Cousins & Craters

We left Astoria on Saturday morning and drove the beautiful Hwy 30 east following the Columbia River to the Lewis & Clark bridge into Washington. Longview is named for Robert Long of Kansas City, Mo.  We have visited many times the Summer Home of the Long's in Lees Summit. Long made his money in the Washington Lumber business, and lived in Missouri.
We had passed over this bridge before never realizing that Tom’s cousin Bob’s middle son, John, and his family lived in Longview. Boy! did we hear from John after he read our photo emails that we had been so near but had not stopped. This time we would not miss the chance to renew family ties with John, his wife, Nancy, and the kids, Joseph and Olivia. Oldest son Jonathan was working this weekend and we look forward to our next visit to add Jonathan’s picture to the family. We drove to the top of the hill and parked in front of John’s house.
We had an incredible weekend of eating, talking, talking, eating and did I mention eating. Although John's profession is in the medical field, he is an anesthesiologist, when partnered with Nancy in their brand new kitchen we think he missed his calling as a chef.
Nancy can chop, season, grill, mix fresh food that rivals the most expensive restaurants we had eaten in. Their house sits on the highest hill in Longview with a 180 degree view of the Columbia.  John and Nancy insisted on fixing dinner when we arrived. Starting with fresh watermelon juice, marinated shrimp, chicken & steak bar-b-qued, fresh corn, grilled giant onions, asparagus, homemade tortilla, and Nancy’s rice and beans (fabulous).     
Just when we did not think we could eat one more thing, Nancy breaks out the lime popsicles, a jigger of tequila, and sea salt – instant Margaritas!  What an evening; we retired to our RV in front of the house for a good nights’ sleep.
The next morning it was breakfast with the Westerfield’s, chorizo, eggs, home made guacamole, salsa, tortillas and lots more visiting. We were joined by John & Nancy’s friends returning Olivia from her sleepover and we went out to the patio to  relax and enjoy the view. As we were getting ready to go up to Castle Rock to visit Mt Saint Helens John was fixing fresh halibut tacos with halibut caught and delivered by a friend earlier in the day. A weekend with family we haven’t seen in a very long time just doesn’t get any better than that! Thanks John & Nancy, Joe & Olivia, too.

Thirty years ago May 18th Mt Saint Helens blew her top off. The devastation is still seen all around the 70 mile radius of the mountain. We visited on the 17th to avoid the crowds and also because the weather report predicted rain and cloud cover. We found a brand new RV park north of Castle Rock and parked near the main line of the railroad. We slept so soundly we never even heard the trains go by all night long.   
We had a great drive up the mountain to the Johnston Ridge Observatory and Visitor Center opposite the side of the mountain where the blast occurred. 

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When we got to the top the view of Mt. Saint Helen’s missing top was again a moving sight. 57 people lost their lives when this happened. It could have been so much worse had it not been a Sunday when the loggers were not working the mountain. People had been evacuated for over a month and the first convoy of residents were taken back to their homes to remove valuables on May 17th. The plan was to bring them back in on the 18th, but the eruption occurred suddenly at 8:32 a.m. before their trip back up the mountain. The stories of rescues, lost lives, and restoring the mountain was movingly told at the information centers we visited yesterday and today.

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On the way down from the top of the mountain we found 5 caches. The last cache was at the Washington State MSH Center. We met a very nice ranger who would not give us a hint where the cache was, but he said he would look for us today to see if we found it. We did find it and had to give him the details. He said his parents live in Orangevale, CA, and had just retired so we had to give him a short course of geocaching.  We left in the rain, drove to Tacoma to the very beautiful Tacoma Elks where we are parked for $15 a night. We checked out Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives website and found Southern Kitchen, a local restaurant featured on Guy Fieri’s TV show.  Boy was it good. Baked chicken, cornbread dressing, collard greens, red beans and corn was what Tom chose. I had catfish fillet, mac and cheese, corn, and the most delicious sweet potatoes. This was preceded by a cornbread pancake with butter and honey. We washed it down with sweet tea. Whew!!!!! It is a wonder I have enough energy to stay awake long enough to do this blog.
Tomorrow we plan on seeing my cousin, Rob, and his wife Gwen who live on Whidbey Island. Rob is the Seafood Manager for Payless Food Store on the island and he is planning a seafood dinner. The question is… can we cache enough to work off the fabulous dinner? Stay tuned.
On the Road Again, Caching Places That We’ve Never Been…  Thanks for joining us.

