Mini vacation to Rocky Point

Yesterday morning Emma and I headed out in the car for the 175 mile drive to Rocky Point, OR, to visit Sue and Mo.  They had invited us to stay in the cabin on their property there during my three days off this week. 

The top two pics are of the front and back of the cabin nestled in the pine/fir forest.  This is more like staying at the Holiday Inn, only with the wonderful peace and quiet of the Oregon woods.  The bottom pics are of their home, some of the wonderful plantings and the spacious back yard.

I figured we’d just visit for the first afternoon after arrival, but Sue had something else in mind.  Remember when I had my first ever try at kayaking for 15 minutes at Imperial NWR last winter?  Well Sue wanted me to experience a longer paddle up here in the north.

After they loaded up the kayaks, we drove only a couple of blocks away to the Rocky Point Public Boat Launch.  The first order of business was getting me out on the water which required some help for me since I really have no experience.  I actually made it out onto the water without falling in.

Can you believe how glassy smooth the water was?  It seemed almost perfect weather for my maiden voyage.  The only downer was the heavy smoke covering the mountains from the fires in California.

After first heading north on Recreation Creek, we decided to turn around and head south toward Pelican Bay.  I knew I couldn’t do nine miles on my first real trip to see a natural spring.  This was also the maiden voyage for little pipsqueak Mattie in a kayak.  She had the cutest little orange life vest on, and really did well sitting in the boat with Mo.  It never even crossed my mind once to try to take Emma on an outing like this.  I would have been in the drink for sure!

At times, I struggled to keep up, but eventually I think I found my stride.  Kayaking is a bit different than paddling a canoe.  The mountains across the bay really reminded me of the Great Smoky Mountains.  What a shame that there is such a huge fire in California.

As we paddled along, Sue kept telling me that it wasn’t that far to Harriman Spring.  She and Mo seemed to just glide through the water, while I struggled to find my rhythm.  About the time I was ready to head back, she said it was just around the bend.  Yeah, right!  I think it was several bends, but I’m glad I didn’t quit.  The water near Harriman spring was incredibly clear, but also incredibly cold.  You couldn’t leave your hand in it for more than a minute.  Nothing like those springs that Sherry writes about in Florida.

As we headed back toward the launch site we encountered a little rain, but I just had a smile on my face thinking about how lucky I was to have some good friends give me this wonderful afternoon.

Back at the ranch, we sat outside and just enjoyed the warm weather.  Both Emma and Mattie had innocent smiles on their faces.  Little did we know what was about to ensue.

It was like the doggie version of the World Wrestling Federation.  Not wishing to take advantage of her size, Emma even came down to little Mattie’s level so things were more evenly balanced.  There was a lot of gnashing of teeth, but it was really just a lot of play.  It wore those two girls right out.

It was a super first day of my mini vacation.  Today Sue and I went on another little excursion, but I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post.  I’ll have to head back to the rig tomorrow, but what a holiday this has been!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Trivial pursuits of the mind

With only two weeks to go at this assignment, I’m getting my usual anxiousness about moving on.  I’m anxious to move one, but also anxious about the journey involved.  Long time readers know the actual driving from place to place is not one of my favorite things.  I need to keep my mind busy as the days roll down so I don’t center on the possible catastrophes and challenges that seem to inevitably plague me. 

To that end, happily my good friend Bugman Jack decided to spend a week at Jojoba SKP RV Resort so he could provide me with some pictures of the site where I’ll be living this winter.  Google Earth pictures are nice, but seeing the actual site from ground level was better.  I had accepted this site without ever even seeing it in person.

That’s it… site 228.  Looks like it even comes with a bird feeder and little bird house on the fence.  A couple of bushes too.  The gal in the office told me that she thought it only had a couple of paver blocks.

I think this will pretty much be my view from the patio as I look out towards the mountains.  Not too shabby.  At least I don’t have another rig directly in front of me blocking the view.  I’ll be up on one of the tiers.

