Meandering on the Way

Tuesday, January 27th

We didn’t get much sleep last night. We had to get up at 2:00 AM to catch an early flight from Eugene to Salt Lake City, the first leg of our trip to New Mexico. Once fully awake, we piled our bags into the back of the truck and set off at 2:30 through a very quiet town, headed for Highway 99. It was going to be a long day. We’d planned it that way. Because we are idiots.

The actual flying was the easiest part. Both legs of the trip were in smallish planes, Brazilian-made Embraer 175’s with lots of legroom and only two seats on each side of the aisle. The weather was clear and the sights out the window were spectacular, especially on the flight south from SLC to Albuquerque. We arrived in Albuquerque around noon, picked up a rental car and got on the road again, heading for Alamogordo, where we planned to spend the night.

Along the way, we came to this New Mexico style rest area.

By the time we got to Alamogordo around 5:00, it was a little late for any touristy activities. We didn’t have the strength anyway. We checked in to our motel, made a brief visit to a grocery store, and had a light in-room supper. Whew!

Wednesday, January 28th

In the morning we drove 30 miles back up Highway 54 to a place where three or four low mounds rise up from the mostly flat Tularosa Basin. At the top of each mound there are basalt outcroppings, the perfect spot to make petroglyphs. The area is called the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site and lies just a couple of miles east of the highway near the base of the Sacramento Mountains. The petroglyphs at the site are from the period 900 to 1400 AD and are thought to be the work of the Jornada Mogollon people. The present day Mescalero Apache Reservation is in roughly the same general area, but it is located higher up in the mountains to the east. On the west side of Hwy 54 the land is dry, flat, and empty. There were some ranches there once, but the residents were removed in 1954 in order to create the US Army’s White Sands Missile Range.

In the afternoon we went out to see White Sands National Park, which is just a few miles south of Alamogordo. The desert was beautiful but not very hospitable. There’d been a snow storm just a few days before. We visited a section that included scattered vegetation. Other parts of the Park are pure gypsum sand in constantly shifting dunes. These are the largest gypsum dune fields in the world. But maybe not the largest in the universe; it looks like there are some pretty big ones on Mars.

For dinner we went to Rizo’s, which was a hard place to find because their sign was broken. Their food wasn’t broken though, not at all. M had the best chile verde that he’d tasted since the seventies. And E was thoroughly pleased with her shrimp fajitas. As we were leaving we chatted a bit with the owners, who had moved here from California 20 years ago.

Thursday, January 29th

We’d accomplished our main goals–glyphs, white sand, and fine food–but as we were leaving Alamogordo, we dropped in to the local historical museum. The collection includes a very rare United States flag that has just 47 stars. New Mexico became the 47th U.S. state on January 6th, 1914. Arizona became the 48th state on February 14th of that same year. According to the Flag Act of 1818, a new flag can be introduced only once a year–on the Fourth of July. Thus, the next new official flag had 48 stars. But it seems that at least a few 47 star flags were produced. And if you wanted, you could own one!

From Alamogordo, whose name means fat poplar, we took Highway 82 east on our way to Carlsbad. This was a very beautiful stretch of road, climbing steeply up from the Tularosa basin to a place called Cloudcroft at an altitude of 8,676 feet (2,644 m). From there, the road descends gradually out of the mountains and onto the western end of the Permian Basin. Taken as a whole, the Permian Basin covers 86,000 square miles (220,000 km) and is the most productive oil field in the United Sates. It is mostly in Texas, but as you see below, it also includes a chunk of southeastern New Mexico.

Our lovely Highway 82 ended at the oil town of Artesia, NM, which is just 65 miles north of Carlsbad. We turned right and headed south on Hwy 285, passing lots of working pumpjacks along the way.

In Carlsbad we stayed in a nice Fairfield Inn on the south end of town. A quick search for nearby restaurants revealed an option called Mariscos Bochon. Hmm. That sounded pretty interesting. So off we went, only to discover that this place was even harder to find than the restaurant back in Alamogordo, especially in the dark. We got there though, and stepped inside. The smallish dining area was mostly empty; there were just two or three people seated at a table near the back. One of these turned out to be our waitress, who got up to welcome us and give us some menus. When she came back to take our orders, it became clear that she did not speak English. This was a little bit of a surprise. Most of the people we had talked to in New Mexico–Hispanic looking or not–were in fact U.S. natives who spoke English as well as we did. So it was kind of fun to have to use a little Spanish. E got a ceviche tostada with avocado slices; M got drunken tacos.

Friday, January 30th

This morning, in bright sunlight, we took a photo of the Mariscos Bochon restaurant.

But never mind that. Today we saw the Carlsbad Caverns. That was quite a deal. To get there we took the highway south toward Texas. The land on our left was flat and endless. To our right were the beginnings of some low mountains. Eventually we saw the sign for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We turned right onto a road that went up into the mountains, eventually taking us right up to the top of one of them. There we found the park visitor center along with a giant parking lot. On this day, the lot was mostly empty.

Near the visitor’s center, just below the very top of the mountain, we entered into what is called the “natural entrance” to the caverns. This entrance was “discovered” in 1898 by a teenager named Jim White, who explored the cavern using an oil lantern and a homemade wire ladder. 

From the entrance the cave runs very steeply downward to main floor of the caverns, 750 feet below. So, down we went.

It’s only 750 feet down from the entrance the main level, but the way down is almost vertical, so the trail is nothing but switchbacks. To descend 750 feet, you have to walk 1.2 miles. At that point you finally come to the main event, a more or less level cavern called The Big Room. To see it all of that, you have to walk the Big Room loop, which adds 2.6 more miles to your adventure. Wonders abound on the loop, far too many to include here.

Eventually we reached the end of the big loop. At that point there are restrooms and a snack bar. Sadly, the latter is not open in the off season. Joyfully, however, there is also an elevator. That took us back up 750 feet to the visitors center and into the more or less real world. We found our car, ate an energy bar or two, and started back down the mountain. Below is a view of the road down.

