June 2 - June 13, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008 – Another day of paper work. Mark got the oil changed and the tires rotated and balanced.
Tuesday, June 3 – We finally left Aurora RV Park and drove 240 miles south to Gold Hill/Medford to the KOA. We pulled in about 4:30 PM and didn’t even bother unhooking the car because we are going to a different RV park in the morning for a week.
Wednesday, June 4 – We settled in at a very nice place with a very good weekly rate, Cyprus Grove RV Park, just off the Interstate.
Thursday, June 5 – We drove through Gold Hill and up to Crater Lake. The roads were not too bad but there was lots of snow when we got into the National Park and the road into the Park from the north was still closed for the winter snow. Along the way we stopped at a park with a trail along the Rogue River where it goes through a 25’ wide canyon. Now THAT was a sight – all of that water rushing through a 25’ wide gorge. We walked along to the beginning of the gorge just listening to that rushing water was neat! All of the buildings (including the bathrooms) have “snow tunnel” entrances where a covered walkway is built from the parking lot into the building so that people can get from the plowed parking lot to the building in the winter. Some of these “snow tunnels” still had snow on them while we were there. This area gets 540” of snow a year – that’s 45 feet of snow! We watched a pretty good movie at the Visitor’s Center about how they clear the roads around the Lake for summer traffic. They have a copper coil imbedded in the road that the snow plows can follow so that they don’t go off the road and over the side of the cliff. The rim road around the lake was not yet cleared when we were there. The second movie is about the lake, but they haven’t done as good a job with that movie as they should have… After the movies and a walk around the Visitor’s Center we drove up to the Lake to have lunch in the Lodge with a view out over the Lake. It’s a real good thing we didn’t wait much longer to view the lake. We got a couple of pictures, looked at the sides of the lake, talked about the snowfall, then watched a small cloud form over the lake. Within 5 minutes the entire area was completely clouded over and we never saw the lake again. If you looked straight down from a cliff, you MIGHT be able to tell you were looking at the water in the lake. BUT, the reflection of the trees in the lake itself was so good that you couldn’t be sure if you were seeing the lake or the trees! Someone described the “snow” as a freezing mist and that is exactly what it was. It was like being in heavy fog but all of the water droplets were frozen and moving with the wind. We drove as far as we could around the lake, looked at what we could see, and then started the trip home. We arrived home much earlier than we had anticipated because we spent so little time actually looking at the lake!
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Friday, June 6 – We left early and headed north on I-5 to Roseburg to take the Umpqua Scenic Byway past a bunch of waterfalls. It was an unusually nice day with sun and clouds and basically no rain. (Now it DID rain off and on during the day, but most of the day was nice…) The first thing we saw was the Colliding Rivers at Glide. This was really neat. The Little River came from the right and the Umpqua River came from the left and then made a 90 degree turn. The Little River met the Umpqua River head on and they made quite a turbulent spot. The entire area was fairly small and the rivers just boiled up before continuing downstream. Very interesting
Just past Idleyld Park we saw some kayakers and I jumped out to take their picture. Later in the day, on the return trip down the road, we met those kayakers and they recognized us as having taken their picture. They gave us email addresses and we sent them the 6 or so photos that we took of them on the river. Their return email said that they did the north part of the river the next day but spent way too much time in the water instead of in the boat and decided they were too tired to safely continue further down the river!
We say Deadline Falls which was neat, but more of a huge rapid. Further down the road we stopped at a park where people were fishing for salmon. The salmon come back up this river between May and September to spawn and each fisherman has his own idea where the best fishing for these salmon are. Some fish in the pools below the falls, some fish just below the falls, some fish above the falls.
The next waterfall was at Susan Creek and was probably the prettiest. We walked back an easy .8 mile trail to a 50’ fan type waterfall. The setting was absolutely gorgeous and the walk was nice. You could continue on to some Indian mounds, but that trail was rated as “difficult” which didn’t appeal to Dad’s foot or to me at all! It would be a great place to have a picnic in the summer – if it ever gets hot here – because it was so cool and peaceful. We actually saw 7 people total along the trail up and back. Wow, a population center! Mark got such a kick out of seeing signs along the road that say “Congestion” whenever there might be another car stopped to see something!
The Steamboat Falls at Steamboat Campground was MY kind of hike! You could see the falls from where the car was parked! It is a 25’ block type fall and was good.
