Camping in the great Pacific Northwest

Karner Flat campground

When you live in the Pacific Northwest, with mountains covered with tall trees, the outdoors plays a major part in your life: hiking, canoeing, camping, wildlife watching.
I grew up camping in central Oregon and along the beautiful Oregon coast. Over the years I've camped in many states, including Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, as well as British Columbia.


For the last 10 years or so, a majority of my camping has been in Washington's central Cascades, namely the scenic Little Naches area, so named because this is where the Little Naches River bisects the Wenatchee National Forest.

The area has several developed campgrounds, but it's not unusual to come across campers in isolated spots.



We used to camp at Lost Meadow, which only had a vault toilet, but was just a two-minute mosquito-ridden walk away from elk-grazing pastures. Alas, the trees became diseased and died, leaving the site with no shade, but still lots of dirt kicked up by dirt-bike riders heading to or from the trails. The Little Naches district is one of the few areas in the state where trail riding is allowed.

This year, however, we switched to a developed campground at Kaner Flat. The tall firs and pines are still vibrant, with paved roads throughout the campground. It's within walking distance of the Little Naches River, which you can hear gurgling by when there's no traffic. Kaner Flat is historic, as it was used as an overnight rest stop for immigrants crossing the Cascades to Western Washington.

One of the delightful parts of the trip is always passing through the small town of Naches, where fruit stands line the highway. The Yakima Valley is the state's fruit basket. We always buy whatever is in season, from just-picked cherries to peaches and apricots.







Red & Blue: a book review

Books written by people I know occupy a prominent place on my shelves. The latest to join my growing collection is Red & Blue: A Memoir of Two Alaskan Tour Guides, written by Judy Shuler aka "Red" and Hildegard Ratliff aka "Blue," who spent many years working together as private tour operators in Juneau, Alaska.

The majority of the book is written by Judy with colorful anecdotes by Hildegard sprinkled throughout the book's 258 pages.

While the book devotes space about everything from the red tape they had to go through to become licensed tour operators to their more memorable tourists, the book really shines when Judy writes about the wonders of her adopted state's environment. She was born and grew up in Wisconsin, moving to Alaska in the mid 1960s.  She spent the next 45 years of her life living in, first, Anchorage and then Juneau. She now lives in her husband's hometown in western New York.

Red & Blue reads very much like a farewell gift to the state she loves so much. Alaska will always be part of her as it is me. I lived in Alaska for eight years, mostly in Anchorage but almost a year in Juneau. In my heart, I still consider myself an Alaskan, though I moved to Washington in 1978. But Alaska never had the impact on me that it had on Judy, so I question now if I should still consider myself an Alaskan.

She quotes liberally from John Muir, a 19th century naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, who spent a substantial amount of time in Alaska himself. Her deep concern for the Alaskan environment, particularly that of Southeastern, is very evident. Red & Blue is clearly a book that environmentalists will love.

The book also paints vivid pictures of Juneau, the state's capitol, and how her residents cope with rain and fog almost every day. That, I can tell you, is not very easy for some people, me included, to do. I didn't mind so much not being able to see across the street because the fog downtown was so thick. What I minded was the airport being so fogged in that planes couldn't land for days at a time which meant no mail, no newspapers and definitely no new TV programming. In those days, shows were taped in Seattle and then flown in.

As long as the planes could fly, I was OK. I still remember a legislator who went to Anchorage, but then couldn't get back to Juueau. He made three trips between Anchorage and Seattle before he was finally able to land at Sitka and hop a ferry back to Juneau. Unfortunately, they didn't have frequent flyer plans in those days.

Whether you are an armchair traveler or planning a trip to Southeastern, you will want to read Red & Blue. Judy also wrote Alaska Travel Planning Guide: Help for the Independent Traveler, which is filled with knowledge she gained planning independent tours to Alaska for travelers.

Red & Blue: a Memoir of Two Alaskan Tour Guides sells for $14.95 paperback at Amazon.

The fine print: The Federal Trade Commission requires me to tell you that Judy sent me an autographed copy of her book. I also am listed under "acknowlgements" because I made suggestions in an early draft of the book.

Wildlife photography

Buffalo photo taken from the car with
a pocket digital amera.