When we got back to where this road ends at its junction with Hwy 285, M stopped to check the elevation. His phone told him that he was at 3,650 feet. Back atop the mountain, the cave entrance is at 4400 feet. Math tells us that the difference between the two is 750 feet. This means that for anyone driving along the main highway, the Big Room is right at your level and not very far away. It just happens to be inside a partly hollow mountain. In the 1930’s, there was a proposal to make an automobile tunnel into the cave, which would have saved everyone a lot of trouble and eventually would have allowed us to have a Starbucks drive-through right inside the Big Room! Alas, some spoilsport nixed that idea.

Saturday, January 31st

A cold overcast day. We went to a place just a few miles north of Carlsbad called the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. It was beautiful out there, but there was a nasty wind and we had to hurry through the outdoor part. The animals looked like they were as unhappy about the weather as we were.

Sunday, February 1st

We spent much of today on the road, driving 275 miles from Carlsbad up to Albuquerque. We can confidently state that there is a lot of desert in eastern New Mexico. We went through Roswell, which looked like a nice town and is said to have a good art museum. Alas, that museum was closed, but the UFO museum was open and we almost went there. But in the end we just got some gas and moved on.

A hour later we went through Vaughn, a kind of modern ghost town. There were about a dozen long abandoned roadside businesses, mostly small ones, but also including this cafe and motel complex, which still has a for sale sign in the window.

We stopped just outside of Vaughn to eat our lunch. There was another abandoned business out there, a diesel repair shop whose sign had fallen off its posts.

Monday, February 2nd

We tried very hard to do something cultural in Albuquerque, but it didn’t happen. There are lots of good museums and other attractions there. But half of them are closed on Mondays, and it seems that all the rest were closed for renovations. (It really is off season here.) One thing we did learn is that the town did not really get organized until 1673. It was named in honor of the Duque de Albuquerque, a Spanish nobleman who was then serving as the Governor General of Mexico. Albuquerque was the name of the duke’s hometown in Spain where it meant white (albu) oak tree (querque). These are the same latin roots that form the scientific name for the white oaks of Oregon: Quercus alba.

In the morning we walked around the old town. It was very nice, clearly a touristy place but pretty quiet at this time of year. Beautiful tee-shirts. In the afternoon we went to a state park along the banks of the Rio Grande River. Lovely clear weather in these parts: below freezing at night but warming to the high fifties in the afternoon.

Tuesday, February 3rd

Time to fly home. But this time we didn’t have to get up so early. We left the hotel at 7:00 and got back to Corvallis by 3:00 in the afternoon. We live on Oak Avenue in Corvallis, so in a way it was like traveling from one Quercus alba place to another. It wasn’t a direct flight though, we had a layover in Oakland, CA.

Wednesday, December 24th

We went up north and had dinner with A and A. The menu included coq au vin, potatoes pavé, mushroom soup with home made croutons, roasted carrots, and a rather extraordinary salad. Everything was awesome, including the blackberry pie for dessert.

As part of the festivities, we were required to pay homage to the restaurant manager, who, by chance, happened to be a hamster. Since hamsters are nocturnal, she was just waking up as we were finishing dinner. After some coaxing, she accepted a blueberry from E and then obliged us by taking a brief turn on the wheel and by having two good rolls in her sandbox bathing area. Excellent.

At the end of the evening, we went off to stay the night at a Best Western.

Thursday, December 25th

Before going back to A and A’s for present opening, we stopped at the motel breakfast room. There we saw three other couples about our age. It was hard not to think that maybe they were traveling for the same purpose and on the same schedule as we were. Back at the Andees’ we had a leisurely present opening ceremony. Besides our treeside presents, we got a bonus in the form of efficiently packed leftovers from the previous night’s meal.

We had a nice drive back from Portland. The rain held off and the I-5 traffic was light, with noticeably fewer semi trucks than normal.

Friday, December 26th

We made an evening meal of Christmas Eve leftovers today. If anyone wonders whether potatoes pavé can still be good after two days in the fridge, the answer is oh yes. And did we mention the pancetta, the mushrooms, the pearl onions all that other stuff in the coq au vin? They were all right too.

Sunday, December 28th

To restore the riparian habitat, thousands of native seeds and seedlings were planted along the creek in the late 2010’s. By now they are well established. Current restoration efforts are focused on the control of non-native plant species, including North Africa grass, Velvet grass, Reed Canary grass, Oneseed hawthorn, Common sheep sorrel, and Stinking chamomile. (Yeah! We don’t need no stinking chamomile!) Of the six, North Africa grass is considered to be the worst threat, as it can outcompete both native grasses and native flowering plants, resulting in decreased biodiversity. The fight against the non-natives will have to be an ongoing effort because some of them have been growing in the area for quite a while, creating long lasting seed banks in the soil. And as for Oneseed hawthorn…well, there’s a big stand of that on an adjacent property. That’ll keep them busy.

Stinking chamomile (Anthemis cotula) closely resembles true chamomile (Anthemis nobilis.) One way to tell the difference is to look for membraneous scales underneath the flowers: A. nobilis has them and A. cotula doesn’t. Another way to tell is that A. cotula smells terrible.

Tuesday, December 30th

A nice sunny day here, colder but beautiful. Last night we had our first real frost of the season. Hard to believe it took this long.

Wednesday, December 31st

Another sunny day. A good day to get outside and go snowshoeing mow the lawn. Sounds ridiculous to be mowing the grass on New Year’s Eve, but weather is weather and grass is grass. M wasn’t the only one in the neighborhood out taking advantage of the day.

Champagne and a new jigsaw puzzle kept us awake long enough to see in the new year.

Thursday , January 1st

New Year’s dinner with B, J and P at B and J’s place. More delicious food. Scalloped apples! Christmas cake! Lemon tarts! Emergency samosas from the Mother of Markets (as Roland used to say.)

Afterward, we worked more on the puzzle, which is a view of Neuschvanstein Castle. It’s beautiful, but pretty hard. Might take the rest of the year…

Sunday, November 30th

It was an unexpectedly lovely day today: a few little showers but then partly sunny. We went walking in one of the nicest–and strangest–places in our local forest. The trail starts from Soap Creek Road and takes a tour around the lower portion of Baker Creek. We’ll call it the Baker Creek Loop. Part of the route is in the OSU forest, but a portion of it leads into privately owned land. It’s not an official trail and is not well maintained. It is popular, though, and has always quite been passable, just a bit more challenging than the typical trails. We had been on it many times, but not in recent years.

