A day at the beach - Oregon style

Rogue River Trail

This year, instead of heading to Hawaii in May as we'd done the last two years, we decided to hit the trail. For the first time in Oregon (which also means for the first time in about six years!). Yes, we'd done some day trips before, but never an extended backpacking trip with tent and overnight stay. So finally, we packed our bags and headed to the Grants Pass area to hike the Rogue River Trail.

After a good 4 hours we made it to Grave Creek, a boat launching area and the trail head. The weather was beautiful (not too hot, not too cold), and all three of us were eager to get started. 

The trail mostly followed the river with small elevation gains and losses throughout. It was extremely well maintained and overall very easy to walk on, even with 45+ pound backpacks. The views were stunning too!

Our camp site for the first night was Horseshoe Bend, a good 11.5 miles in. It was located directly at the river (which made getting water very easy), but which also meant we had to climb down 500 feet along a rather steep trail. Well worth it, though! Even though it is one of the bigger campsites, we had it all to ourselves. It's probably too early in the season? 

Pepper was initially a bit restless after a full day of exercise without nappies, and the unfamiliar tent didn't help either. But after I crawled in with him, and once he realized just how comfy the sleeping bag really is, he settled down nicely. Throughout the night he crawled into my sleeping bag a few times when he got cold (and I appreciated the added warmth too!).

Day 2: Surprisingly, we were hardly sore and felt tip-top and ready to go!

The hike started out with a nice warmup: To get back on the trail we of course had to climb back up the 500 feet. Oh, yes, we could feel our legs! Once on the trail it was easy walking, though, with more great views.

By then, Pepper had also learned what the sound of ziploc bags meant:

"Snacks? Did someone say snacks?"

"Is that a snack? For me??"

Unfortunately, we ran into a problem we hadn't anticipated, at least not to that extend: Ticks. The first day we didn't encounter a single tick. So with our guards down a little, we started the second day without checking occasionally. Big mistake. When I did check a good hour or two in, my legs were covered with crawling, creeping, horrible ticks. YUCK. After a small freakout and frantic tick removal, we made our way down to a small camp site to double check. And that's when I discovered that some ticks had crawled under my shirt and had started sucking on me. Major freakout. No fun at all. Jan got them off me, though, thanks to the Tick Twister. Jan and Pepper had also several on them. From there on out, we removed ticks every few minutes from one of us. No fun at all. Yes, we knew there'd be ticks, but we didn't anticipate an assault like this. I guess all in all we had between 100 and 150 ticks on us over the course of the six hour hike out. At that point we decided to cut it short and head out instead of hiking for two more days with unknown amounts of ticks ahead of us. While we were a bit sad that our trip was already over

it was a good choice. Thank goodness we had the option of heading out: Our goal for the night was the Rogue River Ranch, located at 23 miles, and they had a radio that allowed us to contact the shuttle service to get back to our car. It took them a good two hours to get to us, and another 2.5 hours to get us to hour car, and then another 3.5 hours to get home. It was a long day, but the shower felt so good!

Overall, despite the ticks, it was a great trip, and I am sure we'll do something like this again. My only restriction: When the guide book says "ticks", we will not pick that trail!

Rochester Regalia

Michaela is off saying goodbye to her students at the 2014 Willamette Commencement - her very first opportunity to show off her brand new University of Rochester Regalia - one of the perks of being a fully tenured professor:

Yokohama - 4/21-4/25

I went on a brief trip to Yokohama for a Conference this April - my very first time to Japan!

The experience was rather brief and I didn't catch much outside of the conference center. But I did check into a genuine Japanese Hotel (with a German motto about hospitality no less!) versus the standard international Conference hotel. And that indeed gave me a different perspective on space - here is my hotel room:

These are the two views: from the entrance door and from the window: enough space to sleep and store your carry-on, but anything more would have been a stretch...

Toilets are a little different, too. And you are provided with slippers so that you don't have to walk barefoot or with the same shoes that you use in your hotel room in your bathroom, which is considered fundamentally 'unclean'.

People dress VERY sharply - both men and women. I was noticeably one of the poorest dressed people in my 'west coast business casual' attire walking Yokohama's streets...also, I didn't wear a surgical face mask, which is quite a common sight for various reasons (people are sick, don't want to get sick or have allergies).

One more picture to share: I encountered this sight several times, particularly at the airport. Restaurants showing off their various offerings:

(believe it or not - it's all plastic!)

Dog Mountain - April 12th

As we plan to go backpacking in late May, we figured it worthwhile to have a little practice hike upfront. Dog Mountain is great for that: not too far away and a straight up (elevation gain of ~2800') and down 7 mile trip. It's been 2 years since we hiked there the last time- time flies when you are having fun!

It was quite windy on the final stretch and correspondingly cold. But the view makes up for that.
Pepper got a bit tired on the way back down - so did we...