A Bump in the Kelly Dave Trail: Collision 2015

The Perfect Conversation Starter

There's no better conversation starter these days than the tailgate of our brand new 2015 Dodge Ram Truck. Since Thursday, October 15th people will stop us in parking lots, and even in the middle of the road to ask what happened. "Did someone run into you, or did you run into something?"

The answer is a bit more complicated. We were towing our POD, taking a left hand turn into an RV Park in Panguitch, UT (i.e nowhere) when someone going 65 mph hit the back passenger side of the POD.  The force of impact shredded the back corner of the POD, pushed the entire POD

Bumper POD

up into the truck tailgate, shredding the front right corner of the POD, bending not only the trailer tongue but also the half inch solid steel hitch,  thereby demolishing the truck tailgate. Or as I like to say, the POD and the tailgate  acted as giant bumpers between a 65 mph car and a stationary truck. The car and the POD both are totaled, the truck made out much better and only needs a new tailgate, some painting, and a new tool box.

The good news is all the people involved are okay, and GEIGO, our insurance company is being extremely responsive and helpful. The truck is in the queue at the auto body shop to be repaired sometime next week.

The bad news is that we now have to shop!  Overnight our day-to-day lives have become much different. I used to joke that we were homeless, now we really are!  Currently we are living in a hotel in St. George, UT (a much bigger town than Panguitch), and eating out and it's getting old real fast. While the last post was on finding the perfect camping spot, since Thursday, our days are filled with phone calls to insurance, storage, tow and repair companies. And shopping. Neither of us enjoys shopping but...we need a new home. 

Prior to the collision we had already been talking about getting a slightly bigger trailer but we hadn't started the research. Now we're deep into it.  There are an awful lot of RV makes, models and options and it's taken awhile to sort through it all. After spending two days visiting seven to eight RV dealers and browsing the internet lists we've narrowed down our choices.  Turns out the one we probably

We'll be back soon!

want isn't in stock around here. Tomorrow we're 'moving' up to Salt Lake City to visit a few other dealers including one that is an authorized carrier of our model. They don't have that particular model in stock but we can at least see the quality of the other models in the line...etc.  We'll also stop in at other RV places, just to make sure we haven't missed anything. Just too much fun.

But I really miss being under the stars at night and the quiet of the woods. It's the thought of getting back to it that keeps me shopping.

KD and SD and the Three Campsites

(This post was written October  14th. One day before The Collision described in the upcoming post)

Once upon a time there were two nomads named KD and SD who lived and traveled in an R-POD. Camping and hiking their way around the county was fun but sometimes it was hard to find a good campsite. One that had great views, great hikes, a nearby town, quiet, and good weather.

Above Yosemite Valley

 Sometimes they found a great campsite, like the Oh Ridge Campground on Lake June in the eastern Sierras. Nearby were two great towns, Lee Vining and Mammouth Lakes, Great coffee shops, bookstores, outdoor stores and a Vons (grocery store). The site was quiet and the views of the mountains and June Lake were stunning. The hikes into lake filled canyons were beautiful and they could and did make a day trip over to the West entrance of Yosemite.

But ... one night the weather changed. It got

Hiking up Bishop's Pass into the Sierras

colder and snowed. The pass to Yosemite was closed and the POD was cold! And so they moved South down 395 to the town of Bishop and then up to the Four Jefferies Campground (7000ft, Jefferies in this case refers to Jeffery Pines. Those awesome butterscotch smelling pine trees that you just want to bury your nose in and never leave.) And it was just right. The next day they hiked up to the Chocolate Lakes and had a great day. But...that night the weather changed. It got very cold. Snow started falling above them at 8000ft, . Even so, they wanted to stay but the battery in the POD was almost empty and solar showers just weren't going to be very practical at 40 degrees. Then it also started to snow at the campground and KD and SD reluctantly headed into town. (They spent a night in Bishop, CA at a RV park with full hookups where they charged the battery, ran the heat, took showers, did two loads of laundry and ate Texas BBQ for dinner and German pastries for breakfast.)

