Hug Point

Spring vacation was here and we had the grandkids for the week. Sometimes we had them for half a day and sometimes it was overnight-it depended on what we were doing the next day. An early morning departure was required for some of our activities. On one of those early days we went to Hug Point. Mr UAW and I had been there a few years ago and we wanted to take the grandkids. Now we had the time, the grandkids, and the tides were just right. Hug Point is best seen at low tide. It is possible to become stranded by the incoming tide when exploring the point. So we checked the tide tables and it was low tide at 11am, enough time to drive there and explore the beach, caves, old stagecoach road, and waterfall before the incoming tide sent us away to another beach for the rest of the day. Hug Point is just 5 miles south of Cannon Beach, this little wayside includes forested picnic areas, a restroom and a short walkway to the beach. The parking lot can get full fast. The first time we were there it was a weekday, no holidays, and we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. This time it was spring vacation and the tides were perfect for viewing the area so it was crowded. But we managed to grab one of the last parking places. A short walk north from the parking lot reveals a seasonal waterfall-about 15 feet high, caves carved into sandstone cliffs and tide pools accessible during low tide. 

Imagine traveling by stagecoach along the beach.  Before the highway was built, the beach was the only way to travel along this stretch of coast.  North of the parking area at low tide you can walk along the original stagecoach road, still harboring the wheel ruts carved into the rock.  Pioneers traveling around this headland had to hug the point carefully, even at low tide. Thus, the point and the park are both aptly named Hug Point. It's a great place to visit but you have to make sure you get there pretty close to low tide. 

        The kids racing towards a cave-high energy especially after sitting in the car for 1:45. 

                                         

Many of the caves were interesting 

Cave exploring buddies 

This was Zeke's favorite cave. If you look hard you can see his face, a small dot, just half way up the picture. He had great fun climbing up there. 

Micaela would rather have her picture taken here in the light

Bottom of the waterfall 

Top of the waterfall 

Old stagecoach road 

Some of the cliffs overlooking the beach 

And of course hugs are necessary at Hug Point!

Hike at Oxbow Regional Park

We just went to Oxbow Regional Park. It's in the Portland area, in Gresham. On the east side of Gresham towards Mt Hood lies Oxbow. The Sandy River flows thru this park and you can kayak, raft, float or fish the river.  More than 200 years ago eruptions on Mt Hood changed the landscape and caused the Sandy River to flow in a U-shaped bend at the park, similar to the oxbow shape of collars used on oxen. Maybe we will kayak it when it warms up some. Yup...I'm a fair weather kayaker. The park has 12 miles of trails, some go thru an ancient forest, older trees with lots of moss on them. There are campgrounds there too, although for me I like more distance between me and the city. The day we went happened to be a "free" day at the park, no entrance fee-it was only $5. We did not hike all 12 miles of the trails, only about 3.5 miles. The path next to the river was very nice. Starting at the Happy Creek area gave us plenty of trail away from the road, just above and next to the river, and thru the Ancient forest. Mr UAW really likes hikes that have lots of ferns, water and forest. This park hit all of his favorites. The boat launch was our final destination. On the way back, we took the same trail until we got to the Ancient forest. Another trail thru the Ancient forest lead us back to our car. We then drove thru the rest of the park, saw the campgrounds then headed home. All in all we spent about 3 hours hiking, stopping for lunch on a bench overlooking the river. The trail map that we picked up at the visitor center was very helpful and the trails were well marked. It was a very nice hike. 

Trail leading into Ancient Forest 

Mr UAW enjoying the ferns 

Lots of moss. Everywhere. 

The Sandy River erodes the banks

Sandy River with one of its bends 

I was looking for one of the many birds we heard but never found it, trees were nice tho. 

On the way back 

Fishing Hagg Lake

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved to fish. My dad taught me how to fish. We would usually fish for trout. Last year, while in Oregon, I got my first fishing license in years and off we went. Last year we tried salmon/steelhead fishing but didn't catch anything. We had some nice trips, found some nice places, but no salmon. We did get some trout when camping at Trillium Lake last year. So this year we didn't get fishing licenses for everything, we just got licenses for trout. It seemed to be an easier fish to catch and offered more family friendly opportunities to fish. We had been looking at a local lake, Henry Hagg Lake, and decided to try it in the winter. A bit of research on the internet brought us information on where to go at the lake. And we talked to my daughter and son-in-law, grandkids included, and they wanted to try it out too. It seems that Micaela, my granddaughter, got a new fishing pole last year and needed to try it out. This was a good opportunity to do that.

It was a cold morning. 

We were stalked by this Heron looking for a meal.

                                                                                             

Zeke waiting for that fish!

