A Walk in the Woods

Franklin loves hiking and is taking long walks on the beach twice a day (me, once a day). But sometimes it is just too windy to walk on the beach even with multiple layers of sweatshirts and jackets. So we are now starting to explore woods hikes in the area. There is a nice park near us and these are some pictures from there.

Wildflowers

Blackberries are weeds here. These aren't quite ripe yet. However I just heard from a friend (Hoa) who is an hour away in Corvalis and she said she had just collected enough berries to make jam.

This area is called Beaver Creek. There are swamps and a river as well as the woods. When I took this photo I heard a big splash in the water. I think I must have just missed seeing a beaver or nutria. Nutria look like beaver but they have a different tail. 

Our Life At The Beach

I enjoyed writing the blog. It is a good way for me to remember what we did and where we went. So I thought I would continue doing it. Not perhaps every day, as I don't have that much to report. But every few days when I have something to say or some nice new photos I thought I would post what we are doing.

First- here are a few new beach photos. The weather has been very clear. I don't know if this is usual or not at this time of year. All I can say is it is not the weather that we had in Lincoln City the last two summers. And Lincoln City is just half an hour north of here. It was cool and grey and foggy most of the time. Perhaps the weather will change and follow that pattern in August. We shall see.
This is Franklin walking down to the beach near our house. We are not directly on the beach. It takes 15 minutes to walk there. But it is a pleasant walk. We go to the beach about twice a day, morning and evening. As you can see we have to cross a small stream on the beach to walk further.

Isn't this a nice photo of Franklin walking on the beach with some seagulls? This is exactly what it looks like. A deserted beach. And a few birds. 

These two photos go together. A few days ago we went to a different beach and saw these artists painting pictures of the beach, the rocks, and ocean.  There are massive boulders off shore. Next time I'll send some photos of the rocks and beach that I can see out my window in the living room. We have a fabulous ocean view.

Yesterday was Saturday and we went to our local farmers market, then on to a county fair in a nearby town.It is a pretty good farmer's market and I got a lot of fruit and vegetables.

 I got local cherries and wonderful blueberries. I've been making a lot of blueberry pies but need to stop because I am gaining weight. 

Then we went on to the county fair. It had the usual games and rides and foods, but the reason we went was to see a lumberjack show where men who cut down trees for a living were competing for prizes. It was interesting to watch the contest. 

 This photo shows the county fair in the background and a man cutting a big log with a chainsaw in the front. Tht was one of the contests.

 In the photo below a man runs up a log, and cuts a small slice off of it then runs down the log (to the left).

We never saw anything like this before. It was fun to watch. 

Ashland, Oregon and Crater Lake

Ashland, Oregon is so close to California that people drive up from San Francisco for the weekend. It is an attractive town with a very active year round art scene, including a very popular Shakespeare Festival. We usually take another route into Oregon through Grant's Pass for the whitewater rafting but this time we spent the night in Ashland. 

There was an outdoor free show before the play. Apparently it changes every night. This night it was Morris dancing backed up with musicians. After an hour I was wishing they had more acts mixed together like they do at the Cedar City Shakespeare pre-show. BTW that is Franklin in the far right watching the show from the back. 

The Shakespeare play that evening was the same one we had seen in California last week so instead we saw the Stephen Sondheim musical, Into The Woods. The outdoor theater was very attractive, sort of like the Globe theater where Shakespeare's plays were produced in Stratford-on Avon. The play but was good too. The walk to and from the theater was very nice from our hotel, particularly in the dark after the play. 

We had an excellent Asian fusion meal at Sesame, a restaurant with outdoor seating along a canal and enjoyed the Sunday arts and crafts on the street.

We liked Ashland and plan to return. However, to keep to our schedule we left and drove on to Crater Lake National Park. Crater Lake, as you can see in these photos, is very attractive and frankly much nicer than I had expected.  Crater Lake is almost 2000 feet deep and, as you can see in the photos it is extremely clear and blue. There is a road around the lake so you can enjoy it from every angle. There is also some snow along the road in July and cross country skiing. I saw some folks taking out their skis and getting ready to ski. 

 

From Crater Lake we cruised on into Portland. Which brings us to the end of the sightseeing portion of our summer vacation. 

We enjoyed taking this three week road trip. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. 

Bye for now. 
Amy

Fourth of July, Mt Shasta, Reaching Oregon

From Carmel we heading inland to spend a few days with friends in Danville, a suburb of Oakland and San Francisco. The road took us through Castroville, which is the artichoke capital of the world. I have a lifelong love of artichokes and went to an artichoke restaurant. I had artichoke soup (like chicken soup with large pieces of artichoke hearts), french fried artichoke hearts, and an artichoke saute. French fried artichoke hearts may have been the first dish I ever learned to cook; I sometimes made them for myself when I came home from school.

Our hosts are friends we met last year on a cruise to South America, Alice and Richard and they kept us busy every minute- just the way I like it! Our first evening we had a picnic (note the jackets. This weather is why we do this coast trip in the first place).

After the picnic we went to the California Shakespeare Theater to see a very nice outdoor production of a Shakespeare comedy, A Comedy of Errors . The venue was a good sized amphitheater.  Our hostess, Alice, knew one of the cast members.

The next day Alice and I made a brief trip to an AJs type grocery store (in fact she said it used to be an AJ's)  then on to a terrific mall with all kind of good stores- Saks, Bloomingdales,- you name it, it was there. It was just a quick trip to return something but  long enough to see it was a shopping mecca. 

Then we drove north to Sausalito for a walk around town and dinner.
And on to Mill Valley for a stop at a waterside cafe with great views of San Francisco across the bay.  

 We ate dinner in a very unusual location, a former WWII army base at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  I forget the name of the restaurant (Cavallo Point?) but the location was very different and lovely.

