Our friends Jamie and Hervé have sung the praises of Montreuil-sur-Mer since they visited the town several years ago (Hervé is from a small town not far away) and when they suggested we meet them there for a couple days, we thought about it for at least five seconds and signed up. We are super-glad we did: we had a great time with Jamie and Hervé and Montreuil-sur-Mer is probably the most beautiful and interesting small town we’ve ever seen in France – or anywhere for that matter.

Now first, how is the town’s name pronounced? Well, us native English speakers will likely never get it right, as euil is one of the most difficult syllables for us to pronounce. The best I can say is “mon-troy” with the “oy” close to that in “oy-veh!” That’s as good as I can describe it.

The name means, of course, “Montreuil by the Sea” which is surprising because the Atlantic is about 10 miles away. But in the 13th century, an inlet of the ocean, large enough for navy ships, reached Montreuil-sur-Mer; it was the only Atlantic seaport controlled by the French monarchy; since then, the inlet has silted up and a person standing at the highest point of Montreuil-sur-Mer can just barely maybe possibly see the ocean.

Montreuil-sur-Mer is a small town, about 2,900 people, a bit south of Calais (you can see it on Google Earth at 50°27′53″N 1°45′47″E). It is a completely walled town. It has a part in history: in 1066 William the Conquerer gathered his army and navy here, sailed to England, won the Battle of Hastings and became the first Norman king of England. During World War I the Allied Headquarters were here from 1916 to 1919, when they were closed after the war’s end in November, 1918.

Montreuil-sur-Mer has another attraction for me: one of my favorite books is Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and in that book the main character, Jean Valjean, lived here for six years and became mayor of the town. Fantine, mother of Cosette, also lived and died here. For me then, I looked forward to walking the streets that Jean Valjean walked (really, the streets that Victor Hugo walked, as he placed that part of Les Miserables here after spending several long vacations in the town).

Rather than write a long and boring description of Montreuil-sur-Mer (ignoring that I just wrote a long and boring description above), I’ll give you some pictures…

Walking Around

Pictures from walking around the city:

Flowers everywhere!

An important scene in Les Miserables occurred on this very street.

Hervé plotted our route to dinner, taking us through these two passages; the second one brought us right to our restaurant that evening…

Ok, a little narrow…

Whoa, seriously narrow.

Jamie, Hervé and Laurie showing just how narrow these passages are.

Continuing my long-time theme of doors and windows…

The Walls and Citadelle

Montreuil-our-Mer is a completely walled city. We walked every inch of the walls, which are 80-100 feet high in many places. We also visited the Citadelle, which was the center of the city’s defenses for hundreds of years.

The earliest structure in the city’s defenses, this arch was constructed in the 1260s(!)

The walls of the city are pretty amazing. I’ve always wondered what the soldiers of an attacking army thought when they saw a city with tall, strongly-defended walls like Monteuil’s and heard their officers say, “Ok, men, climb up those walls and take the town! We’ll be right behind you.”

Jamie, Laurie and Hervé trying to figure out how the catapult worked. The opposing army trembled…

Food

We ate well here. Hoo-hah, did we eat well here. I’m not a fan of food photos, so only a couple here, and pictures of the restaurants at which we had dinner.

Had dinner here the first night. We agreed that it was among the best dinners we’ve ever had in France. This restaurant is in a former house which was built in 1537!

Main course was maigré, a white fish, for all but me. I had a tangine d’agneau (lamb tangine). Then we had dessert…yes, we did:

Profiteroles, an old French dessert that many restaurants still serve. But rarely like these, which were fantastic. They were listed on the menu as Les Authentiques Profiteroles. Don’t know exactly what that meant, as we’ve never had faux profiteroles, but, geeze, were they good.

Laurie had this dessert, which she describes as a rhubarb mousse. It, too, was amazing.

Lunch the next day:

Frites, Welsh, salad and beef stew. Post-lunch nap required.

