Home (Again)!

Back at the ranch.  "Details at 11:00." 

(And retrospective on Ashland to follow next week).

Cooling Off On A Hot Day

Temperatures will be in the 90's today in Southern Oregon, but we're cooling off with chocolate malts over lunch at the old fashioned soda fountain at the Grants Pass Pharmacy.

A Fine Kettle Of Fish

It took us about two hours to drive from Proxy Falls to the home of our friends, Darcy and Beth, in the countryside south of Eugene.  The Old McKenzie Pass Highway, Number 242, wound its way down-slope to the intersection of the  newer, wider, faster McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass Highway 126.  Once we’d reached the broader road, we went through the hamlets of McKenzie Bridge, Blue River, Vida Flats, and Leaburg before skirting Springfield and exiting the highway into downtown Eugene.

Using the iPhone Map Quest 4 Mobile app and Darcy’s directions, we headed out of Eugene on Bailey Hill Road, leaving civilization far behind us.  Beef cattle grazed in the valley; conifers climbed up to the ridgelines.
The cooler than normal weather that we’d experienced during the first days of our trip dropped by the wayside.  It had probably been in the mid-80’s during our Proxy Falls hike in the mountains.  Down in Eugene a thermometer sign on a bank read 101 degrees.
 
But at 800’ above sea level and closer to the coast than town, our friends’ home was only pleasantly warm in the late afternoon as a gentle breeze blew across the shaded porch where we sat enjoying a cold beverage at the end of a hot day.

At our Metolius River digs we’d dined on take-out, a simple pasta meal, and a frozen pizza popped into the cabin’s oven for a half-hour.  Not the most dramatic of meals that either Cindy and I have ever cooked for ourselves or guests.  Beth, on the other hand, whipped us up a gourmet feast of baked local cod and home-grown chard stuffed with cottage cheese accompanied by an excellent Pinot Gris from King Estate Winery just down the road. Dessert was fruit cobbler served with Eiswein.  Nothing is better than having the hospitality of friends, except having the hospitality of friends who are good cooks!

Remembering Quincy

I met Quincy in July of 1984 at a campground just west of the McKenzie Pass on Highway 242 which runs between the Willamette Valley and the town of Sisters on the east side of the Oregon Cascades.  We would spend the next five days together camping out in the wilderness that lies at the foot of the volcanic peaks known as the Three Sisters.

Quincy and I were about the same height at the shoulder, but his head towered over mine due to his much longer neck, and he outweighed me by a hundred pounds or more.  I changed my clothes a few times during the next few days; he always wore the same shaggy coat.

By the end of our mountain trek it was debatable who was the scruffiest even though both of us had bathed at the end of each day’s hike, me by dousing myself with with a bucket of cold snowmelt, he by rolling around in the dirt.  Both of us, without a doubt, smelled pretty “fragrant” by the time we finished the trip.

Death Hike

Our Oregon guidebook and the brochures we’d picked up while staying at the Metolius River mentioned some short hikes to waterfalls along the McKenzie River highway between Sisters and Eugene.  The most inviting of these was to Proxy Falls.

A Tale Of Two Streams

One last day.  Two streams.  Two hikes.

After lounging around the cabin until late morning, we left the CR-V in the resort’s parking lot, moseyed down the Metolius and followed it downstream for a mile. For the first fifteen or twenty minutes we passed summer homes that border the western bank of the river below the bridge that connects the resort to the general store.  The rest of the way it was wild and scenic riverside scenery until we reached the next bridge and a campground north of the resort.

The trail winds through Ponderosa Pines.  Although it’s nearly mid-August wildflowers still bloom along this stretch of the river and butterflies were feasting on clover nectar. 
The river gradient is not too great so there isn’t much downhill and uphill on this easy walk. It’s shady most of the way and a gentle breeze made it a comfortable mid-day stroll.

At the next bridge we met a couple from Portland who were camping on the other side of the river.  The wife had been coming here for nearly 50 years and said she had a photo taken at the campground when she was just a year old.
 
On the way back we stopped to chat with a father and son pair of fishermen.  They told us that the river water was quite cold (the son had been wading in the river near the bridge and said his feet felt like they were frozen).  The Metolius is a fly-fishing only, catch-and-release river, so even if you can get more than a nibble from the local trout, you have to toss them back.

After a late lunch back at our cabin, we hopped in the car and drove a few miles to the west for our last hike of the day.  It was a two-mile roundtrip walk along a dusty trail that parallels Jack Creek, one of several streams that flow east and merge with the Metolius.

The temperature was supposed to reach the mid-to-upper 80’s today, but it didn’t seem to have gotten much over 80, if that high.  Shade along this boring trail kept us reasonably cool as we ascended the watershed for a mile until we reached the headwaters which, like those of the Metolius, spring from the bottom of a steep hillside.