It is a pull through site.  Each site in the park has an 8X30’ patio, and a storage shed.  You can see the site delineation line by the change in gravel types.  I think my site goes to that big rock on the left.  I can sort of picture chairs and a table with an umbrella on the terra cotta colored pavers to the left of the cement patio.  I think I’ll enjoy that view to the northeast.  See that tree behind and to the right of the big rock?

It turns out it’s an orange tree.  What a bonus!  Now I’m thinking I’d like to put in a lemon tree as well.  I even know someone in the park who might mentor me on how to best take care of it.  I see fresh squeezed orange juice in my future!  I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but at least it keeps my mind busy.

After working the overlook the last two days, I also did my nesting seabird presentation last night for the campers in the park.  It was the fifth time I did it, and we certainly had a lot of fun.  I even had a number of the folks that attended the program visit me today down at the overlook.  They were thrilled to see the birds that I had talked about.  Only one more of those presentations to do before I put the pedal to the metal.    Yep, I’m in counting down mode now.

When I got back to the rig from the overlook today, I had another little mystery appear while I was gone to keep me thinking.

There was this fresh, moist, and rather large pile of soil just before my steps.  What the heck?  Where did this come from?  It wasn’t there when I left about 9:00.  When I opened up the door to the rig and brought Emma out, she immediately started sniffing it and scratching around in it.  That confirmed to me that I hadn’t missed it earlier this morning.

Then, both Emma and I noticed this large bulge under the new outside rug.  That wasn’t there this morning either.  I was almost afraid to touch it with my foot… fearing some animal might be under it.

Eventually I got up the gumption to pull the rug back and take a look.  It was another pile of wet soil.  We’ve only had two little sprinkles of rain in the over two months I’ve been here.  The rug wasn’t torn up or moved or anything.  There was just that big bulge.  I have no idea what kind of varmint could have caused these big mounds.  Just something else for me to think about, I guess.

Tomorrow after work, I’ll be trying to figure out what to pack for a little three day visit that Emma and I are going to make to visit Sue and Mo in Rocky Point.  I can almost count on one hand the number of times in the last nine years that I have had to pack for a trip away from the rig.  It’ll be another one of those trivial pursuits of the mind to keep me busy, and boy am I ever looking forward to this ‘distraction’!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

The stars seemed to have aligned in the correct position

You may remember that my time here volunteering for Oregon Islands NWR is supposed to end mid August.  I’ve been thinking about how I could extend my time here (with no birds to show visitors) or possibly move up to Bandon NWR until at least through the Labor Day weekend.  It’s still too danged hot to think about going to Jojoba in southern California in a little over two weeks.

All of tonight’s photos are taken by either Avery or Phoebe on our hike last week on the Moorman Grove trail in the redwoods of Prairie Creek State Park.  Avery took the photos on the way in, and Phoebe on the hike out.  I gave them my little power shot camera to use on the hike.  It’s kind of interesting to see what a seven and five year old think is photo worthy.

For some reason, I’ve been a little reluctant to email the volunteer coordinator about it.  I’ve enjoyed this assignment, but I’m beginning to feel it’s time to move on.  So on Sunday night I decided to check out the volunteer.gov website and look for anything that might be available in northern California.  I think California has the most listings of any state.  There was only one Fish and Wildlife Service listing though, and it was three or four pages in.  Back in February Tule Lake NWR was looking for a volunteer for the summer season.  There is only one RV site at this refuge complex, and what would be the chances that they were looking for someone in the middle of August?

Well, I gave them a call yesterday morning, and, as you may have guessed, they were happy I called.  It turns out there is no one in the site, and the volunteer coordinator will be leaving August 20 for a new position in Wisconsin.  She was quite excited when I told her about my experience at 13 other refuges.

