Day 4: Putzing around on the Willamette River and a night in Portland

Bridget and I started the day with some english muffin/eggs/avocado/tomato sandwiches before heading out for an epic kayaking trip. We rented a stubby Otter recreational boat from Peak Sports in downtown Corvallis. The put-in was allegedly a block away, so Bridget carried the boat while I drove to meet her. 5 blocks later, I found her staggering along, half dragging the boat through the grass. I parked to help her carry it the next 4 blocks. We launched onto the Willamette River and soon realized that paddling upstream would not be the relaxing morning paddle we had envisioned. Naturally, the response was to call Bridget's dad to see if he would meet us in Albany (10 miles downstream) a couple hours later and shuttle us back to my car. His response was a firm "No, I'm working today," which we found rather suspicious since he is retired... We struggled up ~ 1 mile of river before reaching a shallow spot with rapids where we were forced to turn around.

Launch site on the Willamette River

As we were relaxing in the confluence with Marys River, I decided to take a little nap by laying on the back deck, flinging my sunglasses off the top of my head and into the (luckily) shallow water. I recounted that a similar event had happened with Alice a few months prior, on a much deeper reservoir. With 15 minutes left on the boat rental, we started the float back to the launch site. Within site of the beach I once again decided to lay back, again flinging my expensive icelandic sunglasses off the back of my boat, this time into much deeper water. I watched them slowly slip into the darkness, like Jack in the Titanic.

The loss of the sunglasses, however, afforded me the opportunity to chat about kayaking with a couple of the guys working at Peak Sports while I tried on some new pairs. Apparently they had seen one other Greenland style paddle in the past 8 years. I attempted to demonstrate some greenland style kayak strokes inside the store (without a paddle), which really just resulted in an awkward solo dance.

Bridget and I stopped for a free slice of bread at Great Harvest before heading back to Bridget's house for showers/packing/lunch. We made a quick coffee run to a very hipster cafe, where we observed a man wearing leg-warmer-type leggings that started at his ankle and stopped just below the knee. Is this a thing? Spoiled by the 4 types of milk at Peet's coffee in Berkeley, I accidentally used an exorbitant amount of half-and-half, resulting in a rather unappetizing vat of iced half-and-half with coffee. Bridget and I sat in my car for another 30 minutes waiting for the rain to pass while we were on hold with the WA DOT ferry hotline to find out if having kayaks on our roofs would ramp up the cost of ferrying around the San Juans (it will, but only if it makes your car longer than 22' or taller than 7.5', yay!).

Date: 7/22/2014
Distance: 2.3 miles
Duration: 2 hrs.......

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Day 4 continued!
I arrived at Ju, Mike, and Simeon's house in Portland around 5pm. Ju and Mike both had busy days at work, so while I waited on their stoop I had a very productive planning call with Sara about our upcoming trip to the San Juan islands. We made the executive decision that having our own tents is fantastic, and that there is more than enough space in the car for this luxury. Mike arrived shortly after with Simeon (2-years-old and adorably bilingual). The last time I saw Simeon he was ~2 weeks old and had not yet acquired the dance moves, energy, and style that he has today. Juliette arrived shortly after (yay!) and we walked to a fusion/street-cart style Indian restaurant where I was impressed by Simeon's ability to tolerate some spicy food. Our dessert stomachs still empty, we made our next stop at a nearby ice cream shop.

The walk home was punctuated by a painful-looking faceplant by Simeon. He could not be consoled by pointing out that he'd managed to save his ice cream cone in the process. At the house Simeon, Mike, and I played with Big Purple. He's a natural. We're planning to bring Big Purple with us to the Columbia River tomorrow night (where Mike and Ju store their boat) and take Simeon for a real ride in the kayak!:

We wrapped up the evening with a dance show by Simeon and perusing Mike's fluvial restoration design drawings. Last week Mike wrapped up the design and construction of a fish passage project on Nettle Creek.

Day 3: Corvallis Chillin'

We did not get enough sleep last night. Our late return from the Oregon Dunes and Bridget's marionberry smoothie adventure (at midnight) resulted in a very late bedtime. The homeowners' dog (she is house sitting), Maddy, finds it necessary to clippy-clop around the house every 20 minutes, shaking her cowbells in the process (she also looks like a cow). Hence the lack of sleep.

