Searching For Mowich Cave

Hubby was playing on the internet and found some old documents talking about Mowich Cave in Eastern Douglas County. Interest was piqued and we decided to try and find it. We knew the general area from the paperwork but none of the maps we have showed a Mowich Cave. Not even Google Maps. Here's a link to an old map that shows Mowich Cave. (The documents show the spelling as "Mowitch" where as everything else, roads etc, spell it "Mowich".)

So with a general idea of where to go we packed a lunch and took off. 

Oh, look! Another ruffed grouse. Later on we saw a blue grouse with several babies but they were camera shy.

First stop was Stump Lake, across the road from our turn off.

Like many of the small lakes that dot the county, Stump Lake is a part of an electrohydraulic system.

This is taken right at the outlet. Look how clear the water is!

And there she goes! The canal leading out of Stump Lake.

Now our search for Mowich Cave begins. We were to follow the road across from Stump Lake off of North Umpqua Highway. The canal bordered the road.

Every couple hundred feet or so were these odd bridges that went across the canal. They were blocked off so vehicular traffic couldn't go across. We finally figured out that they were for animal crossings.

I was not the one in charge of directions so I was purely a passenger. Somewhere, somehow, we took a wrong turn and ended up at the top of Basket Butte. Mt. Thielsen on the left, Mt. Bailey on the right. If you look at a map you'll see Diamond Lake is between the two and Crater Lake is directly south of Diamond Lake. I didn't realize we were so close.

When we realized we had taken a wrong turn we finally stopped at the top and dragged out the giant Forest Service map. Then we figured out where we went wrong and headed back down. Turns out we should have never turned off the road we were on and followed the canal to the Clearwater Forebay #1. We were so close and ended up taking about a 45 minute detour.

Here's where the canal empties into the forebay.

The middle section.

The dammed end. As opposed to the damned end. Never mind.

From there we continued on until we hit the Clearwater Dam, and we knew we had gone too far. From the description of the old paperwork the cave was "about 1/2 east of the Clearwater Dam." We drove back about 1/2 mile and pulled over. We had Clyde with us and the forest was very dense and overgrown with brush, which made walking kind of difficult. I stayed in the truck with Clyde while hubby took off to see if he could find anything.

About 25 minutes later he came back with his report. Walking straight north he ran into a sheer cliff. He followed the cliff wall for a ways and said he found a couple of openings, but couldn't tell how big they were, especially since he hadn't taken a flashlight with him. He said the going was pretty tough, being all overgrown.

We decided then that we would come back another time, since now we knew we were in the right area. Plus we had the dog with us and having him along complicated things a bit. 

So we headed back to the Clearwater Forebay #1 and had our lunch. Crackers, sardines in tomato sauce, brie, doritos, and an Activia. Yum!

The view from our picnic table.

On the way home we decided to go the back way. First we followed the road that was along the canal leading down from the Clearwater Dam.

Hubby wanted to try dipping his line in the creek on the opposite side so I stayed back and enjoyed the view. I loved this section of the canal as it followed the edge of the curving cliff. It reminded me of a lazy river. But if you look at the sign at the beginning of the forebay you'll see where it says to stay out due to the swift current. (PS-No luck with the fishing down in the Clearwater River.)

Then I got the idea to video this section so you can see it a little better. If you have Google Earth you can put the exact coordinates in to see this spot.  43º14'56.32"N 122º20'41.33"W

Back on the way home on the Umpqua Highway we were held up by a work crew. Look at the orange cones in the truck on the right. Straight up between the cones about half way up the picture is a worker. There were two guys up there but I couldn't find the other one in this shot.

There he is in the middle of the picture.

It almost looked like they were deliberately causing the rock slides, most likely to prevent future slides. Kind of like avalanche crews.

I had to grab a quick shot as we passed.

So we didn't find Mowich Cave this time around. There is a website that has the alleged coordinates. We could use our fancy GPS if we knew how it worked, plus it's in storage right now. I have no doubt we'll find it eventually. Something to look forward to! 

Lake In The Woods

We were going to see Hemlock Lake for our next day trip. It would be just over an hour away. On the way we passed by this mama deer and her very new baby. Of course they didn’t want to wait until I got the camera out and ready for their glamour shot.

