More Mt St Helens

 Last weekend we spent the weekend at Iron Creek Campground, near Mt. St. Helens.  We were fare enough away from the volcano that there were trees unaffected by the 1980 eruption.

We hiked to Iron Creek Falls.  The waterfall was really cool; I liked the way it had cut through the basalt and cascaded into the pool below.  All it needed (to gild a golden lily), was a rock platform in front of the pouring water where one could light a small fire.

 Fireweed grew everywhere.  I liked it because it resembled peacock feathers growing out of the ground.  There were also lupine, paintbrush, and other flowers.

For the most part the temperatures stayed pleasantly in the 60's and 70's.

At Meta Pond, (which, sadly, was not a pond on an island in a pond, which would have been really meta), we saw little thumbnail sized frogs.  Someone had left a fish head near the shore and six crawdads were busy fighting each other for the privilege of snipping bits off of it.  We also saw a dragonfly.

Mark's Birthday Campout

For Mark's birthday we wen to Mount Saint Helens, which is a little over five hours away by car.  The first day was rainy, which was a nice change from all the 90 degree weather we've been having.  The second day was cloudy, but without the rain and warmer.  The last day was clear and warm.

We stayed at Iron Creek campsite, in the Mt St Helens wilderness area. The campsite was mostly pleasant, with only a light Saturday night party camper vibe.  What would have made it perfect would have been the inclusion of a meadow for star gazing.  On the river was a magical beach filled with standing piles of rocks.  We added our own stacks.

Vacation Report

We're back from a visit to the Stout Redwood Grove, near Crescent City, and the Oregon Caves.

We camped for two nights in the Patrick Creek campground.  One of the attractions was that there was no electricity, so that meant there weren't a whole lot of RV's with stereos and satellite TV surrounding us.  We were right on the river, and surprisingly, I didn't have dreams about waterfalls or tidal waves.  

The first night, Thursday night, was stormy.  I'd just gotten the tent set up when it started to rain in earnest.  There was thunder and lightning, which was cool.  We managed to start a fire -- I liked the grills there:  they had a corkscrew for raising or lowering the grill over the fire.

That night I did have a very long serial dream that was part Pokemon  and part Voltron, with extra vivid colors.  Mark is blaming some chocolate cake we had just before bedtime on that one.  There was a lot of flying in that dream, and I managed to remember enough of it to try to draw some of it.  The second night I slept poorly; I was looking forward to a repeat of the technicolor dreaming, but instead I hung in a kind of flat, dark awareness that didn't feel restful.

Friday we visited the Stout Redwood Grove.  The trees usually remind me of the stars because some time in the 1980's someone used the analogy of the life cycle of trees to illustrate the life cycle of a star.  I'm always inspired by the girth and height of the redwoods, and the old fallen trunks are always fun to scamper on.  It amazes me that some of the trees are 2000 years old -- I can barely believe I have memories ranging thirty years or more and I get lost in the imagining when I wonder what it could be like to be twenty centuries old.  

We stopped for milkshakes at a place called She-She's.  Somewhere Mark has a picture of us sitting in plastic chairs shaped like hands.  

Saturday, after a breakfast at the Patrick Creek Lodge (Food, Booze and Snooze), we left for the Oregon Caves.  Mark made reservations at the Chateau there.  Visiting the Chateau is a little like going back to the 1950's -- or at least the Cafe there is (OK, and our room's bathroom had a 1950's feel, as well).  We ate more hamburgers and milkshakes there in two days than I normally have in about three weeks.  The Chateau was like a smaller version of the Inn at Old Faithful. And... staying there one night was on the spendy side -- but I appreciated being able to get a comfortable night's sleep right (except when a guest was coughing her lungs out at 4AM) next to the caves. 

I took an architectural tour of the chateau, which turned out to be more historical than architectural.  

And then there were the caves.  I remember visiting them sometime around 2002, only I had mixed some of the vaults up in my memory.  I think my favorite features are the creek coming out of the caves, the soda-straw stalactites hanging in the Ghost Gallery, and the feature called Paradise Lost.  

We were lucky enough to take more than one tour (Mark took the candlelight tour).  What was interesting to us was how each ranger told different versions of the same story.  It was like the folk-process meets the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.  In some stories, the bear featured in the cave's discovery is a brown bear, in others its a grizzly.  In some stories, a devastating mudslide happens in 1964, in others 1954.  In some versions of the ghost story, the hapless groom brings a pistol; in others, a riffle.  The first tour of the caves I took, the focus was on the people who had interactions with the cave during the Taft presidency.  The second tour of the caves I took was focused more on the spleliogenesis of the caves.  

