#27 Antelope Camp Ground-Sage Hen Reservoir


You may have noticed that we’ve been looking for and hanging around reservoirs. We like to find bodies of water particularly when traveling in dry high desert environments like southeastern Oregon. So we are on our way to Sage Hen Reservoir in Gem County, Idaho. Now why the heck would we be trekking hundreds of miles eastward across Oregon just to find another dang lake? 

Well, I’m glad you asked. We have three good reasons: Our best Nevada City buddies, Cat and David, will be at this lake in the West Mountains of Boise National Forest northeast of Boise and Cokie has two friends that she babysat when they were tiny children. Sabrina lives up in the Idaho panhandle near St. Maries and her older sister, Ann-Scott, lives in Spokane, WA. just across the border.The plan is to meet Cat and David for a few days of camping together before they head out to hook up with a white water touring company to kayak the Salmon river across Idaho. David is an avid kayaker and has used the company for years but this is the first time Cat will be drifting with him during the entire run. She will be in one of the tour rafts holding her breath while David runs the rapids! Sage Hen Reservoir is perched at an elevation of 4900 feet among towering Ponderosa pine, Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir and Grand fir. There are plenty of berries to pick and the wildlife includes deer, elk, black bear, goshawk, woodpeckers and boreal owls. The campground host came by one evening to let us know that a large wolf had been spotted in the area. Ah! Nature! Now the real adventure actually began as soon as we turned off of highway 55 at the gravel forest road. We unhooked the Honda tow car and began our trek into the forest with Kae driving the Pod and Cokie behind driving the Honda. Now suffice it to say that in some 123,000+ miles we’ve had our share of washboard gravel roads but this 14 mile doozie was the worst yet. Hair pin turns, bad signage, backtracking, several “discussions” and dust, dust, dust made us about 2 hours later than expected. Cat and David were very, very worried that we weren’t going to show up and they were thinking of packing up to go to a comfortable hotel. Well, ha ha, the intrepid Bedouin Broads showed up, worse for wear and ready for wine and whine! 

We loved our short time in this green, lush forest with these sweet people but kayaking was calling to them and we were anxious to head north to visit Sabrina & Ann-Scott who we hadn’t seen for 14 years!

Crazy ride!

David asked me to take some pictures of the reflection without showing the trees. 

The patterns were made by changes in light, wind and a few ducks passing through. 

#26 Bully Creek Reservoir County Park

Bully Creek Reservoir is located ten miles west of Vale, Oregon. It was constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1963 and is operated by the Vale Oregon Irrigation District. When full it covers 1000 acres and holds 30,000 acre feet of water.

This park is operated and maintained by Malheur County since 1966 and it consists of 40 campsites. The camp and day use areas have about 14 acres of lawn and trees. 

I must say this is not one of the prettiest lakes we’ve been around but it certainly was a nice respite from the high desert sagebrush we’d been looking at for the past 147 miles since leaving Chickahominy Reservoir! You kinda take your chances when traveling through arid areas in the western states if you want to stay near any water. Turned out this is quite a popular spot for some of the locals. We met a sweet little couple from Ontario, OR who had been coming to Bully Creek Park for some 35 years! They commented that they had seen it when it was bare ground and had watched when trees and grass plus other improvements were done over the years .They felt they had sorta seen the park “grow up.” 

We spent lovely moments watching the sunsets as ducks, eagles even gulls would flit and fly, hang and hunt, then simply float. Some settled on the lake while others came ashore to hunker down or flew into trees to grasp a branch, all becoming sweetly silent at the time the last colors of the sunset turned to soft gray tones. We all rested well and felt refreshed after four days of soft nature.

#25 Chickahominy Reservoir

We left Etna and the beautiful, fertile Scott Valley area and scooted, perhaps we should say jetted, northeast to Bend OR and the Chickahominy Reservoir between Bend and Burns, OR. Our destination was Boise, ID by the 14th of July in order to meet David and Cat, a sweet couple from Nevada City on an adventure of kayaking the raging rapids of the Salmon River. Chickahominy is a placid, shallow lake created in 1951-2 with private funds for irrigation purposes. In 1970 it was acquired by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for sport fishing and has turned into one of the best fishing spots in southeast Oregon. It is a dry, arid area of bare hills and sagebrush but fairly quiet and restful; just what we needed during this rush to meet our friends.