The next day was the Fourth of July as Alice and Richard had friends over for a BBQ.

There were ribs, chicken, 9 kinds of appetizers, good wine, good conversation. There is talk of another get together on our return visit in September. 

The next morning we headed out to complete our California drive. We love the coast north of San Francisco (and have lots of suggestions if you decide to do a drive yourself) but we had a deadline of a dance festival in Seattle so we left the coast and zipped up US 5 toward Oregon. 

We had time, though, for a picnic with some friends en route. We had wonderful leftovers from the holiday feast and met up with a couple we've known for 45 years from our East Coast days. It was hot but always great to catchup with them. 

Our next stop was Mt Shasta which is 14,000 feet talk and had snow on top, even in July. It was very attractive but we didn't like the area much. It reminds me of Flagstaff and Mt. Humphries, but not as interesting as Flagstaff. 

We also went to the town of Mount Shasta. There was  a street fair and it was a flash from the past with dozens of hippies walking around (mostly old hippies).

We stayed in the next town, called Weed

The Mount Shasta area must be in Indian guidebooks because most of the tourists in the area seem to be from India. It seemed that every single person in Weed was from India. We even ate an Indian restaurant. Which is a little surprising for a town with about 2 or 3 restaurants. 

The next day we started to drive up Mt. Shasta and the views were stunning. 

Our Mt. Shasta visit concludes the California portion of our trip. I said this was going to be a California blog but I am going to send out one more piece on two great destinations in southern Oregon, Ashland and Crater Lake. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about our California trip. I enjoyed sharing it with you. 

Lompoc, The Big Sur and Carmel

I left out a fun place to visit before Cambria. That is Lompoc. Lompoc is a farming community where they grow all the flower seeds for Walmart and Home Depot. There are miles of flower field and it is very scenic. 

The town is not very interesting architecturally but there are dozens of large murals painted on the sides of buildings and it very interesting to walk around the town looking at the murals. 

There are two routes north from Cambia. One is driving along the coast on Pacific Coast Highway through the Big Sur . The other is heading east to San Luis Obispo or Paso Robles and north on the highway 101. The coastal road is scenic but windy and slow. The inland route is less interesting. We take the coastal route. But here is a little information about heading inland through The Central Coast. This area is about half way between LA and San Francisco. 

Paso Robles is a wine growing area and is a great place to visit wineries. There are also hot springs and olive oil farms,  We haven't really explored the area yet. 

San Luis Obispo is a nice small city and we sometimes stop here for lunch. We like Nola restaurant which has good food outside on a deck along a creek.

The Big Sur is a scenic, sparsely populated 90 mile coastal drive. There are stunning views with coastal views (though the fog) on one side and high mountains on the other. The relative isolation and natural beauty attracted artists and writers such as Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson and Richard Brautigan.  

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The first stop heading north is probably Ragged Point, a viewpoint, and photo op with lots of rest rooms. 

There are several parks to visit along the Big Sur. My favorite is 
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (not to be confused with Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park). Julia Pfeiffer Burns was a local rancher. The park features a nice walk to an 80 foot waterfall. The walk is just long enough to stretch your legs during the drive, but not so long that you get too tired. It is an interesting and convenient photo op. you can park outside the park along thePacific Coast Highway to avoid the parking fee but the fee is good for all California parks for 24 hours so you might use the fee elsewhere. 

Henry Miller Memorial Library isn't really a library. It is a bookstore/alternative art museum in an  informal setting in the redwoods. There are lots of books about the beat generation, the culture of the Big Sur and of course, Henry Miller. They also have a music venue for evening and special events but I have never been to any. It's a interesting place to visit if you are old enough to have any associations with the Beat Generation or have read any books written by Miller or his contemporaries. 

At the north end of The Big Sur are some rather nice resorts. We like The Highland Inn and have stayed there several times in the past. not this time though, as the prices were in the $500 a night range in June. I see there are more moderate today though and it very charming. 

Just before you reach Carmel (three miles) is Point Lobos State Nature Reserve. We like the park but since is so close to Carmel I prefer to check in and deposit my luggage before we visit the park. As you can imagine on a three month trip, we have a fair amount of luggage with us. Anyway, the park has nice wooded trails through the woods and along the coast to watch sea lions, harbor seals and sea otters.

Carmel -By-The Sea is not one of my favorite places, however most people like it a lot. It is undeniably cute, charming, and has great food. It is a little too self-consciously quaint, WASPy and picture perfect for my taste. I prefer the funkiness of Ventura or the sophistication of Santa Barbara (which we bypassed this time up the coast in favor of Ventura). On the other hand walking the streets of Carmel is undeniably charming and entertaining.  There are numerous art galleries with nice quality art, interesting shops. There are also about 30 back alleys full of shops and restaurants that connect the street that we discovered on this trip. There is a nice local free map showing the locations of these alleys and we spent half a day discovering these cutsey wootsey shops and walkways. Carmel is also very dog friendly. This dog has his own shop. 

 There are lots of wine tasting rooms in town and very good restaurants. We have not been adventurous here; we found a good Italian one, Cantinetta Luca and have been back to it 6 times. But I suspect there are dozens of other places just as good here. 

On this trip we did not take Seventeen Mile Drive as we were heading in another direction but I should mention it anyway. It is a scenic toll road ($10) through a beautiful stretch of coastline passing posh residential areas and prestigious golf courses. There are beautiful trees and winding roads and lots of houses you can't afford. It takes you to Monterey. 

Just north of Carmel is the town of Monterey. There are some good attraction here such as the world famous aquarium, and the Monterrey Jazz Festival. We went to the aquarium once and it was excellent. But the town where we stay in Oregon, Newport, is home to another of the world's great aquariums so we don't stop in Monterey.