Joy from Sea to Shining Sea

Aloha all,

this might come as a surprise to some; we were somewhat surprised ourselves: In almost 8 years and over 40,000 miles, we had never been to the actual West Coast with Joy until we arrived on the Oregon Coast last week. In “America the Beautiful”, Joy has seen some “alabaster cities gleam” and enjoyed a good dose of “purple mountain majesty”…and now she has also been “from sea to shining sea”!

Joy made it to the other Shining Sea

Before we made it to the Oregon Coast, we took short breaks in Eugene and at the Laurel Hill golf course and a longer break in Ashland. Laurel Hill is only a 9 hole golf course, but we liked it so much (and we need the practice so much!) that we added another 9 and then another round the next morning. 

Does it count as a hole-in-one
if the ball is in the hole it created?

Eugene seems like a fun little college town. We walked around the University of Oregon campus and their very impressive track & field facilities. Apparently, it helps if you can count the founder of Nike among your alumni. 

Track stadium at the University of Oregon in Eugene

We also visited a great art museum on campus, toured the historic Shelton McMurphy Johnson Mansion, climbed Skinner Butte Hill and took a bike/scooter ride along the Willamette River. But even though it is literally my middle name, we will not move to Eugene.

At the Museum of Art at the U of O

For those of you keeping track: Ashland, Oregon is currently our top spot to move to if we were to leave Maui, which we are not. We spent four days in this delightful little town. We expected to spend the days at the Shakespeare Festival and the evenings in the hot springs at our campground. However, we were so impressed by the quality of the plays at the festival that we rather saw more plays than soak more. And for me to actually skip skinny dipping in a hot spring is about the highest possible praise. 

"Shane" - our favorite amongst four great plays
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The first play we saw was “Shane”. We had never heard of the play, the movie or the book, but the write up from the director about the challenge to put a Western on stage was intriguing. Sandra and I were both totally blown away! “Shane” was one of the most powerful plays we have ever seen. Next we saw “Into the Woods”, a much lighter, but very entertaining musical in the open air Elizabethan Theater. 

Allen Elizabethan Theatre in Ashland, OR

Yes, they also have Shakespeare plays at the Shakespeare Festival. We saw a very impressive production of “Julius Caesar”. I have to admit, I was not aware how current and relevant this play is right now: A leader of a republic who grabs so much power that people fear the republic will turn into autocratic rule…sounds familiar? This production was performed by a very talented all female/non-binary cast. And before you think that’s just some woke gimmick: It’s the exact reversal of the way it was in Shakespeare’s times, when female roles were played by male actors. To lighten things up again, our final play was “The Importance of Being Earnest”, which was so lightheartedly enjoyable that it showed us the importance of being silly.

Sandra trying on an old costume
at a behind the scenes tour at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Just to test whether there is more to Ashland than the festival, we explored several cute restaurants and the delightful Lithia Park, where we also played a round of pickleball with some new friends. Ashland is a small enough town that we ran into them again a little later and had an enjoyable long lunch together. Then it was time to leave this lovely place…at least until next year’s festival…or until Haleakala erupts and we move here.

Lunch with our new pickleball friends in Ashland

For the past week we have been heading north along the Oregon Coast from Bandon to Tillamook. If you have been to this stretch of the coast, I am sure you agree how beautiful, wild, colorful, serene and most of all diverse it is. If not, maybe these pictures convince you:

From rocky shores....

...to wide, sandy beaches!

From Lighthouses...

to towers of water!

From colorful critters....

....to colorful humans!

At the Oregon Coast Aquarium
we met the cutest critters....

...and the scariest. I am not talking about the shark,
but the plastic trash it is made of.

From the most peaceful beach walks...

...to a crazy 60mph dune buggy ride!

From waking up in the woods...

...to ending the day with this view!

Our favorite dinner of this trip
at the Waterfront Depot in Florence, OR

Our favorite lunch of this trip at The Pono Hukilau also in Florence, OR
with Chef Christian formerly of Erik's Seafood Grotto at Kahana Villa!

