Travel – Page 3

October 29, 2023October 27, 2023

A Game of Cards on the John Day

There are folks that aspire to primitive methods when camping . . that is not us.

We booked a cabin at Cottonwood Canyon State Park, roasted german sausages on a gas grill, and turned up the electric heater as the fall winds turned cold.

There are rock formations and sage, but very few trees.

Trails were hiked. Lines were wet and books were read.

However, every evening tables were pushed together and six of us engaged in a semi-friendly game of Contract Rummy. I never got all.

It’s interesting to me how many variations of rules there can be for such a simple rummy game. Our family has always played card games.

While this particular variation on rummy is ‘optimum’ for 4 people we’ve dealt hands to more than a dozen players after a large family meal.

The rules are simple enough for children to pick up. However, around the Schommer family table there might be rough language thrown about.

All in good humor, usually. And so it was this week when we met the Wilcox and Yecnys for a two day stay beside the John Day River.

Cottonwood Canyon and the John Day River

We’ve mentioned Cottonwood Canyon State Park before in this blog, but as with all good places there are frequent return visits.

The site is on a lower stretch of Oregon’s only un-dammed river, sitting on a flat between a couple of rock, sage and prairie grass covered hills.

The camp sites are spacious, so RV’s aren’t stacked like parking slips at Walmart. We always choose the cabins, they offer amenities like electric lights, heat and air conditioning.

I think this would be considered Glamping, and we love it.

Canyon walls hit with the first light of day

These two days the cabin also offered shelter from the winds, as well as a good space to sit six people for a meal and afterwards a game of cards.

A good time was had by all.

October 8, 2023October 12, 2023

Apple Season

There are seventy-five hundred varieties of apples in the world, a third of these get grown in the United States. If you are still picking up Red Delicious at the grocery you’re missing . . . a lot . . . of great apples.

Now most of these varieties come from crosses of heirloom trees and their differences lay mostly in minute fluctuations in sweetness. It is also worth noting, how very difficult it would be to find samples of all apple varieties in any one place.

Fruit trees are regionally specific, but the Pacific Northwest is a major player in apple production.

There aren’t many types of fruit that offer this level of variety. Nor, perhaps, share the apples level of popularity.

In recent years the types of apples you’d find at a local grocer has expanded. To some degree this is being pushed by a more global market.

However, family orchards, like you find on the hills above Hood River, have done their part in the propagation of old and introduction of new apple types, as well as other fruit varieties.

Hillsides filled with orchards and exposure to so many different types of fruit is the reason we drive to the Hood River a few times every Fall.

The Kiyokawa Family Orchard grows around a hundred varieties of apples, from Akane to Zestar, most of which won’t show-up in the produce aisle at your local grocer.

There’s also a couple dozen different types of pears . . . Anjou to Warren, and again lots of unique names. At any given point in the season there will be thirty different boxes and bins of tree ripened fruit to choose from.

Still room for some more fruit in that bag

What is ready for sale sits in a ring of wooden racks supporting boxes loaded with fruit and wearing placards noting sweetness level and some tasting notes. You buy a container (bag or box) sized to meet your needs and then fill that bag from any of the available boxes.

We chose the standard bag which held a couple dozen apples and half a dozen pears. This translated into six different apple varieties and two different kinds of pears. We also picked up a couple of small bins of plums, most of which were devoured on the trip back over the mountain to home.

Is it really fall before you fill a bag with fresh apples grown on the hills overlooking the Columbia River?

. . . I don’t think so.

October 1, 2023September 30, 2023

Covered Bridges

On a recent trip we passed an intriguing landmark.

We frequently use OR 58 and Willamette Pass to get over the mountains. A route that takes us right by an educational covered bridge.

The Lowell Covered Bridge, over Dexter Reservoir, doesn’t carry traffic, but houses an interpretive center.

Timber structure that is the bridge under the ‘covered’ part.

The building or cover over a bridge was to prolong the life of its rough sawn timber structure. As bridge building moved to weather resistant materials, the covers were left off.

A shell over rough sawn timber is evident from inside the bridge

Oregon has fifty-four covered bridges, the most of any state west of the Mississippi. But this is less a testimony to a cover’s protection, and more a matter of sentiment.

Most of these historical landmarks are located on the west side of the Cascades. Lane County having the most.

It would be easy to visit nearly all in a single trip. Maybe next year.

Lowell bridge was orginally built in 1907, replaced in 1945, added to the national register in 1979, closed to traffic in 1981, and refurbished in 2006.

The cover portion of the bridge is where you’ll find the interpretive center with backlit panels explaining covered bridge history, a model of the Lowell Bridge and information on the early settlement in the Willamette River Valley.

Pedestrian traffic is all that is allowed on the bridge these days.

This day was a bit rainy, but there is a great picnic spot which we’ll take advantage of on a better day.

September 10, 2023October 11, 2023

Stone Fruit & Steelhead

Rest stop outside Warm Springs, under an ancient pear tree

Finally . . . a break from wildfire smoke. With that, we headed outside.

The Fruit Loop is a semi-regular daytrip for us and this seemed like a good time to check it out. With a not too early start, we head to orchard country above Hood River, the city.

The intent . . . pick up tree ripened stone fruit.

Apple harvest is getting close. As we drive through the orchards we pass rows of trees ladened with fruit. It is worth the trip just for this image.

The bonus, however, is fruit stand shelves with half a dozen peach varieties and easily twice that in plums.

Choices were made.

Heading out from Parkdale the road cuts at right angles back through the orchards to Highway 35. We merge onto I-84 and a short jaunt up the Columbia Gorge.

At the far edge of The Dalles we catch US197 and climb hills though cherry orchards and freshly combined wheat fields. Well past Dufer, we drop into the Tygh Valley, turn onto OR 216 and end in the Upper Deschutes Canyon at Sherars Falls.

We’re here to check on the the steelhead run. This fisherman saw no Steelhead, hooked no fish, but did enjoy the walk along the river.

Temperatures were pleasantly below August heat. Rafters had all but vanished from the river, along with most campers.

We set out chairs on river’s edge in the shade of our favorite Ash tree. Tip got some final swims and a cold beverage, or two, was consumed.

Blackbilled Magpie soars over the Deschutes

In all . . . a very pleasant way to spend a day

April 30, 2023April 29, 2023

Birding

White-fronted geese trail behind two Sandhill Cranes

This week Central Oregon skipped spring and went straight to summer. Not complaining, but it was an abrupt shift in weather and attitude.

We’re long overdue for a Summer Lake trip, so we loaded up the bird books and headed east.

It might be a bit cliche . . . turn seventy and post a piece on birding. Is that too much, old guy? In between trips to the river, which by the way are great places to bird, we do regular bird-centric excursions.

Over the years we’ve sat, eyes pinned to lenses, along a lot of different marshes. Living on the northern edge of the Great Basin puts us close to a few stopovers on the Pacific Flyway. One of the best, in our opinion, is Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge.

Unlike wildlife areas with better ‘press,’ Summer Lake never disappoints. Here we squint across a hundreds of yards of field. The loop road, often just a couple of tire ruts along the top of a dike, allows for great birding opportunities.

It was an unseasonably warm spring day, perfect time to catch the first round of migratory birds moving across the country. Some will spend weeks, others will move on in a few days.

The great thing is they never cease to amuse; like an acrobatic yellow-headed black bird bouncing from stalk to stalk, or Clark’s Grebes hunting a secluded section of the pond.

There is another visit scheduled for later this spring, well before the summer heat.