The great Northwest abounds with wildlife: deer, elk, moose, antelope, bears, mountain goats and coyotes, to name a few animals. The area has many national parks (think Yellowstone) and forests where it is easy to see animals in the wild. It's also not uncommon to see deer and other animals grazing in farmers' fields as you drive through rural areas.

Sometimes the animals are as close as your yard. One time I was visiting my sister in northwestern Montana when I heard a strange sound outside the window in the middle of the night. I looked out to see two deer snacking on her shrubs. Another time a bear cub took up residence in a tree about 20 feet from her house. After a couple of days the mother came and "talked" it down.

Parks, forests, farms, and mountain roads all provide opportunities to get photographs of wildlife. Getting great photographs of wildlife in something else. When I was in Yellowstone last year, I met with Pam Talasco, an up-and-coming West Yellowstone wildlife photographer who has taken some pretty fantastic photos of Yellowstone wildlife. She offers two tips to get good wildlife photos:

• Be patient. Study the animal until you can anticipate its next move, She sometimes watches an animal for an hour or so until it is in just the right setting.
• Be mindful of your safety. Take photos from your car. If you do get out, keep your distance from wild animals. You never know when they'll come after you.

I can attest to the second tip. When I lived in Alaska, I was always looking for the perfect moose picture. While driving one evening, I saw a moose grazing in a pond about 100 feet off the highway. I stopped my car, grabbed my camera and got out. I watched the moose for awhile and when it didn't lift its head toward me, I yelled, "Hey! Moose!" which was not a very bright thing to do as it lifted its head and charged toward me. Luckily, I was not very far from my car and had left the door open so I reached my car before Mr. Moose did.

Patience is a virtue also extolled by Judy Shuler, author of the Alaska Travel Planning Guide, which contains a chapter on wildlife photography. She advises photographers to move slowly or just sit and blend into nature; after awhile, the animals will ignore you. IN her book, she also gives tips on how to tell when an animal has sensed your presence and doesn't like it. These signs  include the animal looking directly at you with ears alert on hair raised.



Buffalo from a distance, photo taken with
a pocket digital camera with telephoto lense.

Camera equipment
Pam Talasco uses 35mm digital cameras with high-powered telephoto lenses to capture her animals. If you want pictures you can enlarge to poster size that's what you'll need.

However, you can get acceptable photographs with pocket digital cameras, as long as you realize their limitations. Their built-in telephone lenses don't have a very far reach, so you won't be able to get decent photographs of animals that are far away.

I am a big fan of pocket digital cameras. I held out a long time before getting one as I didn't want to give up my 35mm cameras and telephoto lenses that I'd invested thousands of dollars in. However, I never used some of the lenses that much because I didn't like hauling everything, including a tripod, around. I was forced into digital when print film became nearly impossible to find or have developed. I got a small digital camera as an experiment, and four pocket digitals later, I would never go back to print or the 35mm digitals and auxiliary lenses.

You can get good wildlife photos with a pocket digital, many of which will enlarge quite nicely. I've had enlargements made from a 5.1 mp camera big as 10" x 13" inches, and the detail is incredible. You can see every fine silken hair on a butterfly's wings. Of course, it helped that I was about nine inches away from the butterfly when I snapped the picture. But I've also gotten some pretty good photos of buffalo at Yellowstone and deer at Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon.

Show 'n shine under the sun

This tail light says it all about classic cars.

The summer car show season is underway in Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon, as well as elsewhere around the country.

We went to our first show of the season today, an annual event on the Parkade in downtown Kennewick. We go to a lot of shows throughout the region every season, like most Saturdays between late April and September. Sometimes it seems we see the same cars over and over. Today was different, as there were a lot of cars we'd never seen before.

My favorite car today was a white Mercury, probably from the late 1940s. I loved the tail lights: big dollar signs. That says it all. Restoring old cars is expensive, even if owners do most of the work themselves. Restored classic cars sell for many times the original price. One beautiful car carried a price tag of $32,000; it probably cost under a thousand dollars when the first owner drove it off the lot.

The big car show in this area is Cool Desert Nights, which attracts hundreds of cars to Richland the last weekend in June every year.  My favorite car show is the one in Joseph, Oregon, which we just happened upon since I had to be in the nearby town of Enterprise for a work assignment, and wanted to drive over to Wallowa Lake for lunch.

