mohaus: March 2021

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 13 (Goodbye Oregon, Hello California)

A driving force for this trip out west was to meet up with my sister and her family. She is currently a travel nurse doing a contract in southern Oregon. We started making plans and then got our brother involved. A trip that was originally going to be to southern New Mexico ended up being to southern Oregon instead. We drove with our camper 2,600 miles to meet them. My brother flew. We spent five full days together exploring the region my sister currently lives in. We played in the snow on a frozen lake, we visited the deepest lake in the US, we crawled through caves, we hiked to a waterfall, we prodded our kids through a river canyon and over a giant rock formation on a trail named Misery. We had the best time. I’m so thankful for siblings who love to adventure, and who enjoy doing it together. My brother left two days ago and we will be heading out later today to complete the rest of our trip. I’m so glad we all made the effort to do this. We have made memories to last a lifetime. I can’t wait until we meet up to adventure together again.

We still have lots of adventure in front of us on this trip, but I’m pretty confident that a week adventuring with cousins will always be the gold standard for the best kind of adventure. The kids were sad to say goodbye and are planning when we can meet up again.

Day 13, we were back on the road today. We slept in, packed up, spent a final hour at Moore Park in Klamath Falls before saying our goodbyes to family and heading further west. During our time in Oregon, we drove an additional 900 miles. After today’s drive, we have made it to the west coast and have driven a total of 3,800 miles. So far, Northwest California has been narrow mountain roads next to fast flowing rivers, similar in some ways to East Tennessee. We drove through giant redwoods as we arrived at our campground at dark. They are jaw-droppingly big. We can’t wait to see them in daylight. Our campsite has some giant stumps and the kids can’t wait to explore when it is daylight. I think we are going to enjoy our time among these giant trees.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 12 (Oregon)

Day 12 was more low key for us. We slept in, did some school work, did laundry, then took the kids sledding at Annie’s Creek. It was icy and slushy thanks to recent warm afternoons, but the kids still had a good time. We are soaking in our last 24 hours with cousins.

Monday, March 29, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 11 (Smith Rock in Oregon)

It's our 11th day of our trip and we got up and drove to Bend to visit Smith Rock State Park. It was pretty epic! Stunning views. We hiked a little over five miles on the Misery Ridge Trail. We started in the river canyon before making our way up past Monkey Rock and over Smith Rock. It was challenging and miserable but amazing. And we all did it. It might have taken some “angry” hiking for one or two littles but angry hiking is better than whiny hiking! It was a beautiful day and I’m grateful to be spending this time with my siblings. My brother ended his time with us after the hike and our family has a couple more days left in this area.

We had such a fun (and tiring) day hiking at Smith Mountain State Park today. The kids were troopers and did a 5 mile loop, including the Misery Trail right over the top of the ridge. It was rated Extremely Difficult, but they did it with minimal complaining.

This was our 24th hike in 2021 (24/52) and we walked 6 miles next to a river and up over a mountain on a trail called Misery. This brings us to 70 miles hiked this year.

Sunday, March 28, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 10 (Watson Falls in Oregon)

This morning we got up and drove north to hike to Watson Falls — at 272 ft high, it’s the third tallest waterfall in Oregon. It was so green and beautiful. Huge old growth trees and cold spray from the water. This is what I will think of when I think of Oregon.

This was our 23rd hike in 2021 (23/52) and we walked 2 miles through several different caves. This brings us to 64 miles hiked this year.

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 9 (Lava Beds in California)

We made it over to Northern California and spent the day at Lava Beds National Monument. The kids all got another Jr. Ranger badge. We went into Mushpot, Golden Dome and The Boulevard and Balcony Caves, and also froze in the Merrill Ice Cave. Kids voted The Boulevard and Balcony as their favorite because they got to pop out at different points under the lava bed. Golden Dome was my fave with the ceiling lit up to look like greenish gold. It was a fun day. We are all beat. Walking on hardened lava is much more difficult than the mud and limestone caves we are used to back home.

This was our 22nd hike in 2021 (22/52) and we walked 2.5 miles through several different caves. This brings us to 62 miles hiked this year.

Friday, March 26, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 8 (Crater Lake in Oregon)

We spent the morning at Crater Lake with family. It was a gorgeous day to be up there. Thankfully we went early and missed the crowds. Daniel and I visited here back in 2005 in the summer. Loved coming back with our kids and exploring from the south entrance in the snow. We got out park stamp here but will have to mail in for our Jr. Ranger badge later since their program is currently suspended due to COVID.

Day 8 of our trip had a rocky start. The boys woke me up at 5am saying they couldn’t stop shivering. Evidently our heater had stopped working in the middle of the night. It got down to 21 last night, so a little chilly! Electric blankets have been the MVPs of this trip, but the boy’s blankets weren’t on. So when the heat stopped, they froze. We were supposed to get up early and go to Crater Lake this morning, but we weren’t sure if Daniel would get it fixed in time to go. We set a goal of leaving by 9:30am and thankfully D got the heat working in time to go to Crater with us — after a lot of troubleshooting, he discovered there was fuzz blocking a switch inside the heater. Crater Lake was a fun day trip, we are all a little sunburned though.

This was our 21st hike in 2021 (21/52). Though not on an official trail, we walked 2.5 miles in the snow around the south rim of Crater Lake. This brings us to 59.5 miles hiked this year.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Moores Go West: Day 7 (Lake of the Woods in Oregon)

We have had a good start to our time in Oregon. We went to Lake of the Woods where we spent the afternoon playing on the frozen lake. It is so fun to do this with my brother, and my sister and her family.

Building a 6+ foot snowman on top of the frozen lake with Uncle Mark.

We spent most of our time at Lake of the Woods building an igloo put on the snow. It was a group effort. We stopped to eat lunch (the boys ate in the half finished igloo). While there it went from sunny to snowy and back to sunny and then windy and frigid. The kids stuck with it and finished by the time we were ready to leave. Then the boys had a blast knocking it over!

Day 7 of our trip and our first full day in Oregon. We did a grocery run. Grabbed coffee from a local place (Dutch Bros.) then headed up to Lake of the Woods for the day (see last three posts). We wore ourselves out having snowball fights, building a gigantic snowman and an igloo. The boys voted the igloo as the best part of the day. Isaac said he wants to come here every winter and that it was totally worth driving for six days to get here. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry while Daniel ran some errands in town. We ended the night with my brother-in-laws amazing fajitas and a movie.

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