Trout Lake 2018

On June 17, 2018June 19, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, navi, outdoors, pets, photography, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Over Memorial Weekend we took our annual trip with our Airstream friends to Trout Lake, to our usual campground snuggled under shade trees with a gorgeous view of Mt Adams. This year the weather was windy, but otherwise fine. I was a little worried about reports of ticks being bad this year, but we tried to stay out of the grass.

We set up the X pens in front of the trailer door to make a little yard for the dogs, and the door was pretty much open all weekend, so they could hang out inside or out, and watch all the goings-on around the site. Of course there were also lots of walks, including walking into town to get lunch at the hamburger/milkshake/gas station/coffeeshop (it’s a small town!)

Sunday morning I woke up at 5am and realized the trailer was lit up pink, so I pulled on clothes and grabbed my camera and went out to see what was going on.

Just a beautiful mountain sunrise. I was enjoying photographing it when I thought, what this picture needs is an elk.

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Why, thank you very much! I was so excited to see the elk, I was almost shaking! How cool is that?!

The river behind our campsite was high, and I would have loved to fish it, but it was not open until a week later.

Everyday there was gorgeous. I just can’t believe we get to hang out someplace with this amazing mountain right there on the horizon, it is in the background of everything we do.

We had a tinfoil hat contest (Dave and I just watched):

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Everyone was so creative!

And every night it was music and sing-along beside the fire.

Full-moon night-shot.

I brought a book to read on my kindle. Dave played a game of cornhole and got into a card game. Navi snapped at our friend Gary when he wouldn’t quit petting her. Barclay was chill as usual.

The trailer functioned perfectly – not bad for a 50 year old trailer. Basically a good time was had by all. In no time another fun long weekend was over, and we all went our separate ways, until next year.

A new home for my journal

On June 4, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn blather, photography, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Since 2007 I have had a blog on Google Blogger platform. This is my personal journal, a place to record our adventures and share my photography. Blogger has certainly been adequate, but it has always had it’s quirks, like issues handling media, and I do not like having my blog tied to a mega-corp that might change it’s policies, own my photos, delete my blog, etc. So it is time for a change, so welcome to my new blog on WordPress. I’m sure it will take a little getting used to, but I am hoping it’s ease of use will also encourage me to post more often. I have noticed lately that a lot of my effort has been put into sharing on Facebook instead of here, and that’s a shame, because this is the place I will probably still have access to years from now. Right now I’d like to wean myself away from FB as much as possible.

Also, I’d like to point out importing the old Blogger blog with all 11 years of posts and pictures was a snap thanks to the Blogger export feature, and the WordPress import feature. It was so easy I should have done it sooner!

Cruising around the Hood

On July 27, 2016May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn dave, Me, outdoors, photographyLeave a comment

Dave and I headed out to wander around Mt Hood. He had recently been on a drive for work that took him around the East side of the mountain, and I wanted to see it from that side too. We headed out to Hood River, but stopped first at Elowah Falls, since I saw it without him last time, and wanted to show off the crazy natural amphitheater it sits in. He was suitably impressed.

Then we headed on to Hood River, and up to Panorama Point, which has a beautiful view out over the Hood River valley (famous for it’s fruit farms), and the mountain.

After That we continued up Hiway 35 to Parkdale to see the Parkdale Lava Flow. Unfortunately it’s entirely on private land as far as we could tell. We could drive up close enough to see it, but not to actually get out and walk on it.

Eventually the highway wraps around the mountain, and we stopped to stretch our legs at this sno-park – now devoid of snow.

Continuing on around the mountain, we followed signs up to Timberline Lodge. We hadn’t been up here in ages, so figured we should swing by.

It was such a nice day we took a stroll around the lodge. The mountian looks so small from up there, like you could just hike up to the top, no trouble at all.

Actually, maybe it’s bigger than it looks…

From up there you can see way out into Eastern Oregon, where the green turns to brown desert.

And to the South you can see Mt Jefferson and Three Sisters.

After that we headed back down, with a stop in Gresham at Abby’s Pizza before heading home. Made a full day of it, and got to know our local mountain a little bit better.

Back to Trout Lake

On May 31, 2016May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, dave, outdoors, photography, travelLeave a comment

This year was an unusual one at Trout Lake, because although we had the date marked off on the calendar, as we do every year, Dave had just started a new job (delivering lost luggage using our tow vehicle, the Flex), and he had to stay home and be on call. We considered just skipping it, but decided he could tow the trailer over there and leave me and it there for the weekend, while he went back home with the dogs.

