Baking and Climbing!

This weekend consisted of our 2 favorite things: baking and mountain climbing!  We decided to take it "easy" this weekend and not travel or camp anywhere in order to start cleaning the house for our August and September visitors.  On Saturday morning, we got up early and headed to downtown Klamath Falls for some fresh bagels and to peruse the local farmer's market!  The produce and treats were amazing there - Ed definitely took advantage of the free samples while Kristin snuck away to buy a fresh baked cup cake!  We ended up getting some of the local organic strawberries that were so sweet you would SWEAR they were grown in a pile of sugar!

In addition to some awesome fruit, we also bought a couple tomato plants that were already in the planter - perfect for our back deck!  These are "yellow-pear" tomatoes - supposedly small and sweet!  Buster was very interested in the new plants, so I nabbed him for a pic too...

At the farmer's market, I got some fresh thyme and made some thyme-cheddar-jalapeno biscuits for lunch - they didn't rise a lot (still getting used to the altitude cooking) but they were delicious! 

Sunday we headed out early to climb Mount Scott at Crater Lake National Park. This is a relatively short hike (5 miles round trip) but it has a 1200 ft elevation gain, so it definitely tested out our muscles!  The weather was perfect for the hike and we even saw some remaining snow!

On the way home we were lucky enough to spot a bald eagle on a telephone tower!!!  We were so excited to see him and he was certainly less than pleased to see us, but we took pics anyways!  It's amazing how "not-scared" he was of us, although considering he could probably eat Buster in one gulp, maybe I shouldn't be that surprised...

After we got home, I set out on the Sunday night goal of making a chocolate-peanut butter cake for an office party on Monday.  This was a chance to finally use the recipe card book I got for Christmas too - which I LOVE!  (Thanks Grandma!)  We haven't tasted it yet, but Ed certainly hopes there is some left after the party! It's chocolate cake with peanut-butter icing and a chocolate-peanut butter glaze - yum!

Field Work and the Oregon Coast!

This week was exhausting!  Kristin had her first experience of true "field work" on Thursday.  She took a very bumpy 2 hour truck ride down to Clear Lake and then hopped on an airboat to go check out the Lake levels and measure the flow coming out of a natural underground spring.  The spring was very small but the water was crystal clear and you could actually see the water bubbling up from the sand below!

Mammoth Spring - contributes to Clear Lake just south of the OR/CA border

On the 1 mile hike coming back from the spring, she found a piece of history!  The Applegate Trail (a southern route from the Oregon Trail) runs right through the Clear Lake area - she found an old horse shoe from the old wagon days! Following LNT practices, of COURSE she put it back...

On Friday we headed to the Oregon Coast to camp with Terri and Josh and see the "cold" coast!  The drive Friday after work felt like we were just chasing the sun down - it was just beautiful the whole way.  Unfortunately we reached the coast just after dark so we didn't get to see the sun set.  We ended up staying in the "tent area" of an RV Park after finding out that ALL the coastal State Parks were FULL!!  We were pretty disappointed until we realized that this "tent area" was well away from all the RVs and it was RIGHT NEXT to the ocean!  We fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves...

Saturday morning we tried some old pancake mix  that we've had for years and it was awesome!  Apple Grain pancakes with an apple syrup topping - yum!

Of course that was topped by some award winning clam chowder from High Tide Cafe down the street - a great recommendation  from a co-worker of mine.  And then THAT was topped by an awesome camp fire dinner from Chef Terri!  We had baked potatoes, corn on the cob, salmon, steak and grilled veggies - all cooked on the camp fire!

Other than eating and enjoying some fine Oregon Pinot Noir, we spent the rest of the time playing like little kids on the beach and checking out the cool ecosystems caught in the tide pools.  Some of our best pics are below:

 This is a live starfish eating mussels

Crabs stuck in a tide pool

A little before sunset...

From the campsite area

Ed jumping...

Terri jumping...

Kristin jumping!

 Kristin and Terri

Just at sunset 

We miss you all!!!

Wildlife and Caves!

