Growing Fish

This cylinder contains 4000 rainbow trout eggs approaching hatch time.

Having done a quick walk through of several fish hatcheries over the years, I wasn't overly excited about visiting another one.  But, it was nearby, we were (mildly) curious, didn't have anything more exciting to do, so off we went.  And we were delighted we did.

Recently hatched rainbow trout.

The Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery is huge, quite sophisticated, appears to be well managed, and has a knowledgeable staff who did a fine job of explaining the operation.

This is the inside part of the operation, where eggs are hatched.  The newly-hatched minnows pictured above are fed every 30 minutes.

The outdoor facility has dozens of tanks, aka raceways, that contain rainbow trout in various sizes.  The whole area is covered with chicken wire to keep hungry birds at bay.  A huge volume of river water is constantly circulating through the tanks.

Link to more info and pix: https://www.fws.gov/southwest/fisheries/willow_beach/

Christmas Camping

On Christmas morning, stockings emptied and presents unwrapped, off we went to Willow Beach Campground, with Cougar in tow.  WB, part of the Lake Mead NRA, is about 8 miles south of Hoover Dam on the AZ side of the Colorado River.  Ah, but is it really a river?  Technically, it's a lake - Lake Mohave - which extends from Hoover Dam on the north, to Davis Dam on the south.
We're here with another LHC couple, David and Elaine, who join us for short RV forays from time to time.

There's a large marina with dozens of rental boats and kayaks, plus several converted military inflatables used for sightseeing tours.  Large striped bass have been caught in this stretch ofwater, including the Nevada state record holder at 62 pounds.

Willow Beach is a misnomer.  There's no beach worthy of the name, nor did I see any willows.

Interesting rock formations uphill from our campground.

The steps lead up to tent campsites.

We visited a large fish hatchery near the marina, details in next post.

Celtic Christmas

Last night during dinner we listened to Celtic Christmas, one of our Pandora stations.  What Child is This? was one of the tunes.  It's also known as Greensleeves, same tune, different words.  I commented, "I've always loved that song. I wonder who composed it?"

Off went Trish to get her cell phone.  She googled it.  We were both amazed when we discovered who allegedly wrote the tune: King Henry VIII (for the Roman numeral challenged, VIII = 8).  I couldn't believe it.  That randy, ruthless, and thoroughly despicable despot sat his fat ass down and composed beautiful music?*  Nah.  No way!

Turns out I was right.  It's just a myth and now it's busted.  It was actually composed several years after the King went to hell, mourned by few, if any.  Four composers attempted to take credit for the composition in 1580, the most persistent of which was Richard Jones.  I'm gonna go with Mr Jones.  It's logical, given the family name; Richard Jones was surely an ancestor of It's Not Unusual Jones,

Some of the songs played on Celtic Christmas were in Gaelic.  Gaelic is pleasing to the ear but written Gaelic has an uncanny similarity to alphabet soup.  Take a spoonful of soup, jot down the letters in that spoonful in any order you please.  Now select a word at random, one that has no connection whatsoever with how those letters are pronounced in any known language.  Take more spoonfuls, write a complete sentence.  What the hell, go to Costco, buy a pallet of the stuff, write an entire dictionary!

Try this Gaelic sentence on for size: Saolaítear na daoine uile saor agus comhionann ina ndínit agus ina gcearta.  Got it figured out?  Need a little more time, say a decade or two?  Give it up, not gonna happen. Here's the translation: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. 

Spoken French is also melodic and pleasing, but has weird pronunciation.  Try to pronounce the words on a French restaurant menu and you'll wish you'd stayed home and opened a can of beans.  Still, you can guess the meaning of many French words because they're similar to English words.  Not so with Gaelic.  Pass the soup.

*Actually, Horny Hank was said to be an accomplished musician, played the lute and organ, maybe wrote a few tunes as well.

