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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Leaving the Oregon Coast for Time with Family

Our last few days on the Oregon coast were spent at Bullards Beach State Park in Bandon along with friends Dennis and Sheryl and their sweet puppy, Phoebe. Lots of beach walking and some delicious dinners together rounded out our time together. While we moved on to Roseburg and family, they moved South towards home in Tucson...we look forward to meeting up again somewhere, sometime and are grateful we had these few days of travel together.

Young Phoebe learns about all sorts of unusual goodies on a cloudy morning at the beach.

The Coquille River lighthouse shines under bright morning sun at Bullards Beach State Park.


Our home of record is Myrtle Creek, OR, specifically my daughters house, just on the outskirts of Roseburg, OR. Once again we are staying at On the River Golf & RV Resort, a pretty little private park just a couple of miles from Chantal's house.

The RV park sits at the base of a small mountain and their property encompasses about 135 acres, including about a third of said mountain. Some years ago the owners purchased a few Scottish Highlander cattle because of their reputation for clearing brush, including blackberries and poison oak. The cattle now number 20 and do a decent job of eating away the mountainside brush and RV park visitors are welcome to walk the property. Well, it's climb the property actually, as the dirt roads on the mountainside are very steep! We'll huff and puff up the nearly vertical dirt roads on the lookout for cattle and deer and enjoy expansive views of the surrounding countryside.

This young Scottish Highlander was curious about us...as he approached Hans,
Hans backpedaled, not quite sure of his intent!

Tackling the final, nearly vertical, ascent to the top of On The River RV Park's property.

The RV park includes lots of pretty landscaping, we enjoyed these lily's just steps from our site.

Our time with Chantal and James includes a yard work fix for me. At the end of summer Chantal has had more than enough of her gardens bounty and we get to help her get rid of some of it. We got to do some gardening and some canning together, good mother daughter bonding time!


This is just a portion of our take from the garden during our stay!


Our big project this year was to bring water down from the house to Chantal's veggie garden, about 75 feet away and down a slope. We spent one morning trenching and another morning buying and assembling the system...mission accomplished!


This was the fun part...not!
The goal was to bring water to the small gate on the left of the photo.


Son in law James gave us a tour of his place of employment, where a variety of aluminum boats are built.

James and Hans inspect a just finished boat.


Chantal and Hans and I took a day trip to Eugene where we did a bunch of shopping and enjoyed a beer tasting at McMenamins High Street Brewery.

Hans drove to Eugene while Chantal gave me a crochet lesson in the back seat!

The Mid-Valley Brewfest event included 5 McMenamins beers and 5 seasonals from other local breweries.

For the third year in a row we played our favorite disc golf course at Whistlers Bend Park, just East of Roseburg, OR. (Here's a post from the first time we played this course.) This time was a little different; more campsites are being constructed which caused some havoc with the first few holes and threw off the numbers for the following holes...but we still had an excellent time and shared the course with no one but the local deer on a Monday morning (though we've heard the place is very busy on the weekends). We learned some of the new camp sites will have hookups.

Note Hans, on the left, throwing his yellow disc over the deer who is in front of the basket!


North Bank Habitat Management Area is one of the few hiking spots around Roseburg. This year we hiked a fantastic six mile loop that took us up over rolling hills covered with golden grasses to big views and down through oak and pine, cedar and madrone forests. We hoped to see wild turkey and deer which are abundant in the area but instead saw a black bear! He was about 100 yards in front of us, paused briefly to see what we were, then moved quickly into the brush.

You can even see a smidgen of the North Umpqua River in this shot.
Clouds were moving in for a storm that would start that night.

From open vistas to deep green, cedar scented forest, the variety of habitats on this hike was wonderful.

And this bear sighting was the icing on the cake!

Fall seems to have arrived, the first good rain storm is happening today and this area really needs it. We'll have one last dinner with Chantal tonight, then head South to Ashland tomorrow. Once again we've had an excellent stay, visiting with Chantal and James and her dad and step mom too (thanks Sue for the smokey chipotle chutney!). Though it is always hard to leave Chantal, we'll take away massive amounts of home grown produce and, even better, good memories.



16 comments:

  1. We would love to have those veggies especially the tomatoes. I think that Steve would love to have a break from our traveling and do what Hans is doing, trenching. Yes really.

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    1. Oh I understand, I want to have a garden again some day and enjoy these little gardening episodes immensely!

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  2. Wow! Chantal must have a huge garden if that is just your take. I love those green heirloom tomatoes. And the squash looks amazing. Are those tomatillos!? Very cool! Oh, I would love to get my hands on some of that produce. What a great gardener she is:) How nice of you two to put in a water line for the garden! After all, I do believe that is why we visit our children...to work and spend money!!

    I'll expect to see some beautiful crochet products when we meet up!!

    A bear on the trail and just far enough to be a neat experience. Glad you got a photo. Sure made that a great hike!!

    Looks like a wonderful time with your daughter:)

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    1. Yes, tomatillos. Her garden produces sooooo much, it is just overwhelming. And I am extremely happy to reduce the burden! So far I have made two huge batches of tomato sauce, one romesco sauce, one tomatillo sauce, we are eating tomatoes as snacks...

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    2. Yum!! Homemade sauce sounds so good. There is nothing better than fresh sliced tomato:)

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  3. I too am eating my heart out over all the produce. Oh to have a daughter who gardens. I guess if you grow up on a farm you want to move to the city and mow grass rather than garden. Who knows. Looks like a great time there. We haven't played disc golf in ages. And the bear. Well that's a mighty fine neighborhood your daughter lives in. Safe travels.

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    1. Oh yes, I am envious of her garden and her beautiful countryside! I've always lived in a city so the wide open country with no neighbors is wonderful!

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    2. Oh yes, I am envious of her garden and her beautiful countryside! I've always lived in a city so the wide open country with no neighbors is wonderful!

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  4. What a fun time with your daughter and son-in-law! I would love the gardening and canning -- not so much the trenching. Did way too much of that at our home in Ashland and it was not fun. How cool that you saw a bear on the trail -- and got a photo! Can't wait to see what you're up to in Ashland -- we're wending our way down the coast of Washington and hope to see you there! :-)

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    1. We'll see if the weather works for us to get outdoors a little, rain is predicted. But, we will be going to Medford one day to take care of a few things so rain won't matter too much that day.

      If we do manage get together I'll probably have a few tomatoes for you!

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  5. I always wanted to have a garden but even when I had the land I never had the time. Now that I have the time, no land. Chantal obviously has both, and how lucky that you literally got to reap the harvest! Better yet that you had some mother-daughter time :-) Love the bear - and the Scottish Highlander is really cute!

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    1. Yes, Chantal has the space and the time...but by the end of the summer she is so done with it! The timing was perfect for us to come along and swoop some of that bounty off her hands!

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  6. Mother daughter time is so special and sounds like your stay was way toooo short. Looks like a beautiful property with a great garden. How nice you got to share in the bounty. Safe travels to you as you start your journey south. We hit the road Sunday.

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  7. Looks like you had a great time at Chantal's. We're jealous of your bear sighting. In Grand Teton NP the other day we drove by a bunch of parked cars with rangers and people standing around. I asked what was going on and was told there were three bears in the woods but you couldn't see them. We were too tired from hiking to stop and wait to see if they came out. In all our hiking and travels we have yet to see a bear!

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  8. The gardening and canning reminded me of our time with the folks in Ohio. That is a part of our trip that I will always treasure. Bandon is a favorite of ours on the OR coast. We have not ventured into the interior of the state yet and look forward to it. We have heard such great things about Ashland for a long time so I am looking forward to your post on this area.

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  9. Boy, I got really backlogged with all the blogs I follow, and am just getting back to this post. We love to hit McMennimans whenever we're in Oregon. Roseburg's is our favorite.

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