We decided to check out Toketee Falls even though the trail was rated as difficult. But we were saved from having to make a decision about taking the trail because it was closed. The snow storm in January 2008 had felled trees across the pathway and crushed the steps of the trail. The penalty for being on the trail was $5,000 fine and 6 months in jail. That made the decision NOT to take the trail very easy! No one else was around.
We DID take the “difficult” trail up to Watson Falls because I didn’t know ahead of time how MANY steps there were. It was worth it though, the Falls is 272 feet tall and flows over the edge of a basalt tongue of lava that stopped right there. It has cut down through the lava just a little bit as it falls over the cliff. It falls into a pool at the bottom that is filled with rocks and the noise of the falls and the water flowing over the rocks is fantastic. Lots of downed trees cross all the way over the river and make it very picturesque. We saw one person parked in his car like he was stopping for a rest…
The next falls was the Whitehorse Falls again located in a campground and just a few feet off of the road. This was a punch-bowl type of waterfall but not very impressive… We saw 2 people at this Falls.
The Clearwater Falls was just a 30’ fall onto moss covered rocks in a pool below. Very easy walk. Interesting topography where the ground is either covered with water or not depending on how much water there is. We saw two people here also.
We tried very hard to find Warm Springs Falls but after driving 10.7 miles on paved and dirt roads we never found the falls. We followed the directions and found the roads, but never found the falls! Lemolo Falls was on the same road but since the 1.7 mile trail was rated as difficult we didn’t take the extra 5.2 mile logging road to get to it.
Then we drove into the village of Diamond Lake and saw the largest camping area we have ever seen. It must have gone on for 2 miles with camping spaces on 3 or 4 levels all along the lake. It was very nice and very well set up, but the maintenance people had their hands full getting all of the felled trees and limbs picked up and off the road for the summer campers. It WAS open for camping, but the temperature was about 25 degrees and there was plenty of snow still on the ground. LOTS of people had their boats there for fishing in the lake.
We drove back to Roseburg and spent the night there.
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Saturday, June 7 - We left in the morning to drive to the west coast at Coos Bay. Since we had to drive through the mountains it wasn’t anywhere near a straight line but it was a good road. After we arrived in Coos Bay we watched them load wood chips into a big ship. Bulldozers pushed the chips into piles for a pipe to suction them into the hold of the ship. The man who came out to tell us not to take any more photos told us that we shouldn’t miss the drive out to the coast and Shore Acres Park. He was right. Beautiful scenery. Sea Lions barking on the rocks. Beautiful flowers. After you drive out to the end of the park you have to retrace your steps to get back to a road leading anywhere else. We drove all along the coast down to Gold Beach but there was only a short stretch of road that gave us a view of the ocean. Oregon calls this a Scenic Byway, but I think it should be called a ¼ Scenic Byway since you drive for miles and miles with the only view being the trees directly along side of the road. You can’t see the mountains, the valleys or the ocean! We were going to drive down to Crescent City, but after the disappointing long drive through trees we decided to cut across from Gold Beach back to Gold Hill and the motor home. Gold Beach was a neat little place, certainly a tourist town.
The GPS didn’t really prepare us for the road back to Gold Hill… I had been driving so Mark mapped out the return trip. I was watching the GPS and how many miles to the next turn because I couldn’t wait to get off of the road we were on. Finally, we got to the turn and then the GPS said 34 miles to the next turn and this new road was even WORSE! On some parts of it, the road was actually missing – it had actually slid down the hillside. That’s OK though; the road crew marked it with painted white lines so we would know where the road was missing! In other places the road wasn’t actually missing, it had just sunk down about a foot or two. These areas were also helpfully outlined with white paint… Then in some places the road was not paved at all… Then in some places the road was barely one lane wide… This was quite a road. There were no signs warning of what was ahead. I hope no one was foolish enough to try to drive a motor home on this road. However, I am sure the log trucks managed to get up and down them just fine. Compared to some of the logging roads leading off of this NF3 (National Forest Road 3) the loggers would have thought they were on the Interstate when they got back to this road! I was so happy to finally get into town. We stopped for dinner and then drove on home! After we made it safe and sound, I was actually glad we made the trip. It really was an experience.
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Sunday – June 8 – Mark went to church. I read a book.
