Klamath, Ca / Garberville / Westport

Tuesday July 22 we leave lovely Lake Selmac and head for Klamath, California. We followed highway 199 to the Oregon/California border. Shelle and I both had a remorseful emotional pang as we crossed back into California. We were leaving Oregon where we had had so very much fun and the border crossing also underlined the fact that we were on the downhill side of our trip. Oregon was really fantastic; we will go back and hopefully spend more time. But we still have adventures ahead and plenty of camping.

The California border check was quick; basically they were looking for cherries, which we had eaten by now. When I was a little kid my folks bought me some cherries in Washington and the Canadians took them away from me! I’ve never gotten over it. I told my story to the California border agent and asked her if she could get my cherries back.

Highway 199 is a very pretty and interesting drive. It is all country and woods and mostly follows the Smith River down to Crescent City. It is twisty and windy and I did notice some white on Shelle’s knuckles a couple of times, but a nice slow passage got us safely through. With some open road helping get our MPH up a little we averaged 38 mph on this leg.

We have been in plenty of sun and nice warm weather so we weren’t pleased to see Crescent City socked in with fog. We were told that this is the norm for this part of the coast, which by the way is one of the reasons the redwoods survive so well here. And we did drive through several splendid groves of Redwoods. We picked up highway 101 in Crescent City and drove south. I just can’t ever say enough about redwoods, just one of God’s magnificent creations. It is just special to be near one.

We stayed at the Klamath River RV resort, a Coast to Coast park. Nice place right on the river. We get excellent camp ground prices at Coast to Coast facilities but this one has chosen to tack on some sur charges. We payed a $3 electric sur charge per day, but we couldn’t use electric heaters! (We might have used ours anyway, maybe, what's your guess?). There was a $5 per day fee to park water front, $10 charge if you wanted to wash your rig, etc. Wifi, of course, was not free. Anyway, it is a decent park and we enjoyed our time there. We were parked on a nice grass field right next to the forest. They had cut trails through the forest so you could walk your dog. The forest is thick and usually dark. One night I was walking Roxy and Shelle had hid in the bushes and came leaping out when we approached. My heart did skip at least one beat, pretty funny, but God got even with Shelle, she had hid in some nettles--- ooh, how does that feel!

The Rox and the Shell enjoying the view of the Klamath River from camp.

Klamath River from camp.

Klamath River flowers (you know I'm gonna sneak some flowers in). These are also know, to Shelle and Mur, as "Yellowies".

One of our adventures here was a trip to Fern Canyon in the Prairie Creek Redwood State Park, 10 or 15 miles south of Klamath. You drive through the park, more wonderful redwoods and then come to an off road road leading to Fern Canyon. On the drive we passed a large open field and bingo, there were several elks out feeding. Wow, are these magnificent and impressive animals!

Was I stoked to see this dude! What a creature.

Fern Canyon was featured on Huell Howser’s California Gold show. I remember being impressed and wishing I could go there someday (I wasn’t even sure where “there’ was). Here I am. But to get there requires another road adventure. This time it is 8 miles of dusty, windy, narrow, sometimes wahsboardy, dirt road. Including, I might add, 3 river fordings. Peter with his nice hopped up Mini Cooper had to turn back, but trusty old “Truck” came through once again. You drive to a deserted beach, park and then a short easy hike up to the canyon. It is a steep walled canyon completely drenched with ferns. I’ve seen the Fern Grotto in Hawaii, I’ve seen ferns in the forest, this is something else to see. You can walk up the canyon quite a ways, then climb out and walk back along the ridge.

Another one of these situations where pictures can't do it justice, especially small pictures, but you can get the idea.














You just had to be there! So, so lush, I guess the word verdant really fits. Delovely.

As we walked along the ridge of the canyon, we passed a mountain meadow, small meadow, carpeted in tall grass and bingo; again there were two magnificent bull elk. The meadow, as many are, was very boggy. I braved dirty squishy shoes to get a nice picture or two of those wonderful big boys.

Here is one of the trails that we followed after we hiked out of the canyon, on our way to discover another great elk!

Ah, here is the big boy! What a magnificent spectacle. (And if you are wondering, I had a telephoto lens, but not that big - 200mm - and I was close, and for the record, I was, let's say alert!)

Friday we moved on to Redway/Garberville to a place called Dean Creek Resort (are you getting this resort thing!). Dean Creek Resort is a nice old camp on the Eel River (which is very dry this year). We had chosen this place because one of Barbara’s daughters, Sheryl, lives very close in Benbow. Apparently the norm is for the river to have a fair amount of water, but this year they did not get much water so not only is the river low but it has a lot of algae and swimming is not advised, especially for dogs. Poor Rox, no swimming this stop.

