Tag Archives: Oregon

Loving Oregon

I just love that we are back in Oregon. There is rarely a day go by that I don’t think how happier I am that we are back in Oregon.

How much more at home I feel, more comfortable….even with all the new changes of going back to apartment living and adjusting.

Today the beauty of the state really shown through as I drove home north through the Willamette Valley. And just reenforced how much I love living here.

It was a stunningly perfectly clear and sunny day, saw Mt St Helens to the north and Mt Hood to the northeast.

I work about 30 miles south of where we live, so about 50 miles south of Portland.

We have always lived east of PDX, directly west of Mt Hood. Living near the Gorge (river, cliffs, water falls, and forests)….and it is a totally different scenery then the heart of Willamette (plains & farm lands) that through drive daily to and from work.

I’m so not use to seeing Mt Hood from that angle…..at first I wasn’t sure that I identified the correct peak. When I saw it from the west, I knew it instinctively. It was so different from what we spent 7yrs looking at.

But I knew that I was no where south enough to see Jefferson or any of the other peaks of the Cascades.

Now I need to learn how my favorite mountain looks from the SW angel. ?

Damn, I do love this state.

Not Too Bad

Wow…it has gotten a bit chillier, at least when the wind picks up….bbrrr

I’ve been doing good on getting my work and lists done. Overall, I’ve been staying pretty focus. I do like it when that happens, means my life is where it should be at. =)

I need to figure out how I want to start getting my exercise. The last few times I went roller skating I wiped out. So not cool. =( And it has been when others are around. Now I’m wondering if they are getting in my head and without having wrist guards, I don’t want to be wiping out and break my wrist. I have the knee, elbow pads and mouth guard….but no wrist guards. When you fall that is one the spots easy to break because you instinctively put your hands down even though logically you know better.

Either way, I need to do something….butt is getting too big. I really do miss the routine and discipline of the gym…..we did that for 4yrs, normally 5days a week.

Taking the 4/5hr drive down to Oregon this week to clean out one of our storage units. Looking forward to Oregon, not looking forward to the long drive there and back. Also need to put a few things in the other unit and take a few things out….like unburying my bowling ball….even if I haven’t bowled in years….lol…at least I’ll have it when we do.

Been seeing a lot of immature eagles, which is so totally cool! Never get tired of them. We saw a river otter the other day. And next week, we are meeting up with birders we meet in AZ to learn more about the local birds around here. I do miss other birders for learning.

We had our close friends come out this weekend with their dog. =) We had a lot of good smoke, wine, chili and talk. A lot of inside jokes about our dysfunctional untrustworthy morally wrong relationships…..grin At one time or another, we each had been told one of those things….so with the four of us, it works…lol Love the selfie hubby got of all of us….even got their dog in the back ground. Love that we are going to be closer to them this summer. Hoping to pop over for visits more often.

Right now, I’m in a weird place mood wise….nothing to that is making me unhappy or stressed more then usually, think it is just my hormones. I was fine mood wise until today, I ended up with heartburn the night before and it SUCKS!! I just wanted to die…..blah. That is what happens when your tums is buried in the meds cabinet so you forgot to take it before bed. That is not happening tonight. So that just totally tired me out since I should’ve been sleeping and the hormones….not a good combo…blah!

15th Anniversary : John Day, OR

The last few years we have made it kind of a tradition to go somewhere for our anniversary. Usually not on our anniversary, since it sometimes lands on Memorial Day and crowds…yuck….lol Since we’ve been living in OR, we done the Red Woods in CA, taken a portion of the OR coast a couple of years until we got it covered and we’ve done Mt St. Helens.

This year we decided on John National Monuments and we didn’t want to take 26 since we’ve already done that a few times. We took 84 to 97 to 206…..wow. It was so different and so beautiful.

Got to one viewing area and got to see all the peaks including Mt Rainier, which we totally didn’t expect. Saw a bunch of wind farms…that was cool.

Since we have gotten our Wrangler, when you take it out on a nice day, other Wrangler owners will wave at you. Just like bikers do, they acknowledge each other. So we’ve been getting use to that, it is pretty cool When we turned off of 84 to go south, there were so few people on the winding roads, very in the middle of no where feeling….really neat. Well, people out there wave at you also as you drive by, I felt like I was back in Germany, where everyone said “Guten Tag” when you passed them

Didn’t do it like we originally planned…..it never does work that way….lol But it worked out for the best. We decided to change from the campground we thought we were going to head to the 1st night, because it was an hour & half from each of the 3 John Day Units. We really wanted and needed to hit 2 of the units Tues if we were going to all of them in, because at the 3rd unit, we wanted to do the 4mile hike.

We hit the Clarno Unit around noon Tues, did the small .5 mile hike, saw some really cool plant fossils.

We decided to camp at the Wildcat

It was nice and quiet…..didn’t get to enjoy it to the fullest, since when we go there, we set up a portion of the camp and then headed back out to see The Painted Hills Unit. We thought it would be only about 20min away….nope, more like 50…..lol But we found it and hiked the small .25 mile trail around the very colorful and stunning hills.

Didn’t get back to our campsite until about 7 and only had a few hrs of day light to left, we quickly finished setting up camp and get us some dinner.

The next day we headed to The Sheep Rock Unit. They have a really neat museum with all sorts of fossils. Now when most people think of fossils they think of from the dinosaur age, these are from the age of mammals. The John Day Monuments are considered the best in the world for the age of mammals. People have been researching them for over a hundred years and are still making new discoveries.

