Klamath Falls: Change is Coming

New Information:  Just received an email from George saying that he could find no way to comment.  I discovered that if I am looking at the blog from the main website, I cannot see the comments, however if I click on the individual header for the current post, I can see comments and can make a comment.  Folks must have discovered this somehow, since there are many comments, but if you are having trouble and want to comment, give this a try.  I have no clue why it works this way, but it must have something to do with my template and I hesitate to mess with the template!

Current Location: Old Fort Road Apartment Klamath Falls.  Raining lightly and 55 degrees F.

Klamath Falls has a reputation among many people in the state of Oregon.  Especially those on the West Side.  The town has close to 50,000 people if you include the “suburbs”, an area intertwined with the city limits that should actually be considered part of the city.  The official population is just over 20K.  Most people only see Klamath Falls as they pass through traveling north or south on Highway 97, assuming there is nothing here worth exploring.

Other folks know that Klamath Falls is the gateway to Crater Lake National Park, but that doesn’t really say much for the town itself. The best word to describe the prejudice against our town is one I have used myself.  “Klamtucky”.

Most of my blog stories revolve around the outdoors, camping, hiking, kayaking, sharing the beauty of the Klamath Basin.  I thought that it would be fun to shift a bit and share my town, to honor the change that I feel coming in our sweet and precious city.  Klamath Falls is shifting.

I have an interesting relationship with Klamath Falls.  I came here for a job promotion in 2002, having only experienced the town as a blip on the map as I traveled from Northern Idaho to California.  I fell in love almost immediately with the landscape, the open roads unmarred by traffic, the volcanic mountains surrounding me, the great fir forests on the edge of juniper deserts fragrant with sage.  My job here was to complete the soil survey for the area and I got to see it in a way that folks living in town don’t always experience. 

Klamath Falls has not been a progressive place.  We do not have a single seafood restaurant, although as I was walking the downtown streets this morning I did see a Mexican and Seafood place.  Guess we will have to try it!

For all our beautiful architecture, there are a few eyesores like this around. 

Klamath Falls is NOT Bend. My daughter and I have railed at the backward politics, the lack of progressive thinking and the extremely conservative bent of the area.  I was a hard core liberal when I moved here, but learned to really appreciate the local farmers and ranchers and to understand why they felt as they did about how things should be managed here.  So although I am still a liberal, I do have a better understanding and acceptance of more conservative ways of thinking.

My daughter, on the other hand, moved here from the progressive west side.  She went to work for the local country radio station, and later for a well established jewelry store that served many of those wealthy ranchers.  She was inundated constantly with, sad to say, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic commentary from her customers and others in her up close circle.  It didn’t endear her to Klamath Falls.  She didn’t have the opportunity like I did to work in the beautiful and wild parts of the county.  I am retired, I can pick and choose the people I care to interact with.  She didn’t have that option.  It colored her view of the city.

A couple of years ago our commissioners voted out a winery and tasting room, saying it would bring in the “wrong element”.  They refused to advertise to “burners” because they didn’t want “hippies” showing up.  We are on the major route to the Nevada event.  But things are shifting.  I would imagine that the winery and tasting room proposed right here on Old Fort Road might someday become a reality.

Some of the local politicians are moving toward a strong and more progressive view of what we need to be the new “Bend”, a view toward drawing to Klamath Falls the money and tourism that she deserves.

In the last few weeks, with our days living near town at the apartment, Mo and I have had the chance to participate in some great stuff.  We are seeing a different kind of person come to town, some of those with money to spend.  Klamath Falls is waking up in a good way.

Two weeks ago we attended the Klamath Kruise, a tradition that has been going on for several years, but somehow it felt different.  There were a LOT of people here on the streets enjoying the parade of old cars, and like us, reminiscing about wonderful old cars we once loved. As I walked the streets enjoying the car parade, I noticed new murals in town that I hadn’t seen before, wonderful murals showing of some of the history of the area.

After the show, Mo and I went to the Klamath Basin Brewery, where we had magnificent onion rings and one of the best crafted beers I have tasted lately. We listened to a delightful band playing some really good blues as we watched the last of the old cars turning the nearby corner toward downtown.

On the same weekend, at the same time sadly, was the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, another event that draws people to town.  Mo and I attended last year, but decided we couldn’t do everything, so the sculpture race took a back seat.  Nice to have options, though.