Saturday our adventure was to explore a place called Shelter Cove, just west of Garberville. When they built 101 they decided to skip this area of the coast, deeming it too rough and rugged to deal with. Consequentially Shelter cove is a very isolated community. There is only one road in and it is not the world’s greatest road (here we go again on another twisty/windy!) 23 miles took us just about an hour to cover. At lunch we were chatting with some biker folks on Harley’s and even they were complaining about the road. There actually is a camp ground in Shelter Cove and some folks bring in medium sized rigs --- not me!

Our first stop was Black Sand Beach, a long expansive, unspoiled, black beach. What a vista. After soaking in the view we hiked down to the beach. The black sand is really not sand but more of a gravel mixed with stones. What a neat place this is and the beach is almost empty. We wished we had a chair and a good book; we could easily spend the day here just soaking it up.

Black Sand Beach vista

The black sand/gravel. They say this beach can change its height by 20' when the winter storms move all the sand off the beach, which then comes back in the summer.

Sheryl showed up with her two dogs, Ozzie, a 125# mix (Roxy was cautious with him!) and Nellie a Border collie mix. The three dogs had a blast.

Roxy and Ozzie meet for the first time.

The "kids" having fun

More of the little cove on Black Beach.

We hiked back to the truck and then just toured around the area. For being so remote it was amazing to see so many houses, although many were for sale. Apparently people buy here and then after a while realize it might be just a little more remote than they thought. Still it is a neat town.

We found a store/deli that had great fish and chips which we ate outside in the sun and the salt air. It made for a very enjoyable lunch.

This is the Cape Mendocino Light. Cape Mendocino is about 35 miles north. This light was commissioned in 1868 and worked for a long time until it was abandoned and forgotten. In 1997 a coalition group gained the rights to the light which had become very deteriorated. They laboriously refurbished it and had it flown, piece by piece, to Shelter Cove where it stands today. It is not an operating light, but an enjoyable light to see and tour.

On Sunday we went to Sheryl’s place in the country and had an enjoyable, relaxing Sunday brunch and picked wild blackberries (later to be consumed with French Vanilla ice cream-yummy).

Monday the 28th we were off to Westport. We drive down 101 to Legget and then grab the 1 to the coast. We had been warned about this stretch of highway, definitely another major T & W (twisty and windy). There are some major, sharp hairpins. Peter was behind me and said that on one hairpin our bikes on the back were less than 4” from the road and on a couple of turns the rig was equally close to scrapping the mountain side. And just to keep things interesting they toss in these big lumber trucks that come barreling, hell bent for election, down the road and they don’t slow down. And they don’t honor the center line either. At one point I had to hug the mountain, best I could, and just stop – I can’t remember if I kept my eyes open or not! You get a real workout cranking the wheel first hard left, then immediately hard right and so on. We were down to 10 mph, sometimes 5 mph and even 0, but it is a pretty drive and the coast is a just reward. The bad part is maybe 20 to 25 miles and once it is over you are on this wonderful, pristine coast with virtually no traffic.

The little town of Westport was once a booming lumber town, the largest city between San Francisco and Eureka. It was only available by boat up until 1930 but did a large business through shipping. Nearby was the town of Union, no longer there, and the two towns shared the bluffs between them to load and unload ships. Those bluffs are now the Westport Union Landing State Park. Our camp sites were right on the bluff overlooking the ocean and miles of coast. Every window in our rig had a knock down fantastic vista. If they shot a commercial here for an RV you wouldn’t believe it was real. And to top it off, the melodic ocean sang for us all day. And all this for $13 a day! It is “dry” camping, no hook ups but we were well prepared for that.
We did have some fog and overcast when we arrived but it did clear up for us. We ended up cutting a day out of our next stop and spending it happily here. This definitely is one of our top three stops.

Down the Westport Coast, right in front of camp.

Shelle and Roxy enjoying the sun and the view.

Roxy on "our" beach at Westport, off to get another stick.

I got it!

I'm not really a Sea Gull fan, in fact I don't really like them (despite the fact they keep the ocean clean, they squawk, poop, and beg) but I couldn't resist this guy.

Beach flora. "Reddies" above, not sure if these others are "Bluies" or "Purplies".



First night sunset. It was still a little cool the first night, following nights were much milder.

Fort Bragg (California) is about 12 miles south from camp and worth exploring. They have a beach here called Glass Beach. Years ago trash was dumped in a cove and all the bottles were washed out to sea, ground up and turned into sand. The ground glass pieces make up the sand of the beach and are considered collectibles. Folks use them in decorative arrangements and such so we decided to collect some. The main beach is pretty well picked over but Sheryl had told us of a less trafficked beach and we got plenty of glass.