Now a weather observation, we live outside of Portland and 75 degrees is very nice. So when you see it on the weather that John Day is 75, you think comfortable. Big mistake….lol It is desert and with direct sun, it is hot. Wow…..lol

We did the small hike of the fossils, then headed for the 3mile loop. (Blue Basin Hike) We’ve found that we like getting the switchbacks up out of the way, instead of using them to come down. To us it’s the hardest part of the hike and we like to get it out of the way first. When we finished the hike, we were happy with that decision.

It was also our first hike with our camelbak packs. They were so much easier then our all day hike packs with camelbak water bottles. They held 100ml and the weight was spread out so much better on our backs. Which really helped with the climb up.

Really enjoyed the hike, like all climbs up….feel like I’m going to die and I curse the gym because that is suppose to help with it and it doesn’t seem to…lol Seriously, I use a climbing treadmill at the gym to help with the up and downs like a hike, I do about 4-5miles of that 5 days a week. Go on a hike and 1/4 mile up about kills me by stealing my breath…ggeezz..

Instead of going home the way we came, we wanted to continue on 26 to 7 and jump on 84 in Baker City. On the way there we found out last camp site of the trip….called Middle Fork Campground

This was the most awesome of sites we’ve ever had….there was 10 campsites and we were the ONLY ones there.  We had the whole campground to ourselves, only one or two vehicles went by on the road, we had a small, very chilly river, that we used to rinse the hike off and the big bonus, a nice pile of chopped firewood.  It was a great way to end our last night of camping for our anniversary.

The reason for taking that route home was I’ve never seen that part of Oregon and hubby wanted me to really see the high desert plateau…..where you go from 2k-3k feet in elevation down to 200ft. That was really neat. They had a lot of spots for run away trucks to go off the road. I highly recommend checking it out….unfortunately, wasn’t able to find any links to it.

[EasyGallery id=’johndaynationalmoumentandcampi’]

**I’m trying to get the gallery to work.  They are posted in my Facebook :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3351445627670.2127103.1314756288&type=3&l=8dc7d9ed5a

15th Anniversary Camping Plans

A little back story, when we chose our wedding date, I was just thinking of trying to avoid the jump in prices that a summer wedding always brings.  And our wedding ended up on May 31st….big mistake, always stuck dealing with holiday stuff and with my current job, I have end of the month stuff to deal with…blah We should’ve stuck with the Oct date…..lol

Now when we plan to celebrate our anniversary, it is normally anywhere from a few days to a few weeks that we do our plans.  Since we’ve moved to Oregon, we’ve tried to see different parts of the northwest, especially our adopted state. We’ve done 3 trips to the Oregon Coast to get it covered, camped in the Red Woods and now we are finally going to head to <a href=”http://www.nps.gov/joda/index.htm” target=”_blank”>John Day Nat’l Monuments</a> this week.

It is about a 4hr drive to the 1st campsite of <a href=”http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/pacficnw/umacmp.htm” target=”_blank”>Bull Prairie Lake</a>, just north of the 3 parts of the John Day Nat’l Monuments. We want to see the <a href=”http://www.nps.gov/joda/planyourvisit/painted_hills_unit.htm” target=”_blank”>Painted Hills</a> and the <a href=”http://www.nps.gov/joda/clarno_unit.htm” target=”_blank”>Clarno Unit</a> after we set up camp Tuesday.  Then Wednesday, pack up and head to the <a href=”http://www.nps.gov/joda/sheep-rock.htm” target=”_blank”>Sheep Rock Unit</a> to do this 4mi hike : <a href=”http://bp2.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip.aspx?tripId=536378″ target=”_blank”>http://bp2.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip.aspx?tripId=536378</a>

Hoping to get our 2nd campsite in <a href=”http://www.fs.usda.gov/malheur/” target=”_blank”>Malheur National Forest</a> before all the sites get taken.  But with it being mid-week and school still in, the odds are on our side.  =)  Thursday we’ll come out of the Nat’l Forest at Baker City and jump on 84 for the 5-6hr drive to head home.

The weather keeps going from overcast to sunny…..lows at night in the 40s and highs in the 60s/70s, really hoping it works out and we get to see some stunning scenery.  Totally looking forward to some hikes, even if not looking forward to the drive…..lol

Right now, I want to get more done, work wise and for the camping…..but keep thinking I’m missing something…..grin  Never ending cycle.

National Park Updates

It has taken me a bit to get around to getting this edited and uploaded.

They are posted on our travel page : http://www.paulineantoinette.com/our-travels/ (the link is at the top of the page)

This gallery is from our little Olympus & my iphone :

http://paulineantoinette.com/PNH/travel/20100908_CraterLake/2010_Crater_Lake/index.html

CraterLake 20100908 024

This gallery is from our Nikon, there is over 200 pictures in this one. So you are forwarned.  =)

http://paulineantoinette.com/PNH/travel/2010_0907_Crater_Lake/2010_Crater_Lake_Nikon/index.html

2010 0906 Crater Lake 0001

2010 0906 Crater Lake 0213

2010 0906 Crater Lake 0192
We ended up going to Denver for some business.  TONS of work and a lot to cover.  We did take one day off and took a drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park with our friends Brett & Brook.  We totally lucked out and got a stunning fall day.

http://paulineantoinette.com/PNH/travel/2010_1001_Rcky_Mtn_NP/2010_Colorado/index.html

2010 1001 Rcky Mtn NP 0024

2010 1001 Rcky Mtn NP 0047

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I hope you enjoy.  =)