Wildrose Peak Looking Down at Badwater -
the lowest point in the US

Next they drove south and east 130 miles to Death Valley. And again they found the perfect camping spot at the Furnace Creek Campground (elevation -100 ft). That night they sat out in 70 degree weather and watched the stars and the Milky Way . The next day they hiked a perfect hike to Wildrose Peak. A hike they'd actually started 2.5 years ago but didn't have time to finish. This time they made the summit and enjoyed the views down and east to their current campground near the lowest point in the continental U.S. and west to the highest point in the continental U.S., Mt. Whitney, which was still covered in snow. Returning to their campsite they found the valley temperature soaring into the high 90's with an even higher forecast for the next day. It was too hot!

North Rim of the Grand Canyon!

They then headed east toward Zion. Traveling through Nevada and stopping one night at a RV park/Casino where they swam in an awesome pool but declined any gambling opportunities. Having ventured into Zion, they left after less than two minutes as there was a line to get in and all campgrounds were sold out. KD and SD apparently had forgotten it was Columbus Day, better know these days as Indigenous People's Day, weekend.

They then headed even further East to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon were they camped at the
Jacob's Lake Campground just 30 miles from the Park entrance. Camped among the quiet of a lodge pole pine forest at 6000ft, a small store/restaurant/inn across the street, only a few miles from many awesome trails in the Grand Canyon, and it was just perfect.

Oh To Live on Chocolate Mountain!

View from the trailhead

Image four millions of years ago an immense, mostly granite, mountain range lifting from North to South for 400 miles. Then imagine hundreds of glaciers carving out hundreds of those peaks into sharp summits and broad u-shaped valleys full of small clear lakes and fast running streams. Then imagine those fast running streams continuing this sculpting for another millennium. Then imagine that those peaks which rise from the desert in the east contain five different life zones, from the Upper Sonoran Zone to the the Arctic-Alpine zone above 10,500 ft. Then imagine hiking up through all those zones on a beautifully clear mid-fall day.

That's what S.D. and I did on Saturday. But not the imagining, the actually hiking. The 7.5 mile loop

First of the four lakes. Chocolate Peak
is to the right

up into the Chocolate Lakes begins at the 9000ft trailhead alongside South Lake. The aspen were just all yellows and reds, and South Lake a perfect blue. Following the Bishops Pass trail we climbed up through the Jeffrey's pines and into the White-bark pine forests. The Clark's Nutcrackers were busy, and unusually protective of their pine nuts. At 2.3 miles we turned left off the main trail and on to the Chocolate Lakes trail.

In the Arctic-Alpine zone. There are actual
glaciers over in those mountains!

The Chocolate Lakes are named for Chocolate Peak, a lovely 11,000ft brown mountain that does indeed look like chocolate (the chocolate topping is newer dark red volcanic rock that was deposited over an older white granite mountain), and rises over the four lakes. Hiking past them and scrambling up over the pass to Ruway Lake we entered the Arctic-Alpine zone. No trees, just small plants and even more stunning views. A little further on we connected up again with the Bishop's Pass Trail and hiked along Long Lake for more stunning views including a number of small glaciers that are still sculpting these mountains.

Looking West over Long Lake to Bishop Pass

The problem with the hike, the problem with all of the Sierras so far is that they are just too darn beautiful. It's incredibly hard to hike when every other minute you have to stop to take a photo. Even when you try and pace the photos, waiting until you are in the best possible location, you turn a corner in the trail and there is another absolutely fantastic view.

But we preserved. Finished the lovely hike and have more than 100 photos to prove it! (Those you see here are only a small, carefully selected few. )

From the Sea to the Sierras

The new rig!

View from Prospect Peak

It's 6:30 am on Tuesday September 29th. The sun is rising lighting up the eastern slopes of the Sierras in the high mountain desert. Only eight miles south of Mono Lake, a 65 square mile shallow saline soda lake, and forty-five miles east of Yosemite Valley, the Pod and the new truck are nestled under the Ponderosa Pines overlooking June Lake. Only last Tuesday we were riding along the Pacific Ocean with the Pod and Bruce the van. It's been a week of changes.
Logistically the biggest change was swapping the van for a truck. Any misgivings we had on that score were quickly erased last Thursday when we packed up and drove east along steep, narrow, curving roads up 5000 ft into the Trinity Alps. Bruce just wouldn't have made the trip and survived. Hopefully Bruce will find a happy, less demanding home on the California coast. Long may you run!

