Introduction:
In my
report on The Early
Trips, I covered travels back as far as 1940,
when I was 18 months old, through 1978. After that, my trips were
virtually all for camping and/or backpacking, and there are separate
reports on that, in the "Before 2002" section of the links
below. In this report I will focus on some trips
I took with my older grandson, Johnny Upshaw.
Like
both my kids and both grandkids, his first camping trip was in his
first year of life, and I took him with me on many camping trips. In
addition, he went by plane with me to
Ohio
several times. Our first “big” adventures didn’t take place
until I acquired a travel trailer in 1991, but I’ll get to that in
a while.
Ohio: In 1990 my mother and her three sisters and some
cousins decided to revive the
Watkins Reunion. K.K. and Tillie Watkins were their maternal
grandparents. They had five children who lived to adulthood, 23
grandchildren, 62 great grandchildren, and at least 100 great great
grandchildren at that time, so there was a potential attendance of
200 or more. My grandson, Johnny, was one of only two great great
great grandchildren at that time, but there are now 20 or
30 in his generation. Of course, K.K. and Tillie were long gone, as were all
their children, although two daughters-in-law were still alive.
Mother
and her sisters had attended Watkins reunions in the 1920s when they
were kids, but as people moved around, the event died out. There was
a series of reunions into the 1970s, but by 1990 there had been no
big gathering for ten years or more.
As only
mothers can, she encouraged me to attend, and I made plans for my
first trip to
Ohio
since 1978. Since I did not have much vacation time, I decided to
fly, and also to take Johnny, who was about two months short of his
sixth birthday.
We had
a good time at the reunion, which was held at a park in Swanton. It
was fascinating to meet so many relatives that I had been only
vaguely aware of, and Johnny found kids his own age to play with.
Of
course, many could not make it, but there were still 50 or so
cousins, second cousins, second cousins once removed, etc.
We
spent about a week in
Ohio, with dad driving around pointing out places where he and mother
had lived, and visiting various relatives. Of course, many of the
older relatives I had visited in the 1970s where gone now, but there
were still many in my mother’s generation, as well as two of her
aunts, who both ultimately lived to be over 100.
Dad and
Mother had been coming to
Ohio
in their motor home every other summer since about 1976, and had
stayed in various places. During the times I was there, a distant
relative had offered them a spot on property that
had once contained a mobile home, so there were hookups for water,
sewer and electrical power. The property contained a huge old barn,
which the owner used for storage, and an old, falling-down house,
which it turned out had been occupied by K.K. and Tillie Watkins in
the 1920s.
It was
decided to hold the reunion every two years, and I went three more
times, 1992, 1994 and 1996. Johnny went with me again in ’94 and
’96, but we missed the gathering in 1998 and in 2000, which turned
out to be the last in this series, with only a handful in
attendance.
In
addition to the reunion, Johnny and I found other things to do
around the motor home campsite. There was an old swing set, part of
a pile of junk, leaning at a slight angle. We were able to sit in
what I guess would be called the glider (two seats facing each
other), and swing without any dangerous tilting.
We also
explored the old barn on the property, and walked along the country
roads nearby. Interstate 80 ran near the property, and just over the
overpass was a field of soybeans. Walking by that area, Johnny was
bitten by a bug of some sort, causing an immediate and quite
significant swelling. We headed back, with visions of a trip to the
emergency room in my mind, but by the time we made the quarter mile
walk, the swelling had already gone down, there was no pain or
itching, and no further symptoms.
We also
had fun standing on top of the overpass watching big trucks go
underneath, with seemingly only inches of clearance. Our enjoyment
was greatly enhanced whenever one of the drivers would give us a
blast on the horn. One year Johnny had his roller blades, and skated
down the overpass, but at a slow, controlled pace that did not cause
me any worries (his great grandmother, however, thought it was an
insane risk).
