Eclipse Road Trip

19-26 August

The once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse of the sun visible from Oregon to South Carolina was scheduled for my birthday. Fortunately, months ago our friends Chris and Patricia invited us to join them at Patricia’s family’s homestead in Midvale, ID, right on the path of totality. This was a very good thing because other locations on the path of totality were going to be crowded with eclipse chasers and charging high prices for lodging, camping, even parking.

Crescent-shaped shadows

19 Aug, Sat – We got an early start and joined up with Chris and Patricia at Indian John Rest Area on I-90 east of Cle Elum. We traveled more or less together (although, we took the 15-minute-slower route through the Yakima Canyon. We met up for lunch at the first rest area in Oregon, got gas at the casino east of Pendleton and exited I-84 at the Weiser Exit. We met up again at the Midvale Ridge rest area and followed them to the only family farm on Hopper Road. Dave Hopper, Patricia’s father got our trailer situated in the shade of a mobile home and we soon joined the extended family for dinner. In addition to Dave and Liz (Patricia’s stepmom), there were her sister, Lynn, and family: husband Barry, and kids Erika and Bevan, plus at least one uncle and maybe others. I don’t remember exactly when our paragliding friend, Andre Akakine, arrived with his five-year-old daughter, Katie, from the Bay Area.

20 Aug, Sun – After breakfast with the family – Dave’s sourdough pancakes - most of us spent time preparing various viewing devices for the eclipse the next day and setting up for the family potluck in the evening. I think someone said we had 37 people (a little short of the 50 that Dave had originally expected). There was lots of food including pulled pork and sliced beef, salads, rolls, bread, dips, tomatoes, and more. The dessert centerpiece was Lynn’s offering of four lemon meringue pies. 

21 Aug, Mon – Eclipse Day. After breakfast (Dave and Liz served biscuits and gravy and a baked egg dish with fresh fruit) we all got our viewing projects set up. I got my spotting scope out and Bevan kind of took it over using his phone to record photos of the progress of the eclipse. Andre put together a big box with a monocular at one end to focus the sun on the far end. There were several pinhole shoebox and larger size cameras, but the best gizmo was one Lynn put together with cardboard, a pair of binoculars, a tripod, and a screen. It produced a nice large image that was easy for a group of people to all see at once. Of course, everyone had eclipse glasses for individual viewing. The moon started taking a bite out of the sun around 1010; totality lasted for around two minutes; and the whole thing was over by 1148 (?). I used my 10x binoculars during totality. It got quite dark and cool and the light near the horizon
was like that of a sunset. It was a really fantastic experience. We had more potluck for lunch with fewer people. Afterward we all hung around as people packed up and started to head for home. After everyone but Dave, Liz, Chris and Patricia and we had left, Dave took us up the hills behind the homestead in his truck and pointed out the historic sites and places Patricia had gone to when she was staying in Midvale during the summers. Back at the trailer, we had a light supper before going to bed.

22 Aug, Tue – We got a later start than we thought we would so we didn’t get to McCall until after 1130. Then we drove out along Warren Wagon Road to the north end of Payette Lake and beyond the North Beach part of Ponderosa State Park into the State Endowment Lands where dispersed camping was permitted. We stashed the trailer in a big snowmobile parking lot with an outhouse, then drove back to McCall. We had no trouble finding the McCall RV Resort where Davis