The next night we downscaled a bit to this restaurant. It served what I describe as “hot pots.” We all had the fish one, which included mussels, cod, shrimp, veggies and potatos in a pretty tasty broth. Not so fancy as the night before (and about half the cost), but very good.

One More Thing: a Monastery

We took a tour of a Carthusian monastery (no longer active) nearby. We really like visiting monasteries and convents and abbeys. Always interesting places, always with histories attached, and always insights into a life long gone.

This monastery had several interesting aspects. At any given time, there were only 24 monks and 24 brothers. The monks ran the place, had religious instruction and duties and lived in reasonably nice quarters; each monk had a small two story cottage with a garden (they could raise anything they wanted in the garden, except food). The brothers were essentially peasants from the area and did not live in such nice quarters; they did the hard work of the monastery.

This monastery served as the printer for all Carthusian monasteries in Europe; this increased its wealth immeasurably, and gave it power, as it decided what books would be printed and sent to other monasteries.

The chapel of the monastery.

The cloister, unusual in that the walls were enclosed in glass.This was because the weather was pretty bad and to be able to use the cloister, it had to be enclosed. We’ve been to a lot of cloisters, and never seen that.

For Laurie’s library friends… This room was off the main library and called the Purgatory Room. Here newly arrived books were kept until the head monk could review them and see if they were acceptable, in terms of dogma, for other Carthusian monasteries to use. Clearly, this gave the monastery huge power.

And for Laurie’s gardener friends.

Montreuil-sur-Mer was a huge hit with us. We walked and walked and climbed stairs and climbed more stairs and still we didn’t see everything. We’ve found over the years that maybe the greatest pleasure in traveling is just walking around places like Montreuil-sur-Mer and absorbing the beauty and culture and history. I suspect we will return to this town.

Last Thursday we took a day trip to the Sancerre region, for two reasons: to buy some Sancerre wine from a winery that we’ve visited and bought from since we started our long stays here, and to have lunch with friends who have a second house near Sancerre and were staying there. This was our first ramble of this trip and it was a good one.

Sancerre is about an hour and a half south, an easy day trip. We went with Mary and Gilles, who put their lives in my hands and asked me to drive. It’s really a lovely drive through rural France.

Sancerre produces a red wine and a rosé, but it’s famous for its white wine, made from the sauvignon blanc grape. The soil in Sancerre is flinty and the wine takes on some of that characteristic: very dry and with a touch of mineral taste. We’ve heard several people who don’t like that and who have said they had drunk Sancerre whites that had a “cat piss” flavor. (They are always quick to point out they’ve never actually drunk cat piss…) Maybe so, but we haven’t run into that at all. Sancerre is our favorite white wine in the world.

There are a few grapes grown here:

Lots o’ grapes

We bought our wine at the winery, in a small town with maybe a hundred people and ten or fifteen wineries. I might point out that, as in many French wineries, the “tasting room” is a counter in the warehouse with the equipment that corks and labels the bottles and stores the finished product. No tasting charge, no ball caps for sale, just “Have a taste and buy what you want.” We did just that.

Ready for at least a couple months. I should point out that only three of these cartons (six bottles per) were for us.

Sancerre, as with the rest of France, suffered badly this year from the worst weather in decades. A killing frost early in the season, hail storms and then way too much rain (it still is raining here, in August, when the grapes need constant sunshine). The winemaker here said they usually get 12-15 clumps of grapes from each plant and this year it will be one clump per plant, and that clump will be of low quality. Really, it’s been a disastrous year, here in Sancerre and in almost all wine-producing regions of France.

Then it was off to the town of Sancerre for lunch. Now, Sancerre the town exists for one thing: people coming to the area to taste and buy Sancerre wine. The town sits on top of a hill, affording a beautiful view of the area. Sancerre itself is a nice walking town, and has spruced up a bit recently.

There are also some excellent restaurants here and Mary had reserved at one that turned out to be a great choice. On the menu were ten or twelve planches: platters; each featuring food from a different area. Almost all of us chose the platter of the south-west, a region in France famous for duck being served at every meal and most between-meal snacks. We could not believe how much duck was on that platter: a brochette with four large pieces, and about half a roast duck. It was just great; we walked out waddling and quacking.

