Redwoods-The Facts

It's hard to believe that these huge trees begin life with such a small way. This redwood cone contains approximately 10,000 redwood seeds. Simply amazing! However, only about one out of a million of the seeds is successful in becoming a tree. The most common way for a redwood to reproduce is by cloning itself. When a trees becomes stressed due to fire or wind damage, it will clone itself, sending up new shoots. Sometimes it will send up one and sometimes it will send up dozens!


The scientific name is sequoia sempervirens which means ever living. These trees truly do whatever it takes to keep living. They can be burned out shells and still survive.

Believe it or not, this tree is still fully alive and growing
despite being completely burned out from a fire long ago.
The trees are resistant to fungus and insects and does not easily rot due to the high level of tannic acid it contains. Walking through the forest we would see hemlock and tanoak trees covered in moss and other fungus, but the redwood trees' bark was completely pristine.


The tallest trees reach a height of 379 feet, and the oldest known tree is approximately 2,200 years old! This tree below is 1,500 years old and has a diameter of over 23 feet. At one time it was the tallest tree in the world, but some time ago it got it's top blown off, though it's still very impressive.

Great Cats World Park

Sunday morning after breakfast, we did a few geocaches in Grants Pass. Let's just say, they have one of the oddest booster clubs I have ever heard of called The Cavemen.


Once we had done a couple caches we got in the van and headed toward the Redwoods, but we wanted to make one more stop in Oregon first. A friend had told me about the Great Cats World Park, and I wanted to see it for myself. We weren't too impressed when we first pulled up and walked around, but once the tour began, we really enjoyed it!



The man who owns the park has been training and working with large cats for about 30 years, and he started up this park about four years ago. The best thing about it is that you can stand within two or three feet of the cats! As they do the tour they educate you about the different large cats and they also entertain you with some of the things they have been taught to do. The owner even got into several of the cages to work with the cats, and that was truly impressive to see him hugging and scratching these huge and dangerous animals.



The tour was two hours long, which I did not expect. It's a small compound, but they give you a great show the whole time. They have 18 different species of cats, and many of them are used in movies and in wildlife photography.

I love seeing my kids holding hands, getting along beautifully. It doesn't
happen as often as I like, but I still manage to catch it from time to time.

I would recommend anyone traveling in this part of Oregon to take a couple of hours and go take the tour, especially if you like wild cats!

Oregon Caves

This year we have really tried to explore parts of Oregon that we haven't seen before, and we've done a pretty good job, I think. We took a camping trip in May to central Oregon to see the John Day Fossil Beds, and then another one in June to see the fossil bed unit we missed the first time (blog post will be forthcoming...really, it will!). Then last weekend we went to the Oregon Caves and the Great Cats World Park in southern Oregon.


We had intended to leave first thing Saturday morning for our trip, but at the last minute Friday evening we decided to see if we could get the same Priceline deal for our hotel for one more night. When it was confirmed, we quickly finished packing up the van and arrived in Grants Pass late Friday evening. It turned out to be a great idea, and Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast at the hotel and made the 45-minute drive to the Oregon Caves.


I have to say, the rangers at this National Park have to be the friendliest rangers we have ever seen! I was joking with hubby about them being Stepford Rangers, but they went above and beyond the call the day we were there. We didn't know it at the time, but it turned out that they were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Oregon Caves National Monument this weekend. I think they were hoping for a lot more people than actually showed up. The governor was there, and they had free ice cream and cookies!



We signed up for our guided tour of the caves, and while we waited, we listened to a talk about ravens. The ranger had great stories to tell and we learned a lot about corvids: ravens, crows, jays and magpies, which are all related.



The caves were very interesting, albeit not incredibly spectacular. It was about a 90-minute tour through the caves, and our ranger, though very friendly, had a very unique metaphysical slant to her spiel. Touchy-feely sentiments aside, it was an educational tour, and we all enjoyed seeing the formations.



After the cave tour we decided we'd better feed the kids before doing any more hiking. We headed back down the mountain and found out we hadn't missed the free ice cream and cookies. Plus Governor Kulongowski was glad-handing, so the kids got their picture taken with him. That makes the second time Ryan has met the governor! We don't care for his politics, but he sincerely seems like one friendly guy. The ice cream serving turned out to be the size of a dixie cup, so we ate lunch at the cafe there at the park (Tip: Don't eat at the cafe there at the park if you can avoid it.) before heading to the top of the mountain to see what was above all those caverns in the hillside below.



Ryan kind of had a bad attitude about doing more hiking, but once we told him he could get a badge for finishing the hike, he became very enthusiastic about it! There's nothing like a goal or a reward to get him motivated, that's for sure. The hike was lovely, and we got a breathtaking view of the Illinois Valley once we got to the summit.



It had been a long day, but after our hike we went back to the visitor center to finish up some tasks so the kids could get their Junior Ranger badges and the buttons for doing the hikes. The National Park system has a very nice Junior Ranger program, and if you have elementary-age children, you should definitely check it out when you visit any participating National Park!




We were pretty worn out after our long day of exploring, so just as the park was closing we headed back to our hotel room. The kids were dying to get into the pool, so we quickly changed into our swimsuits and went down to play in the pool for a while before bedtime. It was a nice end to a very pleasant day!

