Trip west 2010 - part 1 Cal & Oregon

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Hi family & friends,
Finally getting around to putting some pics together for this…we only have about 500 to choose from…they’re so small on this website… you can double click and make ‘em a little bigger. We’re in Boise today, near the end of part 1 of a 2 part trip out west. Left O-town May 23 and we’ve spent the last month or so in NoCal & Oregon. We’re heading down to Salt Lake tomorrow, storing the truck and camper and flying home for 3 ½ weeks….then it’s back out here and on up into Idaho and Canada and back thru Montana and Wyoming.
The highlights for us have been the NoCal Redwoods, checking out the wineries in Napa/Sonoma and getting fresh Chinook Salmon from the fish markets on the Oregon docks. We took a day long jet boat trip up the Rogue river in Oregon. It held 30 people but the capt was doing doughnuts like it was a jet ski. We saw a mink and a black bear and ran some class 2 and 3 rapids…fun! The weather has been unreal… pretty much 60’s and 40’s and sunny…we had one misty morning on the Oregon coast. Our favorite place was a forest service campground on Diamond Lake in the southern Oregon Cascade mtns. It was perfect…huge waterfront campsite surrounded by snow capped mtns., the lake was full of rainbow trout and had a 12 mile paved bike path around it, plus it was 15 minutes from Crater Lake National Park which wows you like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time! The east side rim road was closed to cars because they were still clearing snow in one part but we took our bikes up past the road block and had the whole east side to ourselves…there were 6 foot snow banks but it was sunny and in the 60’s… we didn’t see anybody else for hours. I could go on and on but time to go….

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Photos

Ledson Winery
Sonoma

Oregon coast
our favorite coastal area...near Coos bay

Sunset Bay State Park
southern Oregon...now we can say we've paddled in the Pacific!

Sea Lions
Hundreds in southern Oregon

Haceta lighthouse
gold beach

Oregon beach stuff
You find interesting stuff along an empty beach!

Crater Lake
gives new meaning to "smooth as glass"

Wizard Island
Crater Lake

Snow drift
June 24th, Crater Lake had only been open a week1

Crater lake
60's and sunny

Diamond Lake
bike path around lake...in the cascade mtns

ahh...a warm fire at Diamond lake
got into the low 40's at night

Diamond Lake
view from our campsite

for the Ostner family
carving by Charles L. Ostner, a great,great Uncle in 1869

George Washington statue
in the Rotunda of the Capital bldg in Boise. took him 4 years, use a postage stamp of Washington as a model

Comments

[Dave and Pam]

Just not right
Temps in the 40's, sweaters, jackets, snow banks, campfires, what is this! I feel cheated. The last two weeks of our Bahama trip was so hot and calm I know we will never stay that late in the summer again. Those are wonderful places you're visiting and I envy your return to that area. Maybe when we go to Michigan in a few weeks we'll cool down too. Travel safe and keep the great photo travel log going.

[Joan]

WOW
How fabulous, how beautiful!!! Love the pictures and your travel blog. Wish I was a mouse in your suitcase. It has been way to many years since I've been out west. I have always been awed by it's beauty. Enjoy and post more pix .

[Robert Keegan]

Ostner is my great great grandfather, on mothers side, - Jones - Jerry Jones senior,
I came across this picture just browsing the web, We live in Boise - Star, Charles Ostner was my great great Grandfather, Just curious, You say he is your great great uncle?? Thank you, Robert Keegan/Jones,

[Chuck Patty]

Charles Ostner family
Hi, sorry I haven't checked the travelblog site where your message was for several months. Charles the woodcarver was my grandfather's Uncle on my father's side. I have read notes from my grandfather (William Ostner) who remembered Charles (they called him Karl) in Germany before he sailed to america and settled in the Boise area. I'm 60 so I'm thinking I'm in your father's generation. If you're interested, we stopped by the Boise historical society and they pulled a file on him with lots of pictures, hand written notes, correspodance from my uncles, etc. He was a pretty talented guy!