We also had a wonderful visit with our friends Yves and Valerie, who met us at the restaurant. Over the years here we’ve gathered what we call our “French family,” and this first week, back for the first time in over three years, we have totally enjoyed re-uniting with that family. Here’s part of that family:

From left: Laurie and me, Valerie, Gilles, Mary and Yves.

We headed back to Bois-le-Roi after a quick stop to buy the local cheese. This is called “Crottin de Chauvignol“, crottin being the French word for sheep droppings. That’s right; it’s so named because this cheese comes in a form that looks, well, like sheep droppings. Here is what we bought:

These are arranged by age; the youngest on the left, the oldest is on the right in the picture. As Crottin de Chauvignol ages, it get a bit smaller and drier and the flavor intensifies. We like them all, and in this case we bought one crottin of each age they were selling, but if I’m buying just a couple in a cheese store I get the oldest available.

After a stop at the cheese store, it was back to home base. A very nice day, indeed.

Maybe it was cabin fever or because we had to cancel a three-month France trip this summer, but when our friends Eric and Shelley asked if we would like to visit them during their stay in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where they were working from “home” (a beautiful old condo actually within the boundaries of Grand Teton National Park), we thought about it for, oh, two or three seconds before saying “YES, INDEED!”

Then we decided to add a ramble around Wyoming to our trip. Fifteen years ago I did a lot of consulting work in Cheyenne and traveled there almost every week for a couple years. I saw much of the state and knew that while Wyoming has miles and miles of nothing but sagebrush, it also has lots of spectacular scenery and an interesting history. Wyoming also has what we call “Geology in Your Face;” some amazing geological events occurred in the state and they are easily seen and appreciated. So away we went.

Our Itinerary

Before I get to the many exciting things we did, here’s our itinerary:

• • Day 1: Superior, Montana, an overnight stay. We could have maybe possibly driven all the way to Jackson Hole in one day, but 13-14 hours of driving? Nah.
  • Day 2: On to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This is the home of Grand Teton National Park, and where our friends Eric and Shelley are living for a few months. We stayed with them for three nights.
  • Day 5: Left Jackson Hole and drove to Buffalo, Wyoming.
  • Day 6: Drove to Casper, Wyoming
  • Day 7: On to Cheyenne, the capitol of the state. Stayed three nights here.
  • Day 10: Back to Jackson Hole for a two night stay
  • Day 12: Left Jackson Hole, drove to Ontario, Oregon. Again, we could have driven all the way home, but why?
  • Day 13: Arrived back in Seattle

Total trip: 13 days, 3,317 miles, 63 hours of driving time.

Jackson Hole

Jackson Hole is the home of Grand Teton National Park. To say the Grand Teton mountains are spectacular would be quite the understatement. These things just jut straight up out of a valley.

The Grand Tetons, seen from just a few yards from our friends’ condo.

Yeah, pretty nice, eh?

Grand Teton National Park was first signed into existence by President Calvin Coolidge in 1929. It was a much smaller park, protecting mostly the mountains. But John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his wife, Abby Aldridge, had visited the area in the late ’20s and wanted to save much more of the valley from development. So he started buying land in the valley and talking to government officials about donating that land to be added to the park.

In 1942, frustrated by federal inaction on accepting his land as a gift and adding it to the park, Rockefeller told the Secretary of the Interior that he might sell the land to commercial interests. That concentrated minds in Washington, D.C. and President Roosevelt soon signed a bill creating a 220,000 acre national monument, administered by the National Park Service.

1950 saw the National Park and National Monument combined into the Grand Teton National Park, with some additional land thrown in. Now the Park is about 480 square miles and includes most of the valley and the mountains and some surrounding areas. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. may have been a robber baron, but his children surely did lots of good with the money he accumulated: Grand Teton National Park is to a large extent, a legacy of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his wife.

