Epic West Coast Trip- Part 3

Days 10-13

On the way from Reedsport to Patrick's Point, we were told we simply HAD to visit the West Coast Game Park Safari in Bandon, OR. We were a little hesitant because the prices were pretty steep. But, we had enough people tell us that we bit the bullet and paid the price of admission. You all KNOW I'm a total cheapskate. But, this was some of the best money we've ever spent. We had an absolute ball, and LOVED being able to actually touch and interact with the animals.  Ever held a bear before? We can all say that we have, and we didn't even get attacked by an angry mother.

 We stayed at Patrick's Point State Park, CA.  Getting from Reedsport to Patrick's Point was a bit of an adventure though.  First, the road between the two is very narrow and winding, with lots of elevation change. If we hadn't been towing, it wouldn't have been too big of a deal, but it was a little harrowing.

We finally made it out of that, and into California. It had started raining, which slowed us down. Then, suddenly, the road felt very, very rough, even though it looked smooth. A car passing us pointed at the trailer, so we pulled over and discovered we'd had a trailer tire blown completely out.

We had lost the jack closest to the ruined tire at the last camping spot. Well, it was still there, but not functional. So, we got the car jack, and learned that it was essentially useless. About the time we realized that, a wonderful California Highway Patrolman pulled up. He let us borrow his jack, and we had the tire changed in just a few minutes.   We stopped in the nearest town (which was about a half hour away) and replaced our spare, just in case. We knew we had a lot more driving still to come on the trip.

We finally arrived at Patrick's Point and were very impressed with the spot.

 We found the banana slugs to be endlessly entertaining and interesting.

Epic West Coast Trip- Part 2

Day 6- We were off to Olympic National Park.  Wow. What an amazing place.  We saw Ruby Beach, and drove around the park, seeing the Hoh Rain Forest.  This was a very rainy day, but we had pretty good rain gear so it wasn't a big deal.

Ruby Beach

banana slug

The younger two were able to get their Junior Ranger badge at this park, which made the third badge earned on this trip.  

Kalaloch Campground is in a pretty remote area. After motoring around the park, we felt like we needed to gas up before continuing on the next day. The closest town was Forks, WA. If you are a Twilight fan, you know that the book is set in Forks. The movies were filmed elsewhere, which is why it's baffling to me that Forks is a Twilight fan destination.  J is oblivious to this sort of thing, so when we arrived in town, he was really confused as to why the tour bus ahead of us had those pictures on it. 

Day 7: we spent a little more time on the beach at camp, and then drove off, ending our time in OR. We were planning to spend the night at J's friend's house, who lives a little way outside of Portland, OR. Lisa was a friend dating back to high school. I'd met Lisa and her husband at their 20 year reunion, and thought she was one of the funnest people I knew, so I was excited to see her again. We had a late night playing games and visiting while the kids watched a movie in her theater room.

Day 8: We had reservations to spend the night in South Beach State Park in Newport, OR. On our way there, we stopped at the Tillamook Factory. They have a FREE self guided tour, which we went on. Then we bought ice cream cones and squeaky cheese. They acted like the squeaky cheese was a rare big deal.  I guess TILLAMOOK brand is, and can only be bought at the factory. However, squeaky cheese is found all over back home, so while I was happy to get it, it wasn't a once in a lifetime thing for us.

South Beach state park was a very busy place. They had showers, a playground, and was fairly close to the beach. It was also quite crowded, which is not my favorite way to camp. The camp spots were really large though, which was impressive for such a big park.  

That evening, we went to the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, and saw some tidepools. We were also able to see some whalespouts. We thought seeing whales would be really amazing, but it turns out to be pretty underwhelming when they're so far out.

We also saw our first seals, which was pretty neat.

That night we went to a chinese restaurant in town. We ordered a seafood platter and everyone (but me) was wowed by the fresh fish, crab, and clams. Z had fun playing with the empty clam shells.