At first the trail was just as we remembered. We followed it up a much overgrown logging road until we reached the site of a forty-year-old old landslide that had obliterated a big section of the road. From there, we took the detour that other hikers had created long ago. This is a rough, improvised trail that climbs steeply up the mountainside, traverses the width of the slide and then quickly drops back down to the roadbed. We were expecting this and it wasn’t all that hard. About a quarter mile farther on, however, we came to a completely new obstacle. We came to a place where a small stream had always flowed across the trail before flowing into Baker Creek. It had been a little messy sometimes, but never a problem. You just walked across on the driest part you could find. But now, a huge V-shaped trench had been dug across the roadbed. The little stream flowed at the bottom, five feet below the level of the trail. This gave us pause. To get across, we would have to scramble down one muddy bank, step lightly across the stream, and then scramble up the far bank. It wasn’t really what we had set out to do that day, but we guessed we’d have to try. It was fine.

But then, soon after that crossing, we came to another big gash in the road where another stream crossed the trail. This trench was even deeper and the sides were so steep that scrambling down was out of the question. We had to detour off the trail down a steep slope through the brush, find a safe place to step across the stream, and then scramble back up to the level of the trail again. Geez. After that we still had to cross Baker Creek itself. Here’s what that crossing looked like:

After we got across the main creek, things were pretty easy. Eventually we came to a real logging road that we knew would loop down to the place where we had started. Good. We had had enough adventuring.

Monday, December 1st

A has given us a very interesting advent calendar, one that includes a little fifty piece jigsaw puzzle for each of the twenty-four days. We did the first one today:

Tuesday, December 9th

E and A left today for Bozeman, Montana, where they will attend a memorial service for a longtime friend.

M remains at home to fetch the packages in from the front porch and to monitor an unusual event: the replacement of an eighty year old power pole and transformer located deep in our neighbors’ back yard. The electricity will be off for a few hours tomorrow, during which time M plans to power his computer via an extension cord plugged into the EV6.

Wednesday, December 10th

Thursday, December 11th

E returned today from Montana. As she was leaving Bozeman, she noticed this sign at the Alaska Airlines counter:

The funeral that E attended was for her friend Phil, who died recently at the age of 97. For much of his working life, Phil worked in ski patrol, first at Mt. Batchelor here in Oregon and later–when Bend got too crowded for his taste–at Big Sky Resort in Montana. A specialist in emergency medicine, Phil remained in the Big Sky patrol until he was nearly 90 years old. Mountain Outlaw Magazine made a short video feature about Phil in 2017. At that time he was thought to be the oldest active ski patroller in the country.

On Wednesday morning the Big Sky Ski Patrol organized a memorial for Phil, his final trip down the hill. His patroller friends and other mourners went to the top of the mountain and skied down together, spreading his ashes as they went. At the evening service several people told stories, including one about the time Phil was driving home off a mountain in his Subaru and struck a bad patch of ice. His long slide ended with the Subaru turned over on its side, passenger side down, with Phil still belted into his seat on the driver’s side, which was now quite high in the air. Three of his fellow patrollers came along soon after and figured that the old timer needed some help. They went over to the car and started talking about how they were going to get him out of the car. Phil rolled down his window and said that he didn’t need to get out. He was just waiting for someone to turn the car back onto its wheels so he could get home. When they’d done that, Phil rolled up the window and drove away.

Friday, December 12th

We have to say that the last months have been a somber time for us. We are both fine–as well as can be expected–but cold winds swirl around us. Since May we have lost three friends, all of whom were points of light for us. And now two more people that we care about appear to be on the threshold. Not a happy time.

From our living room window we can see hundreds of blossoms on the Mexican orange plant. It may be trying to tell us something. We’re not sure we’re in the mood to listen.

Of course it is still Christmastime. Besides traveling to funerals and watching poles get changed, we’ve got a little tree up and running and managed to complete most of our shopping. Plus, we’ve done exactly half of our advent jigsaw.

Saturday, Nov. 8th

Today we went out for a “Woodpecker Walk” organized by the Greenbelt Land Trust at Bald Hill Farm. Many years ago Greenbelt started working to turn a portion of its core property into a flourishing oak savannah, a kind of habitat that supports hundreds of species, both vertebrate and invertebrate. The most visible of these are acorn woodpeckers, which are now plentiful on the Farm. At the start of the walk, we were told that Lewis woodpeckers have also been seen this year. The Lewis variety is less common and in some years none are seen at all. Our guides were hoping that our group would be able to catch sight of both species.

We also saw lots of acorn woodpeckers and learned about their granaries. The birds make their granaries on dead limbs and snags, pecking acorn sized holes in the wood and then pushing a single acorn into each cavity for storage.

Bald Hill Farm is also home to sapsuckers, who are another sort of woodpecker. Here’s an image that shows how generations of sapsuckers have fed from the trunk of this very old pear tree. The dark horizontal lines are actually rows of closely spaced feeding holes.

Tuesday, Nov. 11th

We went over to the coast today and walked through Mike Miller Park just south of Newport. The forecast had called for clouds, but it turned out to be mostly sunny. It’s high season for mushrooms over there, and we met several gatherers, including a jolly elf woman carrying a basket that she had filled with an assortment of both mushrooms and lichens. She was not hunting edibles but instead was collecting for the purpose of making natural dyes. (See, for example, these mushroom dyed yarns from Sweden.)

We were just collecting a few photos.

Later we drove along Nye Beach and stopped to have a look down at the ocean from Davis Park . The wind was brisk from out of the south, as you can see in the clip below.

For dinner we went to Local Ocean. As usual, we had a fine meal. We found, though, that their prices have gone up some. We stayed away from the high end entrees. Instead, E had a $25 dollar salad and M a $25 sandwich, both of which were delicious. We drank beer, which was $7 a glass but also good. The wines on offer were all in the range of $15-21 a glass. With tip added, that’s $18-25, which seems excessive for a glass of wine–even in today’s world.

Wednesday, Nov. 12th

On our way back to Corvallis we stopped at Moonshine Park, a fairly remote Lincoln County park and campground. To get there we drove 8 miles east from Siletz to Logsden, then 5 or 6 miles north from there. The sign that shows the turn-off to the park is easy to spot , which is good because if you just keep going straight, the next civilization you will see will be either Kings Valley or Falls City, and that’s assuming that you ever manage to find your way out of the forest at all. (Ha-ha, just kidding.)