The best I could do was an enlargement of the photo I was able to snap. You can barely make out the baby fawn in the lower left quadrant while Mama Doe watches warily.

We did find Hemlock Lake but to be honest it was a bit of a disappointment. The first road we took was to the boat ramp and there was a small picnic area to the front. It was unfortunate that somebody had been there prior and left a bag of garbage on a table. I guess they missed the "pack it in, pack it out" sign. And they left their camp fire smoldering. There was smoke still coming up. I guess they never learned about "dead out". 

Then we left that part and went to investigate the other side. There were a lot of people on that side. It looked like a big family group with lots of kids. Well, that's not what I had in mind for the day. Sadly there were only two apparent sides where the lake was accessible. The rest was all overgrown.

We decided to forego this lake and go explore a smaller lake we passed on the way up, called Lake In The Woods.

Lake In The Woods is a tiny lake with very nice campsites around the edge. It seemed quieter and we decided to have our lunch there.

The setting could not have been nicer. The weather was perfect, the campsites were not too close to each other and there was no trash around.

We had a nice lunch and started heading for home. On the road home we saw a ruffed grouse. Right in the middle of this photo.

Above photo is enlarged so you can see her better.

And here is one of her babies climbing up the tree branch.

A little blurry but there it is in the middle!

This gorgeous waterfall was just on the side of the road.

A small landslide we had to go around! I think it's been there for a while because there are cautionary signs in either direction.

Good thing this isn't a busy road!

Day Trip To Toketee

The other day we went on a little picnic trip to Toketee Falls.  Instead of taking the more direct route we went the back way and stopped at a little place called Medicine Creek Rock Shelter.

On the way there we spotted a very young black bear cub running across the road. I couldn't get the camera out fast enough before he disappeared into the forest. I surely didn't want to run after him in case his mama was about. He was cute though, reminded me of an obese Laborador Retriever huffing along.

There is a small parking lot and a short zig zag trail to the giant boulder. I guess I forgot to take an overall picture of the big rock but you can see it by clicking this link. 

At first I was a little disappointed when we first walked up. That is until I saw the petroglyphs!

Some of them are kind of hard to make out as they are rather old and worn.

Clyde enjoyed them too.

There was a paper pamphlet at the site showing the location of the various petroglyphs but even with that they were kind of hard to figure out. I believe this is the first time I've seen petroglyphs in real life! So that made it extra special for me.

We continued on our journey up through the Forest Service road. We passed through the Boulder Creek Wilderness area.

In 1996 there was a large fire, called the Spring Fire.

It burned 16,500 acres.

We didn't see much in the way of new trees growing but these blooming wildflower shrubs covered the ground.

A little further up and our path was blocked.

Between the two of us we cleared a space big enough for the truck to fit through.

Something I never thought about or knew before was that there are so many wild rhododendrons everywhere. Of course they were all the same color (pink) but very pretty.

Mount Thielson off in the distance.

More proof of bears. Scat in the middle of the road. (Lovely, I know!)

More rhododendrons.

We got to the other side and passed by Toketee Lake. It's not real big, about 76 acres. 

A little further on and we got to the Falls parking lot. This giant wooden flume runs along the road.

The information kiosk at the trailhead.

The trail was actually fairly nice. There were fences and railings and stairs going up and down along the side of the North Umpqua River. Lots of stairs. Lots and lots. 

Finally we got to the falls.

Very beautiful.

Did I mention the stairs?

On the way back to the parking lot a look back at the observation platform.

See, more of the wild rhodies along the trail, though this one is kind of spindly.

One last look at the flume.

It was a really nice day trip. One of the highlights for me was seeing the bear cub since that's so rare. The worst thing was all those stairs. See, I've got the 3 O's.  I'm old, overweight, and definitely out of shape. I think I may have mentioned that in previous posts. Anyway, the next day I could barely walk because my calves were so sore and tender. In fact, my left calf got swollen up. I had to keep my feet up for a few days. The right leg got better after about four days but the left one took a couple days longer. Ouch. 

But it was worth it.

Back In Roseburg

I'm back.  I think...

