John Day Camping 2014

Success Has Its Own Color

So this year, Chris drew a tag for deer in the beautiful John Day area—and I go along not for the hunt but for, among other things, the beautiful scenery.  Shoppie comes along because we bring her, but she does appear to enjoy the kitty television out the trailer window; other than that, her world is pretty much unchanged—eat, sleep, use the box. 

I like to kid that Chris is looking for Bambi and I’m along to warn Bambi (and then Chris corrects me by saying, “No, it’s not Bambi, it’s Bambi’s father,” which helps…NOT).  But actually, as I’ve accompanied him on several of these now, I have to say I’m kind of in awe and proud of the way he goes about it.  I do eat meat, and I don’t judge the process…just can’t be there for the harsh part.  I’m the same weenie at the doctor’s office—can’t look when they give me a shot.

Hunting trips really test a person’s concept of success.  Chris compares it to baseball and batting averages, explaining that the very best players miss (or are out) MOST of the time.  You have to own your “success” in other ways…and enjoy other parts of the process, which Chris most definitely does.

That’s probably the neatest part of hunting…to me!

9/22/14—Monday—Getting There

We were so organized this time that we were complimenting ourselves on our efficiency—we have so many things figured out now, blah , blah, blah.  Had a great drive and audio book, and it felt good to get away, get a change in scenery.

The Clyde Holliday Park campground that we had pretty much to ourselves last year was mostly full this time, which was surprising.  Thomas Wolfe’s  “You can’t go home again” theory works for vacations too as we’ve discovered.  Don’t go back to the same spots expecting the same results or you’ll be disappointed.  Still…it’s okay to whine!!  We went about the biz of setting up trailer camp which included getting out the satellite dish (gotta watch the Ducks’ football game, ya know!) and going through that setup…and that’s when we discovered a missing part (cable connector).  Off to the town of John Day we went and the True Value store had what we needed.  The rain began then, complete with thunder and lightning…Shoppie stayed under the covers while we got the satellite setup completed, repaired a cupboard door that came off its hinges and finally relaxed.  Whew!!  And that’s on an ORGANIZED day!

9/23/14 (Tues) through 9/25/14 (Thurs)—Scouting Together

I love the scouting parts of these trips—hiking, walking, driving, anticipating what might be, and then spotting something completely different!  The weather was perfect—not too hot, not too cold—couldn’t ask for anything more.  The only unfortunate part this time was the fact that I couldn’t do my usual amount of keeping up because my big toe fracture was still healing and didn’t allow me more than a few miles of walking.  But I enjoyed the beautiful meadows and other areas we got to, and especially enjoyed the fact that this time of year is pretty much bug-free!  And I always had one of my books in tow to enjoy while Chris took extra scouting trips, which worked.

One of our goals every day was to look for a possible campsite for when we move closer to where Chris scouted/hunted.  His Veterans status allows us to stay 5 consecutive nights at a campground for free.  In order to have 5 more free nights (you can get up to 10 per month), you have to go somewhere else for at least one night before returning to the same campground.  Since the hunt didn’t start until October 4^th, we had planned to use the 10 days in September while scouting in order to stay at Clyde Holliday most of those 2 weeks and reap the benefits of full hookups (water, electricity).  Our frugal relatives are probably nodding and agreeing with this plan—“That’s right, you betcha!”—while everyone else eye-rolls and asks, “Why not just pay after those first 5 days?”

Highlights:

•  Otters SNORT!  Did you know this?  We had never heard this noise before.  I kid you not—actually snorting—it was hilarious!  Two otters had taken up residence at a lodge built by some industrious beavers and they had quite the setup (beautiful spot!).  They snorted, we laughed, and had fun filming them, for sure.
  
•  Okay, there were no mosquitoes or biting insects, but there were lots of flies, so I could make some use of my bug-snapper racket which was oh-so-satisfying!!  If you haven’t heard of these miraculous gizmos, it’s worth plunking down the $10 at Walmart to purchase it—shaped just like a badminton racket, the “mesh” is actually made up of little tubes that become electrified; you push a little button on the handle and then swipe through the air to see the magic.  It electrifies flying pesky ones and makes a snapping sound as it knocks them out.  Shoppie didn’t think much of it at first (went diving under the covers to hide from the snap), but then realized it was good for catching the flies that she couldn’t land.  One day she actually got down off her perch and looked at a fly on the window buzzing around and then at me, as if to say, “Go ahead—make my day!”
  
•  Fires, fires, everywhere!  It was a little unnerving to realize that forest fires were being fought in the area, but we were comforted by the clear blue skies wherever we went—a good sign!  Still, we saw remnants of fires that had been, and it was kind of eerie!  The place Chris definitely had planned to go after last year was completely closed off, so we were Thomas Wolfe-ing it once again.
  
• We’re seeing deer, but does and fawns only—still fun to spot wildlife, nonetheless!

9/26/14 (Fri) through 9/28/14 (Sun)—Slothing It A Bit

We made a decision to go ahead and pay for our remaining time at Clyde Holliday instead of going through the hassle of packing/moving out, then packing/moving back in.  We left it flexible enough and opted day-by-day to stay to the next (just in case we ran into something better).  Once that decision was made, the next 3 days began with us sleeping in (in the Preuitt household this means 6:00 or 6:30), then watching one of our movies with coffee---ahhhhh!!  Shoppie enjoyed our lounging mightily—purring loudly on top of us like she could keep us from ever getting up—ha!  Our other activities included:

1.       Driving to and hiking an elk spot that Chris’ niece’s husband Jered knew about.

2.       Driving to the town of Unity and back, listening to audio books.

3.       Going into town to do up some laundry and shop.

4.       Scouting/driving to check out camp spots for our dry-camping portion.

9/29/14 (Mon) through 10/1/14 (Wed)—Different Schedules

The following 3 days involved Chris off to do serious scouting (full days that started at 4:00 a.m.) for the elusive bucks.  Shoppie and I did our jobs of sleeping in.  My days involved:

1.       Walking and filming (kingfishers, herons, chipmunks, deer) along the John Day river next to our campground.

2.       Cleaning up (myself, the trailer as needed).

3.       Reading (my favorite part!)—usually outside in perfect fall weather.

4.       Playing cribbage outside with Chris when he got back from scouting.

Vacation is relaxing for me and I love my own routine.  I do miss the early morning wildlife surprises out there that I got to experience last year when scouting/hiking with Chris.  But I certainly don’t mind sleeping in (ha-ha!) and I do get to “play house” with trailer life;  my world is boiled down to the essentials and comforts;  it’s so much simpler/easier…nicer to have the mind noise lessen and the mad connected world a distant calling at times.

Since Chris is typically the cook at home (because he likes it more than I do and he’s better at it), I also get to “play chef”—or at least dinner-planner, which is fun for me for some reason when it’s vacation.  Ha!  Weird how that works.

10/2/14 (Thur)—Time To Dry Camp!

We had a technical learning curve last night and today which started with both of our cell phones losing service.  We couldn’t text or make calls from the campground or the town of John Day, which we could before, which was a bummer because we wanted to at least update family on our decision to go out to parts wild (no cell service).  It was mysterious to us and we were concerned that something had gone terribly wrong.  We tried to do some verifying at the library computers but (WARNING—GEEZER MOMENT AHEAD) we couldn’t get into our accounts because we couldn’t remember any of the complicated passwords we had just changed everything to in response to some of the latest identity theft activity in our area at home—SMART!  So we were actually up and packed for dry camping by early-o’clock so that we could stop in John Day on our way out (Radio Shack and Prime Video) to see if towers had gone down.  What we discovered is that our Tracphones will pick up the roaming charges to a POINT, before turning service off.  People who have full services end up paying for roaming charges themselves and I had always wondered how that worked for our pay-as-you-go phones.  Evidently, we had never pushed the limit before.  Now we know.

