6/28/2017 - The Brundiges Have Arrived

Wednesday - We moved off our premiere campsite with our river view, to the back row this morning.  Dave and Mazie were dumped and moved before we even got out of bed, but we all got resettled pretty quickly.  Joe again worked on Dave's back flush and has finally just given up on it and put things back together.  Then we settled in to await the arrival of our 2 missing travelers.  They pulled in just before 1:00 p.m., a welcome sight.  We spent the afternoon catching up on news, went to dinner at the Mexican restaurant (Dave and Mazie had already started grilling their pork chops for dinner before we got our plan together, so they opted out of that little trip), then we reconfigured our kitchen to set up for 6-handed Hand & Foot.  There is room for improvement, but with Marilyn's folding card table and some leveling boards we were able to make it work.  We played 2 short games (conceded loss before final hand), with a win apiece per team.

The weather is just great, stayed in the 70s today, a welcome relief to our travelers who experienced 119 in Las Vegas last Thursday.  We are going to take it easy tomorrow, let them get rested up, then probably make the drive to Crater Lake on Friday.  Our 6 Ruskateers are finally all together again!

6/27/2017 - Klamath Marsh Loop

Tuesday - Today was a fairly uneventful day.  Walking around outside with David this morning (waiting for Joe to wake up), he (David) spotted a bird cruising the river that he thought was an eagle.  It landed in a tree on the far side of the river, so I grabbed my camera and was able to zoom him in.  I don't think it is an eagle, I thought it was a hawk; Joe thought it might be an osprey.  I think he is right.

After breakfast we piled in the car and headed out.  We stopped off in Chiloquin at a gift store/visitor center to get some information on the roads through the Klamath Marsh.  There were some beautiful pieces of art, various media, in the store, but we didn't buy anything.  There are some murals on some of the buildings in this little town, here is one.

We headed out, armed with another map and took Highway 97 to Silver Lake Road.  We did find the marsh, with a few birds, not nearly as many as we saw the other day. 

After several miles of driving the highway, Joe couldn't stand it anymore and found a dirt road to explore.  It started out ok but got a little worse before we got back to pavement.

This turned out to be a 200+ loop drive, finally getting back to the campground around 3:30.  Chipmunks were the only other wildlife we saw.  We have to move campsites tomorrow, and we are expecting the arrival of our missing two ruskateers, the Brundiges.  The weather is wonderful, and we are enjoying our slowed-down, relaxing time here on the river.  We have been awaiting their arrival to make the drive to Crater Lake, also hoping they will get more of the rim road up there cleared of snow.  And there is a waterfall road we have yet to drive.  But tomorrow we don't plan on doing much, just getting moved to the other campsite and watching for the Brundiges.  By the way, the girls won at cards again tonight.

6/26/2017 - Logging Museum

Monday -  This morning's first chore was to find our next campground.  After the problems we ran into last week, with the dog show and the July 4 holiday filling all the campgrounds in the area, I expected we would have an easier job this time.  Wrong.  The big quilt show comes to Sisters the weekend of July 8-9, and everything is, again, booked.  I called all around the area and finally found a campground in Prineville, which is east of Redmond, that could accommodate the 3 rigs for 5 days.  So we are set for another week. 

When I got that done, and Dave finished his laundry, we went to the casino for breakfast, then drove to the Collier Logging Museum just north of Chiloquin.  I was expecting a big building with lots of photos but instead, this is "one of the country's best and largest collections of rare, antique logging equipment. This Park also features a Settler's Village filled with authentic log cabins . . ."

"The museum, most of which is in the open, displays logging equipment dating from the era of animal-powered logging through the early 1980s, and it holds the largest collection of McGiffert and McVay log loaders in existence. There are also steam tractors, a steam donkey, a steam locomotive, and a Corliss steam engine that ran Long-Bell Lumber Company’s sawmill for forty-seven years in Weed, California. Other early equipment includes several sets of high wheels, chain-driven Mack trucks, and pull-type road graders. Mid-twentieth century logging is represented by a collection of power saws, gasoline and diesel-powered tractors, a Weyerhaeuser truck reload, a log-raft tugboat, and two sawmills, one operable."

Lots of old equipment, most of which I knew nothing about, but Joe knew what most of it was, how it worked, what it was used for.  We spent a couple hours here, at least.

I was more into the carved bears.

And a bench with a lovely carving on the back.

There were huge logs, and several log cabins.  They have demonstrations here on Father's Day, which we missed, of course.

Joe found 2 dozers he had driven in the Army, in the Dominican Republic and in the States.  He said he drove newer equipment in Viet Nam.

