On to Oregon

In case you don't already know, Out here "Oregon" does does NOT rhyme with "on". Oregonians pronounce it like "Oreg'n". It's just like "Michigan" doesn't rhyme with "an". Anyway... Here I am in Roseburg, Oreg'n. Ive done a lot since my last post to this will be a big one.

Here's the Golden Gate Bridge just before I crossed it to meet up with Chad in Point Reyes National Seashore.

This California Quail sat nicely for me at the visitor center at Point Reyes. I guess he was used to seeing people.

Birding was a bit slow that day. I met Chad and his Son, Nephew, and Father In law in the little town of Reyes Station and we went from there. We got a bit of a late start and the migration is really pretty much past by now anyway. We saw a few birds and it was good to see Chad and meet some of his family. Not a bad day in spite of the fact that Chad failed miserably at producing a Tricolored Blackbird for me. Don't worry Chad, I forgive you, and I did find one later on near the refuge your book suggested. Check that one off my list.

It was good to get out of the Bay area. Nice as it is, it's expensive. I'm not used to paying $25 for a night of camping. In the mountains near Willows CA I found a free campground that I had all to myself except for some Elk in the field nearby and a Coyote that walked through in the morning. My kind of camping!

From there I started heading for the Redwoods but I got distracted by a sign for the Lassen Volcanic National Park. I decided to see what that was all about. It was interesting but I would suggest going after June. As you can see they still had a lot of snow there and many of the trails were still closed.

I found some free camping near there too, along a forest service road that apparently doubled as a cross-country ski trail in the winter. The sign I'm pointing at marks the ski trail. I figure it's around 18 to 20 feet up. They get a lot of snow there! Up in the park they were lamenting the fact that they only got around 14 feet this past winter. The year before they had 33 feet! They said they sometimes don't open the road through the park until July!

I had to add this shot of another free campsite I found. You can just make out the beautiful clear rushing stream in the background. I even had a picnic table and a couple porta-jons a short walk away. This has to be on of my all time favorite campsites.

Redwood National Park was beautiful but a bit of a challenge to photograph. How do you make these big trees really look big? Also, aside from one morning of fog, it was sunny there. That makes it difficult to photograph in the forest.

They have quite a few Elk there too.

And I had to include this photo of a Banana Slug. The Pacific Northwest is known for them. I don't know how big they get but I'm sure it's over six inches!

From here it was on to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Quite a place, but I ran into some of the same problems I had before with snow. Only about a quarter of the road around the crater was open. Fortunately the open section had some of the best view points.

This might not be a work of art but it does show something very interesting. First of all, don't let the color fool you, this is water not sky. I took it from the rim of the crater looking down. This is what's known as the "Old Man of Crater Lake". It's a log about 30 feet long and two feet in diameter floating vertically in the water and sticking up out of the water by about four feet. The really amazing thing is that it's been floating around like this since 1896! I'm getting my information from a less than official website so you might want to look up the details for yourself before you go quoting me. But I don't think I'm far off. So why doesn't it sink or rot? Why is it floating in that weird position? I just don't know.

I left Crater Lake expecting to drive straight for the coast. I started out doing just that but I saw a sign for a waterfall so I had to stop. Then I was another sign and another and another... It turns out that the road is part of a scenic drive and there are beautiful rivers, streams and falls everywhere. I thought it would take me an afternoon to get to the coast, but it looks like it will be most of three days instead. This area is gorgeous!

At just about every waterfall I stopped at I saw Dippers. This one is getting ready to bring that mouthful of morsels to its young in the nest just over its head. You can see the water rushing all around it. That's where Dippers like to nest. A lot of times the bird can't get to the nest without getting wet. That doesn't mean much to them though since they feed in rushing rivers. You can watch them hop around on the rocks and then suddenly they disappear under the water. Amazing!

I found this thing amazing too. It's a Redwood Stave Pipe; part of a pipeline carrying water from a reservoir to a power plant. It's about ten feet high and it appears to be put together like a wine barrel. It seems to be pretty old, but aside from a few leaks it seems to be holding together.

I think it's a little bit like a company having too much business, a nice problem to have, but it has been frustrating for me with all these things to photograph. If I find them when the light isn't good, what do I do? Wait for good light? Come back later? Just shoot anyway? I've done a little of each so far but even if I had good light all the time I wouldn't be able to stop for every photograph I see. I've had to put blinders on quite a bit. If I didn't I might never get out of this county! I can only do what I can do, and I've got to leave time for rest. That's harder now too with the amount of daylight we've been having.

Don't worry Mom I'll be fine.

I occurs to me that I haven't given a church report in a while. It's not that I haven't been going, I just haven't been reporting. When I was at Roy's I went to the Christian Church of North Hollywood. That was really just nice. Good music and a nice family feeling to it. The next week I went to Twin Lakes Church near Santa Cruz. That was a great church. Wonderful music and a great message. If I lived in the area I would be going there. Last Sunday I went to Calvary Chapel of the Redwoods. Very nice for a small church. None of these churches had anything for me to plug into as a single on that particular Sunday, but I'm still open to that. We'll see what next week brings.

I've done something I don't like to do. I've spent a lot of money and I've set a deadline for myself. I book a place for myself on an Alaska Marine Highway ferry from Bellingham, Washington to Haines, Alaska. I'm leaving on Friday, July 13th and arriving on the following Monday. It will give me a break from driving and I'm told that the trip is quite an experience. Even if it does turn out to be a bummer it will only be about three days. I'm pretty excited about it.

I guess that was a long post. I better get going now. Thank for looking and for praying.

Steve