Day 9: We arrived in Reedsport, OR. We had lunch with a mutual friend of ours, Sean. J was on Pride with him in high school, and I went to college with he and his wife.  Sean is now in a band in town, and we heard them perform.  After that, we visited Umpqua Lighthouse, and then camped at Umpqua State Park. After Sean and Rayna finished up, they came to our camp to sit around the fire and visit.

continued...

Our Epic West Coast Trip- Part 1

Around December, we discussed summer vacation with the kids. We gave them the option of going to Disneyland or touring the west coast. They voted for going on a Caribbean cruise. Since that wasn't on the table, they opted for the west coast. I was a little surprised that they chose that over Disneyland, but I was pleased.  We drug along our 2006 Keystone Outback 26RS travel trailer. Initially, we were going to pull it with our diesel truck, which is our usual vehicle of choice for camping trips. It can easily pull the trailer. However, while a big cab, it is very tight for a family of six. We knew that we would be driving around 3600 miles total, and that's a long time for four children to be in such close quarters.  We also own a 2008 Ford Expedition EL. It's rated to tow our trailer, and would be a lot more comfortable for the occupants. We were concerned about wear and tear on the vehicle, as well as reduced fuel economy, but ultimately decided that a homicide free vacation was the best option. We ended up making most of our camping reservations and stop over plans in January, so everything was reserved and set up months before we set out.

Day 1: We started fairly early in the day and headed north.  We stopped in Boise for lunch. We were invited to a close friend's mom's house. Kristen had been one of my very closest friends in junior high and high school, and I adored her mother. Her mother had since relocated to Boise, and she was happy to host us for lunch. We eventually got back on the road, and ended up in Yakima, WA at bedtime. We stayed at another close friend's house, Amy. Amy has kids similar ages to mine, but our 8 year old girls get along like a house on fire. The had a wonderful time together. Z got along really well with her youngest, even though there was a couple years' age difference. When we left the next afternoon, there was much tears from the children.






Day 2: We had a late lunch with Amy's family, and then took off westward. We had reservations to stay at the Silver Springs Campground, which is fairly close to Mount Rainier National Park. We didn't like the spot we reserved, but the park was very quiet, so the hosts let us move. The campground was very quiet and beautiful, and we were amazed by the green (this became a common theme).

Day 3: We visited Rainier National Park. Our younger two earned their junior ranger badges, and we did a short hike. We were amazed by how much snow was still up there, even though it was June.  That evening, we parked our trailer in front of our friends' house, the Miller family. They have three kids. Their oldest is M's age, and their youngest is between S & Z's age. We had dinner with the family, and it was wonderful to catch up with them again. They moved to Redmond a couple years ago.  Our kids really got along, and M really connected well with their daughter- they've been texting pretty constantly ever since.

Day 4: We spent the day in Seattle. Their daughter, L, was the only child who was out of school already, and our friends had to work, so we took her along as our tour guide. We spent most the day at Pike's Place. What an amazing spot for people watching! I think I was most impressed by the gorgeous fresh flowers that you could buy incredibly inexpensively. Each of the bouquets in this picture were $5. The one in back went to the Millers, the bottom left went to my friend Katherine, and the bottom right was mine.  We ate mac and cheese from Beechers, and had giant cookies. The mac and cheese was really quite good. We were underwhelmed by the cookies, even though they're famous for being good. I can't remember the name of the company, so I guess it's all for the best.  On the way back to Redmond, we visited the Lego store, which the younger three were pretty impressed by. After M & L  and S, Z & F had a sad goodbye, we were off to visit my friend Katherine in Lake Stevens, WA, another good friend from high school and college.

We had a lovely relaxing dinner with her, and then went for a walk. A neighbor of hers had made a beautiful flower garden inspired by the game Candyland.

Katherine's fiance' owns a plane, and we were able to let the kids try sitting in the plane, which was a great experience for them.










