this train is escalating.....might have a blog hiatus until it arrives at destination

......moving day has been confirmed.......three times now.  We're very happy that the new government job came with government movers. It's a help to have an official moving company come in, wrap and pack everything, move it, store it for us until we a new residence, then deliver it to the new residence. But it comes with all (more?) of the usual government red tape, authorizations in writing from the accepting site, intermediaries who "counsel" you through the process, upload EVERY receipt for the next month into a portal, keep a spreadsheet of daily food and travel allowances, etc. So we had asked for a June 29 preferred move day and said June 30 would work too (before we have to be out of the current residence.)  We waited 3 weeks before making our flight reservations to Maine, watching the price go up and up, but too worried that if we decided to fly June 30 they'd say you have to be here June 30.  We finally took a chance and made our Maine reservations July 2-9.  Then the movers asked if we could move June 27!!!!  I said I'd still have house guests sleeping until noon that day, but we could make it work. We planned to drive straight to Walla Walla and drop a car, as we're flying out of Portland, OR. Then we get a confirmation email, that move date is June 30.  Okay. Now we don't have time to drive to Walla Walla first, so we plan to drive two cars to Portland and leave them in airport parking while we're in Maine. Then 2 days ago, we get a message  "we had a cancellation, can you move June 28?"  We said sure. Another confirmation. Now we're back to plan A with the bonus that Kelcy and Ryley and Megan can play all day Wednesday before they fly home, and we can leisurely pack up the 2 hours before movers arrive Thursday. Whew!

Yes, Kelcy and Ryley and Megan are here for a week so we can show and tell Southern Oregon. We've done the Redwood Forest, the California coast and several wineries, breakfast shops and restaurants. Today we're going to the local street fair, lavender festival, our favorite vineyard and then cook together on our deck. So far they've been impressed by how varied the geography is-- layers of rolling hills with jagged 8000+foot peaks in the background, tall pointy Douglas fir forests to the thick, red woods, dry  90 degree desert floor with Mediterranean like fauna.  

Interesting people on our travels, in no particular order

1) Island Creek Rest site: a dude clearly camping there with his dog under the Day Use only sign-- approached us holding open a Bible. He says,  "I need a little help for a new Bible."  I point out the obvious, "But you're holding a Bible right there." He tries to tell us it's because he's found a typo in it.  We apologized and high tailed it outta there.... having another 10 miles of kidney-shaking drive down the dirt road on our way out of the Rogue Wilderness.

2) The waitress at the Tadpole Cafe saw us perusing a hiking book and told us which trail she runs over the interesting lava beds. She, like many Oregonians, appears to have total body tattoos, at least all the body parts we can see. It reminds of the book, The Man Called Ove, where he wonders to himself why anyone would get a tattoo that looks like you're going around wearing your pajamas. We're just old and curmungeonly like Ove.

3) Then there was the Italian hiker who showed up during our Fish Lake tea time.  He had been hiking about  5 days from Ashland and said he was already out of commission, although we didn't overhear why.  He was apparently hoping for a ride back to town. The local guy at the nearby table making friends with him had a bunch of bravado about his trips on the PCT. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut about, "my husband is a hiker too and just completed the AT." I did keep my mouth shut but I couldn't stop eavesdropping because of that flattering Italian accent.  When asked his name by the American dude who was going to drive him to town,  "I don't have a trail name yet so it's just Rocco."

4) Last Sunday morning we drove about 1.5 hours from Fish Lake to a little south of Ashland to Pilot Rock.  I thought I was up for the 3.2 mi  (350'  elevation) easy loop hike around the base, but somehow, when we decided not to "bushwhack up a meadow" per hiking manual, we ended up on the moderate (1000+ft elevation on loose, steep, scree...)  I don't know if it was the elevation, rapid ascent or greasy potatoes and omelette for breakfast, but I was struck by waves of nausea and abdominal cramps.  I told Judd I wasn't having fun. It was a well traveled hike--MANY people going up and down nearby so, VERY motiving to get off the trail to the "bathroom" quickly. Feeling much better, I was able to resume the ascent but we stopped short of the peak-with-views-of-Mt.Shasta, due to the loose rocks.  I know Judd could have done it but he politely kept me company.  A young dad with a 1 year old in his backpack was also stopping to rest and not summit the peak. He chatted with us while awaiting his spouse to return from the top. He wanted to inquire of Judd about his hiking shoes.  This is Judd's second pair of Vasque because he finds them suppportive, especially on rocky trails.  The young dad said he was just the opposite and wanted to wear the least supportive (five finger-shoes) so he could feel the rocks.  We'll see how that works out for him.

                        VS.













5) Since we were on the southern Rogue Valley wine trail after the hike, we decided to taste at two, new-to-us wineries. Simple Machine was a pretty new tasting room not in a vineyard but in an old garage.  It was stylishly renovated, over-air-conditioned because it was so hot out and the wine has to stay cool. The couple running it was friendly and generous. We randomly chose Pebblestone Vineyard. The tasting room was run by the owner and we stumbled upon live music outside on the shady deck overlooking the growing grapes. Little girls were running to the field, picking poppies and decorating each bistro table. Jeff Kloetzel was playing.  http://dailytidings.com/archive/jeff-kloetzel-04-27-2018 When he isn't providing music at one of the neighborhood wineres, he's pouring at our wine club winery: South Stage Cellars. It's taken 11 months, but some of the pourers there now really do seem to know us, by face at least, if still not by name. 

, it ain't.


