How to Escape from Paradise during a Pandemic, Part 2

Yaaaayyyyy!!!

Our first UPS shipment-- the dreaded, gigantic, expert-level Tetris game of a bike box-- shipped out yesterday, with no hitches... and is already in California!

We can't even get to California that fast.

No, really.  Here is what Google Flights gives you, if you ask to fly from Kona to Orlando now:

If you look at the detail for each flight, you will see, first, that  first leg of every flight is on Hawaiian Airlines; second, all routes go through HNL (Honolulu); and third, there are 2-3 layovers (!) for each flight.

This is because there are NO flights from Kona to the mainland-- none!-- right now, thanks to COVID-19:

This is a big problem for anyone trying to get out of Kona right now, let alone anyone trying to solve the terrible equation of two humans traveling with three cats.  

 I think Nate is thinking, "That one: we could get rid of that one."  (Poor Fink...)

You see, most airlines (all that we have found, in fact, except our beloved Alaska Airlines) allow zero-to-one pets per passenger in the cabin.  Hawaiian Airlines is one pet per passenger.  So, if we wanted to fly now, we would have to both fly to Honolulu with one cat apiece... and then one of us would have to fly back to Kona, just to bring the last cat to Honolulu!  Or fly them in cargo, which is not an option. 🙀

Also, most airlines (again, except Alaska) require health certificates dated within 10 days to fly pets, even in-cabin.  Hawaiian is one of those airlines. With vet clinics closed down to minimal services, we would have a tough time getting that done... and it would add to the expense of an already-expensive relocation.

So, why aren't there any flights from Kona to the mainland right now?  Well, obviously, COVID-19, but the specific reason is two-fold:  

(1) the state of Hawaii imposed a 14-day  quarantine on all visitors entering the state: this is still in effect and no one knows when it might be lifted (we're hoping May 31st), and 
 
(2) Airlines that got CARES Act funds must maintain the "same level of service" (not really, but close) to all of their airports, in order to not have to pay back the funds.  They were given an "out" however, which is the crux of our no-Kona-flights problem: they were allowed to apply for exemptions for airports they did not feel they could service without taking a major loss.  So, all the airlines that fly from the mainland to Hawaii applied for, and received, exemptions for Kona (Big Island), Kahului (Maui), and Lihue (Kauai).

So, do we just give up and stay put-- coronavirus hostages?

Of course not!  You know us.  We love beating our heads against walls until they finally yield.  We never give up!  

Oh, right, unless it's giving up on a place we moved to (like, say, the most remote island chain in the world), and getting the hell out of there.  Baba G really trained us right.  Or wrong.  You be the judge.

Anyway, we saw that Alaska Airlines was showing flights after June 1st, so we called and-- miracle of miracles!-- got an awesome agent (Shannon from Boise), who spent 90 minutes on the phone with us, helping us pick a flight that "looked like it would go for sure" (i.e., pretty full) and then making our very complicated reservations from Kona to Orlando for June 11th.  

The only thing the system wasn't letting her do was book the extra "cabin bag" seat that we need for the third cat, and for the suitcase that we use to transport my giant iMac, Nate's Chromebook, and other electronics we feel better not checking.  You know, just in case...

So, Shannon said she could put a hold on the seats over the weekend and then call us back to complete the booking Monday morning.  Call us back?!  This is such stellar, above-and-beyond customer service!  We love Shannon!  Anyway, flash forward 36 hours... Shannon calls to say she was finally able to book the cabin bag seat, BUT...

But?!  Oh no!

"Oh no" is right.  Over the weekend, it seems Alaska had changed up its entire Kona flight schedule (!), so that instead of three daily flights to Seattle, plus a couple more each to Portland and San Diego, there is now just ONE daily flight to Seattle.  One!  And it is a totally different flight schedule than we had originally booked.

But Shannon had already worked her magic, and gotten our whole reservation (including the cabin bag seat) moved over onto the new flight, even with our upgrades into Premium seats (expensive, but worth it to be in the front of the plane with extra legroom... and hopefully still the free drinks that are supposed to come with it).

Yay, Shannon!

So, the plan is to fly out of Kona on the red-eye (9:40pm departure: ouch), into Seattle, have just an hour and eleven minute layover (in which we will need to move between gates and give the cats a water, food, and bathroom break: sheesh!), and then we fly to Orlando, landing just before 5pm.

Please, everyone, cross your fingers and your toes for us, that this flight from Kona to Seattle actually goes!  (Especially in the next week or so, when our governor should announce the next phase of reopening.)

Even if we can't make the second leg with that short layover, we will at least have made it to Seattle, which is Alaska's hub and offers MANY other flight options for getting to Florida.

So, that is where things sit for now.

Between now and then, Nate and I are still culling our stuff via Craigslist (you would be surprised how many people are shopping on CL during this crazy pandemic!), and then UPS-ing out all the rest, save six checked boxes and our carryons.  Speaking of which, I should get caffeinated and get back to boxing...