Some Settling May Occur

'Some settling may occur.'  We've all seen this statement on boxes of cereal, bags of potato chips and several other products.  We've all opened those boxes and bags and discovered that - by golly, they were right - some settling did in fact occur.  We've all looked askance into those newly-opened containers, the contents thereof fully settled and blissfully calm, and thought settling, my ass! 

Bet you don't know what it's called, though.  Here it is.  You heard it here first: The Museli Effect!  No bull.  That's the official name of the sneaky, stealthy and downright despicable act of settling.

Some things that are subject to The Museli Effect don't come with a 'may occur' notice.  Human beings for instance.  No, humans have to work it out for themselves.  And when they do, it's quite a shock.  We settle 1/4" to 1/2" every decade after age 40.  By age 70, women have Museli-ed about 2", men about 1.5."

If it's any consolation - and it's damned little, if you ask me - the Museli-ed portion of your body isn't actually gone.  No, not all.  It just migrated down to your feet.  It's pretty much a 1:1 ratio.  Again, starting at age 40, some people's feet increase half a shoe size every decade.  Okay, there is a little consolation: the bigger the base, the more stable the structure, so when your feet finally fulfill their growth potential, you probably won't tip over as frequently as you used to.  Granted, one's tipability quotient is impacted by other factors that are difficult to quantify.  Alcohol comes to mind.

What got me started on this settling thing is: Trish and I measured our heights recently.  I'm not going to divulge the results but I'll tell you this much: we done been Muesli-ed!

Lizards, Reptiles and Amphibians

We watched a Geico commercial awhile back, a guy in a laboratory being consumed by a green glob of gunk.  Stupid, blah, yuk!  "I liked the lizard better." said I. "Geckos aren't lizards," Trish responded. Googled it: yup, they're lizards alright.  That got me wondering about the lizard family: who's included, who isn't, are the marine iguanas I saw in the Galapagos Islands lizards or amphibians? Here's the skinny, lizard lovers, amazing facts and statistics you always wanted to know but never realized until just now.

Geckos are the smallest of the lizards, which are a subset of the reptile family.  The largest lizard is the Komodo dragon which can weigh up to 300 pounds and reach 10' in length.  They're carnivores, are very quick and they do consume the occasional human, bones and all.  Grabbing one by the tail isn't really a good idea.

This might surprise you: modern scientists include birds in the reptile family.  When we visited Dinosaur National Monument last year, one of the rangers said, "Birds are dinosaurs."  Golly gee, Mister Science!

If you're cold-blooded, have overlapping scales and are not a snake, you're a lizard.  If you're a  cold-blooded vertebrate with dry, scaly skin and lay soft shelled eggs on land you're a reptile.  If you have both lungs and gills - like frogs, newts, turtles and salamanders - you're an amphibian.

Marine iguanas aren't amphibians but can stay underwater for up to 45 minutes, chowing down on algae, their favorite food.  Although not very photogenic, they love to pose for pictures, big grins on their faces.

Stylin'!

My recent attempt to inspire a new trend in Arizona footwear was unsuccessful.  Not a single one of my friends had the intestinal fortitude to follow in my avant garde, ground-breaking, sartorial footsteps.  What a bunch of wussies!

A few days ago I drove down to Casa Grande, met up with fraternity brother Tom, then headed on down to the Tucson area to visit Al, another fraternity brother.  I left LHC at 7:30 AM, freshly showered and shaved.  Stopped twice en route to CG for bladder breaks and a burger, arrived at Tom's shortly after noon.  We chatted awhile, had a brew and then I headed off to the guest bedroom for my daily nap.

I sat down on a chair and bent down to remove my sandals - and was flabbergasted at what I saw!  My right foot was encased in Keens, my left foot in one of the cheap-ass knockoffs I wear around home.  I laughed out loud.  Couldn't believe I'd left home without noticing that.  Couldn't believe I'd stopped twice and hadn't noticed.  Couldn't believe Trish hadn't noticed either.

