2017 Meanderings - John Day, Oregon - Good Will Hunting

Late September to Early October

So since this was after all a “hunting trip”, Sis, I should first explain Chris’ philosophy of hunting and mine too, I suppose.

 

For Chris, the process itself is the reason he goes—being in the woods, learning about the animals, and interacting with a variety of critters in their domain.  There are those who go hunting for the trophy horns, and hardly get out of their trucks, breaking all the rules; they’re looking, looking, looking, and then jumping out to shoot.  They’re trashing their surroundings, and are loud and raucous. 

Luckily, they are the minority, but unfortunately, because they’re loud, they create a reputation for all hunters.  The ones who honor the sport—and actually don’t enjoy the shooting part—will tell you that those people (they have other names for them) are the ones who give honest hunters a bad name. 

Chris’ approach is way more complex, involving at least a week of scouting, research, and miles of walking, listening, and observing.  His “success” ratio isn’t very high, but he enjoys himself a lot more.  Chris defines success as “getting-out-in-the-woods” and seeing lots of critters.  For him, ALL hunting trips have been successful.

For me, a long-time animal-lover as you well know, I approached our first hunting trip years ago with a lot of trepidation and misconceptions.

I still don’t go on the hunt itself (have never been able to handle the actual shoot), but it quickly became clear to me that I enjoy the heck out of scouting (hiking, walking, observing, listening) and learning.  Since then, I’ve gained a respect and admiration for the honest hunters and have learned a lot about the compassion and respect that they have for the animals whose lives they ultimately take.  I’ve even witnessed hunters who pray after the hunt, thankful for the meat and the gift of food.  It has been more of a humbling experience over time than I had expected.

Chris' official deer hunt was the first 12 days of October.  We took off from Salem on September 21st (with Shoppie the campin' cat, naturally!) in order to arrive there in plenty of time to scout.

The "travelling crew" with Shoppie in her box between us.

She actually prefers to stay in there rather than wander
around the cab of the truck (we have given her a
choice many times!).

The Journey to John Day

The drive to get to John Day is really quite beautiful.  This year, because of all the forest fires we had, I did not to expect to enjoy it as much as I did.  The colors of the burn combined with the fall colors to provide an amazing array:

The scenery around John Day itself is spectacular.  The fossil beds are magnificent (and the colors amazing).  When you're here, we will definitely have to plan a little trip over there if we can, Sis!

John Day Fossil beds - the ones in the foreground
are actually green...really cool-looking.

More of the glorious fossil beds.

They are especially brilliant on blue-sky days!

The beautiful John Day River
which is right behind our Clyde Holliday camp site.

We decided for the first week to stay at a known (nice) camping spot right outside of the town of John Day called “Clyde Holliday” while we scouted out places to set up our remote camp.

From this full hook-up (plug-in water, plug-in electricity) convenient base camp, we set up our home-away-from-home to scout by truck for areas where we might dry camp (no plug-in water, no plug-in electricity) in the remote area where Chris would be hunting.

 

Trailer Layout

I figured you might want to get an idea of what living in our trailer is like, Sis.  It’s good we get along because it is pretty cozy.  The inside of the trailer in total is about the size of your dining room, a little smaller perhaps, in square footage.  That space contains the bed, the kitchen area, the bathroom, the couch, and “dining room”.  Here’s the basic layout: 

Here you're looking from the kitchen into the "bedroom"

This is the kitchen area above (stove and microwave
on the left, refrigerator on the right).  The open door
on the right leads into our small bathroom.

This is of course me, putting together the dining room table.
That's our refrigerator with small freezer on the left,
and the bed is behind me.

We often play Scrabble at the table and yes,
that's Shoppie behind me on one of her afghans.

Truck Scouting

So, our first week is largely spent in the truck (with Shoppie holding down the “fort” at our camp).  We look for possibilities of where to camp and, of course, we look for deer and any other animals we may happen onto.  We enjoy seeing the wildlife surprises and oddball things we run into as we stop for various walks and hikes along the way…

We saw about 12 bucks during the scouting weeks...