As an aside: I am thinking of making a whipped coffee: it's gone viral on TikTok, so I'm going to start calling it COV-ee. 😜  In case you haven't seen it, this is what they look like:

 Crazy that coffee powder, sugar, and water can do this!

Up Next: Pretty pictures of our Hawaiian adventures...

How to Escape from Paradise during a Pandemic, Part 1

When this is the view from your porch, few people understand why you would leave...

But, the snapshot is never the whole story, is it?  (I'm looking at you, Instagram.)

As many of you already know, we moved to the Big Island of Hawaii in January 2019 with the ultimate goal of me restarting the little eco-snorkel company I had run briefly in Key West way back in 2008.  We had debated between the Big Island versus Maui, as the best island for us... and, in the end (after finally taking a trip to Maui this February), I think we chose poorly.  :(

 Oh, Maui-- the whales!  the turtles!

 Turn up your volume to hear the whale mating party... and maybe look away from my shaky camera work!

But, Maui might not have done us any better, since the entire state of Hawaii has clamped down on the number of new ocean recreational tour operator permits it is issuing.  As in, down to ZERO.   No new permits.  Still, before the pandemic hit, we were thinking of just moving one island over, to try again on Maui, since it felt like a better fit and there were guided beach snorkel companies I could have at least worked for...

But, then the pandemic hit.

Quickly, in late March, we were both furloughed, when the state temporarily revoked all the ocean recreation tour operators' permits.  The governor also issued a stay-at-home order, plus a 14-day mandatory quarantine for arriving visitors, and Hawaii began its march into a deep recession (possibly depression) that is going to persist for quite a while.

Maui suddenly dropped off the list of possible options we could explore.  Hawaii has taken the lead in unemployment claims in the U.S., with about 35% of workers unemployed across the state.  The entire tourism industry is at a standstill, and the forecast is pretty bleak about when things might get back to normal:

So, we have decided it's time to call it quits on the Hawaii experiment, and come on home to Florida.  You would think we could just book the flights, ship the cars and the stuff, and be back in no time.  Ah, but not in a pandemic!

We had a grand new plan of shipping all the stuff via air cargo-- so much easier and cost-effective than any other option!  That plan vaporized, as Hawaii's 14-day mandatory visitor quarantine has forced airlines to scale down flight schedules, leaving the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai with NO flights to the mainland through the end of May!

So, fine.  No air cargo option.  We sat and fretted on that for a couple days, before I started exploring other shipping options.  There is just no way we are going to take 19 checked boxes on the plane again, like we did on the way here.

In the end, UPS is going to be our unlikely savior!  I set up a shipping account with them, and it looks like we will be able to ship the bulk of our stuff (without breaking the bank completely) right to Diana and Mike's front porch.  The best part is that we can ship as we get things boxed, so we don't even have to do it all in one giant load.

So, that is how we will get the stuff moved back to Florida.  The cars will go via Matson container ship, from Hilo to the West Coast... but then we'll have to fly back from Florida to drive them the rest of the way.  Yes, we are doing that.  It is worth around $2K per vehicle for us to do it, rather than ship them overland to Florida!  And you know we love a road trip!  ;)

So, the only puzzle piece left in the move is how to get ourselves and the cats from the Big Island to Florida.  And, ah, there's the rub...

Up Next: How to Escape from Paradise during a Pandemic, Part 2

The Big December Relocation Road Trip -- Part 1

Yeah, so, you probably assumed I meant THIS December, but I still never posted anything about LAST December, so let's do that first... and then we'll come back to THIS December.
{Here: let me say it for you.  Sheesh!}

OK, first of all, after a full year back in the Florida Keys... yes, we are alive and well and living in Maine.

As in, blueberries and lobstah... Maine?!

{ah yup}

More on THAT move in the next post... or maybe the one after that.  I dunno.  Plans are very fluid for us, as I am sure you have appreciated.  Or not appreciated, quite possibly.

So, let's hop in the "way back" machine and go back to December 2014, for a visual trip down memory lane and across the country, the longest way you can possibly go: from the Pacific Northwest to the Florida Keys!

And, away we go went...

So, first, here is what our little cozy corner spot for Baba G looked like, back in Bandon, next to our favorite neighbor ever...



You can also see Fink & Tigger's favorite cob cottage hangout, off to the right.  Solar gain = cat heaven.

And here is our favorite neighbor, Nelson, helping Nate test out the new exhaust system for the generator, to ensure we didn't carbon monoxide ourselves to death on the return trip (a real danger):


{Nelson, you see how dangerous it is to prompt us for blog posts: you may just end up IN them!}
We miss you!!!

So, on December 1st, despite the fact that I was still {ahem} teaching online, we pulled our wagon train of two into a circle and hit the highway, in a DRENCHING downpour... that turned to snow showers as we summited the Cascades:


Yes, that's me up in the trees-- SNIFFING-- because the whole summit smelled like a giant Christmas tree.  Mmmmmmmmmm....