This week was a busy one!  I (Kristin) had tons to do at work including lots of field work!  We did some flow measuring on canals that went through farms and I found that the phrase "curiosity kills a cat" could also work for cows...they were definitely interested in what we were doing and kept inching closer and closer to us!  I did have to chase a few of them away but they didn't go very far...

 
On Thursday, Ed wanted to go out for a nice dinner on the river...in Ashland!  It's about an hour away but we wanted to test out the Subaru on the mountain curves, so we went for Thai!  On the way out we were reminded that we are definitely in Oregon...where the deer keep wondering when we're going to leave...

On Saturday we decided to ambitiously climb Mt McLaughlin in the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area!  It's about a 9,500 ft peak with a base around 4,500 so around 5,000 feet of climbing!  We hiked a little less than a mile in and were just swarmed by mosquitoes!  I have been warned by co-workers that the Cascade Mountains are really bad for bugs in July...but I didn't realize just HOW bad!  Needless to say, we decided to try this one again in September...

After a disappointing time at Mt McLaughlin, we decided to check out the TuleLake Wildlife Refuge - about 30 minutes south of Klamath Falls.  This refuge is a part of the Klamath Basin project that I work on so I had been there before, but never got the chance to stop and look and Ed had never seen it.  We saw more birds that one can imagine!  Tons of different diving ducks and geese and loons!  We were there around 6pm and I definitely want to try and come back one day closer to 6am when all the activity happens!  They say the Bald Eagles are plentiful here in the winter too.  This was also our new Subaru's first time off-roading - it seemed to do very well!

Sunday we headed out to do some caving at Lava Beds National Monument (45 minutes to the south).  Lava Beds National Monument is a very unique and cool place but we won't say too much about it (or show too many pictures) since we'll be taking our summer time visitors there!  There are just TONS and TONS of caves there -some are super easy with clear head height and others are very complex with maps required and belly crawling a must!  One of the coolest things about this park is that you can go backpacking in the back country there and there are tons of unmapped, unnamed, undiscovered caves out there!  How cool!

 

After Lava Beds, we decided to check out Medicine Lake in the Modoc National Forest - a high elevation lake that some people had told us was a cool place to spend a weekend.  It's about 15 miles from Lava Beds down a dirt road.  It was very pleasant and we decided we definitely want to come back with a canoe and do some canoeing and camping!

After a short peek at the Lake, we wanted to head home to make some dinner BUT our GPS had other intentions.  The road (pictured below) it took us down to get "home" ended up going up to the top of a mountain (to an old fire lookout) for the best view of OR/CA that we have ever seen!!!  Thank you Garmin!  I'm putting the lookout picture here, but it doesn't really do it justice.  The sun was so bright that you can't even see the awesome view of Mt Shasta in this pic - but it was there and it was awesome!

Finally, after an hour of a confused Garmin on dirt roads, we got on the main road to get home.  What a fun weekend!

Weekend in Portland

This weekend Ed and I headed to the "Big City" of Portland! We went to see Matt Insley in "The Last Five Years" at the Miracle Theater - it was an AWESOME show! Basically, the story was of the last 5 years of a relationship between a couple that met, married and then separated. Matt LITERALLY played piano for 90 minutes STRAIGHT!!! No Stopping!!! It was very impressive! Friday night we enjoyed some delicious Oregon wine with Matt and AJ and then got some sleep to prepare for Portland exploring on Saturday.

Saturday we (Matt, Ed and I) climbed Mt Multnomah, the 2nd tallest waterfall in the US - 2nd only to Yosemite. It was only a mile up, so we went after it like an easy hike. By the time we got to the top, our butts were burning and the lactic acid was flowing! The views at the top were gorgeous though!



Saturday night we got to have a delicious dinner at a brewery with Matt, Terri, Josh and Josh's mom (Terri) and her husband Rob. I ate way too much food, but the beers were very delicious! After a long, still unfinished game of trivial pursuit we headed to bed to prepare for more exploring on Sunday!

Sunday we headed to the International Rose Garden and the Japanese Gardens in Portland. The scenery was gorgeous and provided the perfect setting for many silly pictures. Afterwards, we headed to a completely empty Chinese restaurant for and early dinner.


