Serene Wandering

We rolled into the Land of Lincoln and to the campground at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

The grounds are massive and it has been interesting to walk around and see the preparations for the fair beginning August 10.

This is the poultry barn,  just one of many  large, beautiful buildings for animal groupings.

 

Randy discovered a different “animal” grouping while looking at an electric vehicle charging station!  He disturbed a hornets nest when he removed the charging handle and got swarmed and stung.  The next day he destroyed the nest and was able to replace the handle.

But we didn’t come for the fair, we came to Springfield to be immersed in everything Abraham Lincoln.

 

We visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, Lincoln’s Home National Historic Site, Lincoln’s Tomb and Union Station.

There were two excellent video productions about Lincoln and the Lincoln Library. Ghosts of the Library (in Holavision) was SO amazing that we thought the narrator was a real person! The picture shows the set – no pictures allowed of the actual performance.

Lincoln’s life and death are shown in full size dioramas but the museum adds much depth to the man and President we thought we knew.

 

 But did you know Lincoln had two sweethearts before Mary Todd and that they were engaged twice before they married? Mary came from a wealthy family who were opposed to her engagement to someone beneath her social standing. She eventually married him regardless.

They had four sons and had a permissive style of child rearing. He said “It is my pleasure that my children are free, happy and unrestrained by parental tyranny.”

In 1858 Lincoln debated Senator Douglas seven times as candidate for the United States Senate.  Lincoln lost the election (as he did many before that) but the resulting publicity made him a viable candidate for President in 1860.

Lincoln was assaulted in the press. The Wilmington Daily Journal declared him “by all odds the weakest man ever elected. He is vain, weak, sterile, hypocritical, without manners…. is beneath contempt in every particular, morally and mentally.”  Of course we know better now!

The Civil War began soon after Lincoln’s first inauguration.  Year after year of war was hard.  Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address and wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

 

The proclamation was released in a variety of forms and the museum has several examples.  An opinion in the Chicago Times stated  “…it will be known in all history as the most wicked, atrocious and revolting deed recorded in the annals of civilization.”   Not quite, as the proclamation was furthered in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

A sobering movie shows the Civil War, including battles, territory modifications and casualties, in four minutes.   One week of war is represented each second.

The War Gallery allows you to select a photo on a matching video display and learn more about the person or persons depicted in the wall photo.

With the war in its final days, Lee had surrendered but all hostilities had not yet ceased, Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth.  Lincoln’s body made several stops on the way home to Springfield.

This photograph of Lincoln lying in state was taken in New York City on April 24, 1865. Mary Lincoln felt it was disrespectful and Secretary of War Stanton ordered all plates and negatives confiscated and destroyed. A single print was sent to Stanton who sent it to a former Lincoln secretary years later.  The photo was found in 1952.

 

 

The remains of Abraham, Mary and the three sons who died young, Eddy, Willie and Tad, are all in the Lincoln Tomb complex. Their first son, Robert, lived a full life and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery at the request of his wife.

We also visited Lincoln’s Home National Historical Site – the only home Lincoln ever owned. The family lived there for 17 years before moving to Washington DC. There are furnishings the Lincoln family actually owned and others that are similar.

The house is accurately represented because there were drawings commissioned by a newspaper when Lincoln became President.

Mary Lincoln’s stove is original to the house. She liked it so well that she considered taking it to the White House.

The bed in Abraham Lincoln’s bedroom is not original but the wallpaper is an exact replica based on protected sections that were found.

We visited Union Station where, when leaving Springfield for Washington,  Lincoln  said  “Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young to an old man.”

Today the station holds sets and memorabilia from Steven Speilberg’s movie Lincoln. Speilberg strove for authenticity. He coordinated with the Lincoln museum and library, even obtaining a sound clip of Lincoln’s law office clock ticking.

In considering a title for this blog, I thought of familiar phrases like “…dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…”  or “Now he belongs to the ages” as spoken by Secretary of War Stanton upon Lincoln’s death.

Instead I decided on a phrase we just learned about. Lincoln, the man who said “with malice towards none and charity for all” also said “Play Dixie For me.”    He was visiting Richmond just after it fell and asked the band to “Play Dixie for me.”   He said “It is good to show the Rebels, that with us in charge, they will be free to hear it again.”   This exemplifies President Abraham Lincoln as he contemplated putting the nation back together again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a frenzy of one nighters in Indiana! Our fist night was spent at Indiana Dunes State Park on the southern shore of Lake Michigan.

Indiana Dunes is the most visited state park in Indiana and it surely qualified the night we were there!

When we traveled in the area last year we were disappointed at how little public access there was because so much lakeside property is privately owned.  This time our campground was within walking distance.