So here we are with a couple of the neighbors for the weekend. The little silver one is mine. I had gotten it all prepared and tested at home, but the one thing I did not notice until I was here and living unplugged, was that my battery was dead! It wouldn’t hold much of a charge for long. So it was ok for the lights, because they are LEDs and don’t need much juice. A little tougher on the waterpump, because it is a power hog, but I can get by just fine without it by keeping a pitcher of water handy The fridge ran fine on propane. But it was pretty cold up there at night, and not having a heater was going to be a bummer. Luckily I had friends who brought over their generators and charged me back up to full every day, which was enough to get the heater running at night long enough to warm the place up, and I had a couple warm blankets too, so it wasn’t bad at all.

The mountain was jaw-droppingly beautiful, as usual.

And there was this weird cloud that didn’t even look real just hanging out that afternoon.

More happy Airstreams

No Airstream gathering is complete without flamingos

Jonathan was chopping wood…

So he could make campfire magic later. He’s a fire wizard!

Then the musicians start gathering

And a fine time was had by all!

I never get tired of the view.

Magical clouds over ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Stars over the mountain at night. So many stars I don’t even know what I’m looking at. That’s Cassiopeia over the mountain. I guess the skyglow is from Seattle? We’re a long way from it, but it’s in that direction.

More music. We never get tired of music.

The electronic devices come in handy when no one can remember the lyrics!

(not my trailer – that’s Gail’s trailer, which is very similar to mine)

The last morning. What a beautiful morning! Dave came back and hooked up our little trailer and we headed home. It was great to see everyone, as always, and we missed our friends who couldn’t make it this year. Trout Lake is always the best kickoff anyone could want to the camping season.

Mt St Helens and Windy Ridge

On July 11, 2015May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn dave, Me, outdoors, photography, travelLeave a comment

We decided to head out for a day of exploration around the backside of our favorite local volcano – Mt St Helens.

Mt St Helens sits on the horizon where we live. It is something we see every day (along with Mt Hood and Mt Adams), and everyone took it for granted until 1980 when it started huffing out clouds of smoke and eventually exploded in an eruption that gave us all a very graphic example of what the word ‘devastation’ really means. Ridge after ridge around the mountain was cleared down to bare rock or covered in ash. Some of the ash even rained down over our homes. When we went to see it a few years after the eruption, it was like a desert where once a beautiful forest had stood. Now when we look at the mountain it’s flat top reminds us at a glance that we have a real live volcano in our backyard.

For many years we took an annual trip from Yakima up to Windy Ridge, often with our Miata friends, and admired the view looking down into the crater. We have also come in on the West side to the observatory. It’s an amazing place to visit, from either direction. This time we decided to wind up the backroads to Windy Ridge and see how it was doing. So we packed a picnic lunch, grabbed the camera, and headed out for a day of adventure.

Driving around the backside of Mt St Helens takes you through woods that were pretty much untouched by the blast, except for creeks and rivers that were flooded by the sudden glacier melts that occurred, causing mud flows to tear down the canyons and valleys. Everything is recovering so well though, that it is hard to see the damage anymore, even at overlooks that were established for people to stop and admire the changes in the landscape.

Then you come to the Muddy River at Lava Canyon

Can you see Dave on the rocks looking over the canyon?

We added a rock to a cairn we passed on our way along a trail that took us to another vantage point of the muddy river. Too bad the clouds were hiding the mountain at the other end of the canyon. We should have realized then that this just wasn’t going to be our day for viewing the mountain itself.

On to Lava Canyon, where water has carved a steep channel through lava rock.

Very cool place, with lots of signs warning you that if you fall in that water, you will die and they will never find your body, or something to that effect. That was the take-away, anyway. That water was fast and furious as it disappeared into the bulbous lava forms sticking up out of the forest.

We backtracked out of the Ape Canyon / Lava Canyon area, and continued heading East towards Windy Ridge. We stopped along the road at this still wiped out canyon and ate our lunch while enjoying the complete peacefulness of the forest. I don’t think a single car drove by while we were enjoying our lunch. It was just us and the birds in the trees.

Further up the road we stopped at a wide spot to enjoy this overlook of what I think was the Clearwater Creek drainage. What an amazing view!

Our sturdy Flex made the ride nice and smooth over the terrible forest service roads, which had a lot of broken pavement. It was the right choice for this trip! The Miata would have been beat to death.

Finally we arrived at Windy Ridge, with it’s amazing view of…clouds. Lots and lots of clouds.

Beautiful view of Spirit Lake though. We had a lovely panorama of the devastated area.

The devastated area has recovered considerably. There was a time when this was all just covered in brown ash. The effects of the eruption are still clearly visible in the three zones. Zone 1 – the ridges were blown clean down to bedrock. They are still bare of trees, but starting to show a cover of green.

