Category: Adventure Reports

Vaux’s Swift Birds & RovingRiveted in Portland, Oregon

Post author By Sam
Post date October 17, 2014

During our time in Portland, several local friends recommended that we visit Chapman Elementary School and watch the birds. This seemed both unique and local, which are two of the best reasons for us to try something during our travels.

‘The Birds’ turned out to be Vaux’s Swifts, a variety of bird that roosts at night inside hollow trees. Over the years, the tall and hollow chimney at Chapman Elementary School became a popular roosting spot for these particular birds. Each evening in the fall, thousands of birds swarm and eventually enter the chimney to roost for the night.

Swift Birds Portland_18

We began the evening down the street from Chapman Elementary at Stepping Stone Cafe, famous for some seriously large pancakes. We fed the entire family of a stack of pancakes and chicken fried steak, and then walked up the hill to the school. We arrived early, which provided us ample time to experience the pre-show activity. The grassy slope at the side of the school grounds is prime for cardboard sledding, and sledding there was. Our kids quickly jumped in and had plenty of fun. The boxes began to wear out as the evening continued, which was just as well as the hill became quite crowded as the bird-watching group grew in size.

Swift Birds Portland_04

As a bonus, we were met by the RovingRiveted crew, local weekend Airstreamers who drove up to join us. We had almost met a few days before in their neighborhood. We were invited to dinner by a family from church, and we parked in the neighborhood. Susy was alerted by a friend that we were in town, and ran down the street to say hello JUST as we were pulling out. Some communication via Instagram led to Susy, James, and their son, Ethan, meeting up with us for the event. Ethan jumped right into the sledding fray as we talked and swapped Airstream travel stories.

Swift Birds Portland_26

As the evening progressed, the hill filled with watchers and the bird activity amplified. It is a little difficult to describe the movement of the birds as they prepare to enter the chimney. It might be best described as a bird-nado, the flying birds forming a cloud that moved and swirled and twisted and moved around the sky. As the storm of birds passed by the chimney, a stream of birds would drive down to find a roosting spot. The stream would eventually break, and the birds would swirl and flow away and then back again for another round.

Swift Birds Portland_23

Most of the people there to watch stayed seated and patient till the last of the birds entered the chimney. Applause broke out in the crowd, and people began to leave.

Watching the birds was a unique and education experience, and we loved the evening. We are grateful to the RovingRiveted crew that drove up to spend some time with us after a near-meet in their own neighborhood!

Swift Birds Portland_16

California State Parks

Trinidad, Patrick’s Point State Park, and Lots of Blackberries in California

Post author By Sam
Post date October 14, 2014

Our visit to Patrick’s Point and the Trinidad area was most notable for it’s amazing blackberries. I’ll get to details there, but first, let’s talk about fun on north coast beaches.

When We Visited: August 10-14, 2014

Ages of Kids: 8, 6, 4

Where We Stayed: 4 Nights at Sounds of the Sea RV Park, 1 Night at Trinidad Head State Park

Our general policy is to not make reservations ahead of time (more freedom that way), so we were unable to spend much time at Patrick’s Point State park itself as it was booked pretty solid. We opted instead for a commercial RV park that came recommended by a few fellow travelers. Sounds of the Sea RV Park is nice and conveniently located between Trinidad and the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park for exploring (the wifi was even really great, which saved us from a severe lack of Verizon during our stay there).

After getting settled and eating dinner our first night, we walked to Palmer’s Point (inside Patrick’s Point State Park) for a short wander and some tide pool exploration. The stairs down to the tide pools were nice on the way down, and gave us quite a workout on the way back up. Cara wore her buzzwings on the hike which always makes us happy. Lately, she hasn’t been wearing her wings as much, perhaps as a sign she’s growing up? At some point she will be done wearing them completely, but until then, we’ll take the wings whenever they make an appearance.

Our love of tide pool exploration started in San Diego last spring, and we have enjoyed discovering and exploring the variety of pools we’ve had the chance to visit. Mostly we’ve learned to be patient and to look carefully. It seems that we find a lot of anemones, and occasionally luck out with a seastar or some crabs.

