30 Years Ago This Month

That's me on the left in the green vest, with two friends. We're just below Sierra Blanca ski resort (nowadays it's called Ski Apache) in New Mexico.

Forgotten Summer Post - North Lake and South Lake (Bishop Creek)

I just discovered these still in my iPhoto files - I never put them on my blog.

After we left Crescent City, we had two long days of driving in order to make our way back across California. The first day, we had to go northeast back into Oregon - to Grants Pass - where we picked up the Interstate and came south to Redding. At Redding we went east to the Shingleton-Lassen KOA for one night, and then to the RV park at Topaz Lodge for another. Our next long-term stop was Parcher's Resort, on Bishop Creek just below South Lake. It's a very small campground, and we barely fit it. Don had a great week fishing Bishop Creek, North Lake and South Lake. We went to Lake Sabrina, but just to see what it looked like. It was a bit crowded that day and he preferred the other two.

South Lake

North Lake

Don fishing on North Lake

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.

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.

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.

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.

Haven Lake and Sierra Buttes

Our next stop, for 6 nights, was Clio's River's Edge in the little town of Clio at the northern end of the Sierras. If you've never heard of it, it's near Graeagle, and fairly close to Portola and Quincy. The river that the campground is near is the Middle Fork of the Feather River. However, the river has been channelized here, so it looks more like a canal. We did find a 2-mile stretch near Portola that was great fishing, and spent one day there. Another day we drove up to the Lakes Basin, where I took the above picture of Haven Lake with the Sierra Buttes behind it. The Pacific Crest Trail goes right by these buttes. There are 10 or so lakes up in the basin, the largest of which is Gold Lake. Don spent two days on his float tube here. I found a quilt shop in Portola - and went there twice, of course.

Bridgeport, California

Our next stop, for 3 days, was Paradise Shores RV Park on Bridgeport Reservoir. It's a fairly small park, but we love it and will definitely go back. Our campsite was in the corner, with our own little lawn and view of the lake. The owners are so friendly - we were helped into our site, given some extra blocks for levelling, and invited to the Fathers' Day breakfast. I want to say something about the bathrooms - not only were they sparkling clean, but they had these little extra touches that just made them special: red liquid soap dispensers, a rack in the shower for shampoo, razor, soap, and such, and floor mats that didn't hurt your feet. (Fellow RV'ers will know what I mean!) We stopped here mainly to do laundry and let Don fish the East Walker River. He did, and had a fabulous time, catching many fish (and putting them all back).



The morning we hooked up to leave, this was the view to the south over Twin Lakes basin.

Mono Lake

Because we had time to "waste" before we could check into our campsite in Bridgeport, we decided to stop at the Mono Lake Visitor Center. We are so glad we did! We learned so much from the interesting displays, watched a fascinating 20-minute video, and did a little walking around on the nature trail.

Devil's Postpile National Monument

To get to Devil's Postpile, you have park your car at Mammoth Mountain Lodge and catch the mandatory shuttle bus over Minaret Crest and down into the valley of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. Several of the stops take you to trailheads or lakes, but we took the one at Devil's Postpile.

Back in 1990, we visited this monument, but I only took a couple of pictures of the kids. This time we even took the hike to the top. Geological features like this fascinate me - here, the lava cooled into hexagon-shaped columns, some of which bent and twisted as below.






Along the trail to the top is a slanted outcropping of the columns - they just stick out of the hillside.

The trail from the bus stop to the wall of columns goes along the San Joaquin River - and since we're on the west side of Minaret Crest (the Pacific Crest), this river flows south and then west into the Pacific Ocean.


Across the river was this enormous granite dome.


At another outcropping, one column had broken off neatly. See the hexagon shape?




At the top you can see where glaciers sheared off the tops of the columns, clearly showing their hexagonal shape.




The things you see in nature! This is the root system of a fallen tree along the trail.