  

A barn owl, spotted not far from our remote camp...

An interesting "stand-off" we witnessed between
coyote and cow.  The cow looked bored, as if to say,
"Just you try something, pip-squeak!"

Lots of wild mustang and turkeys grace the remote
camping areas...it's still pretty special when you
run across them!

The roads you traverse for these scouting expeditions are some of the worst on the entire planet.  So here’s my big tip:  Don’t drink coffee while scouting the back roads in the truck because it does NOT work.  As soon as you think it’s safe to take a sip, BAM, you hit a rut and your coffee is now largely in your lap.  Enjoy the rest of your wet day.  Just sayin’.  Everyone’s entitled to my opinion (ha-ha!).

Move to the Remote Camp Spot

After about 5 days of scouting in this fashion, we finally landed on a remote camp spot and headed for the hills.  Speaking of bad roads, the ½-mile road into our remote camp took us almost 15 minutes, it was that bad!  Here’s a picture of it at night time, where you can see some of the ruts we faced:

Dry-Camping Chores

So dry-camping involves some extra work, which is the price you pay for truly getting away from it all.  As I said, the other place had water and electric hook-ups, so we didn’t have to think about those conveniences.  When dry-camping at this spot, there’s a bit more to these amenities:

·      Our water (drinking, washing, all water that we used) came from a spring about 5 miles away.  When the trailer needed more water, we:

o   Took 7-gallon jugs (these weigh 56 pounds when full—no way could I hoist them around the way Chris could!), and filled them at the spring.

o   Trucked back to camp and offloaded the jugs.

o   From there, it was a 2-person operation to get the water into the trailer—me holding the funnel into the trailer input and hanging onto Chris so the weight of the jug didn’t send him toppling backward, and Chris hoisting up the jug so that he could pour said water into the funnel.

·        Electricity is supplied via the generator when you’re dry-camping, so there are the daily chores of firing it up when needed, and keeping it filled with gasoline (and more heavy jugs Chris gets to hoist around).

Extra Privacy

Hey, Sis—do you remember how Chris used paper plates on our first camping trip together to scare off other campers (he advertised “James Reunion” on the paper plates and people avoided the entire area where we were—we ended up having 3 camping spots all to ourselves during July 4^th weekend)?  Well, he struck again at the spot we found.  Afraid that someone might try to move in on us (as in, within ¼-mile of us), he set up some “fake camps” around our trailer, so as to give the impression of a larger group of folks.  Wouldn’t expect any less from him!  LOLOL

You see our trailer in the distance there on the left.  One of the fake
camps had a red tent (an old one his mom had used), a couple of
coolers and a chair.  We called it "Enid's Place" after his mom...

Across the road from us was a spot where Chris set up a table,
complete with tablecloth, chair and stool.  We named this one
"Bob's Place" and Chris even had a sign there for a while
(on a paper plate, naturally!), with "Bob" on it...

Scouting Day Rituals

Once we set up camp and got Shoppie used to her new digs, we scouted (drove/walked/hiked) together and then Chris walked his butt off solo into some rougher terrain.  So went the 8 days prior to the actual hunting season:  lots of walking and hiking.  Back at our trailer home, we prepared supper, watched movies, played Scrabble and cards.

As for the deer, they seem to have their own ritual here.  During scouting days, they show themselves in abundance…

But, as many a hunter will tell you, the bucks seem to KNOW the day/hour/minute when hunting season begins and vanish from sight.

Now me, I kind of take the Gary Larson approach to how this works.  I don’t know if you ever checked out the cartoons of Larson (“The Far Side”), Sis, but he really had an odd sense of humor and some great stuff; many pertained to animals and how they must be thinking and behaving:

So MY thought is that, just like in baseball where you have the base coaches telling the runners to hold up or go-go-go, the same happens with the deer…like some “coach” is in the hidden woods with an arm out, making the other deer wait until the coast is clear, then “Okay—go-go-go!!”