After all of that fun, we headed home for a relaxing (and very lazy) day off.

Klamath Kinetic Challenge 2010

So Ed and I wanted to spend the weekend in Klamath Falls and check out downtown a little. We had planned to just visit the farmer's market and get some lunch, but we ended up stumbling upon the annual Klamath Kinetic Challege! The Farmer's Market was small, but very cute. They had actual farmers there that were selling actual plants! Of course there were organic veggies and handmade soaps, but there were also tons of strawberry, pepper, onion, etc plants. It really made us miss our garden in Houston!

After a fantastic lunch at the Daily Bagel (on hazelnut-poppy seed bread) we headed down to Veterans Memorial Park to see the Klamath Kinetic Challenge! Basically, this is a competition with "Kinetic Sculptures."  Here's how they describe it on the website: Kinetic Sculptures are home made, human powered vehicles able to travel (hopefully) over land, sand, muck, rocks and, oh ya, water. They carry one, two, four or more people. The race is to see if these fantastic creations are able to negotiate the course. Awards are given for engineering/construction, art, speed and many other frivolous achievements. 
It was really a ton of fun to watch everyone and we even met some pretty awesome people!  Here are some of the competitors:

From Klamath Kinetic Challenge 2010 - Videos

BLACK TIE AFFAIR - made it through the mud with ease!

From Klamath Kinetic Challenge 2010 - Videos

This guy made it after a while...a long while!

From Klamath Kinetic Challenge 2010 - Videos

This guy had a creative idea, but he needed people on either side to prevent him from tipping in the mud!  It worked well in the water though!

Shasta Dam and Waterfalls!

This week was kind of quiet at work - much us the USBR staff was away at a conference, so we made the most of the evenings. We got about half way around our 3 mile (very hilly) loop without stopping and then we ran some of the second half with some short breaks. It was definitely a sign that we are acclimating to the elevation and building our hill muscles!

On Thursday, Kristin had to go to the Shasta Dam to pick up her official ID card. The Shasta Dam is absolutely HUGE and has a unique spillway in the middle of the dam. We didn't get to go on the tour of the Dam, but we definitely will next time we're down there. And of course the drive to the dam gives an awesome view of Mt. Shasta.



Saturday we headed out for some camping in the Umpqua Forest (1.5 hours away). We didn't realize until we were on our way, but the Umpqua forest has TONS of waterfalls! We only got to see 4 of them, but there are 21 in all! They range from 20-300 feet tall! Apparently they are much larger in the spring, so we will have to go back next April...



After the waterfalls, we went car-camping and had a wonderful dinner of pasta and wine.



It's so beautiful out here and we saw so much more that we want to do!

Crater Lake and Scenic Driving!

We are getting settled in here in Klamath and last weekend we finally got to go to Crater Lake National Park!  It is so gorgeous up there, but it is COLD with LOTS of snow!  Crater Lake NP gets 40-70 FEET of snow a year on AVERAGE!  It was created by Mt. Mazama (a 12,000 ft volcano) erupting 7,700 years ago.  After the eruption, the lake slowly filled with rainfall and snowmelt and is now one of the deepest natural lakes in the world!  There is a road all around the lake, but only half of the road is open due to high amounts of snow.  The entire road is usually open August-September but you can cross-country ski it when it's closed!



After Crater Lake, we did some scenic driving up to Diamond Lake and south down to Ashland before heading back to Klamath Falls. About 30 minutes outside of Crater Lake the temps went up to the 80s and we saw a water fall on the side of the road. There are pull-off points everywhere on the roads here because there is so much to see! So we got pics of our first of many Oregon waterfalls! We passed over a couple other lakes as well although I'm not sure which ones they were. On our way into Ashland, we stopped at a winery, Agate Vineyards, and did a tasting of Oregon wine! We weren't that impressed, but we were excited to learn about the Oregon grapes and different varieties.

This weekend we are planning some waterfall-side camping and maybe visiting some of the Roseburg wineries. We have learned that the "Rogue Valley" (southwest Oregon) area is known for Syrah and Willamette Valley (central-western Oregon) is known for Pinot Noir.