Friends in the Forest

I am delighted to have made the acquaintance of several blogger friends. A key component of this opportunity is being geographically close enough to visit, otherwise I would have met more bloggers. Curt Mekemson at Wandering Through Time and Place and his lovely wife Peggy lived in Oregon until recently, so I was able to visit them at their home three times. Curt was one of my first friends to meet Pedro when we first began dating.

Some of you follow their blog too, so you will know that they are currently on a road trip that brought them along the Pacific Coast of the US. I am envious that in California they got to meet Jenny from Bulldog Travels, whom I followed for so many years, and somehow lost track of. This was back in April, and they gradually made their way north since then, keeping to the cool coast during all the hot weather around here. In June they were due West of us, so Pedro and I and his kids went out to spend a day with them.

We decided to meet up at the Tillamook Forest Center on Saturday. Most of us had been there before, but it had been years and it is such an excellent museum and educational center that it was worth another visit. The first thing we did was to go inside and watch a movie about why the center is there. The educational center is here because of a series of devastating wildfires in this spot, and the massive, decades-long efforts to rebuild the forest by community members (The US Forestry Service didn’t believe restoration was possible, and thus refused to help).

As you see in the photo, the volunteers did not waste their time. Today it’s a beautiful and beautifully managed forest. The Forest Center is absolutely focused on the history of wildfires, how they damaged the land, and how the land recovered, and it is also focused on what makes a healthy forest. Nearby is a mock lookout tower, modeled on those used by wildfire lookouts in days past, to keep an eye on the forests below and radio in to firefighting crews the precise location of fires. From this tower we were able to take the above photo, but I foolishly forgot to take a photo of the tower. Ha!

Andre examined the outside of the building and noticed the long, V-shaped protrusion you can see in the above photo that hovers over the water. He surmised that it was a creative waterspout to make rainfall into a waterfall. That seemed like a good guess, but no one knew. Then a doozy of a rainstorm began, and his theory was proven to be true.

Next we met a forest guide, who took us along one of the many paths around the center, and helped us identify the trees. She used tricks and stories to help us remember characteristics of the trees, which would then help us remember the names of the trees.

We walked deeper into the forest, finding new trees to learn about.

Visiting the Tillamook Forest Center is free, though they do encourage people to leave a donation if they are inclined (we all left donations), and the guided tours are free, and change by the date and time, so check ahead to find the one you are most interested in.

We said goodbye to our guide and continued to explore the museum, to include heading directly out the back door into the woods again.

By this time we were very hungry and found a place to eat seafood with a view. The clouds had cleared and there was no more rain to contend with.

Anyone who has followed Curt’s blog is familiar with Bone, the Traveling Bone. Bone came to visit me back in 2018. We did so much stuff: visited my bees, went to Astoria on the coast, and best of all, spent a week in Oklahoma learning about the Cherokee Nation. Read all about it in my blog post about Bone. Anyway, Bone and I have been friends ever since. But Liam and Andre got to meet him for the first time.

After a meal, we naturally began thinking about dessert. And since we were in the Tillamook area, naturally we began thinking about the Tillamook Creamery. The boys knew a trick to get ice cream faster (get in line at the OUTSIDE window, not the inside one), and soon we were all eating what I believe to be some of the best ice cream in the country.

At that point it had been a long day and it was time to go our separate ways. We all hugged goodbye and went off. Several miles down the road I remembered a dozen fresh eggs I had brought from my Hussies to share with the Mekemsons, but we were too tired to go back and out of cell range anyway, so we couldn’t communicate. Ah well. Next time.