Critters I did not know existed...
(like this Sea Pen at the Oregon Coast Aquarium)

...to things I did not know could be this beautiful
(like this dead jelly fish)

...to things I don't even know what they are!
(like this whatever-it-is)

And that’s the news from Lake Oregon, where all the waves are strong, all the beaches are good looking and all the plays at the Shakespeare Festival were way better than average.

Aloha,

Chris, Sandra & Joy

Our Own Oregon Trail

Aloha all,

we made it to Oregon. So far, our own Oregon Trail experience seems a lot easier and more pleasant than that of the early pioneers. 

If you have read the last blog post: Do you remember how we enjoyed the one lave tube and the lakes in California and meeting a friend from Maui in Nevada? Well, since then we went to a place with hundreds (!) of lava tubes, spent three days on, in and around America’s deepest lake and met not one, but eight(!) friends from Maui. We also found an adult playground that is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. Just in case you were wondering: No, we are not tired of road tripping yet.

Valentin Cave
at Lava Beds National Monument

We have a few lava tubes in Hawaii, but that’s nothing compared to Lava Beds National Monument: They have a few hundred lava tube caves! Hundreds of them are open for the public to explore. We went into six and they were all interesting and unique. My favorite one was Valentine Cave, but maybe that’s because I got to go there with my valentine on our 30th anniversary. 

Sandra spelunking a little deeper
in one of hundreds of lava tubes

We even attended a ranger program in a cave about the Modoc War and explored the natural lava fortress where the Modoc Indians won a decisive battle in that war. We also hiked up a butte with a great view of Lava Beds. 

View from Schonchin Butte
with wild fires in the background,
or Mount Chasta is erupting

Our first stop in Oregon was the most fun surprise of this trip so far. We had no idea such a place even exists. With all the terrible things happening in the country and in the world, it gives me joy that there is such a place. The “Train Mountain Railroad Museum” is dedicated to the idea that adults can (and should!) have as much fun playing with trains as kids. For me, it also renewed my believe that humans can be pretty awesome and can get along if they just find something fun they have in common. 

You can imagine the size of Train Mountain Railroad
 if they need a turntable this big

The Train Mountain Railroad is the largest ridable toy train park in the world. They have 36 miles of track (for our Hawaiian friends: That’s as far as from Paia to the summit of Haleakala!). You can actually ride these model trains, even though the track is only 7 1/2 inches wide (for our German friends: In the metric system, that’s one shaka sign wide):

36 miles of 7 1/2 inch track,
surprisingly wide enough to ride the trains!

We stumbled over this place only because they belong to ‘Harvest Host’, the club that lets RVers stay overnight for free at farms, breweries, golf courses and train mountains. That’s another beautiful thing about this place: It’s not driven by money, but mostly by the hard work and enthusiasm of many dedicated members of Train Mountain. There is no admission fee and even the train rides are free. But of course you donate generously to support a place that promotes fun and world peace. 

Someone built Lillyville because, why not?

We first took a self guided tour, then we ran into a member who told us about two hidden treasures: The miniature towns of Lillyville and G-Ville deeper within the park. That’s where we met three kids in their 70’s and 80’s. One of them was Dennis, the founder of G-Ville. 

The mayor of G-Ville in front of his creation

After talking to them for a while, Dennis invited us on his train for a fun sunset ride, on which we learned a lot about the history and the inner workings of Train Mountain. We came back way after dark, but that’s the advantage of being an adult, there were no parents to scold us for staying out playing too late. And the advantage of staying there overnight: We were able to take another train ride the next morning!

All Aboard! 
at the Train Mountain Railroad

My family is very harmonious. But until last week, we did have one crucial problem that needed fixing: My brother and my parents had been to Crater Lake National Park and we had not. It would have been worth it to go there just to fix that error, but while we were there, we also took a trolley ride around the rim, attended two ranger programs, hiked up to a peak and down to the lake, took a boat ride on the lake and swam in the bluest water we have ever seen.

Crater Lake, the deepest and possibly bluest lake in America!