Bronze at the McCall Library

and Belinda stay when they are not in Boise. Belinda made a nice lunch of cold cuts for us. Later we walked into town so everyone could get an ice cream at the shop in the alley. I skipped that and walked over to Albertsons where there is a Starbucks upstairs, and got my free birthday Frappuccino. After hanging out at the waterfront park for a while we walked back (Davis rode his bike, of course) to the RV resort and sat around visiting. Later I spotted a pickup with two hang gliders drive into the resort. We all wandered over to find out who it was and it turned out that it was Steve Baran, of Inkler Fly-in fame; he had flown No Business Mountain with Doug Ratkovich (Debbie) earlier in the day after doing the eclipse watch at Smiths (?) Ferry the previous day. Around 1930 we drove into town to have dinner. The McCall Brewpub was not open so we went to the Salmon River Brewery. We had a 15-minute wait but then we got a good table on the deck. C.J. and I shared a Thai Beef Salad and a Black and Bleu Elkburger (which wasn’t very bleu). We stopped for gas at Maverik  so we wouldn’t have to do it with the trailer in the morning. It was way after sundown when we drove back to the snowmobile lot and set up our trailer; at an elevation of just over 5000 feet, it was nice and cool. On the way back along Warren Wagon Road we saw a fox (we think) flash across the road with its bushy tail drifting behind it.23 Aug, Wed – We got up after 0720, had breakfast and hit the road around 0830. We took a bathroom break in Cascade where Davis and Belinda had watched the eclipse. Then we continued steeply downhill along the whitewater of the Payette River to Banks where we turned east toward Lowman on the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway. At Lowman we stopped at the USFS ranger station then continued on with a couple of short stops, one at the 7000ft summit and another near Stanley Lake where we walked out on a nature trail. At Stanley we turned north on 95 following the Salmon River. We stopped at an overlook above the abandoned dam used to run the turbines to produce power for mines up the Yankee Fork. At Salmon we stopped for gas at a Sinclair station then turned SE into the Lemhi Valley. It was about 30 miles to the Lee Creek turnoff that took us up on a bench above the valley and to Chris’s parent’s homestead. We had dinner with Don and Judy, brother Tim and two young nieces, Eva and Zoe Wong. Chris pointed out where he thought we could fly in the morning if the winds were light enough.

24 Aug, Thu – Up at 0630 so we could head over to the local flying site while the winds were light. But the leaves were already shaking on the trees we could see through the skylights. After some discussion we decided to have breakfast and then do something else like look for fossils or crystals. After fruit, scrambled eggs w/cheese, and Tim’s cheese bread the conditions seemed to have gotten light so we took two cars to the LZ on the other side of the valley. We used Chris’s 4WD to get to the top over a couple of steep spots and some rutted track – probably not easy for the Sorento. The sky was just beginning to get smoky from the NW as we got ready to launch. I went first from the 7500ft take off and found lift just in front of the launch. There were some small, sharp-edged thermals and I pretty much flew through them into the accompanying sink. I flew to the left and went over the rocky ridge then out toward the LZ which was also on a ridge. The wind streamer that we had left in place showed variable directions and speeds, but I lined up with the length of the ridge pointing toward the highway in the main valley. Landing was easy but I was able to kite right afterwards with my back to the north. C.J. was next off and she had about two minutes longer than my 08:42, saying that she didn’t like the looks of the building clouds. Apparently, neither did Chris because he spiraled down; Patricia saw that and landed, too. Chris’s father showed up and was able to use his truck to get Chris back up to launch to retrieve his vehicle. We went back to the ranch with Patricia and hung out until lunchtime when Chris and John got back. Later, Chris suggested several things to do: go looking for crystals, hunt fossils, or drive the mountain roads to the other side of the range and loop back. Naturally we opted for the drive. Chris started up Lee Creek Road which climbed up behind the Amonson Ranch (huge!) and up FS 010 past the turnoff that would lead up a rough 4WD road to the dam on Mill Lake that needs repairing. We stopped occasionally to walk to places that Chris remembered visiting as a boy and young man while repairing fences or “pushing” cattle, or just riding his motorcycle or ATV. We found some currant bushes which were done bearing but we also found a few raspberries. At one place on the divide before descending into the Hayden Creek drainage we spotted three pronghorn, about the only critters we saw. Near the bottom of Hayden Canyon, past the Bear Valley Road we turned up into

Chris with niece Eva, mother Judy, and C.J.