The Town of Jackson

We’d heard much about the town of Jackson, which is about 15 miles south of the park itself.  We drove through Jackson as we arrived and vowed to not return for a closer look. Faux-Western buildings, souvenir shops everywhere, chi-chi restaurants, art galleries etc., the whole place jammed with tourists. It seems that the town of Jackson has one purpose: extract dollars from the wallets of tourists. Not a place for us.

Chapel of the Transfiguration

How’s this for wonderful place to get married? Eric and Shelley tied the knot here!

The Gros Ventre Slide

In 1925 a mountainside across the valley from the Grand Teton mountains broke loose and crashed into the valley below. Fifty million (!!) cubic yards of soil and rocks and trees slid into the valley, damming the river and sending a wave of dirt and rocks 300 feet up the opposite side of the canyon. We took a trail walk through the area and tried to imagine what that wall of destruction looked like.

The bare spots on the mountain in the distance is where the Gros Ventre slide occurred. The rock in the foreground came from there, in a wall of dirt and rocks that washed to where we were standing, more than 300 ft above the valley floor.

Shelley and Laurie enjoying a BIG rock that came from the mountainside about half a mile away.

Some More Jackson Hole Photos

Lots of wildflowers!

Aspen trees in Eric and Shelley’s back yard. We love these trees; at the slightest breeze, the leaves move a bit and the tree just shimmers.

Grand Tetons just after sunset.

This is one large and impressive bull moose! Photo credit goes to Eric.

The Tetons at sunset – taken by our friend Shelley.

This is one absolutely beautiful area – often breathtaking. Always breathtaking. We’ll be back. We were, of course, spoiled by the wonderful hospitality of our hosts, Eric and Shelley. As an example of that hospitality, here’s a picture of one meal:

The question is, of course; did we have waffles for dinner or champagne for breakfast? You choose. I might point out that on the waffle is a roasted-walnut/bourbon syrup; we ate well.

From Jackson Hole to Buffalo

This is a drive from the northwestern corner of Wyoming to the center and then up to the northeastern part. You see a lot of sagebrush on this drive! But we also saw some pretty spectacular scenery.

On the Togwotee Pass (pronounced “to-ga-dee”):

The pass tops out at 9,659 ft. The tops of this rock formation are about 11,500 ft. This is a high state!

Some years ago, when I was doing consulting work in Wyoming, I passed this roadside sign. Wyoming has many markers showing the age of rocks seen from the road, but this one caught my eye. To my later regret, I didn’t stop and pick up a rock.

This is probably the oldest rock in the United States and, for some years, was in the running for the oldest in the world (no longer: a rock formation in Finland has been dated at 4.3 billion years old). Anyway, this time I stopped and now have a piece of granite gneiss three billion years old.

And here it is!

My 3 billion year old rock.

Oregon Trail Sightings

Laurie and I are “rut nuts;” that is, enthusiasts of the Oregon and California Trail. We know lots about it, and we have tried to find places where there are still visible traces of the trail. Since the trail went right through Wyoming, we knew we would be able to find some traces of it here.

Our first trail-seeking adventure on this ramble was a dirt road that goes southwest out of Casper. This road is there because the trail went through there 170 years ago, and was used by later inhabitants of the area. We drove for about three hours, saw exactly zero other vehicles or persons and looked for some trail tracks. At first I couldn’t find any visible traces, and wondered if it wasn’t actually in this area; it’s not as if there are road signs to it.

Wall of Rocks

This geological feature was a landmark on the Oregon/California Trail. I’d read that it was on this road but had forgotten until I saw the actual thing, at which point I practically shouted, “The Wall of Rocks! The wagons went right by here.” At least we knew we were on the right track.

We stopped to walk around, because the emigrant wagon trains would have gone past the Wall of Rocks exactly where the road is. And there, we found a marker put up by the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA – we are OCTA members). The OCTA puts up markers where there are visible traces of the trail. As we slowly traveled farther on the dirt road, we found some 25-30 more OCTA markers and, sure enough, at each one, we could see some trace of the trail. Emigrants traveled this route from 1843 to the late 1850s, so these traces are at least 160 years old!

