Month: August 2024

Thursday, August 15, 2024

We left Silver Falls State Park on the morning of August 1st and moved to our home for two months, Bonneville Fish Hatchery. As many of you faithful followers are aware we have volunteered at this hatchery many times. The drive for today is only 84 miles, some of it mountain driving on shoulderless state roads winding through forest and farmland, some on flatter urban stop and go traffic through more populous areas, then about 30 miles of interstate.

So it’s time to fess up. The Subaru has not been towed by the Allegro Red since we left Sisters. While unhitching the Subaru at Collier SP the Subaru slowly rollded forward and touched the disconnected tow bar. I can usually feel resistance pulling the tow pins from the Subaru but felt nothing, like the car was perfectly balanced but it wasn’t. A Blue Ox tow bar has telescoping arms that make hitching and unhitching much easier. When the Subaru crept forward it damaged the locking mechanism on one arm. I didn’t even notice something was amiss until we were almost to Sisters. I then felt the Subie shifting around behind us. When working properly no movement is felt between the Subie and the motorhome. I’ve ordered a new one.

So Jil has driven the Subie from Sisters to Idanha, to Salem Premiere RV Resort, Silver Falls State Park always following her smarty pants phone’s GPS and not following the Big Dog RV at all. She usually arrives a little before the Big Dog and mostly follows the same route. We leave Silver Falls her leaving ahead of me. I give her the directions of which I will follow- drive to Silverton and pick up Oregon Hwy 213 (Oak Street) there. She snears at me and says “Ill follow my GPS, thank you very much”. Okie Dokie! I stop in town and top off the diesel tank, diesel in Silverton being 70 cents more a gallon than in Salem- gads- and they are only 12 miles apart! I then head north on OR 213 as planned. Hwy 213 leads through scenic rolling hills and farm country, then into a portion of Oregon City where I pick up I-205, then I-84 east to the hatchery.

Our Beautiful Site #2. The Bridge In The Background Is A Railroad Bridge

Well, this time I beat her to our destination after giving her a 20 minute head start. I asked what route she took when she came cruising in a little later. Well, my little sweetie and her smarty pants phone’s GPS got lost! They zigged when they should have zagged and wound up way off the beaten track. They corrected in Corbett (way outta the way!)and came on into the hatchery. We set up and then say howdie to our co-hosts Mike and Sue. Apparently the hosts that just left didn’t help out too much saddling Mike and Sue with more work so we got to start work on August 2. That’s fine because that’s why we came here…………

Host site #2 is our preferred site. Both host sites have full hookups as one is required to have self contained campers to host here. Site #1 is like being downtown and close to visitors compared to site #2 which is more like being in the country away from folks. Our mutzos have lots of room to roam off leash. Even employees don’t come down here much except to take required water samples discharging from the hatchery into Tanner Creek. And yes, we are parked right next to Tanner Creek with birch and other tall trees for shade. We have full hookups, a turf lawn, a nice picnic bench. We can walk the dogs quite a ways before reaching civilization. But best of all, we are in the country! Ahhhhh………..

Some Of The Beautiful Grounds We Help Maintain

For the past two weeks we’ve had enough wildfire smoke in the Gorge to give us pause about traveling to some of our favorite scenic spots. No sense going if ya can’t see nothin’! So we’ve stayed in the Gorge on our days off except to go to church and grocery shopping.

Our big splurge was to visit the Skamania County Fair over in Stevenson WA, which is less than 10 miles away. Could NOT believe the cost of things- a corn dog $7, one dart for a dart game-$4. Sheesh! We enjoyed the farm animals, beautiful quilts, art drawings by young local kids and great photographs and graphics that had 1st and 2nd place ribbons hanging next to them.

I’ll write more on our duties at the hatchery and the small towns around here in later posts. But for now, Adios until next time.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it through faith.”

Monday July 31, 2024

We left Salem on July 29. We have reservations at Silver Falls State Park for three nights. The park is less than 30 miles from Premier RV Resort but I anticipate it taking a while longer than a half hour to get there. The traffic through Salem is slow going and the last 10 miles to the park is on a narrow,windy, very hilly county road. Once out oF Salem proper the scenery rapidly changes to farm land and woods.

South Falls in the spring. A trail is behind the falls

Once on the uphill climb trees change from oak to pine rapidly. The park itself is only 2800 feet in elevation yet the forest is predominantly conifer.We arrive a little early (check in is a ridiculous to us 1600 hours). The traffic pattern by the entrance station has us bypass the unmanned building. This is our second state park visit this trip with neither manned by rangers or employees as they used to be. Our site #76 is deep in the woods. There are two distinct loops in the campground, the less shady full hookup loop and our loop that caters to tent campers as well as RV’ers who don’t need sewer on site.

The big draw to this park besides it’s beautiful forest are the water falls. Ten falls are all reachable by a trail that leads to all of them following Silver Creek. The largest fall is South Falls at 177′. A trail leads behind this fall. It’s the most accessible fall in the park.

South Falls Precipice

A large parking lot is close by as well as the rustic building housing a gift shop, the South Falls historic Lodge circa 1930’s and built by the CCC, a large day use area and swimming hole. Near the day use area is an open, non-fenced dog area. A ways away is the Silver Falls Lodge and Conference Center. A horse camp is near the campground as well. I’m sure I’ve left a few things out but you get the idea. This park will please almost everyone.

