Bears

Many cities have done artistic things with critters.  In Portland it was cows.  Local artists did all sorts of creative things with life-sized cows, after which the painted cows were installed on downtown sidewalks.  Don't recall how many cows there were, 50 or more.  All the cows were the same size and shape, apparently from the same mold.

In Grants Pass, it's bears.  And, unlike the Portland cows, each bear we observed is unique in size and shape.  Here's a bear sampler.

The bears tempted me to draft unbearably bad puns.

I barely resisted that temptation. 

Bear with me.

Redwoods

We spent 3 nights at Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, a few miles south of Crescent City, CA.  The park area was logged in the 20s; many huge stumps are still visible, some up 15’ in diameter.  The second night we had dinner with Roger and Lynn, friends from LHC who’ve spent the last 4 summers in this area.

This stump is in our campsite.  You can see where they cut notches to pound in the wedges and planks where the loggers stood to work their long crosscut saws.  The cuts were done just above the root flare, in this case about 12’ off the ground.

Sibling Rivalry

The suckers that spring up around the old trunks fight to gain the height advantage.  In this group, many of the also-rans have died.  The largest of the 2^nd growth trees are now 3’ in diameter.

 Redwoods and sequoias are closely related and are the largest living things in the world.  Sequoias reach 311’ tall, have diameters up to 40’ and can live to 3000+ years.  Redwood stats: 370’/22’/2000+.  Redwoods get 1/3 of their moisture from fog.  Scientists are studying the impact of global warming on these giants and are concerned that fog levels will be reduced to the point that the trees may die out - as they already have in most of the areas where they once thrived during the Jurassic period.

We’d planned to stay a week in the redwoods but grew tired of damp, dark, chilly and foggy.  So we headed across the coast range and are now in a county park near Grants Pass, OR - fondly known as Grass Pants to many Oregonians.

This is going back a few posts to Ice House.  This is the view from the highest point in the area, has a fire watchtower and helipad on it.  Awesome.

MacKerricher SP

This park is 3 miles north of Fort Bragg, CA, a coastal town of 7000 souls.  It is home to the dumbass fire barrels I bitched about in my last post.  We’ve been here 4 nights, will be heading up the coast to giant redwood country this morning.  Foggy and quite cool here, a major transition for us after the warm dry country of AZ and southeastern CA.  We’re enjoying the coast though, hiking along the beach, watching the ocean critters and eating fresh seafood.
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Speaking of critters, don’t know if it’s a mostly hippie culture here or there’s an abundance of homeless people - or both.  Lots of folks you see in town are decidedly grubby and hairy and many of these appear to be survivors of some huge industrial accident that left them gimped up in some way.  I’m guessing that pirates and highwaymen have waylaid and made off with all the shipments of razor blades and soap for several years running.
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A lot of long range cyclists overnight at this park.  Haven’t talked to any of them but I assume most are doing extended bike tours along the coast.  You have to respect the energy and endurance of those folks.  Makes me tired just thinking about it; much of the coast highway is hilly and large portions have no bike lanes.

Dumbass

One of the most enjoyable aspects of our summer travels is campfires.  Whether cooking over them, roasting marshmallows (Trish’s thing, not mine) or just sitting and enjoying the ambiance, they’re great.  We have campfires every 2^nd or 3rd night, and use them for cooking more often than not.  We carry various racks and baskets that are adaptable to nearly any campfire configuration.  The cooking is mostly limited to entrees.

There are dozens of styles of ‘fire rings’, some are basic, some are elegant, some are cleverly designed, some are designed by dummies.  Our current campsite has one of the latter variety.  In this case, I suspect the designer was the winner of a competition among homeless street people in New York City.  On the other hand, maybe it was the loser of said competition.  Why do I think this?  Because it’s a fire barrel, not a fire ring.  We’ve all seen pix of shabbily dressed New Yorkers warming their hands around fire barrels back in the Great Depression.