Saturday, Nov. 15th

Rumor has it that E has entered into negotiations to buy a bicycle. Our crack investigative team is even now attempting to get more details. (It might take a while, though, as our team members have slowed down a little over the years.)

We had dinner this evening at Corazon. Sigh. They have lost their charm for us. Our meals were “interesting” which is code for “different but not very good.” Do they have a new chef? But at least we could have some wine. That was very good and they charged us roughly half the price of that other place.

Monday, October 20th

Our Monday was busy again. It began with both of us going off to our respective grocery stores and then spending some time on our respective exercise routines–a walk in the forest for E and some sod chopping for M. We got back together for lunch, after which we drove off to see the new Starbucks. Doesn’t that sound exciting!

Our town’s two oldest Starbucks both recently shut down, causing one long-time customer to write a grouchy letter to the newspaper. The new Starbucks occupies the site of an old Taco Time where we used to go for lunch. Did they retain the arched doorway and the cactus? Uh…no. Also: Was it nice inside? Sure, it’s all in shades of brown, but it’s prettier than the old Taco Time. Was the coffee good? E was very pleased with her mocha. We saw that they had bagels. We wanted to ask if they served them with cups half full of melted butter for dunking, but we didn’t.

Later In the afternoon E went to the dentist, thus raising the day’s most critical question: Would she get a mini-cupcake, something that her dentist sometimes has on hand for the benefit of discerning clients? Well….as it happened, she did get a cupcake. She brought it home and tried to eat it after dinner. Aaagh! It was matcha flavored! Her face fell! She was not pleased. We long for simpler times.

Wednesday, October 22nd

Besides his visits to the Maury Mountains and the Cascades–where E led him on a hike that nearly killed him–M has also gone wandering through the Coast Range. Such a picturesque area, especially if you get off the main roads! Here’s a sample:

So…a lot of harvesting going on here. But what about those trees in the middle? Is there something wrong with them? We’re pretty sure that this cutting pattern results from state forestry regulations that prohibit cutting trees within a certain distance of a stream. The system of rules is wonderfully complicated. You can get a sense of that complexity here. Seasonal streams like the ones in the photo have fairly narrow exclusion zones, which leads to strange looking bands like this.

Friday, October 24th

After a week of pretty good weather, today the rain is falling.

Saturday, October 25th

Went for a walk in the neighborhood today, despite a brisk downpour. While we were on the return half of our loop, the rain paused and we got our reward, a spectacular rainbow. One end seemed to anchored somewhere near our house, the other on the hillside from which we were returning. Alas, it disappeared pretty quickly.

Dinner at the Dizzy Hen in Philomath. With E at the wheel of Mavi (as the EV6 has been christened) we arrived at 5:26, just in time to get a good place in line for the 5:30 opening.

Sunday, October 26th

After two days of rain and a few sudden blasts of strong wind, it definitely looks like fall here. It’s a good thing M’s two projects are more or less done.

E and H went back to PRAX theatre today to hear the Corvallis Repertory Singers perform J.S. Bach’s “Wachet auf” (in English: Wake up) followed by Mozart’s “Great Mass in C minor.” The program notes suggest that by listening to these two works back to back, listeners will be able to hear how Bach’s work influenced Mozart’s. While E was at PRAX, M spent two hours at home listening to Nina Simone, a singer he’d long wanted to know better. He was impressed enough by the music to want to know a little more about her life. He found that she was an American singer and pianist who first found success in the 1950’s with songs that combined folk, blues, and jazz influences. Before this time, she had been struggling to make a career as a classical concert pianist. At age 17, she spent one summer studying with German pianist Carl Friedberg at the Julliard School. In order to fund more classical training, she took various jobs, including gigs playing piano at clubs and restaurants. Her singing career did not begin until a bar owner offered her extra money if she would sing while she played. Critics have always claimed to be able to see classical influences in Simone’s popular work and some have pointed out that her piano playing seems especially similar to the music of….wait for it….J.S. Bach. Well, says M, Nina Simone ain’t no Mozart, but Mozart ain’t no Nina Simone either.

Monday, October 27th

Hiked at Mary’s Peak today. It was a cold and damp, but not actually raining very much.

Thursday, October 30th

We spent much of the morning undoing the damage from M’s online attempt to buy a couple of spare dinner plates. He found exactly what he wanted on what appeared to be housewares website. The price was very attractive! Alas, once he had entered his info and pressed the order button, nothing happened–no order confirmation, no nothing. Becoming suspicious, he googled the name of the website and found out that it was flagged as fraudulent. Oops. Had to cancel the card and get a new one. That turns out to be pretty easy these days.

Friday, October 31st

To the delight of most of our trick or treaters, our front yard has a new form of wildlife.

Tuesday, October 7th

E took off in the blue car today, heading south to Springfield and then east up the McKenzie River Valley. Her friends H and N had invited her to spend a night or two with them in an AirBnB on the banks of the river. Being a sensible person, E drove directly to her destination, guided by GPS as well as by a printout of the route directions given by the AirBnB host. It turned out to be a wonderful spot.

Meanwhile, M went off in the truck on his own expedition. His destination was Prineville, which is more or less directly east of Corvallis. And indeed M began his trip sensibly by driving directly east on Highway 34. But of course this is the same M who is still doing research for his next magnum opus: How To Find the Slowest Way to Get Almost Anywhere, so you will not be surprised to hear that he turned off this route just before reaching Lebanon, taking first Steckley Road, then Highway 223 and then wandering southeast on Calapooia River Drive.

As some of you may be aware, this innocent sounding road soon turns to gravel and goes on and on and on, finally reaching a Y intersection in a deep dark forest at a spot whose GPS coordinates reveal only that it is a long way from anywhere. M advises that if you ever reach this Y junction, you should bear left. Should you bear right, it is quite possible that you will climb very high up and then come to a dead end. There you will be forced to turn your vehicle around at a place where no sensible person would ever want to do such a thing. Assuming you survive this experience, you can return to the Y and try the left arm. If you do, and if your luck holds , you will end up on Canyon Creek Road, which will lead you down finally to pavement on good old Highway 20. It’s true that this last stretch will lead you westward, away from the stated destination of Prineville, but it will all work out.