Yes, there will be some work in the Visitors Center, but she then asked if I’d be interested in doing a weekly bird survey in two refuges in the complex.  I told her I’d have to think about that…NOT!  I’ll be there at least through September, and maybe into October.  Just in time for the fall waterfowl migration.  Yes, I think the stars were all in alignment yesterday, and I even got to see them last night.  That doesn’t happen too often along the coast.

                                                                              THE END!!

                              That little Avery just might be a chip off the old Grandma Belt’s block.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

The visit

Thursday, after my stint at the overlook, I drove Robyn and the grandgirls back to Medford to a Holiday Inn.  They stayed there overnight before departing back to Chicago on a flight that left at 6:00 in the morning on Friday.  It takes a good two and a half hours to get to the airport from Harris Beach, so there was no way we were going to make that challenging drive on 199 in the middle of the night.  Their visit was kind of brief, but jam-packed with things to remember.

When I picked them up at the airport last Sunday around noon, they had already had a long day what with leaving Chicago very early and traversing two time zones.  The trip back to the rig was to take us close to five hours since we made a couple of stops along the way.  First stop was for a late lunch at She-She’s Diner in Gasquet, CA.  It was just plain awful… way over priced, and the food and service was lacking.  Thankfully, that was the worst part of the day.

We also stopped at Jedediah Smith State Park to take a walk in the redwood forest.  That calmed everyone’s nerves, and we were even able to find the exact same tree that I had hugged when I visited there with Jack a couple of weeks ago.  I guess that means this tree has had a three generation hug from us.    Once we got back to the rig, the grandgirls picked their first ever wild blackberries, and of course had to share a couple with ‘Emma the Dog’.  By the time the sun set, the girls literally passed out in my bed.  How refreshing!

Monday was reserved for a leisurely day at the beach so everyone could catch up on their jet lag.  It was a first time in the Pacific Ocean for Avery and Phoebe.  Just like every other youngster I’ve watched from the overlook, the girls immediately dove into the soft warm sand.  Robyn had lathered the girls with sunscreen before we got there, but never guessed that Avery would get two crescent moon shaped sunburn areas where her swimsuit rode up on her cheeks. 

Tuesday, we packed a picnic lunch and headed down south into California to visit Prairie Creek State Park to spend another day with the giant, restful redwood trees.  At the picnic area, we let the girls pick where we would eat, and Phoebe found the best picnic bench in the whole area; right next to a magnificent redwood. (click on photo to enlarge so you can see it on the bottom left)

Then we went for a hike on one of the lesser used trails… Moorman Grove.  What a wonderful experience.  It was quiet with only the sound of a babbling brook, and we only ran into two other people.  We all saw our first banana slug.  The trail went up several switch backs and through a downed redwood.  I then chose to stop as there was a section of the trail that I thought was a bit too challenging for me with my walking problems.  I sat on a downed tree, and told them to go on.  I’d just wait as they continued on to find the pond and return. 

After a bit of waiting, I was getting thirsty, so I decided to take my time going back down to the car.  I didn’t want them to think I had just disappeared, so I made about a dozen arrows from fallen branches for them to follow.  I thought the grandgirls would get a kick out of that if they noticed them.  Well, eagle eye Avery spotted the first one, and they were then on their way down the hill looking for more arrows.  I think this was my favorite day of their visit.

On Wednesday, we headed north to take the scenic byway to Port Orford.  US 101 along the Oregon Coast is surely a picturesque drive.  After lunch, which I’ve already posted about, we took a tour of the Point Blanco Lighthouse, and even found the crashed shrimp boat.  The Coast Guard had come out the day before to rescue four men from this downed boat.  When we got home, we packed up the sleeping bag and sheets and blankets so Robyn and the girls could spend their last night here in a yurt.  Phoebe took the top bunk, and Avery the bottom, and Robyn got to sleep by herself on the futon.  After a short girls only dance-a-thon, I headed back to the rig, and we all enjoyed a peaceful night of sleep.

