Flying with Paul

 My friend Paul offered to take me flying sometime, which was very exciting but also nervous-making. I have only flown in a small plane once before, on the return leg of a canoeing trip in Canada. That was in a seaplane and the ride was pretty fun but it was hard to see down from the seat I was in. I mostly saw the sky and some of the forest when we banked to turn.

Paul and I headed out on a Wednesday afternoon to his usual airfield. In a plot twist, that field was closed to resurface the runway so the plane he had reserved was actually at a different nearby airfield. Luckily, we had gotten there early so we had time to drive over to the new place before our reservation started. It would have been keen if I had made a note of the names of any of these places, but I didn't. There are way more little airports scattered about the Portland area than I realized.

Our plane was a Skyhawk (Cesna 172) named Mike Romeo (the NATO phonetic for it's letters). It was parked in the grass because it didn't have a regular spot at this airfield. Paul showed me how to check that all the flaps were moving right, how much fuel there was, and whether there was water or dirt in the fuel. The plane uses less fuel than I thought, 6-8 gallons per hour. Paul and an instructor pushed it out of the grass onto the taxiway, but I got to help push it back into the grass later. It only weighs about 2,000 lb and was not that hard to push around.

Our plane, Skyhawk Mike Romeo.

Mike Romeo back in her spot after our flights.

The new field was closer to PDX than Paul's regular field and had some special rules about how high you could be in various areas. We did a quick flight with an instructor from the flight school to who showed Paul where the various boundaries were. He was a cool guy with a lot of good info. I got to sit in the back seat which actually had a better view to the side because the wing strut thing wasn't in the way of that window. I didn't realize it at the time though so I didn't take any photos.

On our second flight I got to sit up front. We flew around up and down the Columbia and Paul practiced some of his maneuvers. We did low power flight, low power stall, and high power stall. Low power flight was very peaceful, kind of similar to being in a hot air balloon. The stalls felt kind of exciting like starting down a hill on a roller coaster. The high power stall was scariest feeling.

It was fun to see the mountains. I managed to get Rainier, Helens, and Adams all in one shot. I also liked looking down on the houses and the river. Now when I see a small plane flying above our house I try to figure out if they're doing practice maneuvers. I had a ton of fun, hopefully I will get to go flying again sometime. Paul is also learning to fly a more acrobatic type of plane that can do loops and corkscrews and such. eep!

Left to right: Rainier - Helens - Adams.

Truckventure: Tygh Creek Road

 Over 4th of July weekend we finally had good weather and free time to go check out some rustic camping along Tygh Creek Road. A neighbor friend suggested this area last summer after we got the truck but we didn't make it out before the road closed for the winter.

The view from our campsite. Can you believe there was a burn ban?

Jordan Creek crevice.

Jordan Creek crevice the other way.

Tygh Creek Road runs right next to Jordan Creek, naturally. There is a nice swimming hole with a waterfall that is accessed by a chossy steep "trail". There's was a group there already with some floaty toys when we arrived. We found a free shelf of rock near the waterfall to dangle our feet in. The water was pretty cold, I'm impressed by the folks who were swimming around in it.

The view from my shelf.

View from shelf with toes.

  

Nick was relaxing too.

Unbeknownst to both of us, the camelbak was emptying itself the entire time.

We picked a campsite just up the road from the swimming path. It had a nice rock fire pit but there was a burn ban and everything was super dry so we didn't even bring wood with us. We did singe some leaves with the fresnel lens in the backyard last week though. I made my world-famous macaroni and cheese with a chicken packet and extra cheese powder. A wonderful evening was had by all. 

Our campsite.

Our campsite all set up.

The next day we hiked back down to the swimming hole to see if we could swim before the crowd arrived. I was building up my courage when Nick noticed a round worm trapped in a mini puddle next to the main pond (🤮). So we decided not to swim after all. 

The trail down to the swimming hole.

Swimming hole sans people.

Truckventure: Tygh Valley

 We took the truck over the mountains (actually we went out through the Gorge and came back through the mountains) to Tygh Valley last weekend. Since our trip to Panther Creek we've shortened the scaffolding in the back by 3 inches (guess the solar cell will have to ride on top) and it is way more comfortable to sleep back there. I also made window covers, but then I forgot to bring them with.

On Saturday we stomped around at White River Falls State Park. It has several impressive waterfalls and a decommissioned hydro station. They have a very cool placard showing you which areas to stay out of because otherwise the river will kill you. I didn't see anyone taking that advice though. I think as long as it doesn't rain it's fine. And as long as you don't fall in, I did see a couple people tempting fate on that front but nothing too egregious. Some folks must have had a wedding at the park because there were roses and rose petals all over.