The next day we went to the MorRyde factory in Elkhart.  This factory was the reason we embarked on this 5 week jaunt across country in the muggy and busy summer! We have had axle alignment issues on our trailer for years and have been chewing through tires. Randy was convinced that installing an independent suspension system would solve our problem.

He was reluctant to put on new tires before the installation so we came across country on poor tires.  He rotated in the spare in Wyoming and our Tire Pressure Monitoring System chose these past two weeks to stop working.  There were some anxious moments as we rolled along the horrible roads in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. He kept telling me we would get there and, thankfully, he was right.

At 6:00 the next morning the transition from Dexter axles to a MorRyde independent suspension began.

We drove two hours south to Indianapolis and spent the day and night with our friend Rosa. It was wonderful to see her!    How do we know so many people in the midwest?

 

When we arrived back in Elkhart the new suspension system was installed and being aligned.  Our new G-rated tires were in place.  The technician told Randy that he and his partner’s eyes really popped when one of our old tires came apart when he tried to take it off the rim.  They had not seen that happen before.  We just BARELY got there!

 

The installer also told us he could see what the problem had been with our axles. Someone had bent them by raising the trailer on the axle tubes.  A huge mistake. It likely happened replacing our first set of tires or having our bearings packed as we had continual problems after that. Randy was not pleased that four supposedly reputable alignment shops could not determine that the bent axles were the problem.

At any rate, it took 2500 miles, two weeks of travel, and two days of work but we were ready to roll! Randy was very pleased with the process and the installation. He could immediately feel the difference in how the trailer responded.

At our first stop, Randy found rubbing on one of the cosmetic fenders caused by the very slight difference in suspension height. He trimmed it to allow more room as the suspension accommodates the road. Easily resolved.

We started our three week trek home by driving 120 miles southwest to Indiana’s newest state park, Prophetstown.   It is a very lovely state park in the Indiana grasslands with a nice campground, waterpark, bike trails, small scale working farm and an Indian village.

Prophetstown was named for an Indian settlement that was here from 1808 – 1811.  Shawnee leader Tekumseh and his brother the “prophet” organized a confederation of tribes intent on stopping western expansion.

William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory, recognized the danger of Tecumseh’s plan. He brought troops to the area and the Battle of Tippecanoe took place on November 7, 1811. Thirty-seven soldiers and an unknown number of Indians were killed in the battle. The next day Prophets town was raided and destroyed.

One of the soldier combatants, John Tipton, acquired the battlefield land in 1829 and donated it to the state of Indiana in 1836. The constitution of the state includes a mandate to enclose and preserve the Tippecanoe battlefield.

 

There is a monument to William Henry Harrison and soldiers as well as headstones for the officers.

 

Known by the name Old Tippecanoe, William Henry Harrison ran for president in 1840.  His running mate was John Tyler and that familiar slogan was coined!

Harrison was elected the ninth President of the United States defeating incumbent Martin VanBuren. After serving only 30 days, Harrison became the first president to die in office.

After only five days we leave Indiana tomorrow.  This afternoon we ate lunch at White Castle, a familiar but unknown entity for us westerners!

We tried a combination of beef, chicken, and chicken-waffle sliders. The french fries and the chicken-waffle were really good! The rest was unremarkable, perhaps an acquired taste. But what do we know?

 

 

 

 

 

Like the pioneers of western migration, we are traversing the Great Platt River Road but we are doing it in reverse, going east instead of west, and on Interstate 80 instead of a flat river plain.  At an interstate rest area we saw an exhibit where wagon ruts had been covered and commemorated in brick.

The topography is very different in Nebraska than in our home state of Idaho but an advantage of the barren west is that Oregon Trail ruts are still visible more than 150 years later. We have seen miles of ruts thanks to our friend Jerry who has a passion for the Oregon Trail and took us on field trips over many years.

Our eastern migration destination for this day was Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska. It holds the country’s largest private collection of “Americana.” Opened in the 1950’s, Pioneer Village was awarded “Best Pioneer History Collection” in 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2017! We were prepared to be impressed!

When we arrived at the Pioneer Village campground, we were not impressed.  After roaming the mostly abandoned motel grounds to find the office, our expectations were plummeting.

We checked in (after signing the required damage waiver) and found our site.

While I spent time picking up trash, Randy hooked us into very suspect looking utilities. (In fairness, the utilities worked great. The electricity was stable through a thunderstorm our first night and through the hot and muggy next day.)

It’s good that we are self contained because restrooms were unavailable.

The site turned out alright once you got past the very rough first impressions.

We spent most of a day exploring the vast collection of Americana (over 50,000 items) in Pioneer Village.  I appreciated that groupings were displayed chronologically – and there were groupings of SO MANY THINGS!

There were old computers and a punch-card reader just like Randy used at Northern Arizona University about 1980.