With the peace of mind that we weren’t getting scammed or thieved, we journeyed forth to see if the spot we had picked out for dry camping was available—and it WAS!  We got everything set up, Shoppie situated.

Dry camping has its extra work involved (gotta watch water usage, electric needs a generator, etc.) but it sure beats out the cushy campgrounds for privacy!  Our spot in the woods feels really good—and even Shoppie likes it (didn’t dive under the covers rights away—woo-hoo!).

Extra, Extra!!

We took a scout walk along a road Chris had discovered and it was absolutely beautiful—and we got an extra bonus which if I had known about it ahead of time, I would have had it on my Bucket List, right next to the Aurora Borealis.  Out of nowhere, it seemed, we began to hear this most amazing sound…after hiking and looking up, from where the sound was coming, we finally spotted the amazing sight.  Hundreds of Sandhill cranes filled the blue sky above us, making the most incredible sound and spectacular vision as their bodies reflected the sunlight in various directions they were headed.  Wow, is all I can say—the rest of me is still speechless about the experience.

A different kind of “Wow” was experienced later as we watched the Oregon Ducks lose.  Hardly worth the satellite setup.  At least the plate of nachos we had made tasted good.   We should have stayed out on the “Crane Show Road”!

10/3/14 (Fri)—Last Scouting Day

Chris is still searching for “that” spot.  It was pretty darned cold this morning, so Shoppie and I stayed bundled in the bed for a while.  I always enjoy the luxury of reading on these trips, and I’ve got a great James Patterson book to escape with, so all’s well.  Chris got back to Shoppie and me still in bed at 8:45 and eye-rolled/laughed.  Tough life.  Got up and we had breakfast then took a walk.  Chris wanted to explore up a hill which my toe wouldn’t like, so I kept on the road and made some interesting “scouting” discoveries (tracks to an animal trail that looked intriguing). 

When we met back up, we shared our ventures—he ran into some deer (no bucks that he could tell).  He was interested in my report so we drove around and looked at both ends of the trail I had found—while driving the meadow side, WHAM!  Saw a buck leading 3 other does/fawns—pretty exciting!  So exciting that Chris decided to walk back and I brought the truck back to camp. 

The afternoon was a beautiful one for sitting out in our “backyard” reading, watching wildlife (pine siskins, woodpeckers, Canada jays, pine squirrels, chipmunks).

That evening, we decided to take our chairs to where we could watch the animal trail in the evening light/fading hours.  Nothing.  A bust.  Chris reminded me of the baseball hitting average analogy:  “Sometimes you try and mostly you’ll bust, but then you’ll get it/connect, which is the thrill of it all.”  Got it.

We happened into some Blue Bloods episodes (one of our favorites) and that took us into slumber-land.

10/4/14 (Saturday)—Opening Day!

Chris was up at before daylight to hunt and Shoppie and I went back to sleep.  We all have our part to play!  She has this thing that she does where she paws me until I lift the covers, then she curls up next to me under the covers with her head tucked in under my chin.  Nice.  Heard gunshots—one at 7:00 and one at 7:30—and wondered if Chris was one of those.  Got up and accomplished some morning routines and worked up the courage to take my morning walk.  Wore orange around my neck and stuck to the roads.  At times, I’ve peppered Chris with all sorts of questions about how-does-this-work (how do hunters keep from accidentally hitting people, etc.), so I feel pretty confident that others will act accordingly.  When you think about it, it’s pretty much the same chance we take out on the highway—that everyone’s going to stay on their side of the road, etc.  Okay…can’t let that stop me!  Chris did recommend that I not wear my white cap while walking though:  “It looks like a deer butt!”  Nuff said!  I looked ridiculous but was well-colored!  Saw Chris on the way back which was fun (he made noises that caught my attention, then I knew to just keep going back to camp—he was busy!).

The trailer rugs were getting pretty ugly, so I hauled them outside and swept/beat them which felt rather Pioneerish of me.  Looking forward to a shower and them some more reading time—yes!

Shoppie’s “Cable TV” is excellent out here in the woods.  And Chris sweetened the pot by feeding the chipmunks nuts and crackers.  Her head was plastered up against the screen watching them feed—pretty funny.

Chris got his shower and we lunched, then put in an audio book to drift away with into a delicious nap.

Waking up refreshed, Chris was ready to go back at it and decided to go on the road he and I walked the other evening (Sandhill Crane Road).  I wished him luck and went back to the business of camp reading—wee-hawww!!

All was fine except Chris was later than anticipated—turns out I was supposed to pick him UP at 7:00 (I thought “back by 7:00” meant he’d walk the 1.2 miles back to camp like he did the previous evening)—NOT a happy camper when he got back, understandably, and I felt bad.

It was a pretty quiet dinner/evening.

10/5/14 (Sun)

Chris got off to an early start with a plan—a GREAT plan as it turned out, only somebody beat him to the sweet spot by about 3 minutes and “buck down”.  Dang!

We drove around looking for his next plan which would involve me dropping him off AND picking him up—glad to get a second chance to prove myself worthy of the task!

Had a relaxing afternoon of lunch and movie-watching until time to take him to the latest drop-off site.  Armed with his spotting scope, chair, backpack and rifle, he’s feeling like he’s got a good Plan B.  I returned to camp and my book, with my EYE ON MY WATCH, believe me.  Plan B proved fruitful (saw deer and they were near him not seeing him) but not “successful” (no bucks)—successful in quotes because he’s having a ball seeing all of the wildlife, etc.  In fact, he’s going to give Plan B another try tomorrow morning.  Nice dinner (venison from last year) and fell asleep watching Forensic Files.

10/6/14 (Mon) through 10/9/14 (Thurs)—Typical Days Dry Camping

Chris was out the door right before daylight (or we left earlier if he wanted to be dropped off somewhere) trying various plans which involved lots of hiking/walking and wildlife surprises that he enjoyed immensely (one time some females/does totally didn’t see him and were right next to him, carrying on…he huffed a little and they all looked at him frozen in time while they decided what the heck to do with THAT—fun).  He has the right attitude and always cops the “Harder I work, the luckier I get” philosophy.

My routine with dry-camping trailer life (after sleeping in with Shoppie to daylight): 

1.       Throw on clothes2.       Make up bed3.       Drink water/vitamins and make cup of tea4.       Brush teeth5.       Update journal6.       Clean up trailer as needed7.       Get Shoppie’s stuff taken care of (clean box, food, water, treats)8.       Empty trash (into back of truck)9.       Take walk/film10.   Read!

When Chris returned, we mostly ate/napped and he went back out with some variations on that theme:

1.       Ran into town to gas up, dump garbage, listen to audio book and drive-about scout with an added bonus on the way.  We ran into a road block and asked the officer on the way back what was up.  Evidently a shooter on the loose in Seneca (10 miles from our camp) had people a little nervous and searching for the guy.  So Chris says, “Okay, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for a crazy guy with a gun in the woods.”  They looked at each other with the unspoken sentiment, “This time of year there are about 500 crazy guys with guns running around here in the woods…”  And I’m sitting there thinking, “Okay, my walk is going to have the added excitement of regular hunters with guns out there AND this crazy shooter on the loose…nice.”