The truck (and that is spoken in a very deep voice since it's a manly truck) is more than up to pulling the pod, is easy enough to drive and being diesel is getting great mileage.  An added advantage is in the west and mid west diesel is less expensive than gas.  The truck easily ascends the passes and the brakes don't smell on the descents. Only two and a half hours and 2000ft after leaving the coast we were in Redding, California, the high desert. We made a quick stop at the bank, post office, grocery store and in another hour, another foot of thousand feet in altitude (the park campground was at 6,000 feet), we were setting up camp, back in Lassen Volcanic National Park, back in the land of Ponderosa Pine forests and volcanoes.

Saturday we hiked up to Prospect Peak, the capstone hike of any visit to Lassen. From the summit at the North of the park, Mt. Lassen, Choas Craigs, the mud flow, Warner Valley, the Fantastic Lava Beds, the Painted Hills and the Cinder Cone are all visible...and amazing. The view of the Cinder Cone was especially so since Prospect Peak is right next door and looks down into the cone.

Sunday was moving day again. We drove East to Susanville, CA and then south on 395, skirting the Northern Sierras and driving through Reno and Carson City, NV. Back into eastern California and into a totally different world. Our current campsite's elevation of 7000ft, but that's low compared to the 11,000 plus peaks towering above it to the west. The air is dry, the climate technically desert. Where trees do grow, they're Ponderosa and Jeffrey's Pines and in the canyons, Aspen. Sand, sagebrush and rabbit brush cover the ground. The two most prominent features of the area are the Sierra Nevada range, which we'll be hiking and exploring soon, and Mono Lake which we explored yesterday.

Mono Lake is not your usual lake. First of all it's an inland lake. Water drains in, doesn't flow out. Secondly it's salty, and alkaline. Fish don't live here, only brine shrimp (remember sea monkey's - those are really brine shrimp) and a special kind of fly. Lots of them. To eat all the brine shrimp and flies, there are birds. Lots of those too. In addition to all that there are tufta's. Tall pillars of calcium carbonate that form where fresh water springs bubble up in the alkaline lake waters. Where the lake has receded, the tuftas rise out of the plain looking very other-wordly.

The sun is up now. The dry wind is howling through the campsite and up the canyon. Later today it'll reverse and start howling down until sunset. As the sky turns pink and red, the wind will cease, the pines will be quiet again. But for now the Stellar Jay is still scolding me for not feeding him, and there are canyons to hike!

Mono Lake

RVs, BATS, Trucks, and Travel Plans

It's a sunny day today in Arcata, California. In fact, most of our five days here in Arcata, on the California coast just North of Eurkea, have been sunny. We're staying at an RV Park just between the coastal plain and the mountains. In the mornings the fog sits on both the coast to the west and the mountains to the east, but usually we're in the sun. By mid-day the fog has blown or burned off either the mountains or the coast (usually not both) and we can go exploring.

The RV Park, Mad River Rapids RV, our first, has been a pleasant surprise. Everyone has been friendly, and very accommodating to our changing plans. We originally pulled in for just two nights while waiting for R-POD plates to arrive. The RV park is almost always sold out but worked with us to extend our stay when the plates were delayed and again when other changes (see below) meant an

BIG two man chainsaws!

even longer stay. The guys here have also been helpful with various RV tips and tricks that we need to set up the R-POD. They also had recommendations for places to check out.

Yesterday we  went out to the Somoa Cookhouse, had a lumberjack-style  lunch (family style) and visited their lumberjack museum. I haven't mentioned the logging out here much, but it is a significant part of the West's past and present. It's hard to ignore it's effect on the present (the clear cuts, the disappearing redwoods, overt references to snowy owls, lumbermills, mill towns current and dead, etc.). It was interesting to see the old photos, artifacts, and images from the past.

Rolling coastal farmland

Friday, the fog burned off the coast and we went for an excellent bike ride through seaside dairy and sheep farms, over converted railroad bridges (below which we saw a family of otters in the river), and along the Pacific coast.