When we got back to the campground where the trail began we were surprised to see so many empty campsites on a Friday evening in summer especially since Eugene, Corvallis, Salem, and Portland are only two to three hours away by car.  It’s very “un-California” here.

It’s Friday Pizza Night at our cabin as we enjoy or third night in a row “dining in.”  We’ve got satellite TV and hope there will be a good “Pizza Night” movie on A&E, TNT, or TCM.

Land O’Lakes

Dog On Two Kayaks Lake.  Swanky Resort Lake. Water Toy Lake.  Weird Guy In The Hammock and Chocolate Lab Lake.  Lost Lake.  Itty-Bitty Frog Lake.  Today was Land O’Lakes Day in the Central Oregon Cascades Day for us.

We were slightly less slothful (Three Sloths on a Five Sloths scale as opposed to Four Sloths yesterday) today.  We arose at a Semi-Slothful hour, bathed, breakfasted, packed up our gear and lunch, and got out the door around 11 am.

A River Runs Through It

We arrived at Metolius River Resort late Tuesday afternoon after stopping at the Ray’s grocery store in the town of Sisters to pick up fruit, yogurt, and other goodies so we could have breakfast “in.” We’re in Cabin #7, one of eleven craftsman-style units sit on the edge of a broad lawn that runs a hundred feet or so down to the river bank.

The next day we met Al who has helped managed the resort for the past fourteen years.  He told us that the resort’s architect had won an award for the design of the place and that although the floor plan (an upstairs loft above the kitchen and first floor bedroom and bathroom looks down on the combination dining/sitting room) for all of the cabins is identical each is individually owned and decorated according to that owner’s tastes.

After spending most of two days behind the wheel of our CR-V, we opted for a day of sloth on Wednesday, hanging around the cabin all morning before walking across the bridge to the Camp Sherman General Store on the other side of the river.  The store stocks some food, “camp” apparel like T-shirts and baseball caps, a reasonably good selection of wine and beer, and more varieties of flies than either the average trout or fisherman could encounter during a lifetime of fish or be fished.

We picked up a couple of deli sandwiches at the store and had lunch out on the deck of our cabin. Clouds came and went, keeping the temperature down to just over 70 degrees, and fooling Nighthawks into thinking it was nearly evening.  These insect-loving birds repeatedly swooped back and forth over the river, making tight turns like F-15 fighter jets.  At first we thought they might be falcons, but their flight behavior suggested that their prey were air-borne bugs, not small birds.

In mid-afternoon we hopped into the CR-V and drove eight miles downstream to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery.  There the slow moving Metolius gets squeezed into a frothy, aquamarine colored jet of water that shoots under a bridge before it begins to flatten out a bit on its way northward.

After checking out the sturgeon and trout in the long, narrow holding pens, we went in search of the river’s headwaters near the foot of Black Butte, a large volcanic cone that is the most prominent feature of the landscape near the resort.  The river just suddenly appears from a brush covered slope.  Al told us that millions of dollars have been spent in a futile effort to trace the path of the water through the underground aquifer to the spot where the Metolius springs from the earth.

At the end of the afternoon we took the twenty-minute drive back into Sisters to buy food for dinner and lunch for the remainder of our stay, then returned to the cabin for a quiet night “at home.”

Dead Motels

You won’t find any lumberjacks staying at the Lumberjack Motel between Weed and Dorris on Highway 97.  Nor will any traveling salesmen, deer hunters, or budget-minded tourists be bunking there, either.  Today’s high-mileage vehicles exceeding the 65 mph posted speed limit blow right on by that place and nearly all of the 1950’s lodgings all along the east side of the Cascades on on this nearly straight-as-an-arrow “Blue Highway.”

Finding a place to have lunch is also problematic along Highway 97 once you leave Klamath Falls in your wake.  The few “wide spots in the road” that do exist may have a mangy motel or two clinging on to life, but the owners of the cafes and diners have nearly all gone to that Big Restaurant in The Sky.
 
Subway’s shop in Chemult was the most appealing eatery we passed on Monday, but the long traffic backup in town caused by repaving going on just to the north compelled us to put the pedal to the metal and keep on truckin’ without stopping to refuel our stomachs until we got to La Pine about 2:30 pm.

We veered sharply across the centerline to Ray’s Market where we picked up a bought a couple of deli sandwiches (free bag of chips with any order over $3.99) and had our repast under the shade of an umbrella at a picnic table at the corner of the grocery store’s parking lot.

As we drove out of town we passed “restaurant row” --- McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Subway.  Dang!  We could have had a real “sit-down” meal if we had only driven five more minutes up the highway.