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Eagle Lake, Klamath Falls and Crater Lake.

| Lifestyle, US

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Our Schedule Changed Constantly And So Did Our Adventures.

On the way to Eagle Lake, the tow vehicle began to overheat.  We found the alternator belt had been rubbing the bottom radiator hose and all the water had been pumped out. After a few hours of running up and down the road between Susanville, CA and where the pickup was parked on the road’s shoulder, we got the hose replaced and were back on our way.  Because of a late start, and the overheating problem, we didn’t get to rig and sail the boat until the next day.  The sailboat racing was a success with first in the monohull class and overall wins after handicapping, including the multihull class boats, both days.

Our plans had changed, about as often as the sun rises and sets, from going up the California and Oregon coasts where we have friends and relatives in several towns, to Eagle Lake, CA for sailboat racing. With the roads in northern California closed more often than not from the fires, our next stop was Klamath Falls, OR, a town we hadn’t planned to go to until on our return to New Mexico, if at all.

After moteling in Klamath Falls for two days, trying to catch up on our writing, taking photos off the camera and transferring them to the computer and eventually to the smalltownswest.com website, we headed north.  Klamath Lake is a lot larger than I remembered.  Years prior, I’d gone to that part of the state but had never driven the full length of the lake before.  They have an annual 4th of July regatta there and I have a standing invitation to crew on the boat that I’d crewed on at the Eagle Lake regatta with the owner of the kiwi farm in Palermo, CA.

Crater Lake was on the way, and since we didn’t have to be anywhere until late in the afternoon, we took the west rim drive, a few hundred pictures and we talked about going back and spending at least an entire day there. 

The water is incredibly blue, and from high on the crater rim it changes colors with the depth of the water and what the bottom is composed of.  In some places, it appears the bottom is sandy and in others it’s probably volcanic rock.  I put a small slide show of Crater Lake together and it’s on our smalltownswest.com website.  Wizard Island and the Phantom Ship are both worth the trip around the lake by themselves.  Be sure to take a good camera, lots of unsalted pumpkin seeds and have a quick finger on the shutter button.

At our first stop, a chipmunk jumped up on the rock wall and stood staring at us.  Celinda got some pumpkin seeds from our overstuffed car, while the chipmunk waited patiently, which isn’t a common chipmunk trait.  Normally, chipmunks come and go and change directions in a flash.  As soon as Celinda returned, the chipmunk was instantly in her hand and stuffing its cheeks.  There seems to be a signal that animals hear or perceive that we humans miss.  When a bird or other animal, in this case chipmunks, discovers food, the rest get some kind of vibes or signal and mysteriously show up.  We fed them until their cheeks were stuffed with seeds and couldn’t hold any more.  There was a gray bird, not the gray Jays we’d encountered before, that also got into the act, but they weren’t as bold, or as cute. 

During our ride around the crater rim, which is about thirty miles, we stopped at almost every pullout to take pictures, feed the chipmunks and take more pictures.  It took me hours to sort through the chipmunk pictures to find what to keep and what to discard, and that didn’t include the pictures of Crater Lake.  I took what I think are the best of the chipmunk pictures and made a slide show that’s also on our smalltownswest.com website. 

After Crater Lake, we went to Prospect, OR, where we stayed and worked on an organic farm for three days.  Our accommodations were the same as those at the kiwi orchard in Palermo, our tent in the farmer’s field.  We harvested blueberries, eating our share in the process, weeded the garden beds, prepared beds for planting and planted various types of seeds.  There were two others at the Prospect, OR farm, who were working on organic farms through the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) program the same as we were.  One of them had been at an organic winery where we’d be in a couple of weeks.  The WWOOF program can be accessed at www.wwoofusa.org. 

The afternoon of the third day, we repacked the car and headed for Eugene to house sit and feed the fish and cats while our son, daughter-in-law and family took a few days of vacation.  They have a wireless Internet connection and we were able to get some of the text and photos of our trip published on the smalltowns website.  After our son and family got home, we headed for Bandon, which is another story and a lot more photos.  Bandon by the Sea will be the next installment.

        

 

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About Larry Miller

I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.

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