The top cascade.

The power house from above.

Rose petal lined pathway.

I accidentally implied that Nick should be serious.

I swear that kid is not peeing.

Second cascade and pool.

Cool windows on the power house.

Cool pipe leading to the turbines.

Cool rivet guys on the pipe.

Downstream from the third falls.

Nick and the third falls.

Mostly normal selfie.

Downstream side of the power house.

Saturday night we camped next to the Deschutes River, which is quite the thing. There is a lot of water going through there and it's pretty rocky and shallow so it's moving fast. The fishing must be great because there were quite a few folks around angling and there were a bunch of rickety looking platforms cantilevered out over the water. It looked very exciting. There are a lot of campgrounds through there to host the fisherpeople, which was nice. We stayed at the Oasis camping area right below Maupin. We ended up getting our dinner and breakfast from the grocery store in town because the adapter for our propane tank apparently deformed during its test run and was no longer gas-tight. We have since obtained a better one. It all turned out for the best because I had amazing shepherd's pie for breakfast and now I'm inspired to make my own.

Truck and campsite with the swanky part of Maupin overlooking it all.

Breakfast spot.

Sunday we did a 5 mile hike from the Criterion Ranch Trailhead, south of Maupin on 197. It was beautiful open deserty plains. We had intended to hike to a waterfall but the relevant stream was not flowing so in the end we just hiked to a cleft in some rocks. But the views were great.

Pretty yellow bush.

Trail through the scrubby grass.

Desert selfie.

I think this is a meadow for part of the year.

View down to the Deschutes.

Selfie with chossy cliffs.

Adventure Truck

My brother and his wife have been building out a custom camper van and it's super cool. I am v. jealous but I wasn't feeling quite that ambitious so Nick and I bought a little truck to spruce up as a camping-mobile. It's a black 2001 Ford Ranger, as yet unnamed. It should be much more capable on the forest roads than the Yaris is. We're planning to do a bed platform with a drawer or two underneath, we'll see how it goes.

Discovering Mt. Adams

We stumbled upon the Mt. Adams wilderness almost by accident. Our first camping trip this year we hoped to stay at Smith Rock, but it was packed. We kept heading east and ended up in Ochoco National Forest, which was lovely but kind of far for a weekend trip. It also skewed more toward off-roading than hiking trails, making it hard to explore on foot. Next we celebrated Memorial day by embedding the Yaris in a snow drift on the south side of Mt. Hood. That was also good fun but still too crowded. We didn't pass a single campground with sites available. Mt. Hood National Forest has abundant opportunities for dispersed camping but I consider fire to be half the point of camping and building my own firepit every time doesn't feel super low-impact.

In a bid to get out of the Portland crowd radius, I started looking across the Columbia into Washington. The Twin Falls campground in Gifford Pinchot National Forest sounded pretty great so one Saturday Nick and I drove up to check it out. The campground is nicely situated on a small river near some waterfalls. Sadly all the sites were full by the time we got there. Judging from the number of empty beer cans on the picnic tables it wasn't going to be our scene anyhow. Undaunted, we continued on to Olallie Lake. Only one other site was taken and the view of Mt. Adams across the lake was worth several waterfalls at least.

Sunday we hiked up the road from Tahklahk Lake to a nice big lava pile and a boggy meadow. The road was 70% covered in snow, too deep for a Yaris (I know these things) but passable for a big truck. On the way back we helped a couple dig their car out, which was good because we owed the universe a favor for the very nice fellow who helped us dig our car out over Memorial day. There are several trails, including the PCT, in the Mt. Adams wilderness and the mountain makes a very inspiring adversary. We've been back two more times already and I have more hikes I want to do in the future.

Mt. St. Helens overlook from Highway 30.

Mt. Adams across Olallie Lake.

Cherriversary

We passed the one-year anniversary of our move to Portland last week. The first full weekend we were in town, basically as soon as we had a car, I dragged Brian up to the Hood River Gorge and we picked 40 pounds of tart cherries. We pitted them by hand over the next few days and froze them in 9 cobbler-sized portions. I've been slowly using them in pies and cobblers, drying them in the oven, and making syrup from the juice. We're now down to one bag. To mix things up, this year I got a cherry pitter (amazing, best invention ever) and a Presto Dehydro food dehydrator. Sadly, they were out of tart cherries at the orchard so we had to content ourselves with 20 lb. of dark sweet cherries, mostly Lamberts with some Bings. 