Wednesday, October 8th

Today E and her friends drove a bit farther up Highway 126 and visited…

M, meanwhile, spent the day driving around some small mountains called the Maury Range. He renewed his acquaintance with Forest Service Road 16, got some nice views from FSR 150, and achieved his long-held goal of driving the length of FSR 1750. By Forest Service convention, the number of digits in the road number gives a clue to what sort of road it might be. Roads with two digit numbers tend to be wide with smooth, well maintained gravel. Roads with three digit numbers are narrower. They are usually smooth, but are less frequently maintained, which can lead to rough spots. Four-digit roads, like FSR 1750 in the Maurys, are the roughest–and of course slowest.

Week of October 9th to 16th

We’ve had several bouts of rain this month, but also many days of sun. The parched lawns in the neighborhood are turning back to green, while the leaves on the trees are less green with every passing day. Although the freezer is already well stocked with E’s applesauce, there are still plenty of bright red apples on the tree. M has finished most of his grass removal/soil rehab project and is now hunting up things to plant in the new space.

Wednesday, October 15th

Today we took a break from our recent routine and went for a hike on Browder Ridge up around Tombstone Pass in the Cascades. We took the Gate Creek Trail. We’d been there once or twice before, but it had been a long time. It’s just 1.6 miles from the trailhead to the viewpoint, but there is some elevation gain involved–1,150 feet. So it was definitely a challenge.

The weather was fine: cold in the shade, much warmer in the sun. The first part of the trail was all shade, switchbacking steeply up through a mature forest that featured some nice swaths of rhododendron understory. As we climbed higher, we began to see older and older trees. After about half a mile the trail leveled out, running gently upward with no switchbacking needed. In this section we saw dozens of really big firs. Clearly this part of the forest has never been logged, at least not in the last three or four hundred years. This phase lasted for another half mile, at which point the trail turned right and started switchbacking again. Here the trees weren’t as big, and we saw a greater variety of species. As we climbed, we occasionally came upon patches of steep bracken meadows, places where no trees were growing. We wondered why not. Mostly, though, the last half mile of switchbacks took us through thick forest with not a view in sight. Then, quite suddenly, we came out of the trees to find ourselves at the top of a very large meadow. And there we found the views.

It was quite a scene, what with the snow on the peaks and all. The photo above shows Mt. Jefferson (behind a tree) and Three Fingered Jack on the right. But also visible from the same spot were Mt. Washington, South Sister, and a number of smaller volcanic cones and craters. After oohing an aahing a bit, we located some almost comfortable rocks out in the sunshine and sat down for lunch.

Lunch ended up having two phases. First we had our sandwiches, veggies and chips. Just as we were finishing those, our sunny spot turned to shade and became noticeably colder. To properly enjoy dessert we had to relocate ourselves to a less than stable log. Life is tough out in the wilderness! Somehow we managed it and before long we were headed back down.

Friday, October 17th

E went out and about downtown today. In the midst of her errands, she dropped in at Futura for a latte. She also asked for a bagel. The barista informed her that the shop had run out of cream cheese and that the only topping they had was butter. Okay, said E, expecting to get by with just a pat or two. But that’s not what she got.

While this was going on, M was out riding around the hills in the little red car. It was fun, but he didn’t see any butter anywhere.

Sunday, October 19th

On the literary front, E is reading three different books at once, one of them being The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. E also found something for M to read: Parul Sehgal’s NYT review of Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket. He liked the review and will probably read the book sometime.

Friday, September 19th

E made baklava today. We each had a little taste, just to make sure that it was good enough to share at tomorrow’s dinner at J and B’s. It passed the test.

Saturday, September 20th

We did something new today, attending an event called the Luckiamute River Paddle. Organized by the Luckiamute Watershed Council, the event included an hour and a half of canoeing on the river. A few of the twenty or so participants brought their own paddle boards or kayaks, but most of us were in canoes provided by the organizers. We put in to the river from Crocker Road on the edge of the Luckiamute Natural Area about half a mile from the place where the Luckiamute joins the Willamette. Just a few minutes later we shot out of the swift-moving Luckiamute and were caught up in the currents and eddies of the mighty Willamette. From there we paddled more than forty miles north, reaching Canby, Oregon early in the morning of the following day. Hmm…that can’t be right. Because didn’t we actually start paddling upstream in the Luckiamute, away from the Willamette? And for most of the way wasn’t the Luckiamute more like a long narrow pond than a river? Well yes, we suppose it was.

There are no dams on the Luckiamute and sometimes in the spring it is a mighty river, too dangerous for any watercraft. But these days it is supremely peaceful. We paddled across a few deep spots, but for most of the trip the water was only a few feet deep. Our guides explained that if we did happen to fall out of our boat, we should just remember to stand up and we’d be fine.

We suspect that most of the participants knew a lot more about canoeing we did–cuz we didn’t know much! But just in case, the guides did go over some of the basics before we started. They told us that the paddler in the rear is responsible for steering while the front paddler mainly just provides motive force. As a corollary, the person in the back was basically in charge of the boat and would have to guide and instruct the front paddler. So this was our first dilemma. E had spent a lot of time in canoes; M had spent almost zero. So surely E should be in the rear seat. E, however, refused, claiming that her time in canoes had focused only on the duties of being a passenger and that she had never gotten involved in such arcane matters as paddling or steering. So M took the rear.

You may be wondering how this went. Pretty well, you might say. We did not turn the canoe over, we kept up with the group, we did not bump into the shore or into other canoes, at least not very hard, and only once did we get branches in our faces from being too close to the riverside willows. We did have some problems in the chain of command, however. For one thing M–as the back paddler–was quite willing to give instructions to the front paddler but couldn’t figure out what instructions he was supposed to give. Also, E wasn’t really listening, so it wasn’t clear if his instructions were going to get through anyway. She was a powerful paddler, though, and did some share of the steering by herself. Only at one point did she turn around and direct herself to M: “When,” she demanded, “are we going to get to do ramming speed?”

In the evening following all this excitement, we went to dinner at J and B’s house, picking up our friend C on the way. It was a cooperative Greek themed meal. The hosts contributed spanakopita and wine while C–well known gal about town and a Greece area expert–provided dolmas and Greek salad. E brought along the baklava. Another very nice evening.