2.       No luck for Chris seeing bucks but I saw one on the WAY to pick him up all excited to show him…this is where I’m conflicted—I can’t watch the kill/dying part, yet I want Chris to be successful and am excited when I spot one for him—I know, weird, huh?  I guess if it had happened with me there I would have dived under the dashboard and plugged my ears.  Hmmmm…

Our evenings consisted of making dinner/eating (too well), finding our place in our audio book where we fell asleep the previous night and listening to that.  Work, work, work!

On Wednesday the 8^th, Chris had decided to take the truck and go to a place he and I had been to the previous year.  When I woke back up, I realized that I didn’t know exactly where he was—I had been the one to find the place last year which he called “Darcie Creek” but we had scouted so many other places that when I opened the map to try and find it that morning, I was swimming in possibilities.

Every special trip has its risks—heck, staying HOME has its risks.  But I have to admit to feeling fairly sobered by the possibility that something could happen to Chris out there and I was there at camp without a truck, and without cell service…and I was instructed not to worry if he was late (after dark) because that usually was a good sign.  Sooooo…I would have had to wait until the next morning (and I guarantee you, NOT sleeping), and then walk around until I got some help from a passing hunter or motorist (it’s about 1-1/2 miles from our campsite to the main road—not greatly traveled, but I might have better luck catching a passing motorist there) to help me find first the truck, and then Chris.  Maybe it’s the thrilling novels I’m reading that have me thinking like this but still…am going to be VERY glad to see him and VERY inspired to talk to him about what I should do if this happens.  When he has gone off before on hunting trips by himself from our home in Salem, I expressed worry about that kind of thing and he always said, “Just remember that if something does happen to me that I died happy doing what I wanted…”  C’est La Vie, C’est Le Hunt.  And, really?  HE could end up fine, and I’m the one in the earthquake at safe ol’ home—so nothing is for certain, as they say…

For now, there’s nothing to do but read, enjoy this woodsy quiet, great weather, and my pioneer-like playing house that I do…or pretend I do…  There’s a lot that I’m enjoying (like the freedom to read to my heart’s content, the great weather—slight breezes with aspens and pines shimmering, the chipmunks and squirrels entertaining me and Shoppie, the amazing peace and quiet, and last but not least—no mosquitoes and biting bugs—yay!!  Just flies I get to zap with my new not-a-toy-yeah-right racket.  Time to focus on all of that.

While Chris was gone one day, I heard a shot go off near our camp and then later on my walk saw a truck leaving with a big (3-point or better) buck in the back.  Didn’t relish telling him about it, but he’s not so disheartened that he doesn’t go ahead with Plan D, or is it E.  I see firsthand how hard he works (not like most of the hunters we see car-hunting—driving around until they run into something they can shoot)—he walks and walks and walks and sits and waits and spends lots of time trying to have a natural experience with it.

Our last night (the 9^th), Chris decided to just drive/scout about to see if we could see anything.  We actually did spot a buck right towards the end of our drive (just as the light started to fade).  He had his rifle in the truck so he was able to take aim but the buck spooked and ran off.  After that happened, Chris felt it was the perfect way to close and was ready to go home.  He said, “I had a chance and I missed it—a successful hunt!  We certainly don’t need any more meat in our freezer and I’m almost glad he got away.”

Success is all in the way you define it.  It’s been a great trip and he’s happy.  He definitely enjoys the journey of hunting trips more than the destination.

We celebrated our success with special popcorn (added nuts and Chex mix to it) and watched another Blue Bloods.

10/10/14 (Fri)

Going home today—Chris went for a closure walk this morning to say so long to an experience he has thoroughly enjoyed.  Got to get up close and personal with all kinds of wildlife including coyotes, badgers, and yes, deer.

Time to batten down the hatches and get on the road home.

Fired up the generator and got caught up on news—back to the real world.  Looking forward to being back in touch with family, but otherwise not feeling deprived like we HAVE to have something at home.  Neat to be able to simplify AND be happy.

A truly successful trip.

Coffman Cove, Alaska--the Pampered Route... August, 2014

Gear Prep On A Budget…

People “Ooh”, “Aah”, and “Wow!” about all of our trips of late and we have to admit, we’ve taken a bunch!  What may not be as obvious is one of the ways we afford these things:  the ways we don’t spend money in order to spend money for a trip.  I was thinking about this as my dear husband Chris pulled out needle and thread to repair a backpack he had bought at Goodwill so that it would last one more time, one more trip.  Spend $10 or more on a backpack from, say, Walmart?  Unthinkable!!  Same thing went for my purse on the last trip when its strap broke—safety pin fix!!  Buy a new pair of jeans to replace the ones with holes in them—are you kidding me?  Patch fix!!

Chris and I spend almost nothing on clothes and shoes.  I think $500 a YEAR for us BOTH is an overestimation (and this includes things like hats, gloves, socks, underwear), much to the chagrin of my fashionable friends (yes, I DO have them!) who tire of seeing me in the same clothes year in and year out.  I don’t think Chris’ friends give a hoot about what he wears—MEN!!

Then there’s the way we feed ourselves on these trips at times:  we’re perfectly happy making a trip to the nearest grocery store, picking up cheese and such, and calling it good.

So we might spend some money to GET somewhere, but we’re saving money as we do it most of the time.  What most people spend on one week’s trip across country, we can use to take a month-long trip to Alaska. 

This trip, however, we decided to pamper ourselves a bit, and go to our favorite humble little town of Coffman Cove without our usual do-it-yourself-haul-everything camping adventure.  We signed up with Coffman Cove Adventures and ended up in a comfortable cabin, being fed our meals (great meals), with a vehicle and a boat (NICE boat!) for an entire week.  It was definitely more relaxing for us and less stressful, as we didn’t have to plan and pack for weeks in advance; and when the week was up, we just packed our bags and headed on back.  Nice!!

Coffman Cove, Alaska—the Pampered Route…

8/16/14--Saturday

O-dark 1:00 a.m.—time to rise and get going!!  Our plane left Portland, Oregon at 5:05 a.m. so we had to get from Salem to the Thrifty Parking Lot to park our car and shuttle over in time to get through baggage check and security.  A Note To Anyone Leaving On That Early A Flight Out Of PDX:  Security does not open until 4:00 a.m., so be sure you get there in time to be in front of the line to give yourself a chance if you’ve got, say, a 5:00 a.m. flight!  This was hard to achieve when our airlines, Alaska Airlines also didn’t open until 4:00 a.m.—slight panic!!  But I guess these folks are used to this and they hustled us through the pre-check line (quite the move-you-on-through operation complete with no shoe removal, and virtually no inspection—INCLUDING Chris’ backpack, which contained fishing gear complete with heavy metal weights and shart objects)…kinda makes you pause considering what ELSE might be “okay” to move on through…hmmmm…just sayin’!

We were noting, as we had on our last Alaska adventure, that even with our slight panic there in Portland, we were blessed with smooth sailing in terms of our arrangements.  We got to our gate in time for our flight to Seattle, had a short nap on the flight, had time in Seattle for breakfast and then had another nap on the flight to Ketchikan…bummed around Ketchikan (played cribbage at the ferry terminal, had a piece of pie—worth saying “Goodbye, diet!” at least once here) before our Island Air flight to Coffman Cove.  This proved to be quite an amazing flight—had beautiful weather and saw majestic mountain tops of Prince of Wales we had never seen before—really gorgeous!