The Historic Lodge circa 1930’s

The town of Silverton (10,443 souls) is the nearest civilization at 13 miles. We like Roth’s Fresh Market, I will not lie, because they make the best raspberry turnovers in the whole world. I walk up to the bakery counter looking in the showcase and only see apple turnovers. An employee asks if she can help me find something. I ask for raspberry turnovers. She said that the bakery had to reconfigure due to Covid and those turnovers were eliminated as well as a few other goodies. Drats!

Downtown Silverton

We had a good time visiting South Falls, taking many walks in the large grassy areas around the falls parking lot. We even got to get lost going to Silverton. That’s pretty hard to do on a two lane county road but I did it. Should have gone right instead of left. We press Jil’s phone into action to determine how far we ventured from Silverton. The GPS on Jil’s smarty pants phone locked in but had us go in a circle, coming back to the same spot we had just departed 15 minutes before.. About that time we figured Silverton was 30 miles away and gave up, returning the 12 miles back to the campground.

So that’s about it for our stay in Silver Falls State Park. We’ll be moving on to Bonneville Fish Hatchery volunteering for the months of August and September. See you there!

Monday, July 29, 2024

We are now heading north on US Highway 97. The two lane road is very well maintained with very few hills to climb. Our next two night stay will be in Sisters.

Sisters Oregon was named for the Three Sisters volcanic peaks nearby. USPS didn’t want to name their post office Three Sisters and shortened the name to Sisters. Sisters is a very popular place for tourists. Downtown consists of a few blocks of upscale shops and restaurants. The drawback to downtown is Highway 20, a main highway from the east of the Cascade Range to the Willamette Vallely to the west goes right through the business district. Going through town is slow going- and trucks traveling over Santiam pass have the pleasure of passing right through downtown..

We stayed at the beautiful Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort- and they ain’t kiddin’ about a beautiful garden (beautiful flowers everywhere). The amenities are resort quality. Another nice feature is their dog walk along the perimeter of the park and access to the adjacent fairgrounds through a gate in which the dogs are allowed off leash.

We continued on after a two night stay and a walk through Sisters (3013 souls) snagging a couple of delicious ice cream cones, the waffle cones made on site- yum! We are heading over the mountain on Highway 20 to Highway 22 which will take us northwest to Detroit Lake. We couldn’t get reservations at the very popular Detroit Lake Recreation Area. We tried six months in advance but all sites were already taken. Second choice was River Mountain RV Park located 2 miles south of the lake in the tiny burg of Idanha (155 souls).

The Park looks a lot nicer on the internet-

spring time makes everything look good.

River Mountain RV Park has what I suspect are highly ranked reviews maybe made by pals of the owner. The park is located right on the Santiam River but access to it is not good. Steep banks make negotiating to the river’s edge iffy. The park itself advertises cable TV but the cable company pulled out leaving nothing behind. Cell service was non-existant.

Idanha City Park– Old School Playground Apparatus

We have two sisters that are not well so we need access to internet or cell service. The RV park is old style with only service being a bath house and a gazebo. Sites have full hookups except for the tent area. I does have wifi at the office. We found not enough to do for the three days we had reserved a site.

The one highlight was Marion Fork Fish Hatchery located 10 miles south of the RV park. The hatchery raises chinook salmon. It boasts a beautiful day use area and a great forest service campground. We enjoyed our visit to the hatchery.

We felt that our location at River Mountain RV Park did not offer amenities we needed and/or desired. If one wants/desires peace and quiet this is the place! Jil was able to get very weak cell service (once) and made reservations at Premier RV Resort, Salem. So now our plan is to stay at Premier for two days, leaving Idanha two days early.

Relatively Narrow Sites at Premier RV Resort

We’d stayed at Premier twice before but reaching the park requires driving through Salem. I don’t like driving through areas I’m not really familiar with that has heavy traffic. I’d rather drive down a country lane with 10′ wide lanes and no shoulders on the road with my 8’6″ wide motorhome than drive through cities with heavy traffic. I negotiate Salem successfully, cross the bridge over the Willamette River and drive west on highway 22 looking for the entrance to the RV park. Of course I miss the postage stamp sized sign the RV park has at it’s entrance.which my Garmin GPS identifies with a name I’m not familiar with. And no, the park is not visible at all from the highway as it’s behind commercial buildings and quite a bit lower than the highway. 10 miles later I have the gut feeling were are not even close to the RV park, correct Garmin and head back to Premier RV Resort.

It’s a nice park with a big fenced dog run, well maintained grounds. A drawback is the sites are fairly close together (not a problem this trip) and for some insane reason they planted trees close to the pivot point which causes a big problem for longer rigs exiting their site onto the narrow access road. We spent two nights here and felt we made the right decision leaving River Mountain RV Park in Idanha as we have full connectivity with family.

We take some time to explore Dallas. OR, about ten miles west of the RV park. Dallas celebrated Dallas Days the day before our visit, celebrating 150 years since it’s founding. The Polk County Courthouse is here which dates to 1909. The county was named for President Polk, the town for his VP Dallas. We then head to the Polk County Fairground with adjacent county park. The land was donated to the county by the Nesmeth family. The family graveyard is there. It’s a nice park with a large meadow and woods to the north.

On July 29 we will head to Silver Falls State Park for a three day visit. See you there!