Smokey!

The wildfires in this area of Southern Oregon (Josephine County) are continuing to affect visibility and air quality. Normally, when we get smoke here, it's usually from fires in California or sometimes other parts of Oregon, but this year they're all around Grants Pass, viz. this map:

Grants Pass is just 30 miles west of Medford.

The smoke blocks out the sun for most of the day and they're handing out free breathing masks in Grants Pass now. When we get up in the morning, the particles of soot etc are on most of the surfaces in the garden - they were even landing on me when I was lazing in the pool yesterday.

Jo and I were planning an away day on Monday and Klamath Falls was our planned destination, but the morning air quality reports on the TV showed that it was pretty bad there, so we decided instead to head a little further north to Crater Lake. Good decision - the air was clear there, although we could see the smoke approaching at the end of the day on our way back to GP.

We had a nice day at Crater Lake - the altitude meant the temperature was much more to our liking as well. No fear of triple digits there - high 70's, low 80's - perfect!

We started our day on the Discovery Point Trail, just to get a view of the deep blue lake:

We were never going to walk too far on this trail - we only had our flip-flops on and it was a little precarious and precipitous, so then we headed over to nearby Rim Village to grab a spot of lunch, after which we strolled eastwards down the pathway heading towards Crater Lake Lodge. It was at this point that we remembered where we'd been when we came to visit many years ago.

This time around, we wanted to see a bit more of the park. We didn't really have time to drive right around the crater - we knew there were roadworks going on anyway - and we wanted to see some of the regular stopping points and stretch our legs a little, so we decided to drive east, where our first port of call was Vidae Falls:

When we first parked the car there, we were immediately hit by mossie bites. A lady, spotting our predicament, immediately came to our rescue and offered us some bug spray. Too late for some, but gratefully received anyway.

Driving on, the next stop was Sun Notch, where we could stretch our legs a little to the top of the hill and look down at the "phantom ship" below:

That was two stops ticked off - next was the Phantom Ship Overlook, where you could view it from the other side. From there, it was a short drive down to the trail that led to Plaikni Falls, which we both thought was one of the most beautiful spots we'd seen:

 

and that was pretty much that - it was time to head back now, but here's an overview of the park, with the various stopping points marked:

 So, having driven for 4 hours on Monday, we were never going to go far on Tuesday. In fact, we just stayed in Grants Pass, did a bit of (unsuccessful) shopping for replacement flip-flops for Jo, then took the festival chairs down to a shady spot beside the Rogue River, after which we popped in to Cade's new place of work - https://www.truejuiceorganic.com/ - for a couple of smoothies.

When we got home, the newly shorn Buster, following his morning at the dog groomers, was waiting to greet us. He looks tiny now - especially next to Shelby, who has grown enormously in the last year. Poor old Holly is getting greyer by the day - and Tina is now indeed a (very) fat cat!

It's Wednesday morning now and I'm feeling a little delicate, so I don't think we'll be going anywhere today - not until this evening anyway, when we're heading over to Medford and a meal at Kaleidoscope.

Tomorrow, I go back to the dentist to have my temporary crown removed and the new one fitted. I'm still suffering pain in my gums and struggling to open my jaw wide enough to eat properly - a result, I suspect, of all of the injections I had to have in my 3 sessions there.

On Friday, Jo and I head to Portland and the Oregon Brewers' Festival. Then we overnight there and catch the plane to Maui on Saturday. Hope there's no smoke there! The weather there looks fine for next week:

 The big difference from here in Oregon is the range of temperatures. There it only seems to vary 12/13 degrees day to overnight, whereas here we can awaken to temperatures as low as the 50's, before peaking mid-afternoon almost 50 degrees higher!

Fire season!

Yes, it's that time of year again, when the West Coast fire season is in full swing - forest fires all through California and Oregon. The primary danger here in Grants Pass is smoke - and that totally depends on the wind direction. We'd managed to avoid it all until the last few days. The sudden thunderstorm last Sunday morning, when there were over 1,000 lightning strikes locally, started 67 separate forest fires in this area of Southern Oregon and the smoke now surrounds Grants Pass, where visibility has substantially diminished, but thankfully, the air quality is not critical yet - although you can see, smell and taste the smoke in the air.

The other threat from the forest fires is transportation - roads being closed by the fires and the firefighters' attempts to douse them. Last week, the I5 - the huge freeway that passes through here on its long journey all the way from Mexico to Canada - was closed for a while. Lucy just posted this extract from the local radio station:

"Riverbanks Road is now closed to everyone except for residents and emergency vehicles. Blockades have been set up on Riverbanks at Redwood Highway and at Robertson Bridge. Please see previous post for upgraded evacuation notices. West Pickett Creek, Shan Creek and Limpy Creek roads are now on Level 3 "Go" evacuation notices. Dutcher Creek Road has been upgraded to a Level 2 "Be Set" evacuation notice. Shelters are available at Grants Pass High School and Redwood Christian Church. Please share this info with family and friends immediately."

(Robertson Bridge is one of my cycling loops and it's where we launched the Englands' boat last Saturday.) Hope everything's OK for our trip to Portland on Friday.

We've had a fairly quiet time this last week after our trip to the coast on Monday, judging by the few photos on my camera. The most exciting time was when Jo and I went trail walking the other day. It's not far from here and I've been walking and cycling these trails in previous years, but my memory must be failing me because I thought that one of the trails we did was a circular one that went up the hill at the end of Elk Lane and came back round to where we started. Well, we got lost, didn't we, and ended up on the other side of the hill/mountain, where thankfully we met a guy laying chuckies on the trail. He told us the only way back to our car was to retrace our steps and climb the hill again and go back down the other side. Of course, by now, we'd already been walking for a couple of hours and had used up all of our water. He came to our rescue and gave us a couple of bottles of water he had in his road-roller. This was a huge help, but Jo was still distressed about having to climb up the trail again in the mid-day heat.

Of course, we did eventually make it, but that was the second major dehydration episode for Jo this holiday. I doubt if she'll ever go back trail walking with me again. Anyway, this was the view from the top of the hill:

Scott travelled over to Crescent City for a family commemoration ceremony this weekend, so Lucy took Jo and I round a couple of wineries just outside Medford - and very nice they were too. We had lunch at the second one - Paschal:

So that's all for now. More adventures to follow this week, no doubt.