A Full-time Life

LAST WEEK AROUND THE CANAL COTTAGE ...

 

 

Florida Blues (in late November!) including my nemesis bird, the Kingfisher.  We see these birds fairly often, but  they usually  fly away as soon as I even think "camera".   So I'll take their picture any way I can, even this one, a too-far away shot through the car window.  

 

 The only other living creature I got a picture of last week.  (Well, two pictures -- one after he had enough posing).  We stopped in the road to let this guy cross to a runoff canal beside the road.  

Here are some of my better efforts:  

 We made a photo gallery wall in the Canal Cottage from pictures I've taken over several years.    The idea was Geoff's and the framed pictures were a gift from him and Lisa.

Bill hung them (I told him we should never move, because this wall is perfect.)   It's really just one long wall with the burrowing owl in the center.   I couldn't get back far enough to get the whole wall in one shot.  

 

If they look the least bit crooked, it is because of the pictures I took of the wall.  They really do look perfect in real life.

 

Grateful for the memories and hopeful (almost certain) that we will get some more good birding opportunities this season.

 

Thank you to the hosts of these sharing opportunities:

 

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;  THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS;

 

 

FLOR-ORADO - two favorite places

Here's the nature walk of the week here in Florida.   These pictures are from Ann Olesky Park on Lake Trafford,  in the Northeast corner of Collier County.     We  had some rain last week, but on this day, the sky was blue and it was shirt-sleeve weather.

 

Lake Trafford

Lake Trafford is about a 45 minute drive from home and we had to drive about half that distance in order to return a couple of  packages.  When we got to the UPS facility, we found that the Internet in that part of Fort Myers was down and  we were unable to make our returns that day.  So we did some accidental birding -- something that's not at all hard to do around here.    Little Blue Herons and Ibis are both fairly ordinary birds here, but these are the first ones of the season.  Actually of two seasons, since we weren't here last year  and neither of these guys hang out in the Pacific Northwest.                                                     

Like its title, this post is a mashup of two of our favorite scenic states.  The following pictures are from last month's visit to Colorado.

 

 

Aspen trees make wonderful photo ops, whether a picture is a golden stand in the distance or a close-up showing the thin white outer bark, so different from other deciduous trees.   And they are a fascinating tree.     "One aspen tree is actually only a small part of a larger organism.   A stand or group of aspen trees is considered a singular organism with the main life force underground in the extensive root system."  This Source article is well worth reading :  National Forest Service Tree Profile.

 

Debbie's Meadow and Chimney Rock

We went along for Max's walk at Debbie's Meadow one day.   We had a good view of Chimney Rock.  Scenes from the original "True Grit'" movie were filmed here.  And  although I'm not much of a John Wayne fan, of course now I want to watch the movie again because I don't remember any of this. 

  

 

On another day Geoff drove us over a Jeep trail to the ski resort city of Telluride.  It was a beautiful drive and not anywhere near as scary as the sign makes it sound.   We trusted our driver!   It was on this drive where I took many of the scenic pictures from the past couple of posts.  We  enjoyed a good lunch and a walk around Telluride, which wasn't too busy during this off-season time of the year.  (I don't imagine we would have been driving that back road if it had been ski season.)

 

It was almost impossible to stop taking pictures of Colorado gold!   We were so lucky to be there at just the right time.   But November is a pretty nice time to be in Florida and we're glad to be home.   The picture below was taken a couple nights ago from our back porch. It's not the best moon shot ever, not even the best one I've ever taken.  But like the birds in the top photo, it's the first one of the season.  And we don't have  good moon views from our porch in Oregon.

 

                    

We are grateful.

 

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities.  Thank you to the hosts.

