Our Summer and Fall

When we returned from our travels early this summer, our yard, once again became a priority.

Ground cover had grown between the steps that our son Brent had placed two years ago, and his plantings began to stabilize the hill, mountain goat-steep, to the west of our house.  There is no way the photo shows this steepness.  Come visit and walk it yourself.  

We did, however, have a few things working against us.  One night this was a beautiful, thick bunch of chrysanthemums.  The next morning, we discovered that we had fed the deer.  Still, if this is what we have to endure to enjoy their wanderings back and forth through our area, it is a small price to pay.

 We had been worried about erosion on the east side of our house, so we decided to put in a series of retaining walls to stabilize the area.  Brent had put the steps the year before.  Here, Ted has completed the lowest wall, and partially completed the second.

 The walls have been completed and the side yard partially planted.  Ted is air-layering cuttings

for use here in 2013.

We see a lot of the surrounding landscape from our decks, but sometimes our view is impaired.  This summer, that happened a lot.  Mount Hood is almost completely obscured by smoke.  While we had our share of fires, this smoke was blown across the Pacific from fires in Mongolia and Siberia.

 It did, however, make for some spectacular sunsets.

 As I said, we do have our share of fires.  This one was in a wildlife preserve below us.

 It burned through the night and well into the next day.

We did have lots of other distractions.  Here, the mighty 4449 Pacific Daylight, steams, a few hundred feet, below our house and into the Gorge as she had so many times has in years past.  This engine, painted Red, White and Blue, pulled the Freedom Train through every state in the lower 48 in 1976.

 We also got to watch our grandson, Tyler, play baseball and football.  Here, he eludes that last tackler before the end zone.  This was one of three touchdowns he scored this day.

 Soon enough, fall set in again and we were privileged to see Mt. Hood once again covered with snow.

 We love our days when we can see forever from our back deck, but those of us who love the Pacific Northwest begin to get a little antsy when summer turns into fall and we still have blue skies.  Winter has its own type of beauty.  Here the sun gleams through a hole in the clouds and glints off the Columbia River at the entry to the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area.

Turning to the west, we see the evening begin to fall.

The lights begin to turn on in Gresham, an eastern suburb of Portland, Oregon announcing the start of our evening city lights display.

As the sun falls below the horizon, the sky seems to be on fire. The steam in the foreground is from Georgia Pacific, the paper mill, that made our little neck of the woods what it is today. The local high school calls itself "The Papermakers".  That is how important this industry is to our economy.

We love the Pacific Northwest, but as the winter begins to set in, our thoughts once again begin to turn south as we prepare for another winter in the desert Southwest.

Washington Coast

 Friends, Mike and Karen Taylor, took us to an RV park on the Washington coast.  The park had been a military base.  It is still owned by the Navy and is available to active/retired military families and their guests.  Karen is in blue to the left.  She is sorting the many sand dollars she picked up on the beach.

 There is a lot of open area so that when the park filled up, we still felt we had privacy.  The houses in the background are a small neighborhood in the teeny town of Pacific Beach.  As the name suggests, it as a beach town.  It is about 50 miles due west of Tacoma.  There are about a half dozen businesses in the town.  There are several small communities along Ocean Beach Road that dead ends a few miles north of here in an Indian reservation that abuts the Olympic National Park.  The town at the end of the road was SO depressing.  It is an Indian town.  Dogs were running loose everywhere and many houses had junk piled inside above the top of windows.  

 This complex houses motel rooms, a small movie theater with 8 recent movies shown free, a banquet room, registration, gift shop, restaurant, and workout room.  There is also another building with a bowling alley, sauna, and hot tub.  At $20 a night, this is a nice perk for our military.

 This is the entrance to registration.

The houses on the right are duplexes that are rentals and outside the military site.  At the end of this street and to the left is the town of Pacific Beach.  This whole area is very remote.  The nearest full service grocery store is 40 minutes away, down a winding, two lane highway.  I doubt that the electrical and phone lines will be buried any time soon, even though that would really improve the view of the Pacific.  There is a state park with nice RV sites behind the building you see at the end of the road.

Beyond the fence is a cliff, the beach, Pacific Ocean, and a pretty sunset.  Access to the beach was a very steep road.  Cars are allowed on the beach here.  Private homes are nestled along the cliffs and have a lot of property between them.  Ted and Mike went deep-sea fishing out of Gray's Harbor, which is over an hour drive.  They both caught salmon, but Ted had to throw all of his back since they were wild fish (the adipose fins of hatchery salmon are clipped).  

To reach Pacific Beach, you have to go through Aberdeen and Hoquiam, WA.  They were built when lumber was king.  Note the houses built on tall foundations.  There are 6 rivers and Gray's Harbor that opens onto the ocean near by.   

This photo of downtown Hoquiam looks very much like the one at www.historylink.org that is labeled 1960s.

