cold

Oregon – the Land of Many Climates

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 14: 6/15/24
From: Crater Lake, OR
To: Boise, ID
Distance: 418 miles (+ some)

Um, it’s snowing. In mid-June. We’re out the door by 8 am and the cloud cover above us is thick. But snow? I guess it *is* 32 degrees, so it’s not unprecedented. But also not exactly expected either. We’re east-coasters. June means warmth.

After a small snafu where we leave the park in the wrong direction thanks to zero reception, we head north through the Umpqua National Forest and Fremont-Winema National Forest where we continue to be snowed on for the next hour. This is surreal. When we have reception again, the Maps app turns us around again and we’ve basically taken a very roundabout way to get out of the park, but we didn’t add any time to today’s drive. Thankfully. 7 hours is 7 hours.

One thing I notice about Oregon is the purple wildflowers along the roadside. Some are close to the ground, and some grow a foot high or more. But purple seems to be the color here. As opposed to the white, pink, and red flower bushes (roses?) growing along California roads.

The surroundings quickly change as we drive back into the desert — still Oregon, but no longer woodsy and pine-filled. Sun, scrub brush, and dry hills. But it’s not hot here! It may look a bit like Arizona, but it’s definitely not. Still only 54 degrees at 11 am.

In this strange terrain we see two antelope — the first of the trip! And they dart when they see us, leaping across the desert scrub, their fluffy white butts to us.

After some time, Husband grows bored of this drive and begins to make up his own song. 

“There’s nothing out here
Nothing at all
I can’t even
Make a call

I’m just driving
In my car
I can see
So damn far”

I take over driving for the last two hours or so and we get stuck behind an enormous line of traffic for miles upon miles because of an oversized load that refuses to pull off the highway to let the mile backup pass him… Does Oregon not believe in 4-lane highways? What’s with all the secondary highways? I guess not enough people live here to make it worth it? Still, it was maddening to drive 35-45 miles an hour in a 65 mph zone for a good 15-20 minutes. 

We arrive at our hotel in Boise at 5 pm, sad because we’re officially back on Mountain Time and out of Pacific, officially on our return trip. Husband and Older Child go out for dinner while Younger Child and I stay in and catch a nap. I tweaked something in my neck today (yay), so I’m trying to give it a little bit of a rest. And a rest usually ends up meaning sleep, so… Husband comes back at 9:30 with dinner for me and Younger Child — the problem with going for dinner late on a Saturday evening is anything brought back will be brought back even later.

I  check the weather forecast for the next few days and am a bit gutted to find it’s going to be very, very cold at night for the next few nights. And we’re in a tent. So while most of my friends back home are headed into a dangerous heat wave, I hope they all think of us, shivering in our tent over the next few days.

Do I place an order for blankets at a Target in Jackson, Wyoming so we can pick them up tomorrow on our way to our next campground? Yes, I do. Because modern problems call for modern solutions and the internet is our friend.

Pivot

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 12: 6/13/24
From: Sequoia National Park (Potwisha Campground)
To: Golden Gate National Recreation Area (Bicentennial Campground Holiday Inn Express)
Distance: 294 miles

I am up at 5. Again. The variety of birds in the California wilderness is astounding and I have the Merlin bird app open to pass an hour before I even think about waking the kids. The California Towhee and the Acorn Woodpecker are fighting to see who can be the better alarm clock, I think.

At least the night eventually cooled down. We kept the rain fly off the tent and the windows unzipped, so the tent is comfortably cool this morning. I have no idea how long it took to get that way, but at some point in the night, as the temp fell, we all found our way inside sleeping bags.

When I get out of the tent, I notice a small shiny spring in the middle of our campsite. Husband thinks it must have come off of something we own, but I prefer to think a raven left us a gift sometime during the night since we’ve been befriending them everywhere we go. I’m going to miss the ravens when we head home.

We leave the campsite by 7:30 and hit up the visitor center for stickers by 8. Along the way, we encounter a black-tailed deer and two social ravens. See? The ravens have become our friends! Down the last stretch of the General’s Highway and back onto the main highways that will take us northwest to San Francisco we go.

We cross the Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in fog and get a glimpse of Alcatraz. It’s 2 pm by the time we arrive at the campsite and when we pull up, we all stare in dread for a moment. Sun? No, there’s no sun here. It’s foggy, misty, windy, and 54 degrees midday. And our campsite has a 1/4 mile walk-in down a steep hill. Older child takes a spill on the gravel and scrapes up an ankle, a thigh, and both palms. To add insult to injury, at the bottom of the hill is a clearing where there is only a port-a-potty for our bathroom needs. The kids revolt.

And I don’t blame them.

The view of the Golden Gate Bridge is spectacular, but even that’s not enough for me to want to stay. It’s time to pivot. I use that wonderful cell reception to find a hotel less than a mile away. Now both kids feel bad and say they could just suck it up, but guess what? *I* don’t want to be freezing in a tent all night, have no running water, and have to use a port-a-potty. We’ve done pit toilets a few times on this trip, but this is a new low. So yeah, I look forward to the hotel, too.

From there, we head over to Muir Woods, (Which requires a parking reservation — beware! We managed to book one before heading over.) and take in the Redwoods over the course of 3 miles of trails. We stick mostly to the flat boardwalk and paved trails, which is better for my joints. 

The trees are beautiful and so very different from the sequoia we saw yesterday. Walking amidst so many at one time is magical. And I love that the path is handicap accessible. It’s heartening to see. (In fact, I was impressed just a few days ago when we saw the National Park Service laying concrete on some paths at Bryce Canyon.) It’s encouraging to know that people with disabilities aren’t being left out of seeing and appreciating the natural wonders of our world. And…Husband finds a beautiful ring that fits my finger while looking at the giant clover for a four-leaf. No four-leaf, but I’ll take the ring, thanks!

After Muir, we check into our hotel and virtually collapse. We’ll need to figure out where to order food as we won’t be making any camp meals tonight, but the warmth of a room and the promise of a bed is simply heavenly and we’re soaking in the atmosphere. The wind outside is relentless and we can hear the incessant chiming of the flagpole. Still, no one will complain as we’re just thrilled to be inside. Unfortunately, my hip subluxed getting out of the car today, so that may be my body’s sign to slow my roll a bit. I wonder if it’s due to the extreme changes in temperature. It’s not every day you go from a high of 111 degrees to 53. And colder temps are coming.

Dinner from Floodwater, the restaurant directly next to the hotel, is divine. Pizza, burgers, pork rolls, they have a bit of everything you could want. We’d hoped to play a game of Oregon Trail cards, but everyone is too tired, so we end up asleep just after 9:30 — so tired that no one even cares about the snoring. A plus.