Of course, in between all these day trips, both Avery and Phoebe earned their Junior Ranger Badges, made friends at the playground, attended several evening programs, visited, and the Apache Tear Stone escapade transpired.  As I’ve mentioned, it was five days filled with making many memories.  What a time we had!

                                                                              THE END!!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

A victorious birthday

Yes, I was thankful to be a year older when I awoke this morning.  Sure beats looking at the wrong side of the grass!  I even have a couple of firsts to report on the celebration of my birth day.  We all headed out this morning for a drive up the Oregon coast to view the spectacular scenery, and to end up in Port Orford to meet fellow fulltimers Gordon and Juanita for lunch at The Crazy Norwegian’s.  It’s been five years since our paths have crossed, and it was a good time catching up on our experiences.

Robyn treated me to lunch, so I ordered fish and chips with a bowl of clam chowder.  The clam chowder was a first for me, and I have to say that I enjoyed it.  I wasn’t sure I would.  I just couldn’t figure out one flavor that was in the chowder.  I know each place has their own special way of making chowder, so I may just have to try it again to figure out that distinctive taste.

It was late afternoon before we got back to the rig, and time for me to get the NY BBQ chicken ready for the grill.  It’s a favorite of mine, and I served it with Waldorf salad.  (I’m really not a foodie, but today was a delicious day.)  Then came the biggest and most appreciated birthday gift of the day; Robyn did the dishes.  What a treat for me.

However, the victorious part of the day came very early this morning before anyone else was awake.  I took Emma for her early outs, and after ‘piddling’ along the road as usual, we returned to the rig.  As is customary, she then really got down to business.  Yesterday, Robyn and I went through two piles looking for that elusive Apache Tear stone with no success.  Our investigative procedure was one of her thinking (she did attend nursing school, you know).  We used small sticks to mush through the evidence while holding our breath. 

This morning, I was more inclined to try the method suggested by a commenter on my last post.  “The Squish the Bag” approach.  Put the dump into a doggy poop bag, hold the top closed, and squish the contents to see if there is anything resembling a stone in it.  You don’t have to hold your breath with this method.    And as you may have guessed, out popped the Apache Tear at the top of the bag!

After washing and disinfecting the stone, it was no worse for wear going through Emma’s insides.  I also checked out what another commenter taught me about how to test if it is an authentic Apache Tear.  I held it up to the sunlight, and sure enough, you could almost see through the stone, and the ‘tear’ appeared.

The stone has been returned into its tiny little basket along with a small agate that Avery got from one of the rangers at an evening presentation.  I hope this necklace with its tiny precious gifts inside will give joy to Avery for a long time. 

I’m not sure I know of anyone else that thought the best part of their birthday celebration was a result of their sifting through scat…

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

An ‘Emma’ kind of day

My daughter Robyn and the grandgirls have arrived, and we’ve been busy, busy, busy.  Didn’t figure I’d post until they headed back to Chicago, but today was one of those days that I just couldn’t resist telling about.  Emma may be getting older, but today proved she still has a ‘wild child’ streak in her.  Of course, her escapades today involved both Phoebe and Avery (the grandgirls).

The day started out innocently enough with a hearty scrambled eggs and blueberry bread breakfast.  Then the girls headed over to the Junior Ranger yurt to have their first training session.  Avery, aged 7 1/2, is most interested in becoming a certified junior ranger.  Phoebe, almost 6, not so much. 

The plan was for them to come back, have lunch, and then we’d head for the beach for the afternoon.  We had lunch, they got their swimsuits on, and waited outside while I brought Emma back into the rig.  Then Phoebe came back in to ask me a question, and left the door open as she went out.  I couldn’t quite get to the door quick enough before Emma saw her portal to freedom.  Yep, she literally flew out the door and was on her way down the road. 