 

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  WANDERING CAMERA ; SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS

THE ROADTRIP, Part 1

People often ask how long it takes us to drive across the country and it's  hard to answer.  We tend to wander and stop whenever we feel like it.  This time, we covered 4,680 miles and the trip took us almost exactly a month.  About one fourth of that mileage was "side-trips" when the trailer was unhooked and parked in an RV Park.  But we didn't do as much of that as we used to.  Almost all of our day-trip explorations were while we stayed in Colorado -- and we didn't use our car there one single time because our hosts drove everywhere.  

We left our Oregon home the last week in September.   The pictures in the mosaic below are from the week or two before we left.  The top row pictures are from a walk we took along the middle fork of the Willamette River.  That  Juvenile Robin  looks more like Spring than it does the end of September.

 

 

 

The weather was still like summer even though our favorite farm market was displaying the requisite Autumn pumpkins.   And the blue sky was taken in back of our daughter's a few days before we left -- we were packing up the trailer getting ready to go.  (Well, somebody was.  I was taking pictures obviously).     October's usually beautiful in our part of Oregon too and so part of me felt like it was kind of early to leave.   But of course on the day we were actually ready to  hook that trailer up and hit the road it began to rain, and it didn't stop all morning.

 

It was too wet to take pictures, but here's a quick one that encompasses both the sad and happy reasons to head South.   Our daughter and her youngest grand-child (and our youngest great-grand) braved the rain to run out to the barn for one last good-bye.  (Miss Harper was unimpressed with us, but apparently happy to be warm and dry inside Grandma's barn-coat.)  Harper's older brother, who is two, cried when we said goodbye earlier.  All summer, he had enjoyed watching  his Great-Grandpa work  whenever they happened to be at Cyndi and Jeff's house at the same time.    We will miss everyone ..  that is the downside to our love of travel.  

But rain or shine and after all the goodbyes, we did finally get on the road again.  

 

 

It's a long lonesome road to Burns in Eastern Oregon  -- way out yonder pardner.  Those signs are from the RV Park where we stayed .  It took us a couple of days to get out of our home State -- we don't rush things.

More of the same on the next couple of days as we traveled through Nevada --  except not even any interesting RV Park pictures.  We stayed in Winnemucca and Ely.    But the scenery definitely improved soon after we crossed the Stateline into Utah.

  

On the first of October, we spent the night in Green River State Park .  The picture above and in the collage below are from that day's drive.  It was a stunning scenic tour of a day.

 

 

We were getting anxious to get to Colorado to see our family there and so we didn't spend as much time in the Green River area as it deserved.  But there were quite a few quick photo-stops. 

We already knew we'd have beautiful scenery in the next State too, plus good company!    We were both so happy to get to  Ridgway the next day.    Below is a picture of our Colorado family (although it was taken days later, not the minute we arrived):

 

 

And another shot  in (or near) their new "backyard":

 

 

 Colorado wasn't actually halfway on our roadtrip -- it was only the end of the shorter half!  But it was our first and only planned stop.  As we'd hoped, we arrived  at exactly the right time for its famous Autumn color.    Beautiful Fall and no snow yet.  That's perfection.   

More beautiful Colorado scenery and the longer half of the roadtrip still to come along with some getting reaquainted with Florida shots.

Thankful for family and safe and scenic travels.

LINKING this week to the following, with thanks to all of the hosts:

 MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WE ARE STILL HERE!

In Blogland, we've been away for awhile  ...

 

 

 but in real life we're still here on earth.  

Happily, we're now at home, getting re-acquainted with our little corner of the world here on the Caloosahatchie River in Florida.    But that's  not where I took the above photo.  I did the familiar "stop,  gotta get a picture" yell as we passed through Earth, Texas -- really just a rather run-down wide spot in the road  -- on the second leg of our cross-country trip.  (The sign was the only photo-worthy part of the town.)    

All of the rest of the pictures in today's post are from Colorado -- our favorite stop on our trip.   

 

The Autumn color was a feast for the eyes and the company was wonderful as always in beautiful Colorado.  We visited our son and daughter-in-law in a  part of the state that was new to us -- Lisa and Geoff  had moved into a brand-new home, on the Western side of the Rockies, just a couple of months earlier.     We really enjoyed our stay -- we always have such a good visit and it was fun to explore new territory.     The gorgeous scenery was a huge bonus -- the State really lives up to the motto "colorful Colorado" this time of year.  