Sunday, I was prowling the chateau's top floor and I managed to get some ghost stories out of the maid.  She was cleaning "Elizabeth's Room."  Elizabeth was a bride who in some stories hung herself and in others jumped out her window (roughly sixty feet up).  I heard the story about the guest who kept finding his clothes repacked in his suitcase and who was woken up by a ball of light at 2AM (he checked out right then).  I heard about the four ghost children, who alternately giggle in the night, or cry in the cleaning closet, or who tuck in other children (or maybe Elizabeth does the tucking...).  There wasn't a story about the maintenance man who apparently liked working at the chateau so much he decided to stay.

I asked the maid if she had ever seen any of the ghosts (she'd been working there for ten years) but she said that she hadn't.

And then it was time to come home.  Mark did all the driving, for which I was grateful.  

Fall 2011 Equinox Coast

Mark said we should go camping.








We went to Cape Perpetua.






Cook's Chasm is near Cape Perpetua.






Captain Cook sailed here in 1776.






The tide was high when I took these pictures.








There was a lot of foam on the waves. It was windy, too - so the foam would blow off the top of the waves. Which was a little gross.




The previous day, we'd stopped by about two hours after high tide. The waves were off, or so the Park Ranger said, and so the spout didn't spout.




You still had to watch out for sneaker waves, though.

Norton Gulch Beetle

We went to the coast. Camping was smokey, noisy, fun! ('Cause I'd unpacked my adjectives...). At Norton Gulch, we discovered this very large beetle. I think it was a "gold bug" because it looked like the beetles I used to see at Arcosanti. Mark thought that it had gotten blown way off course, and we both agreed it looked bemused at being on the Oregon coast.

More pictures once I wash all the smoke and sand out of my hair.

Observations from Sunday

While were were in Redmond, a fierce windstorm blew into the Willamette Valley. Our first warning came from an IM I got while we were exploring a lava tube cave: one of our friends wanted to know if our house had power.

It was about 3:30 PM. Mark drove. We gassed up the car and began the trek from Redmond, through Sisters, and along Highway 126, the McKenzie Highway, to Springfield and Eugene.

As we approached the Hoodoo Ski area, the driving rain turned to a blizzard. The snow was wet, and we were glad that we had opted not to ski that day, as Saturday's snow had been wet and sticky. This snow would be worse (or better, if one didn't want to wind up skiing too quickly).

As we descended the western slopes of the Cascade Mountain range, the snow turned back to rain. But the tops of the trees were swaying, and every now and then a gust would rush up against the car.

We were about ninety minutes from home. We passed the new Ranger Station, and began to see LTD Bus stop signs. But the farther into the Willamette valley we got, the more we started to notice small branches on the highway. The small branches turned into larger branches. At one point the highway was covered with a dirty white, mashed pulp of pine -- which smelled nice.

We approached Blue River. "Whoo!" Mark said, "Don't touch the car, I think I drove over a power line!"

"What?" I'd been too busy looking at the trees on the side of road.

Then we passed three road flares underneath a line sagging from a leaning power pole. A little farther, a line of brake-lights stopped us. Mark pulled up and stopped the car.

On my side, I watched smoke rising from the chimney of a rural home. Its owner was prominently puttering about his front yard not looking suspiciously at the line of cars.  Mark rolled down his window, and we smelled woodsmoke from the widely spaced houses and cabins lining the highway.

Someone was out of their vehicle and speaking to a red SUV idling in front of us. Words like, "blocked" and "two hours" were all I heard of the snatches of conversation. The SUV made a hard turn and went the other way.

By this time it was around 5:15. We waited for the blockage to clear. Headlights in the distance turned out to be ODOT cars or the occasional fellow traveler turning around. Through the rain streaming down the windshield, I saw a damaged filbert orchard. Snapped limbs littered the field and here and there trees were blown over, their roots pulled out of the water-saturated soil.

Going back up the mountains, a small white car approached; it stopped every few cars. When it reached us, the driver said, "There's been a landslide, it will be a four or five hour wait before they clear the road." Then she drove off (it turned out there were only downed trees and power lines, but it did take about five or so hours to clear the road).  At this point I pulled out my secret stash of chocolate and passed it around.

There was poor to no cell phone coverage where we were. We decided to look for a restaurant. And a place to pee. Mark pulled the car around and we drove back to Blue River. He was able to get some ODOT alerts on his phone, but they were vague, saying only that there was storm damage and that maintenance would cause three hour delays.

I called my Mom -- my folks had been in Redmond also and had been on the road home a little before us. Luckily, the route they took had been clogged and limb-strewn but clear for them to get through (though not without worries over possible punctured tires). We decided not to try to get more ODOT information via Mom-net, and told her we'd call her back later.

