Saturday, June 16, 2012

From Klamath Lake To The Rogue Valley

The day after our visit to Crater Lake we left Chiloquin headed to the Pacific Coast -- which we also missed last summer due to cold, damp weather.  But this year, while we're psyched, we will try again.

Leaving Chiloquin we travel south on US 97, along the eastern shore of Klamath Lake to Klamath Falls, then north again on the western side of the lake.  Klamath is the largest lake west of the Great Lakes! 
Striking blue sky, snow peaked Mt. McLaughlin, grassland (irrigation equipment too) and railroad all in one shot.
... all this while we're rolling down the road. 
Early in the ride we saw another Bald Eagle. This basin is home to one of the greatest wintering areas for Eagles.  Today's sighting makes three in two weeks! This one was very near striking something in the lake and was hovering over the water.  Of course, I didn't have camera in hand. 

A few minutes later though, I did get a fairly good shot of another unusual bird species -- at least to us: white pelicans.  We saw several groups of them this morning.  Brown pelicans are common to us  -- having lived in Florida for many years, but these were white with black wingtips. 


The route we've been on since before we reached Crater Lake is known as Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway and the scenes, even beyond the volcanic remains and Lake Klamath, are pretty spectacular, even through the bug splattered windshield.  We ran into a rainstorm of these little beasts somewhere on the east side of the lake.

The buggers are all over the windshield -- squashing my photography efforts!

From our approach to Medford, we got a glimpse of beautiful snow covered Mount Shasta in the distance!
A stop on the outskirts of Medford for lunch prompted a call to a campground at Brookings, our destination. The plan is to take I-5 from here to Grants Pass; jump over onto US 199, south into northern California and then go north on US 101. The woman at the campground said US 199 is narrow and winding and will take 3-4 hours in a rig like ours. Our hopes for seeing the southern Oregon coast were dashed!  Not to worry!  We'll take in some of the Rogue River Valley sites and take care of some "city" business in Medford.

In the end we stayed two nights at Valley of the Rogue State Park near Gold Hill, about 20 miles out of Medford.  We took advantage of being in a metro area and bought a new set of electric clippers for grooming the dogs. The weather temperatures are pretty warm mid-day.... high 80's. 

After some deliberation, we decided to go on to Coburg for a few adjustments to Endie.  We found some discoloration of the bathroom tile grout and dampness in the corner leading us to believe there might be a leak around the water heater. 

We'll catch the southern coast of Oregon another time.

2 comments:

  1. We're seeing some awesome scenery through your camera! Love the snow covered peaks in the back-ground as you buzz along. Good idea to take out the side screen. How's Lexie's "knot"? If there is a leak around the water heater hope it isn't too bad. Always good to follow your blog.

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  2. Bear with me and these comments - I'll get it straight one of these days. We 3 are doing fine. Be carefule with those clipping shears!

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