Tag: exploration

May 6, 2026 – Seis de Mayo

May 6, 2026 /

If you are anything like me, you are regretting that last margarita from last night. Five AM comes awfully early and I have to hit the ground running. I am kidding, I regret nothing and I am old enough to respect my limits and take my lumps if that it what it comes to. What I am dancing about is that my wife and I went out last night to see how our new town throws down for Cinco de Mayo.

If you are truly like me, then you don’t have a lot of desire to jump into another culturally appropriated holiday like St Patrick’s Day as another example. That being said, I am all gung ho to explore my new home town even if that means I need to have multiple margaritas to do it.

Last week, I agreed to go out to a Mexican restaurant because I wanted to know if it was any good. I was actually pleasantly surprised because my expectation levels are pretty low when it comes to Mexican/American restaurants. So, when I come away thinking not too bad, it is a huge win. That doesn’t mean that I am going to crave this place but it does mean that I am not going to wish I would have stayed home and made peanut butter and jelly if we do choose to go there.

I ran across something pretty neat a few months ago. It is called the Central Coast Food Trail. Take it with a little bit of a grain of salt, I am pretty sure the list is sponsored and not necessarily awarded. Nevertheless it is a good start on getting a bead on some quality food.

As a kid, my family came to the beach for two things. The first was camping but the second was fishing. Grade school and middle schools we typically made a trip to go salmon fishing and consequently we camped the weekend. When the salmon regulations were changed so that there was not a concentrated couple of weeks in late August, we stopped coming to the coast.

On my mom’s side of the family they were fairly smitten with the coast. So much so that several of them had beach houses. They were never fisherman and from the 1990s onward my trips to the coast were almost strictly leisure. They involved going out to eat and shopping. I am aware of some good restaurants in the area but I have a pretty limited experience level with what it offered.

I actually got to the point that I would prefer to stay home as to go to the coast. Many times my wife would spend the weekend with her friends and I would stay home with the kids. I have nothing personal against the coast, it was more a function having no desire to live a life of consumerism. I start to get board going too long into stores that I like, a whole day is dreadful.

I wrote the above to say that connecting with my future community in that way is revolutionary. It is a completely different way to see this area. It is not simply a collection of restaurants that primarily service the weekenders and the spring breaker families but people that are growing and harvesting with the same amount of passion that anyone, anywhere would exhibit.

It is not just restaurants either. I learned that there is actually a culinary teaching center here in our town. I don’t know much about it at this point but I am definitely going to look into it. That sounds like a good date night idea.

I think that it goes without saying but that the ocean translates into seafood. There are opportunities to get salmon, rock fish, halibut, Dungeonous crab, bay shrimp, clams and oysters. Depending of the season, there is also tuna out there. You just have to go way out. Seafood is great, but it definitely needs to be paired with other items. Finding out about local produce and seasonal fair is critical for top notch meals at home.

End Your Programing Routine: I am getting to the age that I don’t need an excuse to drink or eat enchiladas. I like to go to bed at 9:30 after I have made and eaten my enchiladas. That being said, it is kind of fun to open the doors to someplace I have seen my whole life but never stepped inside. While I don’t really want to spend my time frequenting these places but I would like to be somewhat of an authority of my new home town. Last night I sucked up my preferences and hit the town with my wife. You just have to do that sometimes, even if the reason is flimsy.

June 6, 2023 – Success, After Several Years of Effort

June 6, 2023 /

If you spend time in the woods, you hear about things that are interesting or unique. And being in the woods, they can be difficult to nearly impossible to find. This is particularly true in western Oregon where there is a patchwork of private timberland, US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management parcels.

The reason being is that road numbers can change depending on who owns the road, signs often get vandalized as well. We have little to no cell phone coverage and GPS coverage is even compromised due to tall trees and land obstructions. Add to that, some companies believe that access is by permission only and gate roads. So you can start out on a public road only to be blocked by a gate.

What I am saying is that it is difficult to get paper directions and it is no guarantee to use electronic directions. So, if you don’t know where you are going you will be hard pressed to get there. About ten years ago, we went on a trek to find ‘Valley of the Giants‘. It is a long story, but we would not have made it but for talking with some people that we met out in the woods who drove us there.

