TALES OF OUR TRAVELS AND OUR LOVE OF ADVENTURE

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Crescent City-Redwoods KOA


This was truly one of the nicest campgrounds we've ever been to. And we've been to a lot! We had a LARGE pull-through next to a Redwood. What is enchanting about this park is the grove - if you look behind our satellite dome you can see an area of "dark." That's one of the entrances to the grove. The campground has dozens of sites in a grove of Redwoods. We walked through it a couple of times, and I found it to be so beautiful in there. During the daytime it's like being in a cave (but a little lighter) and it's probably 15˚ cooler. The sites in the grove are mostly tent sites, but there are a few W/E.


(above 2 images borrowed from google)

Agness, Oregon - on the Rogue River

When I was teaching at Yucaipa Junior High, I worked with a wonderful PE and Ed for Living teacher named Barb Holdorff. She retired about 5 years ago, and with her husband Harry, bought Agness RV Park on the Rogue River in Oregon. We planned our trip to make sure we spent a few days there. It's a beautiful park, 30+ miles up the Rogue from the coast, with huge sites, well-manicured grounds, and very clean, well-maintained facilities. We had a wonderful visit with Barb and Harry, and made friends with Hans and Sheryl in the next site.

While these two pictures look almost identical, the above one is looking downstream, and the one below is looking upstream from the bridge near the park.






One day Hans and Don decided to kayak-fish, so Sheryl and I drove them upriver about 9 miles.

Here are Hans and Don taking one of the rubber kayaks to the launching site. They took about 3 hours to get back to the RV park, and Don described his first experience as frightening but fun. He said he almost fell out several times, but managed to stay in. He also said that while the rapids may have looked mild from above, they looked huge when he was actually in them.





While the men were on the river, Sheryl and I went to the town of Agness - across the river from the RV park but a 6-mile drive upriver, across a bridge, and downriver again. Agness has a post office, two lodges, a grocery-gift store, and a landing strip. The photo above is of the overalls hanging on the line outside Lucas Lodge. Sheryl says they've been there a long time and are a little symbol of the lodge.


The airstrip looks like a field. Wait. It IS a field. If you look really close at the center of the picture, you can see one of the bridges across the Rogue - so planes coming in have to fly over the bridge to line up to land. There's also a road THROUGH the airstrip - I was standing in the middle of the airstrip on the road when I took the photo. There's a set of photos and newspapers in the Old Agness Store of an incident a few decades ago when an airplane collided with a car on that road.

I should have taken pictures of everyone. I forgot! But we had a great 4 days with them, including a dinner our last night where Barb cooked a turkey for the 6 of us. We've made some new friends in Hans and Sheryl, and hope to keep in touch.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Metolius River, Oregon

About 3 miles from our campground in Camp Sherman, the Metolius flows out of the base of Black Butte.

("Down this path a full-sized river, the Metolius, flows ice cold from huge springs. The springs appear to originate from beneath Black Butte. However, geologists say this is misleading and believe the springs have thier origin in the Cascade Mountains to the West. The unusual fault which created Green Ridge is thought to have brought the springs to the surface, thus releasing the beautiful Melolius River. The land adjacent to the historic springs was donated to the U.S. Forest Servce by Sam and Becky Johnson for the development of the scenic viewpoint.")





The water seems to flow right out of the side of the mountain.




You can barely see Mount Jefferson to the northwest.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

These photos are taken in order from the north entrance, going clockwise around the crater's rim.















Diamond Lake, Oregon

This is my current stop - we were able to get into the RV campground here, so I have hookups and electricity for the sewing machine, air conditioner, and TV. Yeah, we're really roughing it. But the lake is beautiful, the fishing is so-so, and the weather is lovely. That's Mount Bailey on the other side of the lake.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon

Rocky Point Resort is on the northwest corner of Upper Klamath Lake - we found it after looking in Trailer Life for an alternative to Eagle Lake. Don wanted to skip Eagle Lake after hearing about the poor fishing and hot weather there. We got lucky - this is a place we would come back to again and again. Not only was it a nice place (a bit rustic, but that's fine with us), the fishing was magnificent and there's a quilt shop only a mile away! Our campsite, number 14, was only 15 feet from the water. Yes, that meant we had to deal with mosquitos, but that's been a constant this trip.


For the 6 days we were here, Don spent most of each of them out here in his float tube. Most evenings he fished until dark. The first night, he caught at 6-pound rainbow - but topped that a few nights later with a 10-pounder. We learned they were common in this lake, but for Don, it was something extraordinary.