Cousin
Don’s in Oregon: Don’t ask me when,
but in the early 1990s Johnny and I went to visit my cousin Don in
Oregon. (You can read more about Don in
Oregon
in my Early
Trips report.) I’m pretty sure Johnny was about eight, which
would make it about 1992. We went up Highway 99 and Interstate 5,
then took state highway 16 from
Woodland
past
Clear
Lake
and on to US 101. We stayed at a KOA campground on 101, probably
near Myers Flat. I know we walked down by the
Eel
River, which runs along 101 throughout that area.
We got
to Don’s the next day, and had a good time, although I have to
strain my brain to remember any details. I know that Don had a quad
vehicle, which Johnny wanted to drive. There are a lot of dirt roads
and trails around Don’s place, so Johnny had a good time driving
the quad, putting it into the ditch only once. The only problem was
that the battery was dead, and every time the engine died, we had to
push it up the hill and jump start it, which of course, didn’t
bother Johnny. I also recall that Don’s wife and kids were
visiting relatives, so we didn’t get to see any of them. However,
his older step-son, Zef, came by with a big fish he and a friend had
caught in the ocean, and we had a good barbecue.
We also
made a visit to the
Oregon
Caves, a national monument in the mountains east of Cave Junction. This
is a fairly small cave, but interesting to go through, and Johnny
liked it. I had been there before on one of my earlier visits to
Don’s.
Lassen
1: If my admittedly deteriorating memory is correct, our first
long trip with the trailer was to the area of
Lassen
National Park
in Northern California. The time was August of 1993, when Johnny was almost 9, and it was
my first visit to the area as well. I have discovered some notes I
made at the time, but they are very sketchy. We went up Highway 99
and drove up the
Feather River
canyon. We stopped for the night at a slightly sheltered spot along
the highway. Somewhere along the way we saw what I noted as the
“watermelon disaster.” This was a truckload of melons, tipped
over and scattering fruit along the roadside. We also saw a large
number of cranes (birds), standing in fields and flying above the
fields.
In the
river, across the road from our camping spot, was a dredge and some mining
equipment, no doubt for mining gold. We also saw a snake in the
river. Along the
Feather River
canyon there are a number of picturesque bridges, both low to the
water and high above it; and for both railroad and the highway.
The
next afternoon, strictly by chance, we discovered an excellent
camping area, Child’s Meadow Campground, which offers RV spaces,
tent camping, and cabins. It’s located on state highway 36, across
the road from a meadow that is at least two miles long, and is
occupied by a large herd of horses (the meadow, not the camp).
We got
settled in that day, then the next morning we set off for our first
look at Lassen, less than 20 miles away. One of the dramatic sights
I remember was a lake that still had ice around the edges – in the
middle of August. We decided to hike into a thermal area called
Bumpass Hell, and headed down the trail. Much of the trail was still
covered with snow, with little orange flags to mark the way.
We
reached the end of the trail, and were rewarded with a view of some
steaming pools and mud pots, plus the smell of sulfur, evidence that
volcanic activity in the area was still going on.
We
spent another day or so in the area, mostly hiking and biking around
the camp. One day we drove a few miles down highway 172 through Mill
Creek to Mineral on highway 36. We then rode our bikes down a dirt
road to a big meadow full of flowers, surrounded by tall trees and
rocky tree-covered hills.
One
night a park staff member built a small fire in a ring about 30 feet
behind our trailer. A little later I looked out and saw it had
become a rather large bonfire. Since it was not cold, I did not see
why they had built it so big. Then the manager came to my trailer
and asked me to get my grandson away from the fire “before he
burns down the camp.” There was a huge pile of dry wood right next to fire ring, and
Johnny took this as an invitation and encouragement to get the fire going
full blast. This became known as the famous time when Johnny tried
to burn down the
Lassen
National Forest.
When we
left Child's Meadow, we headed even farther east and north into this remote area of
California, to visit
Lava
Beds
National Monument. We went through
Chester
and past
Eagle
Lake, stopping for gas in Susanville, the County
seat of
Lassen
County.
We
ended up at Howard’s Gulch campground, a national
forest
campground on Highway 139 just north of highway 299, not far from
Alturas in
Modoc
County, where we spent two or three nights.