Saturday, the clouds lifted off the mountains and we drove south through the Avenue of the Giants, a 26 mile road through what we've come to call BATS (Big Ass Trees). While we decided against paying the fee to drive Bruce through a privately owned BAT, we did stop at the excellent Humbolt Redwoods State Visitors Center and admired the Nash Quad Travel Log, a 1917 truck with a hollow redwood for its body. Built by Charles Kellog who imitated bird songs, and a campaigner for the protection of the redwood forests. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1521510) The truck layout is nice, maybe a little cozier than the R-Pod, but definitely cool. Also a bit heavier.

Travel Log (photo from mnn.com)

And speaking of the weight of the R-POD. We purchased the R-POD for a number of reasons, one of them being it suitability for towing by Bruce, the Dodge Caravan. After towing the R-POD from Coos Bay, Oregon to Jedidiah Smith, CA we had a nagging suspicion that Bruce might not be up for the job. Our next run, 60 miles from Jedidiah Smith to Arcata, CA confirmed that suspicion. It's not the Bruce couldn't do it, it just that he might well die trying. The hills weren't that big, and Bruce made it, but thinking ahead to the Sierra's...we just kept envisioning a groaning Bruce chugging up one side of the pass, and the smell of burning rubber as we smoldered down the other side. It is with great sadness, but total belief that it is the right thing to do, we used our time in Arcata to go truck shopping. The dealer was able to order the one we want and on Wednesday, September 23, we trade Bruce in on a 2015 Dodge Ram 1500 Eco-Diesel. (Please refer all follow-up questions on the truck to S.D. I know nothing other than it is silver, it has the 'tow package', will get significantly better fuel mileage, and according to the guys at the RV park, "We won't even know we're towing anything." ).

After that change, we hope once again to be on our way. Thursday we'll drive east and with a few stops along the way, with plans to be on the east side of Yosemite by Saturday. It's starting to get chilly there but we hope to have a week or however long we want to explore there before heading further south to Death Valley.

Tenative travel plans are as follows:
Yosemite
Death Valley
Zion
Staircase Escalante
Monument Valley
Moab
(with lots of stops in between!)

Wrapping Up Our Pacific Coast Visit

Fern Canyon

It's been roughly a month that now that we've been traveling along the Washington, Oregon and Northern California coasts and rain forests. The coast is beautiful, the forests grand, the wildlife impressive. In all that time however, we've probably had three to four solid days of sun. The rest have been cloudy and or foggy, and with or without rain. And it's starting to wear a little on our attitudes. For instance today was supposed to be one of the sunny days. It's cloudy, and as I'm sitting out here typing, it's just started to rain. Not that it was 'dry' to start with so I guess actual rain doesn't really matter all that much...except that I feel grumpy either way. 

The book"Mountain Weather", which in addition to a discussion of mountain weather around the country, also details the four major North West Pacific Coast weather systems. Each one brings rain to the Pacific coast from Northern California, all the way to British Columbia. The only differences seem to be how much rain and wind will accompany the front, and if there will be a thin layer or a down comforter like blanket of fog accompanying it.

The people here like it that way. They love the rain, and are comforted by the fog. Yes they appreciate sunny days too, but only as a rare and sparkling phenomena. It's the rain that makes the Redwoods, the rain forest and the coastal dwellers happy, not so much the sun. Tuesday we hiked to Fern Canyon. Not because we have not seen plenty of the seven different kinds of ferns that grow on the famous fifty foot high "Fern Wall", but because we're afraid the information services person at Jedidiah Smith Redwoods Park will be extremely disappointed if we do not. We can "either hike the 12 mile canyon hike or drive down to the mouth of canyon but you can not leave without going!" she implored us. As promised, the canyon was pretty cool. Lots of ferns, moss, a stream, banana slugs, redwoods, and rain.

S.D. contemplates the Rain Forest

They also love their fog. Route 101 follows the coast, sometimes right above the ocean, and often in the fog. Last Thursday we had driven south along 101 from Coos Bay, OR to Crescent City, CA. Yesterday we drove continued South from Crescent City to the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park near Orick, CA.  On both days the coast was blanketed in fog. But even though you can't see much there were always cars pulled off into the overlooks. Folks are out, peering off into the distance or hiking down the cliffs to the beach. (Atlantic Ocean folks please note - no one here swims at the beach. I've been told by more than a few locals that the idea swimming is "just silly". However, the water seems a little warmer than the Atlantic water off Maine.)

