Month: November 2018

 Sunday October 28, 2018

Bonneville Fish Hatchery to Bend, OR

Just a note to my readers: The observant reader of this post says “what the heck, that date can’t be right! Well, It is, sorta. That’s the date I started writing this post. Today’s Date is November 25, 2018. We have since arrived at our home, done a lot of work around the house in preparation for winter and the coming Christmas Holiday Season. Yes, time got away from me as three other holidays have past: Halloween, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving. I have one more post to publish, that of the last leg of our trip home. Be patient…………

Should I have said “Where to Go?…… Normally we try to vary our routes. Well we kind of snookered ourselves this time. The best routes towards home involved travel on Interstate 5 passing through the Oregon’s Willamette Valley or US Highway 97 traversing Oregon’s high desert county east of the Cascades. We’ve already traveled Oregon’s Interstate 5 corridor in the beginning of this trip. We also visited Bend’s high desert area on our way to Idaho. The weather has turned more like the Fall we know here in the Pacific Northwest, that being wet. So what to do?

We flipped a coin, heads I-5 and tails US97. It’s heads. We disregard the coin flip and head towards the dryer high desert area of Bend, one of our favorite stops in the State of Oregon. After picking up and packing up on Friday we stop at Jim and Connie’s RV to say goodby. It’s been another good time volunteering with these good friends.

The route to Bend has us we travel east on I-84 to Hood River, south on Oregon 35 which takes us through the Fruit Loop of Hood River and onto the east and south flank of the mighty Mt. Hood. As we climb in elevation the forest gets more dense and so does the low cloud cover- yikes! Although a little foggy in places its not too bad. Everything is soaking wet from the overnight rains which continues into this morning. After about an hour we turn south onto US 26 and head towards Warm Springs. There are no towns between the Hood River Valley and Warm Springs.

Warm Springs Reservation (2400 souls) is governed by a confederation of Paiute, Wasco and Warm Springs tribes. Here is a little history for ya- https://warmsprings-nsn.gov/history/. The region is very dry compared to the Columbia Gorge. However, the Deschutes River runs right through town. Tourism is important so being good tourists we stop at the casino. No, not to gamble but to let the dogs stretch.

 

Near Warm Springs we pass the turnoff to Ka-Nee-Ta Resort. I later learn that the resort closed before our arrival. Apparently the resort had been losing money for some time. That has to be a sad occurrence for this small Native American community.

We park as far away in the most distant parking area, right on the edge of the pavement. Dogs leashed, they are the first out but refuse to move as soon as paws hit dirt. They look up at us with that “what the heck did you just do to us” look. We look at the ground and they are standing in the sticker patch from hell! We move them out as best as we can, then provide some sticker removal for their paws. Poor mutzos! We spend quite a bit of time picking stickers from 8 paws. We walk around the perimeter of the parking lot looking for sticker-less ground with no success so I move the rig to a safer boarding area. Everyone jumps aboard and off we go.

Highway 26 follows the Dechutes River Canyon for several miles, then climbs up it’s shoulder to the high desert plain. The tail end of the cold front is kicking up quite a bit of wind. The rig gets a little squirrely when it’s hit by big gusts, but remains manageable. A little farther south is the city of Madras (6000 souls), the seat of Jefferson County.

Crooked River Gorge- 400′ deep!

We join US 97 here and continue south towards Redmond (30,000 souls). About 8 miles north of town we stop at the Peter Skene Ogden State Park to view the vertical walls of the Crooked River Gorge. Redmond has grown so much the last decade that Highway 97 no longer follows the most traditional route through most town, Main Street, but skirts downtown entirely.

Another 20 miles south on US97 and we pull into the Crown Villa RV Resort for the second time in three months. Every time we’ve stayed at Crown Villa the place was packed with higher end Class A motorhomes and nice 5th wheel or travel trailers. This trip around Class A’s are in the minority and the place is packed with less expensive travel trailers and a smattering of 5th wheels. The clientele has also changed- a lot more working age folks, some with families and not so many retirees. In fact it looks like a bunch of folks who found work in Bend have brought their home on wheels and their families from who knows where to work here. That’s a good thing!

The weather improved, the sun came out for a while, so we saddle up and head to downtown Bend and the Drake Park area. Downtown Bend is turn of last century two story predominantly brick buildings. It’s a thriving little downtown.

Adjacent to it is Drake Park, a large manicured grass park that lies along the Deschutes River. Walking through the park we are delighted to find numerous youngsters and their parents playing in the deep leaf litter. The Deschutes River is dammed just down river, we cross the small lake to the residential side of the river.

Beautiful Home, Garden Art, Halloween Decor

The homes that lie along the river are just incredible. Those fortunate enough have their manicured back yards end right on the lake. We walk through this great neighborhood, across the vehicle bridge, around through a portion of downtown and back to the car. This is one of our favorite activities here in Bend.