So here's what happened.  As you all know I was working in Bend, about a 55 minute drive away.  When the roads were snowy and icy it was closer to an hour and a half one way. Being older, overweight, and fairly inactive, being on my feet for eight hours a day took a toll.  I would drive home and then hobble from my car to the sofa to put my feet up.  

Once home, depending on what shift I was working, I didn't feel like doing anything but recouping on the sofa.  I know my husband was frustrated because he was home alone all day, and then he would want to do things and go places with me on my days off and I really didn't want to. 

But because of various circumstances, not working was not an option.  I thought originally I'd have to work for about two years but things only got worse and I could see me working for a long, long time and that was making me increasingly unhappy.  

Don't get me wrong...  I really did enjoy my job at THD (most of the time), especially once I got promoted to Paint Associate.  But it wasn't how we had planned our life would be when we bought the Prineville house.

One day I was fooling around on the internet and clicked on Zillow to see if our house zestimate had increased since we bought it.  I was quite shocked to see the zestimate had gone up by about $400,000!  I know the zestimates aren't always accurate but still... It got the wheels turning. 

I did a little more research and contacted a highly rated local realtor to see if she would give us a more realistic estimate on our home's value.  Long story short, she did come out and gave us a starting sale price of about $200,000 more than what we bought the house for.  So much better news than when we sold our Bakersfield house, basically for nothing.

We listed our house in September 2014.  I was a little nervous because I was really familiar with the Douglas County real estate and I would see properties in that area, in that price range that hadn't sold, in some cases were still for sale four years later. 

We had a couple of showings and everybody loved it.  I mean, after all, the house was an extremely well built home with a fabulous, unbeatable view.  We thought at one point we were going to get an offer until they couldn't produce a financial proof letter.  Then about four months after listing we had another showing (different people) and got a very positive feedback.  About a week later we got an offer.

The bad news was the offer was for $75,000 below list price!  I was very disappointed but I wasn't ready to throw in the towel.  Since we were told from the beginning that this was an all-cash offer I knew they would have to have close to what our list price was.  I got my calculator out and started making lists of different sale prices and what we would get after realtor fees, closing fees, etc.  I knew how much cash I wanted to get out of the sale and I was willing to wait if I needed to.  The other thing in our favor was I knew these people were from out of state and were in a hurry to find a place. A previous offer they had made on another house fell through after a bad inspection.

We countered at $10K below list and received another counter offer, this time $50K below list.  That still was not good enough for me.  Our realtor suggested figuring out our lowest offer and re-counter with that.  I took out my list and told her my lowest possible acceptable price.  They once again countered that and we just sent our previous counter back.  They accepted.  It was $25,000 below list price but I was going to get the cash I felt I needed for the move back to Roseburg.

All went well until our home inspection.  Turns out there was something wrong with our heat pump and we never even knew it! We ended up having to put a new unit in to the tune of $3,000. Once that was taken care of we contacted movers to get estimates (ouch!!!), started packing and looking for a place for the animals.  I got rid of the chickens in one day by listing them on Craig's List for free. Finding a place for the bull and two horses was a little more difficult.  I finally found a place in Redmond that took the horses and didn't cost me an arm and a leg.  And not until virtually the last moment did I find a place for our bull.  

We have friends in Washington State that have a farm and they generously offered to take Dakota.  By then time was getting very short because I feel like I have to do everything properly.  He had to have a sexually transmitted disease test (took a week to complete), get his health certificate and brand inspection.  We finally got everything done and I made the long drive up and back.  Thank goodness they loaned me an extra GPS because driving through Portland nearly got me undone!

SOOOOO....  we sold our Prineville house and are back in Roseburg in a rental.  I got all but one credit card paid off so that is a huge relief.  We found a really nice place that both of us agreed to and put an offer in.  After a couple of counter offers they accepted.  Our closing should be in August and so far the inspections have come back good.  We aren't quite locked in just yet but it's really close. 

I'm glad it didn't take us a year like the last time...

We have been taking little day trips like we used to and I started bringing the camera again, so I'm hoping to be able to start blogging again.  Maybe not every day, but every so often. 

Here are some pictures of our rental.

The neighbor's tree (he doesn't know what it is).

 The front of our rental.

Front yard.

Back yard.

From the back looking at the back of the house.