Day Out Amongst the Volcanoes

Thursday
Today is the first of May! Big Deal, no it really is a big deal round here. It may be the beginning of May with sunny skies and temperatures in the 80's, but up high in the Cascades it is still mid winter. With the amount of snow they get here they just don't bother clearing the roads. This week we have been wanting to travel the Scenic Highways and visit some cool volcanoes, but they have been closed. Today some of them open. The Lava Butte being the most important one. So we packed a lunch and went together to the Lava Butte, a 500ft high cinder cone, red lava. Nice cone shape, with a neat depression in the top, just like you imagine a volcano to be. Best of all a road winds round the outside, so you can take the car up to see the view (dejavu?, yes just like Pilot View Butte, which we visited yesterday, but it is different). So we went up and were rewarded with a fabulous view of the surrounding mountains. If we looked to the south we could see Mt Shasta, if we looked to the north we could see Mount Hood. Those two mountains are 297 miles apart, that is like standing in London and being able to see Leicester to the north and Paris to the south!

 We then managed to climb a little way up into the mountains, before coming to a dead stop with a 'Road Closed' sign. Still we did see a very pretty frozen lake  - Elk Lake.
On the way we found a neat picnic spot by Prairie Crane Lake, where we watched a Garter Snake swim up to the shore and slither up the beach. They apparently are not poisonous and are quite small, as the pic with my lens cap in in shows. Then while eating lunch we saw an Osprey, then a Bald Eagle. Then watched as the Osprey attacked the Bald Eagle  in the air! Again I have pics, but as the whole thing happened abut 1/4 mile away the quality is not that good.

Still in all a great day out with Roy and Anne, who are now reunited with their Dodge Ram Pickup and tomorrow we move on north. But that is another day and another tale.

Great Day In Bend. Or

Wednesday.
Well this has been the end of another lovely day in Bend, which highlighted why we came to see America and why we enjoy what we do.
Nothing dramatic, just lovely sunny weather, which we were able to enjoy. Had a run along the riverside this morning, Sally was well enough for us to go buy some stuff and drop into Macy's for her to buy sexy, 'spangly jeans'. Had a ride out with friends Roy and Anne to Pilot View Butte, and what a view. 360 deg. for miles, but more tomorrow as the viewing was restricted by haze, tomorrow we will attempt to go up there really early. Saw some nice wild life - birds, butterflies, chipmunks and a cat (well it wasn't really wild, but it did come out of the woods as though it was a bobcat).
This evening we all had a really nice meal together, sat at the picnic table. Simple salads, fried
jumbo shrimp. Warm air and a cold beer. Relaxing conversation and real people, no posh standards to keep (can't do that anyway). Thanks for today.

Bobcat?

Bend, Oregon

Sunday
We left collier SP to drive north to Bend, which is just to the East of the Cascade Mountains. We planned to camp at Tamula State Park, which is close to the centre of Bend. Roy intended to get some work done on his pickup, so we wanted to stay for a few days. After some negotiation with the very nice ranger we were able to book to stay until Friday.
Monday
By now the weather was improving, but all the activity of the last few days has taken its toll on Sally, who has crashed for a couple of days to try and recover.
Tuesday
The weather is now warm and sunny. Sally is still resting so I took Roy and Anne and we attempted to drive up one of the local volcano features - Mount Pauline, which has two lakes at the top. However 6 miles from the summit the road is closed for the winter - we think it opens on Thursday. So we had to turn round and come back down, however the day was not wasted as we found a lovely mountain stream where we had our picnic lunch and took a walk in the sunshine. we saw some pretty birds, one of which is a nuthatch. my photos were poor as focusing is difficult when the birds are in trees and the auto focus chooses the closest object (usually a twig) to focus on, still the pics give the general idea.

Bend is surrounded by evidence of vulcanicity and many volcanoes can be seen around the place. To the West is the skyline of the Cascade mountains, with its volcanic peaks: Bachelor, Sisters, Washington, Three Finger Jack, Jefferson and away to the north Mighty Mount Hood, beyond that I can just make out Mt Adams. They are all snow covered and look very impressive. Above the campground is a bend in the road which gives a good view of these mountains. I have been able to to get some pics during the day and this evening took some sunset photos.

Sights around Collier Memorial State Park

Collier is a very pretty park with a lot of wild life there, we see lots of chipmunks and some stellar jays, as well as lots of water birds As well as a going for a jog I took a walk along the river, where I found the waterside nest of the Stellar Jays and evidence of beavers at work. I also found some bright yellow lichen, which I found interesting.

Into Oregon and Crater Lake revisited

Thursday.After a quiet night at Etna we mounted up and have arrived at Collier Memorial SP. This is a SP we have stayed in before  (Oct 2011) and is very pretty. We are still with Roy and Anne. To get there we had to pass the amazing Mount Shasta. We entered Oregon on route 97 through a town called Dorris - what a great name, I could write a book called 'A Town Like Dorris'

We are located only about 30 miles from Crater Lake, which we also visited last time we were here.
We had changed our planned route because of the wet weather on the coast, now we were worried about being in the cold and snow. Night time temperatures were getting down to 22 deg.
Crater Lake is 3000 ft higher and most of it is closed until June! However one road is kept open, so we decided that on Saturday if the weather was good enough we would all drive up and have a look.
Saturday dawned bright and crisp, so we all bundled into the the Chevy and drove up to Crater Lake. No jawdropping view as we drove into the Rim Are - there was too much snow. This time we had to park and climb through the snow to get to the view. This was a very different view to the last time as it was now covered in deep snow, though the lake was not frozen. It looked just as beautiful. We had a good play in the snow, then a cup of hot soup in the cafe, then drove back down to Collier SP. A gret day out.