After my nap, sandals back on my feet, I showed them to Tom and his wife, Martha.  They hadn't noticed the mismatch earlier, were quite delighted when I pointed it out.  And, later, so was Al.  We went out to dinner at Al's and again when Tom and I returned to CG.  My attempts to have everyone wear mismatched footwear out to dinner fell on deaf ears.  Guess they just aren't ready to embrace that level of senility.  I'm confident they will embrace it in due time, although, given my commanding lead, it's doubtful they'll ever catch up.

Strike 3

When we bought our LHC home, there was a tree living in a raised bed near the front entry, stood about 6' tall.  "What kind of tree was it?" you ask.  Not sure but quite likely a Ho-Humia Nondescriptus.  Borrrrring!  Certainly didn't merit a focal point position in front of the house.  Took one look at it and thought you're sooo outta here!  And so it came to pass.

Now then, what to replace it with?  An orange tree of course!  Citrus does well in Arizona if provided with adequate water and fertilizer, and I'm an excellent provider thereof if I do say so myself (especially fertilizer).  The orange tree flourished, beau coup oranges 3 years after planting.  But, nary a one fit to eat - all pulp, no juice. Turns out the variety I selected was racist, wouldn't consider cross-pollination in its wildest dreams.  So, it too bit the dust.

Okay, what next?  Hours of arduous research spent finding a plant of the right size and temperament resulted in the next selection, a pygmy date palm.  My neighbors have several, 5-6' tall, attractive (picture below), seemed like a no-brainer.  Bought one, stuck it in the ground, gave it lots of TLC.  To no avail: darn thing just sat there, never grew an inch.  Strike 3!  You're out!  Enough, already!  No more plants!*  How about colorful glazed pottery? 

I ripped out the palm and tossed it over the back fence to RIP with its predecessors.  Then I capped off the irrigation pipe to the planter and off we went in search of pottery.  We didn't find much, LHC not being the Mecca of fine yard art.  Trish was headed off to Santa Fe in a few weeks, and we knew she'd find a better selection there.  And indeed she did, bought a tall pot and a sphere.  We wanted a group of 3, found the third one at the local Lowe's.

So, here's the new look.  The gabion cube was a bonus.  When I ordered the parts for the mailbox, they screwed up, sent 6 extra 2X2 panels, so might as well put them to use.  I made the copper trellis several years ago, brought it from OR.  That thing on the far right in the picture below is a rain chain, much more attractive than a plain downspout.

*No more plants in just that one spot, still have 8 types of cacti and a century plant in other areas.

Hot Pot

Several days ago I went to Home Depot and bought the largest clay pot they had in stock, one of those unglazed, terra cotta pots you see everywhere.  We'd been looking for 3 large, colorful, glazed pots for a particular spot outdoors but weren't finding what we wanted so I thought I'd try painting one with my acrylic artist paints.

When I got it home it quickly became obvious that HD's largest wasn't nearly large enough for the outdoor setting.  What the hell, since I'd already bought it, I opted to go ahead and paint it anyway.  I applied a couple coats of Kilz primer/sealer, then several applications of paint in yellow, red and black - and voila, it became Hot Pot!  It now resides on one of our (indoor) pot shelves.

  

Roughing It

A few posts back (Virginia City) I mentioned that Mark Twain lived there a couple years and that he wrote the book, Roughing It, while he was there.  Although I'd read lots of Twain's stuff, books, essays, short stories, etc, that book I had yet to read.  So off to the local library I went, found a copy, am now halfway through it - and I'm delighted!

It's truly a time capsule of the old west, the era of the cross-country stagecoach, pony express and mining boom towns.  As with any book, my interest is greatly enhanced when I've been to most if not all of the places described therein.  To see those places through the eyes of someone who was there 150 years ago is pure pleasure, given my love of American history.  Of course, the humor, wit, turn of phrase, irreverence, and gross exaggerations inherent in Twain's style add to the enjoyment.  It's rare that I laugh out loud while reading, but Mr T has me doing it repeatedly.