Our Coffman Cove Adventures host Mike met us at the landing strip, loaded us up and delivered us to our cabin which, as I said earlier, came with a sturdy vehicle for us to use as we pleased.  There was a spot of adventure regarding the vehicle—Mike had taken heart and loaned it to a local who appeared to have vanished with it but, as we’ve discovered before with any Coffman Cove problem that arises, the community pulled together, found the vehicle, and delivered it to the cabin where it was waiting for us upon arrival.

We immediately felt at home there and liked Mike’s amazingly organized but laid-back establishment, as well as his great sense of humor.  He reminded Chris of his buddy Walt (“No,” he corrected me, “He IS Walt!!”), and he entertained us many times with various stories of his various life adventures—and he’s had quite a few, including getting ordained as a “Dudist Priest” via the movie “The Big Lebowski”!  The only bummer was that his wife wasn’t there that week, so we didn’t get to meet her, but heard plenty of great things about her as well.  I guess I won’t wax too poetically though as he said several times that he doesn’t need any more advertising or marketing—he gets plenty of repeat clients, and we could definitely see why!  On top of his place, he’s an astoundingly good cook, and threw together a wonderful “simple” spaghetti feed that night with the assistance of one of his crack crew—a beautiful young lady Rachelle who works for him during her summers.  We enjoyed chatting with both of them and then with the other 2 cabin occupant groups—one was from New York and the other from Utah—but we had been up almost 20 hours straight and were ready for sleep which came swiftly once we hit our pillows.

8/17/14—Sunday

We slept great in our nice cabin and were treated to wonderful eats again in the morning, courtesy of Mike.  Although the weather was supposed to be better the rest of the week, today was predicted nasty, so everyone river-fished, lake-fished, and killed time until tomorrow—no boats out (lots of white caps and rain).  Chris and I also drove to Ratz Harbor and around town—paying visits to places we had been on our last visit here 4 years before.  A couple of places had gotten a face lift, including the Riggin’ Shack—which actually has a solid floor now and is attached to a hamburger joint—whew!!—and the liquor store, now attached to a bar.

So we drove, enjoyed our packed lunches, listened to our audio book, and Chris hit the fishing on Staney Creek, catching and releasing a bunch of pink salmon.

Back at “base”, we were treated to another amazing meal and dessert (double goodbye diet!)—and relaxed/shared stories with the others.  Tomorrow’s a big halibut fishing day on the boat—wee-haw!!

8/18/14—Monday

The weather had indeed improved and we got our breakfast (another great one—in fact, just assume ALL the meals are great/fantastic/and-any-other-adjective-that-do-the-meals-justice, because they were, and I won’t have to keep trying to come up with new adjectives).  We got our lunches made with all the fixings you could possibly want, got down to the harbor where Mike gave us a complete boat orientation, and off we went.

We spent the entire day around Rose Island and enjoyed ourselves as we fished; listening to our audio book on a boom box we had packed (in lieu of a few more clothes)—had some halibut excitement but no landings.  Trolled for salmon on the way home and caught some, along with rockfish, but threw those back.  We were trying to hold to halibuts for keepers this time around.

I guess maybe it’s because my Dad’s a retired oceanographer that I seem to have the ocean in my blood.  Mind you, I’m not fond of being out there when it’s crappy weather, but on nice days, you can’t convince me to come in—I love just staring at the water, watching whatever comes along (whales, porpoises, etc.) and enjoying the sparkles on the water, the rocking of the boat, the sounds of relaxing water lapping here and there; I could stay out there forever.  Especially since this boat was equipped with a “fancy” restroom equipment for me.  Let me explain:

Boat Potty Basics

Okay, so for a woman on a boat all day—a boat that doesn’t have a bathroom per se—it’s kind of challenging at times.  I was introduced to the boat potty basics back in 2001 when I spent days on a fishing boat with Chris and his buddy Steve.  This one was a milk carton with the lid screwed on and the bottom (the wider portion) cut off, so that it provided a “pot” you could hold onto while taking care of things—pretty ingenious, actually.  It took some basic coordination, but I could get the job done and then rinse the container out overboard (and the guys were perfect gentlemen, turning the other way to give me privacy).  Once again, men seem to be better equipped for such matters—so jealous when they had to go…how easy THEY have it, I’m thinking to myself all the time.  Okay, then there was the bucket I had to straddle at another lodge we stayed at.  This worked similarly, except for one memorable time when a surprise wake hit before I finished and I was crab-walking back and forth with the wake, bucket going with me, back and forth.  Chris took a while to recover from the laughter on that one, and I have to admit, in hindsight (no pun intended—well, okay, maybe), it was pretty funny.

So imagine the thrill when Mike said to me, “And here’s your bathroom!” and I said, “Really?” saw him smiling and said, “Oh—what, a bucket?  No problem.”  But then he revealed the secret part—this was no ordinary bucket!  This was a bucket with a TOILET SEAT SNAPPED ON TOP!!  I squealed—“Wow!!!”  Okay, so there are cheap thrills to this part of fishing/boating—let me have my moment—seriously, to me, it was like the Ritz Carlton of fishing boat potty experiences!  I thanked him on the last day and he said his wife Sarah had a hand in making that happen.  So I left her a thank you note and a tip for that.

So, after a COMFORTABLE day on the ocean, Mike met us at the dock and we reported no fish to clean, but a great day nonetheless.  True story.  Smiles.

Another (superlative adjectives here) creation by Mike for dinner and dessert.  After chatting it up with other folks, we ended our evening playing Cribbage and watching a little TV (satellite—roughin’ it!) before turning in.

8/19/14—Tuesday

Beautiful day today—better than yesterday!!  Got breakfast and off for a new adventure today—Stanhope.  We boated across the Clarence Striahgt all the way up to Stanhope Point for halibut fishing.  We caught a little one and threw him back, then got some exciting bites and fished a while longer before quitting for some sight-seeing…Mike had told us about a neat passage behind the point with a fish hatchery and a nice home between 2 mountains…it was a perfect boating adventure.  We stopped on the way back to try our halibut luck again and Chris caught another small one which we decided to keep in the box—every bit counts, after all!

Another great day and dinner after.  We did a “drive-about” after that and took pictures of the sunset (pick your superlative adjective again), then turned in.

8/20/14—Wednesday

Wow—another gorgeous day on the Cove—how lucky did we GET with the week we picked?  Once again, we got our lunches ready after breakfast and took off for more Halibut fishing.  This time, per Mike’s suggestion, we hugged the shoreline south of Coffman Cove.  It was a GREAT day fishing on top of all the other ways it was a great day!!  Chris caught a bunch of cod and bottom fish and I landed one cod…and of course LOVED being on the ocean on such a beautiful day—can’t beat that!!  Total take in the box (what we kept):  2 small halbitu, 3 good-sized cod, 1 bottom fish.  Hauled in our “loot” and took showers/relaxed before dinner.  Proceeded to crash early (8-ish) and slept like logs.  Nice.

8/21/14—Thursday

Two more days left out on the ocean (another amazingly gorgeous day today!) and only 9 pounds left to complete our box.  We had INTENDED to keep to one (50-pound) box, because that’s all that we could possibly fit in our refrigerator freezer at home.  Mike told us to keep everything we catch of the white fish because there are always takers for that stuff, even though the taker cannot be Mike himself (evidently, there are regulations for lodges and such where they can only serve fish that has been inspected—so all the fish we actually ate there came from the local Costco—kinda strange!).  So after breakfast, we took a couple of snacks (not a full lunch—we intend to be good and hungry for dinner tonight—been eating wayyyyy too much!!).

