asthewheelsturnduo

[asthewheelsturnduo]

Click on the photos for the captions.  I’m learning as I go!

[asthewheelsturnduo]

Ever wonder where dogs came from?  I spend more time wondering what planet some dog OWNERS come from, but I digress.  The Hesperocyon, is the first dog.  Think of it as the Adam and Eve of the dog world.  And of course, we know the sad story of their first two puppies.  How the loving little Abel was killed by his evil brother, canine (LOL!  I’m sure all of you Old Testament buffs saw that one coming).

[asthewheelsturnduo]

This is a gas station at Cowboy Corner, just outside Badlands National Park, where we stayed.  It is a very remote area.  To prove that this indeed was a working gas pump and not a photo from a museum, I took a video of it in action.  It was a classic unit, and for a minute a thought I was in the Twilight Zone and had been transported back in time.  The 10′s counter was broken, so when I pumped $66.35 of gas, it read $6.35.  I thought “WOW, this DOES really take you back!”  Alas, the clerk inside had the correct amount.  The dinosaur pump was hooked up to modern day electronics!

[asthewheelsturnduo]

You gotta love roadside America!  This is Carhenge, outside Alliance Nebraska.  The plaque said much of the work was done during a six day family reunion.  It didn’t say, but I suspect alcohol was involved.  It was delightful, and unlike the original stone version, you could walk right through it and touch the cars.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

And this is from... The Cornhusker State, Nebraska.  HA HA HA!  Sure Larry, and  remember that thousand foot pass you drive over when traveling from Toledo to Findley?  I don’t think so!  Who knew, right?  Well, I certainly didn’t.  These were taken in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.  This uplift (and we need something uplifting after that last post about mining.  Whew!) is about 800 ft in elevation.  There are others similar to this all around the area.  It is absolutely beautiful!  It was also an absolute nightmare for the settlers as they traveled west.  It turns out that the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails all came through Scotts bluff, and this was a difficult crossing.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

This is from Sugarite Canyon, New Mexico.  They mined coal there from about 1910 until 1941.  There was a whole town.  Only the foundations remain, but it looked just like the towns in Appalachia we heard about growing up in Ohio.  This is the foundation of the Company Store.  The plaque describes life in the town.  It is as you probably remember, a captive audience that had to buy everything from the Company Store.  Think Sixteen Tons and Tennessee Ernie Ford.  I didn’t know they didn’t even pay the guys in US dollars.  They paid them in something called Scrip, which was only good at the Company Store.  So there was really no way to escape the place, even if you could save money, which of course you couldn’t.

I know unions have a bad name now, but when you look at this history, you can see why they formed, and that they served a useful purpose.

This, of course, reminds me of a song.  This was written by Florence Reece (you go girl!), wife of Sam Reece.  Sam was a union organizer in Harlen County KY.  It was written in 1931.  This is performed by Pete Seeger:

https://youtu.be/9XEnTxlBuGo

[asthewheelsturnduo]

Alas, the Teeny Tiny House (TTH) rolls again!  This was our first stop, about 150 miles outside Phoenix up in the cool mountain air.  With a name like that, I guess they knew I was coming!  It was an interesting place.  You know how most places have a playground for the kids with swings, slides, jungle gym, etc.  Well, given the name of this place, Fool Hollow, they had a whole set of games for fools.  You know, the perennial favorites like “jump over the hot charcoal grill”, “shoot the apple off your little brother’s head with an arrow”, and my favorite “pet the bear cub while mommy’s watching!”.  My kind of place!  Okay, on with the trip... 

[asthewheelsturnduo]

So long Oregon

July 24, 2022

At with that, dear reader, it is time to head home.  We will be leaving tomorrow to head back to the AZ furnace for awhile, until our next adventure.  Thank you all for reading, and for the supportive comments!  I hope you have been entertained, and perhaps even inspired to visit the great state of Oregon.  It was truly better than we could have imagined!  I encourage you all to come see it for yourself.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

This is at the beach in Seaside OR.  This guy had the biggest bubble blower I have ever seen!  He would made these humongous bubbles and they would float up where we were taking this photo from.  You thought for sure if you stuck your hand into it, you would be slimed like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters.  But you weren’t.  It was really fun, and he had a jar to donate for bubble blower.

The other photo is me.  In Oregon the beaches are really large and flat, and they let you drive on them.  So I know I parked my truck out there somewhere at low tide.  The photo is me returning some hours later, and I couldn’t find the thing anywhere!  

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

This is Mount Hood from the Timberline Lodge.  The photo doesn’t begin to capture how dramatic the mountain is.  The thing to know it that it is really really big!  You can see it clearly from Portland on clear days.  The summit, at just over 11,000 feet,  is about 5000 feet higher than the lodge.

Next we see Marilyn the Intrepid on a snow field as we hiked part way around the mountain.  This was around July 20th, and we were on part of the Pacific Crest Trail, and there was still snow on parts of the trail.  We were on the south side of the mountain.  We ran into some backpackers that said the north side still had a lot of snow.  The ranger said they received 25% more snow than usual, and that June was exceptionally cold.  I sure you all remember me complaining about June.

Finally you see me.  The reason I am smiling is because we are hiking around the mountain and not UP the mountain.  I am so happy!

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

We saw this sculpture in Vancouver WA while riding our bikes along the river.  I found it very striking, and the story is moving.  It makes you wonder whatever happened to Rosie the Riveter when the war ended. 

