Last Year, Part Two

On the way out of the park, I saw a huge herd of bison on the lawns around the buildings in Mammoth. This mother had two calves – this year’s calf is on the left, last year’s is on the right. Mom didn’t seem to care.

This mother only had one and was totally unconcerned about the crowd and the constant click of photos being taken. I guess even bison get used to paparazzi.

The next day, on my way back to canyon falls, I went into the Norris Geyser basin. It was overcast and not easy to see the various features. It was obvious there were a lot of geysers there. A couple of days after I went through, some fool decided he was going to walk across the surface (strenuously discouraged) and fell into some feature. They never found his body, or even his bones. It was too hot for rescuers to try to search. It wasn’t like they could turn a switch and turn off the heat! The place was closed for several days because of this.

Some of the very colorful algae that grows around hot spots and geysers.

A somewhat strenuous hike up to the top of the upper falls (altitude and knee), which included stairs, allowed you to look over the edge of the falls and to see all the water rushing past. It was beautiful, but it could also give you a little bit of dizziness at the same time.

 Colorful algae was abundant around the area.

Then to the top of the lower falls. The same thing as far as rushing water, but it fell a lot longer to continue on through the canyon. The noise of thundering water was almost deafening.

I then went over to Tower Falls. It is near the northeast entrance to the park. It was busy but it was a very easy walk to take pictures. There were trails that led to closer views of the falls.

On the way home, I stopped at the recently completed road work through the Roosevelt Arch. The 100^th anniversary of the NPS was going to be celebrated here sometime in August. Rumors were that Obama was planning on attending, but it turns out it was just a rumor and it didn’t happen.

Enough for today.

Last Year Part One

Finally, I am working to catch up with this blog. It has been a year since I have entered anything, but I have been taking pictures during that time.

In mid-May, I left CC and traveled to Montana. I was scheduled to work at a retail store in Gardiner, MT, but things happened and I had to leave.

While I was in Gardiner, I made several trips into Yellowstone. A year ago, I went into Yellowstone the day the road opened, but I didn’t go many places. This time, I went to places in Yellowstone that I had not visited, even when I worked here in 1978.

There was still snow on the mountain tops when I arrived. It was cold, but clear at the same time.

The first place I went was in to Mammoth Springs. It is kind of the entry point for all adventures in Yellowstone when you start at the northwest corner (which is where Gardiner is).

The main road into Mammoth has some bison that like the lush grasslands in the area.

I went from Mammoth over to (brain fade) Falls and Wraith Falls. Both are minor walks up to the falls and I completed them easily. Of course, my left knee registered a few complaints, but it wasn’t too bad either up or down.

The next day, I went over to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and up to Artist’s Point. This is a familiar site, but always gorgeous.

This blog doesn't want me to put in any more pictures, so I guess that is enough for today.

Last impressions, first impression and last impressions (redeux)

First last impressions:

Leaving Oregon after 4 months of 3 and ½ months of rain with a couple of not-rainy days entangled within that period, I realized that, uhhh, it must not be July (you know the old joke, Oregon has two seasons, July and rain). Everything rusted – my jacks are rusted and extremely difficult to turn despite the application of almost a full can of WD-40. The spruce needles have made the floor at the door extremely dirty and difficult to remove (and the needles are EVERYWHERE in the trailer). The pilot light on my hot water heater won’t stay on once the water has warmed, so I have to plan when I need hot water to wash the dishes (and I don’t get much more than that). Oh, and the hail.

 Besides that, I enjoyed the stay at Cape Blanco. The people were nice and the area was a ways away from civilization (15 miles to Port Orford, 6 miles to Sixes). I spent some of my free time walking the beach at Tseriadon and Lake Marsala picking up agates, other good looking stones, and interesting looking rocks. I tried to go after every storm (we had quite a few), but didn’t always make it.

