Alone again, Naturally...

June 3, 2013

Tahkenitch Landing Campground

Gardiner, OR

It is the beginning of a new calendar week, but for me it is Friday…!  The weekend was a busy one with the Florence, Oregon, Lions Club hosting their 31^st Annual Bass Fishing Derby on beautiful Tahkenitch Lake.  There were eleven teams/boats for the contest and every team/boat caught some bass.  The winning team, over the day and a half tournament, caught six fish for a total weight of 17 lbs, 12 oz.  The next closest contestant bagged four bass with a total weight of 13 lbs, 15 oz.  The number 11 team caught one fish that weighed in at one pound.  Besides all the bass, the teams also caught trout, perch and crappie.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the trophies were passed around. 

In addition to the fishing tournament, there were some non-participants staying in the campground also.  In fact, this weekend was the most crowded the campground has been since my arrival at the beginning of May.  No fewer than eight campsites were in use this weekend, a regular crowd.  We even had a visitor from British Columbia in the camp.  Wow!

But, alas, by 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, I was alone again, just the motor home (Irv) and me.  The wind was blowing pretty hard on Sunday afternoon and quite hard again yesterday afternoon.  There were white caps on the lake.

The advantage to this location, especially when you are the only person in camp, is that at night, there is no light pollution.  So, on a clear evening, stepping out of Irv for a walk or just to look at the stars is quite spectacular.  The wind normally dies down approaching sunset or just after sunset.  I enjoy the quiet look at the night sky.  The full dark doesn’t come to my location until between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m.  And in the dark sky the stars are very bright.  I could stand (or sit) for hours just looking at the stars.  And if you move down to the boat launch area, you have no trees nearby to block your view.  When there is no traffic on the highway (U.S. Hwy 101), you can hear the surf from the beach beyond the Dunes, almost a mile of horizontal distance west. 

I have some bad news.  Remember the picture I posted last time, the one with the family of geese?  There were two adults and four juveniles.  I had taken the picture about four or five days before my last post.  The geese were very shy around any human.  I would walk around the campground and they would head for the lake as soon as I came into view.  Well, I saw them again last Wednesday evening and the family had lost two of the juveniles.  Mom and Dad were now escorting just two little ones.  I don’t have any idea what may have happened, but there are several Bald Eagles in the area and many other predators, so I would have to guess that something bigger and nastier was at fault.

Irv is parked at the entrance to the campground so that I can be available to anyone who has a question about the campground or directions or questions of any kind.  Irv is parallel to the highway facing north.  This means that as I sit typing this story, I can watch the lake, in all its windy glory.  On these clear days, then, as sunset approaches, Irv is in shadows behind the trees and bushes lining the highway.  Later on, as the sun gets lower in the sky, the shadows move toward the lake.  The Dunes to the west of the highway are substantially higher than the land/trees on this side of the 101.  So, as the sun reaches for the horizon, the trees on the other side of the lake show quite vividly in the setting sun.

This is the beginning of my second month as the camp host here and I have enjoyed each day.  I meet a lot of folks, work with some good people in the Forest Service and have a stunning place to live and work.  If you are planning a visit to Oregon, please don’t hesitate to stop by.  I’ll give you the tour.   

Until next time….

June 4, 2013

Tahkenitch Landing Campground

Gardiner, OR

Ok, it’s next time already.  The juvenile geese I spoke of, well, Mom and Dad were down by the docks near the boat ramp, and the two juveniles that I saw last week have been working out, obviously, because they are more like middle teens now.  Boy have they grown in the last week.  They appear to have almost doubled in height and weight in the last seven days.  They must be living right.  Or at least the surviving juveniles are living right.