Hunting Routines

We each had our own routines during the hunting days.

Chris

One of several directions from our trailer
where Chris hunted.

Of course, Chris was hunting (duh!) which actually involves a lot of the stuff he loves, as I mentioned before.  He interacted with some does that played with him, hoofing their way to him, cautiously/slowly, trying to figure out what he was.  He ran into a coyote that jumped with surprise when he made some noises at it.  Then he came across a bunch of tracks that had been made by a herd of about 15 elk just minutes before. 

This is the real reason he hunts…to be at one with the woods and animals and have those incredible moments.  I hope I can forever remember the look on his face as he described how beautiful one particular doe was.  He was absolutely enthralled.  I love how he lives in the moment and how he enthuses about nature.  He hadn’t bagged a deer for a couple of years before this trip, but he has had what he considers successful trips every time because of all of these “moments”.

Me

While Chris was hunting the better part of the day, I had my own walk that I took which went for a mile up an old gravel/dirt road and ended at a tree which had a distinctive broken limb on it.  I called it the “Broken Arm Tree” which, shortly after became the “BAT”, which then made it the “BAT Trail” that I (also a bat perhaps) took daily.  I was careful to be noticeable (not mistaken for a deer), making sure to wear my bright orange cap every time I wandered.  I never ran into anyone on the BAT trail…very peaceful and quiet—a nice way to start the day.

The BAT trail leading away from our trailer.

Grassy meadows about 1/4 mile from the end of the BAT trail.

And the BAT there at the end of the trail...

...the TREE, the TREE!!

My own special hunt

So, I may not be a hunter, but I myself harvested quite the neat little surprise as I picked up “trash” that I found along the trail (I’m glad to report that there was very little of that).  It may look like an ordinary flattened beer can, but if you hold it tab-side with thumb and forefinger and flap it back and forth, it makes a great woodpecker noise (clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!).  I call it my “woodpecker caller”.  Hah!  Take THAT Daniel Boone!

We'll see if video works on this blog, Sis...never tried it before!  If it works, you should be able to play it and hear the woodpecker caller: 

My whole daily routine looked something like this:

• Start generator (sometimes a chore)
• Feed Shoppie
• Wash-up
• Spiff up trailer (make bed, sweep, etc.)
• Take my BAT walk
• Eat breakfast (with Chris sometimes if he came back for a mid-morning break--he's up at dawn, when Shoppie and I wish him well and go back to sleep)
• Read, write, listen to audio books
• Nap (it can happen!)
• Chris comes back and we drive about looking for deer signs so he can get an idea of where he might want to hunt
• Get back and do supper
• Evening run looking for where the deer are at night--again, getting an idea of where they might be at light of day.

Shoppie

And Shoppie has HER routines too, you know.  Of course sleeping is big on the list, but she does a fair amount of looking, especially when there are chipmunks nearby!

Shoppie's sleeping routines...sometimes
on the couch...

...sometimes on the bed with "Daddy's" hat.

Shoppie looking at the chipmunk...

The chipmunk looking at Shoppie.

Shoppie’s new sport

She also discovered a new hide-n-seek game to play using her afghan.  Typically, she sits and looks out on the world from her afghan which sits on the back of the couch. But then she discovered, especially on the colder days, that she could burrow up under the thing and hide:

Not quite completely hidden here...

One time, when Chris and I returned, she was just one big lump of afghan there, and figured we couldn’t see her.  So we played along:  “Where’s Shoppie?”  “Have you seen Shoppie?”  To which, her little butt would almost wag under the afghan—she was enjoying this!  Finally, after about 10 minutes of this, I decided maybe some “brushing” might entice her out of her burrow.  At home, she absolutely begs for brushing and knows the word itself.  When I say, “Shoppie, you want some brushing?” she’ll come flying from wherever she is, squeaking, and jumping onto my lap.  She loves her brushing.  So, with Shoppie still an afghan lump, I said, “It’s sure too bad that she’s not around, because I was going to brush her.”  Chris played along—“Some brushing?” “Exactly, some brush—“

That was as far as I got.  Shoppie emerged with a panic-stricken look on her face and squeaked as if to say, “I’m not really hidden!  Here I am!  You can brush me now!”

