Lobster Creek – Rogue River

At Huntley Park, Gold Beach, OR

Last year when we were in the area we traveled in the motorhome up river from Gold Beach along Jerry Flat Road up to Lobster Creek…along the way we found Huntley Park, and less than a week later we pulled into Huntley and stayed for two weeks  Wednesday evening I decided to head the 2.5 miles up to Lobster Creek to see if I could see any wildlife…and with the sun already over the hills, I saw this amazing view above…

Saw just a handful of people, most shown in this picture above..so note the boat launching ramp…that is located in the Lobster Creek Campground, a National Forest Campground which has perhaps a dozen sites…many of which are for tents.  When we drove through last year we found  a couple of sites we would have fit into…but no Internet or Cell reception at all…not good for us.

   

The picture to the left is the eastern view from the bridge, and the picture to the right is the one-lane bridge at Lobster Creek, said creek flows into the Rogue River here.  The campground does not require the use of the one-lane bridge as it is accessed from Jerry Flat Road.

,Above you can see the total amount of wildlife which I saw while I was at Lobster Creek.  And yes, that is Lobster Creek running into the river.

   

Along the roadway are these violet flowers…not sure what they are, but they are pretty.

   

   

I promised pics of Huntley Park.  We are under this tree which gives us morning sun, then cool shade during the day.  The solar panel picks up the sun behind us all day long…just need to adjust the position a few times each day,  Three nights and we have recharged our batteries each day so far.

Found an Osprey Nest yesterday…and got this shot near dusk.  Going to try and get a pic of it fishing…wish me luck!

As I write this post I am sitting outside the Curry Public Library in Gold Beach.  Yesterday I came here and found the Internet to be very good, much like Brookings except no password needed.  They might leave it on all night, so even on Sunday you could probably get it out in the parking lot close to the building.  They are in the midst of an expansion of the building…adding about 40% more space.  It sure looks nice.  Yesterday I came to download some movies.  My Kindle had about 4 gigs of space being used by phantom music which I had removed…but the missing data was still taking up space.  One option is to reset, which wipes everything off of it.  It did do that, but would not let me download movies…but it would download TV shows.  I went back and researched at the motorhome, ended up calling Amazon and talking to a tech for about 45 minutes.  He asked if he could call me back today, and I told him I was going back to the library in case it needs another reset.  At 10:30 last night I tried my Kindle again and it was working.  I have already downloaded  a dozen movies, the maximum you are allowed, and some country music, Blake (Shelton) and Brad (Paisley), and nearly done with blog…might be headed back before he calls back…

Hoh Rain Forest, Pics of more Critters

We took the nearly hour long drive up to the Hoh Rain Forest, just to find out that dogs cannot go on the trails, and the temps up there were hitting the ‘80s.  I went into their small visitor’s center, got a little info and confirmation about no dos on the trails, and walked a small trail while Marcia waited with the dogs in the car with the A/C going.  Now normally you would think that a place that gets 140 to 170 inches of rain each year would be safe to take and leave dogs in a car…but not today.  It may rain up to 14 feet each year, but that does not mean every day.

   

You don’t have to walk far to see the effects of so much rain on the forest.

The growth is everywhere, and fallen trees become ripe places for new plants to spring up from, like the roots of this fallen tree.

And they have Sitka Spruce Trees up there, and they too grow very large.

Near the entrance to the park is, or should I say “was” what they called, “The Big Spruce”, one of the largest Spruce trees in the world…until December of last year when it snapped during a wind storm.

I found a path that took me to where the top of the tree fell, and you can see the mangled mess leading back to the now stump of this once awesome tree.

I think Marcia would have been more disappointed except just two days ago we left what seemed to be our own little rain forest, or as she called it, “An Enchanted Forest” before moving to where we are now.  With one big difference, very few people compared to the rain forest we went to today.

Much of the drive after leaving highway 101 is along the Hoh River, which is a glacier feed river from Mt. Olympus.  Due to other mountains being in the way, we did not get a look of the peak of Mt. Olympus at all…a bit disappointing.

As we were leaving the park there is a pond on the right hand side.  Something caught both of our eyes….

…what the heck is that?  At first Marcia thought of a Beaver…but as I got out an looked around the answer became very clear.

DUCKS!  Here there are five with their butts up in the air, an done is the normal sitting position.  It was amazing how much they kept digging their heads down under the water…it was a bit amusing.