Were you aware the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was banned?  Yup, it was.  Twain's satirical writings about Christianity were also banned up one side and censored down the other.  Letters From the Earth, The Diaries of Adam and Eve and Methuselah: If you've not read them, you should - unless you happen to be a devout Christian with no sense of humor whatsoever.  They're hilarious.

The list of banned and censored American writers includes many of the greats so Mark was in good company.  Here are a few names you may recognize: Sinclair, Melville, London, Salinger, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Stowe, Bradbury, Heinlein, Hawthorne, Crane, Williams.  There are many more.  The very concept of banning and censoring books infuriates me.  It's Orwell's Big Brother in action.  Don't get me started!

Oops, looks like I already started.  Okay, let's return to the main feature.  If you've not read Twain beyond Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer I encourage you do so.  Try it, you'll like it.  Or not.

Given his awesome vocabulary and his way with words, it's hard to believe that Mark's formal education ended when he was about 12 years old.  His father died, so Mark had to find work to help support his large family.  

Valor in the Pacific

WW II Valor in the Pacific National Monument has 3 separate sites.  Nearly 2 million people a year visit the USS Arizona Memorial (Pearl Harbor) in Hawaii.  The other 2 sites - Tule Lake, CA and Kiska Island, AK - are virtually unknown and rarely visited.

We stopped briefly in Tule Lake this summer, not much to see there yet, a work in progress.  Before WW II, Tule Lake had a large Civilian Conservation Corp camp.  When the war started, it was rapidly expanded and converted to a Japanese-American internment camp that held 20,000 people, the largest of 10 internment camps that held a total of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry.

The picture below, taken when all the barracks were still present, could have been taken of Dachau or Auschwitz.  Many of these buildings were moved and converted into homes after the war; we saw several as we drove through town.

The internees were given 3 days notice before they were moved, were forced to abandon their homes, businesses and belongings, were allowed to take only 1 suitcase to the internment camps, where they were destined to stay for 2.5 years.

These camps were a flagrant act of bigotry and a violation of civil rights.  In my view, the Tule Lake site shouldn't be included with the other 2 sites and should be named more appropriately.  Of valor there was naught.  Of shame there was abundance.

Gabion Mailbox 2

The resident architect drops in the first rock.  Trish came up with the idea.  I did the design/build.  We collaborated on the rocks.  Shortly after this picture was taken she said I could go do something else, a subtle hint that she wasn't much impressed with me randomly tossing rocks into the basket.  So ..... I left and did something else.

We hauled the rocks in buckets so we could hand pick the best shapes and sizes.  It took 15 buckets.  We placed some concrete blocks and debris from the old mailbox in the core where it couldn't be seen, decreasing the number of buckets needed.  It will weigh close to a ton when it's finished.  Is that enough to deflect the attacks of mail carrier vehicles?  Only time will tell.

Brace wires are added at 1' intervals to keep the sides from bulging out.

The first outgoing mail is placed in the box.  It's a Netflix DVD, the only mail that matters much nowadays.  Utility bills, investment reports and similar items are now paperless, all done online.

All done, looking good!

It was a fun project, total cost about $325, including gabion, mailbox, numbers and rocks.  We ordered the gabion parts from an outfit in CA; using a local welding outfit would have cost 5 times as much.  Should you be interested in a gabion project, here's the link to the provider: http://www.gabion1.com/

Gabion Mailbox 1

It's pronounced GABE-yun.  Two months ago I posted a blog with pix of our demolished mailbox and a couple gabion mailboxes, as well.  In that post I said that I was going to build one myself.  The time has come.  I've got all the pieces, less a few nuts and bolts to attach the numbers and flag.  Here's pix of the assembled gabion basket with a piece of cardboard indicating where I'll cut a hole to insert the mailbox.  It's a square column, 4' high, 2' wide and deep.

The basket pieces are held together with heavy duty spiral-shaped wires call helicals.  It's a clever design, allowing a basket to be assembled in just a few minutes, no tools required, slick and quick.

Above: Two 2' square basket pieces, with helical between them.

Below: the helical is partially wound into the 2 pieces. 

The assembled basket is loosey goosey when empty,

but will tighten up nicely when I add a half ton of river rock.

The 5" steel numbers will be mounted on this steel plate, with spacers between the numbers and the plate to get the floating look.  The plate will be attached to the basket, below the mailbox.

In my 7/15 post I said it would cost $400 to replace the stucco mailbox in-kind.  I was a little low: actual replacement cost would be $550.  The gabion, new mailbox and numbers will total about $250, materials only.

The good news is the US Postal Service will pay the full in-kind replacement cost - or so they say. Our mail carrier fessed up the first day she delivered our mail when we returned to LHC.  She did it, reported it to their claims people, told me to call them to arrange payment.  The claim form is supposed to arrive tomorrow: fill it out, add supporting documents and pictures, send it back in, wait for check to arrive.

to be continued.

No Exceptions!

We arrived at Mono Vista RV Park at noon, parked in the indicated check-in spot.  Trish went to the office to check in while I unlocked the entry and basement doors, our usual routine.  She returned in a couple minutes, said office was vacant with sign on door: "No Check-In Before 1 PM.  No Exceptions!"  Huh.

Rather than remain parked in the check-in spot and block incoming traffic, I pulled into a vacant pull-through site to wait.  A woman, presumably one of the owners, showed up promptly at 1 PM and Trish entered the office - and was read the riot act!  Not only did I have the audacity to move out of the designated check-in space, I had parked facing the wrong way in the pull-through site!  You'd think it was the end of life as we know it.  What the hell difference did it make?  None whatsoever.  But, No Exceptions!  Nazi Bitch.

The woman continued grousing and bitching during the check-in process despite Trish's best efforts to lighten things up.  Woman said she'd be damned glad when the RV season was finally over, a subtle indication she was fed up to here with Exceptions like me.  Ve haf vays to make you regret being an Exception - 7 days in 'cooler!'  Shades of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

We often arrive at parks before official check-in times, which are typically between 11 AM and 1 PM, but, also typically, the office is staffed during normal business hours and checking in a little early is no problem whatsoever.  We're customers.  Customers are good.  Customers are made welcome.  Not at Mono Vista!  Customers are a pain in the ass - sometimes even an Exception.

Trish finally made good her own escape from the warden's office, related her fun experience to me, duly informed me that I was scum of the earth and even worse - an Exception!

Obviously, the warden is in the wrong line of work.  There's gotta be a prison somewhere that needs her skills; either Angola or Parchman Farm would be perfect.

2016 Summer

Here's the good, the bad and the ugly of our summer travels.

1.  The Good:
  A.  3075.  Number of miles we towed the 5W; about 1400 miles less than any previous summer

  B.  7.  Number of places I played pickleball - in 5 different states

  C.  Best RV park ever: Crown Villa in Bend, OR; spendy but worth it, going back next year

  D.  Awesome!  The Sierra Nevada Mts as viewed from US 395.  We stayed overnight near Lone Pine, CA and took a gander at Mt Whitney (climbed that sucker in 2009 but never viewed it from afar).  That's it below, the peak on the far right, picture taken at 10X zoom from 15 miles away.

  E.  Reunion.  Spent a couple evenings with Curt Elton, fraternity brother I hadn't seen in 50+ years.  He and wife Naomi live near Boise.

  F.  Visited with LHC pickleball friends Dale and Bobbi, David and Elaine.

2.  The Bad:
  A.  Landing gear failed because nut on drive shaft fell off; easy fix, new bolt and nut, $1.49

  B.  RV entry door lock internal screw came loose, deadbolt was engaged, couldn't gain entry.  Trish entered via basement, popped up through basement trap door, removed lock from inside; easy fix

  C.  RV tire picked up a screw, ruined the tire.  Tires were bought last summer at Discount Tire for $153 each, had 9300 miles on them.  DT installed new in-kind tire on wheel, balanced for $19. They're the best!