The Snow Surprise

On Monday, October 2, Day 3 of the actual hunt, we woke up to a surprise of snow everywhere.  When Chris tried to leave at dawn, he couldn’t even open the trailer door because the awning was weighted down with the stuff.

And this would lead to another laughable moment—we don’t always need the cat to make us laugh.  Sometimes, we laugh at each other or ourselves.  In my defense (yes, this would be a laughing-at-me moment), it WAS the crack of dawn and I’m not THAT morning of a morning person generally.  

The awning was filled with snow which Chris managed to clear, and then asked me to bring it in.  I dutifully went to the button and pushed “in” but it wasn’t responding.  “Now?!” I’d shout to him.  “No—nothing!”  It took me a little time (the hint was that our slide-out behind me was coming closer, freaking Shoppie out—she burrowed under the covers which is her response to “my-cat-world-is-coming-undone”), but I finally figured out I was pushing the “in” button for the slide-out, not the awning, so that our couch was at the back of my knees.  Okay…ooops!  Chris gave me one of those priceless dead-pan looks that says mentally he is absolutely rolling his eyeballs and slapping his forehead.  The awning came in fine once I made that subtle correction.

Success and Fame

The snow came and went, we carried on with our hunting day routines, and we enjoyed our evenings together.  A few times trucks would go by our camp as hunters explored other roads, but mostly we had the whole place to ourselves and saw nobody.

 

By Saturday, October 7^th (the 8^th day of the 12-day hunt), Chris was ready to try new territory.  This involved me dropping him off at a place that was miles away from camp off of the road heading towards town.  It was agreed that I would go into town (John Day), get some supplies, and take the opportunity to make phone calls (as there was no cell signal and no WiFi where we camped) before returning at dark to pick him up.

While in town, I discovered that our security alarm at home had gone off and received some disturbing but not life-threatening (thankfully!) news about our sprinkler system and some hilarious (in hindsight) tactics by friends to get that resolved and our alarm system to shut up.  Police were involved…fun was had.  I think I called you that day Sis, after all of this news, and you and I were able to at least laugh about it by then!

I picked up Chris at his spot a little late—the darkness had made landmarks unclear and he had walked right by where I was parked in the truck, unbeknownst to me!  He had had no luck once again deer-wise and after sharing the news from home with him, he broached the idea that maybe we should go on home before the 11^th, the last day of the hunt, to resolve things on the home front.

Sunday morning the 8^th, Chris woke up with a feeling that he should try a road where we had seen deer while scouting weeks before.  The hunting gods smiled upon him…he spotted a huge 4-point buck, got a clean shot, and with a LOT of work and help from passers-by, got the animal onto his truck for later processing at camp.

Word got around quickly of Chris’ harvest.  It was the biggest buck anyone had seen in that area this year.  Chris has never been one for boasting or feeling the need for popularity, but there he was, at 71 years old, with people of all ages and sexes coming by to meet him and see his buck.  Suddenly our place in the middle of nowhere was like Grand Central Station.  This buck was so big, Chris is now eligible for the “Boone and Crockett Club”—a very impressive deal.

Heading Home

So, after the huge process that is getting all the meat packaged and into the freezer, we headed back to Salem the following day.  We both agreed that it had been one of our better camping experiences.  There is so much that makes the trip fulfilling to us other than actual “success” at getting the harvest.  But this year had an extra thrill and amazement to it because of that, and it was all the more satisfying because it was done in good will.  We gratefully have meat to feed us, but the adventures and experience was seriously priceless.

And…the drive home ain’t bad!!