And were completely humbled Hundreds of thousands of people Desperate, hopeful, unprepared, running away, running towards, ever westward 2,000 miles 6 months 10 to 20 miles walked every day Snow, rain, hail, scorching sun, wind Plains, rivers, mountains, plateaus Mud, dust, ruts, rocks Rattlesnakes, buffalo, antelope, bears Cholera Indians 20% died…in some areas a grave every 80 yards Dead and abandoned animals all along the way
These are the people of the Westward Migration, the Oregon Trail, the California settlement, and eventually the gold fever
Today, we visited the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center outside Baker City, Oregon. We actually walked a small section of the trail. It is mind blowing what they endure and conquered for a piece of land to call their own.
6 months, your family and all your possessions inside 1 tiny wagon. Many possessions thought to be essential were abandoned along the way as the hardships of daily life on the trail became a reality. Miles to go. Parts of the trail are still visible and walkable today.The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center is a well thought out and informative museum.Oh my who do we have here?Ever westward.
We are sitting in a beautiful meadow at 6,000ft wild camping. Yesterday, we had our down jackets on as a liner for our wool overcoats with spitting snow. This solstice evening it’s warm, the fire is going, and dinner is cooking. We put some Credence Clearwater Revival on as we wait for dinner. No sooner than the mellow tunes drift quietly over the campsite and we are visited by a mama mule deer. She strolls right into the edge of our camp, stands there for a couple of minutes watching us and listening to CCR! Then she turns and strolls back into the forest. We heard the echo of…Credence! I Love Credence!
We also hit the mother lode of pine pitch fire starter! We spent a little time this afternoon gathering oozing pitch from the Ponderosa Pine covering our little meadow. We then cooked it down into a soup can ready for our next years worth of campfires!
We are getting more used to the new diesel as the miles add up. The motor is getting broken in nicely. We just climbed to Strawberry Forest Campground outside of Prairie Creek, Oregon at just under 6,000 feet. I dropped into low range on the rutted, wash boarded, single lane dirt road up to the campground. The motor did get pretty warm on the way up, but no real problems. Just after we pulled into our chosen site another car came in behind us smelling like torched coolant and transmission fluid. I guess we did ok!
Up, up, up we go!We camped right below Strawberry Lake.Of course we had to go skinny dipping, a surprising 2 dunker, and we didn’t get caught😜In the evening these hillsides turn red, thus the name Strawberry.
The weather report says a bit of wind and cooler weather is coming our way, so we decided to drop down of the rim of Hole in the Ground where we would be more sheltered and have a greater supply of firewood. We found the perfect spot tucked back off a US Forest Service road.
A nice fire in our portable fire grate on a bed of pumice stone keeps the fire danger low. Everything in this area is volcanic…who knew? Darrin calls this my old lady look, but check out whose jacket I am mending after he got too close to the fire…A bit cooler was an understatement! Three nights of 25 degrees. I think we slept in almost everything we had with us! And lived to tell the tale😁
If you listen to the news or read a newspaper, the world seems to be a pretty dangerous place, there are people killing each other, blowing things up, and other odd crazy shit. I know all of this is “reality”, but what they don’t report is how incredibly kind most people are. They don’t talk about the innate core in people that drives them to want to help each other, well most people, I’m not naive. But, over and over during our travels we have met incredible people who go out of their way to be kind. We have met so many people who just want to help, be it a tip on where to go next (or not go), a drive to a grocery store, or a new water source and I know, something that sounds incredibly weird to most people, an offer to take our garbage for us (when dispersed camping, this is actually huge!)
Right now, we are remote camping in the Deschutes National Forest about 25 miles outside of LaPine, OR at a place called Hole in the Ground (see previous blog). Within a 30 minute period today, we had 2 visitors arrive to view ‘the hole’. While here, they not only were incredibly fun to chat with, they offered to take our garbage back to their RV park and to give us water out of their rig because they were headed to a campground with hook-ups for the night.
These might seem like small things in the everyday world, but when remote camping they are huge, and in this case will allow us to spend a few more days in this amazing location.
I hope somewhere along our journey, we have been as helpful, and to everyone who has ever helped us during our travels over the past year…THANKS!!!!!
We are talking about volcanoes, or what is left of an old volcano.
‘Devil’s Tower’ in Wyoming is an outie, a solid core plug being all that is left of an old volcano.
Devil’s Tower picture from last summer.
‘Hole in the Ground’ in Oregon is an inie, a huge hole from an old volcano that sunk in on itself because it erupted under water…so we were told.
Camping right at the rim of Hole in the Ground. It is 1 mile across and 3 miles around.This is as far as I could zoom in with my telephoto lens. The can to the left of the kids is a huge trash barrel.A few side by sides drove down in…to give you a better scale.
A very simple analysis, but all in all a lesson in how cool Mother Nature is😎
We had heard the west coast had a large homeless population, but we were not prepared for the reality of it. We have a small homeless population in Vermont, small perhaps because of the harsh winters, but out here the mild weather and the resources for the homeless, so we have been told, make it an attractive place for the homeless to be. Everywhere there is a gathering of population, there is also a population of homeless and you can’t not see it. People asking for hand-outs on corners, people living in makeshift shelters under roads and overpasses, people sleeping in parks and behind garbage bins, signs warning you not to leave anything valuable in your car or bikes on car racks and on and on. You would have to be blind not to see it and heartless not to be affected by it.
When we flew to Florida last fall, we had just started to see the homelessness and we talked about how we felt homeless; our house rented and the Wee Rover and all our camping gear in storage. We had 2 backpacks and that was it. We felt adrift and somehow a bit more sympathetic to those without (and then felt totally foolish because we shouldn’t relate at all since we had the money for a flight and rental car….).
But, when we arrived back in Oregon and the Wee Rover went to the garage for her engine transplant, we again felt displaced. We didn’t have our home, or our home on wheels, we were still living out of 2 backpacks and going from place to place staying in other people’s homes and motels…and along the way fully realized the homeless plight and population in the area. Again, we felt we could relate (and then felt awful since we had a rental car, a roof over our heads and food on our plates…).
We handed out a few batches of peanut butter and crackers when we shopped, some shampoo and soap samples from motels and clothes and shoes we could leave behind. A very small bit thrown at a very large hole. We couldn’t in anyway fix the problem, but perhaps we helped someone have a better day.
Fast forward and we are back in the Wee Rover. The past is behind us. We have our ‘home on wheels’ again and a friend has reminded us of our home waiting for us in Vermont and the skills we have to be employed again when we return…but the homelessness still haunts us. It has crept into our journey and is hard to shake.
Today, we are sitting in a beautiful place with amazing views and blue skies, but we still talk about the homeless and how we felt a bit of what it must be like, but not really.
I couldn’t bring myself to intrude on anyone for a picture, so I leave you with a bit of beauty.
During a recent stay at a Comfort Inn, we met the most remarkable young man with an amazing goal in life; he just wanted to make the world a better place. He found the best way he could do this was by being in contact with people every day, and what better way to do that than to run the front desk of a hotel. By doing this, he could have a direct one on one impact with people and through small acts of kindness, and lots of smiles, make the world a better place. I must say his strategy is spot on. During our stay he certainly made a positive impact on us.
We walked around the top of a volcano at the Newbury National Volcanic Monument, a very old volcano with its lava field flowing out and around, cool “holey” rocks, and a fire tower on top. The views were amazing and the crater was huge. And, it is only one of several in the area. I can’t imagine what it was like when they were all actively blowing off steam:)
