Category Archives: Travel

A New Old Birthday Camping Tradition

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A few months have passed since I posted a blog about travel, or about anything not related to my recently released books (You’ve heard, right? Check out the links in the left sidebar.). A few things have changed in these months — I moved back to Texas, I got engaged, I got married, I became a step-mom, I moved again. Life is busy. Life is wonderful.

Last weekend was my first camping trip with my new family — my husband and four step-sons (ages 5, 7, 9, and 12). I’m so very outnumbered, but in general the boys do a good job of reminding each other to speak differently and keep the body noises to a minimum in the presence of a lady. We received lots of fun camping gear as wedding presents, and all six of us were excited to venture out on our first trip now that the weather is turning warmer.

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Scoping out the best spot for our tents

In the past few years I’ve become accustomed to camping with a few friends or by myself, so it was a challenge to me to come up with all the food for six people for the weekend and make sure we didn’t forget anything important for meal preparation. I’m ok by myself winging it with peanut butter and honey sandwiches all weekend — I knew the boys, however, would not be satisfied with such little sustenance and variety. I planned and packed accordingly, and the boys ate like they were starving all weekend (heaven help us during the teen years). Of course, I had more than one cup of coffee from my trusty percolator during the weekend.

In the woods is the best place to drink coffee.

In the woods is the best place to drink coffee.

This was my third camping trip in a row on the first weekend of April. Two years ago my sister, brother-in-law, and I took my niece camping on spring break/Easter in the mountains of North Carolina. Last year my friend Jen and I went camping on Easter/my birthday in the Columbia River Gorge and the Oregon Coast. And this year, I decided that three years in a row means it’s now a tradition. From here out, our family will make every attempt to go camping on the first weekend of April/Easter/my birthday. It’s the beginning of a family tradition, and a very good tradition indeed.

Hiking through a nearby meadow

Hiking through a nearby meadow

It was also our first trip with the boys where we used our new Texas State Parks annual pass. The past two years I’ve made good use of a National Parks annual pass. On our honeymoon Stephen and I phased out the National Parks pass a few days before it expired, and we purchased a State Parks pass to use over this year with the boys. So far we’ve visited (either as a couple or with the boys) Dinosaur Valley State Park, Monahans Sandhills, Davis Mountains, and now we’ve camped at Cleburne State Park. The boys enjoyed running around in the wilderness, climbing trees, playing in the dirt and the rocks — we didn’t even have time to take them to the lake this weekend at Cleburne, but they had a blast. With it being only 45 minutes from our house, I’m sure this will be a favorite camping spot for years to come.

Here’s to a new family tradition and the years to come!

A second round of Easter egg hunts -- lots of great hiding places in the trees

A second round of Easter egg hunts — lots of great hiding places in the trees

We also hunted for bugs.

We also hunted for bugs.

My fave part of camping -- sitting and being still. For a moment.

My fave part of camping — sitting and being still. For a moment.

Glow sticks after sundown

Glow sticks after sundown

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Joseph, Oregon

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Joseph, Oregon, is not a big town, but it’s a fun place to spend a morning or an afternoon on your way to or from Wallowa Lake. Last week on our way back from staying at Wallowa Lake, my friend Marilyn and I spent some time walking up and down Main Street, window shopping and admiring the local art and ordering drinks at the soda fountain in Mad Mary & Company.

The main attraction in Joseph is the bronze statues you see along both sides of Main Street. I tried to take photos of all of the ones I came across, although I found some of them more appealing than others. Here are a few that I liked best…

Chief Old Joseph

 

three bronze statues on a corner in Joseph, Oregon

 

cowboy statue in Joseph, Oregon

If you’re looking for a meal in a place that the locals frequent, try Cheyenne Cafe on Main Street. The food was good and hearty, and all the old-timers and ranchers gather here in the mornings for coffee and breakfast.

a great breakfast stop in Joseph, Oregon

In addition to the shops and restaurants in Joseph, I would also recommend stopping by some of the Nez Perce historic sites in the area. Between Joseph and Wallowa Lake you’ll find the grave of Chief Old Joseph on a hill overlooking the lake.

at the grave of Chief Old Joseph

I also highly recommend stopping by the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland Photography Exhibit on Main Street. Then-and-now photos are on display, and you can read more about the history of the Nez Perce struggle with settlers and the U.S. government over this amazing corner of northeastern Oregon.

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Wallowa Lake, at last

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The second try was a charm for me and Wallowa Lake. After hearing extensively from my friend Marilyn about the state park in northeastern Oregon and the beauty of the Wallowa Mountains, Wallowa Lake, and the Wallowa River, I had attempted to drive over there and camp in June, but was turned back by snow (!!). Marilyn has given me excellent travel advice on Oregon in the past (she introduced me to Cannon Beach, for instance, and many great places in central Oregon, as I wrote about here), and the area is special to her and her family, so I was excited to be able to visit Wallowa Lake with Marilyn herself for an overnight trip this past week.

smoky skies in the Wallowa Mountains

 

the view along the opposite edge of the lake, the peaks of the “Little Alps” behind us

 

The weather was fine, but the skies around the Wallowa Mountains were hazy with smoke from the Cache Creek fire that continues to smolder after burning 73,000 acres. My photos of the mountains aren’t as nice as those you see with perfect blue skies and the crisp outlines of the 8,000+ foot peaks known as the “Little Alps,” but I was more concerned with capturing my memories of the area than perfect photos.

a great spot for drinking morning coffee — on the Wallowa River near the Wallowa Lake Lodge

We spent the afternoon wandering around in the forest near the West Fork of the Wallowa River looking for a waterfall Marilyn had visited years back with her family. Somehow we managed to spend three hours hiking around the area in search of a waterfall about twenty minutes’ walk from the road — we’re blaming it on bad directions from a well meaning local, when we should have gone with Marilyn’s gut instincts, which turned out to be correct three hours later.

three hours later…

Despite being lost, it was a gorgeous day for a walk, great weather, fall colors on the trees, and good conversation. The next morning we drank our coffee on chairs under some trees on our hotel lawn, with a sun-sparkling view of the river running into the lake and the peaceful sound of the water. More walking, more talking, more taking in the forest and river and mountains — it’s a wonderful area, and I wish I’d had more time to spend there earlier in the summer.

My plan in June had been to stay in a yurt at the state park — there are two yurts available amidst the tent sites, and when I saw the campgrounds I was even sadder that my camping trip was preempted. It’s a lovely location and would be a great place to camp.

This time around, Marilyn and I stayed in the Wallowa Lake Lodge, built as a hunting lodge in 1923. It’s the oldest hotel I’ve stayed in in recent years — a decade older than the Stone Village Tourist Camp I stayed at in Fort Davis, Texas, last March. The interior of the Wallowa Lake Lodge was recently refurbished, and the rooms have a charming antique appeal. The fixtures and the decor are so quaint and unique, yet everything worked well in the bathroom. No phones or televisions in the rooms, but they do have wi-fi.

the charming Wallowa Lake Lodge

There’s one telephone in a booth in the lobby — Marilyn told me it used to be the only phone available in the entire lake area, and when they first started camping here decades ago, she would have to come to the hotel if she needed to make a phone call.

I promise the Oregon State Parks don’t pay me, people, but once again I’d like to recommend this latest park I’ve visited, Wallowa Lake State Park. I truly have loved visiting each park I’ve been to in Oregon.

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Junior Ranger at Mt Rainier

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My niece kept forgetting where we were and saying how excited she was to be at Mt Everest, and she asked me once every seven minutes about s’mores — “Can we make s’mores now? Can I make a s’more to take back to my mom? How many s’mores can I eat tonight? Can we have s’mores for breakfast tomorrow?” This, my friends, is what it’s like to camp with a seven-year-old. This, in fact, is one of the best parts of being an aunt.