I tried to walk around the campground (about ½ mile) every day or so, but it really wasn’t much fun in the rain. On nice days, though, it was a short enough hike to do easily without hurting much of anything. My hip and knee, though, let me know that I had better not go down the very steep road to the beach. Those times I did, my knee and hip let me know in no uncertain terms that they were not amused.

Two days before I left, the sun came out and lit up a beautiful blue sky. It lasted until at least the day I left, maybe longer. One of the few times I have been able to hitch up when it wasn’t raining (the story of my trip, so far).

The trip down 101 was uneventful. The first night I spent in Ukiah at the fairgrounds. There were a few people there, but it was quiet and, surprisingly, dry. Stayed hitched up and left early.

I made it to Morro Bay that day. It was cold and cloudy, since we were maybe a ¼ mile from the beach. I learned I can easily back up into a space that is close to being too small, on a road that is too narrow. There was barely enough room front to back (I was an inch from the fence in back and almost overhung the road in the front) and only enough room side to side to park the truck next to the trailer if I didn’t mind not being able to open the doors fully. But it was good for one night.

I also found out that I didn’t need to get to Cottonwood Cove until April 9 (instead of April 4), so I spent 3 nights in Victorville. I also learned there that my trailer’s A/C doesn’t work. So, no cool air for me. I needed it in Victorville because after the 40-50 degree weather in Oregon, it was getting up into the upper 70’s and lower 80’s in Victorville.

First Impressions:

Desert, dry, hot. Need A/C, which I don’t have. Hoped the rusty parts on the jacks would go away (didn’t because it rained (!!!)). I was put into a spot with no sewer dump that I could find (it had been broken off below ground level), the cable connection was cut off and the connection on the cable I did use was a male connection, so I needed an adaptor to use. I was told that a flood that had occurred recently had washed a lot of stuff away and things hadn’t been fixed since the flood (although the motel was getting some new stuff).

The desert itself is full of interesting and unusual critters of the fauna kind. I did see a couple of big horns coming around a bend while driving from Searchlight to CC and almost gave them a spanking. Fortunately, I had just spent lots of moola getting my brakes fixed. The road to Searchlight is downhill to CC, which means it is all uphill from CC to Searchlight.

Very desolate, with different types of fauna depending on how far down the road you went. Some plants are more altitude dependent than others, I guess.

Last Impressions (part two)

The people I worked with were fun people and I learned a lot working the front desk at the motel, but because my A/C didn’t work, I realized I needed to be someplace cool while I worked to earn money to get it repaired. So, I gave my notice.

It was a cool day (relatively) when I left. The desert and the sun combined, however, to make it very warm in the truck.

Cape Blanco

It’s been a little while since I last posted something. I’ve been at Cape Blanco State Park since December 1, 2015 and trying to not haz a SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It has been so rainy, with so little to do around here (there is stuff to do, but doing it in the cold rain is off-putting at best).

So, I take pictures. Here are a bunch.

I have also gone to Tseriadun beach (used to be called Agate Beach, but there is already an Agate Beach farther north, so the name was changed) a couple of times, looking for agates and pretty rocks. Found some of both.

I don’t have a picture of either the beach or the agates, but I might at some later date.

A couple of days ago, I wanted to walk on the river trail in the park. So, I went to the gate and entered into the pasture area to get to the trail. There were a bunch of cows loosely arranged not closely by, so it wasn’t too bad. Then they all turned to look and me and despite my attempts to wave them away and yell at them, they got closer and got themselves into a tighter bunch. As a bunch, they moved closer.

So, I arranged myself leaning languidly on the fence with one hand on the gate, so I could get to it quickly. After a standoff of about 5 minutes, the crowd of cows moved around away from me, seeming to go faster the farther they got from me. I guess once they caught wind of me from downwind, they couldn’t wait to get away.

This little adventure is supposed to end March 31. After that I will be going to wherever my summer gig is. I haven’t found anything for sure yet, but I’ll still post more as it happens.

December, 2015

I left Crescent City on December 1. I drove up to Cape Blanco State Park, since I was due there to start my winter camphosting position. The weather was so-so, not hard rain, but sprinkles here and there. The road (Highway 101) turns into a narrow two-lane road north of Crescent City and into Oregon.

