North
Santiam River on June 3. The river looks to me to be at least 4 feet higher
than last week. Perhaps 6 feet or so over summer levels.June 1-11: Fisherman's Bend east of Salem, OR. After the VW weekend Bev and I drove up to Fisherman's Bend on the North Santiam River east of Salem. This is a beautiful BLM campground that has sites with electricity, water and sewer.We'll meet a few friends here next week, for now we'll just hang out and enjoy the rain. It has rained 15 out of the 17 days since I arrived in Oregon. We are here under a canopy of Douglas Fir in the deep shade. There is a nice network of trails here and during the week there are few other campers. The BLM has many cougar warning posted throughout the campgroud and trail network. I found a track that I could not definitely identify as a cougar, but I was suspicious.
June 2: It has rained steady since last evening, the river is higher by a foot or two and has turned muddy. I did a grocery run into Mill City and Bev and I made a trip into Salem to look for a pop-up cover to better survive the rains. We hit all the sporting goods stores and came back with a 10 X 10 pop-up. It's good that I have no space for any more stuff. I have a real hard time going into a sporting goods store without buying something. Today I did not buy an rubber boots, aluminum Dutch over, backpack and BBQ smoker.
I also rediscovered a leak in my trailer. Several years back I had a wet spot in the left rear corner. I did a bunch of roof sealing and the leak did not reappear. However, 24 hours of rain has now led to the return of the leak. I won't be able to do anything about the leak till the rain eventually stops perhaps next week.
When I walked the trails near the river before sunset I found that I could not get through because parts of the trails had turned into streams. Perhaps I should have bought the rubber boots today.
Radio reports record high rainfall for this date. Oregonian reports only one rainless day since May 15. Welcome to the NW.
June 3: No rain most of the day. The N. Santiam is at least 4 feet higher than when we got here. Water is clearer today an less detritus is being carried downstream. I did get a chance to walk around a bit and chase down a few birds. Most hiking trails still flooded though and I can't get to many areas. We got a fire started(charcoal starter required) at about 3PM and then the rain started.
North
Santiam River on June 3. The river looks to me to be at least 4 feet higher
than last week. Perhaps 6 feet or so over summer levels.
June 4: The North Santiam River is still rising. Levels are up about 4 feet in the past three days. The photo below was taken this AM in the rain and shows a house right on the river bank. It looks to me like another foot of water and they'll have water in the house. And there's no sign of anyone sandbagging. The Oregoian reports that this part of Oregon got a month's worth of rain in the first four days of June.
June 5-7: Three sunny days and only one one day of rain. Rose from the VW group visited over the weekend and on Monday Bev's friends Pierre and Charlene arrived in a nice rented motorhome. This is their first time in an RV and already they're spoiled. The river level dropped at least four feet and the trails are no longer flooded. I was amazed at how fast the mountains shed the water.
I
found this carrion beetle
today(June 8). It had a number of mites under its thorax. In this photo you
can see two of them that crawled on top while I was disturbing the beetle. These
beetles feed on carrion and transport these mites from carcass to carcass in
a process known as mutualistic phoresis. Mutualistic means both species benefit
and phoresis is a term for transport by an insect. When they get to a carcass
the mites drop off and feed on fly eggs and larvae that compete with the beetles
for food. This is classic symbiosis(living together) and mutualism(both species
benefit). The beetles provide transport and the mites reduce their competion
by preying on the flies.
It rained at least a little bit every day that we were at Fisherman's Bend. We set up three roofed shelters and two tarps to try to get a simi-dry campsite.
June 7-11: Bev's long-time friends Pierre and Charlene came down in a rented motorhome. Their first experience in a RV. They learned quite a bit about liquid waste disposal! (More than they wanted to I think.) Pierre cooked a major meal for us and a van full of employees from his work. Furtunately the rain stopped just during the dinner/party time. On Thursday we tore down the tarps and covers and started getting ready to leave.
More photos of our stay at Fisherman's Bend are here on Picasa.
Friday morning I was on the raod to Kenmore, WA where my son, Valere, lives. The drive up was uneventful, the kind I like.
June 12-15: NO RAIN!! A tourist-type photography weekend. On Saturday there was a low tide so we went out to Puget sound and visited our invertebrate relatives in the intertidal zone. We found sea stars, crabs, small shrimp, limpits, a lone chiton and a few humans. After the beach we went to Seattle's China Town for Dim Sum at the Purple Dot Resturant. This was by far the best Chinese food I've ever eaten. The food is brought to your table on rolling steam carts. The carts are piled with bowls of unique foods. We probably ate a dozen different dishes.