Sunday, September 21st

M has got himself involved in not one but two backyard projects, one to convert a hundred or two square feet of grass into some kind of planting beds and another to build eight feet of curved walkway out of pavers. Progress is slow. E, meanwhile, went out to the nursery and came home with new plants: two sedums and a gaura.

We’ve also been spending time reading. E’s latest favorite is The Sound of a Wild Snail Chewing, which was recommended to her by friend S. It is narrated by a woman who was bedridden for several months and whose only constant companion was a snail living in a flower pot next to her bed. Her observations and the facts she researched have changed E’s attitude towards snails from one of repulsion to one of admiration. For example, who knew that a snail has thousands of teeth? And that it can hold its fertilized eggs for months until the right conditions appear to lay them?

M has been immersed in the second and third volumes of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, two very long novels about goings on in the late 17th and early 18th centuries with special focus on diplomacy, court intrigues, piracy, slavery, ship building, alchemy, natural science, the development of international financial trading systems, the question of whether Leibnitz or Newton deserves to be known as the inventor of calculus, and quite a few other things. Also, there’s some excellent swashbuckling and a long term love story–very long term. All in all, these books are awfully interesting, but, as one reader put it, they’re not what you would call brisk.

Monday, September 22nd

Grocery shopping and garden work today. In the evening we dropped in to the old Darkside Theater, something we haven’t done for a while. We were there to see Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. Many of us had a surfeit of DA a few years ago, but here in 2025 we have to say that Julian Fellowes can still deliver the goods. It was a great story, with all the old characters and the original actors. Maggie Smith, of course, has passed away, so the movie opens with everyone mourning the death of Mama. Nice cars, lovely clothes, several serious challenges. Can they be surmounted?

Tuesday to Friday, September 23rd to 26th

The weather is fine but it definitely feels like fall. We expanded E’s front flower bed and she got her new plants in the ground. M needs some rain to soften the ground, but we’re not getting much. Seems like we have tons of appointments and busywork these days. (But we can usually find time for a nap sometime in the PM.)

Monday, September 8th

We set off today for the San Juan Islands. Given that the San Juans are in the northeast corner of Washington, almost in Canada, it promised to be a long trip. We knew we ought to start early–or at least early-ish. As we pulled out of the driveway, E took note of the time: 7:37 AM. We were in the new Kia EV6, which still had only a few hundred miles on it. We’ll fix that!

Driving an EV on a road trip requires some planning and we were nervous because we had never taken a long EV trip before. The EV6, like most newer EV’s, comes with a Tesla style charging port and can access the Tesla network of fast chargers. There are plenty of those along the I-5 from Corvallis on up to Canada. One of our esteemed readers had told us that Tesla chargers were easy to use, and he was surely right. The islands are about 350 miles away and our car’s range is somewhere around 280. So, you might think that we’d only need to recharge once on the way. Yeah…well, not exactly.

Anyway, off we went. We had to get through Salem during the morning rush, but it wasn’t too bad. We got to Portland around 9:00 and found that traffic there was moving right along. Soon we crossed the old bridge over the Columbia River (roll on, Columbia, roll on) and left Oregon. So that was the first 85 miles accomplished. Then we had the long slog up through most of the state of Washington, which was going to take a while. Around noon we stopped to charge up somewhere around Tacoma. While the car charged, we got out to stretch our legs. The charging location was in a newish shopping center complex, the kind of place that’s very convenient to drive to, but decidedly not pedestrian friendly. We found that out when we tried to walk over to a Safeway to get some potato chips to go with our lunch. We got ’em, though, despite having to push through acres of tar macadam. We ate our lunch and got back on the road. The next big town was Seattle. Seattle used to be famous for terrible traffic; but we found that if all you want to do is go straight on through, it’s currently not bad at all.

By then it was early afternoon and we still had a ways to go. Our ferry to Orcas Island was scheduled to leave Anacortes at 3:40. And the ferry website advised us to arrive at the toll gate at least 45 minutes to an hour before departure. So we gave ourselves a 2:40 deadline. That left us just time enough to charge up the car one more time . Why? Well, we had enough charge remaining to easily get us to our destination. But our destination had no fast chargers, so it was a matter not just of getting there, but also of driving around the island to see the sights and then getting back from the island to the nearest charging station. So we stopped again at a Tesla station just twenty miles from Anacortes. We had enough time to charge up and then get to the ferry terminal by 2:45. Whew. Finally we could relax. (E remembers that we didn’t even take the time to pop in to the See’s chocolate shop which was right next to the charging area.)

As the ferry eased out of the dock, E watched the cormorants.

A few minutes later, M looked back at Anacortes, where another ferry was still docked at the terminal.

An hour and a half later, after a brief stop at Shaw Island, our ferry docked at the Orcas Island terminal. Once disembarked, we drove north to the town of Eastsound. By the time we got there, we were getting hungry again and decided to stop for dinner before going on to check in to our room. After wandering around a bit, we stepped into the White Horse Pub, where we got seats at a window overlooking a body of water called Fishing Bay.

After dinner we pushed on a few more miles to our hotel room. As we entered the room, we again noted the time: 7:36 PM. So yeah, it was a long day of travel. We’re tempted to call it 12 hours door to door, but that would be an exaggeration.

Tuesday, September 9th

We woke up this morning in our room at the Rosario Resort. Rosario is the site of a very grand mansion built in 1906 by a fellow named Robert Moran. Moran was born in New York City in 1857. At the age of 18 he left New York–in part to escape an ill-tempered father–and arrived in Seattle with just ten cents to his name. Through several years of hard work he made enough money to bring his mother and four younger siblings out to Seattle to join him. He then proceeded to get very rich by building up a marine services and construction business in which he employed all three of his younger brothers. He was twice elected mayor of Seattle. Then, in his late forties, he was told by doctors that he had less than a year to live. He then retired, sold his business and moved to a mansion on Orcas Island. Retirement was good for him; he went on to live another 40 years to the age of 86. (This summary barely scratches the surface of Moran’s life; see more here.)

