Day 67: Ashland, OR to Grants Pass, OR

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Ben

Yesterday, on Shabbos, I went for a walk and found an odd collection of buildings just down the road from where we were parked. Turns out it’s The Oregon Extension, a “semester in the woods” college program targeted primarily towards students at Christian colleges. Sounds like a great program.

Last night, after Shabbos, we drove to Ashland and stayed at the Albertsons in Ashland.

This morning, we headed north and stopped at a railroad park in Medford. It’s only open two Sundays a month, so we were very lucky to get there at just the right time. They had an extensive indoor HO gauge display:

The best part was the road barricades that came down automatically when the trains passed by:

Next we checked out the outdoor O gauge garden trains:

There was quite a bit of attention to detail, like this junk yard:

There was a separate display with Thomas-themed trains:

Bridges over the model river:

They had a Thomas ride-on train for the little kids:

For adults and older kids, there were a number of ride-on trains:

All aboard:

Through one of several tunnels:

They had a number of full size train cars on display as well:

They are in the process of restoring an old engine:

After leaving the train center, we headed north to Grants Pass, OR. We are staying at the Walmart here tonight.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 65: Lake Hosmer, OR to Pinehurst, OR

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Ben

I took one last photograph before we left Lava Lake:

We drove south towards Klamath Falls. On the way, we stopped at the Collier Logging Museum. It’s a free outdoor display of countless machines used in logging over the last 100 years:

They had a Fir tree’s cross section there with the rings labeled by significant events in history:

Our son kissed the bear goodbye and it was time to go!

We are dispersed camping about 30 miles east of Ashland in the imaginary town of Pinehurst, OR. We will be spending Shabbos here. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 64: Bend, OR to Lake Hosmer, OR

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Ben

We left the Walmart of Bend this morning and drove to Lake Hosmer, one of the many high altitude lakes at the base of the Cascade range near Bend: Mt. Bachelor, Broken Top, and South Sister. There was actually a bit of slush on the road as we crossed the summit near Mount Bachelor, which reinforced the notion that it’s time to head south.

I remember Lake Hosmer from my Hancock days. It’s a wonderfully asymmetric lake with shallow, winding passages. It’s quite shallow, and the water is very clear. Since it’s a fly fishing-only lake, there are quite a few fish to be seen in the crystal clear waters.

Here’s the view from the boat put-in area at Lake Hosmer. That’s Mount Bachelor in the background, its peak obscured by clouds:

I took my action camera along on the kayak trip, but the card got messed up (a technical term) when we got back, so we have mostly Tricia’s photos below:

Our son decided to paddle his way through the reeds, screaming all the way. So much for the solitude and quiet of kayaking:

At some point he realized that he had picked up a few spiders in the reeds, so he got out of his kayak and lay on top of it. Remarkably, he didn’t capsize:

After our amazing kayaking outing, we drove a couple miles to Lava Lake, where the fishing is supposed to be amazing, but we were unsuccessful. The alpine glow on South Sister (left) and Broken Top (right) made it worthwhile:

We spent the night at the closed campground at Lava Lake.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 63: More caving

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Ben

We awoke to a subtle reminder that it’s time to head South:

For breakfast, Trish cooked up the trout our son caught last week. It was delicious!

Here’s what our overnight location looked like after it warmed up a bit:

After a successful morning home school session, we headed out to look for Hidden Forest cave. It’s really two segments of a collapsed lava tube with a still-standing segment in the center.

Here’s the southern segment. It’s a 50 foot drop into the collapsed tube:

It really is a Hidden Forest:

Our son surveys the entrance to the cave portion:

Looking back:

When entering the cave, there was a 1’ x 2’ passage that led to the northern collapsed lava tube. Trish spots our son as the climbs up and out of the pit:

Looking back into the nothern section:

Next we explored Arnold Ice cave, which used to supply Bend with ice. A few years ago it rather suddenly ran dry, so we were able to get all the way to the end of the cave:

It was a steep climb out:

We’re staying at the Walmart of Bend again tonight.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 62: Lava cave exploration

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Ben

This morning we did laundry, dropped of some dry cleaning, and bought a replacement window knob and more Happy Bowl Liners for the RV. We then headed southeast a few miles out of Bend to explore some lava caves.

We decided to visit Boyd Cave today, which is 1880 feet in length. Here’s a diagram:

Here we go:

The ceiling came down pretty low in spots:

One chokepoint had the adults crawling forward using our elbows. High adventure!

A natural love seat:

At last, the exit was in sight:

The cave is really in the middle of nowhere:

After our spelunking adventure, we did a bit of school. Here I am explaining analog to digital converters to our son:

The kids created nameplates as part of their color theory work:

Tonight we’re dispersed camping in the Deschutes National Forest, really in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and I think that’s snow I hear falling on our roof.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Look Before You Live!

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Day 67: Ashland, OR to Grants Pass, OR

Day 65: Lake Hosmer, OR to Pinehurst, OR

Day 64: Bend, OR to Lake Hosmer, OR

Day 63: More caving

Day 62: Lava cave exploration