3.  The Ugly.  Nazi bitch in RV park office, separate blog coming: NO EXCEPTIONS!

Sleepbus

This odd looking conveyance pulled into our campground yesterday.  At first glance, I thought it was a mobile dog kennel, custom made for a wealthy person who travels to the big dog shows.

Wrong!  It's for people, not dogs.  It's half bus, half sleeping pods/berths/cubicles/coffins, 26 of 'em to be exact.  Baaaaaaaaaaaa!

This is strictly for folks who aren't big on privacy, aren't claustrophobic and have exceptionally large bladders.  There's only one half-bath for 26 people; cross your legs, grit your teeth, tilt your head back, keep your mouth closed until it's your turn - and hope you draw a low number in the daily restroom lottery.

There's regular sleepbus service between LA and San Francisco now, using rigs that sleep 12, see pix below.

I wonder if and how seat belt laws apply to these things.  Say you're moving along at freeway speed, hit a patch of ice and spin around 180 degrees.  The folks on one side would go flying across the aisle, banging into the bunks on the other side and finally ending up on the floor - three deep.  Could be fun, though, depending on the age and sex of your fellow passengers.

I've slept in lots worse places than this, only concern is my peanut-sized bladder.  For Trish, it's a no-no; she's claustrophobic.

Mono Lake, CA

When it was formed 760,000 years ago, it was a great deal larger than it is now.  Much of the the shrinkage in modern times is due to tributarial fresh water being siphoned off to quench the thirst of Los Angeles.  The Lake water itself isn't thirst-quenching because it's a basin, has no outlet, and is 2.5 times more saline than the Pacific Ocean.

The water is too salty for fish but not for brine shrimp.  They're tiny, flimsy-looking little critters about 3/4" long - unlike the foot-long fakes pictured below.  Millions of migratory birds stop at Mono to feast on shrimp and alkaline flies, which abound in the spring.

As noted in the above picture, the minerals in fresh-water springs combine with lake-water carbonates to form calcium carbonate, aka limestone.  This action, which only occurs underwater, eventually builds tufa towers that become visible as the water level goes down.  The tufa towers resemble stalagmites or an illustration on the front of a sci-fi paperback - in a word, weird.

Mono Lake is near Lee Vining, CA, a small community near the back door to Yosemite NP.  The mountains in the picture below are part of Yosemite.

Virginia City, NV

One of the richest of the mining boom towns, Virginia City's population was about 25K at its peak in 1875. Nowadays it's less than 1K.  The first major silver discovery in the US, it hastened Nevada's statehood and helped finance the union side of the Civil War.

Above and below, the main drag is full of vintage structures now devoted to tourism.

 

Samuel Clemens was here for a couple years, working for one of the local newspapers, left town in a hurry to avoid a duel.  His first book, Roughing It, is set in the City, and it was also his first use of his pen name, Mark Twain.  George Hearst, father of William Randolph, made his fortune here. Many famous entertainers performed in the VC Opera House, including Lily Langtry.

The schoolhouse, below, built in 1876, had 1K students in the peak years.  It was closed for 50 years before being refurbished and reopened in 1986 as a museum.

This painting in the Silver Queen Hotel lobby is decorated with 3261 silver dollars minted in Carson City from silver mined in Virginia City. She's 15' tall and 8' wide, truly a woman with a lot to offer.

Who's that kid in the candy shop?

The Red Dog Saloon (above and below) helped usher in the rock and roll era in the 60's; Janis Joplin performed here as did many others.  The picture below displays some of the rock band posters.  Gotta love that 'loose women' notice in lower left in above picture.  They make a fine pizza.

