We’ve had a good time at Valley of the Rouge State Park visiting with the Glaspey Clan; Jim and Jeanne’s, Ron and Tisha and Dwayne and Donna Hayes. It’s always a lot of fun when we all get together.
We left Valley of the Rouge around 9 AM and headed up to Oakridge, OR. for a stay at Jim and Jeanne Glaspey’s B & B and RV Park, arriving about 2 PM. We are going to be here for five days.
May 1, 2019
We had a really good time visiting with Jim and Jeanne and also seeing some of our other Oakridge friends. But as always good things must come to an end so yesterday morning we made the drive to Cline Falls State Scenic Viewpoint for our first hosting gig in Oregon State Parks this summer. Cline Falls is located right on the Deschutes River off of OR Hwy 126 just west of Redmond. It’s a day-use park that is poplar for picnicking, swimming and fishing as well as hiking down river to the actual water falls.
The trip from San Antonio, TX to Cline Falls was about 1586 miles. We averaged 8.0 MPG with an average cost $3.60 a gallon with the cheapest fuel at the Army & Air Force Exchange at Fort Bliss, Texas and the most expensive being at the Flying J in Lodi, CA.
May 3, 2019
Yesterday we got started with our duties here. We clean the bathrooms, emptying trash cans and general litter picking. Since this park is a “wayside” the bathrooms have to remain open all night and smoking is allowed. If we have picked up one cigarette butt, I think we’ve picked up a million of them. The scary part of that is we’ve noticed some folks just throw the butts on the ground without putting them out.
Cline Falls was a pretty rowdy place a few years back with a lot of drunks and drug deals going on at night. Oregon Parks banned alcohol use and put in a host site. Also, Sheriff Deputies and State Troopers drive trough on a regular basis. All of that has made the park much nicer for park visitors and a really nice hosting gig.
Today we are moving a lot of limbs that have broken off the trees caused by all the snow that Central Oregon had this past winter. There is also a lot of litter picking to be done over the next few days.
We then drove up to The Pump House Bar & Grill in Terrebonne to met up with our friends Jerry & Marylin Howlett and Jerry & Susan Wentzel. We all host at Smith Rock State Park every year and always have a lot of fun when we get-together.
May 5, 2019
We got a knock on the door early this morning from a guy who was fishing on the river and said he saw a cougar. Said he heard a “growl” behind him, turned around and saw a small one on the small hill behind him. He also said he saw one a couple of weeks ago when he was fishing up near Mt. Hood. It is very unusual to see one cougar in your lifetime but to see two of them? Amazing!
May 9, 2019
On Monday Joyce and I took a road trip over to Salem to the Oregon Lottery Commission to collect Joyce’s winnings. We then drove to Jim and Jeanne Glaspey’s home in Oakridge to get some medications that were mailed to their house . We all went to supper at Mountain Pizza where we met up with more friends.
We left Oakridge about 11 AM making a stop at Costco in Bend to pick up a few things then at Eye Mart to order new glasses for Joyce.
Last night Joyce heard the cougar that has been hanging around here at Cline Falls. She then saw a car speeding around the loop at about the same time. We don’t know that that was all about but you never know what you might see here.
May 12, 2019
We’ve been busy here at Cline Falls for the past week. One of the things we have been working on is getting the lawn irrigation system up and running. The park staff always shuts down the system during the winter so it takes some priming and replacing/adjusting the sprinkler heads in the spring. We ran the system last night in automatic mode and all seems well.
Another thing that needs attention is the pressure tank for the potable water system. The pump was recently replaced but the tank needs replacing as well. Hopefully that will be done this next week.
May 19, 2019
Time sure flies when you’re havin’ fun.
The nice weather here in the Redmond area was beautiful last week so the park has busy. However, the last few days have been cool and rainy so the visitors have stopped coming for the most part.
We did get that new pressure tank installed and so far it is working as advertised.
Kacey, one of our rangers at Tumalo State Park (the management unit for us here at Cline Falls) was out the other day and did some work on the plumbing in the pipe chase and then started work on the irrigation system again. Unfortunately she found a couple of leaks in the lines so yesterday she, Blythe and Kelli showed up to do some digging. They found both leaks so when the weather breaks a little they plan to fix those.
Speaking of Tumalo there have been some personnel changes. Rangers Taylor and Jacob have left for new jobs. So that leaves just Kelli and Blythe along with Kacey who is actually a seasonal at LaPine State Park but on loan to Tumalo.
More later.
Barry & Joyce