our campsite at Ohanapecosh

My sister has this ridiculously awesome job that sends her to cities around the U.S. to meet with research partners, including twice yearly trips to Seattle. Last September and this September, she’s also brought along my niece on her business trips, and I’ve driven over to the west side of the Cascades and hung out with Patience in the glorious fall sunshine of Seattle while her mother works. Last year we went to the Pike Place Market at least twice a day (my niece is such a hoot — she doesn’t ask for candy or toys, she begs for fresh fruit and flowers), hung out in various coffee shops (this kid really loves coffee shops, I think because she loves talking to new people and coffee shops are full of people), visited the children’s museum, stood at the bottom of the Space Needle and stared up (because this aunt is afraid of heights and wasn’t about to get on that elevator), took the ferry to Bainbridge Island (twice!), and walked the streets of downtown Seattle hand in hand while Patience sang at the top of her lungs and garnered applause from delighted strangers (no tips, people? come on!).

flowers from Pike Place Market, outside the original Starbucks

On this year’s visit I decided we should venture outside of the city and see Mt Rainier National Park as part of Patience’s trip. Her parents and I took her camping last Easter in North Carolina, the grandest adventure of her young life, and I figured she shouldn’t miss an opportunity to see the tallest mountain in the Cascades. The weather was fine, so in addition to driving out to play at the park, we also decided to camp for a night on the Ohanapecosh River. We pitched a tent, built a fire, cooked “the best mac and cheese ever in the world” (according to Patience, and who am I to argue?), and read library books by flashlight. It was wonderful.

hiking at Grove of the Patriarchs

The visitor centers at the park are open for a couple more weeks, until they close for the season at the first of October, so we also spent a little time talking to a park ranger and finding out what Patience would need to do to earn her Junior Ranger badge from the national park. The ranger gave her an activity book and instructions for which pages to complete for her age level in order to earn the badge. Over the next afternoon and morning, Patience completed a scavenger hunt, worked on sentence scrambles about wilderness safety, logged details about our hike through Grove of the Patriarchs, and told the story of our camping trip through her own artistic interpretation in colored pencil. She learned about the “10 essentials” to take along on a trip into the wilderness and insisted that I carry a bag of nuts and bottles of water on our 20 minute walk to a hot spring the second morning, just in case, because the book said you should always have extra food and water. I decided it would be easier to fill my pockets with nuts than to explain that if something happened to us that morning we were still close enough to the campsite that I could holler for help — better to reinforce the rules of the “10 essentials” at this stage.

junior ranger swearing-in ceremony

Thank you, Suzie, for bringing along Patience and allowing us to have a fantastic adventure at Mt Rainier.

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Crater Lake

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A couple of weeks ago I went with friends to camp at Crater Lake in Oregon — well, we actually camped at nearby Diamond Lake, but our purpose in driving down there was to see Crater Lake. I’ve wanted to post a blog with a few photos since I got back, but time gets away from me these days. I miss blogging regularly, but I also have enjoyed all the other things going on in my life (both creative and personal) that have been taking up my time and kept me from posting.

So here they are, a few photos from the beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, amazing, jaw-dropping, breath-taking corner of God’s creation known as Crater Lake.

Our first view of Crater Lake after entering the park from the north entrance

So much BLUE!

My favorite photo from a day of driving around the rim

View of the Phantom Ship volcanic rock formation

Laura, after our hike down to the lake’s surface that was supposed to be comparable to 65 flights of stairs — we decided it’s not nearly as bad as 65 flights of stairs sounds.

The water is warm after your feet have gone numb from the cold.

 

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Mt. St. Helens

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May 18, 1980. I don’t remember the eruption of Mt. St. Helens on that actual day, but I do remember hearing about the volcano as a small child. (Side note: I do have a very distinct memory of January 1, 1980 and being super excited that a new decade was starting — weird thought for a four-year-old.) When my parents came to visit me in Washington a couple of weeks ago, we made a two-day trip to the Cascades and spent most of the second day driving and exploring in the area around Mt. St. Helens.