After that zen little olfactory interlude, we started downhill and discovered there was this RED STUFF all over the road, which is apparently how Oregon handles their slippery roads in winter.



What AWFUL stuff: it ended up CAKED all over poor Baba G's backside and-- worst of all-- blanketed the generator, which we only discovered when we stopped to camp at Water Wheel (below), just on the west side of the Cascades!  =:-O


Woke up the next morning and drove through hail and brimstone.  OK, maybe just hail.  And I guess the brimstone goes with hell, not hail.  But, you get the picture.

Camped the next night at a place called Honey Lake.  Drippy wet and COLD... but cheap electric hookup.  Hooray-- heat!



Made it through the northeastern-most corner of California, somehow getting past the {surprise!} agricultural checkpoint with our two "undeclared" philodendron houseplants (oops!)... but we never stopped... until we came upon a "shoe tree" in Nevada.  Check out this weirdness:


That's for you Moxie: Nate wearing his Captain Black's tee!  :)

Then we hit Reno.



Disgusting little town... with a dicey (though somehow highly-rated) little Thai restaurant, where we foolishly ordered SHRIMP (in the desert!) Pad Thai {ok, that was all on me... Nate had nothing to do with it}.  Now, if the menu had actually called the dish "Shrimp-- In the Desert, You Fools!--  Pad Thai," I am certain we would have passed.

Instead, we ordered it, ate a few bites before returning it, and then promptly got a mild case of food poisoning.  :{  FYI-- if you ever eat shrimp and then your face turns BEET RED and you feel HOT... that was some old-ass shrimp.  {ugh}  Also, take some Benadryl... tout de suite!

We also reminded ourselves in Reno that we are NOT urban RV-ers.  Poor Baba G was parked like a sardine on pavement.  But we were determined to go skiing, since we were so close to Lake Tahoe, so we threw caution to the wind, locked the cats in, and drove to Mount Rose for some frozen fog-in-the-face, controlled-skid-on-ice skiing:


TOTALLY worth it, by the way, even though it meant we had to stay another night on the parking slab in Reno.  ;)

But then we made up for it by driving a LONG day so we could reach every après-skiers dream: a hot spring!  Bailey Hot Spring, to be exact... in Bailey, NV:




While the water was LOVELY, and we stayed to soak for THREE days (!), we only discovered after the fact that the we had been soaking in water laden with ARSENIC (eek!) and ANTIMONY (also toxic, though not as famously so).  The transdermal absorption is supposed to be low for them both, so it shouldn't have really done anything bad to us... but I started feeling just off on our last day at the springs.  I never did figure out what happened to me, but it lasted another month at least, accompanied by fever, malaise, and high blood pressure!  =:-O

Perhaps it had something to do with the magnesium content of the water... ?... which Nate described as "relaxative"... heavy on the laxative!

Or maybe it was because we went to Vegas next.  :-P

There was apparently some crazy rodeo in town, so all the late shows were canceled... and Nate didn't even get to see any ta-tas with feathers and sequins.  So sad.  We told Vegas to "bring it," but Vegas had nothing:


FYI, if you ever find yourself in an RV near Vegas, you should definitely camp at Lake Mead, which is really nice... and, when we were there, was also nearly deserted, so the kitties got to stretch their legs a bit!


After Lake Mead, we stopped to see the Hoover Dam: pretty dam impressive!  Ha!


{Mom, you would have HATED the walkway out to this view:}


And then we lost our minds and drove 304 miles-- in ONE DAY!-- in Baba G!-- all the way back across the INSANELY STEEP and LONG approach to the Kaibab Plateau (which we had NO IDEA was there, until we found ourselves climbing... and climbing... and climbing...), and over it...

back to Winslow, Arizona!  Such a fine sight to see, especially since Baba G hadn't just up and died on the way there.  ;)  Look familiar?  Yup, that's our exact same spot from October 2013:



But, the caretaker's house at the park was GONE!  =:-O  Just GONE!  Razed down to the foundation slab.

???, and also !!!



What the heck happened to the caretaker and his family?!

We didn't know it at the time, but this was definitely dramatic foreshadowing...

NEXT UP:  The Big December Relocation Road Trip -- Part 2 (Bad Stuff Happens)

'Bandon Hope? Yes, we did.

Well, I would love to tell you all that the blog has been sitting idle for the past seven (!!!) months because Nate and I learned all about cob building, fell in love with Bandon, Oregon, and got ourselves started on a little homestead of our own…

But, that would be a big load of horse manure (which is excellent material for both compost and plaster, in case you were wondering).

While we've had quite the adventure and learned HEAPS about sustainable/natural building, we have abandoned our initial plan to start our own sustainability school... at least for now.  :{

In a nutshell, let's just say we found very few "intelligent idealists with a plan to build a more sustainable society," and many more "cash-poor societal dropouts trying to milk a niche market in pseudo-sustainability."  (More on this in a later post... LOTS more.)