Today was a GREAT/PERFECT/SUPERLATIVE ADJECTIVES ONCE AGAIN day!!  The ocean was like glass almost the whole time, which accented the amazing scenery and relaxed boat time.  BUT…we ALSO ran into some halibut action and had a ball landing 3—no biggies, but we have definitely completed our one box and are seriously contemplating bringing home a second.  There is a spot on the ocean where you can get cell phone coverage (you can’t anywhere else around Coffman Cove—not a bad thing, we think!), so Chris phoned up his buddy Steve and made arrangements to have him take the 2^nd box “off our hands” if we brought it back…No objections were made.

Even when our bait was all gone, I didn’t want to come in—I’m sooooo addicted to being on that boat!!  I talked Chris into a slow ride back, listening to our audio book—yay!!!

We saved room for our dinner and still managed to overstuff once again—dessert was a hot chocolate brownie creation that I drool thinking about as I type this—YUM!!  We figure our next vacation better be to a fat farm!

Advantage:  Darcie

So there are advantages and disadvantages to being the only female in a group of fishing guys at a lodge, naturally.  One of the disadvantages is I feel like these guys are “watching” themselves because I’m present—what they say, scratch, do, etc…--and were probably looking forward to hanging out with other guys and not feeling all these obligations with me around—ugh!  And I hate that part because I don’t like making people uncomfortable.  But my personality doesn’t make it easy for me to put them at ease (I’m not loud and boisterous and cracking jokes all the time, etc.), even though I find myself trying—maybe too hard sometimes (like laughing extra loud at some joke).  The flip side advantage to this though is that not showing your “hand” so to speak, puts one in the position of letting them sweat a little (hey, they’re guys and they have it easy peeing on a boat all day, I’m due!), and then surprising them perhaps with an unexpected something.  This happened tonight after dinner because the New York guys were talking about there being no sheep on Prince of Wales Island and then one of them commented that he had lots of sheep on his land.  Mike threw out one of his zingers to the effect that it “must have attracted a lot of local boys” whereby the guys laughed heartily then a couple of them looked nervously in my direction to see what my “take” was.  I purposely looked sorta blank-eyed like I didn’t get it so they could relax about it, I was hoping.  But then I couldn’t help myself later when the guys were giving Mike a hard time about spending too much time alone sometimes.  I got in, “Yeah, and he doesn’t even have any sheep!”  Surprise factor works every time—Ha-ha, guys!!  I think they were a little more relaxed after that.

Chris decided to go fishing at a river or lake after dinner and I had decided to shower and chill at the cabin before turning in—and that was even BEFORE Mike said, “Better take your bug spray—it’ll be really bad there!”  Buzz kill for me!!  No problem for Sir Preuitt though—who still continues to amaze me with his natural bug immunity.  We both were happy with our choices and slept great once again…

8/22/14—Friday

After sleeping like babies, we were ready to get back on the boat on our LAST day.  What a GREAT vacation!!  Amazing weather again today…great views, and 3 halibut fights worth a lot of memories!!!  Hated to come back in but we eventually had to—aghghghgh!!!  We got back to the lodge, after a drive-about, to pack up and get ready for dinner.  We’ve been whining about having to leave—oh well…mope, mope, mope.  Prime rib for dinner—that’ll help ease the pain (and it did NOT disappoint)!

8/23/14—Saturday

We said our goodbyes and flew to Ketchikan on a float plane—another fun plane ride!!  Got ourselves across on the ferry to the airport in the company of John, one of the “New York” guys, although he was from Ohio—that was really pleasant (what a bunch of neat folks, all the way around), and we boarded on time for Seattle, had a bite to eat and headed home with no problems…Chris was bragging about all the “problem-freeness” on the Thrifty shuttle and I shushed him so as not to jinx anything…too late…

Well, ALMOST No Problems!!

There we were in 90-degree heat, anxious to get our 2 boxes of mostly frozen halibut back to Salem, and the fob key to our Prius wouldn’t work.  We had some sweaty adventures there at Thrifty (how to get in manually, where to find the battery, how to jump this thing), but lucked into having a driver who was a Prius expert and helped educate us on how to jump start it (because, of course, it’s not typical).  After figuring out what blew up the 12-volt battery (left an internal light on—my bad!!) we were finally able to get going, get home, and distribute gift halibut we couldn’t get into our freezer.

We STILL remarked on how basically pain-free this Coffman Cove trip was for us and are contemplating how we do it next year.

After-thought on the dead battery:  I’m thinking it was Chris’ fault for jinxing us with his bragging about our problem-free trip, not my fault for leaving the internal light on, right?  He’s a guy and can pee off the boat so easily—aren’t I DUE??

Denali-Bound, 2014

Be Careful What You Worry About…

Sometimes, a great vacation needs to overcome all kinds of obstacles because something ALWAYS goes wrong on every trip—sometimes minor things (little forgotten items), sometimes major stuff (flat tires, etc.), and ever-hopefully, not catastrophic events (plane wrecks, etc.)  At the beginning of this trip, my purse strap broke—no biggee!!  My toe was fractured June 1^st and was still pretty sore—okay, I can handle that!

But sometimes, you’re just given information that makes you ANTICIPATE something going wrong—for example, on this trip, that would be my tooth.  As the fates and natural aging would have it, my dentist informed me recently that one of my teeth has decided it does not belong on my person anymore and could actually “blow” at any time.  Arrangements have been made for taking care of this tooth, a.s.a.p. but unfortunately the “a.s.a.” part will happen AFTER we get back from Denali.  The endodontist, in emphasizing how important it is for me to take care of this quickly, painted a gory, painful picture should this tooth “blow” at an inopportune time, say, on a vacation.  According to him, it would take an emergency room visit, lots of pain, lots of money, and lots of hassle if this were to transpire.  My dentist, bless her heart, tried to lighten my load so that I could have a good vacation and told me all would be fine and stressed for me “not to worry.”

Of course, my dentist doesn’t know about my gene pool.  Very few in my family know how to “not worry”.  My sister and I often console each other that we’re not hated, or incompetent, or other such absurdities.  It’s like most of my family, except for my Dad, has cornered the market on worry strands of DNA.  It is somehow our birthright, our destination, our legacy.

We boarded our plane to Anchorage, settled back, then I smiled and worried about my tooth.  “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight…”  …Unless you have Darcie’s gene pool.   So, forget that all of our pre-board activities went just fine.  Yup!  Gotta worry ‘bout somethin’…  Guess I could worry about the latest Malaysia flight that went down recently to offset the worry about my tooth.  Yes, let me do that!

Chris, on the other hand, who has more that he COULD worry about than myself, is absolutely worry-free as he excitedly swaps fishing stories with the guy on the other side of him, then digs into his crossword puzzle.  He is my example, and so I crack my book and am, for the time being, able to “sit back and relax.”  Maybe there’s a way to infuse some of his gene strands into my own so I could make this last forever…hmmmmm.  Somehow, though, I feel compelled to keep the worry lamp lit even as we’ve had a marvelous smooth flight, a great lunch at a spot near the Anchorage airport, and everyone is pleasant and friendly.  No worries—that worries me!!!

Denali—Here We Come!