Enroute to Chickahominy Reservoir

Chickahominy Reservoir

#24 Etna CA-Scott Valley

We decided to head west from Westwood to deliver Kae’s bike to its new owner Katherine Pollack in the little town of Etna over in the beautiful Scott Valley area of Siskiyou County, northwestern California. This is a rich farming and ranching region of large hay fields and distant ranges such as the Marble Mountains. Etna proved to be a sweet little town of around 700 people with many murals on its Main Street stone and brick storefronts. Bruce and Katherine live just outside of town in a lovely home they built themselves. They are family oriented, fun-loving and fabulous cooks! We were treated to a home cooked meal straight out of Kae’s memories of her  farm and ranch summers in Montana: grilled chicken, grilled corn, grill baked potatoes and a pasta salad (not grilled!). Everything smothered in rivers of melted butter and mountains of mayonnaise! Yes! Carbs, calories and cholesterol! So darn good and so darn bad! After dinner we concluded our electric bike sale along with the double bike cover, helmet, tool kit and lots of hugs and thanks.

We now knew we had to hustle to make it all the way up and across Oregon to the forests near Boise, ID to meet up with our lovely friends Cat and David by July 14th.

This is Lupin who was our neighbor in the RV park we stayed in. 3/4 Wolf & 1/4 Huskie. Very sweet but she looked at Tara like she was a snack. Sort of creeped me out.

 

#23 Enroute to Etna Via McCloud

We left our beautiful meadow in Westwood with the thought of camping in a national forest near McCloud on our way to Etna. Great idea, bad planning. It was a weekend but not just any weekend. It was Memorial Day Weekend. What were we thinking? Of course the answer is NOT! Needless to say, but I will anyway, EVERY campground was full. So now what? We just started looking for interesting forest roads where we might find dispersed camping.

We actually found an interesting paved road which led to what looked like a National Forest maintenance area. There was a large metal building and huge parking area with no one around so that became our camp spot for the night. Worked out fine. We got to see beautiful views of Mt. Shasta and McCloud. Life is good…..  

#22 Duck Lake, Westwood CA

We have a favorite camping place in Northern California near Susanville, not far from a funky old lumber town named Westwood. Our wandering spirits longed to be nurtured in Nature in a very quiet, private place with few if any other people. Ah ha, Duck Lake would be perfect! We’ve camped here several times over the past few years and relish the quiet beauty and history of the place. We first stayed here in 2009 when Kae’s Sister Jeannie and brother-in-law Ron were members of a draft horse and mule club who were recreating a wagon train traveling an 1860’s supply wagon road from Westwood, CA to Silver City, Idaho. They rendezvoused in this meadow and we followed the wagons for many miles filming, photographing and interviewing the members. Cokie created an hour and a half long movie of this adventure for each member of this club. A few years later we came back with RV buddies for a stay and just fell in love again with the spirit and quiet of the meadow and the forest around it. This time in June we set up camp with all of the trimmings: BBQ, awning, shade cloths, our dog’s corral, patio rug, lounge chairs, snack tables, garbage can, then wondered why we brought so much stuff with us! As the days passed by the winds became stronger and stronger causing us to spend hours with spikes, tie downs, rocks, any and everything we could think of to provide enough shade and wind protection. We were crossing our fingers every time we went into Westwood to shop or pickup mail that the awning would still be attached to the Pod when we returned! Not exactly conducive to rest and relaxation, ya think? Just when we thought we had things pretty well in hand, two things happened: 65, yes 65 cows and calves showed up one morning! Surprise, Ladies! They were as curious about us as we were about them. It was a very mixed herd in terms of breeds, colors and sizes. It was fun to watch the subtle communications and movings about the meadow. They actually were kind of calming in they’re slow deliberate ways and the antics of the many calves were quite charming and even funny.They  stayed around for nearly the entire time we were there. The second happening was a drain clog somewhere in the grey water line of the Pod. It meant we could not drain any water out of the sink! Inconvenient to say the leastI Plus there seemed to be some kind of leak under the rig. None of it made any sense. So blessed Cokie crawled under to see what she could see. Not much. Plug-up? Leak? Nothing made any sense but we spent hours trying to figure it out. 

Because we were committed to delivering Kae’s bike to the new owners over in Etna near Yreka, we packed up, plug, leak and all and headed out…..

Do you remember these Nancy? Still on the road with us!

Our favorite place for home made soft ice cream. YUM!