Ugh.

So, to recap… You already know about the terrible bait-and-switch that happened to us at the Solar Ark in August 2013.  After that, we tried to make the best of our "big adventure" and traveled around the Southwest, found a cute little Colorado cabin to hole up in for that winter, and I kept scouring the web for any glimmer of hope that we could still find some place to learn sustainable building.  When I found an ad for an affordable RV spot including cob building training in Bandon, Oregon, we latched on to that as our new plan and, in April 2014, headed farther west, hoping we had finally found some like-minded sustainable builders.

Alas, gentle reader, we were in for more abuse.  Believe it or not, within weeks of arrival in Bandon, we both got infected with something one would usually associate with dicey Third World Country water supplies: GIARDIA (aka, Giardia lamblia or Giardia intestinalis, the evil little protozoan that causes "Montezuma's Revenge" and "Beaver Fever").  

For flippin' sake, can't we catch a break already?!  :{

This is what the little suckers look like under the microscope. Those dark eye-like spots are actually the pair of nuclei (DNA containment units) in each cell, and the stringy thingies are flagella, which help them swim around... apparently, in our drinking water.  Since we got sick after we had eaten and drank the water in Bandon... AND had eaten at the main Cob Cottage location in nearby Coquille, we did not know where we had picked it up.

But by the end of May, we both felt like crap.  [You know you love bathroom puns, just as much as I do.  Go on, admit it!]  ;)  

I had symptoms first, and then Nate got them, and we both just felt like we were being constantly drained of energy (which we were, literally, by teeming hordes of Giardia, latched on to the inside linings of our small intestines, stealing our food and making us bleed internally).  Here's a nice electron micrograph for you, of giardia in a gerbil's intestine: 

I was not kidding about teeming hordes!

The funny thing is, we really didn't have the hallmark symptom of giardiasis, which is supposed to be terrible diarrhea.  Instead, we had:

• Crazy fatigue (that worsened with any kind of effort or even just being slightly warm)
• Grumpiness
• Impenetrable brain fog
• Intense hunger (especially for RED MEAT) and a need to eat WAY more than usual
• Nausea (just lucky ol' me)

Here's what really sucked: it took us about THREE WEEKS to figure out that we probably had some kind of intestinal parasite, and then we tried to take this over-the-counter stuff to eliminate it (called "Para-Rid," in case you want to know what DOES NOT kill Giardia).  

The Para-Rid treatment is a three-week course of pills, which initially made us feel slightly better... and then we started feeling awful again during the last week on it and could barely force ourselves to gag down the last few days' worth of doses.  Blech.

Look at that: I've managed to catch you up all the way to July!  

Well, OK, not really.

Sure, other stuff was happening at the place we were staying in Bandon, but we were half-comatose and mildly angry at the world the whole time, so we found ourselves participating less and less in activities around the property, including the garden (which Nate had worked really hard on, before he got sick).

Check out Nate's kale forest!  (Yes, KALE!  Four feet tall and still delicious!)

We were even too exhausted to do much of the prep for the upcoming July "Complete Cob" workshop, which was to be the high point of our natural building learning experience.  :(  We also stopped sharing food with the work/community group, since we were basically eating it all ourselves.

We finally gave up on over-the-counter remedies and went to the doctor in mid-July.  We found out than that Nate had lost 15 pounds (he was down to his high school weight); I, on the other hand, had lost a mere 3 pounds... so unfair.  We also both had low hemoglobin and oxygen saturation values, and my sample was positive for Giardia.

What sample, you ask?  Oh, Dear Reader, you don't miss anything, do you?  I actually asked if we could bring fecal samples to our INITIAL VISIT with the doc, since I was so sure that would get us a proper diagnosis... and she agreed!  Sort of a funny way to start off with a doc: "Hi, nice to meet you.  And here is the bag of poo I've brought you!"

Even though Nate's sample was negative, we both ended up getting diagnosed with giardiasis, since (1) we both had symptoms, (2) the little buggers are notoriously hard to find in fecal samples, and (3) when you're infected, you don't actually shed them all the time.  So, I guess congratulations to me for shedding the little bastards at the right time. Yuck.

Our diagnoses came on the same day the "Complete Cob" workshop was starting.  Participants were arriving, so I made sure the hosts (our landlords) knew there was a possible water safety issue either at their place, or at the main Cob Cottage Company  (CCC) location that the group would visit mid-week.  Long story short on that: we finally found out we had been drinking untreated stream water (yeah, as our tap water!) in Bandon, and we remembered having eaten at CCC way back in early May, where they also use untreated stream water for food prep (good grief).