The next evening, we decided to hike to the top of Trinidad Head. We’d heard from some friends that the view was pretty stellar. Parking at the south end of Trinidad State Beach, we piled out of the truck to start our hike up on the Head. On a whim, we first took a peak at the beach and the fog rolling in led to some immediate photos for a few minutes before our hike. Though the fog limited our views later on, it made for fantastic photos down below.

If you don’t believe that it actually looked that awesome, consider the behind the scenes picture below, taken with a totally different camera. When Jess wants the kids to run, she’ll often yell “Come get me!” and this time, they really did. They piled right on.

Our hike on the Head itself was pleasant, but not particularly scenic. The vegetation is thick enough that much of the trail is cut through tall thick bushes, only opening to the views here and there at a viewpoint. The aforementioned fog did an excellent job masking any views there, so we mostly had a great hike with an ocean soundtrack. We found out later there’s an EdVentures Quest patch you can earn on this hike and were tempted to hike it again JUST for the patch (and maybe a clear view?) but didn’t make it enough of a priority in the time we had. There’s always next time.

Okay, on to the blackberries. Here we go. For those of you that live in Oregon, you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal?” But for us, walking down the side of the road picking as many as we can and shoving them in our faces is a treat. I can only imagine what we looked like to people driving by.

In addition to All-You-Can-Eat Roadside blackberries, right behind the Airstream and along nearly every walkway and border in the RV Park, were huge patches of blackberries. We picked and ate, and picked and ate some more. Finally, Jess got the idea to actually make something out of them and googled up some dessert recipes. During our several days there, we made two blackberry crisp style desserts and some fresh blackberry pancake syrup. There was something very surreal about eating a dish that was picked 10 feet to your left and baked 5 feet to your right. Hyper-local dessert! Yum!

By carefully watching the online reservation system, Jess was able to snag us a one night stay at Patrick’s Point State Park Thursday night before we left town. One night wasn’t much, but it did get us into the park and gave us easy access to the activities there.

While we were in Patricks Point, we met up with Shelley Beinsfield and her kids. Jess had met them at Prairie Creek State Park a few days earlier while working on Jr. Ranger Badges with the kids. They were in town for the summer and visiting as many as the state parks as possible to earn the EdVenture Quest Patches. We joined them in Arcata for a swim at the public pool Tuesday night, and they joined us on our first day at the State Park for a hike. It was a blast having so many little hikers to entertain each other. We worked our activity books for their patches and enjoyed some clear views of the ocean and landscape.

Just down the hill from our campsite was agate beach, known for the ease of finding the beautiful clear stones polished by sand and sea. During our last morning, we walked down the hill to the beach to explore despite the foggy, slightly wet weather. We found plenty of beautiful rocks there, but none of them were actually agates (don’t tell the kids!). We had a fabulous time anyway enjoying the fog wrapped coastline.

Patrick’s Point & Trinidad was a wonderful stop on our travels. It was an excellent break from the summer heat, and I loved having so much fog around. We had hoped that as we traveled north, our blackberry bliss would continue. We did have some more blackberries, but Patrick’s Point and the Sounds of the Sea RV Park turned out to be the highlight of our berry enjoyment.

Tags Patricks Point State Park, Trinidad Head

National Parks Nevada New Mexico Oregon Utah Virginia

From Virginia’s Luray Caverns to Oregon’s Lava River Cave, and 4 caves in between

Post author By Jess
Post date October 8, 2014

As we were waiting for our tour to start in the Lehman Caves, Sam and I started discussing how many caves we had actually been to in the last year. We started counting and realized this was our fourth is just the last year! Not only that, the locations of these caves ranged from Virginia to New Mexico and even into Nevada.

The best part is that each cave is unique and we learn something new with each cave we visit. Stalactites (they hold tight to the ceiling), stalagmites (they are mighty to the earth), columns, cave bacon, drapery, flowstone all became words that were familiar and part of our vocabulary.

Our kids can now easily identify these formations and love to refer to the joining of a stalagmite and stalactite as a “stalag-marriage”. Technically its called a column, but their version is much more fun.