 

 

I'm not ready to post about the whole trip in any kind of chronological order yet  (pictures to label and sort and real-life getting organized still going on here).  Above are some more Colorado pictures featuring blue skies and more golden Aspens.  (And our youngest son getting very close to the edge of a cliff.)  By this time in my life, he didn't even scare me too much.     

 

Gunnison Sage Grouse

 

 An "accidental  sighting " on one of our exploring days.   I wasn't even looking for birds, but this one practically asked me to take its picture.

 

Ouray County, Colorado

More to come from Oregon, Colorado, Florida and points in between.   

 

 

  LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities.  Thank you to the hosts.

 

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS;

 

 

 

 

OLD FAVORITES

It's kind of in-between seasons here in the Eugene area.  Too late for summer and too early for Fall color.  And no wildlife sightings.  I took not a single outdoor picture last week.   In fact, I took no pictures at all anywhere.   That really doesn't happen too often in our world!  But thankfully there are memories to share as we get ready to make some new ones.

 

Autumn Flyover - Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes  - New Mexico, 2006

This was our second visit to the amazing Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge.

 

Last week,  I didn't have any pictures to link to Skywatch Friday nor anything to link to Saturday Critters,  so this post is definitely trying to make up for those omissions.   As always I appreciate the hosts of all the sharing opportunities.

 

Immature Little Blue Heron and Roseate Spoonbill

Corkscrew Audubon Wildlife Refuge, Florida

Corkscrew is just enough out-of-the-way from our Florida Canal Cottage that we don't go there regularly, but it is always a joy when we do.    It's definitely on the list for next time.

 

Colorado

Feeding Moose, Mountain Goat, and Elk in or near Rocky Mountain National Park

Pictures are from three different visits.  Our Colorado family has moved to another area of that beautiful state and we are excited to see them and learn more about the new area.    I'm sure the camera will come out of hiding there if not before!  

So yes, we are  planning to hitch up soon and head off for a (still) socially-distanced and masked road-trip.   We always enjoy the journey but  also look forward to visits with other people we know are vaccinated.     I'll be taking a break from posting for a little while.  But I will be reading and catching up with other blogger's adventures as we travel.    When the tiny trailer is parked for the night and it's too  early to go to bed, our IPads are the source of the evening's entertainment.  Your posts are far more entertaining than the TV set that we took out of the trailer so that we'd have more storage space.  I haven't missed it at all.

 

Grateful for everyone who visits and comments here at Full-Time Life.  Thanks for  your interesting posts and a special thank you to those who host the sharing opportunities where I link.  This week, these:  

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS

Last of the Summer Color

 

These pictures are from yesterday afternoon's get-together at the home of our grandson and granddaughter-in-law.     Even now, at the end of the season, their backyard is colorful and comfortable.   

 

Somehow, when each of our children bought their first home and made it their own, it didn't surprise me.  I was (and am) proud of them, but buying a house and settling in was just the normal progression in life. But it utterly  amazes me that our grandchildren could have, somehow, reached that stage of life.  How on earth could we be old enough for that to happen?  (Rhetorical question -- I do know the answer!)   

 

 

There were familiar plants in their garden and a couple that were new to me.   Top left is an elderberry (our granddaughter-in-law made jelly from it earlier).  The one at the lower right corner is a ground cherry which I don't remember ever seeing before.  We ate a handful and they are quite interesting .  I thought they had a nut-like taste, but nobody else came up with the same description.  Our 18 month old great-grandson loved them!   (More familiar ones are  scarlet runner beans and a tomato -- and the non-food-item hen and chicks in the center.

As usual, I didn't take people pictures this time, but I did find a few from family gathering earlier this summer .

