On the road to Utah

9/11/2017

Finally back on the road again.  Had a good summer on the Oregon Coast.  Headed southeast to try and avoid smoke from all the fires.  There was a little smoke near Medford, OR but cleared after that.   Passed Mt. Shasta on the way, top covered in clouds.  Spent 2 nights outside of Lassen Nat'l Park, then on to Reno, NV to have lunch with new friends we met in AZ.  Heading across Nevada towards Utah on "The Loneliest Road In America".

Valley of the Rogue SP Oregon, campsite.

Mt. Shasta in clouds.

Babbling brook behind campsite at Cave Campground (USFS)
near Lassen Nat'l Park CA.

Kings Creek, Lassen Nat'l Park

Heading east across Nevada on US 50,
"The Loneliest Road in America"

Coming next,  Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area.

More from Beaver Creek

9/10/2017

Greetings from the Oregon coast!  Well, actually about a mile inland from the coast.

First off, our thoughts are with all our friends and family in Florida suffering through the wrath of  IRMA.

We'll be leaving Beaver Creek tomorrow heading for the great unknown.  Fires and smoke are making any route east somewhat tenuous.  This has been a very bad fire season for the Pacific Northwest.  From Newport north has been relatively clear.  Our location is on the edge of the major smoke path, only having a few days where it impacted us.  We had hoped to explore eastern Oregon, make our way south through Idaho, and into Utah to visit all the great national parks.  However, the fires/smoke will determine our path.

All is going well.  Here some pictures from the past two months...

Late afternoon view of the grounds from the 

grassy hill on the west side if the property.

The Visitors Center, a former private home. 

View from the Visitors Center deck.

The Beaver Creek Welcome Center from Beaver Creek.

There were raised garden beds from the former owners so we thought we'd try a garden.  The season for buying vegetable plants was over but we found a few plants for 50% off, 2 tomatoes, 2 bell peppers and a bunch of leaf lettuce plants.  Here's what it looked like after planting...

... and just before we left.

The lettuce was the big producer, we stopped buying it.  We got 2 red tomatoes and a small bag full of green ones.  The peppers were small.  All together they probably added up to 1 or 2 full size peppers.  After we picked everything clean there's still plenty of small fruit and many blooms for the next host ... if winter doesn't get-em first. I think we came out ahead with the production vs. the cost of buying the plants.  The most benefit was the fun we had tending a garden again.

Part of the nature trail behind the Visitors center.

Happy Hour after a tough day at the "office"... NOT!

A family on one of our kayak tours owns a winery and they brought us a bottle of wine as a thank you gift.  Joan made some hors d'oeuvers (with lettuce from the garden) and we shared them during one of our "Happy Hours".

The big event of the past two months was, of course, the Total Eclipse!

A smokey sunrise over Beaver Creek

Beaver Creek at Ona Beach with wispy clouds.

Demonstrating beaver swimming technique..."doggie paddle".

Nutria and Beaver, which is which?

Nutria swimming across creek.

Close Encounter of the Nutria kind

We're not going that far, but the next post will be from the road.

Paddle day

8/31/2017

Well, our time on the Oregon coast is almost over.  Our main job here at Beaver Creek Welcome Center is to lead the Kayak tours on Beaver Creek.  The tours run from from July 4th weekend through Labor Day weekend, Thursday through Monday.  The days we don't paddle, we man the Welcome center from noon to 4 pm, we're off on Tuesday and Wednesday. There's two pairs of guides so we're paddling 2 to 3 times a week, alternating with the other couple.

 Here's what a typical  paddle day is like.

We're in the Visitors center about 7:30 am to greet the guests arriving around 8:00.

Joan in the Welcome Center checking in
paddlers for today's tour.

After all the release forms are signed and the guests are fitted with with PFD's (Personal Flotation Device), there's a short meet and greet on the deck. Next the paddlers drive to the boat ramp a little over a mile west of the welcome center.

Meet and Greet on the deck at the Welcome Center.

Everyone helps unload the boats then we have some paddling instruction before getting on the water and heading up stream.

Rick (with white bladed paddle) leading paddle stroke instruction.

About a half mile up steam, everyone "rafts up" near a beaver lodge and Joan gives the first interpretative talk on mammals found in Beaver Creek: Beavers (of course),  Muskrats, River Otters and Nutria.  Nutria (listed as an nuisance species in Oregon and as well as 16 other states) is what we're most likely to see. 

Joan using a Beaver skull to demonstrate
characteristics unique to the water mammals.

Pictures of Beaver and Nutria, which is which?

A sunny day on Beaver Creek.

Occasionally, when the weather is right and we have a good group of paddlers, we extend the tour past our starting point.  About a 1/4 mile down stream from the boat ramp we come to Ona Beach where Beaver Creek empties, slowly, into the sea.  This time of year, there is no tidal  influence because of a sand bar at the beach.

Notice the "Marine Layer" (fog) just off shore.

After the short paddle back to the boat ramp, we help everyone out of their boats, get the kayaks loaded on the trailer and Joan has one more presentation with the Oregon flag and a real beaver pelt.

Oregon is known as The Beaver State".
Where's the Beaver on the flag?

Oregon is the only state with a two sided flag!

Feeling a real Beaver pelt.

Finally, everyone gets a commemorative button to remember their morning on Beaver Creek.  Some families come every year and wear their buttons from previous years. Everyone is back at the boat ramp by noon and ready to go get lunch afterwards.  

The Great American Eclipse (from the Oregon coast)

8/21/2017

The big day arrived with heavy fog shrouding the Beaver Creek Welcome Center.

The forecast (For Seal Rock, OR., our closest weather reference point) was partly cloudy till about 11 AM.  Seal Rock is on the beach and we're a little over a mile inland.  That's important when talking about weather on the Oregon coast, so there was hope for us yet.  As 9 AM approached the fog was lifting rapidly and it was turning into a beautifully clear day.

The gate was opened around 6:30 AM and there were already 3 cars waiting.  The parking lot is rather small so that limited the number of people we could accommodate.

Everyone had plenty of room to spread out and find a good viewing position, it was a very festive atmosphere.  At it's peek we counted 103 spectators.

The partial started about 9:15 PDT. with a little bite out of the upper right side.

By 9:50 various viewing contraptions appeared.

By 10 AM we where starting to feel the effects of the diminished light and a noticeable temperature drop.

As totality rapidly approached things started happening very fast.

We could see the light dimming from one minute to the next and there was a fog bank racing across the hills to the west.  This is a typical occurrence at dusk but it was happening very fast.  There were some fears the fog might block our view right at the critical time.

Notice fog on the western horizon.

The fog was moving up our name sake creek and started up the hill across the marsh... but it never moved any further.

At about 10:16 PDT it happened, the glasses came off and we stood in awe of the celestial spectacle.

We had a little over a minute of totality and that was the fastest minute of my life.  It seemed like as soon as it started it was over, the diamond ring effect appeared and the glasses and filters went back on.

After Totality with solar filter.

Everyone was excited, cheering, laughing, talking, already reminiscing about the experience. The remaining partial eclipse became a non-event.  Every so often you'd see someone pull their solar glasses out and take a glance as the moon crawled across the suns face.

By 11:30 we were back to being the sleepy little welcome center a mile off the US 101 on the Oregon coast.