Wednesday, 4 May 2022
The Klamath Falls KOA turned out to be a pleasant place. I hadn't expected it because the only sites I could afford were way in the back of the campground, and I was afraid I'd have trouble walking the dogs. But with a nice dog park right near our site, and with being at the end of a row, we managed to find enough room for the 1 night we were there.
Plus, their wifi network was so much better than most campgrounds I've found lately, that I almost hated to leave. On the other hand, the local NPR station was all classical music and I wanted some news. On the other other hand, I saw another goldfinch - they're so striking and pretty and really hard to miss.
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| American goldfinch |
Trying to make plans, I learned that the weather forecast for the Crater Lake area this weekend included a 90% chance of snow for several days. The campground I'd planned to stay in wanted a 2-night minimum stay, which I would have agreed to reluctantly, but with the weather it sounded like I could get stuck there for much longer, so I decided to wait and visit later in the month when the snow chances would be diminished and instead head north and toward the coast.
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| today's route |
Once again, I spent most of the drive passing through rural areas, though it was certainly scenic. You can see that for quite a ways the road skirts the Upper Klamath Lake, which was a really beautiful area.
My first plan was to take OR-66 directly from Klamath Falls to Ashland, but then I noticed that part of OR-140, the northern route, included the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway. I saw that byway down by Mt. Shasta and it runs up to at least Crater Lake, so I thought I'd drive that way and see what the countryside looked like.
A side benefit was that the road skirted Upper Klamath Lake, which I saw the end of yesterday when I was driving around Klamath Falls, so I got a nice look at a beautiful lake. It's Oregon's largest natural lake, covering 90,000 acres. Great place for birdwatching - I saw a lot of duckies that I couldn't identify while I was driving, but I'm sure I saw some Buffleheads - the males are easy to identify - and I'm sure I saw a Northern Pintail - the neck stripe is easy to see.
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| Bufflehead |
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| Northern Pintail |
Apparently fishing was good for both the birds and the people, because I saw quite a few boaters putting in at the boat ramp and maybe a half dozen people fishing from shore.
Just past the elbow in the lake, a road headed north toward Crater Lake and a town called Rocky Point, which is apparently too small for the AAA folks. But I knew it was there because of signs telling me so. One of those signs was giving credit to the litter pick-up crew in that area: Quilting Sisters at Rocky Point. It's a fabric store there, which seems odd as there doesn't seem to be much of a year-round population. It's an old town (by OR standards) that's been known almost entirely for recreational opportunities, which apparently once included a brothel.
Another sign I saw along the road said only "Mt. McLoughlin" with a diagonal arrow pointing up and to the right. And when I looked where it was pointing, sure enough, I saw an absolutely classic mountain. I took this photo off the internet because there wasn't anywhere for me to stop along the road, but this is what I saw.
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| Mt. McLoughlin |
I came to the Great Meadow Sno-Park (per the signs) and suddenly started to see piles of snow beside the road. That made me drive a little more carefully, in case there might be ice on bridges or somewhere else sneaky. Luckily, there wasn't. This sno-park (why did they have to spell it that way? does it really make it more attractive to recreationists?) is very popular in the winters (duh) and has facilities for snowmobiling, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, including a monster parking lot to accommodate trucks pulling trailers with equipment on them.
The area was beautiful with thick evergreen forests, and signs told me I'd reached Lake of the Woods. Actually, signs for the whole drive seemed to think that lake was where I wanted to go, so I'm guessing it's a popular place
Near here, I reached the highest summit for the whole drive - High Lakes Pass Summit at 5,105'.
The first part of today's drive took me through more of the Fremont-Winema National Forest, which I'd picked up near Lakeview my first day in Oregon. Past the High Lakes Pass Summit, though the AAA map doesn't show it, signs told me I'd reached the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
And though I'd left the Volcano Legacy byway behind, I started to pass large lava fields. Mounds of lava. Huge mounds. After the volcano education I've received in New Mexico and Arizona, I can recognize lava now when it looks as obviously like itself as it did here. There was a lot of it, with a lot of vegetation growing on and around it - Nature coming back to life after the flow of fire.
After Fish Lake (another popular recreation area), the road took a 5% grade for the next 10 miles with s-curves the whole way. Definitely a road better suited for a sports car. I'd passed a hill of red dirt that looked like it was being mined, and as I drove along the road I noticed red dirt at the road's edges. I finally concluded that red dirt from that hill was used to build this road, and the pavement was sitting on a bed of it.
A sign told me to expect "Intermittent Road Work Next 8 Miles." I had time to wonder if the "intermittent" referred to them doing the work now and then or doing it here and there. Turns out it was here and there, because I passed several places where work was ongoing.
