10/23: I’m currently sitting on the porch, too hot in jeans and a T-shirt, wondering why it took me until 3:30 to get myself out here. The sky is that autumn blue that appears more vivid as a backdrop for fiery maple and sweetgum leaves. We Eugeneans have been offered a reprieve from the early winter weather that has poured 4.5 inches of rain on us this month, more than double our normal October rainfall (it also brought early snow to the mountain passes, snow that quickly melted).
Between the rains, the weekend before last gave us some sunny, warm weather that we used to get up to the hills, heading back to Clear Lake for our new autumn pilgrimage to see fall colors. Next year, we’ll go up a couple of weeks earlier; while still beautiful, the vine maples were past their scarlet prime by October 14th.
10/24: Raining again. That’s because Boston’s biggest Eugene fan is feeling empathy for his Red Sox, who are currently kicking Rocky butt in the rain at Fenway.
But Clear Lake:
We started our Clear Lake hike at the Clear Lake Resort near the highway, since the Coldwater Cove Campground was closed for construction. Coldwater Cove had been our camping destination for the night, but everyone we’d invited to camp with us had bailed out, so the fact that the campground was closed was surprising but not distressing. The 5.5 mile hike around the lake is flat and easy, and Chris started out with Sylvan in the backpack. By the time we reached Coldwater Cove, Sylvan needed to hike, and he especially needed to watch the construction dumptruck have its tire changed and the backhoe dump gravel near the new potty.
The east side of the lake, where the campground is located, is especially lovely with vine maples and lava, and, when you start your hike after lunchtime, the east side is also warm with afternoon sun.
Sylvan decided he needed to hike for the next four hours, into the darkness. “I’m a good hiker.” Yes, that’s true. The trail on the lake’s east side winds through a lava flow. Lava is sharp and scary when your 2-year-old is barreling toward it. Sylvan was game, though, which was alternately patience-trying and nerve-wracking but always encouraging. How’s he going to learn to love hiking if we don’t let him hike, after all?
At the Great Springs, Sylvan was excited about putting his feet in the water — until he found that the water was 38 degrees Fahrenheit! Then he displayed his strength by arching his back and holding his legs up behind him, like a skydiver, as Chris lowered him to the water.
M R ducks. But what kind of ducks? Daddy didn’t know, so Sylvan took a stab. Ducks. They go “kack, kack.”
Walking walking wandering around trees turning around to walk the other way on the trail dog it says woof woof walking running mushroom two dogs running Mommy! ducks I want binoculars! No! walking squirrel galloping.
And it got darker. “Julie, did you bring a headlamp?” Did I bring a headlamp? Are we hiking? Of course I brought a headlamp.
And we shamelessly bribed Sylvan forward with Fig Newmans. He wore himself out enough with about a quarter of a mile to go that he allowed me to carry him on my shoulders.
We ate leftover pizza back at the Clear Lake Resort’s inappropriately-named-for-us “Day Use” area and packed up for home. I had remembered S’mores fixin’s for the first time in my life, but we weren’t going to camp, so, at 9 p.m., I made a fire in the woodstove back home and toasted some marshmallows.
You sure those ducks weren’t honkers? M maybe Ducks but umtimes D R honkers…
[…] last visited two years ago, when Sylvan was half as old as he is now. He was a good hiker then, insisting on walking so much […]