Personally I'm more interested in running into the rutting  Roosevelt Elk that are supposed to be everywhere in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Late August through early October is prime mating season and coastal locals (from Port Townsend to Crescent City) have insisted we have to hear the bull elk mating calls. We've seen the elks, but so far they've been silent and calm.

Currently we are hanging out in Arcata, CA for the next few days. Waiting for the R-Pod license plate and registration to arrive from South Dakota. Once we get that in our rain soaked, fog covered little hands we are turning due East and hopefully the sun.

Back on the Road...With an R-Pod 171

Written September Saturday, 12th

R-Pod In the Redwoods

After a brief hiatus visiting with family and shopping for the perfect RV we are back on the road. S.D., myself and our R-Pod 171. Tucked into a nice spot between the towering coastal redwoods of Jedidiah Smith State Park, CA, things are looking good.

It's the third full day in the 'Pod'. After picking it up in Coos Bay, Oregon and two nights in the fog at Sunset Beach State Park, we headed south. We're starting to feel like the 'pod' will do what we need. Provide a good home base for our adventures, eliminate the need for hotel days, allow us to stay 'out' longer, and let us get in some bicycling too! At the same time, unlike other RVs we looked at, it won't insulate us from the outdoors or enlarge our 'footprint', nor our opportunity for adventure too much.

S.D. in the Redwoods

If you've ever lived in a small boat, that's what living in the r-pod is like. It seems a good compromise between being outside, and still having some of the comforts of home.  Maybe it has more headroom than a boat and with a rectangular berth instead of a v-berth, but they're still very similar. There's just enough storage space for everything to have it's place, provided there isn't too much. One person can stand and cook in the two burner, one sink galley or get dressed, so long as the other is sitting down at the settee/table, or outside. There is a functional head (bathroom) but it's easier to use the shore facilities.

This morning after brewing coffee inside, and enjoying it outside, S.D. and I hiked through the redwoods, along the banks of the Smith River. The Redwoods are as amazing as ever, the Smith River clear and inviting. We returned home mid-afternoon. It's been three months any place felt like home but the r-pod is definitely in contention.

Time For a Change?

S.D. Making the Coffee

Really, it was the coffee that was the tipping point. Up until the morning at Gathering Grounds when the owner emphatically urged us to get the Hario coffee grinder  we'd been happy using pre-ground coffee. Every morning (each one suddenly becoming successfully colder than that last) one of us would bundle up in every possible piece of clothing, crawl out of the tent, open the car hatch, carry the kitchen gear box over to the picnic table, get the gas stove out of the car, open it up, pump up the fuel tank, light the stove, dig the kettle out of the kitchen box, go back to the car, fill the kettle up with water from the jug, set the kettle to boil, warm up the coffee mugs, set up the pour-over with coffee, bring the water to a boil, then do the pour over - just as the other one of us crawled out of the tent. The idea of adding freshly ground coffee to the routine was appealing, but just too much work to add to an already lengthy process.

We needed a way to simplify the coffee routine, and for that matter it would be nice to do something about the cold. Tents are great at keeping out the rain, bugs and dirt but not so good at keeping you warm. And have we mentioned that using the solar shower in the cold was starting to get tricky? Sure it would heat up in the sun. Somedays even up to 104 degrees but by then it would be 4:00 or so, and the air temperature would be dropping into the 60s.

So when the coffee guy suggested a coffee grinder a small RV began to really make sense. We'd (S.D. especially) had been already thinking about RVs and been researching the options. He'd learned that Bruce's towing capacity was very limited. Any RV we got would have to be small. That seemed fine as we really didn't want anything that would limit our ability to stay at the backwoods campgrounds that we most enjoyed. We also didn't want to complicate our adventures any more than necessary. At the same time, a coffee grinder, maybe a small grill, maybe even our bikes, not to mention a warm bed and shower could be great additions to our adventures. A little more 'luxury' could make also make our adventures a bit more sustainable. Something we'd be happy doing longer. 

And so, still hiking and exploring our way around Washington and Oregon, our search began.