 

The great-grandson whose home we visited yesterday is on the left and that's his older cousin on the right.   Both of them have grown a lot in the last couple of months, as people do at those ages!  

 

It was really sweet watching the cousins playing together as the two-year old showed the "baby" how his firetruck worked.

 

Lesson learned.   

Fun for them, built-in-entertainment for the rest of us.   

Thankful that the smoke cleared out yesterday and it wasn't too hot outside.  And especially grateful  that  family  older than these two are vaccinated so that we can happily and safely enjoy time together.  

 

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities.  Thank you to all of the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;  THANKFUL THURSDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; 

WILD MEMORIES

 

Sticking close to home this week  doing some fun stuff that I don't document well with photographs.   You know, like cooking, eating, reading, walking, visiting with local family.   Of course I do take pictures sometimes when I do the latter two things, but photo-worthy nature subjects are hard to find around here on hot, dry August days.    I might have to teach myself to take decent pictures of food and people at least during the height of summer.   

 We are also hopefully planning some not-too-distant travel (and I think everyone knows by now what I mean by "we"  in this context.)   I am grateful to the Travel Planner.     I am also glad our weather here in Oregon seems to be cooling down some and I look forward to a few more good photo walks here.     Meanwhile, while the other half of us is planning for the future, I'm collecting memories from the past.    Obviously, I've also been trying to sort through a million or so digital photos.  

 I do better making family portraits of birds and animals than I do of human ones.  Here are a few:   

 

Top row:  hungry baby Great Blue Heron and mom - Wakodahatchee Nature Center Florida;  Pie-Billed Grebe family, Fern Ridge Lake Oregon; Swan Family, Germany River Cruise

Middle:  Sandhill crane family, Upriver RV Resort Florida; Wood stork with baby in nest, Wakodahatchee; Whistling Ducks,     Florida.  

Bottom row:  Burrowing Owl family, Cape Coral Florida;  Stork Family, Wakodahatchee; Ospreys, Florida Keys

 

Pronghorn Antelope, Hart Mountain Refuge Oregon

The above is not my best or favorite animal picture by far but it is from the one and only place I didn't post about after our July trip to Eastern Oregon so it gets a separate picture.      Below are some pictures  that really are candidates for favorite animals  -- and favorite places visited.    

 

Elk, Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado; Bison, British Columbia; Brown Bears, Alaska; 

Moose, Rocky Mountain NP; Mountain Sheep, Colorado;   Musk Ox, Prudhoe Bay Alaska

Mother and Baby Moose, Cook Inlet Alaska; Stone Sheep, British Columbia;  Caribou, Alaska 

 

Virtual nature viewing  is almost as much fun as the real thing!  I love the way digital cameras make it possible to capture all these memories.    Here's a fly-in memory shot from another trip:  

 

 

Happy September everyone.

 

Don't forget to say Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit on Wednesday.

Addendum from Wikipedia:  "Rabbit rabbit rabbit" is a superstition found in Britain and North America wherein a person says or repeats the words "rabbit", "rabbits" and/or "white rabbits" aloud upon waking on the first day of a month, to ensure good luck for the rest of it.  The origin of the superstition is unknown.

LINKING to the following sharing opportunities:  Thank you to the hosts.

 

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  WANDERING CAMERA; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;  THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS; 

GOING COASTAL

We enjoyed a lovely three-day getaway to the beautiful Oregon Coast last week.    

 

 

It is always a joy to be at the ocean and I never tire of the Pacific coast.   An added benefit this time was getting out of the heat  in our valley.  

 

 

These pictures are all from Yachats State Park, one of the best places to view this wild coast.   We had a  a perfect day for it.

 

 

 

 This is such a good place to play outside!   There is a walking trail  and when the tide is right those rocks are great for climbing and exploring.  (Although we don't do as much of that as we used to!)    There was one thing marring the day's perfection.    We spotted a  fin, which could have been a joyful occurrence,  but instead turned out to be very sad. 

