Trying not to get fired!
Oregon State Parks employs an archeologist that provide education, development and treatment of cultural resources. One of her jobs is surveying the trails on state land for proper land use and avoiding destroying important artifacts. Our host coordinator approached us about hiking with her once a week while at LL Stub Stewart as walking partners since hiking alone is not a good plan and there have been cougar sightings in the park. Recently, a lady, hiking alone, was killed by a cougar in the Columbia Gorge Region.
Nancy started with a tutorial about what she was looking for. Since most of the park is on a mountain slope, she didn't expect any Native American artifacts, mostly found on plateaus and along rivers. But did expect logging artifacts which we did find a few on a ridge used to hold logs from
the valley below for removal on the logging roads. We reached 7 miles and I knew we had 2 1/2 miles to go if we turned around at that point. She began mapping out the next trails we would be walking. I said "Uncle". We offered to wait while she walked up the hill two more times and she could walkout with us. We headed to Ninja Bowl Teriyaki in Banks once we got home, eating the entire bowl. We usually only eat half and have the rest for dinner. The next hike was a short 7 miles round trip. Much better.
All of that walking and our findings were two old rusty cans and two old bottles which really excited Nancy. I was excited to sit down while she took pictures and did her documentation.
Cycling the farm roads during the harvest was a fun way to spend our days off or mornings before we had to do our nature tables. We filled the freezer with blackberries from along the side of the roads.
A stop at Oak Knoll Winery.
We were sure our days as interpretive hosts were limited. I misread the flyer that we handed out in the evening as they would get s'mores at the campfire demo. I soon realized that there would be no s'mores for the kids. We snuck out to avoid the back lash. Ranger Sophie was in for a surprise. Oops!
Perseids meteor shower is a yearly event in August at Stub Stewart, a dark sky location with frequent star gazing parties at the Hilltop Day Use area. The Meteor shower brings out hundreds of people many with giant telescopes. On our first day, Sophie said to let her know if anyone was interested in helping out with crowd and parking control. We thought we were flying under the radar but she caught up with us and we agreed to help out. Our shift would be 8 pm to 11pm. I guess this was a little payback for the s'more incident.
Once the Hilltop parking lot was full, we were to "rove" and radio when there were empty spots. We set up our chairs at the exit and watched the comets blazing throughthe sky losing track of time until an hour later we heard Ranger Ramona anounce on the radio that there was an open spot. Losing track of time, we got up and found people had been leaving and we missed them. We just pretended that they had just left and radioed that we had new openings. Oops. At 1030, I radioed that I was
ready to go home and wouldn't mind a replacement. Good thing we are volunteers or we would be fired for sure.
The bat skeleton at our Nature Table.
Happy Big 70th Birthday to Mike! We had a little party with the rangers and hosts and had a fun visit.
The freezer is full.
We were happy that Mike's daughter, Amanda, completed her 20 weeks of chemotherapy and looks great. She still has surgery and radiation to go. It is a tough journey for her and her family. It is tough knowing what they are going though.
Life is just too precarious and unpredictable.
Since we have a little time before heading to Willamette Mission for our last stop in Oregon, we are heading to Washington's Olympic Penninsula.