So, Astute Reader, you must be wondering how it Nate and I got sick when nobody else did.  Ahhh... well, that is very interesting indeed!  It turns out that only about 30% of people with giardiasis exhibit any symptoms at all.  =:-O  And, in those who do have symptoms, if the infection goes untreated (which happens to those in total denial about the sheer idiocy of drinking untreated stream water), most will just experience brief bouts of diarrhea and/or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and/or chronic fatigue syndrome.

Anyway, we were assured by our asymptomatic Bandon landlords that they were going to get their water tested... which they later reneged on, having decided they didn't want to risk getting reported to the state's Department of Environmental Quality... if there was a problem.

Ya' know, it really makes you lose respect for people when they pull shit like that.  :{

Anyway, we ended up having to take a five-day course of an awful, body-system-destroying antibiotic called metronidazole (brand name Flagyl).  

The most disturbing of its MANY side effects is that is can cause severe neurological/psychotic effects, such as severe depression (which kept Nate in bed for two days: no kidding!), hallucinations, neurotoxicity (death to nerve cells), and more.  Whee!  What fun!  I actually developed photopsia (flashes of light) in my left eye on day 3, which has persisted ever since.  It could be unrelated to the Flagyl, but it seems awfully suspicious given the timing.

Good thing we'd know if we could drink the water again, once those test results... um... right, yeah, no test results.  Since we didn't know where we had drank down our terrible intestinal hitchhikers, now we had to embark on some serious prevention.  We ordered an under-sink three-stage filter that removes particles down to 0.025 microns (that's 25/1000ths of a millimeter!), so even giardia cysts that can be as small as 8 microns would not get through.  Here is the system we bought (a TL3 Neo-Pure... from Amazon, of course!), which we love, for drinking water:

 

The problem that remained, of course, was that all of our dish-washing and shower water (which requires a faster flow rate than what you get out of a 3-stage filter!) was still only going through a simple particle filter that would still let giardia through... so let's just say we pretended we were vacationing in Mexico and tried to be REALLY REALLY careful about not getting shower water in our mouths, and letting our dishes dry completely and then sit, dry, for at least two hours, before using them (supposed to kill giardia).  No easy feat in rainy Oregon!

But without the palapas, swim-up bars, reposado margaritas, and fabulous Mexican food, the mucho cuidado factor just didn't seem worth it.  After a couple of months of clamped-mouth showering, we had pretty much just had enough of the whole situation, and we started talking about leaving... which we finally did, in December.  Tails between our legs, and fingers crossed she would make it, we packed up our dear Baba G once more in preparation for a cross-country road trip back to the Florida Keys for Christmas.

I promise to get you all caught up on the rest of our adventures in Oregon (we did have some great ones!), so we'll be doing a bit of backpedaling before we move forward again to the road trip!

Up Next:  Brewskis, Beaches, and Bad Forestry in The Beaver State!

From Desert to Seashore, in Just 30 Days (Or, If it's Thursday, this must be Bend)!-- PART II

Time to zoom in on our map a bit for the last half of the month of driving:

April 16

We should not have left Wetmore (starting dot on the map) so soon!  Looking back, we both wish we had spent more like a week there.  But, at the time, we were in go-go-go mode, so we picked out another NF campground a couple hundred miles west, packed up, and hit the road.  We stopped to take pictures at a gigantic covered wagon.  I mean, who could resist this ridiculous piece of Americana?

We thought Baba G was big, but not next to this thing!

Unfortunately, shortly after the covered wagon stop, the road started to roll once more, and mostly uphill.  Just ten miles or so from our stopping point for the day's drive, Baba G's temperature gauge started climbing a little too fast, so Nate pulled over and I went ahead in the car to suss out the campsite.  But, when I got there, I found the gate locked and a sign saying the forest was closed for logging activity.  Apparently Oregon will just up and close a forest on you.

On my way back to the RV, I pulled into every little dirt road I could find: even though there were a couple of primitive campsites, there was nothing Baba G could safely do.  I drove back to tell Nate the bad news.  We had no choice but to keep driving, so he took the lead and-- hazards on-- we climbed slowly up the pass.  Nate pulled over to give the old girl another rest… right in front of a sign for East Cougar Trailhead: the only spot I had not checked out earlier.  It was supposed to be a trailhead, right?

Wrong.  It was a gigantic open field, tucked off the main highway between a big hill and a big valley, and there was no one else there.  Nate had found us a great little campsite:  

The cats climbed the hill, rolled around on the dirt road, and happily roamed around.

The one downside to the spot (admittedly, a biggie) was the creepy guy in camo who parked past us at the actual trailhead just before sunset and disappeared into the woods.  For at least an hour.  We were more than a little relieved and happy to hear him drive back out again.

That night, I awoke around 3am, certain I smelled cologne.  Yes, people, cologne!  I was too chicken to even peek out the window, so I lay in bed, listening to my heart thumping and trying to hear past that to detect any outdoor noises.  