Valere
and Julie checking out a crab.
Sea
Star
On Sunday we went over to Gas Works Park in Seattle. This park has been described as: "...easily the strangest park in Seattle, and may rank among the strangest in the world." The park contains the remnants of an old gas plant and has a beatiful view of downtown Seattle and the Space Needle. This facility originally converted coal to "illumination gas".
View
of Seattle from Gas Works Park .
More photos of our beach and Gas Works Park visits are here on Picasa.
Weekdays this week are for establishing myself in Washington. I've spent considerable time in the northwest since the 1960s, but never lived here for more than a few months. On Monday I trotted off the Everett to get my Washington drivers license. Unlike California, Washington has separate offices for drivers licenses and vehicle registration. I didn't have to take a test and was able to register to vote and become an organ donor at the same time.
On Tuesday I registered my truck in Washington. Saved around $400 over what my California renewal was. I also found out that insurance is cheaper here too. Then I finally figured out how to do my supplemental Medicare insurance. Been a good week getting established and taking care of business.
June 16-17: On Wednesday(16th) my F-350 would not start. I called for a tow and had the truck towed to a diesel repair shop in Snohomish. The next day I got a call saying that the problem was likely the fuel injector pump. Fortunately I had mechanical insurance through GEICO and highly recommend this service. There is a $250 deductible, but most diesel repairs far exceed this limit. The 6.0 liter engine in my 2005 Ford is well know for its problems. This is the only vehicle I've owned that needed to be towed AND it's been towed three times already.
On Thursday I drove down to meet with Evan at Rainier National Park about volunteering. My son loaned me his car for the trip and it was about a 100 mile trip. The position I was discussing with Rainier(at Longmire)looks like it will not be open. However, we drove over to Ohanapecosh Campground and looked at the Campground Host position there. Ohanapecosh is in the SE corner of the park, but is about the same distance from Kenmore, WA and Portland, OR(where my relatives are) as is Longmire. At the time of this writing I seriously thinking about working there for the rest of the summer. Rainier is a beautiful mountain and the forests are lush. I return for hosting I get a free campsite. This is much better than a $44/night spot next to other RVs in a city.
Good news about the truck on Thursday also. The shop(Dynamic Diesel)thinks they can get it fixed tomorrow. That means if all goes well I'll be off to Idaho to visit my brother on Sunday(after I make sure the truck is running OK). After a week or two in Idaho I'll come back to Rainier.
Dynamic Diesel did a great/quick repair on the Ford and I was on the road to Idaho on Sunday. I made it all the way to Sandpoint in one day. It took about 8 hours of time on the road. I've learned over the years that I average around 45mpg during a day's driving. This includes driving(obviously) and rest/lunch stops.
It rained most of the way across Washington, Monday in Idaho was anther rainy day. And...t rained all day Monday. I'm really starting to get tired of the rain, I think I'm getting webbed feet.
June 21-30: Sunday and Monday we visited and worked on getting Maureen's new computer Internet ready. I kept encountering seven wild turkeys here in the neighborhood. I'm set up in Roger's neighbor's yard, which is about 1/4 mile from Roger's house. I am able to plug into 120 volt service here and the cell service is good. This is about 12 miles outside of Sandpoint and there are turkeys, deer, elk, moose, bear and lots of interesting critters here.
It's been a real quite time here in Sandpoint. We've been visiting and reminiscing. Roger had a pick-up truck load of wood to split and stack and we did that over a couple of days. He has a nice big power splitter which makes life easier. They have a nice wood-burning kitchen stove which they use for heat and cooking in the cold months. I got a chance to mow the lawn and roadsides with his big riding lawnmower. He has a 26 horsepower tractor which he uses to mow and blow snow in the winter.
On the 28th we had guests(Rick and Jan) over for dinner. Roger made baked beans from scratch(very good), I made babyback ribs in his smoker and Maureen made the salad. Rick is retired from the Forest Service, so we swapped tales of life in the outdoors.
The weather has been great for most of my time in Idaho. Sunny, not too hot and a few clouds. I had a chance to reorganize the stuff in my truck bed and change the fuel filters. The fuel finlters on these Ford trucks are a nightmare to change and two paper filters cost $97!
Look
carefullly at this picture for the bear track on Roger's kitchen window. A bear
also tore the shade cloth on their patio. Life in the woods can be interesting.
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