   

After we had been home for awhile, ran the generator for a couple of hours, I went back out in search of the Beaver….and I saw two this time in that same pond!

Fairly certain this is a beaver too in the Quillayute River where we saw Otter yesterday.

I am pretty sure this was a small family of Beaver which had crossed the river just a little before I got the shot above. They all seemed to duck into the cover to the left of where these four were taken.

This time I saw about five different Heron, but all my flying pictures were blurry since the sun was covered with that ocean cloud bank.

This one here was the best, showing the Heron in the far left, and all those dots in the water are ducks.  (click on the picture to see a larger version)

   

I also saw one or two young Sea Lions in the River.  I think this is two separate ones, but the pictures were taken a good half hour apart.  This is “not” what we saw yesterday when we saw Otters playing…the swimming behavior of these Sea Lions was totally different than yesterday’s Otters.  I did a bit of research and found that both Otters and Sea Lions are to be found in the area, although the Sea Lions don’t go up the river much past this area.   That pretty much wrapped up another good day…tomorrow it might rain.

Look Here–Look There–Why I Should Not Hike Alone

“Look at those birds over there”, she says.  “Where?”  “Log??”  “What color??? White!”

“Oh, there…”  [look close, they are in the first picture too]

“Over there…got to get that turtle for you sister Sandy.”  “Where?”  “Grass??”  “Sure it is a turtle???”

“Oh, there…yep, she will like that picture.”

Yep, Marcia was able to make the path today.  The GoGo did very well, got stuck once but it was an easy fix.  Starting at Parking Lot 3, it was not very long before we got to the bridge.  She reminded me that I needed to smell the air, to take it a little slower, and take time to look around.  We decided to leave the dogs in the motorhome…the temps were in the mid-70’s and we just left the vent fan on and a few windows open.  They did fine…but they would have enjoyed being along….but it was best that they stayed, and it ended up being a good decision.

Same bridge as yesterday, from the different side.  Yes, there is a couple on the bridge.

It took a bit of time, and I walked right by it, but we did find “the tree”.  This is from the ground looking up…and the limbs and leaves above right are from this tree.  It is like it something from one of those “living dead” creepy movies.

And she wanted me to get a picture of this Spanish Moss covered tree.  She always tell me how the Spanish Moss is really a slow killer to the trees it lands on.  Yep, this one looks pretty dead to me.

While we were admiring the “Tree from the Living Dead”,  a very nice couple from Wisconsin walked by and in our conversation they told us about an alligator on the other side of the river down pass the next boardwalk.  “You can’t see its head because of how it is positioned,” they said.

Well, that’s the advantage of going instead of coming…since we knew it was there, we could keep looking back at it until the full view opened up.

At the bend in the river I wanted to get a panoramic view of the bend.  Just then, while I had the camera down and off, Marcia says, “Look at this Heron flying along the river…”  By the time I got the camera on and in position I did get one shot….but not the quality that I wanted.  Lucky for you, it landed further down the river, and YES, Marcia saw it first, and I got these pictures below.

Again….  “Look on that log”   “What log?”  “What kind of bird??”  “What side of the river???”

“Oh, that log…..”   We walk on up the river towards the “Big Rapids”.

As we sit there at an area where one can sit on a bench and enjoy the river, the Heron moves over near us….

What’s that you say Mr. Heron?   Yep, you are right….I’m darn lucky to have Marcia along, just think what I would have missed….

Oh, and she even saw the first flowers of the early Florida Spring too….   So we left from parking lot #3, and we came out at parking lot #2.  I have about a 4/10ths of a mile walk to the car parked in the next lot.  After yesterday’s hike, and now todays hike, my mind got to thinking.  Now I know you all wish I had a picture of this…but you are just going to have to use your own imagination.   As we got out onto the bike path, I asked her to turn her seat 180 degrees so that she faced the wrong way.  I adjusted the steering column a bit, and stood up leaning on the back of her seat and that little GoGo became the Little Train that Could.  Now you know why it turned out to be a good idea that we did not bring the dogs.  The GoGo carried us well over half way to the car…but when Marcia said, “There is a big Class A headed down the road…” I decided to stop and walk the rest of the way.  Besides, the ride was a pleasant break.  And no, the GoGo did not break….had it, I would probably be writing this from the HHR where I am sure I would have to sleep the night away…..