Monday – June 9 – We drove 40 miles south on I-5 to Medford to tour the Harry and David’s packing buildings. Harry and David have that really good fruit that is sent out as Fruit of the Month Club. It’s really expensive, but also very good! We saw one of their pear orchards for which they are famous. The trees grow only about 12’ tall and give fruit for about 35 years. After 30 years or so, they cut all of the trees, plow it under and plant all new trees. They don’t mix the age of the trees in any one field. They have expanded and expanded their business and have built new buildings here and there to accommodate different parts of the business. We walked through a huge building and watched them pack the boxes and baskets with pears and cherries. They have a huge mail order business but they also do a lot of business supplying the discount stores like Costco and Sam’s. There are three or four cafeterias for the employees. Everyone gets paid by the hour AND by the piece. They have an hourly wage, but if they exceed a pre-determined number of whatever they are doing they get extra pay for each one over the required number. (It doesn’t sound like they get penalized if they don’t make the required number… I guess they just lost their job after a while or get reassigned to a different job to see if they can do better!) It was a very good tour.
We got back to the motor home and got the mail. So then I spent the rest of the day taking care of bills, etc.
Tuesday – June 10 – We headed east again and went to Eagle Point to see the Butte Creek Mill. It was fun talking to the owner and learning that he used to work “in a suit and tie” (selling Cannon and other camera equipment) and dabbled in antiques as a hobby. He had met the man who ran the Mill while looking for antiques. He called the mill owner about antiques a few years later to learn that the man had just put the Mill on the market due to health reasons. The camera man and his wife came down two days later to look at the mill. His wife said “Wouldn’t it be neat if we owned it?” and two days later they made an offer on it. Neither of them ever intended to leave their 7,000 sq ft house in Portland OR their job! The camera man had to agree to sell some of his beloved antiques in order to buy the place. They took it over 3 ½ years ago, advertise on the internet, sell stone milled grains on the internet and by catalog and in their on-site store and have yet to make a profit! He also opened an antiques store next door to the mill. He had a “miller” who worked with the previous owner for 18 years and he depends upon him totally to make the mill work. It was really a perfect example of what new blood can do to an old business. He has a video tour for everyone as they come in, sells coffee and pastries to visitors, has opened the areas so that visitors can see all of the milling operations including where the water comes down to turn the turbine for the water power to turn the grinding stones, packages the grain just perfectly, sells the grain for a small fortune, and generally provides a great experience. Of course, we didn’t spend a cent there but then we are certainly the exception!
Then we drove on through the mountains down the Klamath Falls, which has no falls… We drove past huge lava flows just off the highway about 100’. In Klamath Falls we visited the Favell Museum which is basically a history museum of the area. I felt that it was rather unimpressive except for the thousands of arrow heads displayed in every manner you can imagine.
We discussed whether or not we would find a motel in Tulelake, near the Lava Beds National Monument. We decided that there MUST be something there and drove on. Well, we ended up in a bed and breakfast as the only choice! We also got the last room out of three!
We drove into the Lava Beds National Monument so that we could get some literature to read at night so we’d know more about the area when we visited it the next day. We drove about 10 miles after entering the park before we got to the Visitor’s Center! We got our information, learned about the Ranger Talks on Wednesday, drove back out of the park a different way past the petroglyphs. We couldn’t really see the petroglyphs on the wall, so we figured we had to take the “trail 500’ ahead”. I walked partway up a very steep hill and Mark walked further. When he didn’t come back right away I figured he must have found something good to see so I started climbing again… When I met him on his way back, he said “no”, he had stopped when he saw another hill to climb. The next day at the Visitor’s Center we asked about the trail. They said that the trail didn’t lead anywhere, you saw the petroglyphs on the wall right where you park you car! Fun.
We had dinner at a local restaurant and talked to some local people. In the late 1800’s the lake, Tule Lake, was “drained” and the bottom of the lake was used for farmland. A dam, a dike and lots of irrigation canals have turned the lake bottom into some of the best farm land in California. That is until 2001, when some fish was going to die if it didn’t get more water so they told the farmers that they couldn’t have any of the water and sent it all down the river for the fish! The lake bottom turned into a dust bowl and the farmers were devastated. Some were able to find work elsewhere to keep their families in food and clothes and homes, but some have never recovered… The couple that we talked to live just over the state line in Oregon, ½ of the land they farm is in Oregon and ½ in California. I asked them about their income tax and they said that up until a few months ago they had just leased the land from his uncle but the uncle had just died and now they owned the land so they didn’t have any idea who they paid income taxes to and how…
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Wednesday – June 11 – We had a great breakfast at Fe’s B&B. Fe is from Mindinow, Philippines, the same as Elizabeth and Emy. We talked about workers and she has a sister who wants to work in the US. I gave Wendy her phone number, maybe we can work something out…
We drove past the old Tulelake Japanese Segregation Camp from WWII. Many Japanese families were sent here, but after a short while they turned this camp into one for the “bad” Japanese who wouldn’t take the oath of allegiance to the US. Many of the families didn’t want to pull up stakes and move again, so they stayed here also. Each family had a room 20’ by 20’ in a barracks that was 20’ wide and 100’ long. As the building of the camp ramped up after the national decision to put the Japanese in camps, a new 100’ long barracks was built every ten minutes. (I assume that does NOT mean it was built in 10 minutes, I assume it means that they were building so many one was completed every 10 minutes. (I DO have to question this statistic but it is straight from the movie…) There is a plaque on the highway. Some of the buildings are still there although most of them were sold off to the people (mostly veterans) who “won” homesteads after the war was over. The guard tower is still there somewhere, but we couldn’t find it…
The lava beds area is the old home of the Modoc Indians. After the settlers started coming through this area along the Oregon Trail they weren’t all that happy to see Indians living here. The government “removed” the Modoc Indians up to Klamath and put them on a reservation with the Klamath Indians. However, the Klamath and the Modoc were historic enemies and the Modoc couldn’t stay there. Under the leadership of Kientpoos (known to the whites as Captain Jack) they moved back to the Lava Beds/Tulelake area and demanded a reservation of their own. They were prepared to leave; they just couldn’t live with their enemies the Klamath. The Bureau of Indian Affairs again moved them to the Klamath reservation. They again moved back to Tulelake. On November 28, 1872, the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent the Army to move the Indians “by force if necessary” back to the reservation. However, the Modoc were on their native ground here and knew it well. Look at the photos of the area called Captain Jack’s Stronghold and imagine the Army trying to fight Indians hiding in the lava beds here. One “splinter” Indian group led by Hooker Jim killed 14 settlers in retaliation for an Army attack. When they came back to the main Indian group Captain Jack reluctantly took them back into the group because he figured their presence endangered the rest of them. Over 300 Army men and volunteers tried to drive 50 Modoc warriors and their women and children from the stronghold to return them to the reservation. In January 1873 the troops anticipated a quick victory but were instead soundly defeated and lost their weapons, ammunition and wounded. In April 1873, there was supposed to be a meeting to negotiate a truce. However, Hooker Jim and another Indian shamed Captain Jack into a plot to kill the peace commissioners. Frank Riddle and his wife, Toby, were to be the interpreters and Toby warned the Army officers of the planned ambush. The Army men met with the Indians anyway. Captain Jack again requested their own reservation. When the Army refused Captain Jack drew a revolver and killed General Canby and another Indian killed Reverend Thomas. (General Canby was the only General killed by the Indians. Custer was NOT a general when he was killed by the Lakota in 1876.)
Four days later the Army was able to cut the Modoc off from their water supply. Two days after that the troops captured the Stronghold only to find it empty. Nine days later the Army set off to track the Indians and was soundly defeated again. Then the Indians were defeated in their surprise attack on the Army and the Indian, Ellen’s Man George, was killed. Ellen’s Man was a great Indian strategist and was extremely well liked by all of the Indians. After his death they all began to quarrel among themselves and headed west in separate groups. The Army was out looking for Captain Jack but found Hooker Jim and his band. Hooker Jim and his men offered to track down Captain Jack for the Army. Captain Jack finally surrendered on June 1, 1873, and the Modoc War ended. Amnesty was granted to Hooker Jim and his followers. Captain Jack and the others who killed officers in the peace talk ambush were hanged. The Modoc were exiled to the Quapaw Agency in Oklahoma.
We walked around Captain Jack’s Stronghold and imagined the Indians hiding here from the Army. We don’t think you could ever find anyone who didn’t want to be found in this pile of rocks!
We left Captain Jack’s and drove back to the Visitor’s Center for an 11 PM Ranger Talk. Amy did a great job with a slide show down in the Mushpot Cave all about the geology of the area as well as a little history. It was a great 1 hour talk!
We ate our packaged lunch at the Visitor Center. The nearest restaurant is 30 miles away! Then we visited Mammoth Crater to see one of the original volcanoes that didn’t really erupt but just slowly oozed lava through previous lava tubes and over the top of the crater. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful view. Then my cell phone rang! Cell phone reception was here and there all over the park when you got high enough!
