Redding, Ca. Mt. Shasta

Fri & Sat - Nov. 6th & 7th


Taken at a rest area about 60 miles south of the Oregon border.








Taken near Weed, California. Hmmm. I wonder if that town was named in the 60s.

Mt. Shasta is a snowy, volcanic peak of 14,162 feet.

We see lots of these, as the timber industry is huge here. I saw a picture like this in one of the tourist magazines, with just one log the size of all these together. It completely filled the truck all by itself. The caption said this sight was common as late as the 1970s. I can't imagine how they got them in and out of the trucks and thru the sawmills.

We took the 6 mile scenic drive from the city of Shasta Lake to Shasta Dam. The dam is the second largest concrete gravity dam in mass in the U.S. It is 602 feet high and 883 feet thick at the bottom. It was built from 1938 to 1945. Shasta lake is the largest in California with 365 miles of shoreline and 30,000 surface acres.

During dam construction a ten mile conveyor belt, the longest of its type in the world, was used to haul 12 million tons of gravel and rock from the Sacramento River in Redding to the dam site, where it was stock piled over a four year period.

The five tubes where the water comes thru from the turbines are each big enough to drive a Greyhound bus thru.

The Sundial Pedestrian Bridge in Redding connects the north and south campuses of the Turtle Bay Exploration Park and is part of the Sacramento River Trail. It was 11 years from inception to completion in 2003 at a cost of $24 million. It is 720 feet long and 23 feet wide with 2,245 glass panels, each 10 square feet , and lit up at night from underneath by 219 lights. It weighs 1,600 tons, the same as 400 elephants. It is the first steel, inclined pylon, cable stayed bridge in the U.S. The design was so complex, it required creating new software to make the engineering calculations.

It is the largest working sundial in the world. The massive 210' pylon leans due north and casts a shadow over a concrete circle with markings for every quarter hour to tell the time as the shadow passes over them.

Here is John looking at the noon time marking.

The bridge will hold the weight of 6,000 people, but it would be impossible to fit that many people on it.

Here is John again, walking on the lit up bridge at night.

The Texas Rangers won the World Series last week. They were once owned by George W. Bush, but he sold them in 1998. So now we know. It takes about 12 years to recover from George W. Bush.

Tarra

Ashford & Medford, Oregon

Wed & Thur - Nov. 3rd & 4th

View of Mt. McLoughlin 9,495 ft. as we were driving south toward Grant's Pass.




Headquarters of Harry and David's at Medford, the world's gourmet fruit and food gift company. They give $5.00 bus tours of their farm and factory by reservation. Check them out at www.harryanddavid.com. I bought my favorites, chocolate and wine.

Rogue Creamery at Central Point is famous for their blue cheese. We bought John's favorites, cheese curds and beer. Check them out at www.roguecreamery.com.

Historic Jacksonville Cemetery started in 1850s. Sometimes we just find cemeteries an interesting place to walk thru. One man's grave stone said, "Killed by Indians."

Different sections of the cemetery were marked with street signs like this for Oddfellows, City, Jewish, Catholic and Paupers.

Then there was the Redman section. We had never heard of this organization, so I just included the signs, in case anyone else was interested in reading about them.

Jacksonville is also home to the Britt Gardens Jazz Festival that is held outdoors on a hillside in Britt Park, just a short walk from the cemetery. It was the hillside estate of Peter Britt, a photographer who came during the gold rush in the 1850s.

Lithia Park in Ashland starts right downtown next to the Shakespeare Theater where the Oregon Shakespeare Festival takes place for about 8 months a year and has been going on since 1935.

There are many miles of trails in the park. We hiked along the Ashland Creek for a couple of hours and up a hill for views of the city. What an incredibly beautiful hike!

This town is just overflowing with theaters, art galleries, wineries, breweries, B & Bs, boutique shops and nifty and elegant places to eat. You get the idea, a very neat town, but you could spend a lot of money here.

We did some hiking at a couple of other places, including along the Rogue River below the Table Rock mesas, but the pictures are all from Lithia Park.

The beautiful surroundings reminded me of Robert Frost poems I remember from when I was a kid.

This is when we hiked uphill for views of the town.

You can see a bit of the Shakespeare Theater above the trees here.

What a great place to spend my birthday! And to top it off, John said to me, "We're as Tight as Twin Fiddles in a Bob Wills Band". How sweet. Then he admitted it was the title of a song, but he couldn't remember who sang it. I bet Mark knows, don't you?

I could just sit here all day, which is what some people appeared to be doing.

This is at the town square at the entrance to the park. The statue has drinking fountains on each side. It was believed or claimed to be healing mineral waters. The smaller set of fountains was added later, with 8 fountains, when they were trying to promote the fame of their healing waters. Unfortunately, due to the water's pungent taste and aroma, the plan didn't succeed. We tasted it and it was really bad.

We drove thru Scenic River Memorial Park near our campground on our way home. We thought this stone was interesting. Why would someone buy a stone for nobody?

Back home and heading for California tomorrow.
Just one more piece of that peanut butter fudge before I go to bed.

Goodnight.

Tarra

Roseberg, Oregon in the Umpqua Valley

Fri, Sat, Sun - Oct. 29, 30 & 31

We set up camp late Friday afternoon in Roseberg, Oregon at the Douglas County Fairgrounds and Umpqua Park. We were camped right next to the South Umpqua River, so I went for a walk on the bike path along the river.

There were three other campers in the campground, so it was nice and quiet. When we woke up Saturday morning there was a horse show going on at the fairgrounds, a cross country meet in the park and motorcycle drivers training in the parking lot next to us. Wow!

So we walked the bike path to check out the downtown. I took this picture when John said, "Look, Kelley Forney's for sale. Isn't that where the Klampett's moved to when they struck oil?"

In 1959 a truck carrying two tons of dynamite and four and a half tons of ammonium nitrate exploded downtown leveling 8 city blocks creating a crater 52 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep. 14 people died and many were injured.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Guess where we are going trick or treating...

Here's a clue. This is the Henry Estate Winery.

Yes, the Umpqua Valley Wine Tour. It's almost as good as chocolate.

This is at Julianna Vineyard.

First we drove to Myrtle Creek over this bridge to see a couple of the covered bridges that Oregon is known for. At one time they had over 300. Now there are about 50 left.

The Neal Lane Bridge is one of the shortest in the state at just 42 feet long. Built in 1939, this one lane bridge still carries vehicle traffic over Myrtle Creek in a residential neighborhood.

The Horse Creek Bridge, built in 1930, has been moved to the Millsite Park in downtown to preserve it and is only used for foot traffic.

This was our first winery stop. The Pyrenees Vineyard & Cellar is brand new this summer and what a beautiful setting, right along the South Umpqua River.

Abacela Winery overlooking the town of Winston. We also stopped at the Wild Rose Vineyard near Dillard.

Melrose Vineyard. We also stopped at Delfino Vineyards, Becker Vineyard, and Palotai Vineyard & Winery. At Palotai I bought a bottle of Bulls Blood Wine after the gal pouring the tastes told me this story. According to history, Suliman, the Ottoman leader, had a force of 100,000 and was preparing to attack a group of about 2,000 Hungarians. Realizing they were about to be slaughtered, they figured they might as well break into the wine casks and enjoy their last night on earth. So the wine was flowing everywhere and they got rip roaring drunk. When the superstitious Ottomans saw them the next day staggering around as if in a trance, all covered in what appeared to be blood, they got spooked and decided it was a bad omen. So they retreated and the Hungarians survived. So the wine is a blend of several different grapes that has supposedly been handed down over the centuries.

On the way home we heard a song on the radio called "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly". We looked at each other and started laughing. It seemed funny. Maybe it was just the wine. Later we heard Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty singing "I'm Getting Fat and Sassy". We decided it is definitely our new theme song.

Cheers,

Tarra

P.S. I got my days mixed up, so the post about Crater Lake before this one should have been after it.

Crater Lake National Park

Monday - Nov. 1st, 2010


Happy Birthday, John! When John was in the 4th grade, one of his classmates did a show and tell on their family vacation to Crater Lake. He thought it looked really cool and always wanted to see it, so it was a great way to spend his birthday. Behind the tall pine tree is Wizard Island, a mini volcano and crater, which the lake was named after.

Teddy Roosevelt created Crater Lake National Park in 1905. It is the only national park in Oregon. It was formed 7,700 years ago when 12,000 ft. Mt. Mazama erupted and collapsed in on itself. It was probably the largest eruption in North America in the last 640,000 years, 42 times greater than the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption. The ash deposits were 70 to 300 feet deep. The lake has since filled with 4.6 trillion gallons of water from the average 533 inches of snowfall. They have had 50 inches already this fall.

The north rim is only open from early July to late October. During that time, you can drive, bike or hike the 33 mile rim with over 30 scenic overlooks. It is the deepest lake in the country and the 7th deepest in the world. The lake is 6 miles wide and 1943 ft. deep with one path down to the lake's surface. It is 1,000 ft. below the rim and a dusty 1.1 mile, two hour round trip hike. 400,000 people visit every year.

Late October is a great time to visit to avoid the crowds. In April they start clearing the snow from the North Rim Road. The drifts are 20 to 60 feet deep. Clearing 30' high by 30' wide, they get about one quarter mile each day (approx. 1.8 million cu. ft.) in order to get the road opened by early July.

Mt. Thielsen.

Diamond Lake named after Jim Diamond, a prominent Oregon pioneer, who discovered it in 1852.

We took North Umpqua Scenic Byway from Roseburg up to Crater Lake. Along the way, there are 24 waterfalls near the highway or a short hike away. What a beautiful drive, especially in October. The North Umpqua River Trail is 79 miles long. This is Clearwater Falls, a 30 foot, segmented falls.

This is Whitehorse Falls, a 15 foot punch bowl falls.

At 272 feet, Watson Falls is one of the tallest in Southern Oregon. It is a plunge falls. It was a half mile hike uphill (path and steps) to this platform for a view of the upper half of the falls.

This is another view from a little further down the trail.

This is Toketee Falls, pronounced like rockety, and means pretty or graceful. It is a 120 foot, tiered falls. It is a half mile hike with 200 steps.

A closer view of Toketee Falls. All of the falls were magnificent and awe inspiring. I highly recommend this scenic drive to Crater Lake and all the hikes up to the different falls.

Half century old redwood aqueduct springing leaks and spraying water out, still channels water to the Toketee Hydroelectric Generator Plant. We ran out of daylight for hiking trails to the falls.

Our last stop on the way back to Roseburg was the Colliding Rivers at Glide. It is a unique geologic phenomenon where the North Umpqua and Little River collide. In the 1955 flood, the North Umpqua actually pushed the Little River back up it's channel 100 feet.

It gets warmer every day as we head further south.

It will soon be time to break out the shorts.

Tarra