To Etna

Wednesday:
We have successfully arrived in Etna, a V.Sm town tucked into Northern California. A 'straight forward' drive from Lewiston, apart from the 4000 foot climb over Scott Mountain! We drove 60 miles up the road before reaching this wild mountain pass, which mentioned at the base of it that it was not accessible for vehicles with trailers! Choice 6 miles of mountain pass, or 120 miles of backtracking and rerouting? No choice really - onward and upward

Thanks for the advice.

Photo's cannot describe these mountain roads 

Which come courtesy of Street View

But I will say it was one of the hairier rides over the mountains

Tuesday: Wiggle with the Weather

When Roy and Anne arrived they brought with them news of a change in the weather. So far we have been in the Great Central Valley, which is basically a desert. Rain arrives usually in sprinkles. Cold is when you need to put long trousers on, in fact one never bothered listening to weather forecasts unless exceptional weather was expected. Now we have driven up to the Weaverville Area, into the Northern section of the Coastal Range of mountains and are remembering that there is something called WEATHER. That weather may well affect our plans to explore the North West. We had sort of taken that into account by leaving this trip so late in the Spring, however Roy and Anne now brought the news that North of us there was weather coming along! For the next week it would be wet  and cold. If bad weather does come along then it will influence decisions about destinations. The closer one is to the coast the wetter it is, but also warmer. Rain falls by inches, but rarely gets below freezing. Inland the mountain range is called the Cascade Mountains. The further East you travel the drier it gets,. But also it also colder, because you are higher, travel is often restricted by road closure due to snow, even in May or June. By the time you are 150 miles inland and over the Cascade Range you are back into High Desert.
Our plan had been to travel the coast for a while then traverse the mountains and explore the Cascades from the High Desert side of the Mountains. However, rainfall predictions suggested that the coast would be very wet and cold. We may also find that snow would prevent us moving across Oregon. So we decided on a game change. We will now move immediately East, round the bottom of the Cascade Mountains, near Mount Shasta,staying in California. Then move North up Route 97 staying to the East of The Cascades until we hit the Columbia River, then move back West to the coast and up into Washington. So tomorrow we drive, with Anne and Roy, about 80 miles North through the mountains to Etna.

View Oregon Plan A in a larger map

Great Night Out

Roy and Anne duly turned up on Tuesday afternoon, so we made a day of it by going to the neighbouring town of Weaverville for a meal. We ate at La Grange. We chose it because we could see other people eating there as well. It proved to be a good choice as the meal was excellent and it had a very Small Town America feel about it. Sally had Fillet Steak, I had a venison and a wild pork sausage. I even had a dessert - Creme Brulee no less. We spent a fair amount of time talking as well, before driving back to the trailers. Great evening.

Lewiston, Ca

Today we are starting our North West Pacific Coast Adventure, as we will be moving West out of the Central Valley into the Pacific Coat Mountain Range, territory we have not been to before. Driving north to Redding we then turned West for  the short (30 mile) drive up into the mountains to Lewiston, where the mountain valley widens to enable a town to be built alongside Trinity Lake.

We are camped at the Old Lewiston Bridge Campground, where we will await the arrival today our friends Anne and Roy, who we first met in the Painted Desert, AZ, in May 2011, when we camped next to them. We were going West, they were going East, so we parted the next day. They come from York, about 50 miles from our home, and apart from one lunch together in Thirsk, we have not met since, although we have kept in touch via Facebook and Blogs. As they say over here, we hope to have a Large Old Time.

Red Bluff Round Up

‘Early’ Saturday morning, with sad, but grateful hearts for them storing our rig for 10 months, we said our farewells to Ed and Cindy,  packed up and moved on to Red Bluff. We pulled onto the Sycamore Grove USDA campground, which is a very pretty little campground just to the south of Red Bluff. We were here because it is ‘Round Up Week’ and we wanted to catch another rodeo. We had been to one in Lake City Florida in 2009 with our friends Jim and Kath Mobley, but here was a good opportunity to see another one. We decided that we would rest up Saturday and get into it for the final day. We started by going to the Cowboy Church, held in the rodeo grandstand, as it was Easter Sunday. This was very interesting as a large number of the rodeo riders came along and many gave a testimony. We had not expected such enthusiastic support from the rough and hard world of rodeo. We returned to the fairground in the afternoon and took our seats, right at the front,  for the main event and from start to finish it was a high energy afternoon. We started with a parachute drop into the arena, carrying a giant US flag.

We were immersed in the sight, sound, smell (and feel of the dirt clods kicked up by the wild horses) of the rodeo events, wild horses, wild bull riding, bringing down bulls and roping bulls. At the same time horse races were happening, so you didn’t know where to look, all accompanied by various sound bite music anthems, like Queen, the Lone Ranger, etc. As soon as there was a break in the action girls would gallop round the arena waving big flags. For a break from the action we were given a demonstration of wagon pulling by the Budweiser Clydesdale heavy horses and wagon, which was very impressive. After sitting in the sunshine for three hours we returned to the trailer, via Applebees, quite exhausted by the event. This was a fun afternoon, well worth the visit.