Yellowjacket Soup

At Merrill Campground on Eagle Lake, CA there was a plague of yellowjackets.  They're carnivores and will swarm around anything that smells of meat or fish.  Barbie up some chicken, burgers, salmon, whatever, there they are, dozens of 'em .  They even swarm around the dead bugs plastered to the front of the RV.

Many years ago when I lived in Redmond, WA, I discovered how to nail the buggers.  Set out a bucket of soapy water, secure the bucket handle so its standing straight up in the carry position, and suspend some kind meat or fish from the top of the handle.  Something smelly like sardines works best.  The bees come from far and wide, bite off more than they can chew, drop into the soapy water and drown.

So, Trish applied the technique and scored, nailed about 100 of the little bastards.  The floaters are only the newest casualties; there's a whole bunch more that have sunk to the bottom.

Another Blowout!

Last summer we installed top of the line trailer tires after one of the originals shredded.  Yesterday, one of those new tires bit the dirt, impaled by a screw.  The good news is it happened just a couple miles from our destination so were able to limp along to our campsite.  Changing a tire on the shoulder of the freeway in the blazing sun (92 degrees) with cars whizzing by one foot behind your butt is no fun at all.

This is the 6th trailer tire event in 8 years, the 4th on the Cougar - including the loss of the spare tire and wheel when the spare tire carrier broke.  It appears the original tires on travel trailers are the cheapest money can buy.  Maybe the really high-end rigs have better rubber.

Funny thing is, never had a flat on any of the 3 pickups owned in the same time period.  And, on the Alaska Highway, notorious for flats, we had nary a one in either the trailer or the pickup.  Go figure.

A Wonderful Bird

This limerick, penned in 1910 by American humorist, Dixon Merritt, was popular in my youth.  No, Ogden Nash didn't write it.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill will hold more than his belican,

He can take in his beak

Enough food for a week

But I'm damned if I see how the helican!

It could have been designed by a congressional subcommittee with typical political-appointee qualifications: none had ever actually seen a real bird.  It's awkward on the ground, the large, ungainly body moving along as if it had a couple too many at the pub.  Aerodynamic it is not.  In fact, you wonder how it ever gets off the ground. 

But, when airborne they are indeed wonderful.  The perfectly coordinated movements of a string of pelicans on the wing, skimming along bare centimeters above the water, is a thing of beauty.  They put the Blue Angels to shame - although they look more like B-52 bombers.

Eagle Lake in northeastern CA is the second largest natural lake in the state.  We were here 4 years ago, liked it a lot, so we plugged it into this year's route.  There's a good sized population of white pelicans here, and that's what inspired this post. 

Oakridge, OR

Have uke, will travel.

The annual Oakridge ukulele festival was this weekend, and several players

 were staying in our RV park, Casey's Riverside, in nearby Westfir.

The longest covered bridge in OR is here, built in 1945.

It's called the Office Bridge because it led to the office of a logging company.

It certainly looks sturdy enough, lots of heavy timber.

Blackberries, the scourge of the Pacific NW, thrive at either end of the bridge.  I spent 1000s of hours fighting the damned things when  I lived in WA and OR.  Machetes, hedge trimmers and weed whackers were the weapons of choice; if you timed it just right, Roundup was effective.  For awhile.

A local tourism rag touts Salt Creek Falls, just off OR 58, as being the second highest waterfall (286') in OR.  Whoever wrote the article is full of crap; it's not even in the top 10.  Here's a list of OR waterfalls in height-order: http://www.worldwaterfalldatabase.com/region-tallest-waterfalls/United-States/Oregon/

Restaurant Review

Brewers Union Local 180, Tripadvisor ranked # 1 for eateries in Oakridge,  

We had fish and chips, and I had one of their brews.  The fish had enough grease to lube the axles of a medium-length freight train, and had a nasty aftertaste.  The ale was tepid.  Numerous flies added to the fine ambiance, obviously quite fond of the place and, I suspect, instrumental in Tripadvisor's high ranking of this dining disaster.