Last weekend I was delighted to be living close to town where I could drop in on the local farmer’s market.  I hadn’t been to this particular market for a few years, mostly because it would require a 45 minute trip to town when we lived in Rocky Point and was just too much trouble.  The difference in the offerings was amazing.  There were several great organic farms offering wonderful produce, including ripe heirloom tomatoes from geothermally heated greenhouses.  There was range fed meat, fresh eggs, and local honey.  A musician serenaded the shoppers and dogs on leashes had fun meeting their friends.  It felt wonderful. 

As I drove to the market, I encountered dozens of folks on tandem bicycles.  The promoters of our town had managed to corral the Tandem Bike Rally, and there were more than 600 participants enjoying the streets of the city, spending money in the hotels and buying stuff. 

Speaking of the city, downtown Klamath Falls has some fabulous architecture, with buildings dating to the 20’s.  The Oregon Bank building downtown boasts an historic elevator that is operated by a real person.  There are beautiful streetside trees, colorful flower baskets, and nice flags with local artwork.  I love walking around downtown in the summer.  The downtown shops are evolving.  While there are not a lot of them, there is enough to be entertaining, to do a little shopping, albeit not the kind of high end shopping that is available in Ashland or Bend, or other historic towns in Oregon that people visit.

I enjoyed walking around today before the traffic started up, waiting until the 9AM bell for the Farmer’s Market.  It gave me a chance to enjoy my town in a way I haven’t done recently.

One of our old buildings downtown has been replaced by a community square, Sugarman’s Corner, a lovely place for afternoon music, and picnics.

Not far south of Klamath Falls, near Tulelake, is the site of one of the large concentration camps for Japanese people during WW2.  They call them internment facilities, but that is the nice way of putting it.  Every other year, the Tulelake camp has a Pilgrimage, with several hundred people from all over the country participating in the three day event.

They ended the Pilgrimage with a ceremony at the Ross Ragland Theater, our historic downtown institution. emceed by George Takai, (Sulu from Star Trek), who was incarcerated there as a child.  Daughter Melody now works at the Ragland, and made sure that we got tickets to the event.  It was a fabulous experience, with poetry, stories from people who had been held at the camp, music, and Taiko drumming.  The paid attendees were in the front of the theater, and there were 300 seats in the back saved for locals who wanted to be there.  As a friend said, it was like we were observers of a family reunion. 

I learned much about how important it is to the Japanese people to keep the memory alive, to not sweep it under the rug, and to do everything they can to be sure it never happens again to American citizens.  It was a cultural experience that in the past I never would have imagined finding its way to Klamath Falls.

A few weeks earlier, Mo and I spent a Saturday afternoon enjoying our local casino, Kla-Mo-Ya, where we added to our cash stash and had a great lunch that was very inexpensive.  Later that weekend, we went to the first ever Progressive Dinner Theater, a joint project between the two theaters in town, the Ross Ragland and the Linkville.  Melody and Jeff played newscasters in the Saturday Night Live Style.  Melody is trying very hard here not to crack up.

Melody was in the play, a comical farce called Crazy Town.  The first part of the play was at the Ragland, with drinks and appetizers, then we all walked down the block to a local eatery, M.C.’s on Main, where we had dinner and the second part of the show, and finally dessert and champagne at the Linkville. 

Melody’s view of the city is changing as well.  Now employed with creative, artistic, progressive people at the Ragland, she is involved again in the good side of city politics, and surrounded by people that think more like she does about the world.

In addition to some of the town projects, the community is developing many trails for local hiking and biking.  The trails above Moore Park overlooking the lake are waiting, as is the new Spence Mountain trail along Highway 140.  Mo and I keep looking longingly at that trail head as we pass by, traveling between houses.  Someday there will be a bit more free time, and we aren’t complaining.  There have been some fun times for us.

Another wonderful amenity in town is the geothermally heated Ella Redkey Pool.  I still haven’t managed to take advantage of that wonderful place, but have friends who swim in those lovely waters daily. You can even learn to roll a kayak in that pool!

On the Fourth of July there were many options open to us.  Klamath Falls had a downtown parade, and fireworks on the actual 4th.  We chose instead to spend the day at Lake of the Woods, not far from Rocky Point.  Once again we drove the MoHo to the day use area at 6am, got a parking place and a table right by the boat launch, and set up a great spot for a family day.

The kids arrived a bit later, and we spent the day kayaking, walking the trails, and cooking some great food.  Lake of the Woods Resort chose to have their annual fireworks show on Sunday the 3rd, so Monday was a bit quieter than it was last year when we spent the day waiting for the nighttime fireworks show. 