Caching and sight seeing

Thursday we cached around the Astoria and Fort Stevens area. We were not real successful, only 3 caches all day. Tom kept reminding me we were not going to make our goal of 43 if we did not do a better job. Our excuse was we did not have our DeLorme PN-40 working. I had contacted DeLorme to help me out, but they did not get back to me until too late to cache with it. So we were using Tom's Garmin, my Palm Pre on the internet and the TomTom. NOT an easy way to get all the information needed to get the caches. Our first cache of the day was only about a mile from our campground at Fort Stevens State Park. This was a Memorial commemorating the one and only shell to to hit on the US mainland since the War of 1812. The cache was called June 21, 1942, which is the day the shell was fired from a Japanese Submarine and hit about 3 miles from Fort Stevens. The guns at Fort Stevens were ordered NOT to fire back, but the mines along the Columbia were increased.

The next cache was placed in a local cemetery. Unfortunately it was a puzzle cache and I did not notice this minor detail so we did not find it. We did see many interesting Civil War grave markers. Who would have thought there would be Civil War veterans buried in Oregon. They fought in the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. We then saw the cutest family of Canadian geese, dad, mom, and 4 babies. They were learning to swim, splashing, diving, just having fun.

We then tried to get a cache that was deep in the woods. It was described as having to go over and under brush. The first part of the trail was not too bad, but when we were just 90 feet from the cache there was a large, diameter 4', downed tree across the way into the very heavy brush. We decided that my knee would not make it and Tom would probably bleed to death scrambling over that tree since he was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt that day. We were also attacked by mosquitoes as large as B-52 bombers. Fortunately, we had sprayed with repellent earlier. We were successful with 2 other caches. The ranger told us of the hurricane winds in 2007 that blew down so many trees.

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After such a very busy day we decided to reward ourselves to a special dinner. We drove into Astoria for a delicious fish dinner with a view of the spectacular Astoria bridge to Washington.

Friday morning we were surprised by an early phone call from our dear friends, Dennis & Jill Curtin. They are traveling on the east coast so our 7:30 was their 10:30. We were so happy they are enjoying the RV lifestyle. We decided that we could not waste this beautiful sunny day in Oregon. We understand this does not happen very often.We drove to the beach to see the wreck of the Peter Iredale. About 30 years ago we visited this wreck on a camping trip with the kids. what is left of it, was in the sand. The tide was so low we could have walked a half a mile out to the water. There was also a huge amount of driftwood that had washed up on the beach.

We have been to Fort Stevens and Astoria several times, but have never driven out on the Jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River. It is just about a 3 mile drive with no traffic other than a few bicycles. When we got to the furthest point on the Jetty we found the huge parking lot was completely empty except for one other car and ours.

We walked out to the wilkdlife blind and spotted what remained of a long trestle and discovered the bay was named Trestle Bay. We later learned this was a railroad line that was used to transport the mines from the Fort to the mouth of the Columbia.

We drove to the part of Jetty which is the furthest point north west in Oregon. What a beautiful day to see this part of the country. These are a few pictures. I don't think we will see sunshine like this for a long time.

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To make this perfect day, the first 72 degree day this year, sunshine,  & clear skies, even better, we found a cool cache.  The hint was “what is a clay pipe doing up here?”.

We got our Fort Clatsop fix. We just love everything about the Corp of Discovery’s Adventure. We have been to Harper’s Ferry where Lewis bought guns, Cahokia where they bought supplies before leaving, Camp Dubois where they left the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi and St Charles where they started their trip. We love the museum under the Arch in St. Louis. Standing where this amazing unequaled exploration happened always inspires us.

It was getting late in the day so we did the drive through tour of Fort Stevens. Normally this would take 2 hours walking. We did it in 25 minutes stopping to read the information on the tour guide. Then it was home, Skyping Julie’s 19th casino birthday party and a home made spaghetti dinner complete with salad and garlic bread. Like sunshine in Oregon this does not happen very often.

On the Road Again, Caching Places That We’ve Never Been…  Thanks for joining us.

Exploring The Gorge

On Sunday after the Mother's Day Brunch we went back to Troutdale and planned a drive east on Old Hwy 30, a winding road with beautiful vistas of the Columbia River, waterfalls, and interesting edifices.  We scouted out several places that we wanted to try for dinner on our way to Vista House at Crown Point State Scenic Viewpoint.

What a view, both inside as well as outside.


 We then drove down to Multnomah Falls and along the Historic Columbia River Hwy.  We spent more than 2 hours stopping at the many of the falls, taking lots of pictures before heading back on I-84. We made the trip back to Troutdale in only 25 minutes.


We had spotted Tad's Chicken and Dumplin's on our way up Old Hwy 30, but it was packed. Probably a Mother's Day tradition in Oregon.

We drove a little further to Tippy Canoe Bar & Grill. We had a delicious dinner with a great view. We had a great Mother's Day. 