Library in a Milk Crate: Reading on the Road

The Library is in there - somewhere

No matter how exciting a life on the road is, life without books is unimaginable. Back in the day, when we lived in a house, in a town, with a library, we visited the library every other week, picking up six to seven books each time. We also had a bookshelf full of cookbooks, trail guides, local history and general info. There were also a number of books on my kindle, and when desperation struck, and there was an internet connection, there were plenty more to download. When we left Massachusetts, we left with one milk full of reading material, our Milk Crate Library. As a librarian I'd mentally subdivided the library into three sections; cartography; containing maps of Michigan, Oregon and Washington; the reference section, containing Oregon bike routes, Canyonlands hikes,etc and general reading; both fiction and non-fiction. As our adventure has continued, we've had to discover sustainable ways to keep the material fresh, relevant and still keep it in a milk crate.

General Reading
Since there are no library cards on the road, and no internet connections in campgrounds it was only a week out and we were hungry for some new books. Desperation is a good motivator and it only took a few more days for us to secure a reliable means of obtaining books. Library book sales. Almost every public library takes book donations and has at least a book trucks worth of books for sale. Now, whenever we're in need of new reading material we locate the next largish library on our route and pull all our read materials out of the milk crate. We donate the 'old' books, and then buy 'new' ones from the book sale carts and shelves.

Cartography
This section has grown rapidly since leaving New England. While we generally picked up and disposed of state maps as we drove across the country resulting in no net gain there, we have also been buying Forest Service maps. These are detailed, often water resistant maps showing roads, campgrounds and hiking trails. Invaluable for truly exploring any backwoods area we find that we are unable to weed (a library term for removing non-usefully items) them from the collection. The map section of the milk crate now contains over 13 maps.

Reference
This section is also growing and while the local and state hiking books can be considered part of the rotating library we've found some books that are always useful, as any good reference book should be! For instance after spending hours hypothesizing about the identity of various birds and wildflowers, S.D. surprised me with two excellent guides as birthday presents. We also re-purchased "Mountain Weather" the one thing so far that we regretted selling back in Massachusetts. If we keep growing this and the cartography section at the current rate, we're going to need a second milk crate...and where will we get the space to keep it?

John Day, Dayville, John Day River, the John Day Wilderness, and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument,

There are many ways to get a place named after you. In this country one of the most successful strategies seems to be having been the first president. There are Washington states, districts, counties, towns, roads etc, everywhere.  That option having already been taken the next best method seems to be 'finding' and naming it yourself.   Apparently however there is one other option that works particularly well in central Oregon.  Get yourself robbed and stripped naked by Indians. That's what Virginia trapper John Day did in 1812 and subsequently he now has a whole slew of towns, rivers (there are 4 forks of the John Day River), a National Monument and a Wilderness area named after him. We drove into John Day (town) early in the morning after a long night of discussing what exactly all this traveling was about.

John Day Fossil Beds - Outhouse

We didn't have any real expectations aside from maybe finding a grocery store and a shower. What we found was the John Day (river) running through the high desert, and a way of life and land that was totally new for an Easterner like myself. Here was a place where water, even more than high temperature and dry air, and millenniums old volcanoes, are the major players. Many thousands of years and hundreds of volcanoes (see the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument) ago the area around John Day (town, river, monument, wilderness) was a flat volcanic plain. Then the John Day Rivers started running, starting cutting down through the volcanic layers, creating deep river valleys and wide flood plains. Revealing the fossils of the National Monument and creating the rich flood plain soil of the valley. Today, even while the erosion continues, the river and the underlying watershed are tapped to irrigate the crops of area ranches and make human high desert life possible.

Slide Lake - source of the John Day River

After locating both the grocery store and the all important Shower at the Clyde Holiday State Park (no idea why Clyde was the namesake), we drove west through the valley and along the John Day river to the Fossil Beds. Hiking up green, blue and red canyons, and visiting the Canto Ranch in 90 degree heat. Sure the weather was hot, but this was all too amazing to miss. Beside, we stopped in Dayville (named after our favorite trapper and also containing the Murderers Creek State Wildlife Refuge) on the way back for a Huckleberry ice cream cone.