We were
fortunate to be there at the time of the Perseids meteor shower,
which takes place every August around the 10th to the 12th. Next to the camp was a small hill with a trail to the top, so
around sundown we took our lawn chairs, water and candy bars, hiked
up to the top, and set up our viewing area. We had a 360 degree
view, and there was no moon, and no lights from civilization, so the star
field was magnificent. It was the first time Johnny had been in such
a dark area at night, and he was duly impressed. Added to this, the
meteors were abundant, and in that night, we counted a total of 30.
The
next day we drove up to Lava Beds National Monument, which is an area that was
overflowed with volcanic material, some as recently as 1500 years
ago. We also made it all the way to
Tule Lake
on the
Oregon
border, a lake famous for white pelicans and other water birds.
At Lava
Beds we explored two of the lava tubes – short, shallow caves that
were formed during lengthy lava flows. Here’s a short explanation
from the U.S. Geological Survey:
Much
of the north and south flanks of the Medicine
Lake shield were built from molten lava transmitted through lava
tubes. These tubes formed beneath the congealing surface of basalt
flows in somewhat the same way that a brook may continue to flow
beneath a cover of its own winter ice. As molten lava emerges from a
vent and flows down slope, congealing lava from the top and sides of
the central channel often forms a bridge over the lava stream. The
sticking together of bits of lava spatter and fragile lava crusts
strengthen the bridge in the manner that thin crusts of floating
ice raft together to cover a brook during early stages of a winter
freeze. Eruption of basalt lava, however, is a much more violent and
spasmodic process than the steady gathering of water that feeds a
brook. If liquid lava stops rising from its source deep within the
earth, the still-molten lava moving beneath the crusted-over top of
a lava flow will continue to drain downhill and may ultimately leave
an open lava-tube cave -- often large enough for people to
walk through.
We
observed meteors from an open area near camp that night, and saw
about six more.
Next
morning, when it was time to leave, we stopped in Alturas for
breakfast. Again we encountered a cook who was used to feeding hard
working men. We had sausage patties as large as a salad plate, and
Johnny got a huge quantity of biscuits and gravy – four full
biscuits, covering a large plate. We ended up giving some of our
sausage to a couple in the restaurant who had a dog in their truck
outside.
We
headed home down
US
395, state highways 70, 49, and 89, I-80, and US 99, with a stop
overnight at Prosser Camp, on a lake near where 89 joins I-80.
Mono
Lake: One of our more unusual trips was over the
Sierra Nevada
to
Mono
Lake, in 1995. There was a boy one year older than Johnny living two houses from
me, and they had become good friends, so we invited B.J. to join us on
this trip.
We went
through Yosemite
over
Tioga
Pass
and down to
Lee
Vining, with plans to visit
Mono
Lake, Devils Postpile National Monument, and whatever else we could find. I could not begin to remember the
order in which we did things, but I know we went to the lake two or
three times.
Shortly
after getting set up in our RV park, we went to visit some good friends
of mine from Avenal, west of Fresno, who spent the summers in Lee
Vining in
a different RV park. We enjoyed popcorn and a drink with Ben and
Wilma Briscoe, and had a nice visit.
Mono
Lake
receives waters from the eastern slope of the Sierra, but has no
outlet, making it a salt lake. Mineral deposits known as tufa towers
have built up under water over the years, and are now exposed,
revealing many strange shapes. The water level has been dropping
since the first half of the 20th century, due to source
streams being tapped by the LA water system. A court order a few
years ago required the district to leave enough water to maintain
Mono
Lake, and the level is now rising.
The
water teems with brine flies and brine shrimp, and seagulls by the
thousands wheel overhead. The vast majority of
California’s gulls go to the lake’s one good size island to lay their
eggs.
We also
drove over dirt back roads to visit the historic ghost town of Bodie.
Now a state park, Bodie was reputed to be a wild and wooly place
during the early mining days. The old buildings have been preserved,
and contain many artifacts of earlier times. Most of the buildings
are unpainted, and have taken on a beautiful color of aged wood.