Basin Creek just to see if it still looked like Chris remembered. It was hard to see the surrounding mountains with all the smoke that had come in during the afternoon. We got back to the main highway around 1830 and then it wasn’t far back to the ranch. Tom and Robin, Eva and Zoe’s parents (Robin is Chris’s sister), had returned from their first vacation without the kids. They had gone to Fairmont Hot Springs near Butte for two nights. Tom had barbecued up a bunch of pork chops and we ate those along with some baked potatoes and asparagus. C.J. cooked up some of her fresh beans, too. And she brought out the blackberry kuchen for dessert with whipped cream; the kids had probably never seen whipped cream in an aerosol can before. As we were eating outside with Patricia (avoiding the TV that was on in the cookhouse), there was a lot of thunder and a little shower, just barely enough to send us back inside. It was a good impetus to get me packing up the stuff that was outside.

25 Aug, Fri – We got up around 0800 and fixed our own breakfast then started seriously packing up. We were out of the ranch shortly before 1000, but stopped at the Sacajawea Monument and Interpretive center soon after in Salmon. The interpretive building was quite small but the grounds around it with tepees, sweat lodges, brush, willow and woven mat lodges was pretty large. We missed out on the class on cordage held in the red barn which we didn’t see until later. We left around 1130 and headed up US 93, the Salmon River Scenic Byway (and Lewis and Clark route), eventually crossing Lost Trail Summit; a 7000ft pass, and entering Montana (ski area name?). We lost a lot of elevation following the Bitterroot River down to the plains. The biggest town we went through was Darby (Sorry I didn’t stop for a photo of the Welcome To Montana’s Bitterroot Country and Darby sign, Darby, but I got one using Google). We passed through Lolo and were surprised that Route 12 was not closed right there because of the fires (maybe it was closed farther up before you got to Lolo Pass). We could see fires burning even on the nearby hillsides. Missoula was kind of slow, traffic-wise and smoky, but we got to Costco eventually and filled up with the cheapest gas we had seen all trip (2.419) and bought a berry sundae to share. [If we had been a little more patient we would had run into a Freddy’s Frozen Custard place at the intersection of 93 and I-90.] It was about an hour to Quartz Flat USFS campground east of Superior. We had considered going on to Sloway CG, another 16 miles, but since there were good sites available, we stopped early, not long after 1600. The campground is on a bench maybe 150 steep feet above the Clark Fork River. We found a trail that appeared to start in our site and followed it east a ways and then down a gentler grade to the river. Back at camp we relaxed with a drink and some chips and hummus before catching up with our journals. Since we have run out of ice for our cooler, we needed to eat up some of our veggies. So we had cooked spinach and fried sausage. It cooled off nicely for sleeping but a couple of vanloads of people across the road stayed up late talking loudly, and that kept C.J. from getting to sleep early.

26 Aug, Sat – We got up around 0800 and were on the road by 0930, another sunny day with quite a bit of smoke in the air. We stopped for gas at Costco in Coeur d’Alene (2.479) after passing over Lookout Pass, driving through Mullan (same population as Wallace (?) but hardly any historic features), and crossing the lower Fourth of July Pass. The wind seemed to be light east as we drove through Spokane and I considered calling Steve Baran to see if he was down at Steptoe Butte, but flying there would have entailed midday conditions in Eastern Washington, at a new site - too many negative variables. We stopped at the rest area west of the one near Sprague Lake and then drove into E-burg to get a scoop of Winegar’s ice cream. CWU must not be in session yet because we were able to park in Jerrol’s Bookstore lot. There was a lot of smoke as we approached the Cascades. It appeared that there was a fire up toward Salmon La Sac. But there was no smoke in North Bend when we got home shortly after 1600. There was still a good crop of berries on the blueberry bush in the north garden and C.J. couldn’t pick all the green beans that were ripe. I got a bowlful of blackberries, too. We unpacked and spent some time cleaning up. I even scoured out the porta-potti, a job that had been put off for too long if the stain in the lower section was any indication. I left it to soak overnight with some cleaner, laundry detergent and bleach. We were gone only a week but we covered a lot of territory and met lots of new and fascinating people. It was a unique experience to watch the total solar eclipse with Patricia’s family and then get to meet Chris’s family…and we even got a flight from a new site!