We hadn’t been up on the Cascade Lakes Highway for a while so let’s go! We head up towards Mt. Bachelor with the intent of driving the highway past some very beautiful lakes such as the one below.

Instead we get up to the Mt. Bachelor Village and are greeted by rain turning that is quickly turning to snow. Alrighty then, maybe next time!

MThought For The Day – Mr. Rogers did not adequately prepare me for the people in my neighborhood.

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Location: Bonneville Fish Hatchery

We completed our last week here at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery in a flurry of activity. Fall is definitely showing its presence as all the deciduous trees and the conifers for that matter, have decided its time to drop their leaves. First were the small leaves of the honey locusts which, by the way, are difficult to round up with leaf blowers.

If they are dry all one does is blow them up into the air where whatever puff of wind catches them, scattering them right back where they originated. After blowing them for an inordinate amount of time, trying to tame their uncooperative way, one finally just blows them into small piles and picks them up with a rake.

Other trees are dropping their leaves as well. Oaks drop their big leaves and making a big mess. The conifers drop their dead leaves all of the time but especially when the wind blows. It seems like no more dead leaves can fall from them until they do- with a vengeance. So a lot of time is spent during the fall blowing and raking leaves, which seems to be never ending………. sigh…. at least the honey locusts a now bare……..

The areas that look like someone has actually look great the longest are the walking paths at Herman’s House, the upper and lower trout pond areas, and the small sturgeon pond. Those areas are all cleared of leaves and other debris using just the back pack blowers. Other larger paths and street require the edges be blown with the backpack blowers then the bulk is suctioned up using the trailer mounted vacuum. They also look good after being cleaned. Due to their size they collect a lot more leaves and don’t look as good for as long.

The Gang Ready To Spawn

Male Coho

The coho salmon are ripe for spawning so thats what happened Thursday. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife biologists attended taking tissue samples of multiple fish which slows the operation down. Jil estimated that 700 female coho were spawned. Not nearly as many males are required as their milt is shared with the eggs of many females. All of the fertilized eggs were destined for Oxbow Hatchery which we understand will share a portion of their bounty with Eagle Creek.

 

 

 

Jil Assisting in the Spawning Room

One of the side benefits of volunteering here at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery is volunteering (or being volunteered) to help in the Egg Hatch House. That’s where the salmon eggs are raised and monitored until they hatch. When they are large enough they are placed in an outdoor rearing pond. Eventually they will be released into Tanner Creek in order to continue their journey to the Pacific Ocean. To ensure the majority of the eggs remain healthy they are constantly monitored. Dead and “twin” eggs are removed to keep those hundreds of thousand eggs that remain healthy.  Jil (and Connie on occasion) man their tweezers and pick out imperfect eggs for at least six hours a session. The hatch house is cold, the water is cold, the floor is cold. By the time Jil completes her task she is cold, her feet hurt and is generally miserable. That’s the life of a volunteer here at the hatchery!

The hatchery is a very popular field trip destination for school kids. Three buses full of grade schoolers arrive at the same time. I watch as the kids go yelling and screaming, playing tag, etc. The adults, at least two, maybe 3 per 10 kids don’t keep close tabs on the kids. Not a gripe per se, but I do remember going of field trips with a class of 30 and only our teacher to keep us kids on the straight and narrow. Anyhow, they all sit down at benches in the picnic area to consume their lunches. Normally we have a big dumpster adjacent to the picnic area but not today. The kids trash will up being stuffed into a trash can across the way- but the can isn’t large enough to contain all of their trash. God knows where the rest of it will be deposited.  So I put Jim and Connie’s clever plan into action. I approach each of the six benches loaded with kids scarfing down their lunches, introduce myself as a volunteer host, hand a large trash bag to the adults in charge of that particular bench asking that they please collect all the trash and place it into this bag and please leave the bag at the table, as I will collect the bags after they finish their lunch. Yes! This will work as well as Jim and Connie’s clever plan has ever worked!

When I return expecting to collect the six bags stuffed with trash I see only two……. where in the heck are the other four? Did the elders put the bags in their bus? Oh come on now! So I put on my sleuth hat to find the other four. Not in that trash can…… Oh wait, how about this one? Nope. Not in Mitchell Creek either. The last trash can I check- bulls eye and exactly what I was trying to prevent. Geez, how in the heck did they stuff all of that trash into that can? They must have taken turns doing a tap dance on top of those bags to compact them enough to fit. It nearly takes a pry bar to pop them out. So now I know why kids can’t seem to follow instructions- neither can their teachers.

The above activities describe our last day on duty at the hatchery. As afternoon turns to evening the rain comes right on schedule. I had planned on picking up and storing the sewer hose and water hose but Jil was still using the clothes washer. Okay, I’ll do that in the morning…….