 In 1990-1991 the northern spotted owl was placed on the threatened species list.  This led to the suspension of all logging on old-growth timber lands and much logging on second and third growth areas.  Logging continues, but not at the volume of before. Hoquiam and Aberdeen became very depressed areas and have yet to completely recover.  

Bridges like this are all over Oregon and Washington.  They seem like art to us.

These stacks are for nuclear plants near Hwy 12 between Aberdeen and Olympia.  They were never completed.

Look carefully.  You will see Mt. St. Helens just a little to the left of the center of this photo.  This is the view going south on I-5 near Chehalis.  The sign on the left, referred to as the Chehalis Uncle Sam, on is a bit of local color.  It was erected by a farmer angry that I-5 was built through the middle of his farm.  He died in 2004 and his son now keeps the right wing rants current.  In our left leaning state, he seldom runs out of ammunition.  On this day it says, "8 trillion $ in debt? Aren't you embarassed yet?" Note that "embarrassed" is spelled wrong. 

Rocky Mountain National Park

 Penny had been here as a dour teen.  One of the things she remembered was that every time they crossed the Continental Divide, and they crossed it several times, her mother made a big deal out of it.  She silently groaned every time.  

 We were, of course, a little ahead of tourist season.  That had its advantages in that there was little traffic on the roads.  Note the height of the snow poles through this rock cut.

 There were, however, disadvantages.  This sign, at one of the visitors' centers, indicates that the flush toilets here did not work because the pipes were still frozen.  It's worth noting that the elevation of this center was 11,796 feet, 547 feet higher than the tip of Mt. Hood.

 We live in a very scenic place, but this area has its own, very different brand of beauty.  This pretty little lake was in a small draw at an elevation of over 10,000 feet.

 The geology was equally spectacular and interesting.  Look at the multiple lava flow layers on this dome.

 Glaciers, snow caps, and high alpine meadows abounded. 

 These lava cliffs are home to the highest known nesting pair of prairie falcons.

 One of them emerged and swooped over us as we stood there taking in the scenery.

 If the scenery and geology weren't enough, the place abounded with wildlife.  This Clark's nutcracker posed for us at one of the pullouts.

 As did this mountain bluebird.

 Elk grazed in the alpine meadows.  These elk aren't as burly and well fed looking as those we usually see in the Pacific Northwest, but the conditions they have to endure during the winter are far more harsh.  In this area, snow pack can easily exceed thirty feet, and winter winds routinely top one hundred miles per hour.

 This marmot posed for us at another pullout.

 Lovely flowers, like this snow gentian, abounded in alpine meadows.  Because of the harsh climate and short growing season here, plants may require several years of growth before they can gather enough energy to flower.  One of the rangers at a visitor center told us of one in particular that had been watched for twenty five years before its first, and last, bloom.  She was horrified every time she saw a tourist bring in a flower that they had picked.

 The yellow of this alpine buttercup provides a pretty counterpoint to the neighboring stonecrop as they compete for the attention of the pollinators that are scarce at this altitude.

The size of these delicate little forget-me-nots belies the intensity of their fragrance. 

George Carlin once said, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of moments that take your breath away."

This is one of those places that has enhanced the measure of our lives.

Estes Park

 After leaving Illinois, we turned back west.  Our first stop, other than overnights in Des Moines and North Platte, was Estes Park, Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park.  Penny had been here before, but although Ted had been in the Rockies several times, it was usually on business, so he looked forward to being a tourist.  After a winding drive on U.S. 34, a narrow two lane road, we had to navigate through downtown Estes Park to get to our RV park.  

 Most of the spaces in the RV park were unoccupied except by these little critters.  They were obviously used to getting handouts.  They quickly discovered that we were not going to feed them, so they mostly ignored us. 

 The park was nothing special except for this; the view through our windshield.

 Soon after we arrived, the clouds started coming in.  Fearing that they would obscure our views from the higher elevations, we decided to take a day to relax and wander through Estes Park.

 The lovely Fall River ran through downtown filling the area with the soothing sound of running water.  The town has made this river a feature with lots of rest areas along the banks.

 Most of downtown Estes Park was very touristy, and several of the shops were filled with disappointing schlock, but there were a few points of interest.  At the west end of downtown was this carillon.  On the hour, the doors opened and the area above the clock rotated telling the story of the area.

This is the famous Stanley Hotel.  It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, one of the most innovative of American entrepreneurs.  He and his brother, Francis, founded the company that built the Stanley Steamer after selling the rights to their photographic dry plate business to Eastman Kodak.  It was Stephen King's stay here that inspired him to write The Shining.  Parts of the mini-series version were filmed in this hotel, but the more famous Stanley Kubrick film version was filmed at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, OR, which we see from our house.

After exploring Estes Park, we returned to our coach, enjoyed the cool weather, watched as the sun set, and prepared for the next day's trip into the mountains.