This is the glass "sand", 80% of what you see is glass.

A little closer look. And you can dig down about a foot and it remains like this. Pretty amazing.

Topping off our day was a great sunset and nice camp fire with roasted marshmallows. About as good as it gets!

Westport was our last real major adventure. Most of the rest of the trip was just working our way home. We stayed one night in Ukiah (very hot), two nights in Isleton on the Sacramento Delta area, then overnight in Visalia (very, very hot). Peter and Bev and Joe and Barbara left us in Visalia and we headed to Bakersfield for our final stop. We love the campground in Bakersfield, Orange Grove RV, which is in the middle of an orange orchard. Nice amenities, nice pool, pull throughs, good place to get ready for the Grapevine and L.A. traffic.

We have put over 3000 miles on the trailer and over 4300 miles on the truck. We have for the most part been very fortunate with the weather, extremely fortunate to have had such good traveling companions, and feel very blessed that we could have this wonderful adventure. We are definitely ready for the next adventures.

Bend/Diamond Lake/Crater Lake

From Frenchglen we retraced out path back to Bend, stopping at a Coast to Coast spot just outside of Bend. O.K. camp, not great but with Coast to Coast the price was right. The high lites were a resident young flock of wild geese, which were fun and pretty until they woke us up at 5, goll dern, A. M.! Also, there were acres and acres of wild forest land and trails that Roxy could run and hunt off leash. More great fun for all of us.

Bend is a really neat town, I could envision living here. Lots of open space, nice horse places/ranches, town itself is very nice, clean, friendly and always the feel of in the forest/country. We met Stu and Rosemary (Joe and Barbara's friends) who live in Bend and we all went to the original Pancake house. Swedish pancakes with Loganberries! Talk about a sugar high. We ran a few errands, had the filthy truck washed, I had forgotten it was white, and back to camp.

The site we were in at Sundance Meadows was set such that a tree was exactly in front of the rig, just about as far away as the truck is long. It was an interesting parking job and now an interesting job of lining the truck up and hitching. Nevertheless, we did it and by 9:30a we were off to Diamond Lake and Crater Lake.

We had a pleasant drive down 97 for about 100 miles to Diamond Lake. Diamond Lake is a beautiful lake surrounded by pines and immediately put us in a happy mood. The park kept us in a happy mood, a great camp ground. Well maintained, nice sites, nice people and just across a little road from the lake. Well forested with lots of pines, mostly lodge pole pines and plenty of wildflowers to touch it off just so.

The camp manager said he had some good news and bad news for me; good news was that we would have a pull through site (meaning no backing and easy in - usually), bad news it would be the toughest pull through I would see! Another nice feature of this park is that they escort you to your site and help guide you in. This was one site where I didn't mind a little help, check out the picture. But what a great site!

Our great site at Diamond Lake Resort. We loved this one.

Diamond Lake and Mt Thielsen.

Shell and I jumped on our bikes and rode a little around the lake and up to the Diamond Lake lodge. Nice lodge, just like you would picture at a picturesque mountain lake. Fine marina with rental fishing boats, private boats and some pontoon "party" boats. Even though the bike trail follows the lake, it goes up and down quite a bit making the bike ride a little challenging. Adding to the challenge was a fresh hatch of gnats. Without exaggeration I'm sure there were more than a billion, maybe a trillion! While you are riding you can't open your mouth or you will breathe gnats! Remember the old joke about how to tell a happy motorcyclist, bugs on his teeth, well that was us! 7 miles latter and some comments from my partner on my G.D. adventures we were back in camp.

Peter and Beverly King had joined us per plan and would remain with us the rest of the trip. They had completed a 250 mile plus run to catch up to us today. (We were a day ahead of schedule to allow breaking up our next long leg into two days.)

Next day Shell and I went up to Crater Lake, which was about 20 minutes from camp. Crater is spectacular, beyond description. The book talks about the "WOW" factor that everyone experiences at least their first time, if not every time. We unfortunately had one detractor, there was quite a haze from all the fires especially the Happy Camp fire. This robbed us of some of the splendor because with out a nice clear blue sky you don't get the incredible blue water that is unduplicated anywhere. Still it was so awesome and grand, unbelievable. And imagine this gorgeous, awesome, pristine beauty lay here for centuries without even being known. A prospector stumbled across the lake in the mid to late 1800's. 7th deepest lake in the world, the deepest part is almost 2000'. This depth is what gives the lake it phenomenal deep blue color.

This is early am, you can just see the starting of some haze in the upper left on the mountains, but this gives an idea of the water color. The little island, which is actually a volcano, is Wizard Island (looks like a wizard's hat).

Looking straight down at the water, this is fairly true to the real color (the white stuff is snow!).

Looking northward, another veiw of Wizard Island.


Another color perception shot.


Looking sort of westward, another angle, another perception. There are over 30 pull outs along the lake and every one gives you a new and different view of the lake.

These little pretties were right where the above shot was taken.

This is called Phantom Ship, the rock supposedly looking like a phantom ship. And to put it into perspective, the rock is 16 stories high.

Mid July, still plenty of snow around.

We had a great picnic lunch all by ourselves in this nice little pull out spot.

We also visited the Pinnacles. Many people overlook or skip the Pinnacles - Don't! When Mt Mazama erupted (and eventually collapsed and turned into Crater Lake) hot molten lava/magma cascaded rapidly down the hills. As it settled gases started to escape from below and created fumaroles, channels through the magma for the gas to exit. These channels were so hot that they welded rock and minerals to their sides. Years later as the land was eroded by rivers, the fumarole fossils remained. In other words they are fossilized burps! Very different and quite interesting.

Some of the Pinnacles.



Vidae Falls (just before the Pinnacles turn off)

The next morning we left at oh seven thirty to get to the lake early to see a clearer view. And it worked, we were duly rewarded. For dinner that evening we walked to the Pizza joint right on the lake. Really a funky little place but what a view and the pizza was great.

One day we rented one of the pontoon "party" boats and the six of us toured the lake. Great way to see the lake up close and personal. At lunch time we tossed out the anchor and had one of the best lunches of our trip.

The motley crew of the party boat. Captain Mc at the wheel ("you are now free to move about the boat, please enjoy your trip"). I thought if I fired at the exact time Peter did I could cancel out his picture ;-).

On Sunday Shelle and I decided to circumnavigate Diamond Lake. They have a really great, paved trail all around the lake. Again it has lots of challenging climbs, more billions of gnats and over 12 miles of riding but so, so much worth it. For a while the trail leaves the lake and we discovered two little lakes (Teale and Horse Lakes) which we could also ride around and a great stream called Silent Stream. Really a great adventure.

Silent Stream along the bike trail around Diamond Lake.
Bike trail bridge over Silent Stream, I mean how nice is this?

Our original plan called for us to drive from Diamond Lake to Klamath, Ca, about a 200 mile run. Barbara, who had made the trip before, rightfully encouraged us to break this trip up since the majority of it is over twisty, turny mountain roads. So we found a place that looked promising in Selma, just south of Grants Pass. Just two miles out of Selma is Lake Selmac, a very nice lake with good swimming, great bass fishing (we were told that some of the biggest bass in Oregon were taken from this lake) and also trout and crappie. Lake Selmac resort is a nice little camp ground, we were all glad we had stopped here.

Our camp site at Lake Selmac Resort (none of these "resorts" are really resorts, everyone just uses the name loosely). To the picture's left is the lake across the street, we have the view from the rig.

Lake Selmac Resort mail box, 2700 Lakeview drive. You have to love this mail box!

We decided to have a swimming adventure so traipsed off to the lake. Roxy was in 7th heaven as she bounded into the lake and started swimming. There were some kids on a float maybe 50 yards or so out in the lake. They were diving and having a great time so Roxy decided to join them. After she was out there for a while I got worried she would get tired and maybe have trouble so I swam out to coax her back in. As soon as she got back in she turned around and swam back out to play with the kids. She did this several times, never tiring and was having an absolute blast.

Swiming in the lake. The water was great. It was about 90 degrees outside and the water must have been about 70 degrees (with occasional very cold currents drifting through), it was really enjoyable.
The little brown dot, mid left, is Roxy taking off one more time to swim out to the swim float.

The "girls" swimming. Shelle is going "come to Mama".


Roxy was bound and determined that this little girl's water seat was actually a dog toy. The little girl was very calm and very nice to Roxy, while Roxy's parents had visions of law suits over mad dog sinks float and drowns cute adorable little girl.

Roxy is pretty competitive and likes to compete in different ways (like out running my bike no matter how hard I try to approach a heart attack). At one point I was swimming along side of her and the race was on! The faster I swam the faster she swam, it was pretty amusing. She could clearly out stamina me, no doubt there, I could beat her if I swam free style, but if I tried to swim doggy paddle style she would just clean my clock, and of course she felt doggy paddle was the only fair contest!

Lake Selby swans at sunset.

We had a very enjoyable stay at our highway 199 "break". 199 is an interesting run which we will be taking down to Crescent City (and the next posting).