holds the lid of the trailer up in case the gas struts fail, to prevent embarrassing public amputations or beheadings.

Ian picked up an antique laptop computer (a 286 DX 20) at a Portland garage sale, and when we got home John helped him dissect it to determine why it would not boot up. After finding the hard drive stuck, and giving it a whack, the dinosaur creaked into life. A sad day this was, the first day of Ian's ongoing computer addiction.....

Updated Dec 13, 2006