We never made it to Wallowa Lake because of the car show. Joseph is a small Western-themed town that has the most amazing outdoor sculpture museum that I've ever seen. Bronze statues of horses, cowboys, cougars and Indians line both sides of the town's main street.

Wagons, ho!

A diorama at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

We've spent the last couple of weeks watching Wagon Train, a popular Western that aired for 276 episodes starting in 1957, on DVD. When I was growing up, it was must-see TV for me.

Even in grade school, I had an interest in the pioneers who crossed the United States to find a new life in Oregon, California and Washington.

I can still remember a couple of great-aunts talking about their grandfather (my great-great-grandfather) who left France to build a new life in the American West, crossing first the Atlantic Ocean by boat and then this country by wagon train. My aunts used to talk about how his wagon train was attacked by Indians on the trip, but didn't find it ironic that when he arrived in Washington Territory he married a woman who was the daughter of a French-Canadian fur trapper and a Chinook Indian woman. No one seems to know when he crossed the country, only that he was married in Astoria, Oregon, in the spring of 1863.

Many years ago, I drove sections of the Oregon Trail through Wyoming and marveled how it only took me 15 minutes to drive as far as the pioneers did in one day. I remember stopping at Guernsey, Wyoming, where, more than 100 years later, deep wagon wheel ruts still existed.

Closer to home, the wagon trail is still visible at the Whitman Mission in Walla Walla, Washington,  and the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Baker City, Oregon. If you're ever driving Interstate 84 through eastern Oregon, definitely make time for a stop at the interpretive center. The center sits on Flagstaff Hill about five miles off the freeway. Paved trails lead downhill to the ruts, although you can also see ruts a short distance from the road at the bottom of the hill.

Wagon wheel ruts in Oregon

The center has excellent dioramas that are so realistic you'd swear you were on the trail with the pioneers, who were dirty and dusty from the trail. Not at all like the pioneers on Wagon Train who frequently wore suits and ties or, if they were women, snowy white blouses. The wagons on the television show were large and roomy, but the wagons on display at the center are narrow and difficult to move around upright for adults inside.

The center also puts on interpretive programs on various facets of life along the trail. These, too, are well worth attending if one is taking place during your visit. One program that I attended featured one woman portraying four women in different stages of their lives and journeys over the Oregon Trail. The actress was so realistic in her portrayals she had the audience in tears by the end of the hour.

"Yellowstone on a motor scooter:" another great review

Chalk up another great review for my latest Cheryl's Guide, Yellowstone on a motor scooter.

Featured on Review Harbor, this review noted my "Yellowstone guide is so comprehensive and has bits of valuable information for a fellow scooter rider that you won’t find anywhere else."

It added, "Probst guides you through everything, from the beginning to the end of your trip of your trip."

The author, who uses the pen name Snurre, also rides a motor scooter.

You can read the full review at Review Harbor.

Earlier, Ron Arnold,  the Detroit motor scooter Examiner, gave my book a great review, calling it "excellent and wonderfully detailed."

Yellowstone on a motor scooter is available in text-only from Amazon Kindle or with full-color photographs and illustrations from GuideGecko.

A soldier salutes



Statue of General Jonathan Wainwright

My husband receives much of his medical care through the Veterans Administration. Usually he goes to the Richland outpatient clinic, but sometimes he has to go to the Jonathan Wainwright Medical Center in Walla Walla when he needs to see a specialist.

I usually go with him when he goes to Walla Walla as it provides a great excuse to get out of the house and away from the computer for a few hours.

The last time he went, it was a beautiful spring day out, so I decided to wander around the grounds instead of sitting inside a stuffy waiting room. The medical center goes back more than 100 years, with some of the original buildings still in use.  It was a great day for a leisurely stroll.

Buildings are located around a huge rectangular field that is punctuated with a large statue of Army General Wainwright in front of a flagpole with the U.S. and MIA flags that happened to be blowing in the breeze that day.

General Wainwright was born in Walla Walla in 1883, and was a career Army officer. After graduating from West Point in 1906, he joined the cavalry, and was later stationed in the Philippines. He served in France during World War I. He returned to the Philippines in 1940 and became a prisoner of the Japanese when he surrendered at Corregidor. A four-star general, he received the Medal of Honor. He retired from the Army in 1947 and died in Texas in 1953.