Memorial Day, I finally made it to South Lake. It started two years ago I was hunting and I saw a sign for the lake. I tried to find it when I was driving around. I assumed that it if I followed the main road, I would get there only to be blocked by a gate. I tried several different side roads to be blocked by impassible road conditions. But, as I talked with people it seemed everyone knew how to get there.

When we had our first real nice weekend in May, I tried to go there using Waze. I tried two different approaches that were blocked with snow. I talked with my neighbor a few weeks later and he said that all the roads were snow free. So now it wasn’t an adventure it was a mission.

When we got there we found a real gem. It is called a dispersed camping area but it really means that there is an outhouse and a some roughly marked camping sites. It does not have things like running water or tables at the sites, but it is also free. I didn’t even know that such things existed. Even the super remote BLM sites are ten dollars a night.

This being a holiday weekend, it was somewhat crowded. I talked to some people that had some car problems (two flat tires, not a good place to happen). I offered them what I could which was a can of Fix-a-Flat and they indicated that there was probably 30 people camping over the weekend.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks this lake. This often times makes the endeavor easier because the fish are used to being fed and are not wiley of many natural hazards. It also makes it a little more guilt free, it is the purpose of these fish to get caught. We fished for five hours or so and caught a few fish. We also lost some fish and we had a lot of strikes. It was fun.

I think the most amazing part of the day was a pair of bald eagles chasing each other around and helping themselves to fish in the lake. I blew my mind to hear the feathers fluttering as they attacked the water. I don’t know of any comparison of the sound other than a swooshing dive bomb.

End Your Programming Routine: South Lake has a sister called, you guessed it North Lake. I have heard that it is smaller and more remote. I have also heard that as a result the fish are bigger. Now, this is my next quest. Not only with my summer projects, I have fishing on the brain. I hope that I can find time to get some of both in. I love the adventure, I love the fact that we caught some fish and it is good family time too.

November 2, 2021 – Why I Continue to Hunt When My Success Rate is Near Zero

November 2, 2021 /

Over the years, I have shot three deer. If I started when I was eleven and now I am forty-six, that is thirty five years of buying tags and two of those were when I was still living at home. To be fair, I only hunted one year in college and I took a multi-year hiatus while I was getting settled.

I have always had an exploratory heart. I often wonder about the road that takes off the highway and goes off into the unknown. I fanaticize that this is some secret access point into the woods that no one knows about. But it goes even deeper than that. Today, I am sharing some of the things I saw last weekend to justify why I feel this way.

Have you ever seen spawned out salmon? Me neither. It is not super clear but the picture above is two dead salmon that have finished their lifecycle. They were born in this stream, went to the ocean for several years and came back to reproduce. Once that happens, they die. They were probably 24″ long. In fact, as I looked across the creek, I saw probably twenty of them in this one spot.

Pictured above is the Elderberry fruit. Normally, they are ready to pick around Labor day and it is highly unusual to see them this late in the year. Elderberry is high in Vitamin C and is prized in herbal medicine for it’s immune boosting properties. Outside of that, it is used for jelly, syrups and brewing adjuncts. Some day I want to pick a bunch of this and do something special.

How about a hiking trail in the middle of nowhere? At this point, I could lead someone to this spot, but to be able to provide directions would be nearly impossible. Roads in these areas are cryptically marked and there is a patchwork of tribal, timber company and public land. I don’t think this is the beginning of the trail because there is no parking, I pulled off the road to snap this picture. Who knows if it goes somewhere interesting.

The difference between private timberland and public land is stark. Above is a slash pile resulting from a thinning operation. That pile will likely be burned in the coming weeks. In fact, I saw multiple active burns while I was up there. Policy since the 1990s on public land has essentially left it to grow wild. In this area that is a patchwork of public and private you go from dark woods to very open and actively managed forest land.

End Your Programming Routine: Friday is the end of deer season. Saturday is opening elk season for some areas near me. In all of my years hunting, I have never seen elk during the deer season so I don’t bother getting a tag. The elk season only lasts for one week anyway. As I close out this year, I know that I haven’t put a ton of effort into being successful but I feel like I had some new experiences. I went down some new roads and have a better feel for what I want to see next year.