It’s been cold on our old bones so far this trip and Oregon isn’t any warmer. In fact the farther north we travel, the colder it gets. We’ve actually been snowed and hailed on a few times along the way. But we do our best to soldier on (ain’t retirement a bitch?!) and see the sights anyway.
There are Wildlife Refuges all around Klamath Falls, OR and we truly meant to take a hike and do some birding in one of them. It was just too nippy and we couldn’t bring ourselves to go brave the cold out in a marsh. We did hike the Link River Nature Trail twice (once from each end) and got some good pictures of ducks and beautiful white pelicans. The seagulls and pelicans surprised us being so far inland but they were in abundance in the Klamath area. The Link River connects Upper Klamath Lake with Lake Ewauna to the south and there’s a neat old pipe that runs along the river that leaks like a sieve. It was hilarious to watch the water squirting out of the pipe as we walked along the trail.
Our second day of rain in Klamath, we decided to do indoor things and headed for a local museum. The Baldwin Hotel Museum was having its opening weekend (it’s only open during the summer months) and offering free refreshments. The Baldwin is a neat old hotel on Main St. that’s now converted to a museum. It served as a hotel from 1906 until 1977 and has four floors of authentic furnishings and artifacts. Ed and I were given a guided tour by a very nice lady volunteer who was very knowledgeable about the history of the hotel, the owners and their families. After the museum tour, we headed in an entirely different direction for entertainment and went to the Modoc Indian Pow-Wow at the local fairgrounds. Inside an auditorium with a dirt floor we watched dances by the Tiny Tots, Golden Agers (senior women), Jr. Girls Fancy (the announcer called them the "heartbreakers"), Jr. Girls Jingle, Jr. Girls Grass and on through Jr. Boys to Teen Boys to the Men’s dances. Listening to the drums and watching the dancers in colorful costumes was a wonderful way to pass a rainy afternoon.
On Sunday, with one day left in Klamath, it was time to venture out to Crater Lake and Ft. Klamath. Crater Lake was the reason we decided to make a stop in the Klamath Falls area and Ft. Klamath was having a Heritage Days encampment of people who like to re-enact the days of the mid-1800s. Our first stop was Ft. Klamath as it was on the way to Crater Lake. We almost passed the fort as we sped along the highway. There was only a couple of tents up and almost no cars parked along the grassy area. Luckily we spied one of the tents, got turned around and went back to find out the scoop. It turns out that one night of extreme cold was enough for most of those hardy re-enacters. We did speak to a man and woman who were sitting around a fire next to an old pioneer wagon. The wagon apparently was an antique about 100 yrs old and had been restored to a very good condition. They were able to tell us some about how people lived in those days and how difficult it was for pioneers to come out west across the plains and mountains. We went into the nearby museum and saw many items displayed that had been used at the fort in its heyday. We finished at the fort and so continued on to Crater Lake. Just after passing the sign saying that we were entering the Crater Lake National Park we began to see snow on the sides of the road. Not too much further and there was snow on each side of the road that was piled up several feet higher than our truck. We were not really appropriately dressed for snow play but figured that we had come this far so we might as well go a little further. After braving the cold, the crowds (it was Memorial Weekend!), and finally finding a parking space, we hiked a short distance up a packed snowdrift to see Crater Lake. Oops! It was an overcast gloomy day and most of the lake was obscured by fog but we saw as much of it as we could. After slipping in the snow in our hurry to get out of the cold and back into the truck, we turned around to head back home as fast as we could.