Odds and Ends

This is a photo that didn't make it into the last post. But the ship was so cool and its history even cooler, so I just had to include it. The ship is called the Mary D. Hume, built in 1881 in a shipyard less than two hundred feet from where it now sits in the Rogue River estuary by Samuel Hume, who named it honor of his wife, Mary Duncan Hume. It was originally built as a two-masted schooner, and used for many years to haul lumber and other commercial goods up and down the Oregon coast. In the early 1900's, it was sold, and sailed up to Alaska, where it was used as a whaling ship for 10 years, including the longest whaling voyage in history--6 continuous years at sea. Many of the sailors died of scurvy, madness, and other things, and were frozen in blocks of ice until they could be brought home and buried. After that, the Mary D. Hume returned to Gold Beach, used again commercially, then refitted as a tugboat, and served faithfully in this capacity until 1978, when she was retired and grounded near where she was built. Besides being the longest commissioned boat in history, she has never had a name change--she was the the Mary D. Hume from the day she first set sail until she ended her career nearly a hundred years later.

After our jetboat ride, we spent the night in Jerry's parking lot. Not as bad as it sounds--actually very quiet and pleasant. The next morning we left the coast behind and headed east over the mountains past Eugene, and camped in a NFS campground called Paradise, on the McKenzie River. After that, another long day (for us--6 hours) to Union Creek, another NFS campground, south of Baker City. We had stayed there on our way to the coast back in June, and hoped we could stay there again. This time we were able to stay two nights, and rode our mountain bikes on the shoreline trail. It was beautiful singletrack, mostly level, and it wound around the lake through meadows and open forest. Easy riding, except that I misjudged the height of one of the little wooden bridges over a stream; my front wheel hit the edge instead of going up over it and came to a sudden stop. In accordance with Newton's Law ("an object in motion tends to stay in motion"), I kept going, slamming my chest into the handlebars and my thighs hard onto the wooden bridge. It knocked the wind out of me, but no serious damage, other than a matching pair of saucer-sized bruises on my thighs. I'm going to look really gross in shorts for the next week or so.

And speaking of shorts, after the low 70's temps of the coast for the past two months, we are finally experiencing summer. We are camped at Three Islands Crossing State Park in Glenn's Ferry ID, and it was in the high 90's today. Burley tomorrow will be about the same. I'm glad I don't have to do a triathalon in that kind of heat!