Fish caught!

Micaela waiting for that fish!

Fish caught!

                                           

                                                    Our catch for the day

Our meal that evening

We had so much fun fishing that Mr UAW and I went back the next week to try again. This time we caught 2 fish, enough for dinner. I took my fishing pole from when I was a kid and caught one on the first cast out. Then we had nothing until it was almost time to leave, then Mr UAW caught one. And again we had some beggars stalking us for a meal, this time there were 3 of them. 

Snowshoeing!

I've been wanting to snowshoe here in the Pacific Northwest. We never got to it last winter so I've been waiting for the right time to go this winter. It was late January and the weather was clear for a good 5 days. We planned our trip for the weekday so as to avoid the weekend crowds. Sno Park pass for the day was needed-a whole $4! I guess if we went all the time we would get a season pass. Then we had to decide on a destination.  Going towards Mt Hood on Highway 26 gave us plenty of options. Glacier View Sno Park and hike around Enid Lake or go to Ski Bowl West and hike the trail to Mirror Lake were some of our choices. Checking some of the trail apps gave information that turned out to be incorrect-and pleasantly so...more on that later. We chose Glacier View and if it didn't work out Ski Bowl West was the next place to stop on the highway. So on a Monday morning we headed up early. Traffic wasn't bad. In time, my Google Maps app told me we were minutes from our destination yet there was no snow. Oregon is low on their snow levels for the year, maybe there isn't any snow at Glacier View and we will have to go higher. But just as I rounded a corner, there it was-lots of snow. Ok then. It turned out that Glacier View was not a Sno Park that Oregon Dept of Transportation kept plowed. It was too icy and we didn't have any traction tires or chains on the car. On to the next destination-Ski Bowl West. I read on the app that you had to hike down the highway for a 1/2 mile or so to connect with the trail to Mirror Lake. That didn't sound very appealing. But it turned out that last summer a trail was completed that took you from the parking lot to the Mirror Lake Trail. It has 9 bridges that were air lifted in to establish this trail. We have found that Oregon takes very good care of their trail system and this is a good example of that. So off we went

   

The first picture is one of the bridges they air lifted in. Later we had to cross this other bridge-not one of the new ones-with our snowshoes on. It was tricky but doable.  Most of the trail was snowed over but there were some spots with bare ground. We just left our snowshoes on. The snow was pretty icy and probably a better choice would have been spikes or crampons. Sounds like a good birthday or Christmas gift idea. Problem is that I would need to remember that as those holidays land towards the end of 2019.



Mirror Lake looks like Mirror Snow Field. There were tracks going across it but it didn't seem such a good idea to walk across. It had been warm lately and we didn't trust the ice.

   

A hike around the lake revealed a nice view of Mt Hood. I hear in the summer the mountain is nicely reflected in the lake.

   



Our snowshoes are older. We got them in CA years ago at Sams Club and had used them two times. There are probably better ones out there now, but these worked out fine.

This creek crossed our path many times 

Our path thru the snow 

                           

               

The trail ended up being a 4 mile trek. There were uphills and downhills. It wasn't too much for us. Back at the car we decided to go up the highway to check out some of the other Sno Parks. The town of Government Camp had one but it was not free. Up the highway a bit there was Snow Bunny Sno Park and Trillium Lake Sno Park. Both of these looked to be plowed by ODT with nice size parking lots, and to use them you needed a Sno Park pass. I think next time we will snowshoe the Trillium Lake Trail. Both of these Sno Parks had areas that the kids could use a sled so maybe we need to take a trip with the grandkids!

Confession, prediabetes, motivation

I have a confession to make. I fell off the "vegan wagon". On December 22, 2017 I blogged about becoming a vegan 98% of the time. My blood work for my cholesterol numbers had gone down from 236 to 213 because of my new diet. I was excited about how what I ate affected the numbers. The months went on and slowly, very slowly, I allowed many of the old foods I used to eat back into my life. I probably ate vegan about 50% of the time. I was curious to see how this would affect my blood work this coming November 2018. I had my blood work done and held my breath. Now my cholesterol was the highest it has ever been 238-closer to that 240 danger zone! And to top it all off I was now prediabetic. Actually, I looked at the estimated average glucose numbers for the last 4 years and I have always been in the prediabetic range. I wonder why no one said anything until now? My glucose numbers in 2017 were less than they were in 2016-so the vegan diet was helping. Anyway the glucose numbers are currently closer to type 2 diabetes than they have ever been. It is currently 120 mg/dL after fasting. It's supposed to be under 100 mg/dL and between 100 and 125 mg/dL is prediabetes. So now what to do? I decided that I shouldn't have "fallen off the wagon". I now have even more motivation to stay vegan.

