A Bit More California and the Illinois Valley (OR)
We saw some fauna in the woods, too. Chipmunks, dragon flies and banana slugs. Banana slugs are really big, yellow, gross-looking guys and if bananas looked like that you wouldn’t eat them. Once in a while, though you see a pretty good-looking one, ours had black and brown spots, very sportif. No one wants any kind of slug in the garden, whether banana-sized or smaller, because they love fresh leaves and Oregonians go to great lengths to get rid of them. There’s beer, coffee grounds, poison, of course, but I like Sheila’s approach with more karmic sensitivity. Pick them up, throw them in the street and let them take their chances. Their purpose in life is a good one, though, they make soil out of dead things as well as live plants. We went to a great place for lunch in a little tiny town called Klamath (not to be confused with Oregon’s Klamath Falls). The restaurant is called Deniel’s Place and it’s in a blue-gray doublewide just off Highway 101. It serves breakfast until 11:30 but we were there at 2:00 and some locals were having breakfast. I always thought this had to do with changing the grill from eggs to hamburgers, but maybe not. These guys also had a little box on their table and when they left, I said to the waitress, “Is that their package left on the table?” and she said, “Nope, if the orders are back-logged, the cook sends out a little snack.” It was a package of coconut macaroons. Hmm. We had burgers, BLTs and patty melts, all of it good, all of it timely. The most interesting thing about this place, though is a display of photos that show the community before and after the Christmas Flood of 1955. It used to be quite the thriving little community, but no more. Unusually rainy weather in about a 10-day span caused all the rivers and streams in a wide area to flood. The pictures are pretty dramatic, but I wasn’t aware of this incident at all. Of course I was a child, but it was a big set of floods over lots of territory, you’d think the memory would persist somehow. Deniel’s also has a few pictures of a fine looking bear, closer up than I‘d care to take a picture. There still are quite a few black bears around here and they come in all colors, from blond, through brown and reddish into black. (And aside for those who grew up in Portland: Nordstrom’s Christmas Cinnamon Bear, Denise (?), was probably a black bear.) The Klamath bear was quite large, medium brown and clearly a local celebrity. We also did see the elk, a small part of the herd, about a dozen and a half, resting and ruminating. Our last stop was at the Klamath River Overlook (panoramic view, takes a QuickTime plug-in, you probably have it). We in Oregon think of the Klamath as our river, since it originates in Upper Klamath Lake here. Actually only about 50 miles of the river are in Oregon and about 200 in California, so we wanted to see where it enters the Pacific. This is also the river responsible for destroying the town of Klamath, of course. It’s an impressive river in any state and any manifestation. The overlook is also bear country, the garbage cans were very heavy and set in concrete (as the daughters of a construction man, we know that cement is the stuff that comes in the bags and concrete is the finished product). At the end of this day, we drove back though Crescent City trying to find their famous cheese-maker, Rumiano Cheese Company, run by the Rumiano family since 1921. Eventually we learned that they gave out tastes and sold cheese out of a trailer parked in the parking lot of the county fair grounds, but, alas, they were closed. This experience was deceptive, though, since I learned through the Rumiano web site that they’re a huge operation heavily into the foodservice market and selling under several different labels. The Rumiano Dry Monterey Jack was the one we were after, though. Our luck held the next day, when we found some Rumiano’s to buy, I’ll tell about that later. First we said good-bye to the Patrick Creek Lodge and staff and watched two motorcycle jocks who had spent the night get ready to roar away. Then, on a suggestion from a staff member we took the Oregon Mountain Road to Cave Junction. This is (part of) the old stage road between Crescent City in California and Grants Pass in Oregon. (For any road construction buffs, here’s a memoir about road-building around Patrick Creek and elsewhere in the Northwest). It was a grand drive with much winding up and down and around the mountains and views of pine, rhododendron, dogwood, elderberry, but the area didn't have enough defining characteristics for a separate botanical interlude. However, our final botanical roadside will get one.
Our brunch stop was in Cave Junction at Taylor’s Sausage retail store there. The Taylor family has been making sausages in the “new world” since 1924. Who knows how long before that in Europe. Great Grandpa served sausages to the stars at the Farmers’ Market in Hollywood (CA) in the 30’s and 40’s, Grandpa moved to the Crystal Palace Market in San Francisco and eventually, tiring of the big city, Dad moved the operation to Josephine County OR in 1970. The sons are now in charge and the grandsons are starting to learn. The recipes are the same though and they’re all great. They have 50 kinds of sausages and other kinds of meat, even grass-fed buffalo! Which my sister and I claim is much better than grain-fed, but we haven’t eaten any in so long, the truth is we don’t really remember. Now we can compare! They also sell many other meats, some fresh, but mostly frozen AND this is where we got the Rumiano Dry Jack. It is well worth the search, nutty, assertive and rich with what they say is a traditional coating of black pepper dust, cocoa powder and oil. An excellent cheese at a very reasonable price. Since we were there last, a Taylor’s Sausage web site has begun. For now you can only order smoked sausages, but I’m optimistic that they will figure out a way to extend sales to the frozen meats sometime soon. Our final adventure can’t properly be cited as a Botanical Interlude because the plants were all dead. This was a stop at It’s a Burl! in Kerby Oregon, just a few minutes north of Cave Junction. And since that is supposed to happen sometime next Spring, it’s unlikely that there will be any more trips before then. If anyone has advice about Italy -- what to see, what to skip, what to ride, what to drink -- Dawn and I are still at the "taking advice" stage. You probably don’t remember that Dawn is the long-time friend, currently living in Alaska, who first got me connected in Belize way back in 1999. THIS time she has won some money that she has to spend on travel and has invited me along! What a great friend, right?! Well, most of you are great friends (even the ones I haven’t met, I’d bet), but she’s really special. So send along your hints and we’ll consider everything and then write about it when we’re there. That is, if we can figure out hauling a computer, Internet connections, etc. Until then, stay well and have a great summer. * As evidence that this is an area with lots of old hippies, I offer the name of a 49-year-old man cited in the local paper -- Hobbit Wolf Stargazer.
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