A rouge river rafting, huckleberry picking, getting lost kind of day.

We had a little adventure yesterday. We intended on visiting some new sights...but unfortunately we could not find some of them. One was "Rabbit Ears", a place where you can rock climb.  It was a very scenic drive (a little rocky too), but we never found the right place. But we were still able to stop and have lunch by the river on the way down. (Hot dogs make disappointment easier).

Luckily, in the morning we were able to pick some huckleberries. It was also a trek to get there. I pictured myself carrying home massive buckets of huckleberries to make into jam. Little do I know that huckleberries are sparse and take a long time to pick. So, Jamir and I will be enjoying the probably one jar of jam that I will make from them. 

And to finish it off, we rafted down the Rouge River. Thanks for yard sales and thrift stores we found the gear. It took longer to fill the raft up (we blew it up ourselves mostly), and we didn't start until 5 ish. BUT it was still fun and definitely one of those days Jamir and I tend to have when we plan too much in a Saturday. 

Tuvimos una peque~na aventrua ayer. Intentamos visitar nuevas attraciones.. per desafortunadamente no pudimos encontrarlas toda. Primero fuimos a recoger Huckleberries, fue un largo camino para llegar a donde crecen. Nos imaginamos que ivamos a tener cubetas llenas de Huckeberries pero no sabiamos que fueran tan peque~nas y eparcidas asi que aunque recogimos por mucho tiempo solo logramos juntar suficiente para un poco de mermelada. Va a ser la mejor mermelada del mundo.

Tambien planeanos ir a "orejas de conejo" se supone que es un lugar donde podemos escalar. El viaje/camino fue muy pinturesco  pero no encontramos el lugar donde escalar. Pero pudimos parar cerca del rio y hacer unos hotdogs. 

Terminamos "flotando" el rio "Rouge". Gracias a las ventas de garage y tiendas de segunda conseguimos todo el equipo. Nos tomo mas tiempo inflar la balsa que flotar rio abajo. (Necitamos una mejor bomba de aire) Fue un buen dia. 

Picking huckleberries in the morning

Stopping at a scenic place to roast hot dogs

Hot dogs make everything better

Getting ready to raft. I bought a waterproof case for Cancun. I need to pay attention to the outer ring.

Thought Jamir looked goofy cute in his gear.

The pump took forever.

Rafting! There were some rapids which made it interesting.

Jamir caught this attractive one of me getting a bug out of my face.

And just some pics of our harvest this year so far! I love how things grow so easily! We have enjoyed fresh peaches, pears, wild plums, blackberries and vegetables from our garden. I missed it last year so grateful to be able to this year. I spotted some apple trees by the river, so we will be going back to pick them come fall.

The first haul.

Wild plums, which turned into jelly. A lot of work pitting those things.

And of course blackberries are like weeds. 

Escaping the Smoke

Oregon is going through a heat wave. So much that it was triple digits the last couple of days. And there are forest fires. Lots of them. So the air is all smoke. It is the worst I have ever seen. There are ashes covering our car and the sun looks pink. It has just started to cool down and hopefully we will have some wind/rain to blow this smoke away!

We wanted to do some camping but decided it wouldn't be good to breathe in the smoke all night. Instead, we made a peach cobbler on our back patio with the dutch oven from Mom and Dad. And, wanting to escape the smoke Saturday, drove up to Crater lake to get some fresh air. We stopped at the Rouge Gorge and Natural Bridge on the way home and enjoyed the scenery while eating tasty bbq along the river. It was a nice excuse to see more around us while escaping the ugly air.

Oregon tiene una ola de calor. Hace tanto calor que ha estado arriba de los 100 grados farengheit en los dias passados. Y hay muchos fuegos forestales. Entonces el aire ha estado lleno de smoke. Es de lo peor que yo visto. Hay cenizas en nuestro coche y el sol se ve rosa. Ya se empieza a refescrar un poco y esperamos que tengamos lluvia/aire para llevarse este smoke a fuera.

Quieriamos ir a acampar pero decidimos que no es bueno respirar el smoke toda la noche. En lugar, hicimos un "peach cobbler" en nuestro patio con el "dutch oven" de mis suegros. Y, quizimos  escapar el smoke el Sabado, manejamos a Crater Lake para el aire fresco. Visitimos la gargante del rio Rouge y el puente Natural de camino de regreso a casa y disfrutamos del rio comiendo bbq. Fue una buena excusa para explorar mas ceranos mientras escapabamos del aire contaminado. 

The sun at 9:00 am.

Yay for fresh peaches and sprite!

We still enjoyed it even though we ate it at home.

View of Crater Lake

View of one of the small waterfalls. Jamir is not impressed.

We brought our bikes and rode the pinnacles hike

Can you see the pinnacles?

Crater Lake, although beautiful, is crowded with tourists and traffic. Not our thing. We both enjoyed the Gorge and bbq much more. Most hidden gems are much better than crowded national parks.

The bbq was surprisingly good! We ate along the river-I enjoyed watching a golden retriever play in the water :)

Hard to capture the coolness of the gorge. Basically its a rock canyon with high pressure water flowing through it. So pretty.

Cool cave formed by lava tubes

And...these pictures are old, but I never posted them and thought they were cute of Jamir. We fished at Diamond Lake with the familia Torres a Saturday in June. Jamir was the only one who caught a fish. It was a hard day for fishing so we heard. Jamir thought his fish was pretty big until we came back to land and saw what others caught (it was a contest :). It was still fun and beautiful, and we enjoyed some fried fish made by Jamir later.

Feeling proud

Little Briana wanting me to take her picture 

She insisted on taking ones of me :) I think she went for an artsy look.

Cleaning the fish. I didn't stay in that room very long.

Jamir did a good job. It was very flavorful.