6) "Bo" 
Back when we first started to visit South Stage Cellars, we made the acquaintance of Bo who was there often. The tasting room hostess would warn us to 'watch out for Bo' and we didn't know if that meant he got too long-winded throughout the evening of wine, or he was a danger to self or others when driving himself home from the winery.  One day when it was cold and wet out, we hung out by the fireplace and had a longer conversation with Bo. He visits his wife in a nursing home every day, even though she can't speak his name anymore from her Alzheimers. When we admire his Army Veteran hat, he told us stories of his time in Vietnam.  Turns out he's an author on a blog too.

http://www.155-th-ahc.org/bmt-stories/bmt-teams/155th-team/

Free Fishing Day!

June 4 was Free Fishing Day in Oregon.  That means anyone can fish without a license. Last year we purchased a license for about $79 each and only fished half the year.) We felt quite smug this year that we were avoiding all the fees this year. A colleague at work suggested we should go to Fish Lake (Duh?!) and at the 11th hour we reserved a cabin.  We were told it included bedding, hot showers, a stove and microwave.  That's even easier camping than last weekend. Judd packed up a plastic tub of fishing gear and I packed the ice chest and off we went. I managed to forget the leftovers to warm up for dinner so it was fortuitous that Fish Lake comes with a Tadpole Cafe. Judd forgot a koozi for his beer.  We need more practice at this spontaneous road trip thing.....

Fish Lake was only an hour from Jacksonville and we arrived ready for tea time on their porch. It was warm in the sun with a view of all the people, mostly little people, heading down to the lake with their poles on their shoulders, just like Opie Taylor. Some folks were renting boats, some were fishing from the shore or dock.

We decided to hike a bit before fishing so went up to the Pacific Crest Trail trailhead and did an
hour southbound over the Mt. Brown lava beds. Mt. McCloughlin was still bedazzled with snow to the north. We could see more snow on the east side of the peak than we see from the Rogue Valley below. It was one of the weirdest, diverse geological walks we'd done.  Judd was just remarking that the trail through the pine forest on the soft needles almost seemed Maine-esque and then we emerged from the forest over yards of grey lava boulders.  What made that part of the walk comfortable is that someone took the time to cart in smaller gravel size lava to make if level and walkable trail.  Judd had read 

 that this is the most expensive part of the PCT for that reason. (And he thought the AT in Pennsylvania was rocky!)
  We traversed a pretty full, rapid creek (via well maintained bridge) on the way off the trail.  Neither of us could figure out the bizarre plants we'd been passing all through the forest. They were all speckled, no matter what variety. It finally dawned on us that all the plants were heavily-ladened with pollen.

Apres le hike, cold, refreshing beverages awaited us in our new silicon wine glasses (copied from our kids.) We went back to the cabin and played some cribbage out side our little waterfront cabin until we were hungry enough to dine on the porch again. I took the bleu cheese crumbles from my super salad back to the cabin so Judd could microwave up some of his famous French nachos, but we never got to them.  Judd read aloud from the cabin's newspaper. It was like a county specific National Inquirer from 1960 with all the local gossip and all the believe-it-or -not "history" from the region. I couldn't believe it, a lot of it.

We took a short after-dinner walk around the lake.  Here, they even re-purpose lava boulders in their drive way lining or fire pitting. Sunset was nicely reflected when the lake stilled. We realized we had never wet a fishing line.  We were okay with that. Why let a fish spoil a good day?

Too busy to blog

We’ve been unstoppable:  traveling, hiking, wining, and dining every weekend. Judd’s weekends lately start on Thursday night when he finishes up at Prospect High School.  He acquired a long-term substitute job. You can imagine how much those students want to learn with 4 days left in the year.  I think lesson plans this week include making popcorn, bottle rockets, a Disney movie and writing letters to their future selves for Judd to mail back to them in September.

The week I had traveled to Long Beach for work, Judd did a trek on the Rogue River Wilderness trail starting at Grave Creek and doing an overnighter in his hammock. Last weekend, he took me on a stretch from Tucker Flat campground to Paradise Lodge.  The hike was amazing: a pretty flat trail, single wide-but spacious enough not to be scared that you’d fall into the canyon to your death.  Once stretch was called Mule Creek Trail but I would not have wanted to be on mule back for any part of that trail.  The views of the Rogue far below in at the bottom of the canyon were stunning, with massive waterfalls along the way. We passed many hikers coming and going, some hiking lodge to lodge. Paradise Lodge was not very welcoming at 4 in the afternoon.  Signs everywhere said, “For Lodging Guests ONLY.”  We did get free water and broke their, Don’t Use the Rest Room rule.  I guess the staff was awaiting the arrival of a raft load and perhaps the beer and bacon was for them. We had decided to walk to the trailhead because Judd thought it was just 0.1miles from our campground.  Turns out it was more like 1.5 miles to the trailhead AND back again after the “short 3 miles in /3 miles out.” Way to turn a 6 mile hike into a 9 mile hike!   We had cleverly set up our tent and cot before hiking. We were very ready to eat our chicken chili which Judd had pre-prepped. And Jiffy Pop, always Jiffy Pop.  We played cribbage inside the tent as we discovered Oregon can make mosquitos, albeit pretty anemic compared to Maine mosquitos. With all the deluxe camping gear, we still didn’t sleep well, primarily because it got so cold overnight. When we finally braved getting out of our sleeping bags, we strolled to the Rogue Ranch, a little plantation in the middle of no where.  Judd was SO impressed with the old tools/machines in the plantation museum.  (see below) The trip in, was a 20 mile gravel road with no cell service to get there. Roads were named things like BLM-32-9-14 (Bureau of Land Management.) 
We decided for night two, we'd *camp* at a hotel near wineries......We had pigs wandering through the Freed Vineyard... more on that soon.

https://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recreation/rogue/files/rogue-river-trail-guide.pdf