Three States

Good morning, my friends. We find ourselves in Klamath Falls, Oregon, this morning. And YAY! We're not home yet, but at least we're in our home state. And forget everything I said yesterday. We had to spend a couple of hours yesterday morning rerouting ourselves when we heard there was a winter weather advisory for the Cascades and the Siskiyous. It will be hazardous trying to get across the mountain passes with that kind of weather, and so we've rerouted ourselves to head north to the Columbia Gorge and then head west toward home from there.

So, let's talk about yesterday's drive. As you might guess, there were lots of barns in all levels of disrepair.

Just about 20 minutes into our drive, we crossed the border from Nevada into California. We would spend all but about the last half hour of our day in California.

And there were more barns.

 

Here, we stopped at a rest stop. On one side of the rest stop, I noticed these two cinder cones. We were not far from Lassen Volcanic National Park, and so seeing this sort of volcanic formation wasn’t at all surprising.

On the other side of the rest area, we could see Honey Lake, a shallow, endorheic (terminal) lake that often dries into alkali flats during summer. As a key remnant of Lake Lahontan, it serves as a crucial birdwatching site for migrating species like cranes and geese, supported by the 7,600+ acre Honey Lake Wildlife Area.

Turning just a bit to the left, we could see a town across the way. Not sure what that is. We were headed in the opposite direction.

There were birds singing here. I couldn’t see the birds, but I noticed this bird house on one of the trees.

Moving on…more barns.

This one tried to hide behind that tree, but it was one of my favorites for the day, and so I’ve included it.

As we left the town of Susanville, we drove up, up, up a hillside. Below, we could see another barn.

At the top of the hill, we had an expansive view of the valley below. That’s Leavitt Lake you see there… a high-altitude alpine lake (approx. 9,500–9,570 ft), known for its rugged beauty, fishing, and camping. Accessible by a 4x4 trail or hiking, it features stunning, glacier-fed scenery, with the best access from July through early fall. 

On down the road, we happened on Eagle Lake. It sits 5100 feet above sea level in northeastern California about 16 miles north of Susanville in Lassen County. It is the second largest natural freshwater lake wholly in California. Having no natural surface outlet, Eagle Lake is a closed basin lake with its water levels fluctuating with variations of inflow. Water surface areas have fluctuated between 16,000 to 29,000 acres with a present area of 26,000 acres. You can see it is shallow at the edges, with tufts of grass poking up through the surface of the water.

Turning more westward, we were treated to this pretty view of Mt. Shasta.

And then…more barns.

Just a few miles from the California-Oregon border, we passed through the little town of Tulelake, California. Having driven this road several times, I was ready with my camera for the structure you see below. It has quilt blocks.

And, I can never get a picture of the whole thing. One of these days, we should park. There might be more quilt blocks on the other side, although I only just now thought of that as I was writing. In any case, I tried to get the quilt blocks on the left side…

I’ve yet to get a good picture. Below is one I took in September of 2024. You can see the whole of the quilt block on the far left

Okay, and then it was just a few more miles until we reached…

Home, sweet home! Here’s the thing: I have lived in seven states, and I have visited all fifty. There’s no place else I’d rather live than Oregon. I realize probably everyone feels that way about their home, and if you don’t, then I wish that for you someday.  

It’s a little different for me since I never had a place to call home when I was growing up. I was born in California, but we moved away before I can even remember. We lived all over. There was a time when someone might ask me where I was from, and I had no good answer. My answer usually was something like, “I’m from everywhere, and nowhere.” 

Many years ago (before Facebook), I joined up with an email group called Military Brats of America. The question of where someone is from came up over and over again until one of the members suggested saying we were from “Samuelsville.” It was a made up place, but I liked that idea. Having lived in Oregon since 1978, I call Oregon home now. When I’m asked where I’m from, the answer is Oregon.

Okay, so the first town one comes to after crossing the border where we did is the little town of Merrill, Oregon.

There’s a good quilt shop in Merrill, called Tater Patch Quilts. I’ve visited a couple of times, and I’m always happy to see they’re still in business, as they were when we passed through yesterday.

You can read my blog post about Tater Patch Quilts right here.

So we're back to reaching home on Thursday, as originally planned. Our next stop will be in Grass Valley, Oregon (not to be confused with Grass Valley, California). Neither of us has been to there, and so we'll be traveling through a part of Oregon where we've never been before. Originally, we'd planned to spend a night in Bend, Oregon, and have dinner with some long-time friends there. That part of the trip is off. Instead, we'll spend tonight in Grass Valley, and then head for home through the Columbia River Gorge. By driving north and heading west through the Gorge, we can avoid all mountain passes.

