Day One - Salem to Detroit

This trip came about because: (1) We had a window of ten days open on our calendar. (2) It's a good time of year to travel over the Cascades and visit Central & Eastern Oregon. (3) Jeanette has long had a dream  of a trip made up short 50 mile days. Many of you know that our dog Buster, has developed a travel anxiety in his old age, so short travel days will hopefully work the best for us all. With all these factors in mind we set out from home yesterday morning in our Roadtrek Zion on our adventure, with a plan of combining relief stops for Buster with birding stops for us.

Lyons City Park

Our first stop based on Buster's level of anxiety was Lyons City Park.  An old faviote of ours, but yesterday morning we saw it through a new lens of the season. Many of our visits to this park have been in fall and winter when the ponds of full of wintering water fowl.  On this morning the woods were full of bird song, and the mix of sunshine, trails, and wildlife worked its magic on all three of us. For out bird list with photos click here.

Western Pond Turtle at Lyons City Park

Jouneying on we took the back road through Fox Valley to Mill City where we stopped for lunch at Subway.  From there we were back on Highway 22 to Detriot Lake for our next stop at Detroit Flats. For our bird list with photos at Detroit Flats, which include a rare sighting of a Horned Grebe, click here.

By the time we had finished birding we were baking in the hot sun with temps approcing 80 degrees, so we went in search for shade and a camping site.  We hit the jackpot at our first stop, Hoover Campground, a Willamette National Forest Campground on Blow-out Road on the South shore of Detroit Lake.  Circling through the campground we found site numer 4, the perfect site for shade and also cell coverage, which we where suprised and delighted. 36 site here of which we had 30 to pick from. Cost 24 a night, put only 12 for us Seniors. Swainson's Thrushes serenaded from the towering firs, an occasional Stellar's Jay warned of our presence. On the shaded picnic bench I set up my laptop to process the photos and bird lists from the day. Life is good.

Hoover Campground