Labor Day Weekend Adventure

 This past weekend I drove up the coast on Highway 101 all the way to Gold Beach, Oregon where I met up with my little brother, Jaymin, who came down from Portland.  Gold Beach just happens to be approximately six hours between Santa Rosa and Portland which made for a nice "let's-meet-in-the-middle-and-camp-somewhere" weekend trip.    We spent most of Saturday exploring forest service roads and found a nice waterfall/swimming hole and enjoyed the nature and adventure of exploring new places without a map - always exciting.    Sunday we were planning on spending the day at the coast BUT it was super foggy and freezing cold so we went on a search for Hunt's Cabin.  Our first attempt we ran out of gas so we came back, took a picture of the wall map at the visitor's center (because we didn't have a map and the visitor center 'guide book' was a joke....horrible directions not even worth the paper the book was printed on), filled up the car and started out again.   This time we found the right roads with my amazing map reading skills. 

 We took several detour trips up random side forest service roads thanks to the ever popular Joseph family phrase "Ooo that looks interesting.....let's see where this road goes."    We went up to the top of some mountains and through some redwood forests, over a couple streams, around the bends, etc. etc. until we reached the right road for Hunt's Cabin - an old mining site - about 4 hours later.  We maybe got half a mile down the road before we had to turn around because we finally reached a tree that was too big to drive the car over and couldn't be moved.  Unfortunately neither of us thought to get/bring a chainsaw so we had to end that adventure since (with our horrible direction map) we weren't sure how far a "let's walk there" trip would be since the "several miles" description was very vague.  So we turned back. 

 The drive was nice so we really didn't mind the four hour trip and then the one hour drive back (much faster without as many side trips).

 Although we had lots of good scenery and laughs along the way.

 Wheezer even got in on the fun and started attempting to imitate Jaymin's facial expressions from her perch in the backseat atop the luggage. 

 Where we went, up and down and all around. 

 After our road trip adventure to no where...we went back to the beach where it was still Foggy now at 2:00pm.   We hiked the beach anyways - probably a mile but it felt like we walked forever and ever and ever. It's amazing how having limited visibility makes things seem so much longer than they really are.

 Yeah - Wheezer's still attempting to imitate Jaymin's facial expressions.....

 Hi Kate!  We had several Kate (Jaymin's girlfriend) phone calls to check in.  This was on our "we are driving again" because the "guidebook map" had once again misled us.  Trust me, If we would have had another map we would have used it but we only had the faulty one so...a faulty map is not always better than no map. 

 After heading back up and washing our hair in the waterfall/swimming hole that we found on Saturday (which was chilly but not freezing cold), we finally started taking random roads again just because the map was telling us to take random things anyways.  We drove the car along the "beach" of the Rouge River and had a skipping rocks contest. 

 Jaymin naturally won the rock skipping contest. . .I made a few unsuccessful plops and then withdrew my entry claiming I had "poor form" due to my previous surgeries, torn shoulder muscles, etc. etc.  He always wins anyways so.........at least I still try. 

 Then Wheezer decided to run down the beach and chase off about a dozen large vultures from some kind of dead animal (the vultures are already gone in the picture but you can see her little glowing yellow head in the middle of the rocks if you look very closely).  Jaymin apparently thought my pathetic attempts to whistle and call her back were hilarious and frequently reminded me as I ran after her down the beach that the money I am spending on doggy obedience classes is really paying off........I was not impressed.  Not with the jokes or Wheezer's lack of ability to listen when given the opportunity to chase birds and attempt to eat dead animals and/or roll in them.

 But.....I prevented the rolling in and eating dead animals this time and got to her first.  She could have looked a little bit more repentant instead of so indignant but hey....at least we didn't have to try to give her a bath.  

 So then it was about 5pm and the beach was still foggy and cold and our map had failed us one to many times to be trusted which equals........we ran out of things to do.  So we went to the "virgin woods" and hiked the loop informative trail.   Let me tell you, this is quite the thriller of a trip and one you should most definitely take next time you happen to be near Gold Beach.  Should not be missed.  Jaymin (below) had the "informative map" and acted as tour guide as we walked through points of interest such as #1 rotting fallen logs that were thrown there after they decided they weren't of high enough quality to be used for anything or #3 dead trees or #4 fallen dead trees or #6 tangled up decaying dead trees or #9 dead trees that the indians used to use for something.   There were a few rather large partially living "virgin" trees which made it somewhat interesting.  It was very peaceful and quiet and was a nice little walk but we weren't to impressed. 

 Wheezer wasn't impressed either - not with the trees - or the hike - or her boots.  She didn't really need the boots but since they came to late to use on my Colorado vacation in August I thought I'd take them and try them on this trip. 

We ended up back at our campsite where after multiple games of Rummy, which Jaymin cheated at always claiming he was the winner we got out the Ipad and played some Life. Poor Jaymin the computer must have known he was a cheater during Rummy because he lost every game, of course I felt horribly and was a very good sport about the whole thing. 

So that was our short little one 1/2 day adventure.  We got up early this morning and came back home - back to the mundane existence that is real life -work, work, work and more work.  At least we have our next adventures to look forward to...........maybe surfing and snowboarding over Thanksgiving...............never know what tomorrow will bring.