Here’s a rundown on the caves we’ve visited to date and what we thought about them:

Luray Caverns, Virginia

This cave is privately owned in Virginia, and the first cave in our series. Being privately held, Luray doesn’t have exactly the same rules for the preservation of the cave. They do a great job, but the different rules allow for the existence of The Stalactite Organ. This very interesting instrument is created by locating cave features that sound a particular note when struck. Small actuators (hammers) gently strike the cave feature when the associated key is pressed, and the notes sound throughout the cave. During our tour, we stood quietly in front of the organ while a few musical pieces were played on the organ. This musical experience made Luray Caverns a unique experience.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

We wrote a blog post about this already, but in short, when people ask our kids what their favorite place is Carlsbad is usually in the top 3. We LOVED it. A couple of points to reiterate:

Walk down the natural entrance and take the elevator back up. The walk down is awesome.
Get the audio tour wand for your kids. And one for you in case they don’t want to share (which ours didn’t).
Be prepared for a scrub down if you’ve visited any other caves in the last 6 months as they are trying to avoid the spread of White Nose Syndrome (for the bats!).
The bats aren’t there in the winter. 🙁 Sad, I know. They are in Mexico somewhere.
There is a spot to eat snacks down near the (closed – just in the off season?) snack shop.

Carlsbad Caverns are not the biggest caves in the USA, but they ARE the most decorated caves. The cave features were plentiful and easy to appreciate.

Timpanogos Caves National Monument, Utah

Since this cave is located only about 25 minutes from our Lehi House I can’t believe we had never gone before! Once we got into the Jr. Ranger Spirit, we determined this was a must-do during our brief stay in the area while selling our house. Cave tours fill up pretty fast on weekends, but a month before your scheduled date you can call or buy tickets on their website which we did.

Unlike any of the other caves we have visited, this was not located near the visitor center and required a 1 mile hike practically straight up the mountain. It was steep, but paved. You sign up for a time to meet at the visitor center and then your cave tour starts 1.5 hours later. I was thinking, “wow! That’s a really long time to hike only 1 mile” and yet, we made it to the top with only about 10 minutes to spare. The kids really did take quite a while to hike, but we had had friends, grandparents, and my sister hiking with us so it made the journey fun.

Timpanogos is known for its helictite formations as there is a room completely full of them! These are fun because as my kids stated once, they look like “Medusa’s hair” all curly, squiggly, and coming straight out of the wall due to water pressure.

Lehman Caves, Great Basin National Park, Nevada

Lehman Caves is located within Great Basin National Park and run by the National Park Service. We loved our tour guide and she gave some great information about the formations as well as the history. She was also super patient with our kids who HAD to be at the front of the group and pepper her with questions and “did you know?” statements.

I always think its fun when you can see the natural entrance, or where the original discoverers entered the cave for the first time. This is a medium-sized cave with a couple of larger caverns as well as some tighter tunnel like passageways. We learned about shield formations is this cave as it was the first one we’d been to that had any. This cave is not strenuous in the slightest, so they don’t allow water, backpacks, or anything at all in the caves during the tours.

Oregon Caves National Monument

Oregon Caves fall a bit in the middle ground of our cave experiences. It’s smaller and less decorated than Carlsbad, but a longer journey than Lehman and Timpanogos Caves. There is both a height and stair agility requirement to enter the caves, and Cara barely passed the height and rocked the stair test.

In one of the rooms of the caves, they used to tap on the formations to play music. They don’t do that anymore, but our guide did play some stalactite music recorded in Luray Caverns. It was kind of neat to have been in Luray Caverns and heard the music played in person. The Oregon caves are cold caves, and we were glad to have brought our coats, gloves, and hats.

A lodge is present at the caves as well, and a diner style restaurant that serves delicious milkshakes and burgers. While working on the kids Junior Ranger workbooks that the stream that flows from the cave flows right through the dining room of the lodge and out the other side. The workbook also guided us to find some significant historical facts about the early access to the caves.