So you can’t go to Portland OR without talking about Vancouver WA.  Here’s the deal.  The state income tax in OR is around 10%.  Ouch!  And they tax retirement income at the same rate.  So we won’t be moving here.  OR has no sales tax.  Now, WA has no state income tax.  They have about a 6.5% sales tax.  So it didn’t take long for people to

1. Move to Vancouver WA to live, and commute to OR to work, thus avoiding the income tax

2. Go to OR to buy things because there is no sales tax.

Vancouver has a very different feel from Portland.  Portland is a lot bigger, plus it is much more alive.  Downtown Vancouver seemed very quiet by comparison.  So there you have it, the tourist’s analysis of Portland and Vancouver.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

People seem to LOVE waterfalls, so I wanted to include some.  These are from a hike in Silver Falls State Park.  These are on the Ten Waterfalls Trail.  There are several like the first photo, where the trail goes behind the falls.  It was very cool!  The other one I included because it reminded me of waterfalls in Hawaii; the falls, the pool at the bottom, green all around.  Surprisingly, we didn’t see this in any travel brochure.  A guy met somewhere just mentioned it to us.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

I LOVE statues like this!  Instead of statue to some military person, or a war, like the ones so prominent in Washington DC, this is a statue to Tom McCall, a former governor of Oregon.  But instead of having him in a suit at a podium or some such, there he is, fishing.

So get this!  Tom McCall was a REPUBLICAN governor in Oregon.  He is known for passing the first bottle bill (deposit on bottles and cans for recycling), and for making the entire coast of Oregon public.  The state owns all “wet sand” land within 16 vertical feet of low tide.  Plus there is an easement across anyone’s property.  So that’s how the couple that you met earlier in the blog, Chayse and Sarah, are able to walk down the entire Oregon coast.

I found the story interesting.  I’d guess if this happened today, people would be calling Mr. McCall a RINO (Republican In Name Only).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Beach_Bill

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

On the way back from the gorge trip, we stopped at the Bonneville Dam, on the Washington side of the river.  They had a wonderful visitors center with what they called a “salmon ladder”.  It is for the salmon and other things to swim up river and get past the hydro electric dam.  I could tell it was not like a regular ladder because it wasn’t covered with warning stickers.  Or maybe it wasn’t because fish can’t read.  I know what you’re thinking “How do YOU know fish can’t read?”.  Well, Mr./Ms. challenge everything, I’ll TELL you.  Bing Crosby told me!  So there!  Huh? Now you are thinking I’m making about as much sense as Rudy Giuliani at the January 6th hearings.  No, I’m not that far gone.  In 1944, Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke wrote the song Swinging on a Star.  Bing Crosby popularized it.  In the lyric, we learn unequivocally that:

A fish won't do anything, but swim in a brook He can't write his name or read a book

So that’s how I know.  Okay, enough of my nonsense already.  It’s a great song, check it out here:

https://youtu.be/9CDs067081E

Back to our original story.  A salmon ladder is this huge series of concrete steps, all underwater.  The viewing area has a glass wall.  Turns out there weren’t many salmon the day we were there.  The salmon have been mostly fished out.  There were 60-70 million/year in the 1800s, and now there are less then a million.  They are working to help them recover.  So I don’t have any cool salmon jumping photos.  BUT, there is this creepy thing called a Lamprey.  It is actually really cool looking, but it does come off a little creepy to me.  I think it would make a great movie monster.  Remember those Sharknado movies?  Well, I think a Lamprey-nado movie would be equally scary.  And of similar low production quality I suspect.  But they are so cool because they are so prehistoric!  They say up to 450 million years old!  That puts them in the same category as cockroaches and Joe Biden!  I know that was low, but since I picked on Rudy, I thought I should give equal time.  Check out the picture.  They would stick to the glass and hang on,  then let go and swim upstream.  It was really amazing to see.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

A few pics from along the trail.  The view from above the gorge was striking!  In case anyone is wondering about my expression on that one of me sitting on the wall, I was thinking as I jumped up onto the wall to sit “Uh oh, I don’t remember if this is one of those walls that has the spikes on it so pigeons can’t land.  I forgot to check.  I hope not...”  Whew!  I got lucky!

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

This is a tunnel we rode our bikes through on the old Columbia River Gorge Highway.  It is closed to car traffic in this section.  The tunnels were blasted through the rock.  The longest is 128 feet long.  A single blast removed about 4 feet of rock, so that’s a lot of blasting.  This section of the trail is about four miles long, and it has 960 feet of elevation gain.  We were so proud of ourselves that we could do 960 feet of elevation without an e-bike, that now you have to sit and read all about it!  Actually, the trail was very nicely graded so it wasn’t too hard.  The road was considered the first “scenic highway” in America.  Read about it here: https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/columbia-river-highway/Pages/introduction.aspx#:~:text=About%20the%20Highway,about%2075%20miles%20in%20total.

[asthewheelsturnduo]

July 24, 2022

The Columbia River Gorge is a famous place for wind surfing.  Here’s a guy using a hydro foil board.  Your eyes are not playing tricks on you.  His board is completely out of the water and he is riding on a hydro foil.  They have similar things that are powered by kites, and parachute-like sails you hold onto.  It looked like fun, but my agent said my modeling feet were insured and I wasn’t allowed to get them wet.  Too bad.