I was surprised by the prediabetes diagnosis. I'm a tall, thin, active person that didn't eat a lot of sugar. I guess my genetics are catching up with me. My maternal grandmother had type 2 diabetes as she got older and 1 of her siblings had type 2 diabetes and 2 of her siblings had type 1 diabetes. My mother and brother don't have it. As far as I know none of my cousins have it. They say there are many things one can do to reverse this diagnosis.
1. Loose weight if you're overweight-check, I'm fine there
2. Don't smoke-check, I don't smoke
3. Reduce stress in your life-check, I'm retired now, much less stress
4. Exercise regularly-check, I run 3 days a week, ride horses once a week, do my exercise videos 2 days a week or hike or kayak. I guess I could do better at elevating my heart rate on some of those days.
5. Change your diet-this is the only thing I have left in my arsenal to reverse this disease.

I've said "reverse" diabetes twice now. Reverse is the correct word because it will always be with me my whole life. "Reverse" is not the same thing as "cure". I can reverse it's affect on me thru my diet but I can't cure it.

Prediabetes is not the same as diabetes, but from all my reading it is a serious condition in and of itself. According to the CDC about 84 million American adults, more than 1 out of 3, have prediabetes and 90% of them don't even know they have it. Prediabetes usually flies under the radar. There are no clear symptoms, so it often goes undetected for years. It's linked to a great risk of heart disease and stroke due to the chronic damage that elevated blood sugar can cause to heart and blood vessels. It puts me at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, neuropathy, kidney failure, blindness. It's a wake up call to make some changes so that I don't develop type 2 diabetes with all of its complications. Prediabetes is a fork in the road, if I ignore it I will probably end up with type 2 diabetes down the road. If I actively do something about it, I could prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. Hence, I've now got plenty of motivation to stay on my diet and always get my exercise.

So now I'm more motivated than ever to work on my diet, it's the only thing I have left in my arsenal to hopefully reverse diabetes. And it will help to reduce the cholesterol numbers. I like the vegan diet. I also have more support this time around. I've started eating like a diabetic, watching what I eat and how it affects my blood sugar. I find that it's not only the sugar I eat but the type of carbs that I eat that affect my blood sugar levels. So I've started testing my own blood sugar levels. There are many at home meters you can get to test your own levels, mine is Contour. I figured I could guess how to eat and hopefully have lower blood sugar numbers, wait a year for my next test, and hope the numbers would be good. Or I could actually test myself, see how particular foods affect my numbers, make adjustments based on some facts-so hopefully I'll see some good numbers next November.

Prediabetes is an important condition not to be ignored. I hope that by sharing others will know to take this seriously and get help if they have this. Vegan isn't the only path to take, there are many ways to deal with this disease. The point I'm trying to make is to DO SOMETHING, don't ignore it. Please educate yourself and take care of yourself.

Catch up

I haven't blogged anything since October and now it's almost Christmas. It is time to catch up with what's been going on with us. 

In October we went to a local park, to the Hoyt Arboretum, to hopefully see some fall color. We were surprised by a few trees that were beautiful and one-the Birch-Bark Cherry Tree from China- that was unusual-it had rings around it. The Oregon Vietnam Veterans Living Memorial was also there and it was a beautiful and serene place, truly a place for reflection. 

      

   

Oct 22 we took our last kayak trip for the year. We went on our local river. Now it is too cold for this person to go. It was a nice trip with a beautiful clear day. 

   

In November we went to McIver State Park. We've been there a few times and it's a good place to go for a hike. We tried some of the trails that we hadn't done before. Mr UAW saw a huge deer and there are views of Mt Hood, Mt Adams and Mt St. Helens. 

         

   

Thanksgiving week we took a trip to CA to visit relatives and friends. Every year after Thanksgiving we go on a family hike. This years hike was great. It was in the Squaw Leap Recreation area. It's in the middle of CA in the Sierras. The Sierras have so much granite, something that is not prevalent here in the pacific northwest. It was nice to see. 

      

Every year the grandkids make a candy house. It's a ginger bread house but has soooo much candy on it they named it a candy house. It's interesting to see their creative work every year. 

      

My vegetable garden is done for the year. We now have frost in the mornings. It is now the beginning of December and the highs are in the 40's and the lows in the low 30's. Lately the wind has been blowing which makes all things colder. As I write this at 8:24pm it is 35 outside and the RealFeel temp is 24. We will be getting some rain in the next few days. When it rains it might get a bit warmer. We are enjoying the all the different seasons, something that we missed where we used to live in CA. 

I have a few projects that I'm work on and will save a blog post for each one. I guess that's it for now.