Before I left Crescent City, I spent several days walking around the harbor and enjoying the ocean. The weather on those days was wonderful – not too cold, not too warm, sunny and enjoyable.

I saw sea lions, watched a dog playing and watched the waves from the pier.

There were a lot of places to visit, but I only went down to Redwoods National Park south of Crescent City. This is one of the places that I had applied to be a camphost, but I never heard back from them.

So, in Cape Blanco State Park since December 1. Since December 1, there are been a couple of days of no rain, and on days with rain there have been a couple of hours of no rain. In other words, I am growing mushrooms between my toes. Some of the rivers inland are flooding because of the constant rain.

I took some pictures on the day it didn’t rain, but I haven’t been able to repeat the effort, since there hasn’t been non-cloudy and non-rainy days since then.

All those trees surround the campground, so you can kind of see where the camp is.

Leaving the Bay Area

I finally left the Bay Area. I spent the night in Ukiah at the fairgrounds. It was quiet, except for the freeway about ¼ mile from the park. There weren’t a lot of people there, and no wifi at all.

I left the next morning to go to Rio Dell. It was a relatively short trip, made a bit longer by my side trip to the Avenue of the Giants. Dragging a trailer on that relatively narrow, very serpentine road was not fun but the area is gorgeous. The park where I am staying has cable TV but no wifi. Fortunately, the nearest Burger King with wifi is only 10 miles away.

I visited Ferndale – the “Victorian” town. The gingerbread on a lot of the buildings in the downtown area are maintained and painted in gorgeous colors. The bridge over the Eel River is very narrow, but the town itself is lovely.

Then I drove down to the Avenue of the Giants to visit some of the groves. It has been so long since I have been here, everything has changed (except the groves). The Dyerville area has been turned into an overlook and is all grassy and posted with information signs. It was just a dirt filled area when I was here last.

I went to Founders Grove and took the short (1/2 mile easy walk) through the grove. It was peaceful (only saw a couple of other people) and mostly quiet – since the highway is only a mile or so away from the grove, it was possible to hear traffic, but it wasn’t real loud. The air was clean and fresh smelling and I could hear the birds singing in the trees. Didn’t see any, though.

Took a quick picture of the high water mark from 1964. It is about 20 feet high at this point, 90 feet above the river. After the devastation of this flood, a lot of work to protect and redo the watershed has led to such occurances not happening again.

I’m not going to stay here the three weeks I thought I would. Not having wifi here and having to go 10 miles away to get wifi limits the amount of time I can actually keep up with what is happening. So, I’ll be leaving on Tuesday to go to a park that has wifi. 

Update 2

For the last month, I have been in the SF Bay Area. “Home” if you will. I haven’t been this unhappy for a long time. Most of it has to do with the traffic – too many people, too much traffic, just too much.

I had planned to go elsewhere until the transmission in the truck decided it had better things to do. So that took 10 days to fix and a whole lot of money. I was able to get it fixed, but now I’m paranoid about the engine. I’ve been taking it easy since the repair.

I really haven’t been doing much of anything but getting a cold and finally ending the cough that always shows up after a cold. I saw my doctor, got the physical and blood tests and I’m pretty healthy for an old person.

Ran a race at Golden Gate Fields. Yeah, not on the track, but a 5K race that finished up at GGF. Actually ran some of the race and set a new record for myself! Being at 3300 feet all summer probably made it easier to run the race at sea level. Having a cough didn’t help, but I was able to overcome that obstacle.

I am going to be camp host at Cape Blanco State Park in Oregon for the winter. It is a campground and day use area open all year. It is right on the ocean, on the farthest west point of Oregon. I can’t wait for it to start. The position will last for as long as they can stand me or 4 months (until March 31), whichever comes first. I start December 1, so between now and then, I’ll be making my way north through the Redwoods.

If I can get internet service on the trip north, I'll keep this updated.