Into the Woods

Phase two of our epic trip was a journey to the Redwood National Park. This area of extreme northwest California has many state and national forests. The Redwood National Park is more a collection of these forests/parks as opposed to a discrete park.

There are many trails and dirt roads to hike/drive. Due to time constrains, we desided to stay on main routes. U.S. 101 winds through this area, so you can take in much of the views from the car. We did take a scenic route (Newton B. Drury Scenic Pkwy). Along this parkway, we happened upon the Big Tree Wayside.





















This picture shows the Big Tree. We were not disappointed. The paper sign, in front of the tree, states that this tree is 287 feet tall and has a circumference is 68 feet. This tree is approximately 1,500 years old!

Happy Caturday!

The Crater Lake Adventure

Ever been to a caldera? Well, we have! The closest, and most scenic caldera to us is Crater Lake National Park. As our regular readers know we visited Crater Lake two weekends ago (remember this?). Here are some pictures of the Crater Lake area.

Some background... The caldera formed nearly 8,000 years ago when the volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted. The eruption emptied most of the magma chamber, which caused the great collapse forming the caldera. Centuries of rain and snow helped to fill in the caldera with water - forming Crater lake.
















To the north of Crater Lake is the Pumice Desert. Mount Mazama ejected hot ash over this area, probably killing all the indiganous life. Thousands of years later the area still as yet to fully recover. Most of the areas to the west and south of Crater Lake have fully restored pine forests, but not this area. Few trees and vegetation have returned.

The steep edges of the crater.




























In the background you can see Wizard Island. This cinder cone volcano formed after Mount Mazama blew and collapsed.





















Seven miles from the crater, these interesting formations were created. Volcanic vents formed in the ash deposits. The super-heated gas melted parts of the ash to form pillars. The rest of the ash was eroded away to leave these mostly hollow tubes.
















Native American tales tell of crayfish monsters grabbing gazers of the lake and pulling them in. We can see were the tale may have originated - one could get lost taking in the sites and inadvertently take one too many steps towards the lake. If you ever go, be careful of the edges.

Two Parks for the Price of None

Last weekend, the National Park Service offered free admission to over 100 National Parks. That offer gave us a great excuse to head down to Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest. It also gave us an excuse to go camping again. In future posts we will talk specifically about Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest. In this post we'll talk about everything in between.

In all, we logged over 900 miles in two days. Fortunately, we're no strangers to long distance driving (see here, here, and here). We went from the farms of the Willamette Valley, to the Cascade Range, the Redwood Forest to the scenic Oregon Coast. The map to the left shows our path, a la Indiana Jones (only it's not animated).





Originally, we were only going to head down to Crater Lake, spend the night nearby, and come back home. This would have gotten us back to home base by 4pm and really would have made for a short adventure. Fortunately, we called an audible and decided to head to California. We're glad we did.
















Our jumping-off point on the second day of exploration was the Joseph H. Stewart Recreational Area. Being just an hour southwest of Crater Lake, it made sense to use this state park for an overnight stay. This was a nice, full service park (running water, showers, etc.) located on the Lost Creek Reservoir. The beautiful Rogue River feeds the reservoir and offered scenic views during a portion of our trip.

From J.H. Stewart, we headed to Grants Pass, OR. This metropolis of 30,000 people, nestled in the Cascades, was the gateway to the path to the Redwood Forest. U.S. Route 199 was our official path. We have never been on a curvier or more scenic road. Unfortunately, the driver was too busy keeping his eyes on the road and having a death grip on the wheel to fully appreciate this section of the trip.
















The trip down U.S. 199 was harrowing, so we opted not to take that route back after the Redwood Forest. Instead, we took the 101! U.S. Highway 101 jumps in and out of pine trees yielding stretches of awe inspiring ocean beaches and rocky outcrops. Here are some pictures around Arch Rock in Oregon (near Brookings, OR).

















U.S. Highway 101 does not go directly to Portland, so we figured there would be some inter-coastal range hopping, eventually. Night had fallen by this time, so we couldn't get pictures of that stretch.