Maddy + Bridget

I accompanied Bridget in some morning errands:

• Returning her high visibility PPE shirt and purchasing 4 rolls of duct tape at Wilco (I'm pretty sure the band is not named after this store)
• Coffee break at The Beanery (a very Corvallis thing to do)
• Stopping by her office at OSU to make/print some shipping labels, and meeting some of her (very important) friends in the process
• Stopping by the shipyard (which I was disappointed to find does not have ships nor water) to package up some equipment for her upcoming research cruise to Romania (!). We asked her colleague whether we could borrow his SUP and received a confident "No" for an answer.

I was put to work taking photos of important things, like this label that proves the wood has been treated and does not contain insects:

Bridget in her natural environs:

Bridget in the office

Bridget in the shipyard

Bridget on her couch (Bridget right now)

After our tired/lazy day we decided it was far too much effort to paddle the 20 miles to Rogue Hops Farms and instead made pizza and invited Bridget's friend Nick over for dinner (he also works on coastal erosion and flood hazards, but along the Oregon coast). We made super thin crust pizza, ate all of it, drank (or didn't drink) IPAs, and were in bed by 9pm. Yes.

Bridget with dog and chicken

Day 2: Southern Oregon Coast

Sunday morning started early: I woke up around 5:50am after a reasonably sound night of sleep (having your own tent is a glorious thing), packed up the tent, and shared a sad goodbye with groggy Alice. The Mendocino coast road was foggy at 6:20am:

I drove for a few hours, until lack of coffee and gasoline led me to find the cheapest gas in the Eureka/Arcata area. Upon putting my visa card in the pump the machine returned a "Card Not Recognized" error, and I realized it was a gas station for truck drivers and other special people, myself not included. No wonder it was $0.20 cheaper. I reluctantly returned to a Chevron station and refilled on cheap coffee and expensive gas.

Since I'd spent a good amount of time in Humboldt/Crescent City/Smith River on past roadtrips, I booked it through the rest of northern CA with only a short stop at the Crescent City jetty/pier. The "Welcome to Oregon" sign came and passed, and I took a short break to hike down to Whalehead Beach.

Whalehead

I was a bit ahead of schedule, so I spent some time driving through Bandon and checking out the harbor.

Coquille River Harbor/mouth. Google turns my pictures into cool panoramas...

Breezing through Coos Bay, I met Bridget and her friend Stephanie in Winchester Bay at 3pm. Our meeting point was the Windy Bay Sourdough Bakery, where Bridget and I split a sourdough bagel and tasted all the mustard samples. mmmm. We looked at a map of Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area and selected the nearest trailhead: the Tahkenitch Dunes Trail. The complete loop, along the Threemile Lake Trail, the Tahkenich Dunes, and back along the Dunes trail is 6-miles.

The first leg of the trail meanders through the woods past some small lakes, with glimpses of the coastal dunes. In some locations a river of sand had come pouring down the hill, covering the trail:

The second leg of the hike was along the dunes, which made for much more difficult hiking. Since the dunes are constantly changing, the trail is less obvious. We found our way by connecting some tall wooden stakes placed strategically in some of the higher dunes. These dunes are interesting because they are fronted by a narrow forest - normally the sand dunes are directly along the ocean.

Just when we thought we couldn't take any more sand steps, the trail took a turn into the strip of trees along the beach, and we scurried down to the beach.

Tahkenitch Creek Lagoon

After ~45 minutes of recovering and snacking on the beach, we traced our footsteps to the trail intersection to return along the other side of the loop. A couple miles later we realized we'd taken the wrong fork in the trail, requiring an extra mile of "hiking" along HWY 101 to get back to the cars. The highway took us along Tahkenitch Lake, so while our joints were aching we managed to enjoy the extra leg of the hike. We maintained spirits by blasting country music from cell phones and doing ridiculous dances to extract honks from passing cars. Stephanie found a dead bird on the side of the road.

Upon our late return to the cars we commenced a massive spontaneous picnic of the usual pitas/veggies/hummus/fruit.  On the drive home we made a spontaneous decision (conducted through the car windows at a stoplight) to chase the sunset. We arrived at the coast seconds before the sunset:

Crater Lake, Oregon: Not, in fact, formed by a meteorite hitting the top of a mountain!