Unfortunately, what the eye can see often does not show up well in photographs. In the picture below is a line where the ground-covering is lighter – this is the path of wagons through this area. In the foreground we could see a “swale,” a depression in the ground where the wagons traveled – this isn’t visible in the photo. Rarely do you see actual ruts, because the wagons did not follow each other exactly; they would spread out some, forming that depression.

I realize that a common reaction to my Oregon Trail ramblings is “meh,” but we find it fascinating to see these traces of the trail. Think about selling much of what you own, packing the rest into a small wagon and setting off on a 2,500 mile, five-six month journey through inhospitable territory to a place about which you know nothing, hoping for the best. That’s courageous!

The Guernsey Ruts

The Guernsey ruts are touted as the best and clearest ruts to be seen on the Oregon Trail. Here there is a path where the ruts are four feet deep! But as the Orange One would say, that’s kind of Fake News. The wagons did pass through here, but those deep ruts were created later by commercial wagons carrying limestone. However, walking a ways off the main ruts, you come across this:

Here you can clearly see the swale – the depression in the ground – created by the thousands of wagons that passed this way.

Fort Laramie

Fort Laramie, near the eastern border of Wyoming, was a big deal for the emigrants: the first civilization they would see after leaving their “jump-off spot,” (usually in Missouri). They would reach the fort after almost a month of traveling. The fort was established in the 1830s as a supply post for overland travelers (the Oregon/California migrations started in earnest in the early-1840s, but there was some travel starting the the early 1830s) and converted to an Army post in 1849.

After decommissioning in 1890, the fort fell into disrepair. Many of the buildings and furniture were sold at auction to residents of the area. In 1938, the fort became part of the National Park Service and began a long and slow restoration. Today about a dozen buildings have been restored inside and out. The buildings are furnished and look as if the occupants just got up and went out for a walk.

I asked a ranger where the park service had gotten all the furniture and clothes and fittings that reflect when the fort was active. He said that many pieces of furniture were returned to the fort by the descendants of families who had obtained them in that “going out of business” auction in 1890; many of the chairs and tables and beds and bookcases and so forth were actually used when Ft. Laramie was an active army fort.

The Mess Hall at Fort Laramie. Some of what you see are reproductions, but much of it was actually used when the fort was active.

I love this room – the barracks of the enlisted cavalry troops. The park ranger told me much of this is reproduction, but it’s still impressive.

The surgeon’s quarters. Here almost everything was actually at the fort when it was active.

The commanding officer’s quarters.

This is the third time I’ve visited Fort Laramie, the first time for Laurie. Even though it was hot-hot-hot here, we very much enjoyed seeing it and will almost certainly return to it.

Casper

We stayed one night in Casper, the second largest city in Wyoming. Honestly, that’s not saying much: Casper’s population is about 57,000 folks, while Cheyenne – number 1 in Wyoming – is about 64,000. These two cities account for 21% of Wyoming’s population. But size is in the eye of the beholder: when I worked in Wyoming I asked a woman who had just moved to Cheyenne from Lander (pop: 7,500) how she liked Cheyenne. She responded, “Oh, I love it! I’ve never lived in a big city before.”

The adventure in Casper was the drive on a dirt road that covered the Oregon trail (see above). Casper is a nice city, but we just kind of hung out after that drive, and left the next morning.

From Casper to Cheyenne

From Casper we went to Cheyenne, in the southeastern corner of Wyoming. Cheyenne is about a three hour drive from Casper, but we took one really nice detour. As we were headed down the freeway (at 80 mph and being passed constantly), we saw a sign for a road to a natural arch. Well, we’d never seen such a thing and we were on no schedule, so off we went. We found a beautiful county park with, indeed, a natural arch across LePrele river.

When we get back next to Wyoming, we’re getting up a picnic lunch and coming to this park – Ayres Natural Arch Bridge Park – and spending some time here. It was an oasis of calm and beauty.

We also stopped at the Guernsey Ruts and Fort Laramie on this leg.