Then we drove to Fleener Chimneys to see the splatter cone of aa lava. As the erupting globs of molten lava piled up on each other they left a 50’ deep chimney in the center.
We went back to the Visitor’s Center to meet the Ranger for a guided tour of one of the caves called the Catacombs because it has so many levels and so many side passages. The entire cave is 6,903 feet long and parts of it are only 1’ high. The Ranger was explaining that it was 45 minutes in and 45 minutes out and that you had to “duck walk” for about 20’. Dad was worried about his foot and I was just worried about dieing in a cave! Then he told us we needed “bump hats” and we would have to buy them. We decided NOT to go. Then, since it seemed that we were the only ones there to take the walk except for one boy about 9 years old and his grandfather, he told us that he would lend us “bump hats” and he would tailor the walk to accommodate Mark if he had trouble. So we went. It was actually Mark, me, the 9 year old boy, his grandfather, and another boy about 10 or 11 whose mother/grandmother handed him over to the Ranger at the entrance to the cave. After reading about “cave diving” in Reader’s Digest I have decided that I really don’t think it is wise to be down in a cave… I kept giving Mark a chance to say that his foot was bad and he couldn’t make it, but he just kept saying “I’m fine” so I had to keep going… Anyway, it was a GREAT walk and a GREAT talk by a GREAT Ranger guide. We might have spent 45 minutes going in but we walked then he talked then we walked then he talked and it was VERY easy. At the end, the Ranger (who was from A&M and Clemson!) and the two young boys wriggled their way up a slope and through a ONE FOOT high hole into a room called the Igloo. It was a great fun thing for the boys and the other three of us had great fun standing where we were and watching the boys! So I have accomplished ONE more thing that I thought I might not want to do and enjoyed it immensely!
(We spent some time talking to the Ranger, who couldn’t believe that we were affiliated with BOTH of the “wrong” schools – UT and USC!)
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Dad’s foot was bothering him a little, but he said it wasn’t bad…
I drove and we headed home. We drove back most of the same way we came, but then took a little different route for the last 50 miles or so. Got back to the motor home, had a late dinner and planned the next trip!
Thursday – June 12 – I worked on getting the electric turned on in Port Mansfield (AGAIN!!) and then we headed north on I-5 to see the Applegate Trail Interpretive Center. After the first few wagon trains came over the Oregon Trail and down the Columbia, people were talking about an alternative route to rafting the Columbia. The two Applegate brothers had BOTH lost their nine-year old sons in the Columbia River trying to get to Oregon City. They decided to try to find an alternative route going south toward California and then east over the mountains. They DID find a route and met settlers on the Oregon Trail at Fort Hall, Idaho. They talked some of the settler’s into trying their new route. They kind of neglected to tell the settlers that they had come only along a path that a horse might be able to follow and that they would have to build or clear the road for the wagons… So Jesse Applegate and the eldest sons of the settlers took off ahead of the wagon trail to blaze the trail for the wagons. After a while the man who had come over with Applegate and was leading the wagons found a note from Jesse on a tree. He said that the road was too hard to build and he had gone back to Oregon to get more people to come and help build the road! The settlers were more than a little upset and wanted to hang the leader. After they realized that he was the only one who knew the route through the mountains they decided NOT to hang him and to elect him their leader instead. They did make it through to Oregon and the route WAS a little better than rafting the Columbia but it was longer. One source said that 3,500 people traveled the Applegate route in 1853 alone. It was undoubtedly geographically the BEST route up from California because Interstate 5 follows it most of the way today! The Museum was VERY well done. A woman made it her life’s work to collect the history of the area and her daughter and son helped her to make this museum. Unfortunately she died about 6 months before it opened. The son greets people at the door with a memorized talk that is great. Unfortunately he has some speech impediment that makes it hard to understand all of his words. That is a shame. I listened to it twice to try to get it all because it was so interesting. He really knows his facts about the area. The stage coach line came about 20 years after the wagon trains and the trains came about 20 years after that. Any towns that had been on the stage coach line and were passed up by the train just became ghost towns. Any town that the railroad came past grew larger.
Friday – June 13 - We left Gold Hill this morning and drove south on I-5 about 200 miles to Redding, CA. We are at the Redding RV Park and will get ready to explore a new area! We have been seeing Mount Shasta from all different angles and today we drove right past it so it is now in our rear view mirror!
posted by SienaBeanie @ 6:23 PM
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