Oregon Coast and FFFF at Woodrat

7-13 August 2017

Barbara (Summerhawk) Yates invited us to be part of the Fun-Feast-Float-Fly-Friends event once again. This time it was a bit earlier than her birthday (one day before mine, this year falling on the day of the total solar eclipse). C.J. had been having some issues with her paraglider launches so we decided that maybe we could combine the FFFF with a trip to the Oregon Coast where Brad Hill and Maren Ludwig teach paragliding on the beach.

7 Aug, Mon – Brad and Maren already had relatively new students to train on the weekend and continuing into Monday. At first they said to meet at 0900 at Sunset Beach. But, later, the weather forecast was for fog, so the meeting was changed to 1000 at their shop in nearby Warrenton. Therefore, we could get up at 0430, instead of even earlier, and get out of the driveway at 0600. We had already loaded the car, stocked the trailer and hooked up the night before. It was foggy all the way down, through Longview and along Rte. 30 to Astoria and down 101 to Warrenton. Our new GPS showed us the right turn onto 104 but we missed the immediate left onto Deerfield. Fortunately, we were able to turn around at the next intersection. After a very short distance on Deerfield we turned onto Cheri which looked like a gravel driveway and followed it to the end at the Discover Paragliding shop. Upstairs over the three-car garage there was a large open room with tables and chairs set up for instruction; there was also a washroom and a room full of paragliding equipment for sale. We met Kate Eagle, Rebecca (or, rather re-met, since we had seen them at the Rat Race) who are beginning the instructor certification course. The students were Brent, Sam, Christina and Jamie. While the students and C.J. were doing instructional kinds of stuff, I took the trailer over to Fort Stevens State Park, about four miles away. It’s a huge place with over three hundred campsites. I got to registration certainly before noon only to find that all sites were reserved and nothing was available. That was quite a setback, but Brad and Maren came through with permission to camp in their driveway and even left the class bathroom unlocked for us. By noon classroom work had been completed and we all drove our vehicles over to Sunset Beach. When Brad and Maren got there after getting gas, we followed them through a gap in the dunes and through some deep sand onto the firmer sand near the ebbing tide. We went at least a mile south of the entrance road to a place that looked no different from the rest of the wide beach with a low, sea-grass-covered dune behind. The students practiced inflations and running, both into the wind and zig-zagging cross wind. Later Brad set up his truck for towing with his payout (and pay-in!) winch. Everybody got two or three tows right up to the base of the fog which had risen to maybe 300 ft. Surprisingly, almost all of the tow launches, flights and landings were good. It was probably 1700 or later when we quit as the fog was thickening to almost a “mizzle”. We went back to the shop, cleaned up the vehicles and rested for a while. Around 1900 we followed Brad, Maren and Kate to Nisa Thai Restaurant in Warrenton for an excellent dinner.  After we ate C.J. and I drove to Fred Meyer to get gas, peaches, a cantaloupe and some tonic water. Back at Discover Paragliding the temperature was just right for comfortable sleeping.

8 Aug, Tue – We slept until about 0730 and Brad didn’t get C.J. up to the shop until 1015 since he and Maren had slept late. He had C.J. working on improving her use of As and Cs to control the glider when preparing to launch. Brad had a pretty neat simulator for that. About noon C.J. and I were on our way south on 101. Not only were we concerned about where we would find a place to camp but we kept running into slow traffic, especially as we drove through the beach resorts of Seaside, Lincoln City and Newport. Every State Park we passed had a bright yellow sign announcing “Camp Full”. Later the few USFS CG we passed were also full. We did make a short stop in Tillamook at the very busy Tillamook Cheese (and ice cream) factory for our traditional 3-scoop dish. We tried calling the number for the Cape Perpetua USFS CG but the office had closed at 1600, 20 minutes before. We had hopes that a SP not too far north of Florence would have space since it was one of the few first-come-first-served camp grounds, but it was full, too. Finally, just five miles before Florence (where we had planned to turn inland and find a rest area or Walmart to park in overnight), Alder Dune USFS CG had a “Open” sign out and several campsites that looked good to us. We chose a nice level, back-in site and paid for two nights then we went for a hike through the tree-covered dunes around the campground and small lake. Back around 1900 C.J. used the leftovers from Nisa Thai to make another good meal. Tomorrow we are considering going back north on 101 to the scenic area south of Yachats.