Day 5: Unfortunately, Katherine has a real job, and had to leave very early in the morning. So, we packed up early and headed off to our next destination. The next place on the docket was Kalaloch Campground.  At long last, we saw the coast! This campground was pretty amazing because it was right on the coast. We had to hike down a bit of a cliff, but then we were right on the ocean. The beach was beautiful, and the kids loved walking along the beach, looking for critters and playing.

Up to this point, we'd more or less had perfect weather.  We were getting the point that we were teasing our Washington friends that they were making up all of the rainy weather as an untrue rumor to keep the tourists away.







To be continued....

Mrs R goes to Washington, or something like that

A few months ago, some stakes appeared in our yard that were an ominous sign, especially for my pine trees.  After calling the city, my fears were confirmed: the stakes represented where near curb and gutter would be put in, including a new sidewalk and parking strip.  I know this sounds like a positive thing, and ordinarily, it would be.  But, I had a beef with the placement.  For a street the size of mine, I'm supposed to have 35' between my house and the sidewalk. I would have 25 feet. Which sounds decent sized, but really, it would take out a good chunk of my front yard and driveway. On the plus side, the have to move the power pole, and the public works guys are working with me to make the power company move the pole so it's not in the middle of my driveway.  The other sad thing is that my two enormous pine trees would be cut down.  It all seemed fairly needless, since across the street is just an empty field.

It could be worse though; my neighbor on the corner will be less than 9 feet from the sidewalk. She is renting and can move when her lease is up.

I decided to address city council with my concerns, and I brought a few neighbors along. I woke up yesterday morning, knowing I was on the agenda, and felt really depressed and hopeless about the whole thing.

My neighbors all spoke to the council, as well as I did, bringing up really great points. The city council seemed genuinely appalled at how close our houses would be to the road, and the safety impact.  However, they also saw my hopeless side- we are growing, and as much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, my road is a collector road and needs to accommodate the growth. They acknowledged that the situation was lose-lose, and the only way to truly fix it was to go back in time and build the houses further back. If they were to go west, the cost was pretty prohibitive. That sucks, and I can understand why that's not a viable alternative.

Feeling like my concerns were legitimate made me feel a lot better, even if I wasn't terribly happy with the compromise. And honestly, if I were an objective party, I probably would've come up with the exact same compromise.  We will not have a parking strip, just sidewalk, curb and gutter. It makes the yard at least that much bigger, which will help.  They will also paint lines in the road, which will give a 9' parking lane on either side, which will hopefully slow traffic down a little.

My friend who was at the meeting now thinks I should run for city council- there's two seats opening up.

If you can't say something nice...

I know that I have been very bad about updating this blog. It's a couple different reasons. First, I've been very busy with life, the kids, my mini "farm", work, girl scouts, boy scouts, girl scout cookies, etc etc. So, there's plenty of fodder to write about. The things weighing most heavily on my mind are things that I have difficulty talking about on a public forum, like this. I try to be sensitive, just in case the subject of a blog post is reading. But, I'm not the NICEST person I know, so I end up opting to not say anything at all. I'll try to sum up the past month.

M turned 13 on 2/28. He got a bunch of camping gear, since his troop goes camping every month. He held his birthday party a couple weeks late, and they played video games and had a lot of fun. Michael also took 3rd place with his science fair project, which was pretty neat.

S finished up her girl scout cookie sales. She only sold 500 boxes this year, which is down 100 from last year, but considering how cold it was and sick I was, that's pretty great. Even though our troop had less girls selling this year, our overall numbers were up, which was great.

Both K&M were on the National Academic League at their school. It was introduced to their school back in 1995. This year, they were the undefeated district champions, which was a first for the school, so it was very exciting. They went to Nationals. They won their first game against AZ, but lost their second game to Baltimore. It all took place via video conferencing. I felt like their loss to Baltimore wasn't exactly fair, but what do you do?

K was just named student of the month from the music department, and we're going to a special breakfast to honor her next week.