That’s all I have for you this morning. It’s raining as I’m writing. We’ll be heading out soon, hoping to get an early start. We have about 260 miles to drive today…farther than we like, but it will make for a much shorter drive for the last leg of our journey on Thursday. 

Sparks, Nevada

Good morning, my friends. We’re two days closer to home. We’d intended to travel through Bend, Oregon, on our way home to see some friends there. As turns out, a change in the weather is causing us to reroute. There will be snow in the mountains, and so we’ll need to avoid those mountain passes. That means we’ll head home from tonight’s stop in Klamath Falls, and be home tomorrow afternoon. The kitties are whooping it up right at the moment in celebration, as you might imagine.

As for yesterday’s drive, it was a beautiful day. I’m so glad we were able to head north on US395. I wish we could return home this way every time we make this winter trip, but it’s often too snowy to be safe. The roads were clear for our drive yesterday. As we left Bishop, this was our view.

I took this next image because I wanted you to notice the sharp pinnacles in the mountains there…just below the snowline and spanning the middle portion of the image. It’s a little hard to see in two dimensions, but I’m hoping you can pick them out. 

It reminded us of our trip to Alaska. We had mountains all around us. These next ones were to the east.

As we passed by this frozen water…

we weren’t sure if it was a river or a creek or…as it turns out, it’s a spur off Lake Crowley. The lake is created by the Long Valley Dam for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and is known for trophy trout fishing, boating, and other watersports. 

We like this highway as much for its lack of traffic as for its beautiful scenery. This was our view for much of the day.

At higher elevations, we found beautiful Ponderosa Pines. I love their red bark.

We found more fir trees at even higher elevations…and more snow. Happily, we did not encounter any snow on the roadways.

We were traveling through Mono County, and Bridgeport is its county seat. I could see the courthouse as we approached, but this was the best I could do picture-wise. Shooting out the window of a moving truck doesn’t always allow for good composition. It was a cool building though, as courthouses often are.

I went in search of a better image in the public domain. I liked the one below.

(Image credit: Mono County Courthouse - California by petechar is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

We drove past Mono Lake in Lee Vining, which is at the east end of Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park. Tioga Pass is routinely closed at this time of year because of snow. Mono Lake is a fascinating place, and I would encourage you to click on the link I've given you back there and read a little bit about it.

You might remember the tufa formations we saw when we visited the Trona Pinnacles a while back. (That’s a link to my blog post there.) It's all the same stuff, and although we were hundreds of miles north, we found the same formations. Here, the landscape is still wet. The Trona Pinnacles were at one time in a lake that filled this whole valley. I zoomed in a little here.

Here’s a wider view.

When we were north of the lake we looked back at the stunning view you see below.

Turning my body a little to the left, it looked like this.

Driving on…

We paralleled Walker River for a distance.

The cliffs towering above looked like this:

And I started seeing barns! Oh my goodness. I haven’t seen a barn in ages!

Well, of course, then I started paying more attention.

This actually looks like an abandoned house…or maybe someone lives there…either way. I like this dilapidated old stuff.

After reach about two-thirds of our total distance, we crossed the state line into Nevada.

Not surprisingly, there were more barns and rustic structures there.

We stopped at a “travel plaza” to use their restrooms. While there, I found two shot glasses to add to my collection. Nevada, of course, and Lake Tahoe. We didn’t hit Lake Tahoe on this trip, but we’ve been there before. Now, I have the shot glass.

We were nearing Reno by then…we could see it in the distance. It’s motto: “The Biggest Little City in the World.”

We’re staying in an RV park a couple of blocks from Sparks Marina. It’s a man-made marina, but a nice resource for this community. There were folks playing volleyball. There were no boats on the lake or tied at the slips. A sidewalk surrounded the area, and there was a restaurant across the way.

Mainly we enjoyed the birds. Show me a body of water, and I’ll show you some Canada geese. These two were obviously used to being fed by visitors. They looked me square in the eye and walked up to me as I approached. When I didn’t give them anything, they lost interest in us immediately.

There were a few mallards.

And a few coots.

We leaned our butts against this wall to watch the birds. See all that fluff on the ground? Feathers. We surmise there are feathers all around, and the wind blows them toward this wall where they collect.

When we arrived here, there was a whole colony of gulls out in the lake. Something caused them to flush, and they flew around aimlessly for most of the time we were there. 

Careful…if you have an umbrella, now would be a good time to deploy it.

Eventually they started to settle back down in the water.

And that was our day. We have our longest day of driving tomorrow as we head for home. Today’s drive will have us ending our day in Klamath Falls, in our home state of Oregon. It’s always good to be home, even if we’re not actually home. Soon, though. I am so ready.