Then there is the zone farther out where the trees were all knocked down, and still lay pointing away from the source of the blast. More baby trees are popping up in this area.

In the third zone the trees were killed by the heat of the eruption, but remain standing. This area is recovering even better. It’s amazing to see how one ridge is in the blowdown zone, and the next the trees were left standing.

That is Mt St Helens for you – such a beautiful, amazing place. We stopped at another overlook on the way back from Windy Ridge and enjoyed the peacefulness of the scene, the little pops of color from wildflowers appearing on the hillside. We waited a little bit, but the mountain remained hidden in the clouds. It was just one of those days.

But we had a great time anyway, as we always do when out adventuring together.

Trout Lake 2015

On June 5, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, Me, navi, outdoors, photography, scenic1 Comment

Time again for the annual trip to Trout Lake to hang out with my Airstream friends. We packed up the trailer, the dogs, and it seemed like more miscellaneous ‘stuff’ than ever before. Maybe it just felt that way because the Flex is so small and the Van was so big! We headed off after work on Thursday so we could get in an extra day.

We rolled into town to find a thunderstorm hiding the mountain top and obscuring the sunset.

We got settled in, said hello to everyone, and soon after crashed for the night. As I lay in bed in the complete darkness, I thought my eyes were playing tricks as I saw flashes, but the thunder told us it was the lightening storm. Kind of cool.

The next day the Airstreams kept rolling in. All our usual friends, and a few we had missed last year. A sad trip for our friends Carolyn and Loren, as they had just lost their beautiful German Shepherd Cosmo. Cosmo had been a fixture at the rally for 7 years, where he would hang out by the campfire with them, but if Mom and Dad weren’t together, he would patrol the camp going back and forth between them, checking on them. Such a good boy. It was so sad to hear of his passing.

Soon there were enough people to stir up a card game, which Dave got in on.

Puzzles came out too …

and guitars. Camping is the life!

The dogs hung out in their dog-yard. I had started prepping the trailer a couple weeks before we left, and was happy to find everything worked. We used the fridge all weekend, and only needed to run the furnace a couple nights because the weather was so mild. With the LED lights, we didn’t even come close to running out of power.

Our friend Chris showed up with his Caravel, and his new/old Bronco.

Cory, Carolyn, Jerry, Patsy, Karen, Dave and Loren entertain themselves. I think this was shortly before they decided to ‘make it interesting’ and start playing for pennies!

Barclay can watch the activities from bed!

When we have the dogs we usually fold the dinette down into a bed all day.

Both dogs like laying in the ‘doghouse’ under the bed. Navi decided it was hers and growled furiously if Barclay tried to invade it. Which he occasionally did, just to annoy her.

Airstreams of all shapes and sizes – vintage, Interstate, and Argosy!

Greg got the fire all stirred up

Sunset over the creek behind the campground

So many friends, good food, jamming around the campfire at night (I even brought my guitar this time) – wears you out. I’ve never slept so well in my life!

The next morning we headed over to the county park to partake of their showers. You can shower in the Caravel, but why make a mess in there, when you can make a mess in someone else’s shower instead? Seemed like a good deal to me! Then we went to the Ranger Station and got a map and directions for the local attractions.

We wandered off into the woods to find the Big Lava Bed. Turns out it is indeed big, but hard to access, and I didn’t even really get any pictures of it!

Back to camp, this is the view at the porta-john – one of the prettiest in camp!

Flags were flying in the wind. All that wind blowing through the trees around camp made for a fabulous afternoon nap while Dave went and played cards.

Peanut butter kongs keep the dogs occupied.

In the evening I play guitar until my fingers were too sore to play anymore, so I packed it in, and grabbed my camera. The wind had blown away the clouds. I finally had a chance (and the equipment and know-how, to do this:

Cozy little trailer.

The next morning we headed up to see Langfield Falls. Along the way we stopped for views of Mt Adams and Beargrass.

Thanks to the dry winter, the falls was only running down one side, instead of covering the whole rock.

We saw a sign to Mosquito Lake, and decided we HAD to check that out. A whole lake of mosquitoes, how fun! (sarcasm) But alas, there were no mosquitoes. It was actually very nice. Must have hit it at just the right time of year. It made us wish we had a kayak!

On the way up there we had to stop to let a small group of Elk stroll across the road. Of course I didn’t get a picture of THAT!

On the way back, we stopped by the Big Tire. Seriously, it’s on the MAP.

Yup, that’s big alright.