Nothing.  I went back to sleep and had a nightmare that would make a fabulous RV horror screenplay.  I told Nate the whole thing in the morning (even though he is not a fan of my "listen to the cool dream I had last night" breakfast entertainment), and he even thought it was scary and good!  Now I just have to write it...

(Thursday) April 17

Woke up (alive) and decided to hit the road again.

We weren't really planning to make it all the way to Bend, but it just sort of happened.  We had been out in the sticks since Fort Collins and felt like it was time for some city action.  Plus, it was raining and grey and dreary all day: we felt a brewpub would be the perfect place to fit the mood.

We camped just northwest of Bend, at Tumalo State Park.  $27-- ouch!  Apparently, the whole state park system was not on the same pay rate.  All in all, the campground was the antithesis of what we wanted: the spots were tiny, expensive, packed in like sardines, no free firewood, and the kitties had to stay on leashes.  Fortunately, they were not so interested in roaming in the rain, with a dog barking nearby.  We parked, leveled, hooked up, left the kitties, and headed into Bend for a beer and some food.

After some pizza, we went to the weirdest standup comedy show you can imagine, for a $5 cover, in an almost-empty room upstairs at a (packed downstairs) sports bar: the opener was an angry guy spouting vitriol about how awful Bend was (we were, um, in Bend, right?) and how you can't do comedy there because everyone is too happy about everything, followed by the headliner/emcee, who introduced a super-nervous sweaty guy who seemed like he didn't want to even be up on stage, and then more by the headliner/emcee (he was okay), and then he let some random chick (whom he apparently despised, from the banter between them) from the audience get up and just tell jokes.  Maybe the first guy was right: it seems you can't do comedy in Bend.

This was not what we were expecting from this town.  We had both heard such good things about it, and now found ourselves just sort of moping our way around the downtown, not really impressed at all.

We took no pics at all.  Too dreary.

April 18

Woke up and immediately started figuring out where we could move, so we weren't breaking the bank in Bend.   (Nice alliteration, no?)  Fortunately, Deschutes National Forest was just south of Bend, so the drive was quick and painless.  Leaving behind the sardines at Tumalo, we once again found a campground (Fall River) that we had all to ourselves, and where firewood was plentiful!  And, as you might have surmised, gentle reader, we were also right on the Fall River, which was just swimming with mallard ducks and Canadian geese.

Interestingly, the river was pretty muddy here… 

compare this to the pics from the next campsite (which was upstream).

In the late afternoon, as we were thinking about heading north into Bend, a strange couple (or, rather, a couple with strange social skills) walked around the campground loop (there was a boat launch and trail just across the road).  And then a car drove through: someone used the bathroom.  We started feeling a little uneasy about leaving Baba G and the kitties.  So, Nate pulled out a map to look for another nearby campsite that might be a safer, more private option.  We took a quick drive in the Civic and found a lovely, empty campground within ten minutes.  We went back, got our kitties and packed up Baba G and moved camp.

Strangely enough, by the time we returned to the new campground (Big River Falls), some guy was there, chainsawing down dead trees in the spot next to the one we wanted.  We convinced ourselves that he was a National Forest employee, picked a different spot a bit farther from the action, and got set up for camp once more.  But, we felt just as unsettled about leaving the cats and Baba G here as we had at the last spot.  :-{  So, we waited.  And more people showed up to hang out with chainsaw guy.  And then we decided not to go to Bend.

While Nate was out staring at the "iron ranger" (the box you pay when there is no in-the-flesh ranger), the guy drove up and told Nate he and his friends were leaving and if we wanted, we could enjoy the campfire… that he had left burning.  Irresponsible, to say the least.  We did go and enjoy the fire, and then soaked it to make sure it was out cold.


April 19 (Earth Day)
The next morning, we were very happy to wake up in our lovely campsite on the river, that we hadn't really had time to appreciate the previous night.  We took a walk along the river, loosely followed by all three cats.

This is definitely my "AM face"-- I barely look conscious, and this is after 9am.

 The incredibly shallow, but beautiful Fall River.  Look how clear this is!  
This is what a healthy river with true riparian habitat around it looks like.

 Tigger explores every perch during our hike, and only disappears twice!

After the kitties got some outdoor exploration time, Nate and I locked them up again and were preparing to head into Bend, for its annual Earth Day parade and fair, when an actual human park ranger (well, an employee of the Hoodoo company that manages all the NF campgrounds) came up to ask if we had paid.  We explained that we had not, because we had read on the NF website that there was no charge to camp before the official season opening (which was four days hence).  He said that info was incorrect and insisted that we needed to pay anyway, which we agreed to do once we got cash in Bend.