Annotated Log Style

Friday, May 10th
9pm. After a weary work day for both of us, Sara and I met in downtown Oakland to catch the Coast Starlight [a 34 hour train route from Los Angeles to Seattle] at Jack London Square. As we boarded, the Coach Attendant directed us to assigned seats on the second floor of the Klamath Falls car. Our initial concerns that we'd be exhausted after the overnight ride eased upon reclining into our wide, soft chairs. It didn't take long before the gentle train rhythms lulled us to sleep!

Saturday, May 11th
6:30am. Awoken by a peaceful sunrise on the train near the CA/OR border.
7:45am. Early arrival in Klamath Falls.
8:30am. Bridget arrives. Coffee and bagels at a The Daily Bagel. Halfway decent for west coast bagels! On the way to Crater Lake we stop at some "viewpoints" where the waterfalls were just barely viewable and meet a family of roadtrippers who title us "City Girls," much to everyone's offense.
10:30am. Arrive at Crater Lakes's Rim Village where Beth and Trevor are waiting.

11:30am. During a descent down a relatively steep snowy slope, Sara and I decided to do some tricks: I basically do a summersault towards a rock and sara drops her massive water bottle into a more massive crevasse. We both survive and Trevor descends into the crevasse to retrieve the water bottle. We avoid crevasses/schisms/holes/pits/abysses for the rest of the weekend.

Trevor in the crevasse

On the return hike we mostly stuck to the road, which was was perfectly plowed next to 10+ feet of snow. Crater Lake is the third snowiest place in the U.S., receiving 483 inches (40 feet) of snow annually! It's a miracle the roads are plowed at all.

The interesting part: Crater Lake is a caldera lake, which formed when Mount Mazana erupted and collapsed on itself. It's the deepest lake in the U.S. and the 9th deepest lake in the world. For the hydrology nerds: the only inflow and outflow to the lake are precipitation and evaporation, resulting in a 250 year residence time. Compare that to ~ 6 years for Lake Ontario and only a few months for San Francisco Bay - that's old water! Wizard Island (pictured below) is one of many cones that have erupted since the major eruption. It's the only one that reaches above the water surface. And last but not least, a view of the spectacular lake!

~3pm. Return to cars and have lunch on a log overlooking the lake.
4pm. Arrive at Umpqua Hot Springs where we encounter large groups of free spirits who seem to be living at the hot springs. Although we found a nice campsite next to a beautiful river (see below), we decided to leave after a long-term-camper/panhandler asked us for money so he could buy cigarettes (I swear I'll only buy cigarettes!).

~6pm. We set up camp at Toketee Lake Campground and cooked up some pesto pasta and veggies for dinner. Beth treated us to some Korean sweets that she'd transported herself after her worldly travels.

Sunday, May 12th
8:30am. Rise and shine! Bridget spread the breakfast table with delicious muffins and bananas. Did you know that bananas naturally break into thirds, lengthwise? Fascinating.
11am. Start hiking up towards Diamond Peak. Hike around on a dirt trail until we reach snowpack.

Mount Diamond

1pm. Lunch-on-a-log followed by more snow hiking.

The lunch log.

~3pm? Return to cars and drive to Diamond Lake. Clouds of mosquito-like-buzzing insects surround us and swarm into the car. We sprinted towards the lake where it was windy and bugless. Bridget does her trademark dip in the freezing lake and we make friends with a fisherman on the dock. I sneakily hinted that we were interested in going for a ride in his boat, but he was oblivious to our hinting (or I'm terrible at hinting) and points us to the boat rental shop. At this point we parted ways, with Beth and Trevor heading north towards Chemult where Trevor was catching the train back to the Bay. Bridget, Sara, and I laid out on the bobbing docks and enjoyed the warm sunny weather for a little while longer.

Enjoying the sunny day on a bouncy dock, far away form the hoards of buzzing flies.

In La Pine we stopped at a diner to order milkshakes (which had been the topic of many hiking conversations). The milkshakes came in mason jars and we tried almost every flavor on the menu thanks to a convenient mistake by our server.
8pm.  We arrive at Bridget's beautiful house in Sun River where we pack our things, eat some rice cakes, and snuggle with amazingly comfy Costco blankets on the couch.

Monday, May 13th
12am. Still awake, thinking about having to return to Oakland and brooding how to move somewhere safer as soon as possible.
3am. Alarm. Empty the toilet bowls. Did you know that if you dump a bucket of water in a toilet it will empty completely? Fascinating, especially at 3am. Apparently the iron-heavy water leaves stains...
4:30am. At the Redmond Airport
5:30am. En route to San Francisco