Coming back we had a peek at Sleeping Beauty from a different angle. Not quite as face-like from over here.

We went back through town and headed out past the campground in the other direction looking for the biggest Ponderosa Pine in WA – known as The Big Tree.

I suppose it’s kinda big.

Pretty, delicate little flowers in this area.

Back to Trout Lake, to stop for lunch at the Café/Gas Station/Espresso/Ice Cream Shop

As you might guess, the only place in town. But actually kind of awesome.

Back to the trailer for lunch..

And Siesta. I cleaned out a drawer in the trailer and found a bunch of paperbacks. Dave started reading a Star Wars book he had tried to read on previous trips, and I found an old X Files novel. What a great way to geek out during afternoon downtime!

I take this picture every year!

I never get tired of looking at the mountain!

At sunset I took the dogs for a walk, looked up, and saw the setting sun had somehow created a rainbow in the clouds, right over Sleeping Beauty’s face! I ran the dogs all the way back to the trailer to get my camera and get a shot before the phenomenon disappeared!

I love it! And I love Sleeping Beauty.

One more night of singing around the fire, followed by a peaceful night’s sleep, and in the morning, it was time to go.

Trout Lake is always over too soon! We love visiting with our friends, catching up, singing songs, watching the campfire, sharing potlucks, playing games, taking naps, and playing music. We will get together again before summer is over, but Trout Lake is an awesome start to the season. Many thanks to our friends Janet and Gary for pulling us all together for another year.

Down at the Marina

On August 20, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn photography1 Comment

Contemplative Photography down at the Washougal marina

Airstream camping in John Day, Oregon

On May 5, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, navi, outdoors, photography1 Comment

We spent last weekend with our Airstream friends in John Day Oregon at Clyde Holliday State Recreation Area. There was a super nice campground there, right on the John Day River. I picked it because I heard it was nice, and I’d never been out there before, but it turned out to be a 6 hour drive! Pretty long for just a weekend. But the scenery along the way was incredible, so that made it tolerable.

We started out heading down 84 to The Dalles, and cut over at Biggs, and for the first time got to see the wind power generators. There hadn’t been any of these the last time we headed up to Yakima, which was probably ten years ago. Some people hate them because they are a blight on the landscape, but I thought they were pretty amazing.

Dave found a mountain!

The farther we got into central Oregon, the crazier the scenery got. If you think of evergreens and rain when you think of Oregon, this would change your mind.

We got to the park and got setup. Some early arrivals had saved spots for us, which annoyed the ranger, but they wouldn’t have had to do that if they allowed reservations. Luckily all but one of our group arrived before the Ranger noticed! Then another camper went and paid for the late arrival’s spot and parked their truck in it so it would be saved.

The spots were HUGE – the biggest camping spots I’ve ever seen! Here you can see the distance between our trailer and our neighbor – tons of room!

We set up the ‘dog yard’ so the pooches could relax in the grass.

After a late night of music around the bonfire, the next morning we headed out to visit the Fossil Beds National Monument.

They had a fabulous museum showing many of the amazing fossils they had unearthed in the area. Not dinosaurs, but early mammals – camels and hippos, and tiny horses – it was really interesting! Also plants and seeds and bugs. After the museum we drove up the road to a ‘Blue’ canyon where many fossils were found. It’s hard to see the color in the photos, but it was indeed a light blue color. The rock was very soft and heavily eroded, and that is how the fossilized animals get revealed.

It was an interesting walk, but the dogs didn’t like walking over these bridges, which had bumpy metal grating, and there were a lot of them, so we eventually turned back.

Dogs refused to face the camera!

We drove around a bit more to enjoy the scenery.

Then headed back to the park for an afternoon nap, potluck, and music around the campfire late into the night.

I love these gatherings, but the next morning it was time to go home. We didn’t even wait for breakfast, knowing we had a long day of driving ahead of us. We took a different route to get some new scenery. It was amazing with gentle rolling hills that stretched to the horizon. We also saw many abandoned hoses and barns.

Back into Windmill country

Navi doesn’t enjoy the ride much, but Barclay is a real traveller. He just relaxes and enjoys the ride.

Before long we were back to familiar territory, seeing barges on the Columbia River, and headed home. It was a great weekend, and I loved seeing some scenery I had never seen before.

Art around The Rancho

On March 27, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn art, barclay, navi, photography, TheRancho3 Comments

We have been having so much fun picking up art for our new home, decorating it with little fun things that make us happy. Really, to me even the furniture seems like art, since it’s all old and unique – it’s unlikely to find similar pieces to the ones we’ve found.

Let’s start with the centerpiece of the bedroom – the geese painting. We found this at an antique store in Portland, but I went home and thought about it for a day before going back to buy it. It wasn’t expensive, I just wasn’t sure about it. I’m glad we got it though, the colors are great for the bedroom, and it started giving us a nature theme to decorate around.

I like the style of it – it feels 70s to me. The way the clouds are just shapes with no definition but the geese look more realistic. The trees and brown grass and reflections in the water, well, that all reminded me of our home in the country and our visits to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge.

It appears to be an actual painting, not just a print. That’s kind of cool to know we have something which someone actually created with their own hands. Good job, ‘Jane’, whoever you are!

Now we have a goose/nature theme going on in the bedroom. We were buying our couches at another antique store when I spotted these wall plaques, and had to have them:

A closer look:

These were probably part of a triptych, with the center piece being a clock, but the clock is gone. I saw a very similar set with flowers instead of geese on them. But I’m happy to have these, they look great on the wall behind the TV.

There are more bedroom geese coming, but I have one more wall to paint before I show those off. Maybe this weekend.

In the front room we have the Japanese silk paintings, which I’ve shown off before, and the picture of Barclay, and I just added a matching picture of Navi, so these two make a cute set on the wall.

And then there’s the Matador…

Every 70s home needs a Matador! Dave grew up with a Matador painting over the fireplace in his parent’s house. We saw this one on CL for $40, but it was about an hour away. Eventually we saw it in an antique store for $100 and we thought, well, they must have bought it and marked it up and now it was way out of our price range, which was too bad because it was pretty impressive in person. It’s a print with painted highlights. Then we saw it on CL again the next week! There were two of them in town! So we ran out to the folks selling it for $40 and bought it. As the lady handed it to us she gave us a funny look and said ‘Are you sure this fits into your décor?’, in a way that indicated she didn’t think it could possibly fit into ANYONE’S décor! Oh yes, we assured her. And it fits very nicely into the living room, particularly with the yellow couches. We LOVE the Matador!

My latest acquisition was a Goodwill find. This afternoon after volunteering at the barn, I went back up to Battle Ground to order food at our favorite Thai place and bring it home. I had a little time to kill so I went to Goodwill to look for frames I could buy and put my own photography in, and spotted this:

Hmmm, I thought, that’s pretty groovy. It says John Eastman, 1973 on it. I couldn’t decide if I should buy it or not though – fully framed and behind glass, it was a whole $4. Maybe I am a little cheap!

So I called Dave after I picked up our food and asked him what he thought, and he was like ‘duh, for $4? GO GET IT!’ So I went back, and poking around found another one! (the lines down the middle are reflections)

And yeah, they are pretty groovy. I hung them in the kitchen, which is the only place we still have some bare walls!

So that’s it for now. We’re having so much fun decorating our vintage house. Just wait until you see what I have planned to finish off the bedroom!

At the zoo

On July 30, 2012 By stefrobrtsIn photography1 Comment

We spent most of Sunday at the Oregon Zoo. I figured it would be a target-rich environment for photographs, but for some reason my camera was acting up and overexposing everything in auto-exposure mode. I ended up taking most of the pictures in manual mode, which of course meant I messed a lot of them up trying to get the hang of it. I guess it’s all good practice. I think Dave was getting some great pictures on his cell phone, and if he ever figures out how to get them off the phone and onto the computer, I’ll share them!

It’s been a few years since we were at the zoo, and they had some new exhibits, like the Black Bear enclosure. It was very open and you could get great views of the bears doing their thing.

In this picture they are at one end of the enclosure, but it actually stretches quite a long ways, with lots of trees and different surfaces and stuff for them to do.

Being the symbol of our country and freedom and all that, it seems so weird to see an eagle just hanging out and preening it’s feathers like every other bird.

These lovely little Egrets were in another aviary enclosure, and we watched them for quite a while. Beautiful and very active birds, and not very big – about a foot tall or so.

I don’t usually spend a lot of time with the elephants, but this time they seemed to be up to interesting stuff, and we found ourselves hanging out for a bit to watch.

They had also remodeled the Africa exhibit since we last visited, and the views of the big cats and hyenas was excellent.

I think our zoo went without lions for a while, so it’s nice to see them back.

These little birds were in the walk-through Africa Aviary. They were having a grand time eating and tussling over the bowl. I was delighted to catch the little guy holding a pea in his foot and eating it! I have a special love for birds. I never get tired of watching their birdy-mannerisms.

The Rhino was sleeping, but the Hippo was hanging out where we could see him.

These lovely guys live with the Zebra. Their faces look kind of llama-like to me. They’re from different continents, so I don’t think they are likely to be related.