We approached the mountain from the west and got amazing views of the crater, which is not just a hole in the top of the mountain, but a hole plus half the side of the peak missing. It’s incredibly difficult to wrap my mind around 1,300 feet of a mountain top just exploding, but when you watch the video at the visitor center at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, you see that’s just what happened. Earthquake, massive eruption and landslide, blast of steam, tons of ash, mudslide. Catastrophic.

driving towards Mt St Helens on Hwy 504, view of volcanic sediment along the Toutle River

 

view of Mt St Helens from the blast zone

 

another view from the blast zone

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Painted Hills, Oregon

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Call this a prequel. On my way to Bend, Oregon, last week, I added an hour to my drive in order to see the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument outside Mitchell, Oregon. Well worth the extra hour on the road, I might add.

view of the Painted Hills from Overlook Trail

I’ll spare you all the geological details, but suffice it to say that something to do with lava and ash from the Cascades mixed with clay turned out to be these strange and subtly beautiful hills in Central Oregon. I say subtly beautiful, in contrast with the majesty of the snow-covered peaks of the Cascades, but both are beautiful in their own right.

along the Painted Cove Trail

There isn’t a visitor center at this unit of the national monument, but there are restrooms and picnic tables on a side road near the entrance. If you happen to miss those restrooms, never fear — you won’t see another soul for most of the rest of your solitary tour of the Painted Hills, and you can find a nice tall-ish sage bush to serve you just fine near the Painted Cove trailhead. Not that I know from experience. Except I do.

close-up of bentonite clay on the side of a painted hill

It’s a free park, people. Go to Central Oregon!

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Lava Butte

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After I checked out of my yurt at Tumalo, I headed south again to the Lava Lands Visitor Center in the Deschutes National Forest to see the lava fields up close and to go up to the fire lookout station on Lava Butte. The ranger at the entrance booth gave me a 30 minute pass to drive up the road to the parking lot on top of Lava Butte — there are only 10 parking spots at the top, so they limit your time to give everyone a chance to drive up. But I opted to park at the bottom and walk up the 1 3/4 mile road instead. How did I know I only wanted to spend 30 minutes up there? And why drive when you can walk? I was feeling a bit Edward Abbey-ish at this point. Get out of your car and walk for a change, people.

fire lookout station in the Deschutes National Forest,
Lava Butte

I talked to some ladies in the parking lot who assured me it would only take 35 or 40 minutes to walk up to the top, so I rearranged some stuff in my car, filled up my water bottle, and set off. As I was leaving the parking lot to get onto the road up the hill, a guy in a beat up hatchback came down the hill and swung into the parking lot past me.

“You’ve got water and a good pair of shoes, what more do you need on a day like today?” he called to me out his open car window.

“True. It’s a good day for a walk.”

He drove slowly past me, blond hair and sunglasses. I kept walking, thinking he had just called out as a greeting. But he continued talking to me through the window. “Your shoes are better than mine — you wanna see my shoes?”

Is this guy for real?

Yes. Yes, he was for real. He stopped the car and contorted to stick his right foot out the driver’s side window to show me a flapping sole.

“You may be about ready for a new pair of shoes,” I said.

“Well, Johnny Cash says to walk hard.”

Actually, Johnny Cash walked the line, but who am I to point that out?

“You wanna see my tattoos?” He held out his wrists. “This one says ‘patience,’ but you have to come read the other one.” He held out his left wrist for me to read. This is the point, I was thinking, where he’s either going to pull a knife on me or his other wrist is going to say “faith” and he’s going to witness to me. I wasn’t getting a knife-pulling vibe at all (and I’m usually pretty paranoid about strangers), so I walked back over to the car to read his wrist. “Serendipity.”

“It’s why I stopped to talk to you,” he said and looked at me sincerely.

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself. Nice line, friend. The fact that you have the word written permanently on your skin leads me to believe I’m not the first girl you’ve used that line on. Probably not the first today even.

“You wanna go walk on those trails with me?” He indicated the trails through the lava fields by the visitor center on the other side of the parking lot.

“Nah, I haven’t been up here yet.” I pointed to the butte. “I wanna go there first.” Please, please, don’t want to go back up the hill, Mr. Serendipity.

“I’ve already been there, so I’m gonna go this way. But you’re gonna love it.” Pause. “Man, I haven’t had a smoke in five hours.”

“Sorry about that,” I said, waved over my shoulder, and walked on. I looked back once to make sure he wasn’t following me, and he gave me the peace sign as he drove towards the visitor center. Peace, bro.