Cheyenne

When I was doing consulting work here in the mid-2000s, I came to Cheyenne for three days almost every week for two years, so I know Cheyenne. I also know that Cheyenne is not a tourist draw; honestly, there isn’t much to bring tourists here. But I like Cheyenne a lot, maybe because of that lack of touristy things to do.

One thing Cheyenne has, like the rest of Wyoming, is great steaks. The first night we ate at my favorite Cheyenne restaurant, the Albany. I don’t know how to describe the Albany, other than to say I’m not sure it’s changed much since it opened in 1942. It’s small – you might be able to squeeze 80 people in there, and in these times, the limit was closer to 40 folks. (As a side note, we found that Wyoming was pretty conscientious about following coronavirus guidelines: we saw few un-masked folks, and restaurants and stores were observing distancing guidelines, throughout the state. Our one stop in Montana was different: nobody was masked or distancing, even in restaurants.)

Here’s what we had:

That’s about 12-14 ounces of really good prime rib, done perfectly, with a baked potato. Price: $14.99. $14.99! That’s gotta be a $30 slab of meat in Seattle. We went back to the Albany the next night for the same meal.

For breakfast, we had to go to the Luxury Diner. Unless a person knew something about the Luxury, he or she would drive right on past, never thinking about actually eating there. Mistake! The Luxury is an institution for a reason.

I apologize that I didn’t take any food pictures here, but I can tell you:

• • Laurie’s 2x2x2 breakfast (two pancakes, two eggs and two sausage patties) was $10;
  • The next day, Laurie’s Senior Special (three pancakes, an egg and sausage) was $5;
  • My hashbrowns, toast, and corned beef hash was $10;
  • All of it was excellent. Honestly, we believe the pancakes were the best we’ve ever had. They were fabulous.

I used to have lunch here, too, and the lunches were top-notch. Love this place.

The Ames Monument

A friend asked me if we were going to see the Ames Monument, outside Cheyenne (trying, I think, to come up with something so oddball that I’d have to admit that, no, we weren’t going to see that). I surprised him by saying that I’d already seen it and of course we’d go there. And we did.

This was part of some off-the-main-roads traveling we did outside Cheyenne. After driving on a dirt road for an hour or so, we came to the Ames Monument which, fortunately, is about ten minutes from the freeway so we didn’t have to drive back on that dirt road. Who were the Ames brothers and why is there a monument to them here?
Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames were instrumental in financing the Union Pacific railroad, the eastern part of the first transcontinental railroad. When other financing failed, they took over and got Congress to provide financing, taking for themselves a rather comfortable chunk for their efforts, of course. It turned out later that their efforts to “persuade” members of Congress to approve the financing was often accompanied by some payments made under the table to those Congressmen.

In the 1870s the Union Pacific, trying to rehabilitate the Ames Brothers’ reputation (and the company’s at the same time) built the Ames Monument. At the time it was at the highest point on the transatlantic railroad, and trains actually stopped to let passengers see the monument. A later change to the railroad’s route now means the monument is out in the middle of nowhere. We’d never make a special trip to see it – and would not recommend doing so to any traveller – but as part of a day-trip, it was fun to see.

A Trip Highlight: Re-connecting with Friends

When I worked in Wyoming, a colleague told me she wanted to introduce me to Steve L., saying she thought we’d become friends. We did! Steve and I met for lunch or coffee often, and I got to know his wife, Carol, and kids, too. But it had been some time since we’d connected and so I emailed him that we’d be in Cheyenne for a few days. The result: we got together with Steve and Carol and their younger daughter for an evening and had just the best time. It was as if no time had passed, except time had passed and there was lots to catch up on. We talked for four hours and could have continued longer. That evening was a highlight of our Wyoming ramble; so nice to re-connect with friends.

Heading Home

After Cheyenne we went back to Jackson Hole to spend another couple days with Shelley and Eric, then home to Seattle. On the way we stopped at one interesting place: Craters of the Moon in central Idaho.

Central Idaho doesn’t have much in the way of scenery, but Craters of the Moon is amazing. Somewhere around 12,000 years ago, lava started to flow in this area, covering over 600 square miles. The formations are nothing short of amazing.

When I first looked at a hill made of volcanic ash, I couldn’t figure out what the white spots were. A closer examination revealed them to be lichen of some sort. Both the lichen and the plants in this picture are growing on a surface with absolutely zero nutritional value. How do they do that?

After Craters of the Moon, it was back to Seattle for us (with an overnight in Ontario, Oregon). Our 13-day Wyopalooza Ramble was done. We had a great time! We think Wyoming may be the most under-rated state in the country. Yes, it has miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles (with sagebrush), but it also has some just spectacular scenery, and some interesting history, especially for us Oregon Trail buffs. We’re looking forward to getting back to the Cowboy State.

We stayed home this year and decided to make a couple local trips, here in the good ol’ U.S of A. We had a great time! After our cross-country drive, we took two short trips to places about as different as could be, and loved both of them. Both were breathtakingly beautiful in completely different ways.

Our first trip was in late-August. We spent a couple days in the Redwoods of northern California and at Ft. Bragg, farther south but still in northern California. The second ramble was to northeastern Oregon, where we visited the 37,000 acre Zumwalt Prairie, one of a few remaining areas of Northwest Prairie Grass. First, the Redwoods.

Northern California Redwoods

Me and the Redwoods go way back. When I was growing up just south of San Francisco, my family camped in the Redwoods many times. I remember enjoying the camping, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it because I was in the Redwoods; more that I was camping, getting dirty, falling in creeks and rivers and having some fun. Then Laurie and I spent a few days in the Redwoods on our honeymoon, some mumble-mumble-mumble years ago. When Derek and Craig were young and we were still camping, we came here for a few days. It was then that I began to really appreciate how beautiful these groves were.

In 2014, we met our friends Mary and Gilles in Napa and drove up to the Redwoods. On that trip these trees just bowled me over. I said then that walking into groves of Redwoods is like stepping inside a Gothic cathedral in France: columns stretching upward almost out of sight, near-silence, even when there are people in the grove, beautiful sights no matter where you look. When we left the redwoods that trip, we vowed to return soon. Only took us five years…

We stayed in Crescent City, which is the northernmost city on the California coast, just 15-20 miles from the Oregon border. Crescent City is not going to be our favorite town in the world, but we found a nice seafood restaurant – more like a seafood hut -, an excellent brewpub and a fine walk along the ocean, so we were fine.

The tallest of the Redwoods is named Hyperion, a couple inches short of 380 feet tall. Many of the Redwoods reach more than 300 ft into the sky. Can’t see Hyperion, though, nor half a dozen trees over 350 feet discovered in the last 25 years; to keep tourists from mobbing them and trampling the forest, their locations are secret.

But you can see many of these giants, gathered together in groves that will take your breath away (and put a crick in your neck from looking up). Many trees we did see are around 300 ft tall.

Stout Grove. This grove is unusual in that because it is near a river that floods every few years and carries away all the brush on the forest floor, trees here are visible from the very bottom way up until they disappear in the forest ceiling. Other groves have lots of underbrush that hides the tree bottoms.

This is a big tree, but far from the biggest we saw. It has a diameter of maybe 15 ft; we saw trees with diameters approaching 25 ft.

I 
I can write about these trees, and I can talk about them, but really, you have to go see them if you want to know how beautiful they are. We’re looking forward to returning and spending more time among them.

Ft. Bragg

After the Redwoods we drove down the coast to Ft. Bragg. Ft. Bragg is an interesting old place, and we had found what looked like a good place to stay. In fact, it was a great place to stay. Almost every room has a view of the ocean, with nothing but sand and grass between the hotel and the surf. We ponied up a little extra for a room on the top (of two) floors for a little better view. It had a balcony and a big door opening out onto it; we never closed that door while were there, so we could listen to the surf all night long. Nice place, for sure.

View from our room’s balcony. Pretty nice, eh?

