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.

6/24/2017 - A Down Day

Saturday - Finally, we took a day off!  I went down and enjoyed the view this morning before Joe got up,

and I watched one fisherman reel in a couple of trout.  He said the first one probably weighed about 4 1/2 pounds; the second one was just a little one.

None of us know how to fly-fish, but this is certainly intriguing.  We are asking questions, and I think Joe may see if he can rig our bass fishing rods to try to fish this river.  We need to drive into the next town, Chiloquin, and get fishing license if we decide to try this.  And we left our waders at home, so I guess we would be casting from the bank.

I zoomed my camera in to get a close-up of the top of the mountain we see from here.  We are loving our weather, although today it made the 90s and tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer (93).  But by Monday it's back  to 85, and 79 for a high on Wednesday.  We will take it!

Joe wanted to go out for breakfast so he and I went down the road to the Mexican restaurant we ate at the other night.  But they were closed, their walk-in cooler had gone out.  The waitress was out in the parking lot talking to someone else, and she stopped us as soon as we got out of the car.  We went back to the travel center in the other direction and shared a breakfast burrito.

When we got back to the campground, we got together with the Johnsons to decide where we were going next.  We started calling campgrounds around Bend, Redmond and Sisters, and everything was booked through the 4th of July.  So we went up to the office here to see if we could extend our stay another week to get us past the holiday, and to get a third spot for the Brundiges.  Although we will have to move to the back row (and lose our river view), she was able to accommodate all of us.  So, gratefully, we booked in here until July 5.  With all that time to spend here in this area, we just took the rest of the day off. 

After lunch, we read, rested, laid down -- a real down day.  Then we got back together and played cards.  After dinner, Joe took Mazie and me up to the little casino for a couple hours, until he couldn't stand the smoke any more.  Sunset here isn't until around 8:30, and it doesn't get dark until after 9:00, so we got back to camp before dark and watched the fishermen again, but the mosquitoes were out so we didn't stay out very long.

This is something different for us -- to kick back for 10 days.  We will check out more things to do around this area, and we still have Crater Lake to explore.  We are waiting for the Brundiges to join us for that trip, and hope that more snow will have melted and the rim road will be open.  These warmer days we are having now should help that.  Phoenix/Mesa is still sweltering, so we feel very fortunate to be in Oregon right now.

6/23/2017 - Around Klamath Falls

Friday - Happy 4th Birthday to grandson Andrew!  Today was a relatively uneventful day for us, which we were all ready for.  Did a few chores -- laundry (Dave got his done yesterday), Joe worked on the backflush line in Dave's trailer. It plugged yesterday when we left Tulelake; Joe worked on it this morning, we went to town to look for parts but didn't find what he needed (he decided he didn't need anything anyway); came home and worked on it some more.  And it's still plugged.  So that will be a continuing saga for tomorrow, but I think he has narrowed down the problem.

We drove into Klamath Falls today, went to RV service store, hardware store, visitor center, and Fred Meyers Grocery.  We didn't leave the campground until noon, so that took care of the rest of the day.  We have learned that Klamath Falls really doesn't have a falls.  It used to have a ripple in the river, but with the power plant diversion of the water flow, there's not much of a ripple left.  The visitor center was nice and had beautiful artistic scenes painted on birds.  I asked if this was part of that national movement several years ago where different cities participated in painting sculptures of their "native" animal (like the bears in Cherokee, N.C.) but she said no, Klamath Falls had done this on their own.  And there are some scattered around businesses in town (we didn't see any).

The highlight of the day was Dave fried up some crappie they had brought with them, and we had a fish dinner.  It was yummy!  We played 2 of the 4 hands of Hand and Foot, but the guys were tired and the girls were losing so badly we conceded and called it a night.

The Brundiges are on their way.  They got their refrigerator replaced yesterday and drove from Las Vegas to Gardnerville today (probably at least 11 hours) because they couldn't find a campground with any open sites.  I don't know how Collins fared with his leg and back problems -- that was a pretty tough indoctrination to the road trip.  We hope he can rest up the next couple of days in Carson City and Reno before they move forward again.  We think we are going to hang out here and wait for them.  We have a great campsite in a nice, little campground.  The weather is wonderful; 54 this morning, 84 this afternoon.  And we are waiting for them to open up more of the road around Crater Lake.  We just have to check and make sure our camp sites are available for our extra days.