 

 

This poor baby Blue whale died and washed up in this cove.   Every year, thousands of whales migrate along our coast and sometimes they don't make it.  The baby may have been killed by an orca or died of natural causes.  It is all a part of nature, but for whatever reason whales are one of those  animals with which we bond  emotionally, so it was sad to see. 

  

 

We joke sometimes that over the years we've stayed in every hotel,  vacation rental, and campground along the Oregon coast.   That's not quite true, but  the above rental duplex just across the street from the beach above is one where we have stayed a few times in the past. Not this time though -- instead, we took the tiny trailer and we were camped about 45 minutes south of Yachats at one of the coastal lakes between Florence and Reedsport.

 

Woahink Lake

This lake access  across the highway from the RV Park where we stayed was a nice place for an evening walk.

 

Beaver, Egrets, and ducks on Siltcoos Lake.  

We drove around the lake one day taking a long detour as we  headed further south to explore Coos Bay.   Somehow, I forgot to take any more pictures but it was a very pleasant day with different  views and some positive changes to this familiar coastal town that were fun to see.   We ate a delicious seafood dinner at a new restaurant with a lovely bay view  (and  Covid-protocol observing staff and patrons).  Eating out is certainly a far rarer occurrence for us these days than it used to be!   On the way back to Eugene the next day, we stopped at Winchester Bay and brought home oysters which Bill grilled.     And that meal was even better.  

 

LINKING this week to the following:  Thank you to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY;   MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;   THANKFUL THURSDAY;  WANDERING CAMERA; SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  FRIDAY  BLISS; and  SATURDAY CRITTERS 

New Pine Creek memories

This is a mostly a repeat memory post with some added thoughts and all new pictures.  On our summer camping trip in June we drove through New Pine Creek, the tiny (not-quite-a) town that straddles the Oregon-California border.    We lived  in that out-of-the-way place for two years very early in our life together.   

 

Goose Lake State Park, Oregon

That was in the early 1960s.  Back then, Goose Lake wasn't yet a State Park but it was a 20+ mile long shallow Lake.   Now it is a large field of grass.  Not a drop of water.  

 

We'd last driven through this area  twelve years ago during a cross-country RV trip.     I posted then  about the memories the town evoked, but because even that visit was so long ago, I thought the post was worth a repeat.    (Thoughts I added this time are in bold.)

 

MEMORIES IN A TUMBLE-DOWN TOWN

We've been married just about forever (I wrote that twelve years ago and we're still here!) and sometime back at the dawning of civilization*, we lived for a couple of years in New Pine Creek.  We went to see it last week when we were in Southeast Oregon.  It's a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place that straddles the Oregon-California border on Highway 395. 

(Definitely not the prettiest entry-way into California)

This little farm community is twenty miles south of Lakeview Oregon and 50 miles north of Alturas California, with nothing much else in between.  It's the outback of the outback.  Back then (*it really was 1959 through 1961), we thought we were so lucky to get to move there.  Bill had just graduated from a two-year program at a Teacher's College in  Lewiston Idaho (across the Snake River from our home town of Clarkston Washington).  He got a position as teacher/principal (and janitor) at New Pine Creek Elementary, a one-room school on the California side of the border.  California!  It paid more than Idaho, where most of his fellow graduates went.  I think he made about $4,500 that year.   

We had a one-year old son and a baby on the way.  (Our daughter was born in Lakeview in February 1960. The Dr. and hospital were 20 miles away from home.)  This is the house where we lived -- as you can see, it is  about a foot from the highway.  The house actually looks better now than it did then; we didn't have siding or a fence. (Ugh, it's a junk shop now -- so this time, it looked even worse than it did in 1960.)   It snowed a lot in the Winters we were there. The snowplow would come past several times a day and plow the snow into drifts that blocked the house in.  Those winter days were long!