We arrived in Ft. Bragg on a beautiful day in late August. When we commented on the day to the fellow who checked us in, he agreed and added, “Hottest day of the year today: 73°.” Whoo, a scorcher!

Northeastern Oregon – Joseph and the Zumwalt Prairie

For our next ramble we could hardly have chosen a place more different than the forests and coastline of Northern California. Joseph, population about 800, sits in northeastern Oregon, 10 minutes from the thriving town of Enterprise (population: 2,000; also the home of Terminal Gravity Brewing, an excellent brewer of craft beers). Although Joseph has gained a reputation as an artists’ colony and has several art fairs through the year, there isn’t much here really.

Both Joseph and Enterprise, though, sit in a beautiful corner of Oregon. The Wallowa Mountains border the south and west, the east has Hell’s Canyon, and to the north, the Zumwalt Prairie. In a March visit to nearby Baker City, a resident there had told us we have to see Zumwalt Prairie and, after seeing it, we understand why he told us that.

Zumwalt Prairie – named after the now-long-gone town of Zumwalt, which was named after the also-now-long-gone resident Henry Zumwalt – consists of 37,000 acres of prairie land owned by the Nature Conservancy. Some of that land was donated to the Conservancy, some purchased by the organization. It is one of just a few areas that has Northwest Prairie grass in its original state. Although the prairie has fences and a few cows, and at least one barn, it is largely pristine. And it is beautiful.

In fact, there isn’t much to see at Zumwalt Prairie, in the usual tourist sense of “see,” that is, looking at interesting things. There are a few buildings, some fences, some cattle wandering around and not much else. There are also miles and miles of beautiful land covered by that prairie grass, and we found the prairie as beautiful as the Redwoods, in a completely different way.

Our Accommodations

Now, given that there are only 800 people living in Joseph, one cannot expect a wide range of places to stay. There are a couple of motels that looked just fine, but we settled on a place with character and lots of it. This was one of those times where you hold your breath when you open the room door for the first time, but this time it worked out fine. It was, indeed, full of character – “rustic” might be the word. But it was fun and funky and the owner, Scott, was a character himself.

The Mountain View RV Park and Motel. What could be better?

Our luxurious room (on the right side). Marv and Becky were right next door and we shared a deck, so that was the site for morning coffee and evening cocktails. From here we had a view of the Wallowa Mountains to the south.

The Duckett Barn

This is one of just a few structures on the Zumwalt Prairie. At the Duckett Barn is a small display set up by the Nature Conservancy, with information about the preserve. We also had a personal interest in seeing the barn: we were with our Portland friends Marv and Becky and Becky’s family is friends with the descendants of the Ducketts who built this barn. 

Marv and Becky looking out the door of the Duckett barn. We suspect the corrals and cattle loading ramps are still used, as there are a few cattle grazing in the area.

Prairie Pictures

These were taken from near the Duckett barn. You can see that, except for the fences, there are no signs that people have ever been here. It was, as you can imagine, as quiet as can be – only the sound of the wind stirring the grass.

After spending time around Duckett barn, we drove down a rather rough road to reach Hell’s Canyon. Here’s the road, with Hell’s Canyon in the distance.

Not exactly a great road! In the distance are the mountains that form the east side of Hell’s Canyon. At this point, Hell’s canyon is almost 8,500 feet deep – deeper than the Grand Canyon by a fair amount.

The second day in Joseph we decided that what we wanted to do most that day was go back to Zumwalt Prairie. This time Laurie and I walked up a trail to get a panoramic view. It was amazing.

The trail…

The view. From halfway up the hill, Laurie and I could see the Duckett barn off a ways.

Honestly, I don’t know how to describe or account for how we feel about this area. It is a completely different beauty than we saw in the Redwoods, but we love it every bit as much. There is something special about the isolation and lack of human intervention in this land, about the miles and miles of prairie grass pretty much undisturbed by us people. We are looking forward to returning to northeastern Oregon and I suspect we’ll do a lot of what we did this trip: sit and absorb the beauty and quiet of Zumwalt Prairie.