2016 cherry haul.

I've only used a real food dehydrator once, to make trail fruits for a backpacking trip in high school. The one I got is pretty similar - round trays stacked over a heat source and fan - and works pretty great. I dried a bag of the frozen tart cherries and a bunch of the new sweet ones. The tart cherries dried a lot faster, the freeze-thaw process releases a lot of juice, but they are pretty beat up from being hand-pitted and frozen. I really like their flavor dried, it's very intense. The pitter did a great job on the sweet cherries, leaving only two small holes. That meant they took close to 30 hours to dry down to a reasonable plump-raisin level. They are milder in flavor than the tart cherries, but still nice. I think I might try coating some with dark chocolate. Yum.

This year's bucket of cherries, and Mt. Hood.

Tart and sweet cherries in the food dehydrator.

Oceanside rocks

Brian and I got one rock-hunting trip in before winter ended. We went to three beaches on the north Oregon coast. The first two were up near Highway 26 and didn't yield much in the way of rocks. And we got rained on a lot. Luckily I had my new Columbia rain coat on. We almost gave up but then decided to drive down to Oceanside beach, where we had better weather and found a ton of great rocks. 

Oceanside rock hunt prizes.

That's about 7 lbs of rocks. My tumbler only holds 3 lb so I picked the agates (the white pile on the right and the center pile) and added a few of the green guys and the black rocks with embedded agates. I skipped the coarse grind step and added a third polish step with 1000 grit alumina to hopefully get a higher shine more quickly. Here is the polishing progression:

As-found beach rocks.

After 1 week of medium grind (180/220 grit SiC).

After 1 week of pre-polish (500 grit SiC).

After 1 week of mid-polish (1000 grit alumina).

After 1 week of polish (1200 grit alumina) plus burnished 1 day with Ivory soap.

This is a pretty small subset of the batch, the whole pile looks like this:

Oceanside rocks before tumbling.

Rocks after tumbling.

Yachats trip

I spent some of my layoff-cation exploring the coast town of Yachats with Nick. We stayed at Ocean Cove Inn and ate dinner twice at Heidi's Italian Restaurant, both of which were awesome. It rained every day we were there, which kept the crowds down and made for good waves. 

Our main objective in selecting Yachats was to check out Thor's Well, a hole in rock ledge on the ocean's edge that fills and drains with every wave then the tide is right. We visited first thing Friday morning. You'll have to check the link for pictures. We were too chicken to take our phones out near it. I did get a shot of the Spouting Horn blowing up a puff.

Cape Perpetua Spouting Horn spouting.

We stomped all over the coast then drove up to the Cape Perpetua overlook to dry off a bit. It was only 800 feet up but that was enough to transition the rain to snow. It was too overcast to see very far but the view gives you a good feel for the coastline.

Nick in the snow.

Cape Perpetua Overlook

After lunch we hiked the Giant Spruce trail to what is reputed to be the second largest tree in Oregon. It is a big one. It started life on a fallen log called a nurse log. When the nurse log rotted away it left a nice dry cave. 

Hanging out in the nurse log cave.

That's a big tree.

Cool yellow plant.

On Saturday we drove down the coast a bit to check out the sea lion cave. It is a huge sea cave where sea lions hang out; you can take an elevator down and ogle them. The scene is kind of like the elephant seal beach in Big Sur, but in a cave. They have a mesh fence up to keep the visitors separate from the seals. There is not much chance of disturbing them from a distance because it is crazy loud in there with the barking and the waves. While we were down there the elevator broke down so about 30 of us were trapped for 40 minutes while they tried to get a repair person out. Eventually they decided it would be too long to wait for a fix and we all got to go up the stairs. It was the twistiest spiral staircase I've ever encountered. You had to kind of sidle up with your back against the center pole. I kept picturing us all going down like a line of dominoes if someone at the top stumbled. 

Sea lion cave.

Sea lion cave movie.

After escaping from the sea lions we went for a short hike on the dunes. I would have liked to get down to the ocean but the path was flooded and swampy from all the rain. Still, we got to scamper in the sand which was fun. 

Nell on the dunes.

Sunday we headed home in scattered rain. We stopped a few times to look for agates and to check out Otter Rock. We glimpsed a few critters in the waves, but I think they were sea lions not otters.

View south from Otter Rock.

Otter Rock in repose.