7/18/14—Friday

We made our way through the airport in Anchorage, rented a brand-new car (with a temporary license sticker in the window—nice!), had lunch at Denny’s and headed off to the Grizzly Bear cabins (about a 3-hour drive).  We were impressed with our cabin, and proceeded to check out the Denali Park Bus spot where we would be picked up the next afternoon.  Drove to the Salmon Bake Restaurant--good food and slanted floors (think Batman episodes), I kid you not.  I kept wondering if the staff all had back problems walking at an angle all day.  We also were “blessed” with a grumpy neighbor at the table next to ours—complaining and demanding—and Chris, in his usual “quippie” style, said, “Wish I could buy him for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he’s worth!”  We finished our evening by looking for decaf coffee we could make in our cabin but there was none to be found.  Did some filming and returned to our cabin to enjoy the surroundings and turn in.

7/19/14—Saturday

The Visitor’s Center was pretty crowded but we managed to finally get parked in an overnight spot, then bummed around the museum and shops for a couple of hours until time to load up.  Layered up a bit as it was starting to cool off.

The bus tour was definitely worth it—6 hours from start to finish, heading into Denali and ending 92 miles later at the Kantishna Roadhouse where we would be staying for 2 nights.  Our driver/tour guide Marsha was great—spotted various wildlife and stopped so we could enjoy and get pictures.  The scenic shots suffered a little as the weather had turned rather rainy/cloudy, but the animal pics were still a hoot.  We saw grizzly bears, moose, and caribou, but our favorite spotting was when we were treated to a mama grizzly trying to get her cubs to cross the river behind her.  The twins were having none of it and grabbing each other and we were witness to a universal sound from children everywhere (and that would include our cat when she goes into the bath): “Noooooo!”  Both the cubs, holding each other and crying a very clear “Nooooo!”  Mom would look at them from the other side as if to say, “Really?  Do I have to come back over there?”  That would be a yes.  Back she came…talked to the 2 once again…then back across while the twins held each other and protested.  Finally one of them took the plunge and the other followed…we could have watched them all DAY!

We stopped along the way at another Visitor Center that had etchings of Mt. McKinley/Denali on the windows indicating where the mountains would be if you could see them.  That alone tells you how much rain and cloudy weather they get!!

The Kantishna Lodge welcomed us/fed us and showed us to our cabins.  We hit the beds only after signing up for a “Wonder Lake” outing the following day.

7/20/14—Sunday

Wonder Lake and other fishing attempts proved to be a bust, partly due to silt in the water made worse by the rains, and partly due to tacky tackle offered at the Roadhouse—but it was still a good excuse to get out, walk, film…and try out a mosquito head net.  They’re dandy in effectiveness, but kind of skew the views and make filming rather difficult.  I resorted to my bug badge and spray to keep the pesky pests from biting me, then managed to drop the head net into the water and later “lose” it, having to go back and retrieve it after we were “done”.  Ooops.  Our main accomplishment was that we managed to get one of our 2 sets of clothing wet, so now we’d better watch the puddles and such!  Had a great lunch and then went to the cabin to play some cribbage but got as far as lying down on the bed—nap time!!

We woke up to a slug of people, evidently 1-dayers just staying for lunch.  We decided to check out “Fanny’s lodge” and learned all about Fanny Quigly—a tough old gal who braved over 700 miles of travel on her own and ended up living out the rest of her life in Denali, catering to various miners and then townsfolk once the prospects dried up.  Part of her adventure involved shooting a moose and climbing inside the carcass in order to survive a blizzard.  Wow!  People respected her for her straight-shooting mouth and ways—well, maybe not so much Joe Quigly, her temporary husband who took off and never came back, leaving her to fend for herself (which she appears to have enjoyed just fine).

The rain continued but then the sun made itself known for about 5 minutes and it was like a celebration woo-hoo moment!  We passed some of the rainy time by sitting in the upstairs lounge—a beautiful view of the river and oddball assortments of books and oddities.  One of the furnishings, for example, is a glass-topped table encasing various examples and descriptions of scat found in Denali, complete with a “crap stick” for lips, supposedly made out of poo.  The claim is that it may not do much for the chapped part but it’ll keep you from licking your lips, which is a plus!  By the way, for those of you who care or who are, say, WORRIED, our Cribbage “tournament” at that point was tied up at 3 a piece.

We were served—and yes, ATE—lamb shanks for dinner, yummmm!  Then one of the twin rangers (tall Amazon-like women) Kirsten gave a great talk on glaciers.  Both of these young ladies impressed us—they were home-schooled, brilliant, and very sweet but very strong and hard-working as well.

After much ta-do about when we were flying out the next day—finally came down to us flying out at 4:30 p.m. instead of 3:00, and, oh yeah, the luggage had to go by bus, even our ONE carry-on lightly-packed—no room on these tiny planes for such!

7/21/14—Monday

We had set the alarm to get our bag on the front porch for pickup at 5:00 a.m. then promptly went back to sleep.  We ate too much at breakfast once again (eggs benedict—how can you say no?) then decided to take a filming walk.  We took the nature trail walk and were really glad we did—wow, what a view at the end right by the river/mountains.

We had a little time before our plane would leave, so we decided to take part in another activity.  The other twin, Ananda treated us to a fascinating dog sled lecture/demo and Chris, not a dog person, kept remarking on how well-trained they were and was duly impressed!!  The dogs got so excited when they got to pull the “sled” (this would be a 4-wheeler in the summer) and they seemed happy with their lives.  I felt a bit sorry for them at first as they’re more limited with space and “romp room”—chained to their houses, walked separately—but then seeing them interact with people made me realize that, as always in life, happiness is relative.  In their world, they’re happy!

Ready to fly back to Denali’s entrance!  We waited at the lodge high above the air strip and filmed incoming/outgoing planes while our plane returned and was readied for us.

When An Experience Is Worth Bold Letters…!!!!

WOW!!  Everything…and I mean EVERYTHING paled in comparison to this flight through Denali.  “Wow!!” was all Chris and I could keep saying.  We were hoping just to get a good view of Denali on the way out, but we instead got the thrill of a lifetime as we were treated to one of the most spectacular experiences either of us had had or seen.  Up close and personal with Denali—it’s not only a TALL thing but HUGE in its entirety.  The thrill of a lifetime, indeed.  Both Chris and I shot film of it, hoping it did even a fraction of justice to it!

Got back to the Visitor Center, still reeling from our flight, picked up our bag and headed back to Grizzly Bear cabins for one last night there.  We could not believe our day and were still chatting excitedly remembering various sensations from that flight.

Had supper at Denali Roadhouse Restaurant and played a cheap game of cheap pool on a cheap table that kept getting stuck returning the cue ball.  Oh well!!  Nothing can take away from a thrill of a lifetime…it’s okay!

7/22/14—Tuesday

We’re heading off on our own today!  We’ve enjoyed the booked/reserved stuff we did (especially the Denali plane ride—have I mentioned that yet?), but are happy to not have plans for the next couple of days—we’re seeing how it plays out.  As Chris says, “We know we’re going to do SOMEthing today!”  Our main goal is to reach Seward, a place we have not seen before.  Road muffins and coffee for breakfast and off we go!

The weather was picture-perfect—lots of photo ops and we took advantage of that!  We voted the drive from Anchorage to Seward hands down the most beautiful drive yet—even rivals the Cassiar highway which had so impressed us before.

We decided to stay at the Holiday Inn Express on the harbor (had  a balcony and view of the harbor—fantastic!) and enjoyed the view, then grabbed some dinner.

7/23/14—Wednesday

Took in our complimentary breakfast and assessed the weather.  It had rained during the night and was now cloudy but we enjoyed the view/room and decided to stay another night.  This meant we had to switch rooms before noon as ours was spoken for—no biggee, as we still got the view!!

