Managing Mania

Posted on October 25, 2012 by TheJessicaness

Oceanside Beach

The dogs were restless last night. There was plenty of wildlife making noise and the temperature was a warm 41 degrees. I get sleep between dogs stepping on my hair and/or bladder throughout the night. Hwy 58 has some spectacular views for our morning drive. In the park is Soda Lake. It looks like a large pool of baking soda. Outside the park we see cows, a future solar panel ranch, oil fields, and the sun lighting the hills around all the beautiful turns.

We stop in Oceanside for lunch hoping to return to Robin’s Nest Cafe. Last time we were here it was sunset and we seemed to have the place to ourselves. Today there are many people eager to eat, shop, swim, fish, sit, talk, and walk their dogs. We join the crowd on the boardwalk and find out the cafe has been closed long enough for another restaurant to take its place. We order some veggie fajitas (comes with corn cob) and guacamole to share at Rockin Baja Coastal Cantina.

me on dock with seal, close-up on Flickr

We get the dogs and head to the beach where they are not allowed, take a picture, and then put them back in the car so I can get a close-up photo of a seal on the dock. We get some gas and then get back into traffic. I’ve been to 47 of the United States and the worst traffic areas are Miami, L.A., and San Diego – and they don’t even have snow to contend with.

Home after 3:00 pm. In the mail – cheap bills, on the answering machine – a threatening call from Geico to be liable for the accident. I will be doing a post on the details of that story soon. We were able to get an estimate appointment, at the same shop that repaired our car two weeks ago, for 4:30 pm. Back home we are able to finish unpacking, do some laundry, awe at the new grass in the backyard, shower, and eat some dinner.

This is the end of this trip – physically, but I still have pictures to add to my posts so I will get to relive this trip for another day or two. Then I have house cleaning, bills, yard work, husband’s deployment, and dogs to tend to. Piggy was carsick more this trip than ever even with Dramamine pills and chamomile biscuits and is loving the non-motion of the bed. Sparky is making high-pitch noises in the windows. Hopefully he is ready for bed soon – it’s been a long day.

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Kings and Queens

Posted on October 24, 2012 by TheJessicaness

a room in the Muir home

Another day to sleep in. I wanted to get up early, but something told me to just lay there. Eventually showers were taken and room keys turned in. Our lateness worked out in our favor. We still get to the John Muir NHS before they open. This gives us time to walk to Safeway, a few blocks away, for breakfast. Besides being a bad ass in the protection of so many parks this guy also had a manly beard, some well written friends, a happy family, and an enormous home full of food and books.

Nice to imagine his heaven on the hill instead of the small sanctuary in a busy metropolis that it is today. Also on the property is a building dedicated to part of the Juan Bautista de Anza trail and the influence the settlers had on the locals as they travelled from Culiacan Rosales, about 600 miles south in Mexico from the border in Arizona, to San Francisco which is the direction we were headed.

The building that once contained the Ford assembly plant is now the address to many businesses – clothing store, restaurant, gym, and Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front NHP visitor center. The park was proposed in 2001 and this VC was established this spring with no permanent displays yet in the museum. I’m happy to learn how so many people were able to work together without prejudice and be so conservative in the products they used.

view from Rosie the Riveter visitor center

The sad part is that it took a world war – a common fear of win or lose for people to act right. There were some similar emotions around the Sept. 11 event spurring people to feel more American, but it also filled them with unneeded hate – something that seems to cause growth for this nation. Outside is the Marina Bay shore trail that we can follow to other historical markers of the park. We also see a soccer game in action, sailboats at sea, an old man feeding the birds, a lady eating lunch with her dog, and the bridge and skyline of San Francisco across the bay.

Leftover pizza and we are back on the road. We debated going to the Fisherman’s Wharf for loaves of bread, but decide against the big city this time. We were going to visit Eugene O’Neill’s final refuge, but reservations are needed and we were unable to make an appointment from the unanswered phone – which is just incentive to return.

Continuing south, we find our way out to Pinnacles NM – a volcano that changed course because of the shifting of the San Andreas Fault. With some help from the elements too it became the pile of spires and caves that it is today. We hiked through the Bear Gulch cave – almost disappointed by a tunnel on the way. It’s so much fun to explore the large rocks and tight spaces of this part of the park. Next time we will hike to the peak. There are plenty of camping spots but we will continue to Carrizo Plains NM where we can see many rabbits and varied species of bird along its dirt roads.

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Piggy, Pete, and Politics

Posted on October 23, 2012 by TheJessicaness

Lake Shasta

We sleep in. The trees help keep the sun from reaching our tent – usually our last alarm if the snooze button was hit or forgotten in the car. The tent was moist inside and out. It had rained all night. The campsite was 30 miles from our morning destination – Lake Shasta Caverns located down a nice road with a “trailer” yacht campsite along the way.

We walk anxiously inside at 9:30 am and find out the first tour of the morning leaves in 30 minutes. Tickets are $24 each. I’m about to decline, but with the ticket comes a boat ride with informative Eric and a bus ride and cave tour by Katie full of jokes and history. We are joined by six other people – a non-talkative couple and two couples that were talking excitedly in another language. The bus ride goes up a 17% grade. Trains can handle 2% and semis up to 8% before their brakes catch on fire.

emergency escape

There are a lot of steps in this cave and plenty left to be explored that hasn’t been found yet. Bears are a popular sight around here, but we will have to be satisfied with a cell phone pic of a fresh paw print that the employees found this morning. We learned that the Grizzly bear – found on California’s state flag has not had a supportable habitat in the state since the 60s. Perhaps it’s just a good reminder of the damage that people have caused to the environment and will help us to do our part to preserve what we have left.

Next stop, Shasta State Historic Park to learn about the people who went from being miners to merchants and how they eventually built their shops out of bricks to help prevent total destruction in fires – a popular disaster still common today. Then we went to Whiskeytown NRA to learn a little more. The dogs were allowed on the trail and joined us on a 1.7 mile hike to Whiskeytown Falls at a height of 220 feet.

a section of the falls

Piggy fell off a bridge, but with her leash on I was able to keep her dry. On the way back down the trail I saw a flash of yellow fur jump up a hill and the dogs wanted to chase after it. I’m not one to stay too long around possible mountain lions but I did take a picture of his paw prints in the dirt… and was secretly hoping to get a photo of one full after a meal. We would only see a gray shape in the bushes for the rest of our return.

Caleb felt like another night of pizza and beer and found Pete’s restaurant in Sacramento to be a popular choice. We joined the trivia night half way through and finished far from winning. We learned that monarch butterflies migrate to the eucalyptus trees in Pacific Grove. We talked with Rachel, our friendly sports-fan bartender; Steve, the college student studying for his psychology exam; and Mike, the guy that had trouble deciding what to put where on his pizza. We talked some politics and then called it a night.

Posted in Animals, Camping, Education, Food, Hiking, History, People, Places, Travel, Water | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Closed Crater Castle

Posted on October 22, 2012 by TheJessicaness

photo by Caleb

We are about 12 hours too late showing up to Crater Lake this morning. We were here May 1st and there was still 20 feet or more of snow. Today there is already a foot of snow, snow plows busy at work, and cars getting stuck in the snow. This time we are able to see clearly across the crater between cloud coverage and snow drifts. We are over 5000 feet in elevation and the temperature is 24 degrees.

The north entrance road and east rim drive are closed. We brave part of the west rim, but the snow is getting taller and the trail is not marked – not even the one by the visitor center. We are not the only people at the park today and we share in the excitement of being able to see parts of this amazing place and learn about its history and attempt at a Guinness world record – if they had a floating log category.

We know we are in a race against winter – fast enough to see its beauty and stay ahead of road closures. We take a detour to Lava Beds National Monument. This seems to be a trip of volcanoes past and present. This park is covered in places to explore and we get distracted at the wildlife refuge outside the park full of migrating birds. The weather is great as long as the wind doesn’t blow.

photo of Caleb

We are able to hike some less challenging caves – no helmet or knee pads required, before dark. We have our headlamps with us, but some caves are closed to protect the bats and we don’t have enough time to see them all today even though we want to. We will make dinner by the visitor center to help block the wind. Caleb did the driving today, but when he saw a sign for elk crossing and the snowstorm ahead he let me behind the wheel.

It was a neat storm to watch from the passenger seat as the snow comes at your face, but as the driver you are making sure you’re on your side of the road. We thought we might stop at a rest stop, but a semi was having a hard time finding the turn that was covered in snow and soon enough the weather cleared up and we were able to make it to Castle Crags state park.

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Winter Weekend

Posted on October 21, 2012 by TheJessicaness

Spalding Church – Nez Perce NHP

Things never turn out like you plan them to… well, not every time. Sparky throwing up in my sleeping bag woke me up. I used my pants to help contain the mess. Then the rain came to block out the sun. The dogs got breakfast in Paradise – a small town in Montana before the Nez Perce NHS in Idaho. We had been here before and enjoyed returning for plenty of history and pictures.

We stopped in Clarkston, ID for lunch at Tomato Bros. and ended up staying the night. The waitress recommended the Riverport Brewing Co where we would make friends with Neil. We bought some of his homemade hot sauce and he let us have some pickled tomatoes and green beans. Nancy, our bartender, is married into the business, very friendly, and kept our popcorn bowl full.

Whitman Mission Memorial

Refreshed, we would get an early start in the morning. We returned to Whitman Mission which was worth it for all the fall colors and deer. Our next stop would be Mt Rainier – for more rainier than other parks, but also for the snow. Most of the roads were closed, but we were able to get in plenty of hiking in 29 degree weather – it was beautiful. Into Seattle for the night, we get free parking a block from the Space Needle. At the top we witness a wedding, but decide to return some other time for the $40 pasta dish – pear and gorgonzola – though with dinner the ride up would have been free, but it’s also a $35 minimum charge per guest with credit card.

Space Needle in Seattle

The sports bar across the street with an empty table had a 25 minute wait so we went around the corner to Golden Singha, a Thai place, for Thai fried rice for Caleb and pineapple fried for me – delicious and lunch for the next day. We met two couples with nine-day passes for Seattle. We would’ve loved to stay longer and explore this enormous city – our map has a zoomed in box for the entire Seattle area and another of downtown, but work is a week away and we have a long way to go. We camp at Dash Point between Seattle and the west side of Mt Rainier where we will go to see more of the park.

road into Mt Rainier

What we get is more snow and more closed roads. We see two young guys throwing snow balls at each other and a dad and daughter building a snowman. We would love to stay and get lost in the snow, but Caleb suggests heading south to Mt Saint Helen’s. We get to see a clouded rim covered in snow and the history lesson was stunning – learning about the effect this volcano had on the area 32 years ago – to houses, roads, rivers, and families over 50 miles away, and the beauty and possible hazard that it still is today. We won’t be hiking to the rim today, but we enjoy some hiking, some frogs in a lake, and getting another photographer’s hopes up when I thought I saw a bird – the most inanimate one he has ever seen.

Mount St. Helens

We want to return for snowshoeing and in the warmer season. There are no campsites on the park because of potential flooding, ash covering, and lava flow. I learned that 2-4 inches of ash can collapse a roof and when mixed with snow can turn to cement. What a powerful and changing place. Time for us to change places too. We decide to drive to the Oregon coast and it’s a great choice. We visit Fort Clatsup and imagine living in one of the spacious rooms.

tree reflecting on Lewis and Clark River

We get to temporarily follow in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark – what lucky and smart men they were. The park was closing soon and we wouldn’t mind being locked in, but drive to Sunset Beach instead. As we walk our way to the water we are passed by a car. Vehicles are allowed on the sand and soon we are left carless by the ocean – what a view. I want to camp here too. As we are leaving I thought I saw a tarantula in this kid’s container – photo-op! But it’s empty for catching bugs for his spider at home named Lewis. Caleb is grateful to have bypassed that moment of terror as would anyone afraid of spiders.

Caleb on Sunset Beach, OR

Caleb has chosen some back roads to get us from coast to capitol. We stop somewhere along the way to make dinner – more mac-n-cheese with olives. It seems to be a Oregon tradition to drive with your high beams on in foggy conditions and my eyes tire quickly, but stay sharp for the one raccoon brave enough to cross the road in front of me. It will be a late night, but we will be clean in a warm bed instead of smelly inside a wet tent.

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