9 Aug, Wed – We slept in until quite late and didn’t get going until after 1030 when we drove into Florence. We found the Chamber of Commerce/TI and got some material that included the top ten short hikes on the Oregon Coast. There was only one hike to the north where we wanted to go, Hobbit Beach Trail, so named because the trees closed in over the trail making it seem like a tunnel. On the way out of Florence we drove through the Old Town along the Siuslaw River, lots of tourist-oriented businesses. The parking lot at Hobbit Trail, just a couple of miles north of the Heceta Head lighthouse appeared full so we drove past and turned around in the Carl G. Washburn State Park day use area. When we got back there were a couple of new parking spots so we grabbed one and geared up for a short (0.5mi) hike down to the beach. The trail was all downhill and matched the description. Once on the sandy beach, we walked south to the headland where waves were crashing then back to the trail. When we reached the trailhead again I grabbed my pack so that we could carry our lunch then we started off on the trail over the headland to the Heceta Head lighthouse. It was a roller coaster trail so, although we started at 250 ft and reached only 500 ft, we had a cumulative elevation gain of 650 ft (according to the trail sign). I used Backcountry Navigator to keep track of our progress even though there was no cell coverage. The total distance was only 2.5 mi round trip but it was a scenic short trip despite the fog that was blowing through the trees. Approaching the lighthouse from above we had a great view of the light with its Class One (largest) Fresnel Lens, the only one in a west coast lighthouse made in England; the rest were made in France. We didn’t get a tour of the oil house attached to the lighthouse because there was a large tour group of lighthouse enthusiasts from all over the US taking up all the available volunteers. It was pretty chilly out in the wind so we decided to do lunch up the trail a short distance where we still had a good view of the lighthouse and the sea stack just to the south covered with birds and bird droppings. We skipped the lighthouse keepers house completely (I think it’s now a B and B anyway so we probably could not go inside). Most of the visitors did not take the roller coaster trail that we did; instead, they parked in a fee lot down near the bridge and walked in on the old lighthouse supply road, about 0.5 mi. Just before we reached the car C.J. saw a car pull out of the parking lot and a daypack roll off the roof onto the road. Although she waved and yelled, the car occupants continued to drive away. There was no ID obvious and no cell phone to help contact the losers so we dropped it off with a ranger who had just arrived. Then we drove north to Cape Perpetua and visited the Visitor Center. By that time we had decided that we had had enough hiking for the day. The fifty-year-old visitor center was mildly interesting and had a great view of the cove and crashing waves. If there had not been such thick fog we might have seen farther out and spotted a whale, since a daily listing showed at least one seen almost every day. We got out just before closing (4:30) with lots of ideas for future explorations. On the way back to Florence we stopped at Neptune State Park, a parking lot with some stair connecting to the beach and rocky tidepools. We also stopped at the Muriel O. Ponser Wayside which had an impressive entrance but no explanation. Since it was getting on towards dinner time, we drove into Florence and bought some sausages, spaghetti sauce, more peaches, salad mix and some cheese (all on sale, 12.45). I gassed up at the lowest price so far this trip (2.389) which included a FM discount. C.J. checked her email and found an urgent request from Nick to get the photographer for her article to remove the watermark signature from all his photos. We hung out in the FM parking lot while she called Nick and sent him the photographer’s contact info.  Back at camp around 1800 C.J. prepared another great meal, and then we caught up on our journals.