                                               (All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth)

Then all of us, excluding Phoebe, were on a mad dash down the road to try to retrieve Emma.  Eventually we caught up to her, and Avery said, “Wow, that was sure a ‘quick’ walk for Emma!”  Ha!  Seemed like an eternity for me, but was probably only about three minutes.

Earlier in the day, Avery had taken quite a liking to a hand crocheted necklace that I had hanging on my refrigerator.  It was given to me by some fellow volunteers about five years ago.  It has that little woven basket at the bottom, and contained a little black stone that I was told was an Indian Tear.  (It actually may have been called a Navaho Tear, but I can’t remember for sure.)  Avery was just thrilled as I told her she could have it.  She wore it all day, and told everyone she met about it.

Then this evening as we were having a ‘hang-out’ on Robyn’s phone with my oldest son, Daniel, Avery showed the necklace to him and took out the tiny Indian Tear stone that she was so proud of.  It somehow popped out of her hand and dropped to the ground.  At the time, we were making some melted chocolate and marshmallow treats over an open fire, and Emma’s nose was working overtime.  I’m sure she figured the little stone was a treat.  You’ve probably guessed, that as we all grabbed for the stone, Emma licked it up and swallowed it before our very eyes!  Avery was devastated, and was afraid I would be mad that she had lost that special stone.  Well, I could only look at the situation and just laugh out loud.  It was just so comical to watch as Emma innocently swallowed, and couldn’t figure out why we all had our hands in her mouth. 

Now, here’s my dilemma.  Do I try to sift through you know what to try to retrieve that precious stone for my grandgirl??? 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Contemplating the not too distant future

Well, I’ve been at Harris Beach a little over two months now, and the original plan was for me to leave in another month.  I’m thinking the middle of August just might be a little early in the year to be heading for southern California, although I’m more than anxious to see what my site at Jojoba Hills looks like in person.  I think I’ll see if the park here would mind if I stayed until after Labor Day. 

Being in between visitors, I’ve had plenty of time to think about my upcoming winter plans.  I’ve got lots of questions floating around in my brain.  For the last nine years I’ve done an awful lot of volunteering where all of my utilities are paid for.  In between volunteer stints, I generally stay at private parks or COE campgrounds where electricity is included in the nightly or weekly fee.  Now I have to think about having metered electricity.

I wonder what it will cost per month.  I’m a real newbie in that department.  The going rate at Jojoba is .21 cents per KWH.  I’m not sure if that means 21 cents per KWH or 21/100ths of a cent per KWH.  I’m not even sure what a KWH is and how amps used to power things relates to that.  I have figured out that running the air conditioner uses 14 amps while using the heat pump uses 20-24 amps.  I don’t know why they’re different since they use the same machine.  Does anyone know if budgeting $100/month for a 50 amp rig is reasonable?  I do like to be cool in hot weather, and warm in chilly weather these days, so I’m sure I’ll use more electricity than I would have say five years ago.

I had an unusual avian visitor at the overlook the other day.  I think it was a racing pigeon that somehow got off course or tired out.  There is a band on its left leg.  It just sat there resting for the longest time until some kids climbed up the steep rock to scare it away.  Made me wonder where it came from, and where it was supposed to go.

Then on another work day, I got the treat of seeing a male orange-crowned warbler singing away in the bushiness below my station. 

What a surprise to have it pop out into the sunlight and pose for me.  They’re normally moving along so fast in the undergrowth that you only get fleeting glimpses, and never before have I actually seen the orange feathers that are usually hidden on its crown.  These warblers that live along the coast are also much more yellow than the populations found inland.

I suppose he was just taking a moment to beautify himself for the ladies, and didn’t expect anyone to be watching him from above. 

I’ve got two more days of work ahead of me before I hop in the car to drive to Medford, OR, to pick up Robyn and the grandgirls at the airport.  I’m excited about their visit.  It seems every time either of these two little whippersnappers come to visit some minor little thing in the rig gets broken.  I wonder what it will be this time…

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy