The inspiration for Ocean Spray (not the kind you feel on your face)

I've always been intrigued with cranberry bogs.  Anyone who sat in my 5th grade science class over the years knows how I've longed to see one in real life.  There is something about all that pink-red color covering the water when the berries are afloat that is just lovely to look at.  Then on our way to the beachside town of  Bandon, I read that it is the "unofficial" cranberry capital of Oregon.  Surprising to note, Oregon contributes a considerable amount to the cranberry crop.  Hoping to see firsthand what I'd only seen in pictures, I stopped in at the Bandon tourist office to learn more.   The lady there really didn't know anything about the bogs location (don't really understand that as Bandon hosts a big Cranberry Festival every fall).  Not be deterred from my hunt for the berry, I did a bog search to locate one. Thanks to my husband's willingness to go along on this backroads trek, we finally found it .  It took some doing as the bogs didn't look anything like I had imagined.  They were big square pits, no floating beauties, just a mass of greenery.  We parked for a close-up view and found the pit was filled with a mass of vines that had  berries not fully ripe yet.  This piqued my curiosity and led to further investigation.

The cranberry is one of the few fruits that originated in this country.  It was first called "crane berry" because someone thought the way the fruit hangs from the vine resembled the look of a crane.  Bogs are depressions in the ground that are marshy so you will find cranberry bogs are going to be near water such as wetlands.  During growing season the cranberry bogs are drained of their water.  When it's time to harvest, the farmer floods the bogs so that the berries float. They do this because they have air pockets in them (remember that pop you hear when you boil the berries to make sauce?).  After they loosen from the vines, a big floating boom kind of "rounds up" the berries so they can be removed from the water. And that's  the part I'd really love to see.  During the growing season, farmers wear stilts to roam around their bogs.
To determine fruit goodness you bounce the berries.  The first guy to do this John Webb in 1880, would toss his berries down the steps and the ones that bounced were keepers.  As to the beautiful picture of the floating fruit on the Ocean Spray website?  Maybe in September.

Took a detour at Costco and ended up at Crater Lake

It's the 23rd of July. I started out today with a trip to Costco topping the "to do" list but lo and behold, I now find myself surrounded, not by masses of bargain shoppers, but by dark green mountainsides topped with snow covered peaks.  Ironically here in valley of all this cool, lush beauty is a barren flatland.

I reach down to pick up one of the many rocks that fill this valley floor. Anticipating the feel of its heaviness, as I lift it I'm surprised to find it light as a feather.   Pumice. Rocks peppered with multitudes of holes.  Left-overs from some ancient eruption. The area I now stand in is aptly called the Pumice Desert.  On the info plaque I read that one time pumice filled this spot to a depth of 100 feet, not the most fertile habitat for plant life. However, here and there the ashy desert is broken by an occasional brave sapling struggling to survive and clumps of a grassy like plants with little yellow flowers.   

This  pumice-filled landscape is the welcome mat for the entrance to Crater Lake. 
Crater Lake is exactly what its name states, a lake in a crater.  It is the lake that fills the top of Mount Mazama where that ancient volcano once erupted and then collapsed in on itself (caldera).  This isn't just any ole' lake you'll find no jet skis or catfish jumpin'. In fact Crater Lake forms a very striking contrast to the wasteland I just came through. In the spot where once boiled and churned molten hot lava, now rests a placid pristine body of water colored the most vivid, intense shade of indigo I've every seen outside of a doctored Polaroid pic. 

This body of water is the deepest in the US (1943 feet) and has been fed over the many years from precipitation and snowmelt. In the interior of the lake is a small black island shaped somewhat like a witch's hat and called Wizard Island.  It was formed from a second eruption.  Two for the price of one....kind of like a volcano in a volcano.  If you look through the binocs you can see the caldera at the top of it too. 

The rim of Crater Lake is paved so we can drive the entire perimeter, but only in the summer months.  This is one drive where you don't have to strain and keep saying "I wish I could see, I bet the view is great over there."  They have sprinkled many spots to park and snap all along the drive.   
The real treat (as if there was need for more) is the mountain lodge built on the south side of the rim.  Around dinner time the back porch is opened for viewers and fortuitously, I was in the right place at the right time to snag a couple of rockers.  Needless to say, it was really hard to drag myself away from that chair, that view, and and that special beverage of my choice to make the 3 hour drive back to Eugene. 
By far this "side trip" provided a  much more enjoyable way to spend my time than fighting the shoppers to the bargains at  Costco.

Cape Perpetua

I'm looking down a steep cliff side into the surging waters of the Pacific Ocean 800 feet below.

I'm trying to imagine being on the face of this cliff
                   ...on a trail merely 3 feet wide
                       in the winter
                       during a storm
                       crawling along on my belly
                       hanging onto my horses' tail...
to get the mail from Newport to Florence.

This was life in 1897 at Cape Perpetua.
  
By 1914 this narrow trail was widened to accommodate wagon travel.

Cape Perpetua's cliff is the highest headland on the Oregon coast.

I've been blessed with a clear day and can see 70 miles up and down the coast line and 37 miles out to sea.  The view I'm enjoying now came in mighty  handy in WWII.  After the Japanese bombed Mt. Emily in Brookings, Oregon( in hopes of weakening national resources by starting a forest fire) ,the rock shelter atop Cape Perpetua provided a great observation point for protecting this part of the  coastline.

Cape Perpetua is located in The Siluslaw National Forest.  This forest is full of old growth trees with a giant spruce that was just a sapling when Columbus discovered America. Walking down the trail takes me to another place and time.  One tree root looks like a sideways elephant.  The carpet of ferns are big enough to hide a fairyland underneath.

At the base of the cliffs,  puddled in the nooks and crannies of the black basalt rock, are tidal pools that teem with life at low tide.  I'm here at high tide and watch as those high tide waves slam against the rocks finding  places where erosion has worn holes through the rock surface.  The pressure of those waves causes water to explode through those holes like giant plumes from an active volcano.

The Color of Wheat

Took a different route to the coast this weekend.  Headed north from Eugene toward Corvallis.  The land between here and there is rural, nothing new about that. I'm coming to learn that much of Oregon is rural and not very populated.  But along the way we pass by some wheat fields that are truly beautiful to behold.

The wheat is so light and bright.  Looking across these fields I'm reminded of the "cotton top" hair of two boys, children of a dear friend.  When you see those cotton tops you are always taken aback at how white they are.  It's the same with these fields, not that they are white, but that bright buttery yellow set against the dark green of all those evergreens in the distance and the bright blue sky and dark mountains....well I can't look at them enough.

The fields are so thickly planted that looking at them from the side makes me think of a man with thick hair cut in a crew cut style.

When the fields have been cut and raked into windrows the piles look silky, kind of like big piles of corn silk.  The farmers around here bale them into square bales and stake them out in the field in walls as tall as a house.
By the way, Corvallis is a town of about 51,000 and home to Oregon State University.

A Day at the Coast (Central Oregon)

sweatshirt...windbreaker...folding chair...jeans...socks...quilt...binoculars
Not exactly "beaching" it like this southern girl is used to. 
The high never got out of the 50's with a strong wind and fog that couldn't decide if it wanted to stay or go.  
The Oregon coast is wild, untamed, scary.  With it's pop up logs and sneaker waves, better not turn your back on the ocean ...it is not your friend.

The hunt begins to find that oh so perfect perch to listen to the sound of the surf.  Started just south of Florence and the mouth of the Siuslaw (sigh-you-slaw)River.  The beginning of the Oregon Dunes area.   Ever tried climbing a sand dune? I mean the ones like you see in the movies?  This one was about as high as a two story house.  No problem.  I've been working out a lot lately.   I'll just head  up to the top and check out the other side for our possibilities.

 Ha!!!!  Climbing in sand is no easy matter.  About half way up I finally said "uncle".  Okay, I can do this, I'll just pace myself 10 on and 10 off.  By the time I made it I realized there was no way I was going to climb back up again especially toting junk but I did get some great pics. 
By the way, if you're up for it, you can try sandboarding (like snowboarding).

A little wiser now we head north- away from the dunes (by the way these are the same dunes that provided creative inspiration for the science fiction book and movie by that name).
Finally found a spot.  A little park service parking lot ($6 please).  We can sit on the top of the cliff with the bushes to help block the wind or walk down the path to the beach. 

The beach is flat and goes on forever. Not another person is  in sight.

Checking out the tidal pools in the rocks we find thousands of mussels, brown-striped and black.  Some so tiny they are no larger than a dime.  The anemones are like filled balloons when in the water but out of water they are deflated.  These are some of the inhabitants of the intertidal zone.  They are hardy.  They live a double life.  They are water animals and must be able to survive with the full force of the tide trying to uproot them from their homes as well as land animals in that time period when it's low tide.  The mussels amaze me with their resilience.

Back up top, we bundle up, get in our little land cove to spend a couple of hours reading, writing and just being.  We watch a fog bank roll in and sit off the coast. 

Fog is a cloud that touches the surface of the earth.  Fog happens when moisture condenses around particles. 
Sea fog forms as water condenses around  particles of salt from  sea spray.  Kelp also releases particles of iodine which become nuclei for water to condense around.

When the pressure of the air above the fog bank is high the fog gets "squashed"  which is what has caused the fog to look the way it does in the photo above.
There are many kinds of fog- ice fog, hail fog, valley fog, hill fog, guara fog to name a few.
Some areas with scarce natural rainfall  (Lima, Peru)  even extract moisture from fog to use for drinking, cleaning ,etc. by using "fog nets".

After seeing it, sitting in it and driving through it, when I say  "my head's in a fog"  I really relate.

Home Sweet Home- Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon

 2nd largest city in Oregon (about the size of Chattanooga).  Wikipedia says that Eugene is noted for it's natural beauty (called the "Emerald City") , recreational opportunities (where the Nike corporation started, called "Track Town USA"), focus on the arts, political activism, and alternative lifestyles.  I can attest to the natural beauty,  Eugene is surrounded by beautiful green hills.  Everywhere you go there are tall straight pine trees.  The cool temps must make growing beautiful flowers easy because lawns are filled to the overflowing with  baskets of petunias and other interesting plants.  Saw a monkey puzzle tree- heard of it but never seen one.  Recreation is  so easy.  All you have to do is strap on your shoes and walk out your door.  Walking and biking paths are truly  everywhere.  I've yet to see a street that didn't have sidewalks on both sides.  And the arts....in the first week alone I've enjoyed a Bach Festival concert and the Arts in the Vineyard festival (art show and wine tasting at the park).  Every weekend offers at least one opportunity to stretch your cultural muscles.

Saturday Market-every Saturday, April through mid-November, rain or shine.

The Mushroom Man
Morels -last weekend for those they look like the cones of magnolia trees.  Dice them and saute in a little oil and throw over angel hair is what he says.  When he takes my money I see hands that bear the signs of working the soil.  I'm oddly comforted by this. After all could I trust a mushroom man with manicured nails?

The little Mexican lady deftly rolling ball after ball of cornmeal dough in her hands.  Walking by you feel the heat from the griddle.   She throws the balls onto the heat and wallah!!  fresh corn tortillas- 6 for a dollar.

The Balloon Man
Wearing fancy balloon hat as he walks the grounds.  He draws children like a pied piper.
Will you make one for me?

The Lavender Lady
Smells so good!!  Do you want a bunch, or a scoop for a tiny sachet or a spoonful to bake lavender shortbread?  How about lavender tea?

Saturday Market- a feast for the senses.

Bodega Bay or Bust!

Central California-  more wind farms.  I'm fascinated by them.  The wind turbines look as if they are standing on the hills, flinging their arms hilariously about and having a grand time.  

 


The rolling hills are covered with some kind of wheat looking grass (maybe California fescue).  From a distance they look so soft and smooth.  They remind me of those little toy reindeer that are covered with soft brown velveteen finish


 

The beauty of seeing miles and miles of growing things was suddenly marred when (without warning) we crossed through cow land, a holding area and stock yard for cattle.    I've never ever seen anything like this.  Cows as far as the eyes can see in pens with water being sprayed over them.  This is not a picture I want in my mind the next time I'm enjoying a shish-kebab. It's enough to make me contemplate life as a vegan.

   

We push on (almost 900 hundred miles) to get to  the next stop, Bodega Bay, California. 

About 25 years ago we visited here and stayed  at Inn at the Tides.  What I remember most?  a restaurant at the mouth of the Russian River with a glassed in kitchen so you could watch the chef at work ( a real novelty at the time) and the largest hot tub I'd ever seen (at the Inn that is not the restaurant).  Surprisingly enough the Inn is still there so guess where we stayed?  What I didn't remember was  that the restaurant and bar (the Tides Wharf)  across from the Inn, and Bodega Bay itself was the site of the filming of THE BIRDS!!!  Those of you who know me know it is the movie I love to hate- it taught me to fear being in close proximity to birds 'cause they'll peck your eyes out.  Now I know in my head that this isn't true and is a very irrational feeling, but get a bird in that dive bomb position and I'm overtaken by an unreasonable need to cover my head and seek immediate cover.  By the way Tippi Hedron (star of The Birds) was making a special appearance at the Inn on the 4th of July (eyes intact).

Bodega Bay is in Sonoma County (of wine fame) and was the site of the first Russian structures built in California (1809).  Bodega Bay was called Port Rumyantsev.  The port served Fort Ross and the larger Russian community know as Colony Ross.  Fort Ross (a very American sounding name) was actually the southernmost hub of the Russian settlements in North America.  I didn't know that Russia had ever laid claim to colonies on our turf.  Actually, the US didn't appear on the scene in that area until 1846- California became a state in 1850. 

 

Bodga Bay is a village of about 1400 people with living built around fishing and tourism. 
Our day there is cold and windy and foggy.  Beautiful views of the bay were made even better by a fresh crabmeat sandwich and hot cup of homemade clam chowder from a bayside crab shack.

 Interesting story about the sailboat in the picture. The owner got behind on his slip rental (to the tune of $8,000).  He couldn't afford to pay up so he sailed the boat out into the  the bay and tied it up to a buoy.  During a storm the boat broke loose and drifted into shallow waters (the water being very shallow in that area even at high tide) and the keel got stuck in the mud.  It was going to cost $18,000 pull it out and tow it to deeper water.  Of course if the owner didn't have the $8,000 back rent he certainly didn't have the $18,000 towing fee.  So there it sits and has done so for 3 years now.  A sad story but makes for a great picture.

Ca-li-for-nia here I come...(does every state have a song?)

Southern California - the landscape changes like the swing of a pendulum. Entering California is like a trial by fire. We drove what would be the length of time from Knoxville to Nashville through the California and Mojave desert. Several air force bases are in this area including the, now famous, 29 Palms. That's where Maverick and Goose got their training in Top Gun. The sun made my eyes feel like they were burning holes into their sockets.
















 Along the way we pass a sign for the town of Boron. Being the science teacher I am I immediately recall my periodic table from our 5th grade class in which Boron is the 5th element.
Boron, California (named for the element) is on the western edge of the Mojave Desert and is the location of the world's largest source of Boric Acid. This is a weak acid used sometimes as an antiseptic, insecticide, and flame retardant, and, if you are old enough to remember, 20 Mule Team Borax (a cleaning product). Interestingly, we saw the exit for 20 Mule Team Road. The 20 mule team name came from the teams of 20 mules that it took to haul the borax from Death Valley.



After crossing the last of the mountains we were treated to a vista that looked like it had been painted onto the landscape. Going down a two lane road we were treated to a view of a valley of green that traveled all the way to the horizon as we descended into the small town of Arvin, Calif. My eyes screamed AAAAAAAH!!!!

I have to tell you, living in Middle Tennessee, I'm used to seeing agricultural areas far and wide, usually growing acres of corn or wheat or tobacco. But I've never seen such a variety of crops growing in one area like I saw in Southern California.

On one side of the road were lush green grape vines and on the other side, orange groves as far as you could see. On down the way it changed to wheat and corn. This went on for miles and miles, on through the Bakersfield area and on up the interstate towards San Francisco.

 Where have I been? I didn't know California was a source of  so much produce. The last few days beauty has been defined by the shapes of unusual rock formations or the striations of shade and color in the side of a mountain. Now beauty takes on a whole new meaning.....green !!!


By the time we leave California I've come to realize that agriculture is definitely huge in this state. Believe or not, California is our nation's leading agricultural producer supplying over half our fruit, nuts and vegetables. (Where have I been and how come I don't know this). California is by nature a semi-arid land. Water is not a very "natural" resource in a semi-arid area, thus the name "semi-arid". Consequently, waving the magic wand to turn this "almost desert" into fertile farm land requires vast amounts of water making water highly valuable (liquid gold) and increasingly fought over. Water availability is something we in the Tennessee Valley with our network of rivers, dams and reservoirs, tend to take for granted.

Evidence of this intense struggle was all along the highway as we see, over and over again,  as farmers vehemently state their protest by posting signs saying "Farms grow where waters flow" and Congress Created Dust Blow and by putting the 'not allowed' over the names Pelosi, Boxer and Costa (federal legislators). You can learn a lot about an areas politics by reading the signs.