There
was one place in the area that I had visited before, and wanted to
see again –
Devils
Postpile National Monument. On my previous visit, I had hiked in from the west, two or three
days of walking, and enjoyed the experience very much. This time we
caught a shuttle bus at the town of
Mammoth
Lakes, and rode in to the monument. The post pile consists of
columnar basalt formations that developed when molten lava cooled
around different centers. The posts are eight-sided, up to a foot in
diameter, and 30 or 40 feet high. We then hiked down along the
middle fork of the
San Joaquin
River
to
Rainbow
Falls, which drops 101 feet over a lava cliff.
The
hike back to the store and bus stop was longer than I had realized,
and the boys were getting hungry, so there was a bit of grumbling on
the way. We made it safely and quickly hit the store for some
emergency fuel, then caught the bus back to
Mammoth
Lakes
and the truck.
When we
left
Lee
Vining, we headed north about 25 miles on US 395, passing through
Bridgeport, then took state highway 89 into the eastern Sierra. This was a
steep and winding route, so it was slow going, but we were in no
hurry and had no particular destination in mind. We went through the
tiny town of Markleeville, seat of Alpine County. Alpine is
California’s smallest county in terms of population. When I was learning
county names in high school, its population was 240, but by this
time it had increased to a little over a thousand.
We
continued on highway 89 then on highway 88 till we came to a
campground across the road from the
Carson River. Streams on the eastern side of the Sierra do not have an outlet to
the sea. They either end in salt lakes like Mono, or dissipate in
the sands and sagebrush of the great basin, mainly in Nevada. However, in the
mountains where we were, the
Carson
was a good size stream, fairly wide and flowing over rocks. We spent
only one night here, and didn’t do much, but the boys had a great
time playing in the river.
By this
time they had taken over the chore of hitching up the trailer each
day. Of course, I inspected their work, but they did a good job and
never left any “loose ends.”
When we
left the campground, we continued over Highway 88, one of several
scenic roads that goes over the Sierra. I had traveled this road for
the first time shortly before Johnny was born, when we went to my
younger daughter’s wedding in Tahoe. This time we had a more
leisurely trip, and started looking for a place to spend the night.
The one campground we drove into was full and everyone was crowded
very close together. We ended up finding a spot beside the highway,
where we could get off the road about 30 yards. On our side of
the road was a large meadow, and we walked across it and into the
woods beyond.
We also
explored some roads on the other side. I started to check out an old
abandoned pickup camper a few hundred yards in, but soon realized
that it was occupied. There were a number of trailers in the area,
some just people spending a night or two, but apparently others were
set up for long term camping.
This
was our last night on the trip; the next day we continued down the
western slope of the Sierra to Highway 99 and home to
Fresno. (Click here or on Eastern
Sierra Journey 2007 in the Travel Report menu below to read
about my trip to Mono Lake, Bodie and Devil's Postpile with grandson
Mikie.)
Lassen
2: Some time a couple of years or so after our first trip, we
made another trip to the
Lassen
Park area, again staying at Child’s Meadow. This time we hiked to the
top of
Lassen Peak, a round trip of about 4.4 miles. The trail rises 2,000 feet. The
top was pretty much covered with snow, and we had a good view of
Mt.
Shasta
to the west and the surrounding
forests. We also watched smoke rise from a distant
forest fire and spread across the mountains in that area.
We also
took a side trip to McArthur-Burney Falls, a destination that had
been recommended to me by a colleague at work, Sue Wirt (Thanks,
Sue, in case I didn’t tell you at the time). This is a beautiful
fall that drops over a lava cliff into a canyon. It’s visible a
few steps from the parking lot, then it’s only a half mile walk
down to the bottom of the canyon, with another great view of the falls.
These
were the highlights of the trip, although we did some hiking and
bike riding around the camp again. We came home via state highway
32, where I took a picture of Johnny by the highway sign, since 32
was the number he had chosen for his hockey jersey when he first
started playing.
Canada:
Now it was time for one of the best and biggest trips of all.
Johnny was getting older, and I knew he would soon be involved with
jobs, girls and other activities which would cut into his time for
travel with me. We discussed going to Yellowstone,
Grand Teton, and other areas in the west for the summer of 1998.
