Mt. Pisgah Mushroom Festival, Eugene Oregon

This is a great one day Mushroom Festival. I wish it was longer. Very Festive event. Music, Food, Books, Plant sale, Scarecrow contest, Walks, Mushroom Id, mushroom displays, some arts and crafts.









It was a pretty cold drizzly day, perfect for the mushrooms, and we were ok with our rain pants and rain coat.
We had wild mushroom and steak stew served in filo dough bowl with a salad. and the shared a wild mushroom soup...Yummmm
Wish you were there....

Eugene Saturday Market

This is a great Market...

sorry about the video..might try to capture again next week a little slower and more detail...

Anyway the produce is wonderful, the arts and crafts and food great as well.
Lots of Organic stuff.

Yachats Mushroom Festival Day 2

This was the second day of the mushroom festival we attended last week. We had a great time, but felt the festival lacked the excitement that the previous festivals had.

Check out the Mt. Pisgah mushroom festival that i will Blog soon. That festival is held in Eugene and is one day and allot of fun.

Mushroom Festival weekend, Yachats, Oregon

Well this is Yachats Mushroom Festival Weekend, Jeff and I have been to three of these so far and always look forward to the next one we are able to go to.

We stay south of Yachats....pronounced yah hots...at Sea Perch RV park, which is on the ocean.
Today we walked the bea
ch, and then went mushroom hunting with our friend Jim, who lives in Yachats.

In the evening we went to the Mushroom Festival Dinner....cake raffle, and silent auction.
Tomorrow we will go on a few guided mushroom walks and maybe a lecture. or two.

Black Butte Hike, Sisters, Oregon

This is the hike we did yesterday...Black Butte Trail it was a good short exercise hike, 4 miles round trip. Click on the highlighted text and you can see pictures of what we should have seen. We happened to go on a overcast, chilly day, so not to many distant views for us.
It was good to get the exercise, as we just hung out and did nothing the day before.

I also got to try out my new shoes...with new insoles. So far so good, I will need a longer hike to get the real story. I now have the Keen Targhee II eVENT mid hiker. I was told to get a certain insole, 30 dollars I might add. but they seem to work they are the sof sole stable trac.
I also have new hiking poles from REI they are shock absorbing and were on sale. I like the poles too...I only used one to hike most of the time.....

Jeff and I both love to buy things here in Oregon as there is no sales tax...
We ordered a GPS Unit from Walmart.com which should arrive next week.
..this is a must so we wont get lost, again.
The unit I ordered is the Garmin 60 Csx
it has good reviews and it was 100 dollars less at walmart then anywhere online.
My Iritis in my left eye seems to be healing well...lets hope no more episodes. Today Jeff and I arrived in our second home Eugene, Oregon. we will be here for a few days at Cummins getting engine and generator check ups. Then onto the Yachats mushroom festival for the weekend and back to Eugene area to have work done on Homey.....I cant wait to get to all my old Haunts.....
tofu cheescake from the SWEET LIFE is calling my name....

Canyon Creek Meadow hike, Mt Jefferson Wilderness, Oregon

This was a very nice hike, not to difficult and the weather was great.
We saw a few new birds, red crossbills, Black backed woodpecker and Chestnut backed chickadees.
The hike went by a small pond, thru a burn area of forest....many acres, and then to a meadow, which i imagine is wonderful when the wildflowers are blooming, from the meadow we went onto a glacial lake, very nice green color, and glaciers.
We met three nice young gals, 2 from Portland, Oregon area, one from new york that is considering moving to Oregon. Other than that we only saw one other person and their dog on the trail.

pictures of the hike here

Sisters, Oregon

We are now in Sisters, Oregon. The town name comes from the three mountains(volcano's) that are a beautiful back drop to the area. We plan to stay here a few days and do some hiking.

Jeff golfed today...i walked around town, some fun shops, and got my hair cut and colored.

We are parked at Sisters city park, nice location in town, I can walk to everything. The sites are large, but there are no hookups. Our generator does just fine for times like this.

Lava Hot Springs, Idaho

Went to Lava Hot Springs Pools for the weekend after John finished his job in Soda Springs. We were wondering why there were so many people in town...but then realized it was Columbus Day weekend...So we chose to go to the pools in the evening both Friday and Saturday nights. Friday it was rainy...it was fun to sit in the hot pools and have the cool rain. Saturday was just cool and the hot springs refreshing.

We did a short hike up the hill behind the town...we had intended to do the hill on the opposite side of town but couldn't find an access....seemed like it was all private land.

This is a very small town and it looks like the hot springs is what makes it survive...
The pools are great...four of them, that vary in temperature...the hottest being around 110...ouch...

Here's a little history on the Pools.

Soda Springs, Hooper Springs and Formation Springs and Cave

Today started out rainy, so we stayed in till we met Barb at the hotel at 12. Hung out there and John joined us for lunch. After lunch Jeff, Barb and I headed out to See Hooper Springs, with the intent of bottling some of the carbonated water...but it didn't taste that good.
Soda water from these springs was known nationally after rail service reached this resort area in 1882.





We then went to Formation springs and Cave. Very pretty area this time of year with the fall colors.

This Nature Conservancy Preserve, a few miles outside of Soda Springs, was established to protect the crystal-clear pools and a unique wetland complex at the base of the scenic Aspen Mountains. The cold springs that feed the terraced pools and creek system deposit high concentrations of travertine (calcium carbonate), which gives the site its unique geology.

We finished off the day with some mexican food and a beautiful sunset.



pictures

Intro to Soda Springs Idaho

We are now in Soda Springs, Idaho. Well sort of. We are outside of town one mile, parked outside of the Supper club restaurant and The Oregon Trail Golf course.

We didn't intend to stay here, but after inspecting the few RV sites they had in town we decided to stop here and see if they would let us park Homey and stay here for a few days. The owners of the Restaurant were kind enough to let us stay here for a week for a reasonable fee.

The parks in town were run down trailer parks , dumpy and no views. We were also considering staying 20 miles away in lava springs....but after driving to soda springs from there felt it would be too long of a drive....besides there seems to be a few more things to do in this area.

We will go back to lava springs for a good soak in the Hot spring pools.

We plan on doing some birding on the birding trail they have mapped out, want to see some Sandhill cranes. Also this is a Historic byway, the Oregon Trail went through here among other interesting historical stuff. We also want to fill up some jugs with naturally carbonated Hooper springs water. And of course hang out with John and Barb when they have free time.