10 Aug, Thu – Up at nearly 0800 and out of camp around 9-something, still foggy (all the way down to Port Orford). We stopped at Walmart in Coos Bay to get some whipped cream in a can; we also picked up some Swiss Miss and some generic instant oatmeal (12.65). At Bandon we took the scenic drive along the waterfront with views of sea stacks and needles. Along the drive we stopped at a state park wayside for a view of Face Rock. At Cape Blanco we detoured six miles to visit the farthest west lighthouse in Oregon. A very nominal fee (2 ea) got us a tour

of the lighthouse including the lens room where two 1000-watt bulbs (a main and a backup) shown through an eight-sided Fresnel class two lens. The rotation (by electric motor) gave it a period of two sec on and 18 sec off. It was after lunchtime by then but it was too chilly in the wind and fog to eat outside at the lighthouse. We drove back to 101 and south a few miles to Port Orford where we found a place in the sunshine with a view of the strange port and the nearby sea stacks. Since there really was no sheltered harbor, the fishing boats are hauled up each night onto a high concrete wharf. Down the road we passed the first State Park CG with a “vacancy” sign: Humbug Mountain SP. Down the road a ways, thinking there would probably be a restroom, we pulled into the Geisel Memorial State Park. There was nothing there but a tiny cemetery with the grave marker for Geisel and his two young sons who were massacred by Indians. Just before Gold Beach we turned off 101 and followed the Rogue River to the east intending to go over Bear Camp Summit and drop down near Galice, not too far from Grants Pass. It wasn’t until we were an hour up the road that there was a sign telling us that Bear Camp Road (NF23) was closed and we would have to take a detour (NF 2308), a narrow, winding road that became gravel after a few miles out of the 15 or so before returning to NF23. Fortunately, the views of the steep canyons and sharp ridges were great even if pretty smoky. The Sorento and the trailer handled the bad road and steep grades very well without overheating; of course, the gas mileage suffered, dropping to 18 mpg. The detour added something like 40 minutes to our arrival time putting us at the yurt around 1830. [Because I was kind of rushing to get there in time for dinner with Barbara, Debbie, Teri, Geoff and Megan, I didn’t stop for gas in Grants Pass and arrived with 1/8 of a tank.] When we got to Barbara’s driveway which had just been graded and graveled we decided to walk in and see if we could find a place for the trailer. The parking looked like a challenge so we went back down the driveway and up the road to Teri and Geoff’s. They opened their gate for us and let us park in their pull-thru driveway so we didn’t have to do any maneuvering at all. We set up and tied down the roof because of what looked like an imminent thunderstorm. C.J. took some food back to the yurt while I finished up with Geoff plugging into 120V. Then I threw a bunch of stuff in the car that I knew we would need in the yurt and drove back there. Dinner was ready and we ate the fish tacos in the yurt although the rain and wind held off. We had peach pie for dessert on B’s deck with some lightning but no rain. I had to go back over to the trailer to turn on the fridge and get some more stuff to put in the yurt refrigerator. It was pretty hot but the air temp cooled down later and the oscillating fan helped, too.

11 Aug, Fri – Up At about 0700 when C.J. went to take a bath; I did the same thing around 0730 since B doesn’t usually get up until eight. We had our usual breakfast, then got ready to do a float trip on the Applegate River. Barb and Debbie had done a float from Cantrall-Buckley to the Applegate Store, but this time Barbara wanted to do a stretch she had not done before from somewhere upriver to C-B. C.J. and I were a little skeptical of the plan because we had no idea what kind of rapids we might encounter. Debbie said she had looked at the route on Google Earth and seen only one extended stretch of whitewater just downstream of the bridge near where the Eastside Road takes off. After getting a tank of expensive gas at the Applegate Store we drove there to eyeball said rapids and they looked “interesting” but not beyond our skills we thought. The problem was that there was no public river access nearby. Fortunately, Debbie was able to schmooze the owner, and he let us park in his driveway and even got his pruning shears to help clear an old path down to the river. Mary Beth had joined us at Cantrall-Buckley where we left her car and Debbie’s for retrieve. I had already inflated our Sevylor Tahiti K 79, Debbie had her sit-on-top kayak, and Mary Beth and B were using a 4-person inflatable raft that Barbara had just bought, used. We were into the first rapids very quickly and made it through although we took on some