Bend Lava Tubes, Oregon

The Lava tubes are different from our other caves, in that it isn’t strictly a cave that grows formations. The cave is an empty lava tube that is gradually filling in with sand. (We’ve already done a Wandering Update video on this. Check it out!)

The entrance is large, and though the cave varies in size along it’s length, it never constricts to the level that the other caves did. Walking the middle section of the tube was a little like walking in an abandoned subway tunnel complete with massive domed sections. This is definitely a place to bring a bright flashlight: Our super, crazy, bright flashlight barely lit the top of the larger sections. Both lanterns and flashlights are available for rent at the cave entrance.

There’s some things we’ve learned along the way. Our kids love it when we don’t have a guide, but those caves are usually less decorated and exciting for the adults. Audio tours are better than live tour guides in their opinions. Also – how the caves are lit plays a huge roll in how we see them. Looking over our pictures, my favorites are from Luray Cavers where the lighting was excellently done.

We defnitely have more caves on our list to visit! Lava Beds, Lassen Volcanic National Monument, and some in Idaho just for starters. While not crazy spelunkers, we do enjoy ourselves a good jaunt underground!

Tags Bend Lava Tubes, Carlsbad Caverns, Cave exploring with kids, Luray Caverns Virginia, Oregon Caves National monument, Timpanogos caves National monument

Featured Destination Hiking National Parks Oregon Outdoor Adventures

Visiting Wizard Island at Crater Lake National Park – Oregon

Post author By Sam
Post date October 3, 2014
3 Comments on Visiting Wizard Island at Crater Lake National Park – Oregon

Our adventures can be pretty spontaneous. Sometimes that also means expensive, but the two don’t neccessarily go together. We arrived at Crater Lake National Park in the afternoon, pulled over into a longer RV parking spot, and walked over to the Mazama campground kiosk to check in. There was a bit of a line, so Jess grabbed the park pamphlet to peruse while we waited. Hiking suggestions, viewpoints, fun things to do, history of the park, and then we saw it. Boat tours of the lake.

“Babe,” she whispered. “We could actually go out onto the lake.”

Not only onto the lake, but onto the island in the middle of the lake. Yeah, this was going to be good.

When We Visited: August 27-29, 2014
Ages of Kids: 8, 7, 4
Where We Stayed: Mazama Campground
What Was Awesome: The Wizard Island Boat Tour!
Jr. Ranger Double-Duty: This park has both a badge AND a patch. The badge we earned by completing the self-guided booklet as usual. The patch we earned by attending one of their Jr. Ranger programs led by a park ranger. It was super fun as the kids got to design their own Crater Lake postcards and mail them to friends & family!

Our turn in the line came to check in, and we secured our spot for two nights. A few circles through the campground loops revealed a few things. First, we were unlikely to reach the wifi from the lodge from any available sites. Second, it was beautiful. We found a nice pull through that would fit us, and then ignored the DO NOT ENTER sign and drove through the loop backwards to pull into the site. After some quick setup and dinner, we picked an evening hike.

Evening hikes are one of our favorite evening activities. As often as we can, we find a place to explore for an hour or so between dinner and bedtime. We chose the Godfrey Glen Trail, a 1 mile loop trail only a few miles up from campground. We were entirely alone on the hike, and we find that to be both common and preferable for our evening hikes. The trail snaked through the forest, and over to the cliff edge where the soft pumice landscape showed some interesting erosion. Though the rock material was different, this reminded us a bit of a less vibrant Cedar Breaks National Park in Utah.

The next morning, I woke up early and hauled my groggy self over to the lodge to get some work done. I found some empty tables behind the restaurant that were not in use, and set up for a work morning. The wifi was not zippy, but it was stable, and I my morning was good.

Jess and the kids headed up to the visitors center and rim for some exploring while I worked. After lunch, we all headed back up together for some exploring and a Junior Ranger activity. Jess had come back that morning all sorts of even more excited about the boat tours of the lake, and we decided it a worthy activity. I headed to the lodge to procure some tickets, and the kids set about coloring the landscape onto some postcards to mail to friends.