In addition to those two fireworks celebrations, I learned that a local rancher in the Wood River Valley puts on a fireworks show as well, and someone at my quilt group said it was better than the one in town.  Maybe next year we will have to try that one. There is a great museum out there that I have yet to visit, probably because it is too close to home.  One of these days I am going to go to all the museums close to Klamath Falls and write about them.  I love reading Erin’s museum posts, and every time I do I realize how lax I am in visiting my own local museums.

I feel the shift in energy here, a sense that the people in political power in the city and the county are making progress in the way they promote our town to the world.  Klamath Falls may one day overcome its reputation as a place not worth visiting.  Lately it has felt interesting, vibrant, and fun.  I am keeping track of the good stuff and making sure that I get out there to enjoy it whenever I can.

I would like to leave you with some images of our local murals.  The sun came and went this morning as I wandered about town, but I didn’t mind.  At 8am on a Saturday, there were no cars parked in front of the artwork to distract from the imagery. 

 

 

I took this photo from the Discover Klamath website, but I do think it is a wonderful image of our city by the lake, and a good way to end the story.

June 10 Transitions

First, a warning.  This is another long, rather rambling catch-up conversation that I thought about posting only to my private Transitions blog.  It is very much a personal journal.  Like many RV bloggers, when we are basically stationary, I tend to avoid blogging.  The everyday stuff is just too mundane, and not related to the RV life and the MoHo Travels.  But there are others like me out there, and while readers come and go, I do have some that check in now and then and might wonder what we have been up to. I also know that when I haven’t heard from someone in a long time, and they do a catch-up post, I enjoy reading it, even if it isn’t travel related. The blogging world is changing, with many bloggers slipping into the ethers of cyberspace, never heard from again.  Some of us, though, have old connections that go way back more than a dozen years, and I do like hearing from these people, even if they have hung up their keys, or if they are in the non-snowbird portion of their lives.  So here you go.

I have been thinking about journaling for some time now, but the blog posts keep eluding me.  Part of the problem is that I often don’t have the computer with me and typing on the phone, no matter how nice it is to have that option, doesn’t lend itself to on-the-fly writing.  I type as fast as I think, so the typing doesn’t really interfere with my thought flow when I am using a full keyboard.  The last post I wrote, while we were traveling to the coast, was a mess.  I tried to use the voice feature on the phone.  That was an exercise in futility, and even my readers noticed that the “flow” wasn’t there as it usually is.

It doesn’t help that the days and weeks all seem to be running together, without a lot of markers along the way.  Too much of the same thing, whether it is work or play, makes Jane a dull whatever, as one of my friends said recently.  But, when nothing comes that seems to be of any import, I slip back into my old technique of starting right now, here in the moment.

At 5 in the late afternoon, the sun is still brilliant.  I am sitting at the table in the cottage, facing the big old double hung windows that face the east side of the property.  The huge old oaks are shifting about in the breeze.  Even when it is hot here in Grants Pass, the afternoon breezes are a welcome relief.  Today hasn’t been too terribly hot, though, with temps in the mid 70’s and moving clouds to block the sunlight now and then.  Wonderful.

This is the big old oak on the west side that will NOT have to be taken down for the new house.

For quite some time now we have been spending our weeks doing much the same thing.  Usually on Monday mornings we head for Rocky Point, with the mowers and trimmers and yard tools that are carried in the truck all the time.  We have the trailer in tow, mostly because we take it back to the apartments because the riding mower for Rocky Point and the walking mower for the apartments are at the repair shop.  So we haul the one walking mower back and forth, with the main riding mower residing in Grants Pass thank goodness, and return home each week, hoping for a call from the repair man.

Monday mornings are often a bit rough for me.  I get moody and irritable, with the constant job of packing and repacking in front of me.  I am trying to keep three sets of most things at each house, but that doesn’t work too well for fresh food.  Instead I have to pack up whatever we have that is fresh, plan whatever we need for Rocky Point where there are no stores nearby, and think about what I have to take to The Cottage that isn’t already there.  I have three notebooks that I try to keep current, and it works some of the time, but I still find myself knowing that I have two bottles of Hershey’s syrup and nope, there isn’t one here.  Here being whichever house I am in currently as I try to dish up ice cream.