Our next room wasn’t quite ready yet, so we went for a drive that ended up at Exit Glacier.  A beautiful little hike that we filmed/enjoyed and then, the glacier—up close—was amazing!!  I just can’t seem to get enough of those amazing ice-blue colors that peak through glaciers.  Almost like a religious experience in itself.  But wait, there’s MORE…!!

Just as we were about to turn and go, a black bear bounded across the ice and we were able to catch it on film.  The rangers at the place said they had NEVER seen a bear on the glacier before.  Cool!!! 

Got back and checked into our room then went for another drive.  Chris just picked a road at random and Boom!  A moose right by the side of the road!!  We stopped to film her and she was pretty unconcerned (must have been some good stuff she found to eat!).  We then drove to the other side of the water to look back at Seward—neat view.  Next stop, the Seward library, where we could check on email and, ever-so-important, our online Scrabble games!  The library is covered with the most amazing tile that changes colors as you walk.  They’re basically the same color but from different perspectives and lighting, they look multi-colored from wherever you stand.  Neat!

Once back, we took a nice long walk around the harbor, then ate big beautiful salads (as we were feeling a bit roughage-deprived of late) at a recommended place 2 doors down.  Slow-walked back to our room to turn in (about 11:00 pm by then).

7/24/14—Thursday

We were going to lounge around before checkout time this morning, but the day turned out to be gorgeous (with predicted rain that upcoming night), so we got up to get going and make the most of it.  Chris was up and out before me and was able to film the beautiful blue sky and sunshine on the mountains.  You can’t beat this!  We decided to take our time getting to Whittier where we had planned to spend our last night before flying out of Anchorage tomorrow night.

Here’s the thing about Moose Pass Café, which is somewhere in between Seward and Whittier.  It presented itself at a time when I needed a bathroom break and it was the only thing open.  A big sign out front admonishes, “Our restrooms are for restaurant patrons only.”  Feeling oh-so-clever, I offered to get Chris a cup of coffee to go so I could use their facilities.  Everything worked like clockwork and when I got back to the car, Chris was cracking up.  “Well, that certainly told a story!  Every woman who came out of there had a coffee to go!”  Guess I don’t get points for originality.  Sure enough, we passed about a dozen fellow women with coffee-to-go’s in hand on the way out of the parking lot.

Whittier’s surrounding glaciers and mountains did not disappoint—wonderful!!  The tunnel is quite impressive to get there (3 miles long and 5-6 minutes with enforced speed limits).  Whittier Inn lunch and view were great.  Whittier the town…uhhhh…well?  Kinda small, kinda dumpy…we filmed the best and worst and headed back through the tunnel and decided to see what the town of Girdwood offered in terms of places to stay.

On the way, we drove to the town of Hope and back—nice drive, but nothing much to the town.  Arrived in Girdwood and took a chance on a questionable-looking house that said “lodging”.  When we entered, we were greeted by a gorgeous exotic-looking Bali-princess-like woman named Tanya who happily booked us in a condo/resort.  Her store was full of amazing local art and she was peaceful and happy as was her music.  It was one of those places where you enter and immediately feel warm and happy all over.  What luck!  Girdwood is a ski resort town and during the summer becomes like a ghost town full of resort stuff—some of which is open year-round—it was fun to be there in its off-season when hardly anyone was there.  We landed a great condo at the base of Mt. Alyeska—verrrrry comfortable with all the fixins.  We napped, took a walk around Girdwood itself, then grabbed some snacks at the store we could call dinner and tuned into some old movies (hey, full cable…why not?).  Tonight we were packing up for the final leg of our journey.  Chris planted the Northern Lights bug in me—as in there might be a chance as we were flying into Fairbanks at dark night (our flight leaves at 11:00 pm).  Seeing the Aurora Borealis is definitely on my bucket list and the anticipation got me going…

7/25/14—Friday

Slept well and got up for our final day.  Took our time getting up and showered, ate a couple of bananas we had brought with us from our complimentary breakfast in Seward, and still managed to get out by 8:00 a.m.  The day was gray/rainy/cloudy, so not the photo ops we’ve had the last couple of days.  Stopped to watch some fisher folks, then went about the business of gassing up and turning in our rental car before we got charged for another day (noon was the cutoff).  Found out that they won’t check bags in until 4 hours before the flight, so we took advantage of the security storage service to hold our luggage for a fee.  Okay, so we had about 12 hours before boarding.  Great.  We burned out on Cribbage finally, calling a halt to it after several “tournaments”…then, let’s see…what else?  Got a paper, read that, worked some puzzles, ate, people-watched…looked at museum pieces,  sat up in the observation tower, walked other gates to see how the “other half” lived and then Chris decided we should ride the moving walk back and forth and see how long it took for someone to stop us.  No one did, so we finally tired of that too.  No sleep would come, even though we tried.  It seemed like as soon as we nodded off in the least, some airport employee would need into a cupboard within earshot, or banged the garbage cans around while emptying them.

Needless to say, we were quite happy when it was time to board finally.  Whew!  Made it!  Fairbanks was a quick switch to get on our flight back to Portland.  AGAIN, we tried to sleep and failed—those airplane seats just aren’t real comfortable and we chatted and looked out the window (sorry, Darcie—no Northern Lights), and worked puzzles.

Be Careful What You Don’t Worry About…

By the time we reached Portland, we had basically been up 24 hours.  Ahhhh—but we were on the last part—picked up our luggage, shuttled to our car in the Thrifty Parking Lot, and home we go…or so we THOUGHT.  Visions of cooking in our own kitchen and getting caught up on sleep danced around in our heads as we pushed the button for our Prius to go.  Our reliable Prius.  Our quiet-running Prius.  Our gas-efficient Prius we had thoughtfully filled before heading to the airport a week ago.  She didn’t budge—dash lights came on, and battery showed some juice—what could possibly be the problem?  Out of gas.  Operator(s) error!!!!  Our Prius runs so quietly that when the shuttle showed up behind us as we parked, we jumped out, loaded up and left the Prius…running…efficiently…out…of…gas.

Luckily, the folks at Thrifty happily helped us get a gas can filled—to no doubt get us off their lot, I’m sure!—and we finally chugged the poor Prius back to life after a 2^nd can (note to Prius owners:  you need to make sure to go OVER 1.8 gallons to make the “Low Fuel” light go off if you ever should happen to run the thing out of gas).

It was probably all of that bragging we did during our trip of how smooth all transactions and reservations had gone and how wonderfully free of problems the trip had been.  That might have jinxed it…who knows?

I’m betting that it’s probably because I had stopped worrying by then.  Where ARE those genes when you NEED them???

Central Oregon Lakes, May 2014

Central Oregon Lakes, May 2014

(Little Lava, Lava, Crane Prairie Reservoir, Elk, Cultus, Little Cultus, Hosmer, South Twin, North Twin)

Mon., 5/12/14

Once again, the preparations are complete—the lists, the packing, the organizing—and we’re getting ready to take off.  Just in case you’re wondering about Shoppie’s portion, here’s what her list looks like:

·         Cat Food

·         Litter Box

·         Food and Water dishes

·         Scratch Post, plus weights to hold it down

·         Dot toy (laser light), catnip mice to play with

·         Brush, grease (for hairballs)

·         Afghan

·         Carry cage with cushy towel and old shirt for comfort

It’s amazing the trailer has any space for Chris and me!  Although we did better this time in terms of the lists (i.e., we didn’t have to double-back for any items), we both thought we’d better double-check the front door to make sure it was locked…it was.