Independence Day

We had a lovely evening this year for the 4th of July. It wasn't too hot nor too chilly (yes, sometimes it's actually chilly on the 4th here!), and the skies were clear. We opted to stay home and do fireworks instead of driving to see a big show, especially since some of the big ones were cancelled this year anyway due to budget constraints.


While we waited for the skies to get dark enough for fireworks (usually about 10:00pm), we had some family time in the backyard. We played a game of croquet, and the kids practiced their cartwheels.



We had airplane rides until Mommy was too dizzy to continue. The kids had races and practiced their bridges and somersaults.



We waited and waited. We made silly faces and were just generally acting goofy waiting for it to finally get dark...or at least dark enough to enjoy the fireworks.





Finally it was dusk. We had our fireworks all laid out and ready, and Daddy began his shows. It was short and sweet and even included some drama when a firework tipped over and caught the lawn on fire! But Ryan was ready with a bucket of water and quickly quenched the sparks.





The charred remains the next morning were quickly picked up and discarded, and the lawn doesn't look took badly damaged. It was a fun day!



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What Happened to June?

Wow, I am blown away by how fast this year is flying by. We have so busy with guests, parties, baseball, camping, VBS, and other things that June simply evaportated! So in keeping with my last few months' posts, I am going back and posting all of our June activities and putting a list of them here. I hope to finish our camping trip post today too, but I am not sure that will happen.

End of the Season
BFF
Outing with Daddy
They're Off!

Clarno Unit Camping

We had such a great time exploring the fossil beds in May, that we decided to go back again and camp at the Clarno Unit this time so we can see parts of the National Monument that we didn't get to last visit.


On our drive there we passed hundreds of these huge windmills. I have never seen such big ones before, and when we rolled down the window to take the picture, we could actually hear the arms moving through the air!


We had a very nice site at the almost-abandoned campground. Ryan got right to work destroying a tree stump (ah, boys!) while Abby explored the local flora and fauna.



We took it easy the first afternoon, just settled into our campsite, made some Ziplock ice cream, stocked up on firewood, and explored the meadow and woods and campground.


Ryan was so excited because he found a knife while he was playing in the meadow! We decided he was old enough and responsible enough to keep and use it, and he spent quite a bit of time whittling.


Right after breakfast the first morning, we headed to Wheeler High School in hopes of being able to dig in their fossil bed. The weather was a bit drizzly, and we weren't sure we'd be able to dig or not.



However, when we arrived, we found the paleontologist was there, and she invited to come up by the dig. Because of the damp conditions, we weren't allowed to go into the dig itself, but we hunted for fossils on the hillside. The kids found fossils right away and were so excited.


The paleontologist brought a chunk of rock out of the dig and over to a tarp for us. She showed us how to break away the layers to expose the fossils. But before we could really get going, the rain picked up and she had to cover the dig and we had to leave. However, she was kind enough to give us several big chunks to take home, and the kids had a bucketful of fossils they had found on the hillside.



Since our digging was cut short and it was raining, we decided to tour the Wheeler Courthouse and hope the rain would let up. It was a beautiful old building, and we all enjoyed the tour, which included seeing the jail!


It was about lunch time, so we headed out to some hiking trails and had our lunch by some gorgeous rock formations. The hikes here were really neat because if you looked carefully, you could find fossils embedded in the rocks along the trail.




We tried to keep the hikes shorter than our last camping trip, and I think it was a good choice. The kids were happier with the shorter hikes, though they were still fairly strenuous since they went right up the side of the hill.




It was really neat to see this fossilized tree trunk just sticking out the side of the hill! It was just one of many fossils we saw on the trails.



On our way back to the campground, we did a couple of geocaches. One of them gave us an incredible view of the Clarno Valley.


The next day we explored the town of Wheeler a little bit more. We visited the museum and really enjoyed the schoolhouse portion. We ate our lunch at the picnic table by the schoolhouse before heading back to our campground.




When we got back to our campground we were dismayed to find that it was no longer quiet and empty. Instead a large boy scout troop had arrived, and we were sure it was going to be a long night. Ryan and Abby had fun army crawling through the meadow in order to sneak up on the boys as they were playing football.


Before long Ryan was dying to go play with the scouts. I was hesitant because they were so much older than he, but Daddy thought it would be okay so we told him he could to play. The scout leader graciously allowed him to join in (after getting our permission), and the boys completely altered their game just so Ryan could play.


I just can't tell you how incredible they all were with him! They included him and encouraged him and they were very gentle with him and each other while he was playing. After 20 minutes or so our dinner was ready and Ryan had to leave the game, which then got a lot rougher!


Abby wanted to play too, but she had to content herself with watching from the grass.


That evening I was sorry I had misjudged the scouts so much. At 9:00 it got quiet and we didn't hear a peep from them the whole evening! We found out the next day that the scout leader had made a deal with them that if they would settle down when they were told that he would allow them play football beforehand (which is apparently against the rules for the scouts these days). They were true to their promise, and we were very impressed!


The next morning we had to pack up and go home, but as we were having breakfast the scout leader came over to our camp and surprised each of the kids with a gift. Ryan was given a necklace with a Webelos medallion and they gave Abby a handmade cap, which she looked adorable in. It was such a thoughtful gesture, and we told them how impressed we were with the boys. It was a great way to end our camping trip!