Then, off to the parade we went.  The Earth Day parade has no floats, but instead, the whole town is invited to dress up as their favorite animal and stroll through town as part of a walking parade.  There were some really great costumes:

And several pedal-powered vehicles:

After the parade ended, we went to the eco-fair, where Nate found the vehicle of his dreams, which runs on bio-diesel no less.  I think he got a bit of drool on the front bumper:

April 20 (Easter Sunday)
Time to move along.  We (ok, I) decided Mr. Hoodoo Ranger was not getting any cash, after all, since I looked at the Hoodoo website, which also said the season did not open until Wednesday.  I was pretty convinced he was just going to pocket the cash.  Maybe not, but that was definitely the vibe I got.  [Nate admits to no involvement in this sordid affair.]

We hit the road once again, paranoid the Hoodoo henchmen would be after us, and started casting about for a spot to pull off the road and camp after a few hours.  I was in the lead, so I'd have time to tell Nate to slow down if I saw something with potential.  I spotted a paved (!) road, off to our right, that led down a hill and into the woods, along the shore of Davis Lake.  In keeping with the human weirdness we just kept encountering, I pulled down a long road and came to a great wild campsite, where a campfire was burning in the middle of a bunch of boulders.  I looked around for the owners of the fire, but there were no cars, no tents, no one fishing… no signs of life at all.

I was too far from Nate to use the walkie-talkie, so I had to drive back into range.  I told him what I'd found and we decided to take the spot.  By the time we got back to the fire, the wind had blown it outside the boulders and caught the pine needles and cones on fire!

You can see the ring of boulders on the right where the fire was started.

In I go... the danger just from the smoke is no joke.

The smoke is a bit thinner here, as we started to gain on the fire.  It was incredibly tenacious, though, as the pine cones kept bursting back into flame!

Even Baba G helped… and got a pump out to boot!  

Thank goodness we had dry camped for a couple of days… and it was only greywater.

Nate demonstrates the tools of the trade for hackneyed firefighters (I am sure Mike will have some comments for us…): rake, bucket, cardboard, pump out tubing to get water.  It's pretty crazy that we put out a fire with this crap!  =:-O

Once the fire was back inside its ring, we enjoyed it for a bit (or, rather, until the mosquitoes bit) before drowning it.  We're pretty sure this frog chorus was the nicest thank-you ever:

April 21

The next morning, we got to survey the fire scene and really appreciate the beauty of our campsite.  We felt pretty good about saving this beautiful piece of forest!  We wanted to stay and enjoy another frog serenade, but Mother Nature had other plans for us, of the dreaded white and cold variety.

 Our gorgeous, almost-a-forest-fire spot, the next morning.

 The burn scar: you can see the prevailing wind was coming in off the lake.

The very dicey access to our camping spot: Nate didn't even notice how tight and steep this was on the way in… what with all the smoke… and me yelling at him to get in there and help me fight the fire!  Nate was pretty sure snow would have turned this into an impassable, mushy mess, so we had to go before the snow.

Here is the terrible context we got for the fire incident, as we drove away from Davis Lake: how can anyone leave a roaring fire and just drive away, when charred, dead forest from the last out-of-control fire surrounds you?

As there were no national forest campsites listed on our map for the next jaunt, we opted for another paid site at Crescent Junction, OR.  Good thing, since we were headed up into the Cascade Mountain Range, where temperatures dropped enough for us to get snowed on!  We were a bit nervous to camp there, though, since it is also managed by Hoodoo and we figured Baba G would be pretty easy to describe and nab.  But, no henchmen showed up in the middle of the night to break our knees or anything, so we've long since stopped worrying about them.  Here is our Crescent Junction campsite:

 At least we got parked and leveled and plugged in before the snow hit!

 Sad kitties: they just couldn't believe that awful white stuff was back!

April 22

More driving through the Cascades, with blowing snow but pretty dry roads.  It was quite beautiful, so we stopped a couple of times to take pics of the winter wonderland we had driven back into:

 Tigger checks out Diamond Lake from the Scenic Viewpoint...

as does Nate.

And then something crazy happened: we drove through a spot where it was winter on one side of the road and spring on the other!  Check it out:

As we kept driving, we drove right out of winter and into spring, as we descended the western slope of the Cascades.  We suddenly found ourselves immersed in green, so lush and deep, it was almost like we were swimming in it.

Nate eats snow (man, this guy is sooooo weird) at an incredibly beautiful waterfall.

We camped at one of the most beautiful, lush, rainforest campgrounds you can imagine, called Boulder Flat in the Umpqua National Forest; fortunately, you don't have to, since we took lots of pictures:

Can you see Baba G?

 We were right on the river… and all alone in the campground, once more.

Nate loves noisy water!

 Strangely, so does Fink.

Even Pete is convinced to take a look.

Fabulous lichens that are bright green on one side and mushroomy looking on the other!

(I am still trying to find out what the species name is…)

April 23

Had to leave our lovely campsite super early (for me, this means before 8am) because it was closed for the day for tree trimming/maintenance activities.  So, we headed farther down the western slope of the mountain, knowing there were not going to be any other campgrounds open (because we'd also taken a little suss-it-out road trip the day before to the ranger station) east of Glide.  Can I say we decided to glide right on through?  Hehe.