He had
been playing hockey since he was eight or nine, and finally we hit
on the idea of him attending a hockey camp in
Canada. We would combine it with sight-seeing and camping, and would take
the new trailer which I had purchased in May. After some research,
we decided on a camp at
Banff
National Park. This obviously gave me a good place to be while he was in camp,
and it was a place I had wanted to visit since I was a teenager.
So
early one August morning we headed north up California 99, then on
to Interstate 5 at
Sacramento. We made it into
Oregon
the first day, and spent the night at the
Rogue River
State Park,
a few miles south of Grant’s Pass. Just as we arrived a clap of
thunder shook the truck and the toll booth, and there was a little
rain, but it stopped before we got set up. It was early enough that
we did a little walking around, checking out the river bank.
We
headed on through
Oregon
and into
Washington
the next day. There was extensive harvesting going on in the
Willamette
Valley, with clouds of dust rising from tractors everywhere. We went
through Seattle
during a time of little traffic, and spent the night in a shopping
mall parking lot in
Lakewood
WA, an hour or so north of
Seattle.
On the
third day we left I-5 and angled slightly east, entering
Canada
between
Sumas WA
and Huntingdon
BC. A few miles north we picked up the
Trans-Canada Highway, and stopped for the night at
Kamloops, B.C.
The
drive through B.C. was particularly nice, including flat valleys
with sharply rising, tree-covered hills, and passage through two
National Parks, including one where glaciers were visible. Through
the mountainous areas there were gun platforms along the Highway,
where they fire cannons in the winter for avalanche control.
We
finished our time in
British Columbia
at Golden on the
Columbia River. Our final day's travel took us into the
Rockies
and over into
Alberta
and
Banff. The town of
Banff, although in the national park, is a fairly complete small town,
with restaurants, grocery stores and all other basic needs. We
checked in to a large national park campground, complete with
electricity, water and sewer connections. It is located just outside
the town, on a hillside, with views into the
Bow
River Valley
on one side, and woods on another.
Not
long after we got set up, it started to rain, and rained for two or
three hours. It was not cold, so we sat out under the awning and
enjoyed the view.
The
next day we went into town, found the ice rink, and got Johnny
checked in. He would be staying at the rink throughout the week,
although I could come and visit him and watch the activities at any
time.
While
Johnny was at camp I made two hikes, one to the top of
Tunnel
Mountain
which gives a good view of the town area, and one up
Johnston
Canyon, where the creek has carved down through sandstone, to create steep
walls in a narrow canyon with several nice waterfalls.
I went
to the rink every day, and saw the various activities, which
included several hours of on-ice instruction, off-ice shooting and
stick-handling drills, and a scrimmage (game) every evening. In
addition to the hockey activities, the boys were taken on a hike up
a steep mountain, to a swimming hole in the river, and other outside
activities.
When
the week ended, we spent another two days or so there, doing some
sight seeing and having dinner in a nice restaurant. Our
explorations included a visit to Lake Louise, where you can view a glacier across the
water. We saw bighorn sheep at one location, and many female elk
everywhere. In the town, people put little wire fences around their
landscaping to keep the elk away. We also saw two male elk on the
drive to Lake Louise.
When we
left
Banff, we headed south and southwest toward
Calgary
and the
Montana
border. After we left the mountains near
Banff, our trip was mostly through agricultural country. Throughout our
trip we saw a variety of hay bales--regular rectangular bales, large
rectangular bales with rounded ends like cotton bales, round bales,
large round bales, and some amorphous lumps
in Nevada that defied description.
We
spent our first night near
Babb, MT, just a few miles south of the border. The next day we were
planning to drive through
Glacier
National Park, but the road goes over the Rockies
and is limited to vehicles about 22 feet long, much smaller than a full size pickup towing a
trailer. (When I traveled this route in 2002, I was glad I was not
allowed to drive it with the trailer; the pickup alone was plenty
big!)
Instead
we headed south through
Montana
on two-lane state highways with virtually no traffic. We eventually
picked up Interstate 15 a little north of Helena, and continued on
to Butte for our next overnight stop (unless you drive way too far,
you can’t cross Montana in any direction in just one day).