This damned thing is 3’ high!  Sure, you can build a fire in it.  But you have to stand all the time to see it or cook over it.  Can’t see shit from your camp chair.  If you had bar stools you’d be okay but darn few RVs come with bar stools.  Yup, the designer was a dumbass.  He or she has likely gone to his/her final reward long since.  I hope that reward includes being forced to sit in a low chair beside a fire barrel 24/7 - and eating raw hamburgers.

Besides having to stand to cook, you have to work directly over the fire instead of beside it.  All the heat and smoke rises straight up, right into your face.  And, you have to reach down into the heat and smoke to accomplish the cooking task.  It's best to have a gas mask and respirator for cooking, also asbestos gloves and a fireman's flameproof coat.  So, add this to the above final reward: 15 minutes of every hour must be spent hunkered directly over the fire barrel.  And another thing: no mayo or catsup on the hamburger!  You get the raw burger and a bun, that's it.  Dumbass!

Ice House 2

We lucked out with our neighbors here.  Camp managers Bob and Connie have been doing their thing here for 10 years.  They’re the nicest, friendliest and most helpful camp hosts we’ve ever seen.

Our neighbors on the other side, Ken and Linda, have been coming here for many years, too.  They’re delightful folks that have shared their campfires with us and guided us on a hike around nearby Wright’s Lake yesterday.  They’re from the Bay Area.  Ken’s a retired engineer; Linda is a part time librarian.

Wright's Lake

Last night we had a mini Polish Golf (aka ladder ball) tournament with the neighbors.  Being the modest person I am, I won't divulge the names of the winners.

Ice House

Ice House Campground, our home for 6 nights, borders Ice House Reservoir in the Eldorado NF about 25 miles west of Lake Tahoe.  The elevation is 5500’.  Before refrigeration was widely available, they cut blocks of ice here and stored them in a shed, buried in sawdust, hence the name.  There are several other reservoirs nearby.

The area is heavily forested with cedars and huge Sugar and Ponderosa Pines.  A thick layer of pine needles covers the ground - makes for very springy walking.  Sugar Pine cones get up to 18" long; the one above is slightly over 1'.

Would you believe a string trio concert mid afternoon in our campground?  Yup, 3 cellists did a free concert under the trees yesterday.  They  played tunes by The Eagles, The Ventures and The Beatles and others, no classical.  These folks are in their 60s and have played with various symphonies around the country.  What a delightful surprise!

I put the picture in sideways for a change of pace.  Yeah, you're right: that's BS.  The truth: took picture with my smart phone, sent it to myself by email, turned the picture upright in my computer but the silly bugger insists on going sideways when I download it to the blog.  Tried to turn it upright 6 times, finally said 'piss on it'.  I'm guessing I have to do the up righting edit on my cell phone before I email it.   

This tree is just under 5' in diameter and about 250 years old!

Red &Tillie

Red Rock Canyon SP, CA

Our first 20 days of travel are in CA.  We'd planned to spend 2 nights each at Red Rock and Mono Lake.  Instead, did one night at Red Rock (too hot and windy).  Due to the weather, we didn't take the hikes to view the stone spires of red rock and sandstone but the pix below provide some idea.

We expected to see hobbits, gnomes and leprechauns darting about in the rocks but were disappointed.  Must have been their day off.

Joshua tree sunrise.

Tillie Creek Campground, Sequoia NF

After Red Rock, we headed north to Mono Lake but didn't make it.  Instead, we hung a left and drove to the Sequoia Natl Forest and Lake Isabella.  Tillie Creek Campground is on Isabella, a large man-made lake with hundreds of campers and hundreds PWCs - personal water craft.  We're here 3 nights, then will head north to our next campground; will save Mono Lake for a future trip.

The view from our front door.  The view from our back door is much the same.

That's because we only have one door.

Mostly, our internet access during our summer travels is via smartphone, USB- tethered to the computer.  So, whenever we have cell phone service, we have internet.  In this location we have max bars on cell phone signal but internet speed sucks big time.  Don’t know why.  Can cell phone towers generate max bars signal strength but still lack capacity, band width, something - getting sucked dry by too many users?  Could be.