Anyway, we ended up driving all the way to Roseburg, which is smack-dab in the middle of the Willamette Valley!  While we didn't see much of Roseburg, we felt there wasn't much special about it… until we found the Fish Ladder:

Yes, I said FISH ladder!  It is a series of small pools that migratory fish can use to bypass manmade waterfalls: otherwise, few of them would make it back to their upstream spawning grounds (for anadromous fishes who live in the sea and spawn in freshwater) or primary habitat (for catadromous fishes-- mostly eels-- who live in the streams and spawn in the sea).

The fish apparently find the ladder by seeking out slower currents, and then..

… they have to jump through each central opening from one pool to the next.  

Pretty fabulous device, eh?

Waiting for fishes.  Does anybody use this ladder, or what?

The ladder also provides an easy way to do migratory fish counts.  

Hmm… are those numbers real?

We returned again later in the day, and finally saw some fish!  

I think they are as fascinated with us and we are with them.

Our county park campground was pretty nice, though more wide-open than we like and, to get to it, we had to drive under a railroad underpass that seemed like it should have been occupied by trolls.  There was a nice hiking trail through the woods, and we took advantage of the big grassy lawn to play some frisbee-- admittedly, much harder to do in the woods.

April 25

Woke up and decided to blow out of Roseburg: paying to camp in a city just pales in comparison to camping out in the forest somewhere for free.  We had to decide, once again: northern or southern route across to the coast?  We opted for the northern route (Hwy 138), as it would position us to stop and camp in Charleston (which was our absolute favorite camping during our trip out here two years ago) before we got to Bandon.

Let's just say 138 is a bit of a roller coaster ride-- with heavy traffic headed to the coast, since it was Friday-- but so beautiful, it was worth it to have to pull over again and again… and again to let people pass us.  The funny thing is I can't find any pics (yet), except of these elk we stopped to check out:

We finally hit the coast at Reedsport and took a moment to appreciate that we had driven all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific (on the diagonal, no less)… in our big, old beast of an RV!  There were seagulls swooping down around us, and we felt more at home than we had in a long time.  If this journey has taught us one key thing, it is this: we are ocean people.  We love the mountains, and think the desert is beautiful, but we will content ourselves to visit them.  We need to live where there is ocean!

We hit 101-- the coastal highway--, and drove south, until we found a beautiful wooded (though somewhat pricey) National Forest campground (Eel Creek) sandwiched in the thin strip of land between the highway and the Pacific Ocean.  Again, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves:

The coolest thing about this place was the transition from coastal forest to gigantic sand dunes that happened as you followed the hiking trail from the campground toward the coast.  We hiked it right at sunset, donated some too-wizened pears to the forest creatures, and ended up playing on the dunes.

Our patented Pears-to-Forest program.

Check out the transition from forest to sand dunes!

Me in tree pose.  Yay, I can see the ocean...

 … if I squint.  No way were we going to make it there by sunset.

So, instead, we played on the dunes.  Nate relives our skiing adventure at Wolf Creek.

And then it got cold.  Blustery, damp, bone-chilling cold.  Time to head back to camp!

April 26-27

A hop, skip, and a jump south, and we found ourselves camped at Bastendorff County Park.  We decided not to go back to the state park where we had camped two years ago, after driving through and realizing how tightly packed the spots are and how unhappy the kitties would be on leashes the whole time.  Bastendorff was very nearby, with slightly bigger spaces and way more trees for privacy… and potentially, some illegal off-leash kitty time.

What did I do to deserve this?

We didn't take a single pic of our campsite, probably because we were not there very much.  Bastendorff Beach finally let us get our toes wet, but wow, was it COLD!

Yes, Nate wants a skim board.  And an 8mm wetsuit, in case he falls over.

Interestingly, there was a Baba G doppelgänger (though in blue) parked in the most private spot in the whole park-- and the one we had wanted!  Sadly, we never got to meet the people before they disappeared.

We spent two days here, and revisited the places we had loved so much two years ago.  First, Sunset Cove Beach for tide pooling:

Then, Shore Acres Botanical Garden for some colorful beauty on a drizzly day (Art, you would LOVE this place!):

And, of course we fit in a trip to the new local brewery (7 Devils Brewing Co.) in the nearby town of Coos Bay for dinner and drinks.  Strangely, they even had Quebec's (huh?) famous heart-clogging dish, poutine:

French fries, gravy, and cheese curds.  You can already see Nate becoming lethargic…

April 28

Arrival in Bandon!  After 26 days straight on the road (and the expenditures to match), we were ready to get to our destination, and Tammy had said we could arrive a bit early.  Just 45 minutes later, we were pulling in to our new home, just about two miles inland from the coast.

Once we got parked, the kitties got a low-tech cat door.  They are thrilled!

Up Next:  Bandon Hope?