During our time at Crater Lake, we met so many people astonished at the number of badges the kids had earned. The kids were quite energized from the experience, seeing perhaps a glimpse of how rare and wonderful their experiences are. It was encouraging to Jess and I as well, as the journey and task isn’t always free from complaint and frustration.

Junior Ranger badges & patches added to the collection, we headed out along the Rim Trail to Discovery Point. The water of Crater Lake is all snowmelt, and there are no above-ground exists. As a result, there is very little sediment in the water. The color of the water is an unbelievably vibrant blue, captivating us during our wander along the rim. Our hike was beautiful, and with the exception of one Cara meltdown, a relaxing hike. We were tired after the hike so headed out in the truck next, driving counter clockwise along East Rim Drive.

The highlight of the East Rim Drive was our stop at the Phantom Ship Overlook. The angle of the sun presented the Phantom Ship overlook in stark contrast to the glare of the sun. The rocks of the Phantom Ship are among the oldest in the entire area, and we managed some amazing captures during our stop there. Our view there was so spectacular that we remained unimpressed with the next few overlooks, and found a nice spot for dinner at the picnic area just past the Mount Scott trailhead.

Right there in the parking lot we discovered another rare gem: We have found and experienced the nicest, cleanest pit toilet that we have ever happened upon. It was so awesome, it got posted to my Instagram account.

We rarely do ‘touristy’ activities when we wander, and even more rarely do we do expensive activities. This boat trip to Wizard Island cost over $200, but was worth it. Because of the boat tour, we needed to extend our stay by one night. I visited the campground booth after we returned from our drive, and was a little worried when the guy told me that he was all full that night, and couldn’t do anything till the next morning. Our boat trip was early enough that we would have nearly no time to pack up the Airstream and move it if we couldn’t get a spot. I fretted and worried but it turned out just fine. The lady at the booth the next morning extended our stay, and we took off around the lake headed to our tour.

The boat tours leave from Cleetwood Cove on the north side of the lake. We hiked down the mile trail to the boat docks. Our trip included a ranger guided tour around the lake, which turned out to be quite fun. Our first stop was a visit to the “Old Man of the Lake”, a vertically floating log that migrates around the lake. It had floated into the beginning of our tour, giving us a rare chance to see it up close. The tree fell into the lake at some point long ago, with it’s roots wrapped around a large bolder. The bolder has since fallen off the bottom, but the log continues to float in it’s vertical orientation. Our ranger explained the geology of now gone Mt. Mazama, the mountain formed the the lost peak that covered crater lake. The peak collapsed into an empty chamber below the mountain after an eruption, forming the area now filled by the lake.

Our main stop on our boat tour was Wizard Island, a cinder cone that formed after the mountain collapsed. We had a few hours on the island, which we used to hike to the top and have some lunch. The sides of the cone were steep on the upper slopes which gave Rachel a bit of a fright, but we all made it both up and down.

We filmed a Wandering Update video on top of Wizard Island. Check it out on Youtube!

After boarding the boat, we made a few other stops, most notably circling the Phantom Ship. It was interesting to see up close, looking very much weather beaten and eroded after centuries of wear.

The last leg of our lake tour was our hike back to the rim from the boat docks at Cleetwood Cove. The hike up took much longer than the hike down that morning. Andrew made a friend of an older gentleman and his wife, and proceeded to talk their ears off the entire trail.

Our time at Crater Lake was wonderful. We left tired, a little sore, and very grateful to have had such wonderful adventures. Jess and Rachel have decided that Crater Lake is their new favorite National Park, and there is little complaint from the rest of us.

Tags Boat Tour of Crater Lake, Crater Lake National Park, Wizard Island on Crater Lake

Video Washington

Wandering Update: Pizza in a Train

Post author By Sam
Post date October 2, 2014

We we left Alder Lake, we made another stop by the peach stand in Elbe, Washington. And then we spotted a pizza place in a train. Lunchtime!

We’ve started a series of video Wandering Updates posted on Youtube. Many will be featured here, but the best way to catch those is to subscribe to our Currently Wandering Channel on Youtube.