Today Rosario Resort includes the mansion plus three separate houses that Moran built for his brothers. You can’t see the sibling houses in the photo above, but you can see two more pieces of the current property: the round, clifftop playhouse that Moran built for the kids and the rather tacky square building that a more recent owner built to so as to have more rooms to rent out. The mansion, as originally built, contained something like 27 bedrooms, but that building is closed these days. The playhouse has been converted to a luxury room; it’s now rentable but quite expensive. We stayed in the square building. Our room was spacious and reasonably comfortable. But boy did it need a new carpet. As a “resort and spa” Rosario has seen better days.

We had breakfast in the room–there being no other option. We ate fruit and granola bars and made coffee on the in-room machine. There were plenty of coffee packets for said machine, seven in total, all decaf. E pulled out a tube of caffeinated Nescafe from among her standard travel supplies, so we managed to create half-caff, which is more or less what we’re drinking these days. After breakfast we went back to town and bought supplies at Orcas Island Market–the largest grocery on the island and one that we found to be a wonderful place.

Later in the morning we went walking on the Cascade Lake waterfalls trail in nearby Moran State Park. The area has never been logged and is quite beautiful.

We next drove around a bit, stopping to eat our picnic lunch in a townlet called Olga and also driving past the Buck Bay Shellfish Farm. We’re told that you can get a wonderful meal there, but all we took away was a photo.

Soon we went back to Rosario for a rest. We found some Adirondack chairs on the lawn outside our window and spent a couple of hours reading our books. We were looking out over a lovely little bay below tree covered slopes. It was a wonderfully peaceful scene, seemingly far away from anywhere.

During this season, at least, most restaurants on Orcas are closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, so finding a place to have dinner was a challenge. Fortunately, we found a Mexican restaurant called Mijita’s. They were doing a brisk business on this Tuesday and their food was excellent. Mijita’s is near the Eastsound Public Library and after dinner we walked over that way. The library garden was awesome. E saw some things she wanted for her garden.

Wednesday, September 10th

Today we wanted to take a longer walk, so we decided to try hiking around a mountain lake. The trail was said to be 3.9 miles, which is a little much for some of us these days, but we figured it would be mostly level. The name of this mountain lake is easy to remember. It’s called Mountain Lake. Here’s what the whole area looks like to space aliens visiting from above. It’s a lot prettier from the ground. Moran owned most of this land. He never allowed logging or hunting and donated hundreds of acres to make the park.

After the hike, we drove a little farther up the mountain to see the view.

Thursday, September 11th

Time to go home. We got on the 9:10 AM ferry, which got us back to the mainland at around 10:45. The passenger decks on these ferries are really quite comfortable, with long rows of padded seats in the middle and a couple dozen spacious tables along the sides. We found a table with a completed jigsaw puzzle on it. We took it apart and had it back together again by the time we pulled into Anacortes.

The drive back to Corvallis again made for a long day, but not having a ferry deadline at the end made it less stressful than the drive up.

Friday, September 12th

E went grocery shopping today at the Co-op. When she came out, she found that her blue car had attracted four others.

Saturday, September 13th

E attended a backyard concert hosted by one of our neighbors. It involved a potluck dinner and a recital by a local singer/songwriter. It was a lovely clear night and E enjoyed the music and the camaraderie.

Monday, August 25th

We set off on a camping trip to the coast today, spending the morning packing up and then leaving Corvallis right after lunch. It was a sunny 91 degrees in the Valley and the coast promised to be different. And indeed it was. When we stopped at a pull-out on the coast highway near Heceta Head, the world seemed dark and damp.

Our campsite was just a few miles south of Heceta. It was also half a mile inland, far enough to be out of the mist and into the sun. It was still damp, though, and not particularly warm.

We had a new piece of gear to try out, the mosquito net tent extension that we got from China via Quebec. There were no assembly instructions, but M had watched a video and brought along some extra bungee cords. So we managed to get it up. This is not quite how it’s supposed to look, but it’s close.

Tuesday, August 26th

After shivering through a breakfast of granola bars and toast, we drove back north a few miles along the coast and hiked up the Cummins Creek Trail. It’s a lovely walk through mature forest of hemlock, fir and red cedar. If you look carefully, you can see that the trail mostly follows a long abandoned road. We didn’t do the whole upper loop as that would have made for a total of seven miles, too much for us these days. We just walked up a mile or two, lunched on tuna sandwiches and then started back.

At that point we needed a little civilization, so we went to the Green Tortoise coffee place in Yachats, arriving just before closing time. After that it was back to the campsite, where we re-attached our truck tent and started to think about dinner. By dinnertime, we were getting a brisk on-shore breeze, damp and coldish. We bundled ourselves up in all our layers and ate some hot chili. We then went to bed early to keep warm but later found ourselves wide awake at midnight. To cure our insomnia we went for a midnight walk through the dim and quiet campground. To our surprise the wind had stopped and the temperature was much warmer than in the daytime, so it was a very pleasant time to walk.

Wednesday, August 27th

This morning we broke camp and started the trip home. On the way, we stopped at the Cape Perpetua visitors center. There are lots of interesting displays there, including a few bits and pieces about the people who originally lived in the area. Next to a display of native style baskets, there was a description of what happened when a basket maker agreed to give a class on how to make baskets. Here’s a description of the first few weeks of the class:

We also walked a one mile trail from the Visitor’s Center to the site of a very large Sitka Spruce. This one is estimated to be about 500 years old. Sitka Spruces only grow within 50 miles of the ocean, but that narrow strip of habitat extends from southeastern Alaska all the way down to Northern California.

The wood from a Sitka spruce is strong but lightweight, which made it very useful for building early airplanes. The Wright Brothers’ Flyer was built from spruce, as were the majority of airplanes prior to World War Two. (The Spruce Goose, however, was actually made of birch.) Spruce wood is also an excellent conductor of sound and is widely used to make musical instruments such as pianos, harps, guitars, and violins.

Wednesday, September 3rd

Today we drove up north a ways, stopping at the Woodburn Outlet Mall. In the Panera restaurant parking lot, we met up with a fellow named Roman, who owns a 550 HP Jaguar F-Type R and was looking for a nice car cover for it. For a nominal fee, the Chambeck Buyer Assistance Service was able to supply one.

