Walk around Bandon and another hike at the Slough

Several people told me to be sure to get an ice cream cone at the Face Rock Creamery in Bandon.

Wednesday we parked at the other end of the Old Town area and walked 3/4 mile for a treat. It was indeed wonderful ice cream, and the double cone was a very generous size.

 

Old Town Bandon isn't much to get excited about. Lots of small restaurants that were either closed or serving outdoors, and the usual selection of craft, gift, candy and fudge shops.

Just about everyone we passed on the streets was wearing a mask, and all stores had signs requiring masks for entry. Nobody was making a big deal about it. Perhaps this is why this county has zero COVID deaths even with the tourists that pass through.

This large fish was one of several sculptures on display. It was made of trash from the ocean.

On Thursday we went back up to the Estuary and hiked another 2.5 mile section of the trails (marked in red below).

This place is a showcase of nature.

Most of the trees were second growth, but this giant cedar may have been one of the few that survived the original logging of this area.

I wish I could share the sounds with you. The wind was whispering in the trees, a few birds were singing, and the gentle babbling of the Hidden Creek were soothing to the soul.

The trail took us down along the slough, where the water was at low tide.

When you first look at the image below, what do you see?

I saw Bigfoot with a peg leg. 

Towards the end of a hike, I find myself looking down as much as up or ahead. As I tire, I try to be more careful of where I step so I don't stumble. I also try to "see" the small and beautiful things along the way.

There were a few other hikers on the trails today, but I may have been the only person in the world to have noticed these treasures.

I am one lucky lady!

Waterton

Waterton is the Canadian part of the combined Glacier/Waterton park. Because the smoke from the second Glacier fire seemed to be building, we drove up there on Monday. It is about sixty miles from St. Mary.  

On the way I saw a bear!

It was not in the park, it was not early morning or late evening. After six weeks of watching for one, I finally saw a bear. He was in the ditch alongside the highway. We speculate he was looking for huckleberries as they are beginning to ripen here. No picture, we were driving along at 65 mph. You just have to take my word for it. I saw a bear!

The "jewel" of Waterton is the Prince of Wales Hotel. As with the other large lodges, it was originally built by the railroad to provide luxury accommodations for their rich tourist travelers. 

Tables were set and ready for the service of afternoon tea. We were a bit early, and so did not indulge. I wish we had planned our special dinner to have been here. Oh well, another reason to come back someday. 

I don't know why I am so fascinated by these large chandeliers that seem to grace each of the lodges. Each is unique and in harmony with the space they illuminate. They are sculptures in the air above.







Waterton is not very big. There is an RV park, but most of the rigs we saw were smaller.

After eating our home-packed ham sandwiches while sitting in the shade, overlooking the little marina, we took a leisurely stroll along the lake. 

Although the air was reasonably clear in Waterton, there was a lot of smoke coming up from the south. We were told that in previous days they had also had some smoke from the Washington fires.

On our walk, we went along the lake in one direction and through the small village area coming back. Although it seemed like the usual collection of tourist gift shops, it was nice to see some other merchandise than what is offered in the US. Lots of maple flavored candy and tea sets. More mittens and warm sweaters too. 

Our US Senior park pass was not accepted at the Canadian entrance of the park, so Craig paid with a $20 US bill. We got a little more than $12 Canadian back. This gave us the perfect excuse to indulge in double scoops of lovely ice cream. Not that we ever need an excuse for that! And I wonder why I don't lose weight.

Once again we had a very nice and interesting day.  

AND ... I saw a bear!

Wisconsin Dells

On Friday we said our good-byes to the great state of Minnesota, and headed across the Mississippi to our original home state of Wisconsin. 

Craig and I were both born and raised in Wisconsin, and were married there.  But we have lived in California for 30+ years, and in Texas for a few years before that.  We have been back for a few family visits, but have not seen the Wisconsin countryside for many years.  

Guess what! 

It looks just like Minnesota.  
Maybe fewer lakes, but just as green.

When we were kids, one of the only "tourist" spots in Wisconsin, that we knew about, was the Dells. At the end of the year, the sixth grade crossing guard cadets were rewarded for their service with bus trip to the Dells, that included an overnight stay in a MOTEL! Wow!

Craig and I also took our kids there for a weekend before we moved out of state. Not much had changed between these two times. There may have been a few more T-shirt shops, but the primary attraction was still the river and the rock formations along it. 

But since then there has been a lot of development and the streets of The Dells are lined with Water Slide Parks and other Amusement Parks. It looks like Las Vegas for ten year olds. 


I'm really not sure if this structure that looked like the Trojan Horse was a parking garage or an unfinished amusement ride of some sort, but it was a typical construction. 

Not being modern children, we skipped the rides and relived our childhood vacations by taking to the water.

First we went on the Original Ducks tour of the lower Dells.

There are Duck Boats in several places around the country. They are renovated WWII vehicles that can drive on land and also run as a boat in the water.  The engine is a loud diesel, the ride is bumpy and sometimes wet, and the tour guide is a Wisconsin College student who seems to repeat the same type of cheesy (it is Wisconsin) jokes that we heard years ago. We smiled and enjoyed ourselves.

We also took the river boat tour of the upper Dells. These waters are separated by a dam and locks. The dam system was built around 1909 and raised the waters of the upper section of the river by 20 feet.

The Dells are the stone formations along a seven or so mile section of the Wisconsin River.

The water is cola brown from the tannin it picks up while going thru several tamarack swamps up river. Tannin is an ingredient in Coke and carmel candy. Red wine picks up tannin from the oak barrels it is aged in.

The layers of stone are very porous and water wicks up from both the river and seeps down from the rains. Trees are able to grow without any soil.

The passengers on the upper Dells boat tour disembark at two stops and are able to walk thru the bluff walls along wooden walkways.

The moss grows lushly on the stone walls.

This place reminded me of the dry slot Antelope Canyon in Arizona, carved by wind and water over the millennium. Different and yet the same.

On our second stop we walked into the forest to a place where there were two large rock formations. This place helped make the Dells a tourist destination in the late 1800's. A dog, a German Shepard dog, has been jumping from one formation to the other over and over for all these years. Can you see him in the picture below?

Here he is in a cropped zoomed in version. He is a real dog. I saw him do the jump when I was eleven, and again when I was in my 30's. Probably not the same dog  :)

We had a very nice day reliving and enjoying the natural wonders of the area.  Too bad most of the kids today will only remember the water parks and other amusements.  Maybe their parents will make them ride in a noisy old Duck boat for an hour or drag them onto one of the boats for a boring two hour cruise. 

If they are lucky they will get an ice cream cone at the concession stand deep in Witches Gulch.

Every kid needs an ice cream from time to time, don't they?

No more Tonomah!

Thursday was a travel day.  We were done at the Truck Center by 10 AM with one small disappointment.  Freightliner had given Craig the wrong information when he called, so one of the upgrade parts was the wrong size.  No big deal.  We will get it straightened out and installed after Zion. It is not a safety  issue.

I had padded our travel time with an extra day in case there were any unexpected delays in the repair work.  Seems if I do that, all goes well!  If I don’t, I just add stress to my life.  One thing we have now is time.  I love it!

We drove across Nevada on I-80 some years ago when going to Salt Lake for a ski trip. I remember how desolate and barren the land seemed.  It was mid winter and I think we went for hours without seeing another vehicle or man made structure.

The landscape between Reno and Las Vegas along Hwy 95 is also open desert range.  We saw numerous warning signs along the way for cattle and horses, but saw none. Unlike I-80 there was no lack of traffic or small ranch outbuildings. The two-lane road was quite smooth in most places.

The open range land is balanced by the many mountains on the horizons. As an artist I am enchanted by the play of light and the dramatic cloud shadows rolling over them. I have always been interested in geology, and seeing the results of the millions of years of natural earth movements it took to shape them is exciting.

One thing I find very distressing in the West is the small towns. I doubt they were ever vibrant centers of civilization, but they all seem so run down I can’t understand why anyone would live there unless this was the end of the line for them, and yet I saw school busses and schools in some of the larger towns, so families must live there.

I know many people love the desert and the West. Al for one, but he has worked hard to fix up his Congress Arizona house and make it a nice place.  It’ all the old deteriorating mobile homes and shacks that I find disturbing. I would have taken some pictures, but that would be like taking pictures of the poor in a third world country. We just cannot comprehend.

As we left Sacramento I started looking into where we would stay overnight. We have not yet tried to use the BLM system, but I’m sure there would have been many places we could have boondocked for a night.  Checking through the Passport America book I found a listing for a place in Tonomah, Nevada, at total day’s drive of about 360 miles. It seemed OK on paper. I really didn’t have many choices, and as we drove along 95, I didn’t see anywhere else we would want to stop. 

I figured we would get there after five, so I called, and the man said, "yes" they had full hook-ups and asked if we wanted a pull thru.

All I can say is “What a place!” In the Passport America book it is called JoyLand RV Park. Once there, it was called Joyland RV Storage and Campground. 

I’m learning that for an overnight, if the place is reasonably quiet, once you pull the blinds down, you are home. Sleeping in your own bed and cooking in your own kitchen! But this place stretched this to its limit.

Starting with the office. There was a faded note with a cell phone number taped to the window. I didn’t have to call because the “manager” came out from behind the building when we arrived. The office was a sad room that I think started as a patio for the mobile home it was attached to. It was filthy. It smelled strongly of mold and rodents.  I could see droppings on the floor. The manager himself looked like someone out of a B horror movie. Creepy and missing a few front teeth.  I paid cash because I would never want to give him a credit card number!

I don’t know how to put this, but as he filled out the receipt with a stub of a pencil, he leered as me and asked if this was my real name. I try not to judge people by their appearance, but I definitely would not open a door to this one.

Our space? A gravel pull thru in a parking lot.  Although there were junky buildings all around, there wasn’t any trash in the lot. Only one other RV came in overnight.  The 50 amp and water hookups worked, and we were able to take morning showers in the Alfa. We could have done that if we were boondocking too.

Tonight (Friday) we are staying at Oasis RV Resort in Las Vegas. We have been here before. Nice pool, clean laundry, level pad, cable TV, good cell phone signal: the other side of the coin.

I do have one picture to include in this post: As we switch drivers so Craig can have some ice cream. The joy of having a Class A coach. Ice Cream on the road.

Tillamook Marionberry Pie

From Craig:

This is going to be hard to explain to non-ice-cream-lovers.

When we went on an RV adventure to the Pacific Northwest several years ago, after we crossed into Oregon along the Pacific coast we saw many signs advertising Marionberries. The only thing these brought to my mind was that many years ago, Washington DC had a mayor named Marion Barry who was convicted of being a crook.

Then we stopped at the Tillamook plant in central Oregon. Tillamook is one of the top cheese companies in the US, but at their plant we learned that they also make ice cream. In fact we bought two kinds of their ice cream at the plant, Caramel Butter Pecan and Marionberry Pie. Both were among the best ice cream I've ever had.

When we got home to the SF/Monterey Bay areas, I looked into buying their ice cream here. It seemed that the furthest south that Tillamook ice cream was delivered, was to a Tower Foods store in San Francisco, about 60 miles north. I called Tillamook and several of their distributors, but it seemed that this distribution pattern was written in stone!

I tried writing to several grocery chains with stores in our area, but never got any response. So it was with special anticipation that I looked forward to our trip up to Oregon, last June and July. Marionberry Pie was every bit as wonderful as I remembered.

Again we returned home with ice-cream-envy for people in Oregon. I've returned to working on the house while dreaming of road trips.  Recently we made a regular stop at our local Safeway store in Los Gatos. Without much enthusiasm I went through the frozen food aisle.

Guess what I found? A good selection of Tillamook ice cream, including Marionberry Pie! Of course I bought some, and it was even better than ever, probably because of the heat wave we've been having.

Which just goes to show you, if you want something, keep on promoting it. Maybe my email(s?) to Safeway helped this wonderful product appear at our local store.

From Merikay: I agree with Craig that Tillamook is great ice cream.  However my new eating protocol does not include ice cream!  It was one of the hardest thing to give up, and now that there is Tillamook in the freezer it is even harder.