Aaaaaaaand we’re off once again!

This time our goal was to explore some of the Central Oregon lakes along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Highway.  We wanted to find a camp spot to plunk while we checked out the whole area and we wanted to do said exploration/camping trip before campgrounds got too popular and crowded, i.e., before school let out.

Travelling by audio book, it was all smooth sailing into Bend (for gas/propane), except for a new thing with our cat.  Shoppie had an odd reaction to her sedative this time in that she wailed at odd times in her sleep, especially when we stopped…odd.  It was like she was sleep-walking and then went right back to sleep once we were moving again.  Hmmmm…not real relaxing for her human companions!

After our Bend stop which included lunch, we continued down to Sun River and over to the Cascade Lakes Scenic Highway from there.

When Co-Pilots Sightsee Too Much…

Things went a little haywire on the Cascade Lakes Scenic Highway.  Evidently, as it turns out, there are several “Cascade Lakes Scenic Highways” and, okay I admit it, I was oohing and aahing at the scenery probably a bit too much as our “pilot” Chris drove us to where I directed.  At one fork, he started to veer left and I corrected him—“No, it says Cascade Lakes Highway straight ahead” and off we went…  It occurred to me that we might not be on the right scenic highway when we started to see snow…lots of it.  And then we climbed in elevation and wound up at Mount Bachelor ski lodge which was closed and full of snow.  This was our sign that errors had taken place perhaps.  It turns out Chris the pilot was correct (oh, I hate it when that happens!)  in the veer left decision and my Co-Piloting skills took a hit (can you say, never-live-it-down?).  Chris commented that if we were contestants on “Naked and Afraid”—a visual that is so wrong in so many ways—my navigational score would have taken a dive:  “Like if it started at 7.2, it would have gone to 3.5—a generous score only because we were able to find our way back!”

Which we did.

And we scouted several of the lake campgrounds to see what looked good for our “plunking” spot.  The lakeside ones were more populated—with people, dogs and bugs—so we opted for a riverside spot at Little Lava Lake which suited us just fine.  It was private, quiet, and had plenty of space all around us.

We got camp set up and ate well on food we had cooked for the trip:  chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, salad, and of course 2 brownies for dessert.  Our record-breaking diet smashing continues on with this trip…oh welllll!!!

Preuitt Terminology #1—Sleeping In

When I say that we “slept in” it means that we somehow made it past the dark hours and woke up when the sun was actually up.  Sleeping in for us is probably equivalent to most peoples’ description of getting up at the crack of dawn.  When we eat breakfast, get dressed and are out the door by 8:00, we’re “late” and we’ve “over-slept”—got it?

Tues., 5/13/14

So here ya go:  We slept in and woke to a gorgeous morning.  We had breakfast and headed over to the boat ramp near camp (Little Lava) to enjoy the scenic lake with a 3-mountain backdrop (Mount Bachelor—a place we felt rather intimate with now—Broken Top, and South Sister)—absolutely beautiful.  We decided to take a drive today and scout out the other lakes in the area—great idea! 

On the way to Crane Prairie Reservoir (a large rather popular and populous lake most times of the year), we ran into a spot where a whole bunch of pelicans were hanging out, so naturally we had to get out and film that—neat!

Chris then proceeded onto a private spot to fish off of Crane Prairie and we had it to ourselves—enjoyed the beauty, the birds (I spotted/filmed a beaut of a wood duck—sweet!) and Chris caught several nice-sized rainbow trout.

We enjoyed our drive-about and got out at most all of the lakes—the list includes Lava, Crane Prairie Reservoir, Elk (closed/snowed in), Cultus, Little Cultus, Hosmer (Fly-fishing only), South Twin, and North Twin.  They are all pretty, each having their own personality, especially now before Memorial Day when all of the campgrounds officially open and fill up.

After making a final stop on the way back to pick up some firewood, we finally got back to camp relaxed, tired and hungry.  We ate some more of our chicken with chips and then napped while listening to our latest audio book.

We woke up at 5:30 thinking we might paddle around in our pontoon boats on the lake, but by the time we got the boats put together and over to the boat launch, the wind had picked up, making it more of a workout than we were after.

So, we did what any survivalists would do in such a situation:  We came back to camp to set up the satellite dish system.  We really do know how to tough it out.

Wed., 5/14/14

We slept well once again—and got coffee/tea then had a nice breakfast (hash, eggs, and mandarin oranges—yes!).  We planned to pontoon boat ourselves around Little Lava Lake and that we did.

Wow is all I can say.  Pontooning on Little Lava Lake was like a dream come true for me—it was fairly calm (actually like glass when we started!) and we paddled around for hours—yes!!  Fish were jumping for the first hour, but none were biting.  I had some moments where I could float and read and Chris fished—heaven!

We got back to the trailer tired and hungry and made a big Chicken Caesar Salad with our remaining chicken, then took a nap---whew!!

We woke up in time to take an evening drive to explore and stopped/hiked a trail that went along Chris’ old fishing spot on the Deschutes River but it was changed to the point of it not being doable (to walk/hike and fish like he did years ago).  Still, it was a nice walk!  We finished our drive by checking out the fish action at Lava Lake—a beautiful evening (filmed a heron eating and getting pestered by black birds—funny)…saw LOTS of fish and several people fishing but not many catching.  Chris and I were able to see lots of trout right off the dock—pretty amazing!

Dined on surf and turf tonight (Chris’ rainbow from yesterday at Crane Prairie and steak)—yum!

Thur., 5/15/14

Started the day with pancakes and headed to Crane Prairie for some pontoon fishing…another beautiful day!!

Had a very peaceful quiet time fishing from pontoon boats tied together and anchored to a stump from under the lake.  Saw deer, various birds, and enjoyed the sounds/scenes.  Finally gave up (fishing not so hot although we did get one of the brook trout Chris was hoping for), had lunch and listened to our book.  We were both yawning on the way back to camp but Chris wanted to check out a river spot—I opted to skip the walk and read since my shoes were wet and I had already put on dry socks and sandals.

Stopped at Lava Lake Lodge for some ice cream and decided to come back to Lava for some pontoon boating later.  Nap time!

After naps, we headed to the big Lava but the wind had picked up enough to make it not very attractive for pontoons…watched a couple of fly-fisher folks battle the wind and then decided to go back to camp and make the most of it.  Taco meal (yum!) and a movie—bed time and interestingly enough, we were able to fall asleep again (Shoppie too—amazing!).  People were already starting to move into campsites, so we decided we would head back towards Salem tomorrow as weekends get so crowded at the camp grounds.

Fri., 5/16/14

So we had our breakfast, packed up, and headed out to Bend to gas up and dump, with me, Ms. Co-Pilot, trying to redeem myself by giving really really really accurate directions—okay, over-doing it (Chris doing the eye-roll as I gave my overkill directions).  Leaving Bend, we decided to see what Detroit Lake (about 50 miles east of home) was like and were going to stay the night with full hook-ups and do some pontoon fishing at Big Cliff if conditions were right for us.  The day looks a little cloudy (rain supposed to start tomorrow but today looks a little iffy as well)—we’ll see!

And see we did…and drove right on by, because Detroit Lake was hosting a fishing derby that brought in the crowds and hoards…  We stopped for a lunch break on the trailer and then headed back for home.

We can do Big Cliff pontoon boating on future day trips during the week…that sounds like a plan!

Sometimes shorter trips are great shorter trips…this was one of ‘em!!