This is the  old school building where Bill taught.  Someone was living in it last time we were here, but It looked completely abandoned now -- the school closed years ago.    It was about the length of two blocks straight up the highway from our house.  It is funny to realize that the eighth-graders Bill taught were actually only six or seven years younger than he was then.    

It was a very small village even when we lived there.  But there were a couple of grocery stores, a good butcher, a barbershop, a service station right next door owned by the sweet couple who were our landlords,  and a Grange Hall that had an active social schedule. Now the buildings all look like something straight out of a ghost story. (Even worse this time.)    Junk shops are the last dying gasps of a small town. 

After our two years there, we moved back to Eastern Washington.  Living there again, we had two more sons, bought our first house, worked a bunch of various jobs between us, and, eventually, Bill went back to college and completed his degrees.   It remains my fond hope that someday I will get around to scanning some old pictures and writing some memory posts about those years!  In 1971, we moved to Lane County, Oregon -- the opposite side of the State of Oregon from NPC, in every possible definition.

 

Random Roadside pictures as we drove around Oregon's outback in 2021 

(altered with Picasa to look like a 1960s scrapbook page.)

We've long since lost track of the people we knew during the short time we lived in New Pine Creek.     But we'll always remember our two years there -- we did a lot of growing up and had a lot of fun too.  (Looking back from over half a century later my mind is boggled thinking about how young we were then .) I wonder if there will be anything left of the town if we ever drive through again.   (So obviously we did drive through again and found the town in even worse condition.  I don't think we'll do that again!    But we treasure our memories and are  thankful that we've survived all the ensuing years in slightly better shape ourselves.  

 

LINKING to the following sharing opportunities:  Thank you to the hosts.

 

MOSAIC MONDAY;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; TUESDAY TREASURES;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;  SIGNS SIGNS;  THANKFUL THURSDAY;  and SKYWATCH FRIDAY 

 

Newberry National Volcanic Monument, Central Oregon

 

Central Oregon has a fiery past and Newberry, the largest volcano in the Cascade Range, is a good place to learn about it.  This volcano began erupting 500,000 years ago.  It created massive lava flows that covered 1,200 square miles.  

 

 Paulina Lake in the Newberry Caldera.

The last eruption occurred (only!) 1,300 years ago.

 

 

But it is still active and will certainly erupt again.   The eruption could be either passive with lava flows or explosive  with ash and pumice.   There are nine monitoring stations to detect any early and subtle signs of it reawakening.  

 

Paulina Peak is the highest point on the caldera rim.  It is 7,984 feet above sea level and 1,652 feet above Paulina Lake.  

 

The Big Obsidian Flow is the youngest lava flow at Newberry.  Volcanic ash from the eruption 1,300 years ago reached as far as the State of Idaho.

 

  

(The Park Service has a sense of humor).

 

We stayed a few nights in Central Oregon before heading further into the Eastern part of our State.    During the years we lived, worked, and raised our family in Lane County, this area was a great getaway -- not too far away but quite a contrast to home.  We did a little cross-country skiing near Newberry back then  (when we were much younger) and  the area was a frequent destination for Scout troops our boys were involved with.  It was fun to explore the area again.  Our visit brought back good memories and we learned (or re-learned) a lot.  As we always do when we travel, whether the destination is close to home or farther away.

 

 

This is one of the things we did not know.  In the town of LaPine, where we stayed during this part of our trip, we saw a sign that simply said "Big Tree."  We followed the signs to the State Park to find  the largest Ponderosa Pine ever recorded.  This Oregon Heritage tree was a giant way before  Oregon was a State   -- it has  endured centuries of fire, disease, insects, and human impact.   We can only hope it continues to do so.

   

 

We enjoyed the  time in Central Oregon.  It's a beautiful area and a nice transition when traveling between the vastly different Western and Eastern parts of our State.  Oregon really is a land of contrast.  We are grateful to be able to explore it all.

 

LINKING this week to these sharing opportunities:  Thank you to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY;  NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS;   TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS;  OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  and FRIDAY  BLISS;