A sign told me I could turn right for "Historic Lost Creek Bridge." I didn't turn but I did look it up and learned that it's southern Oregon's oldest and shortest covered bridge. I can't say I'd thought of Oregon in connection with covered bridges, but the state's got 54 of them. This one was built around 1881 and is 39' long. It's no longer in use for vehicle traffic, which figures.
I passed a farm that sold chicken eggs for $3.50/dozen and also advertised emu eggs (no price). I didn't see either the chickens or the emus, though I trust in truth in advertising.
I did see lots of bee boxes and that reminded me of the sad story in the news yesterday about the woman who was shipping thousands of bees to customers in Alaska, but the airlines rerouted the bee containers to Atlanta, where they somehow didn't get put on the next available plane. The airport staff got nervous about having a bunch of bees around and put them outside the building, where the bees began to die from the heat and lack of water. Via the internet, the woman managed to find a bee person in the area who went to the airport to rescue as many as he could, but most of them died. Plus the customers in Alaska didn't get the bees they needed for this year's crops. These days we're all learning how essential pollinators are in our world (and in our food supply), and that knowledge gives this story an impact it wouldn't have had 10 years ago when we were more clueless.
A sign welcomed me to White City, "A Great Place to Live." I was curious about the name and looked it up, learning it was originally Camp White (named for an adjutant general), established during WWII as an Army training base and also used as a POW camp. In fact, with all the people there, in 1943 it was the 2nd largest city in Oregon. When the base was decommissioned, the residents who remained renamed the town, now with 9,468 residents (as of 2020).
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| CA poppies |
By this time we'd been driving for nearly 2 hours and were past ready for a break. Thankfully, I found a highway rest stop just past Medford. Odd place, though. Many signs said don't walk dogs anywhere except the designated dog walk area, and then no dog walk area was designated. Seems to me if you can post a bunch of signs saying go to a specific area, then you can also post a bunch of signs saying here's the specific area. (Sorry. People can be weird about other people's dogs, and I get grumpy these days when being a dog owner is made even more difficult for me than the problems already inherent in having dogs. Though I still don't have to pay for tennis shoes or college, so I'm happy with my choice.)
Ashland, with 21,360 residents in 2020, is home to Southern Oregon University, which I was surprised to learn was founded as far back as 1892. The school says it offers 45 degrees, and oddly has only a 46% graduation rate. I don't know why that's so low.
Ashland seems to be built on a series of hills, and I found myself going up and down some very steep ones just by going around the block. It also has a lot of green space, though its largest park was for people only - no dogs allowed. But I wanted to see something about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is Ashland's enduring claim to fame (even I've heard of it for years.) I think the festival is held in different theaters around town, with one right next to the headquarters building. It's the Allen (as in Paul Allen) Elizabethan Theater, and it has a sign saying it's "America's First Elizabethan Theater." I couldn't find an uncopyrighted photo online and it wasn't possible to stop and take a photo of my own.
The whole town seemed to be geared around the festival - which runs from April through December each year - with shops and restaurants everywhere that catered to the theater-going crowd, or just those who are Shakespeare fans. But I was surprised to learn that the festival is including so many non-Shakespeare plays that this year there're only 2 by Shakespeare on the line-up: The Tempest and King John.
Ashland is a lovely place - at least it was when I was there because of glorious flowering trees and wisteria everywhere. And I learned that Ashland is where, in 1946, Lithia was founded - the 3rd largest car dealership group in the country. And Lithia has given back to its hometown - there are parks and streets and all kinds of things that carry its name.
But we had miles to go, so I got back on the road. This time I'd had to fight hard with Google because I wanted to take the scenic route instead of the interstate. OR-99, which is the local iteration of the former US-99, isn't highly respected in this state, and much of it no longer exists. But here in the southern part, I found it running all the way from Ashland, through Medford, up to Gold Hill, and that's the route I took.
We passed towns with names like Talent and Phoenix. We passed orchards.
In Medford, we passed the corporate offices of Harry & David, well-known fruit shippers. Somehow, though I thought I was going right through town, I missed Medford's historic downtown area. Medford, with 85,289 residents in 2020, is the county seat.
We went through part of Central Point, with 19,670 residents, and I saw a business called Lillie Belle Farms Homemade Chocolates. And I suddenly missed my Momma a lot. When I saw the sign my first reaction was that I should stop and get some chocolates to send to her, and then I remembered I couldn't. Like it or not, moms really stick with you in your life. And in my case, I'm lucky to have had a good mom.
Despite all that driving, we made it to the campground by 1:00, and I was tired enough to be done for the day. We have a reservation for 2 nights here. I'd been seeing a lot of woodpeckers today, and I saw another one here. Not close enough to be sure of identifying them well, but my best guess is they were Hairy Woodpeckers, based on them belonging here while other species don't, also on their size, the amount of white when they flew, and the not obvious red on their heads.
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| Hairy Woodpecker |
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