Here is the “mound” we planted at the cottage two years ago and what it looks like now.  Stuff grows well in Grants Pass

The last couple of weeks, however, have been a bit easier.  I discovered the small, lightweight, plastic bin method of packing.  I can see everything, can keep the bins in the closet and add to them as needed, and I can lift them.  Dry food bin, Sue’s clothes bin, Mo’s clothes bin, the dog stuff bin, the computer, phone, iPad, Kindle, chargers, cords and all that stuff bin.  Yeah, that takes an entire bin.  Then fresh food into the ice chest, don’t forget the dog’s crate or the dog’s bed (we have forgotten both at one time or another), hook up the trailer to the truck and we are off.

The usual pattern is 2 or 3 days at Rocky Point, then a couple of days at Grants Pass.  Sometimes we manage more than a few days at a time at each home, and that is always nice.  Most of the time it depends on the mowing schedule.  Mowing and watering seem to be the drivers for wherever we need to go.

At Rocky Point we mow and pack stuff.  Most everything in the house is ready for the final move out, but the garage, shop, and shed are all in need of work.  We have hauled a trailer load to Grants Pass of miscellaneous tidbits every week since I don’t know when.  I think I might go to the calendar and try to count trailer loads.

At the Cottage, Mo has been working all day today on her wood/workshop, building more shelves for her nails and screws, her personal hardware store that keeps everything running smoothly.

We have stored “stuff” upstairs in the RV shed, to be unpacked eventually when the house is built.  We laughed a lot this morning about how much of that stuff is mine, but then I reminded her of how much of that other “stuff” is hers.  We definitely have different priorities.  I have a lot more keepsakes than she does, but then I had four kids and she had none.  I don’t have a lot of “stuff” per se, but I do have treasures, gifts, cards, photos, all the things of a lifetime.  All that “stuff” that so many full timers are so glad to let go of.  Not me.  I need a home base.

My life has been rather wild and chaotic, with losses over and over of my “stuff” back in the old days.  The few things I have managed to hold on to matter to me.  I do love, even once in awhile, taking out a box of cards, or a stash of journals or whatever, and remembering that yes, my life DOES have some continuity, it isn’t all just forgotten.

The other thing that makes writing hard is how my feelings flip flop.  When I am here, at the cottage in Grants Pass, I love it.  I love the open skies, the huge old oaks, the light.  I love being close to a sweet little town, with a traffic problem now and then, but nothing I can’t deal with by getting out early.  Last week I unpacked all my garden and cook books, and put them in the shelves in the RV shed that Mo set up for gardening.  I can’t quite explain how simply comforting it is to walk out there and see my books, lined up and ready to look at.  Treasure.  Sure, I can look anything up on the internet, to cook, or to grow, but still, the books feel like home to me.

I don’t have a lot of work to do here.  The Cottage is 720 square feet, not a lot to clean.  We really have decided that it is time to stop spending money on things to make it more comfortable, cleaner.  We will live with the patched floors, the old carpet in the kitchen, no need to put any more money and work into a place that will be seeing a bulldozer before next year.  Hopefully, at least.

My main job when we are here is moving hoses, watering, weeding, raking, trimming.  And cooking, although I don’t do that as extensively here as elsewhere because I don’t have an oven other than a small convection one, and the entire setup isn’t really conducive to trying to cook anything too fancy.

I actually have time to work on small quilt projects.  This time I brought my “All Gussied Up” rooster pattern and fabric to begin.  It is a complex applique project, with lots of tracing, cutting, choosing the right colors of fabric, and putting it all together.  It was pleasant to sit at the kitchen table and trace little numbered pieces.  I can see why some people enjoy the new coloring craze, mind numbing, and quieting.

I do love being here, a lot, and always seem to settle in to enjoy the feelings, the relaxation, and the dreams of what it will be like when the house is built.

Last week the builder came out with his partner and we decided on the location for the house.  The white marks on the grass mark porch pillars, and the edges of the walls.

See the shade of the oak tree?  That is where the west wall will be

I spend time outside just standing on the “porch”, looking at the view, enjoying how the west side oak will shade the west facing windows of the living room. We were so happy to find that the placement of the house will let us keep that west side oak.  It is big and old and leans nicely away from the house toward the west, so she stays.  Sometimes I walk around to where the bedroom windows will be, or my bay windowed soaking tub, to the beautiful breakfast room surrounded by windows. Light.  The one thing Rocky Point doesn’t have, even with our wonderful skylights.  We have light here and I love it.  Open sky, sunsets, morning light in the windows.

This will be the view from the back living porch. It is the sunniest spot for a future garden.

We moved the windmill from Rocky Point to the Cottage last month.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time on Pinterest, looking at granite, and paint colors, hardwood floors, and last week it was a great deal of time getting decisions made on window styles that will feel like Craftsman and yet not break our budget.  The plans had included some windows that I didn’t like at all, and Mo and I realized that we needed to get the window information to Dave before he gives her the final number.  I now know clearly the difference between a double-hung and a single-hung window, a casement window and cottage style.  Dave is the kind of builder that gives the number up front, an important part for us.  No surprises for the house unless we do changes or upgrades after the fact.  That final number is an important one.

Something that surprised us both was Dave’s choice of cement siding.  Cement?!?  It looks like cedar siding, but paints better and lasts longer.  He is a good builder, so we are trusting him on this.  He also recommended composite decking and metal railings, but we decided we still want real wood.  I want the house to feel like a “real” house and not a composite of crazy materials.  Yes, we will have vinyl windows, not wood, but that is a compromise that has to be made.  Wood windows would be way outside our budget.  But we will have the solid wood Craftsman door, no fiberglass for us!

Lots of time looking at windows on Pinterest.  I have no idea where this photo came from.  This isn’t a photo of how the house will look, just the windows.

Art Deco stained glass panels may be something for later, who knows, but probably not in the picture right away.  There are dreams, and then there is reality, and our Dream House will be somewhere between the two. The things that really matter to us we will have, and some things we will let go.  Hardwood floors for sure, no laminate, but we don’t have to have really fancy tilework in the bathrooms, just around the soaking tub.  It is all about balancing that ever present number, the budget.

The number that isn’t written in stone however, is the lot prep.  Dave says that there is no telling what we will be looking at with the power company and upgrading the current electric service.  We will need a new septic and drain field, which we knew, but the water system will be the killer.  We have a large 1750 gallon cistern that was installed last fall to store water from the 2.5 GPM well, so I have no trouble irrigating.  But the water is full of iron and worst of all, salts.  We can filter the iron, but not the salt, so it seems that we may be installing a “whole house” Reverse Osmosis unit, with another cistern to capture THAT water. We will know more about that plan when we get the water test numbers back this coming week.  The “Great 30” test covers everything and cost a whopping $230 bucks. With those numbers in hand, John Jacob, the water man, will have a better handle on just what extent of filtration we will need for the new house.

We knew about the low producing well when we bought the place, but the RO unit is a surprise, and will be a big chunk of change.  Still, it will be worth it to have ppm less then 1 of anything in our water, to protect the fixtures and the house, and not have to drill another well.  Water issues in the Rogue Valley are notorious, and getting to be more of a problem all the time with continued growth.  It may be Oregon, but it is Southern Oregon, and it is dry.

The other unknown is the demolition of the cottage.  There have to be tests for asbestos and lead, since the house was built in 1926, and we won’t know how much it will cost to take it down until those tests are completed.  Dave is working on all that right now, with plans to get back to us.  It seems as though getting septic approval can take at least two months, and electric even longer, so it is a good thing that we have no plans to actually start building until next season.  In the mean time, we can do a lot of the site prep work except for the demo.  We won’t start that until the Rocky Point sale is a sure thing.

The lawns at Rocky Point are looking great.  The house is very nearly completely hidden now by big trees.

Rocky Point went up for sale in early May.  Most houses in Rocky Point sell in 1 and sometimes 2 years.  Worst case scenario, we keep on as we have been and don’t start building until 2018.  Initially the goal was to be settled into snow free Grants Pass by 2020, so there is really no reason to get stressed, other than the fact that I am getting really tired of living in three houses!! And not having much play time!!

We will be leaving the little greenhouse behind.  Mo built it well.

The other thing we seem to be spending a lot of time on here is rig maintenance.  I think we are wearing out the pavement between our house and Bridge Street Auto.  We love the place, the people are great, do a good job, and are pretty good at communicating with us and diagnosing our needs. I highly recommend them if you are ever in need of RV or car work in Grants Pass. Of course, they also seem to be good at finding things we need to have done.

Mo got new brakes on the Tracker, I got new brakes and a fan clutch on the Dakota, and the MoHo had to go in a few times to try to fix a problem with the levelers.  That was the biggest problem, with all new solenoids, a rebuilt hydraulic pump, and finally after three trips down, new coach batteries and cables.  All is working well now. 

Of course, with all the heavy hauling we have been doing with the pickup, it seems that the transmission is on its way out.  Sigh.  140,000 miles of being a perfect truck does come with a price.  And Mo also has the timing belt to replace in the Lexus.  Sigh again.  I guess cars get old.  We have “used” our motorhome, and she has a good 90,000 miles under her belt without any real problems.  I guess it is just that time.  Needless to say, it feels like money is just rolling out the door much too quickly.

The flowers we leave behind at Rocky Point when all is said and done

And then there is Rocky Point.  After some initial activity, things seem to have slowed down on the showings and there isn’t much happening.  In the Rogue Valley, houses are going as fast as they are put on the market, as is the case in some parts of Klamath Falls.  But not at Rocky Point.  It is a special place, a lovely house, but unique, and in a unique area.  It will take some time.  But it is stressful, very stressful waiting.

We won’t start building the new house till Rocky Point is sold, and there isn’t a mortgage, but there are the utilities, the upkeep, the work keeping it looking nice to contend with.  We are getting a little bit tired, to say the least.  Hopefully something will happen before the summer is over.  I know so many people who have been through this waiting game, and then something does eventually happen.  Sooner or later the house will sell, as another blogger reminded us when writing up the ten things she wish she had known when going full time.

Yet when we head back home to the apartments, it is wonderful to walk in the door and again have all that other “stuff” that is there waiting.  Our comfy furniture, my luscious StressLess recliner, the 55 inch TV with all sorts of streaming stuff available, and not least of course, full unrestricted internet access!  Ahh….and my bed, my luscious bed and my quilts and art.  I am not sure if this really matters to Mo.  She is much better at just being wherever she is at the moment and being fine with it.  I’m the one whose mind rolls around in all these crazy places.

Love the yellow china rose and the old fashioned poppies at the apartments on Old Fort Road

Just to make matters even more confusing, in spite of the grumpy mornings on the way to Rocky Point, once I am there I appreciate how beautiful it is.  I love all the trees that Mo planted, love seeing them mature, love the gardens when they bloom, the forest, the gorgeous green grass, the fabulous water.  I love hearing the geese down on the lake, and when we lived there full time, I loved knowing we could pop the kayaks in the truck and be at the water in five minutes.  I miss that a lot, kayak time.

June and October are the most gorgeous months at Rocky Point.  When I was walking behind the mower the other day, I wondered why in the world we thought we ever had to leave.  Mo reminded me, “We want to no longer have to deal with the heavy snows”.  “It is really nice to have a town close by”. “ It is nice not to have all this work”.  It is time.  I don’t think once Mo has decided something that she ever has second thoughts.  She thinks it all the way through, makes the decision, and then follows through.  One step after the other, no regrets.  I try to be like that, but it seems that I have too many “feelings” all the time.  Memories of happy times, beautiful starry nights in the hot tub, long days on the water, snuggly fires at Christmas, my huge cookie baking counter!  Family space for holiday dinners and celebrations. 

In spite of all the back and forth, we have managed to have a few days of playtime.  We had a great Mother’s Day brunch with Family out at the newly refurbished Rocky Point Resort, just a stone’s throw from our home there.

We enjoyed the annual Taste of Klamath evening at the Ross Ragland in mid May, a long time tradition for us, and made even more fun now that my daughter Melody is employed there. 

We took an entire day while at Grants Pass and went kayaking on Lake Selmac, about 25 miles west of town and one of the few lakes to kayak at that elevation. 

With many miles of dirt road exploring, we finally found Spalding Mill Pond, with logging history dating back to the 30’s.  The original owners who moved here in the early 20th century are still in business in Grants Pass

We topped off the day with a wild exploration ride high into the mountains between Grants Pass and the coast, amazed at the incredible wild and rugged landscape of the Coast Range.

For the last few years, Mo and I have had wonderful play time, lots of great travels, both in the MoHo and otherwise, and have enjoyed that freedom.  Those days will come again.  We still have 8 states to add to the well used state map on the back of the MoHo.  We have a long trip planned for some future date taking in the far northeastern part of the country, and on to the Maritime Provinces.  I have a dream to spend another winter kayaking the spring runs in Florida.  We have a little plan to drive all the Scenic Highways and Byways in our own state, some of which we have traveled, but not all. 

It is all about the transition from living in snow country in Rocky Point, to living in a place where the maintenance is less and the freedom to travel is greater.  The day will come, it is just a process.  Living in the moment, appreciating the process and the transition, is the bigger challenge.  I’m working on it.