Into the Wild Part 2

Although it wasn't quite an "into the wild" like the first adventure, Daisy and I made it up to the Umpqua Hot Springs in one piece. The fall colors are beautiful this time of the year, much more appealing to me than five feet of snow like the last time I visited.

We started down in Yachats for the annual mushroom festival. After observing the fungus among us, we drove up to the top of Cape Perpetua, and walked over to the rock building to check out the view hundreds of feet above sea level. So Beautiful......

From there, we headed south until we got to Reedsport, then started our journey up the Umpqua River. I decided I was going to camp overnight, and Daisy seemed to be fine with the idea. I stopped at a Safeway and bought some firewood, and then headed up highway 138, sixty miles out, and 2,500 feet up. By the time I got to the hotsprings, it was close to dusk. I jumped out of the car, observing my surrounding to be much different since the last time I had adventured up the road. The CXT building (shitter) had been buried in snow, but now, it was being used by some long haired hippie. The trees were once bare leafed, and weighed down with snow, now was a rainbow of leaves.

I made it up for my first soak just before the last orange was being sucked up by the night's sky. There was groups in two other pools, and a loner in another. As a loner, besides my dog, who I wasn't going to invite into the water with me, though for a second about joining the other loner in the spring. I decided against it, and sat in the top (also the hottest) spring, with Daisy sitting on the rock beside me. Since it was so hot, I only stayed in for 10 minutes at a time, then had to take a breather. I left after less than an hour and two beers.

There was a campground a mile or so down the road from the springs that I decided to stay at. We pulled into the A loop, and could tell there was a group of hunters camping out. We checked out the B loop, and it was totally empty. It was nice to be so alone, yet know that there was a big group of people not too far away. We had a fire, I had another beer, or three quarters of one, and hit the hay. It was the first time I let Daisy stay in the car with me. I think she enjoyed it very much.

We slept well. In the morning we took another trek up the mountain for an early morning soak. Once again, I didn't invite Daisy to soak with me. She sat next to me and watched me with great curiosity for the first few minutes. Then she seemed to get board, and fell back asleep.

I had all of the pools all to myself, it was so quiet, I could hear the leaves falling off the trees into the water.

This is a beautiful place.....