We then had lunch at Panera. This Panera was kind of different. It had only self service kiosk style ordering, which meant that when we came in we didn’t see any humans anywhere. When we looked around the corner into the dining area, we could that there were a few customers; but considering that it was lunchtime, it didn’t seem like there were very many. There were employees present; you could hear them chatting somewhere in the back. And whenever one of the few diners finished and started to leave, a human would appear immediately and whisk away the dishes. It was a little eerie.

Just by coincidence (!) there happened to be a See’s Candy shop on the other side of the Panera parking lot. Inside that place, we had considerably more human interaction than we’d had at Panera. After that, we set off for our main destination: The Erratic Rock State Natural Site. The rock that this site honors currently sits atop a hill in the middle of an agricultural area just west of McMinneville, Oregon; but scientists say that it is originally from Canada, at least 500 miles away. It is estimated to weigh about 80,000 pounds.

At some point during the last ice age, this large piece of rock was captured by a glacier and spent a few thousand years encased in ice. But then, as the last ice age started winding down, a whole lot of the ice age ice started to melt. The meltwater had nowhere to go because some remaining ice had created a dam thousands of feet high. At that point the ice surrounding the rock stopped being part of a glacier and instead became a large iceberg floating around in a very, very big lake of really cold water. But not quite cold enough. Eventually the ice dam broke and 50 cubic miles of water and ice rushed south. The resultant flow was up to 1,000 feet deep, more than powerful enough to carry along a small army of icebergs, including one that contained a certain big piece of rock. The flood flowed south for a hundred miles or so and then turned right* to head west down the Columbia Gorge. Then, at the mouth of the Willamette, it turned left* and flowed south again for 150 miles or so. Our rock, however, didn’t make it quite that far. Just forty miles south of what is now Portland, the iceberg with the big rock in it ran aground on a hill. And now the only trace of that iceberg is the rock it left behind.

*How, you might ask, did the flood know where to turn right and then later where to turn left? That’s a profound question and hard to answer, especially since they didn’t have any GPS at all back then. But if you asked the flood, it would probably say: I just go with the flow.

Thursday, September 4th

Another meeting of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society took place today. This was a traditional gathering in that it featured an actual lemon meringue pie, this one having been produced in-house by Chambeck Enterprises. All six members attended and each brought a healthy and delicious contribution to a potluck dinner preceding the pie.

Wednesday, August 14th

We had a great time today attending an open house at the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. It started at 5:30 PM in the parking lot of the Small Animal Hospital. The lot was closed to allow about 100 attendees to gather. We arrived at the registration table about ten minutes early and were assigned to a tour group. H and T were with there with us and we all got into Group 3. At 5:30 sharp the event commenced. First came the ice cream. This was OSU College of Agriculture ice cream from the newly reopened OSU Classic Creamery. It was served from a bright orange OSU food truck. Here’s the flavor board:

While the ice cream line moved along, the dean of the college welcomed us and gave a short history of the college, especially the small animal section. She recounted the story of how in the first years of its history the OSU Vet School offered only a two-year program that covered large animals only. In order to get a DVM degree, Oregon vet students had to spend two years in Corvallis and then transfer to Washington State for two more. It was only in the mid 2000s that the OSU small animal center was established. We already knew this story, of course, since our very own A was a member of the first graduating class to have done all four years of their program in Corvallis.

The welcome speeches were short and we were still finishing our ice cream when our tour leader led us into the building. (Free ice cream and short speeches…you can tell that these are smart people.) The tour took about an hour and a half. Our group stopped at nine different locations and heard a ten-minute presentation at each one. We got presentations about cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, anesthesia, laparoscopic surgery, diagnostic imaging, large animal surgery, the small animal emergency room, and the small animal rehabilitation center. We got to see a lot of expensive equipment and also a number of training devices that help vet students learn. One of these was the “high fidelity” electronic dog shown below. The dog breathes in and out–students can see the chest expand and hear the breaths. The dog also has a heartbeat–students can feel for a pulse just as they would on a real dog. The big video monitor displays various vital signs just as it would for a real animal.

Below is a picture of the large animal surgery. The operating table uses a hydraulic system to raise and lower the height of the table as well as to provide various degrees of tilt. It can support draft horses weighing up to 2,000 pounds.

We very much enjoyed seeing the animal hospital. The tour (and possibly the ice cream) energized us enough that when we got home we finally finished putting Gertrudis together.

Thursday, August 15th

Our friends K and L had us over for dinner and we had a delicious summertime meal, which was followed by one of E’s blackberry pies. The hours flew by. K, whose real name is R, has known M since both were sophomores at the U of U in Salt Lake City.

Saturday, August 16h

We went to a presentation about using native plants to support local birds, pollinators, and animals. It was given by two young women, both of whom run small businesses that help customers apply the ideas of people like Douglas Tallamy and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Although their presentation was overlong, their love for what they were doing was obvious and they were very knowledgable. We were so inspired that we wanted to run home immediately and start digging up grass and replacing it with kinnikinnik, wild iris and all that other stuff.

The presentation was up in Independence, Oregon, which happens to be right close to Monmouth, Oregon, which happens to have a Burgerville, which is the place that serves those wonderful Walla Walla onion rings–but only during the harvest season, which happens to end tomorrow! So, you can understand what we decided to do about lunch. The grass digging could wait.

Sunday, August 17th

We drove up to Beaverton today and had a late breakfast at a place called Tous Les Jours. We each had a pastry and also shared a “pecan croissant flattie.” The flattie wasn’t exactly a pastry…more like candy. Later in the day. we didn’t feel all that good, but breakfast was fun!

We’d never heard of Tous Les Jours, which turns out to have more than 1,500 locations worldwide. The franchise is owned by a South Korean company called CJ Foodville.

Since we happened to be up there in Beaverton, we decided to drive a few blocks down Canyon Road and pick up our new car, a Kia EV6. It is electric and has the same underpinnings as our old IONIQ 5. Here’s a photo of our first glimpse of it. It had just arrived at the dealership two days before.

Thursday, August 21st

So far we’ve managed to set our favorite radio stations, individual seating positions, and charging maximums. We also know, sort of, how to use the climate control, operate the sun roof and listen to our complimentary three months of Sirius XM. The EV6 is not as spacious inside as our Ioniq 5, but on the other hand it has a 120v outlet in the backseat, so we can put a microwave back there and make popcorn…or something. It can also back itself into the garage…provided someone keeps a firm hold on the proper button on the key fob.