Then we tried to find a place to eat. As we left Blue River, I noticed a homeowner had lit two tiki torches outside her home. Then I noticed folks hanging out on their front porches watching the rain and traffic. It wasn't night yet, but the afternoon was grey and I noticed no one appeared to have lights on in their houses.

"I think the power's out," I said. The later it got, the more more apparent it became that all the country stores and taverns, the Pepsi and Coke machines standing outside gas stations were dark.

Mark pointed out blinking LEDs in junction boxes high atop power poles. "I've never noticed them blinking before," he said. We guessed they would help maintenance folks pinpoint a systemic power failure. We drove past the 365 Christmas store -- closed. We drove past a hotel -- closed. The last store for 50 miles -- dark.

At last we gave up and turned back to see if the highway was clear. We drove past a tavern and supply store; it was open -- or at least there were people inside -- but only because someone illuminated the check-out counter with the headlights from their jeep.

We had to detour through Blue River again; ODOT had closed the section of highway were we'd drove over power lines.

The way to Eugene was still blocked.

By now it was 7:15-ish. We had a discussion; it was too late to try to drive back up to the probably-by-now icy pass and then try to sneak past any downed trees my folks had avoided. In the dark. The McKenzie River corridor appeared to be without power, but we had enough snacks so we wouldn't starve. We had enough gas in the tank to not worry too much about running out. Mark knew of a place further up the river that might be open. So we went back up the valley.

Our fourth pass through Blue River, Mark stopped to talk with the flagger, but all she knew was that there was road maintenance. As we continued east, other drivers behaved oddly aggressive, and we surmised they were tired, hungry, and irritated at the blocked road.

Mark drove us into the deepening darkness and rain. Everywhere along the road were empty and shadowy gas stations and cabins with woodsmoke streaming from their chimneys.

At last, we turned down a short, debris-strewn drive. A short dip and rise in the road later and white twinkly lights shone in the rain. A lodge appeared and we parked near the front. When I got out to see if they had any vacancies, the thrum of generators told me where their power came from.

Around 8:00 PM, we secured a room. After I found a place to stand where my cell phone worked, I let my folks know where we were. After a scanty meal of over-priced canned tuna and crackers and other food scavenged from our car, we played in their hot springs, then went to bed.

Around 9:45 the generator's thrum cut out, and the power stayed on. The hush of the McKenzie River lulled us to sleep.


What I get out of all of this is

• Wow; I'm thankful this was just a downed power line and some trees and not a tsunami or a nuclear melt-down;
• We were only twenty miles or so from a major metropolitan area, and still a storm isolated us from good information, food, and shelter;
• Other folks made interesting choices because they were stressed;
• With no information, people made guesses and then passed mis-information along to other drivers who then trusted the information and source;
• I'm glad Mark knew about the lodge; 
• I'm glad we had the means to pay for our lodgings;
• I'm glad we were able to fill up the gas tank in Eastern Oregon; and,
• I'm thankful that the biggest impact this adventure had was to give me some source material for story-crafting

RV's and Scavengers

Last weekend we went on a camping trip to Cape Blanco State Park. We'd managed to leave Eugene pretty early, so we managed to snag a fairly nice camp site. Cape Blanco is a nice park, with hot water showers and a clean restroom, which explains why so many RV's were there. I have to admit, though, that I don't understand why people hop into RV's so they can go camping and bring their Dish TV satellite dishes with them; for one thing, the dishes have a very high pitched tone used to audibly tune their receivers. Think the backing-up truck sound meets a metal detector, only this one goes to eleven. Now imagine one of your VCR-impared relatives using it. In the forest.

RV's aside, we had a nice time. It was interesting to watch all the scavengers come out whenever they thought the coast was clear. I've never seen a chipmunk hop onto a fire ring that still held a smouldering fire before, and I'm not sure who was the more aggressive: the stellar jays or the wrens.

Since it was 90+ F in Eugene, the coast was about 70F. Interestingly, when the inland is that warm, it draws all the moist sea air inland; so Cape Blanco was swathed in fog when we got there Friday afternoon. When we went to visit the lighthouse, the fog was so thick, we couldn't see it from the visitors' parking lot.

What sticks in my mind the most about the beach on the north side of the lighthouse were how many bones we found. I've found dead sea birds before, and the occasional dead sea lion, but this was the first time I've found rib, leg, and back bones washing up in the surf. Something that looked mamalian was wedged in the sand below the tideline on the sea-side of some rocks. I would have tried to dig it out, but various sea critters had made their home in it, so I left it alone.

After two and a half days camping at the coast, we came back to a still-hot-but-not-as-bad-as-the-forecase-led-us-to-believe Eugene. My hair (and clothes) smelled like a campfire and Monday morning the car smelled like a salmon smokehouse.