We
continued on to
Twin Falls
ID, where we looked for a restaurant for a break from my cooking. We
went into the first Mexican restaurant we saw, and were delighted
with the food. In years past it was hard to find good Mexican
restaurants except in
border states, but they are now available throughout the country (well, I
haven’t really been everywhere, but they are available everywhere
I’ve been).
The
next day we made a long drive, nearly 480 miles, through
Idaho, across
Nevada, and into
California, and spent the night at a rest stop near
Truckee
and
Donner Pass.
This gave us a relaxing 260 mile drive home the next day. Overall,
we went a total of 3,475 miles, 1,575 to Banff
and 1,663 home, plus 237 local miles in the
Banff
area.
Mesa
1999:
In
February, 1999, Johnny and I went to
Arizona, to visit my parents who were spending the winter in
Mesa. We also had arranged to go to the NHL hockey game between the
Phoenix Coyotes and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks on the day we arrived.
We had visited
Mesa
in 1997 also, but I have absolutely no notes and very little memory
of the details, other than the usual walk in the desert which I have
enjoyed on all my trips down there.
On the
way down we spent the night in Blythe since I did not want to try to
get there in one day in time for the
6 p.m.
game. In the motel we were watching a little bit of
America's
Most Wanted, and they showed a story about a drifter who
found a couple of suitcases in the woods somewhere in the east.
Anticipating at least some wearable clothing and maybe a million
dollars, he opened one, only to discover decaying body parts. The
next day Johnny and I stopped along the highway about a hundred
miles from Phoenix to do a little desert walking, and spotted a big box a
couple of hundred yards away. We looked at the box, then at each
other, and decided we did not want to open any boxes that had been
dumped out in the desert.
We got
to
Phoenix
early Sunday afternoon, so we found a parking place, then walked
around downtown, by the baseball stadium and America West Arena
(home of the Coyotes). We had sundaes in a restaurant inside the
stadium (Bank One Ballpark). It overlooks left field and the base
paths look pretty small from up there.
As it
got close to game time, people in Coyote jerseys descended on the
arena from all directions. Our seats were in the second row, right
behind the visitors’ bench, so we had a good view which was
sometimes blocked by players jumping up to watch an exciting play, or by coach Craig Hartzburg
jumping up on the bench to yell at the players.
The
game did not end our way (Ducks 5, Coyotes 1), but it was incredibly
exciting. It looked much faster than it appears on TV. Johnny caught
a puck that may have been the one Teemu Selanne scored the first
goal with. The puck came flying into the bench and after Hartsburg
ducked, he picked up the puck and flipped it over his shoulder.
There were several hands reaching, but Johnny read the play
perfectly and caught it.
We had
a good visit with Dad and Mother, including a trip to Organ Pipe
Pizza (the largest theater organ in the world), where a musician
performs while you enjoy your lunch. We also went to Park of the
Canals, an area where a number of canals built by Hohokam Indians in
the early 1000's are preserved; it also has a cactus garden. We
visited
Casa
Grande
National Monument, a Hohokam site where they built a four-story building, probably
for religious and/or governmental purposes, around 1300. It is made
of caliche, an adobe type material made by grinding up the hardpan
which occurs under the soil and mixing it with water. The building
has cedar pole beams that had to be carried many miles from the
mountains.
Little
is known about this tribe; their culture dispersed around 1450. The
local Indians believe they are descended from the Hohokam.
Johnny
and I also went out one day and spent several hours walking around
the desert. It is pretty open so fairly easy walking even where
there are no roads or trails. We saw lots of barrel, saguaro and
cholla cactus, as well as a small one which may have been
pincushion.
Mother's
cousin Gloria Samuelson and her daughter Margaret Meister, who moved
to Arizona from Omaha in September, came over one
afternoon and we went to an all you can eat barbecue place. Johnny
was in heaven. We had a huge plate of ribs (served family style) and
another plate of beef and chicken. We could have asked for more, but
that was enough. Dinner also included potatoes, bread and
vegetables.
We left
early Saturday, February 20, a little before 7 a.m., and got home about
6:30 p.m.