The boat ride was probably our favorite part, maybe because we had to work so hard to get on the boat. I am not talking about the hike down to the lake, but the website to make reservations for the boat tour. Maybe they are even harder to get right now because after the end of this season, they will not operate for 3 years while there will be construction work on the trail and the pier. In order to have any chance to get a reservation for the boat on Crater Lake, you have to: 

1. Go online precisely 24 hours and 0 seconds before the trip 

2. Be able to type at least 75 words per minute or you lose your spot 

3. Have at least 4 bars of cell phone reception and 

4. Say at least four Hail Mary prayers. 

Our first six or seven attempts failed. Maybe we did not type fast enough or did not pray hard enough. Then we finally got two spots…and the boat tour was definitely worth every effort:

Phantom Ship Rock on the Crater Lake boat tour

Not only did we get cruise all around Crater Lake, we also got to taste the water (yes, it’s that clean!), see Phantom Ship from close up and meet “The Old Man of the Lake”. This is a very special person, he looks like a tree log, but behaves very differently. He has been floating around the lake, standing up vertically for well over a century! His unusual behavior is well documented since 1896. Of course he has his own Wikipedia entry, if you want to read more about him.

We even saw "The Old man of the Lake"

I will give you the very scientific explanation how Crater Lake was created in the most condensed form possible: “It grew, it blew, it fell and it filled”. The growing of the volcano took almost half a million years, the blowing a few days, the falling a few hours and the filling a few centuries. I love it when geology can be dumbed down like that for us non-scientists.

Yes, it was cold, but even Sandra
had to swim in water this clear!

Crater Lake is so blue because at 1,943 feet, it’s the deepest lake in America and the water is exceptionally clean. There are no real streams that flow into or out of the lake, just rain water and snow melt that goes in and evaporation and seepage that goes out. The level of Crater Lake barely fluctuates because it “seeps” 2 million gallons of water per hour! The surprising part: Nobody knows where exactly the water goes. Now if you were a hydrologist and heard this, wouldn’t you try to find out? I know my brother just won some prestigious hydrology award, but I’d rather have him be the guy who figured out where the water from Crater Lake goes. And while he’s researching that, maybe he can also get us on a research boat without us having to use any stupid web site. 

There is a crater on an island
in a lake in a caldera!

Crater Lake was the 5th US National Park. Unfortunately, the guy who lobbied to protect it, felt that people needed to be able to fish there for Congress to approve of the national park designation. There were no fish in Crater Lake, so he stocked it with several types of fish, two of which are still very much established in the lake today. That would not have been so bad, but a few years later they also added crayfish to the lake, as food for the trout and the salmon. Recently, the crayfish have multiplied so much that they endanger the Mazama Newt, which existed nowhere else in the world. Since there were no natural predators in the lake, that newt had given up its natural defense systems over the seven millennia Crater Lake existed. Now those crayfish are so abundant that I saw one before even going in the water; while we had to drive 100 miles to see a Mazama Newt at the High Desert Museum, where they try to breed them in case the crayfish win the battle in the lake.

Mazama Newt at the High Desert Museum,
hopefully this little guy gets busy soon.

We spent five days in and around Redmond, Oregon. That’s pretty long for Joy to stay in one area, but there are many reasons for that:  8 ex-Maui friends plus several of their new and extended family, including four cute dogs. The whole Miller/Foster/Sanchez clan moved to Central Oregon after the Lahaina fire. It was good to see them and even better to see that despite the obvious challenges, they landed on their feet and found a beautiful place to start a new life together. 

Maui Reunion in Redmond, Oregon

After a wonderful bike ride around Sunriver with Mindy, we were so intrigued by the area that we looked at potential places to buy a little more seriously this time. In fact, we will have Joy test it out for us: Joy will move to Central Oregon for this coming winter and report to us in the spring. We have booked her storage and our flights home to Maui on Oct 27th. That gives us six more weeks of adventures on the road and six more weeks of looking forward to returning home to our friends in our island paradise.

Hiking with Mindy at the Tumalo Falls

And that’s the news from Lake Oregon, where all the crayfish are strong, all the toy trains are good looking and where we enjoyed seeing our Maui friends even more than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra