Day 2 TheBeanTeam celebrates 15 Years of Bean Teaming

Mr. Bean woke up early to do some sightseeing and benchmarking while Mrs. Bean slept in a bit. She never gets to do the sleeping in thing so it is a true vacation whenever it happens.

The Port Orford dock had many benchmarks listed in a relativity small area so I headed there to see what I could find. I was able to locate only  of the marks around the dock because the dock had been rebuilt in the early 2000's either destroying or covering over many of the marks. Still the four finds were fun and unique with views of the ocean that were stunning. One fascinating thing about this dock is that all of the fishing fleet's boats are lifted out of the water each night and stored on the dock itself. A huge crane using a sling bring each boat out of the water after each excursion. The Port of Port Orford web site claims this is the only "dolly dock" on the west coast.

After a morning of exploration I headed back to the house for breakfast where we planned our day. First we headed over to Battle Rock State Park for a stroll on the beach. After weeks of rain the weather was perfect.

Next we headed over to Port Orford Head State Park where we visited the Port Orford Lifeboat Station museum and hiked every trail available in the area. Stellar views, spring flowers, seals on the rocks below, perfect weather, all a gift to commemorate our 15th year.

After hiking we grabbed a snack and tried for a walk at Tseriadun State Recreation Area on Agate Beach but the wind was whipping the sand up with stinging force so after a  quick geocache find we headed south a bit to see a roadside attraction called Prehistoric Gardens. Actually more interesting in real life than I expected. I always think these kind of places are a bit "cheesy", this one just wasn't as cheesy as I thought it would be.

On a whim we called my brother and he met us for dinner in Bandon. We found six geocaches along the way. The best being the Tseriadun Cache on Agate Beach simple because we enjoyed the container.

After dinner we made our way back to our nest for the night and enjoyed a restful evening and a beautiful sunset.

Day 1 TheBeanTeam celebrates 15 Years of Bean Teaming

On June tenth we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary with a trip to the coast. We stayed in Port Orford where we hiked, geocached, walked the beach, visited an off beat roadside attraction and rested.

It was a glorious weekend. We left the kids with friends and took the dog heading out on Thursday after work for a vacation rental house overlooking the Oregon Coastline from a distance.

We stopped for a few brief walks on the trip over to the coast. First we stopped in at Archie Knowles Campground to allow the dog a short walk. Of course we had fired up the GPS to see it there was a geocache before we pulled in. Mrs. Bean made quick work of finding the cache and as soon as we were all refreshed and rested we headed on over to Florence where we turned south.

Mrs. Bean thought she heard something odd with the van so we pulled off to see what the sound was. I couldn't hear it but it happened that we were at the Oregon Dunes Overlook where we enjoyed our first view of the ocean during our trip along a pleasant little boardwalk. We would have liked to take off hiking but  needed to be several hours south before it got to late.

We pulled into Coos Bay and had romantic bite to eat in the parking lot of Fred Meyers. We splurged and got Arby's....hey it was an anniversary trip. Nothing but the best for TheBeanTeam. The rest of the trip was quick and uneventful and we found our home away from home without trouble where we spent the evening getting settled and unwinding.

Mt June Hike

Today we headed out for a quick hike in the Willamette foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range. It was a perfect day in the 70’s and we just wanted to get out and about. The drive was a bit longer than we anticipated so we got on the trail pretty late in the afternoon. When we were pulling up the last hill to the trailhead we encountered a hiker coming out from the hike we were embarking on. We inquired about the trail and he said “No problem”. Then we said “Well we have kids….” and after he had glanced in the back he said “Don’t expect to summit but the first half of the trail is great, after that the next part is pretty steep” “It’ll be worth it hiking through the forest even if you don’t make it to the summit.”

So we started out without a lot of confidence that we would make it all the way and set a time limit for when we would assess where we were and then decide to either go on or turn back.

Mt June is the site of a former lookout tower that has wonderful views to the north & east and tantalizing glimpses of the valleys to the south and west. The hike has a modest elevation gain of 900 feet in a little over a mile. Round trip is 2.4 miles in beautiful Douglas fir forest. The first .07 miles gains elevation gradually but the final .05 is a steep climb. The rock outcrop of Mount June’s summit is the highest in the area at 4618 feet.

When we reached the junction to the steeper climb we decided that we would continue on for another fifteen minutes then decide if we could summit safely without putting us in danger of being in the woods after dark. We had a pair of headlamps but still didn’t want to be caught after dark with the kids and the dog on a steep back trail. The Bean Himself kept pushing ahead. He really wanted to make the top so we had to ask several times for him to wait. By this time Mr. & Mrs. Bean were switching off packing The Sprout and feeling the effects of the climb. By the time our fifteen minutes were up we had made good time and had reached an overlook to the west that still had a small snow field below it. We rested and then decided to forge ahead and we were glad we did. There is something special about stepping out onto a peak with a spectacular vista spreading out before you. Mt June offers this same wonder with views of Diamond Peak and on clear days many other Cascade peaks. The only one visible today was Diamond Peak in the east and portions of the Calapooya Mountains to the south. Every thing else trailed off into “purple mountains majesty”. We spent time at the summit resting, enjoying the view, taking photos and keeping a tight reign on the kids because of the drop off. We even were able to "find" a benchmark that was located at the peak

About a third of the way down we realized we had left our water bottle at the summit. This really distressed The Sprout who couldn’t fathom leaving something behind that belonged to us, “someone might take it”. Of course if someone makes it up there before us they are welcome to it. The aluminum water bottle left on one of the remaining lookout tower supports is a gift from us to them. We made it down the mountain just after sunset and in the twilight I swung in to grab a photograph of the Dexter Lake Club.

The Dexter Lake Club was made famous as a location featured in the movie Animal House and I wanted to waymark it in a few waymarking categories.

Skinners Butte

Eugene has many great resources for families. One is a great parks system. Tonight we met friends at Skinners Butte Park for dinner and a hike up the butte. Skinners Butte Park was originally a Civilian Conservation Corp (3C's) camp that performed work in Lane County back in the late 1930's. The members of the Corp created most of the infrastructure of the park by planting trees, building rock walls,  picnic benches and this out of place rock chimney. We hiked up to the butte overlook to take in the view of Eugene.
We spent some time enjoying the butte, its views and history then took a different route back down going past the Skinner's Butte Columns. The columns were swarming with climbers today and we took a few extra minutes to watch the climbers make their ascents. Then we headed back over to Riverplay for dinner and a chance for the kids to exert some more energy in the playground.

Geocaching: May 8th

We were in the park for a friends birthday get together and I threw on my canoe just in case we could get out on the water. After the singing and gift giving I offered rides in my canoe. One of our friends kids wanted a ride. It would have been her first canoe ride so we get all set to head out and I make about 5 strokes out into the little bay area there on the east side of the park when off in the distance I see lightning hit the hillside. Well I don't want to have my son and another persons kid out on the water in a lightning storm so I turn around and head back in with thunder rolling across the water from the distance pushing us along. Our friends little girl is apparently afraid.....very afraid of lightning and thunder and was begging me to hurry back to land. Her total canoe ride lasted less than a minute.

I got our kids in the car and waited out the rain story while many of the other kids and parents played Frisbee in the downpour. After some time all of our friends got cold and started packing up and soon we were the only ones left sitting in the parking lot. We were listing to a story on the radio so the kids were fine but finally we put a time limit on our stay. Amazingly it cleared off and in less than ten minutes after our last friend pulled out the rain stopped and glorious sunshine broke through the clouds. It was still a little choppy but The Bean Himself and I headed out to test the water. By the time we got around the point to the little bay where the marina is it was calm again. We paddled around a bit and then Mrs Bean and The Sprout walked over and brought my GPSr along. I knew about the cache around so took the opportunity to go looking for it.

Well we honed in on the basic area and The Bean Himself got out and walked over to where I thought the hide might be. First he picked up a yellow Pennzoil oil bottle. He asked "Could this be the cache"?, Uhm..nope. Then he found it right away. This is where it got interesting. I pulled the canoe up to rocks and he passed me the cache "Swimmer". I put my oar down and opened the container to find it half full of water. Paper and trinkets floating in lake water. So I can't leave it that way and put my hand over one side of the mouth then dump it out over the edge of the canoe using my hand as a strainer of sorts to keep the contents in.

This was only partially effective since a piece of paper and a trinket spilled into the water. "Dad you dropped a frog". Yes, a little frog of the stretchy plastic red variety had slipped past my fingers. So I reached over and grabbed the little guy and in so doing the canoe shifted. "Dad don't sink the canoe, Don't sink the canoe!" It wasn't my intention to sink the canoe but it seemed very likely that this is exactly what was going to happen. The canoe as it tipped within a fingers breadth (really a very small finger) of water pouring over the side had shifted onto some rocks. It was stuck there at an angle with me trying to get it righted with little luck. The canoe seemed determined to go wrong instead of right and I had a few moments of grave concern. Well I finally got my oar and pushed it back. Oh yeah I did get the frog too. Anyhow I made an attempt at signing the log. You'll have to trust me on this one as the marks on the paper don't look much like TheBeanTeam.

I handed the container back to The Bean Himself and he got back in and we headed out across the bay. Three quarters of the way across I asked. "Did you put anything on it to hold it down?" "No." came the reply.....so we turned around and found it again to make sure it was secure. Paddled back to the opposite shore and picked up The Sprout for the return trip around the little point.

We canoed well over a mile and a half. Not bad for a stormy day I guess. Left nothing.....took a weathered yellow Pennzoil bottle.