(there’s a one hour time difference). We came home through
Needles; the mileage both ways was about 630. My odometer may be off
about 1% but not sure which way. Dad thinks it's
more like 660.
Whale’s
Head:
You can read about Whale’s Head again in my 2006
Oregon trip report, but before I went there with Mikie, I went
there in 1999 with Johnny. We set off with Whale’s Head Resort as
our only target destination. This is a nice RV park built on a hill
side, with a lot of permanent mobile homes set up – but they’ve
covered them with natural wood siding for a very nice appearance.
This was the brain child of the resort’s founder, and they still
make and sell these units as a side business.
There
is a “blow hole,” at Whale’s
Head Beach, where the tide shoots up through a hole in the rock, resembling a
whale’s spouting. I don’t know if the area is named for that, or
for a rock that resembles a whale’s head.
The
weather was overcast all but the last day, but it was not
unpleasant. It was about 60 degrees throughout the day, and very
comfortable in jeans and a flannel shirt. In addition to the hiking
which I’ll discuss shortly, we drove up the highway to
Gold
Beach, and went up a few miles along the road that parallels the
Rogue River. We crossed at a bridge and came back down the other side.
One day
we drove south into
California, about eight miles, and went to
Jedediah
Smith
Redwoods
State Park. This is a nice area of old growth
forest, featuring many large coast redwoods, and the usual rain
forest
look where plants grow everywhere, including on fallen logs, stumps,
and any tourists who sit down too long to rest. We did one hike of
several miles that looped up through the
forest
away from the highway and back, and I’m pretty sure it was on this
walk that I lost a roll of film which had some of my best shots of
the trip. We stopped on our way home and retraced the first
quarter mile of both ends of the trail looking for the film
container, to no avail.
Near
Whale’s Head Resort there are a number of sections of the Oregon
Coast Trail. Although the trail goes from
Washington
to
California, it is not one unbroken line. Along the highway you can park at a
turnout, take a section of trail, and return to the highway no more
than a quarter mile from where you started. Many sections loop down
along the sides of small creeks, so the trail is much longer than
the highway section between the two ends. In many places, as soon as
you take a few steps on the trail, you are in a different world –
a cool, quiet rain
forest
with huge spruce trees and plant growth everywhere.
During
our hikes we saw two or three snakes and many banana slugs. One day
we found a trail that went down to a tiny secluded beach, maybe 30
feet across. Here Johnny drew in the sand a creature I named “The
Sand Alien,” something he was into creating in the sand at various
places. You can take a look at this masterpiece here.
The
last day we were there, my cousin Don and his wife Diana came over
from O’Brien OR, about 40 miles away. We had lunch in the trailer,
then went for a hike. This turned out to be our only sunny day, and
also the only day our hike took us out into an open area, a section
of grassy dunes. Of course, warm weather by the ocean was still cool
compared to what awaited us at home.
When it
came time to leave, I knew it would take two days, but we did not
have a particular stopping place in mind. We made the mistake of
driving too long, till we found ourselves on Highway 99 south of
Sacramento, with no pleasant place to stop. We ended up spending the night
parked by the side of a rural road near
Modesto, where many truck drivers spent the night, so we were lulled to
sleep by the sound of diesel engines.
We
survived this inconvenience, and made the short trip back to
Fresno
the next day, facing the 100 degree temperatures of the valley
instead of the cool weather we had enjoyed in
Oregon.
This
pretty much ended the long trips I was able to take with Johnny, as
he became more involved with school, girls, and jobs. We did do a
lot of traveling to the Bay Area,
Stockton
and
Sacramento
when he played travel hockey for the Fresno Junior Hockey Club. I
wrote about this in a report I did for Johnny and his family, Upshaw
Brand Hockey, and I will look at that to see if I might want to make
it available to the public.
Around
this time I started going to bluegrass festivals. I’ve reported on
just about every trip since I retired in 2002, and the earlier
bluegrass festivals are discussed in my Bluegrass Odyssey page on
line.
Looks
like all that’s left are forty years or so of camping and
backpacking trips. |