The next day we drove east through the valley and along the John Day River to the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness, the source for the John Day River and hiked up through huckleberry bushes (keeping an eye out for bears) to Strawberry Lake and then along a steep canyon wall to Slide Lake. Another great day of hiking, followed by happy hour brews at the 1188 Brewing Company in John Day (town)

On the third day we drove north and then east, checking out the areas around the North and South

Granite!! trail in the Elkhorn Range

Forks of the river and eventually setting up camp at Anthony Lake in the Elkhorn Mountains. The following day we hiked up into the North Fork John Day Wilderness. Walking up, into and around those rare western granite peaks was spectacular, and it felt a little like being home. Being granite, the plant life and trail resembled the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Unlike our hikes into volcanic based mountains, here we walked along rock solid outcroppings, and along numerous bogs. The plants too felt more like home, the trees a bit smaller and with a larger percent of rhododendrons and laurels in the understory. The views however, were still western. Large sweeping panoramas of valleys, volcanic mountain ranges, buttes and plains. The perfect capstone to a week with John Day.
A man, a really un-historic event, many amazing places and a legacy that only goes to show that sometimes really bad days can get you associated with some awesome places.

Three Month Anniversary!

Ozette, Northern Washington Beachfront

It was either the migrating geese or the "eeek" of the osprey that woke me. We're the only ones at Fish Lake, Oregon this first morning of September, it's 38 degrees and there's no doubt that it's fall.

It's been three months that we've been 'on the road'. Early summer, the first month, we drove from Boston to Ashland, Oregon, exploring Michigan, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho along the way. The second month we explored Southern Oregon and Northern California while trying to get ourselves in shape for the PCT, only in the end to decide that was no longer something for us. The third month we left Ashland, looped up through central Oregon, southern Washington, up to the Olympic Peninsula and the south along the coast and back. We're still trying to figure out to best live this life on the Kelly and Dave Trail (KDT) but we're having some great adventures. There have been some amazing places and hikes along the way, many of which I have written about, many more still to tell. But along with all those great places and we've also met some amazing people.

Klamath Falls, the first major town east of Ashland, may be most well known for it's giant inland lake and as a major stop for migrating birds on the western flyway, but it also has an excellent coffee shop. Gathering Grounds Cafe has great coffee, great atmosphere, an a great proprietor. Yesterday when we stopped by he had an awesome Nicaraguan roast, and we got to talking about the shop, Klamath Falls, John Day (an central Oregon town I'll write about later), road bicycling vs backroad bicycling (the shop is a major promoter of all things bicycling), Burning Man (the shop is on route from Portland and Seattle), and life on the road and trail.

Last week, while hiking out to Cape Lookout on the Oregon Coast we hiked with an Oregonian from the Astoria area. Like many Oregonians she loves her state, especially the coast, spends a great deal of time camping and hiking around, and happily shared lots of stories about the area and life as we hiked out to the point and back.

The previous week, we'd run into a Washington couple while hiking the beach at Ozette, part of the Olympic National Park. We were each hiking the loop in opposite directions but we met back up at the campsite later that night. They were retirees from Port Townsend who regularly drove out to Ozette to spend the night and hike. We spent a good two hours swapping hiking stories, getting further recommendations from them, and talking about the logistics of living on the road, something they were interested in trying.

The week before that we'd spent four wonderful days in Port Angeles, houseguests of a family friend. A former mounted policeman for the National Park Service, Jim had some great stories to tell about working in San Francisco and DC along with local dinning and hiking recommendations.

While at the Dalles campground just outside Rainier National Park, way back in the second week of

Trail to Cape Lookout, OR

August, we meet Niles. Niles and his wife Jacqueline had rented an RV and were traveling much the same route as us, but in the opposite direction. Unlike us their main goal was to locate various geocaches, and also unlike us they were German. It's always interesting to get the European perspective on the United States. Trump was just starting to make his 'interesting' comments and was still considered more of a fringe curiosity so we didn't have to talk about that, but guns, politics and the wonders of the natural country all made for very interesting conversation.

Pretty soon we'll be heading (migrating?) south through California, Nevada and Utah. The vague plan is to make a loop through those states returning to Ashland in December for Christmas. Along the way there'll be more logistics to figure out, great places to hike, and hopefully more great people to meet.

Volunteer.gov and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Driving north from Steens Mountain along an endless flat plan, through an actual plague of locusts that left a hundred or so crisp bodies embedded in Bruce's radiator grill, we arrived at the desert oasis of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.  Malheur is one of the most extensive freshwater ecosystems in the western United States, and home to hundreds of resident and migrating birds. It also offers some interesting volunteer options for migrating humans.