Check back soon for specific write-ups about Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest.

Happy Caturday!

We Learned a New Brew Trick!

It's time to dry hop! Our latest brewing adventure takes us to the world of pale ales. Much of the popularity of pale ales revolves around the layering of hop flavors. Our friendly neighborhood home brew store suggested we dry hop for this batch of beer.

Dry hopping allows you to add more aromatic hop layers without increasing the bitterness of the beer. Dry hopping is often used when brewing pale ales and IPAs.

For home brewing, the best time to dry hop is during the secondary fermentation period (see our fermentation post). While boiling our wort, we set aside 1 oz of Cascade hops. We made sure to seal our dry hop hops in a baggie and store that baggie in the fridge. When we racked to the secondary, after 2 weeks, we added the extra hops.



When dry hopping Make sure to use a grain sock or nylon bag to keep the hops together. You don't want to have to strain out the hops later (unless you have some filtration procedure, which we do not). It is important to use a sanitized 'hop holder' so you don't introduce 'bugs' to the beer. Once you are done with the secondary fermentation, just toss (garbage, compost, etc.) the hops.

Happy Caturday!

Best Baguette

I was first introduced to the Vietnamese sandwiches, known as Banh Mi, while living in Oklahoma City. It took some convincing from several co-workers before I was brave enough to cast aside my daily PB & J and venture to Saigon Baguette (aka Milk Bottle Sandwiches) for my first ever taste of the glorious Banh Mi sandwich - it was love at first bite. These sandwiches vary slightly from store to store but generally they are comprised of thinly sliced pickled carrot and daikon, cilantro, chili peppers, some kind of sauce, and meat or tofu all in a soft but chewy french baguette roll. I enjoyed several variations of these sandwiches at various restaurants in Oklahoma City, but Saigon Baguette was by far my favorite. I also should note that these sandwiches are usually priced around $2 or $3, which makes for a great cheap meal. So when we left Oklahoma City for the bright lights (ok, light rains) of Portland, I was sad to say goodbye to Saigon Baguette, and hoped that I would be lucky enough to find a new Bahn Mi to fill the void.

Well my wish was granted when one day while driving to the library I saw sign that said it all...Best Baguette. I mean come on! That is a bold statement and I knew I had to see if in fact it was the best. So we stopped in for a lunch one day. I ordered the vegetable sandwich with tofu and Peter order the grilled pork sandwich. The sandwiches are pretty darn good, not sure if they are the best because I'll always be partial to Saigon Baguette, my first Banh Mi love. Best Baguette bakes their own baguettes so the bread is always fresh and few times we have been lucky enough to have sandwiches on very fresh, still warm bread. They load their sandwiches with lots of veggies and meat/tofu, so the sandwich itself is plenty to make a meal. The sandwiches are all under $3 (take that Subway) and worth every cent. We do hope to keep trying various Banh Mi restaurants in the area, but for now Best Baguette is our favorite.

Trek In The Park

Over the weekend we decided to boldly go where no man has gone before. Ok that's not totally accurate several men, women, and even children have been here before but we haven't, so we boldly went where we had never been before. Anyway I digress, we ventured to the east side of Portland to witness a massive gathering of nerds known as "Trek In The Park". "Trek In The Park" was the brainchild of the Atomic Arts group founded by local Portlanders. For 3 weekends they put on a live rendition of a classic Star Trek episode. This year they brought the episode Space Seed to Woodlawn park. If you are unfamiliar with this Star Trek episode or simply need a reminder wikipedia has a great write up of the episode here (gotta love nerds). To put it simply, Space Seed is the episode where Kirk and Khan first meet. Their cast was small but very talented, and you could tell that the actors as well as the audience were having fun. It was super crowded, and kind of hard to see. So if we go back next year we will try to get there earlier to stake out a better viewpoint. "Trek In The Park" is just so Portland (white and nerdy), and we are so lucky we get the opportunity to experience it. Below are a couple of pictures we took (the lighting wasn't great), and then a list of the cast members.