Monday we got up late after such a busy Mother's day.  We ate a very late breakfast at Shari's then  drove to the Post Office to mail a letter to SpecialQuest; remember I work for diesel. We then decided it was time to do some caching. It had been a long time since we had followed our GPS'r to GZ (that's Ground Zero in caching terms).  We located a cache in a cute park in downtown Troutdale. There were a couple of real nice sculptures in the park and a historical marker telling the story of how Troutdale was founded. This is why we love this hobby; we  find so many interesting places while traveling in towns we have never seen before.  We went back to the RV to work on the Golden Spike newsletter.  We finished the day at the a local Chinese restaurant.

Tuesday we decided to go back to McMinamin's for lunch. I had been thinking about that vanilla milkshake since Saturday. I have to say it was worth it. We went to the Co-op ATM in Fairview. and noticed a Target right around the corner.  It had been a long time since we had gone shopping too. We needed milk and creamer.  After spending over an hour and over $70, we checked the GPS for nearby caches and saw there was one only 500 feet away.  You can't turn your back on a cache just 500 feet away!  It was near a cute little city park that had sculptures of animals carved into the trees.  We walked about a quarter of a mile along a path in a wetlands  area.  We found the cache easily and while walking back I looked at the GPS and found ANOTHER cache about 300 feet away. You can't turn your back on a cache just 300 feet away! So off we went down another trail that led towards the back of an elementary school, and off the trail through the wetlands to the GZ.  We looked and looked and spotted the cache. I don't want to give the cache away so I won't mention the name of the cache. It was 20 feet in the air suspended by a fishing line through an eye-screw. The line went tree to tree then down another tree about 60 feet away. Tom lowered the line, I grabbed the cache, signed it, and Tom pulled it back in place. We have heard from the cacher that placed it and he has suggested some others in Astoria. We love this hobby!  We then went back to put the finishing touches on the newsletter. We printed the snail-mail copies and emailed all the rest.
Today I drove back to the Post Office and mailed the newsletters. We packed up and drove to Astoria. We only took one wrong turn, actually a missed turn, which was my fault, but Tom negotiated the tight neighborhood streets like a pro and was a good sport and didn't get too upset at me. Whew!
Tomorrow - we cache!
Blessings to everyone, especially our friends, the McFalls, who just suddenly and expectantly lost their son. Please join us in praying for them in this impossibly difficult time.

On the road to Oregon

 We are starting our next trip with Mom to celebrate Patrick MacIntire's retirement party at the Edgefield McMinimins just outside of Portland Oregon. 

We left Fresno and our beautiful neighbor's house across the street (that is our daughter, Jennifer, and family's house). We love having them so close across the street, especially since they watch the house, pick up the mail, AND watch our 'puppies'. The 'puppies', otherwise known as the crazed Dalmatians, play with Sampson, the enormous Great Dane, rescued by Jennifer from the Central California SPCA.

Our first stop was at the Redding Moose. We were visiting my cousin  Sharon and husband, Gary.  We were so surprised by Gary's offer to cook dinner. Shrimp appetizers, Bar-B-Que steak and chicken, baked potatoes, salad, and a delicious desert. We talked and talked until after 11p.m. It is so nice to see family that we haven't seen for several years and catch up on all the family news.

We had minimal hookups at the Moose Lodge. Tom just had to get this picture of the water hook-up.  Needless to say we did not take on any water in Redding.

We then drove to Canyonville and stayed at the lovely Seven Feathers RV Resort.  What a difference. We told mom she has seen the opposite ends of the RV accommodations. We took the shuttle to the casino for dinner and a $5 complimentary card for the slots. We used their $5 on the penny machines, played for about an hour and walked away with $15 between the 3 of us. Now that's a lot of free fun. 

We arrived at the Sandy River RV Resort in Troutdale just east of Portland by early Friday afternoon. Then we drove downtown Portland for a yummy Italian dinner with my sister, Janet, her husband, Patrick, my 3 nieces, Natalie, Jocelyn, & Paige, nephew, Ryan, and spouses & partners.

The next day, Saturday, was Patrick's Retirement party. There were lots of friends, family, food, and tears and laughter during the toasting. Patrick took it quite well and rebutted the jabs and thanked all for coming from as far away as Wisconsin, southern California and parts in-between.

We later had dinner in the patio next to the pump house. McMinamins is the old Poor Farm that has been restored to an amazing eclectic retreat. The grounds are spectacular. They make their own wine, beer, and ice cream. I can vouch for the ice cream... as good as Blue Bell!

The next morning, Mothers Day, was brunch at the Black Rabbit restaurant, more laughing, crying and talking and then it was time to say goodbye to everyone. But not before we gathered for a final picture.

Tom  & I went back to our RV and planned a drive up the Columbia Gorge.  More of that trip tomorrow.