Spring Creek runs along this museum, with a very nice arched bridge that takes you across to the campground and day-use area.  The water in the creek was crystal clear, and had some depth to it as well as a waterfall upstream.

 moss underwater

I can never remember to take a towel with me, so of course I had to put my toes in this cold water, then tried to dry my foot by sunning it on the bridge.  Joe stuck his hand in the creek to confirm that it was cold.

There were chipmunks running all over the place, and I finally caught one with my camera, even though he was hiding in a bush.

We finally left here, stopped by the RV, then headed into Klamath Falls.  Dave and I both needed haircuts, and Joe and I wanted to check out an electric broom like Mazie has.  So we did those chores, shopped the Oregon Gift Shop (didn't buy anything), came back to casino for dinner, and called it a day.  I decided to do my laundry, and we thought a storm was going to blow in, but we just got clouds, some thunder, and maybe a dozen drops of rain.

 Joe spotted a white egret (I think) in the river by our campground.  My Florida kids will have to confirm that this is an egret and not an ibis.  Andrew would know.

Tomorrow we are looking for a waterfall drive.  Then we are hoping to see the Brundiges on Wednesday.  Joe checked on Oregon fishing license for out-of-state residents, and they are $20/day (and you know Joe doesn't get to go fishing without ME) so at this time we are not thinking we are going to do that.  We really don't have the right equipment either.  We may elect to hire a guide on the Columbia River and do some serious fishing when we get in that area.

6/25/2017 - Driving around Upper Klamath Lake

Sunday  - After our lazy day yesterday, it was time to take another drive.  We headed just a little north to pick up a road that would take us around the west side of Upper Klamath Lake (the lake we drove by coming up from Klamath Falls earlier in the week).  Some idiot in a black Honda about took us out when he pulled off the road, then tried to pull right back onto it, right beside us.  That woke us all up.  And we watched for black Hondas all day.

We drove down by a resort area and found an interesting bear in the yard.

We really weren't very close to the lake until we got to the bottom, then we were right beside it.  Joe tried to drive out on a peninsula but I informed him that it was posted "no trespassing," so under protest, he turned around.  We did see a variety of waterfowl along here, including some white pelicans.  And we came across a yard sale and picked up some real treasures there.

We drove through Klamath Falls like we knew where we were going, stopped for lunch (Dave and Mazie had their very first Frostys from Wendy's), then came up the east side of this valley on more country roads.  The only picture I got along here was a pretty windmill that I thought Brenda needed.

Another interesting sight that I didn't get a picture of was a fence row with old plows mounted (somehow) on top of the fence.  There were probably 6-8-10 of them.  We should have turned around so I could have captured that look.  We came back through the town of Chiloquin, then headed back to the campground, about 3:00.  Things were in full swing here.

Although it was cloudy off and on, it was a good day (mid-90s) and people were enjoying the water.  This campground has public access to the river and boat ramp (for a fee) and the locals seem to have discovered this place.  We didn't see this float in the water, but it was pretty impressive.

I talked to a lady whose husband was fishing off the dock.  They were from Klamath Falls, and while her husband fishes, she studies her wildflower book.  She showed me some "monkey flowers" she had discovered on the river bank.

We had a few sprinkles and all the locals headed home, so Joe and I walked around for a bit.  He decided to test the water, and declared that he probably could get used to it as long he didn't go any deeper.

We walked the whole campground, which is called Water Wheel.  And here's its namesake.

We got back by the river and decided to grab our lawn chairs and enjoy the scenery.  Life is good.

We watched a hawk scouting for fish and my camera battery died.  I ran up to the RV and grabbed another battery, but the hawk had flown away.  Mazie and Ar'gent joined us, and she did her "hawk dance" to try to get it to come back but she wasn't successful.

Since that didn't work, she gave her attention back to Ar'gent.

We got a few more sprinkles so we headed in for our nightly card game.  The girls won tonight. We had a few more sprinkles during the card game but then it must have cleared off. 

 Ar'gent thinks our card games take a little too long.  She's ready to go home to bed.

It was a nice drive today, probably around 100 miles.  Grandson Andrew would have enjoyed it, we saw lots of animals.  Not too much wildlife -- 3 deer, some waterfowl including white pelicans and geese, and a hawk back at the campground.  But lots of domestic animals -- sheep, goats, miniature horses, 2 alpacas, a donkey and a mule, lots of horses and literally thousands of cattle.  We never realized there were this many cattle raised in Oregon.  Almost every field has a herd, sometimes several hundred head.  We followed the Sprague River for a while, which eventually joined the Williamson River -- the one that goes past our campground.  We have several more days here so we will look for some more roads to drive in the next few days.