water. A mile or so down the river one of the flimsy plastic paddles for the raft broke, then the raft overturned while trying to avoid some overhanging blackberries. In the excitement, one of the plugs was popped open and the main air compartment deflated and Barb and MB had to beach the now unusable raft. They decided to bushwhack to the nearby road and hitch back to the cars and meet us at C-B. Debbie and we continued down the river which had several more exciting bits. We had to line our boats under a bridge where we couldn’t see what was beyond it. At another rapid we stopped to scout it and found the right had a sharp drop at the bottom and the left side had a curving chute with a rock at the bottom on the left. We had just about decided to portage around the worst of it (no helmets and a kayak that was not terribly responsive), when some tubers and a guy with an inflatable Solstice kayak came along. They said that the left chute was “fun” and was the right way to go. We watched and they did okay. Debbie went and we could hear some loud plastic clunks, but she made it through. We were doing fine until the rock on the left near the bottom trapped us. Fortunately one of the tubers was there and pushed us off so we made it down, too. There were some more riffles where we bumped through in the low water, but on one we missed a turn and fetched up against a rock. Both of us were spilled out but managed to hang on to our paddles and the boat. C.J. was tangled up in the strap that we used to secure her seat from sliding back and crowding me out, so we had to get her untangled. Then we pulled the boat up on the rock and drained it, got back in and continued down. From there it wasn’t far at all to the take-out at Cantrall-Buckley. Mary Beth and Barbara were already there and B gave me a ride back to where we put in so I could recover my vehicle. C.J. picked a bunch of blackberries while she was waiting, then we headed back to the yurt where we had a bit of late lunch. We all met again at the newly-opened Wood-fired Pizza place across from the Applegate Store at 1730. Dan Wells and Rick joined us. Good thin crust pizza but the banana pepper slices were too spicy for C.J. The beet salad was good, though. After dinner we stopped at the library where we could access the internet even though the library was closed. I made a reservation for Ft. Stevens for Sunday night; no other nights were available (16 sites out of 478 were available for Sun night!).

12 Aug, Sat – Up at 0715 so I could get a bath before breakfast. We left early so C.J. could use the wifi at the Ruch library to check for new edits. We met the rest of the group at the bailout LZ (Hunters) at 1000; Rick Ray had volunteered to drive so that Debbie could get a sledder in her new Delta 3. Rick was to meet three of Kevin’s almost P-2s to mentor them for a flight off the upper launch. Barb, C.J. and Debbie flew, and I passed on the chance for a flydown and then packup again before going to Upper. Conditions were light on both launches but the west wind was picking up in the valley. Barbara launched first and headed straight out to Longsword, her usual plan. I followed and found lift worth circling in just north of Squires. There was plenty of altitude to get to the next field beyond Longsword and then fly back over the grapevines and land in somewhat gusty and strong conditions (13 min). C.J. launched later and caught some lift and some bigger sink and ended up having to land at Hunters, where Barbara picked her up. Even later Rick and Debbie took off and got above launch but still came out to land at Longsword. We ate some lunch while Barbara went back to the river and then home. We went to the library again and C.J. worked hard on replacing the captions on her article; I got the librarian to help me print out the supposedly time-saving pre-registration for our reserved campsite at Ft. Stevens. After that C.J. downloaded the Alpha2 to edit and we went through that together, almost finishing by 1600 when the library closed. C.J. got the whole thing uploaded to the server working outside the doors of the library. We returned to the yurt to get cleaned up a little before heading to Dan and Mary Beth’s for a delicious dinner and drinks. On the way home C.J. checked with Brad to see if Monday was going to work for flying or at least training on the coast. It looks like we are going to at least stay over on Sunday night and see what Monday brings.

13 Aug, Sun – Up at 0715 for a hairwash, breakfast and packing. We were able to leave Barb’s (new) driveway at 0917. Then we had to get the trailer from Teri and Geoff’s driveway, so it was going on 1000 before we were on Rte 238 and heading for Grants Pass. It was cloudy but as we got farther north the sky got more blue; thankfully, it was nowhere near as hot as the previous few days. We stopped for gas at Costco in Eugene. As we approached Albany, we ran into slow traffic and Google Maps sent a message that the faster route would be along Rte 22 from Salem to Hebo where we’d get on US 101 (the original plan was to exit I-5 at Tigard and take Rte 26 to 101 at Seaside). So we got off the freeway, drove through Salem and then it was smooth going along OR 22, if a bit wind-y when it turned north through the Siuslaw National Forest. We stopped to use the rest rooms at Ft Yamhill and saw what must have been a pow-wow arena for the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde. [All the local natives had been promised their local land in treaties but they all ended up lumped together on a steadily shrinking reservation around Grande Ronde. By 1959, it was down to five acres! It wasn’t until 1983 that they began to press for the lands they had been promised.] C.J. called Brad and found out that they were having classes on Monday and were looking forward to having her take part again. We made another ice cream stop in Tillamoo and then drove the rest of the way along the coast to Ft. Stevens State Park. There was hardly any traffic, not what we had expected on a Sunday afternoon. I-5 is definitely a route to avoid on Sundays, especially in the summer. We checked in at the registration building and then drove the short distance to our site (055 on C Loop). After setting up we drove to the parking lot on the beach nearest to the wreck of the Peter Iredale and walked the short distance to it passing a couple who had three flop-eared bunnies with them, two in what looked like a playpen, and one on a leash – therapy bunnies! We tried climbing the compass-grass- covered dune to reach the trail but there was no trail on top of the dune, at least where we were. On the way out we noted that the trail seemed to run farther inland, maybe in the woods behind the dune. Next, we went to Battery Russel which looked a lot like Fort Casey on Whidbey Island, WA, but without

a 10” disappearing cannon. Since the sun was setting, we drove quickly to a parking lot on the beach (Area A) and got to the top of the dune just before the sun sank into a low bank of clouds. Back at the car a few minutes later, the GPS clicked over to night mode indicating sunset (Shortly after 2015). We headed back to camp and C.J. whipped up some pasta to go with the leftover sauce from a few nights ago. We also had a bag of fresh, home-grown tomatoes from Teri and Geoff. By the time we had finished cleaning up it was 2150 and we spent only a short time writing in our journals before getting ready for bed.

14 Aug, Mon – Up at 0700 so we could meet Brad and Maren at 0900. We ate breakfast, packed up the trailer and moved it to the Coffenbury Lake parking lot where we left it with a taped-on note giving my Special Access Pass number (in lieu of the required day use fee). We checked in with the ranger at Registration just so they knew about the trailer. An exchange of texts (no cell service) had us first heading right to the beach, then going to the Discover Paragliding shop to wait until the fog burned off. It was probably around 1030 when we went to the beach about four miles south of the Sunset beach access. Four students, Sam and Brent (whom we had met last Monday), Dan, and Dave (an almost new student) practiced reverses and forwards; Sam even climbed up on the dune grass and made a couple of short hops. After a short break Brad began towing. The tide was coming in and the wind was getting stronger so by 1500, everything was getting packed up. C.J. worked on pulling her wing up without using her hands, and even kited, with Maren’s help, while lying on her back (no hands!). She had one big tow with Brad, getting to 2200 ft according to her Flymaster. When we left we drove south about a mile to the DelRey Beach access and then went back to Ft Stevens State Park to retrieve our trailer. We stopped for gas at Costco (2.439) in Warrenton and then drove through a little slow traffic entering Astoria. We had had only a light lunch so we were looking for a place to eat. We didn’t find anything until we reached I-5 at Kelso-Longview. Although the GPS did not indicate a Five Guys on our route until Tacoma, a sign on the freeway showed one in Longview. It was a bit of a drive, especially since we had taken Industrial Way around Longview instead of our usual route through the city. The regular bacon burger was huge with two beef patties and we got the regular fries which filled a container and then part of the meal bag. Much refreshed, but a bit stuffed, we got back on I-5 after negotiating a poorly marked detour and headed north. We got home around 2000 to temperatures in the 60s, a welcome change from the heat around Woodrat.