Un-blogable

The last several days have been pretty much un-blogable. We took delivery of our new motor home on Thursday afternoon. Spent Thursday evening and all day Friday trying to get settled into the new rig while parked in daughter Lisa’s driveway in Dallas. Saturday we traveled to Albany for Jeanette’s 45-year high school class reunion. We parked across the street from the park, took showers, put on clean clothes and went to the party. A short visit there turned out to be enough and so we headed up to Silver Falls State Park to stay for the weekend. Two days of quietness was just what we needed (no cell or Internet coverage) to figure out things and settle in. We even got in some hiking. This morning we returned to Salem to have a few odds and ends fixed on the motor home. The plan of the moment is to travel on to Lebanon tonight, stay in an RV park and show sister Kathy and her husband the new motor home.

Rambling

Not much to ramble on about today, just waiting impatiently for our new Holiday Rambler motor home. As I think about it “rambling” sort of ties everything together. In the word of Blog I go by “The Rambler”, I spend the majority of my time working on my website “Cascade Ramblings”, where I ramble on about all kinds of trails and lakes that I have either rambled to or hope to ramble to, and hopefully come Friday we will be rambling around in our new Holiday Rambler.

Missed Opportunity

My daughter-in-law Robin, sent me this hilarious RV photo this morning. It’s too bad Jeanette and I are already in the process of purchasing our new Holiday Rambler, I’m afraid we might have missed an opportunity! Too bad, I’m sure the gas mileage is great!

Two Boys - Two Dogs

Today I walked two of my grandsons, Luke and William, to Gala Park in Dallas. Luke, age 7 soon to be 8, took Buster on a leash, and William age 9, soon to be 10, took his new dog Stormy on a leash. Grandpa took the photo.

Cascade Ramblings takes a Holiday

Cascade Ramblings as chosen a Holiday, a Holiday Rambler that is, for our new mobile office. As shown in the photo, it’s a new 2009 30ft Admiral by Holiday Rambler. We purchased it yesterday at Wager Trailer Sales in Salem. We are having two extra batteries installed and adding a DC to AC inverter. We hope to be able to take delivery next Friday. It has lots of neat features, so I should be able to conduct the business of Cascade Ramblings in complete luxury as we ramble around the country.

Office Shopping

Wednesday was spent mostly shopping for new mobile office space for Cascade Ramblings. What we liked the most at this point is a new 2009 30 ft Monaco Monach.

Happy Birthday Jeanette

Happy Birthday to my hiking campanion and sweetheart, Jeanette.

New Friends

Today while hiking through the Sutton Campground near Florence we met and made new friends--Rin and Viv. They are pictured here in a photo they took at Heceta Head Lighthouse. They are “full-timers”, meaning they sold their home in Florida four years ago and live full-time in their motor home enjoying the good life whereever they find it.

Butterflies to Bastions

Our friends Dan & Charlene Lawry, who live in Sisters, just spent some time with us in Elkton. We pretty much showed them the town, in particularly the Elkton Community Education Center where we toured the butterfly gardens, the butterfly pavilion, the gift shop, the library, and the replica of Fort Umpqua.

Coyote Spotting

The Dean Creek Wildlife Area located on Highway 38 along the Umpqua River just east of Reedsport is a well-known spot to see lots of elk. Today besides seeing a lot of Elk, we spotted a Coyote! We were returning from hiking on the Reedsport Levee, referred to in the last post as Scholfied Creek Dyke, when our friend Eddie Harrod spotted a lone coyote out in the fields. We parked and watched it in our binoculars, and using a tripod I was able to get this photo.

New Hiking Opportunity

Here is an opportunity to hike a new trail. I recently found out about a hike in Reedsport that only the locals seem to know about that follows the top of the dyke that protects the city from Scholfield Creek. We plan on taking an exploring hike of it on Thursday. It should be about a 3 mile round trip hike. Feel free to join us. We will leave Elkton at 9:00AM. No need to bring a lunch, as we will make a detour during or after the hike to Subway or McDonalds. If you need more information call me at 503-399-9665

Encounter of the Spirit World

Friday evening at dusk we took a walk out to the Elkton Community Education Center to take a look at the Fort Umpqua replication project. All was quiet at the site as all the workers were gone for the day. However on the far stockade wall I spotted a small falcon, an American Kestrel, perched on the top of the tallest log. He held his position as we approached and I took this photo. It gave me a weird feeling that he alone was standing guard over the fort. I wondered if a Native American seeing such a sight would probably interpret this as the manifestation from the Spirit World --- guarding the fort.

Eagle Cap Wilderness Backpack

Kevin Wright shared this trip of Aug 2-5 to Ice Lake - -

"Wow. What a beautiful place! But I should have agreed to an easier "first" backpack trail, almost 8 miles and 3300' of elevation gain equaled an exhausted Kevin when we finally stopped switchbacking and reached the lake. Dropped the 40lb pack and relaxed at our campsite, swatted mosquitoes, and recharged for the Matterhorn hike the next day. Deer in camp every night, almost annoying - noisy and fairly tame!! I was still recovering from the day before, but had a great time and made it up to the summit on Monday. Saw mountain goats, and seemed like we could see forever up there. Such a beautiful area, makes me want to explore Mirror Lake, Horseshoe Lake, etc. But the long drive there and back is a drawback, I guess it's the price you pay for admission. We had an incredible thunderstorm Tues night, wind blew like a gale - 50mph maybe? - lightning, thunder, and of course, rain. Intense. But it finally passed, we were actually spared the worst of it, most of it was over the ridge east of us. Gary and I fished most of Tuesday, caught several brookies on flies and spinners."

Fishing Report

Dan Nejely, a follower of Cascade Ramblings, reports the following - -
"Day hike from PCT at Santiam to Square lake (skunked in 1 hr. of fishing) up to booth lake (2, 12 inch brookies in 2 hours of fishing) up to Martin Lake (1, 13" rainbow in 2 hours) up to the PCT and back down to Santiam pass on the PCT. This is of course in August, so the fishing is expected to be lousy! Most of this is hiking in burn, but Martin wasn't burnt around and is a beautiful little spot."

Tips & Posts

I'm back in my office at headquarters this morning and trying to tie everything together with a new Trailhead Tip for Cascade Ramblings, a new post for the blog, and a new post for Facebook.

On the Move

Today Cascade Ramblings moves its mobile office, our Rexhall motor home, back to our headquarters in Elkton, Oregon. Since July 21st we have been roaming the Oregon Coast from Reedsport to Pacific City escaping the inland heat and enjoying the cooler tempatures of the coastal trails and beaches.

A New Trail

Hello blog world-----Cascade Ramblings now has its own blog! Our webmaster (my son Michael) for my birthday has created the Cascade Ramblings Blog. It will be linked with the original Cascade Ramblings site and hopefully will serve as a helpful tool for dialogue for fellow outdoor enthusiasts. Jim