Retirement comes with lots of times and unlimited options of how to spend it. Some people travel (our current modus operendi), some watch TV (average U.S. retiree spends more than 60 hours/week watching TV), some work part-time, some make home improvements, and some volunteer. (U.S. News). We've been a little curious about volunteering at the National Parks and Forests so a fellow traveler and self entitled "Naturalist Nomad" told us about the volunteer.gov website.  In additional to the Park and Forest Services, Fish and Wildlife, the BLM and other Federal agencies all list their volunteer openings. A number of the posts are targeted to folks like us, traveling retirees. Many offer a free tent site, RV pad, or housing in exchange for 25-40 hours/week. Go ahead, take a look at volunteer.gov if you're interested.

Camp Host appears to be the most prominent job. While I think S.D. would make an excellent parking garage attendant when he's 85, right now I don't think hosting is our thing. However, search deeper into the site and there are some other, very interesting options, including some at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. We thought the idea of volunteering there for a few weeks, learning more about birds, and giving back a little sounded interesting, and so we were stopping by to see just exactly what the area looked like. And it was really pretty cool. Locust plague aside, it was obviously a very diverse landscape of marsh, lakes, deserts, mountains and plains all located on the Pacific flyway, there was lots of opportunity to learn, and these types of volunteer opportunities might make an interesting addition to our nomadic lives.

We submitted our applications yesterday and will keep everyone posted!!

To the Steens!

Having decided what we weren't going to do (thru-hike the PCT), S.D. and I were a little fuzzy on what we were going to do. The long term solution would have to sort itself out over time, there were still lots of questions on how best to "live the dream". Short term we wanted to get back on the road.

Steens Mountain Geology

We knew we liked exploring new areas, camping out, and day hiking. It was now August and we needed to get somewhere cool. Temperatures inland and below 4000 ft were now in the 80's and 90's. The coast was getting crowded with summer beachgoers and we wanted somewhere quiet. Additionally we had to get upwind of smoke from the growing number of forest fires, and we wanted to be back in Ashland for Labor Day weekend.

River Valley on the West Flank

And so we went to the Steens! "Steens Mountain is a large fault block mountain in the southeast part of .... Oregon that stretches some 50 miles North South along the Alvord desert."  Daytime temperatures rise into the 70's and fall into the 40s and 50s at night. It's sunny, and being located miles from any major population center, or large water body, we were pretty sure it wasn't a family destination. And while we'd have to drive through the smoke from the 23000 acre fire in central Oregon, and others in Northern California, air around the Steens should be clear.

Perfect Glacial Valley on the East

As usual we left early in the morning driving through Southeastern Oregon and for about 35 miles in the  most desolate section of northern Nevada I could ever imagine. When the road turned back North, back into Oregon and up we arrived in the little town of Frenchglen at the base of the Steens. In Rick Bass's collection of essays "Why I Went West" he often muses on how certain places connect with certain people. His connection is to a corner of Montana. While my connection to the Steens is no where near as strong as his to Montana, and I only 'know' the Steens from our short visit, I do know that I love them!!!

We arrived mid-afternoon and drove east up and out of the town. After a few miles of sagebrush in the dryer, lower elevations, the landscape was replaced by junipers. Higher up it gave way to  aspen and mountain mahogany. Just after reaching timberline we took a right turn off the loop road, drove a short distance down into a small bowl-like area that was once again forested with Aspen and also contained a lake and the small Fish Lake campground, where we spent the night.

View Up Canyon Through Mountain Mahogany

Continuing on the loop road the next day we steadily climbed up through alpine wildflower meadows toward the summit. Being a fault block mountain the summit is more of a long ridge than the traditional pointy-top peak. Being a very old fault block mountain it has also been eroded over the 20 million or so years since it was pushed up. On the east, or steeper side, this erosion was caused most dramatically by glaciers, and the west by creeks, streams and rivers.

So to sum it up. Amazingly perfect U-shaped glacial valleys on the left, steeply-cut river canyons on the right, miles of alpine wildflower meadows, and fantastic 360 views. Oh, and my first mountain mahogany trees!

For some reason, we only spent a day in the Steens, but I promise, we'll be back.