Z's birthday is tomorrow, and he is so excited he can hardly see straight. He is still big-time into legos and playing on the Wii.

J has taken up a very rigorous bicycle training program- he plans to ride a century (100 mile) bike ride the first weekend of May. I'm being slightly more sensible and only riding 50. However, I haven't been training like he has, so I'm getting a bit concerned.

I joined a new gym where they teach pole dancing, aerial silks, aerial hammock and other unique fitness. I think aerial hammock would be my favorite, but the class times are really inconvenient, so I've only been to one of those. I've been to several silks and pole classes, and have had a lot of fun.

Our neighbor and her cow tenant had a big falling out. He got all of his cows off the property a couple days ago. I was informed that once that happened, she did not want to share pasture anymore. (Ever since she's had animals, I've let her graze them on my back pasture, since I wasn't actively using it. But, she wants some separation now, so I'm respecting her wishes.) All of the cows back there did some damage to the fenceline, so last night, we had our other cow owners come over and help us repair it. So, we just have our two little cows on our property. It's a lot quieter now. Hopefully it'll stay that way. We have no gate, so if they do happen to escape, getting them back in the field will be a bit of a trick. The fence seems very sturdy though, so I think it'll be ok.

Our city wants to improve the road in front of our house. Unfortunately, I hate their plans and feel like it endangers our house and family. It also takes away our two huge pine trees and a good chunk of the front yard. Setback from our house to the sidewalk is supposed to be 35' by code. If their plan goes through, our setback will only be 25', so I am feeling very apprehensive. It could be worse though- my neighbor on the corner will have less than 9 feet from their building to the sidewalk. That's not even enough to park a car! I'm on the agenda for the next city council meeting. I am hoping I can get them to alter their plans so it's safer for us residents.

Our good friend and neighbor two doors down, Margaret, died of cancer a couple weeks ago. She'd fought off breast cancer a couple years ago, and people thought she was doing ok. But, on March 7, they discovered cancer in her femur and her spine. Her doctors gave her anywhere between 6 weeks to 2 years. She only lasted about two weeks. I think that once she realized it was terminal, she was done. S has really had a tough time coping with her death.

Summer Plans

Last year (and the year before), for our wedding anniversary, we took a trip to Zion National Park.  We had a wonderful time.

This year, we've decided that we're going to hike up to King's Peak, which is the highest peak in Utah. It measures in at 13,528 feet (4,123 m) above sea level. We plan to go with some other friends, most of whom are experienced backpackers. Both of us have done backpacking trips in the past, but not since we were married. The trip will be a leisurely one, taking place over 3 days and going around 29 miles total.

I can't believe how much things have changed in the past 18 years. The last backpacking trip I went on, I borrowed a pack from a friend who was about 5'10. He probably had a size medium pack. I learned recently that I'm a size XS in backpacks (woohoo!). I'm sure that's why you could see the outline of my hip and shoulder straps in bruising after that last trip. Everything is so small and lightweight.

J is like a little kid waiting for Christmas with this trip. He's purchased both of our backpacks, really nice sleeping bags for both of us, a camp stove, a water filtration system, tent, and groundcloth.

Today, I get a text from J.  It read, "Don't set up the tent without me". 


Ummm, ok?  We have a foot of snow on the ground, and I'm crazy busy. He really thinks I want to set up the tent the moment it arrived? The tent arrived via UPS around 3:15.  I have to admit that a devil perched on my shoulder, and if I hadn't been so incredibly pressed for time, I would've set up the tent in the driveway (the only clear spot in the yard) just to tease him.

This is what our couch looks like:




In case you're wondering, our packs weigh in at 10 and 20 lbs. They don't have our clothing, food, water or cosmetics.





Just a few minutes ago, J called me to come down to the basement and see something. This is what I saw.



Now from the sound of all this, I'm betting you're thinking that we're leaving on the trip this weekend, which would be insane, considering there's hundreds of inches of snow up there right now. Does it make it seem any less insane when I say the trip is planned for August?


I haven't seen him this excited about anything in a very, very long time. It's really cute.

Bloat in a pregnant cow

So today, I was relaxing at home when I got a knock on the door about 2:15pm.  A guy was standing there and told me that one of my cows was hung up on the fence, and he was worried it was hanging itself, and in really bad shape. Uh oh. He lives in the property behind mine and actually hopped in his car to come knock on my door because he thought it would be quicker.  I thanked the guy for telling me, pulled on my boots and ran back there.

As I went, I called KC, telling him what had been reported. If I could free it myself I would, but odds are I'd need him to come over. I would call him right back.

When I got back there, I could immediately see that it was not hanging itself on fencing. It was a cow (as in, female cow), and she looked like she'd had the bloating that had killed a steer a couple months ago. She was laying on her side, moaning. From the look of the feces around her, I bet she'd been that way several hours. KC had mentioned in conversation that most of his adult cows were pregnant, so I figured this one was pregnant too. So, it either had bloat, or it had some pregnancy related complication.  KC had better get over here.  I was quite proud of myself that 1- I recognized it was a cow (as opposed to steer) and 2- that it probably had bloat. My knowledge of cows was increasing!

As usual, he was here within 5 minutes, and he agreed that it was bloat. Because she was in fact pregnant, he was afraid to cut into her upper abdomen (kind of by the spine) to relieve the bloat as he normally would. He called the vet. His favorite vet was unavailable, so the back up vet promised to come right over, but their office was about 20 minutes away.  Several times he actually picked up the knife. The cow was obviously suffering, and he felt like he could relieve her pain quickly, but was afraid of complicating things.  Usually the vet will stick a tube down their throat and get the gas out that way, which is obviously the more hygienic way to do things. We tried to move her legs and massage her belly, hoping to get her to burp or fart. She did burp a few times, but her stomach was getting bigger, and it felt like a drum to the touch.

While we waited for the vet, he flipped the cow over a few times with my help. Flipped a very bloated, pregnant, 1200 lb animal is not easy. Not very clean either- she was in a pool of feces. So gross!

Vet finally got there about 3:20 or so, and with one look, she felt like cutting into the cow was the best route because of the emergent nature of the situation. The cow's breathing was getting more labored, and she seemed really in distress. So, she shaved a section of the cow, towards the top near the spine, about the midpoint of the left flank. She then sterilized the area as best she could, and then did what I guess is called an emergency rumenotomy. She then put a valve sort of thing on it. It looked an awful lot like a giant red corkscrew. She even screwed it in. As soon as it was screwed in, a sound like air escaping a tire sounded.  We could actually watch her belly go down. She still seemed a bit swollen, but a lot better.

The vet then gave her some antibiotics, and then a shot of something else that I guess gives them energy and makes them feel better.  The vet expected the cow to jump right up, but she didn't. She continued to lay on her side and moan. She wished us the best of luck and then left.  Honestly, I expected her to stick around until the cow was standing up again, but this was the first time I've ever actually seen a vet around a large animal, so what did I know? KC later confirmed he would've liked that better too.

After an hour of turning her occasionally, massaging her belly, and generally harassing her, trying to get her to stand up, or at least lay on her stomach instead of her side, we FINALLY got her standing. Her front legs were very very wobbly, but she was up!!

She only stayed up about 2 minutes and then laid back down, but at least she was laying in proper, healthy cow position. She was breathing much better, much more quietly. She also looked very angry and irritated. I'd been petting her and comforting her the whole time, and she seemed to like it. But now she really didn't want us touching her.

Finally, about 5:15 or so, two of KC's friends showed, really cowboys who definitely knew their way around cows. So, I left the cow and KC in their capable hands and went inside to shower because OH MY GOSH I stunk!!!!

She is 7 or so months along, and the vet did check on the baby while she was there. Baby was doing well, amazingly enough. I told KC that I'd love to watch her calve when the time came.