Travel – Page 3

February 18, 2024March 15, 2024

Time Flies but Still It’s Winter

As I’m writing this post the snows have returned.

Not as deep as before, but there is still some shovel work required. We understand it’s winter and yet days under gray sky seem more numerous this year than any in the past.

We don’t lament the inevitable and in fact look forward to a seasonal shift. It has been common in Central Oregon for snowy winter days to be followed by sun and blue sky. Usually in equal amounts.

Not this year.

The week didn’t start with snow on the ground. Mid-February started with a spring-like feel.

It’s referred to as false spring, but regardless, we took advantage and headed to Maupin to spend the day on the Deschutes.

Rivers remain swollen from January’s melted snows so the fishing wasn’t great.

However, the day was sunny and temperatures pushed into the fifties. We sat up chairs on river’s edge, enjoyed the day and waited for winter to return.

We didn’t have long to wait.

December 3, 2023December 2, 2023

Layers of Color

It has been some time since we visited Painted Hills, so this week we spent a day walking trails and taking pictures, very touristy of us.

The Painted Hills Unit gets a lot of hype on the internet . . . heck, it’s listed as one of the 7 Wonders of Oregon.

We are regular visitors to all the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument ‘units’. But this is perhaps our most photographed.

The stratification that gives the “hills’ distinct layers presents differently depending on the season, as well as time of day.

Our afternoon visit was on a clear day, but there had been a week of rain.

These elements combined to offer some very photogenic views.

Even a quick swing into the Painted Hills is worth the time. As such, it gets worked into many different road trips. Frequent readers of the blog will recognize that.

Usually these excursions are short photo sorties to an overlook about a mile in from the junction of Burnt Ranch and Bear Creek roads.

We expanded that typical visit this week with some trail walks past other exibit areas.

Took a quick pass around a fenced off mound of leaf fossils.

We’re kind of leaf fossil snobs, you see we dug samples when you could still just park at Fossil High School and collect.

Spent a bit more time on the out and back trail at Red Hill.

Not as visually stunning as the overlook hills. It’s a lone mound of red capped with green.

There is a texture to the surface as well as color

It’s the surrounding landscape that gives the site an ancient look. Did manage to find a lot of photo ops.

We enjoyed ourselves to the point of skipping a trip to Tiger Brewing in Mitchell, so as to avoid night driving. Will be swinging back here again.

November 12, 2023June 4, 2024

Fall Color

Before fall gets covered with snow, we figured it was a good time to locate some color.

The high desert isn’t devoid of deciduous trees. It’s forested hills put on a nice show of seasonal change. However, the journey down into the Willamette Valley offers broader strokes of color dotting the foothills.

A majority of ‘places to see fall color in Oregon‘ are on the Cascade Range’s west side. I think it’s an elevation difference. Regardless, the west side was drenched in warm tones.

On top of that our weather apps pointed out a high probability of rain, so it became a perfect time to do a road trip.

And by road trip, I mean we’re mostly going to be driving, not stopping to say, wet a line. This type of adventure is more a historical marker, regular dog walk and picture op stopping day.

We got going early to make it through Sisters and up Santiam Pass (Hwy 20). The plan was to loop back via Willamette Pass (Hwy 58).

In between these two mountian treks was a stop at the Willamette Valley Pie Company.

Slices needed tasting and the freezer needed a restock. It would also be a good excuse to swing through Silver Falls State Park. That is, if there’s not a downpour like we experienced.

Along I-5 from Millersburg to Goshen the reds from oak trees and maples gets mixed in with yellows of cottonwood and ash.

These blobs of color frame the edges of fields still green from an ample supply of McKenzie and Willamette River water. Not ones to choose freeway miles, this is a stretch we’ve driven often.

We never grow tired of the view.

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.