How Did I Get Here?

Larry - Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, "How did I get here?" I did so yesterday and I'm still pondering the answers. On a macro scale, of course I'm here because my parents conceived me and named me Larry. But I wanted to "back engineer" my life, to follow the thread backwards from today and see what I could learn. I'm going to post just a few of the thousands, if not millions of small and large crossroads in which my life changed directions, most in small incremental steps but some in large, life altering shakeups.

Beginning here, east of Rogue River, Or. where we are house sitting for seven weeks for a couple who vacation in Thailand every year. We found this house sit through an online website that we joined before we were due to leave our last three month housesit in Suquamish, WA. We found the one in WA because we had met our friend, Karen, a bonafide sea captain back in 2007 who asked us to pet sit her two cats, Greta and Max. She's now teaching at a maritime academy on the east coast and wanted us to look after her house on the Puget Sound once again. Starting in 1996, we started our house/ranch sitting gig by word of mouth until we joined "house carers.com". That led us all over the US, as far east as Atlanta, GA and as far south as Texas and Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California. Still pondering the paths we took... the choices we made at different junctures. To Be Continued....

Back To Klamath Wildlife Area

We had a really good time at state parks but we were very happy to return to the remoteness of KWA. We returned to KWA in March of 2019 for another six months where we were able to add our own vegetable garden to the forage plant plot. We helped "round up" Canadian geese at a golf course and helped band 225 birds and other fun projects; trash patrol of the entire area, growing sunflowers for the birds, a little tractor work and eradication of "salt cedar", etc. We love the feel of wide open spaces. Never have imagined living in the high desert. Who knew?

 Klamath Wildlife Area 2019
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Our First Gig As Camp Hosts

Larry - Since the winters in the Klamath basin are pretty brutal, we needed a winter haven. Next stop,  volunteering with Oregon State Parks at Alfred Loeb State Park, 8 miles east of Brookings, Oregon. We were camp hosts for the months of October and November, 2018. It is a beautiful park on the banks of the Chetco River. A special place to be in the fall of the year. Another great benefit is making life long friends with the hosts that you work with. Joe and Diane made this a very fun easy assignment - team work! Below is a short photo album of our time there.

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Charlotte - Our next stop was Harris Beach State Park for the months of December, 2018 and January, February 2019. This time we were going to be yurt cleaners and relief for the camp hosts. We had a great view and front row participation in the wind storms that blow in from the Pacific here. Trees did fall in these windstorms as you will see in the photos. Yurt cleaning had it's good days and not so good days. Really? how can folks do this to a yurt. We think it all goes back to how they grew up in their homes. Some yurts left as neat as a pen and others a total mess. Thank goodness no bedding or dishes are provided.

A few photos from our time at Harris Beach State Park
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Hello Klamath Wildlife Area

1000's of  Ross's Geese

Larry - We had no idea of what we had signed up for and so were pleasantly surprised at how perfect the fit was for us. SOMEONE must have been looking out for us since we didn't even apply for this wildlife area. We maintained a native forage plant plot, picked up trash on 2700 acres of wetlands that provides habitat for migrating waterfowl, placed swallow houses in trees and on poles, made and erected trail signs, helped with banding doves, tended a brand new fruit orchard and generally helped the biologists with their projects.

Our little piece of paradise

Storm clouds brewing

Charlotte - Never imagined that we would love the high desert is so much. Fell in love with the wide open spaces. Boy, did we luck out. We worked with a great group of people and loved the tasks they gave us to do. We had amazing camp spot all to ourselves, which means a lot to us because we value our privacy. About the only noise was the distant train whistle, which I love because of growing up listening to trains in my childhood, some traffic on the road and lots of bird noise; sand hill cranes, geese, ducks and robins in the morning and evening.

Klamath Wildlife Area 2018
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Catch Up

Larry - Over the past 30 some odd years we have consistently made choices that seemed to always place us on the edge so to speak - leaping with faith that the net would appear. Our next "port of call" from Valley of the Rogue state park was the Klamath Wildlife Area (KWA) just south of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Little did we know that we would fall in love with the Klamath basin and the lifestyle of volunteerism. We had no idea of what we had signed up for.

Charlotte - Seems like we haven't visited our blog in awhile so it is catch up time. After leaving the RV Park in Brookings we headed over the mountain to our first volunteer assignment in the Klamath Basin - a place we had never been before. Stopping for a few days at Valley of the Rogue State Park so we could do a few upgrades on our travel trailer and have a "camping experience". It was a little scary going to a place we had never been before to take on an assignment working for people we didn't know.