Back to Lava Butte…

Walking instead of driving was the right choice. The whole way up the hill you have the chance to savor the view, winding around the cinder cone that once “exuded lava” (so much less violent than erupting, so mellow, so Oregon) through the surrounding countryside. You alternate between views of the lava field, forest, and the Blue Mountains to the east, and amazing views of the Cascades to the west: Broken Top, the Three Sisters, Mt Washington, Mt Jefferson, Mt Hood, and Mt Adams across in Washington. Be sure to go on a clear day, without a cloud in the sky, only the contrails of jets going from Seattle to Los Angeles.

view of the Cascades from the road up Lava Butte

At the top of the butte is a fire lookout station, one of several active stations monitoring the Deschutes National Forest. You can also walk a 3/4 mile trail around the rim of the butte and peer into the center of the cinder cone. I took my time wandering around, admiring the mountain vista one last time on my Central Oregon trip, rejoicing that I’d had the opportunity to be here this week, reflecting on the Majestic Creator who displays His majesty through snow-covered peaks. For reasons I don’t understand, He is good to me.

outside the Lava Lands Visitor Center

I headed back down the butte to check out the visitor center and lava field trails before making my way back to Washington. The sun was high overhead and the temperature near 80, warm enough to make me wish for a moment that I could hitch a ride back down the hill with Patience-and-Serendipity. (I’m just kidding, everyone — I promise I never, ever hitchhike. Not in America, at least.)

Goodbye, Central Oregon. It’s been real.

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North of Bend

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On the third evening of my stay at the yurt in Tumalo State Park, I was joined by a dear friend from the Tri-Cities, Marilyn. It turned out that she needed to pick up her grandson in Central Oregon the same week that I would be there camping, so she called and asked if she could come see me there and check out the yurt. Of course I welcomed the company and told her to bring a sleeping bag along and stay the night — the yurt sleeps five, so there was plenty of room.

Marilyn is originally from Portland but knows all of Oregon very well, and since the day I arrived in the Northwest, she has been my travel consultant — but this was the first chance we had to actually do some touring together. I was more than happy to let her take the driver’s seat and show me around. It’s easier to crane your neck and look at all the glory of Creation surrounding you if you don’t have to worry that you might run your car off the road over a cliff.

Our first stop was the Lava Lands Visitor Center in the Deschutes National Forest 15 miles south of Bend, but we learned upon arrival that they were closed until the next day. After my drive on the Cascade Lakes Byway the day before, I really wanted to stop and see a lava field up close, so I decided it would be worth it to drive out of my way to come back to Lava Lands when they opened again (look for that blog post tomorrow) — how on earth could I drive all the way back to Washington without seeing the lava fields and the fire lookout tower on Lava Butte up close and personal?

From there, Marilyn drove us back north of Bend to the Crooked River Gorge, 9 miles north of Redmond, not far from Smith Rock State Park outside Terrebonne. I happened to be looking down at something in the car when she pulled onto the bridge on Highway 97 that crosses the gorge, and when I looked up I saw we were 300 feet over the river at the bottom of the gorge. I gasped out loud — some of you may know that I’m afraid of heights and of bridges in particular (remember my Capilano Suspension Bridge story?), and I wasn’t quite prepared to find myself in that spot. Truly breath-taking. We stopped for a while to walk around on the old two-lane bridge. This photo is of the nearby railroad bridge over the gorge, and you can’t see it because of the angle of the sun and the color of the sky at that time of day, but the Three Sisters of the Cascade Range are sticking their heads up over the bridge.

the Crooked River Gorge

Next, we headed further north towards the town of Madras and the Cove Palisades State Park, where the Crooked River flows into Lake Billy Chinook, and you can stand on the edge of the cliffs and look down into the water hundreds of feet below, or miles and miles into the distance at Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, the Three Sisters, and Broken Top.

Broken Top and the Three Sisters from the Cove Palisades

By this time I was feeling like old friends with the peaks of the Cascades. Each time I saw them from a different vantage point was a reunion of sorts.

view of Mt Hood from the Cove Palisades

Thank you, Marilyn, for making my day.

another view of Mt Hood

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