 

We didn’t skip the wagons, buggies and automobiles  but couldn’t possibly give them all their due because there were so many of them – over 350 autos displayed chronologically.

We had just had a conversation about how many cars there were that we had never heard of when we saw a 1978 poster listing 2600 U.S. automakers operating between 1898 and 1978. Only eleven companies manufactured automobiles for more than 40 years. Those eleven were Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury(2011), Oldsmobile (2004), Plymouth (2001) and Pontiac (2010) and the dated ones have since discontinued.

My favorite part of the village is the displayed kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms across generations between 1830 and 1980!  Every actual sized room had so much detail.

Randy’s favorite part of the museum was just the fact that Harold Warp and his family went to so much effort to gather and present “ordinary aspects of American life for future generations to understand and enjoy.”

Harold Warp was a plastics pioneer. His company invented Jiffy Wrap and was the first to make plastic garbage bags. Products were marketed as Flex-O-Glass and Warp Plastics.

His goal was to preserve articles that made America grow and he traveled the country for decades purchasing and collecting the artifacts now on display.  He has since passed away and a private non-profit continues the mission.

Reviews on Trip Advisor for Pioneer Village were very good but a few expressed concern over the condition of the village.  It was somewhat confusing until we experienced it ourselves. We totally agree.  Pioneer Village is absolutely worth the trip because the collection is marvelous –  but you may want to come sooner rather than later.

 

 

We were glad to get moving again after our truck problem but the last day in Wyoming was still stressful. Randy was concerned enough about our tires on the trailer to change one out for the spare and rotate the others.  Irregular and accelerated tire wear is the whole reason for our planned suspension change in Elkhart – we just have to get there!

We were so glad to see that when we crossed the border into Nebraska we were headed for the good life! We’re not asking for a whole good life in Nebraska, just a few days with interesting things to do, no tire drama, no scary storms and safe passage into Iowa.

Like the 250,000 people who traveled through the area during western migration, we marveled at Chimney Rock.  Natives in the area named the rock “Elk Penis” but Anglo-Americans preferred “Chimney Rock.” Emigrants on the California, Mormon and Oregon trails came by here to travel the south pass through the Rocky Mountains.  Chimney Rock was a prominent landmark and often featured in drawings and diaries.

We were surprised to step outside in the evening and see Chimney Rock illuminated!

Carhenge is another landmark of interest in the area, but it is man-made!

 Jim Reinder spent years working in England and wanted to built a version of Stonehenge for his hometown of Alliance, Nebraska. Twenty five cars were collected and Carhenge rose in six days at a Reinder family reunion in 1987.

This Jeep was driven 1000 miles by its owner to be part of Carhenge.

The good citizens of Alliance were not enthralled with Carhenge at first but have embraced the site over time. The Friends of Carhenge have built additional auto art.

Over time, four of the original 25 cars, those of Japanese origin, were removed and replaced with American cars. The Japanese cars were allowed to “rust in peace.”  Carhenge was named Trip Advisor’s Top Family Attraction for Nebraska in 2016.

While enroute to Carhenge we saw storm damage northeast of Bayard.   A tornado swept through the area on June 12, 2017.   We are thankful there were no deaths or serious injuries and hope that all of the people effected by the tornado will soon be living the good life in Nebraska once again. A very impressive StormChasing.com video of the tornado and damage is available here.

 

As you can tell from the title, we have had an unexpected adventure. The situation is resolved as I write, but l’ll tell the tale chronologically.

Before we left Boise we had an intermittent noise in the truck engine and took it in to be checked out. They couldn’t reproduce the noise so we departed Boise Monday morning after Randy’s treatment.  Destination was Elkhart, Indiana and back by August 15.

The noise got worse and more consistent as we pulled the trailer to Idaho Falls. We were visiting Idaho Falls because it was a reasonable day’s travel from Boise, Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant is there, as is the Museum of Idaho.

We have been to the Museum of Idaho twice before,  weekend trips from Boise, to see traveling exhibits on Egyptology and the Titanic. This time the exhibit was about Space Voyage, one of Randy’s passions.

Randy found the exhibit very interesting but it was mostly beyond me since space travel is not one of my passions. I found some low tech tidbits that interested me such as the last minute save on the first lunar landing. With only 30 seconds of fuel remaining and ignoring alarms, Neil Armstrong took manual control of the Eagle to avoid crashing into a lunar boulder field, and barely made it to the “Sea of Tranquility.” (Randy already knew that.) Salt and pepper are a liquid in space because the solid particles float around causing problems for astronauts and equipment. Earth’s gravity escape velocity  is 25,000 miles per hour.

We look comfortably plump in these infrared scans!  I don’t know why.

Following our museum visit and lunch at Garcia’s, Randy took the truck to a Ford diesel mechanic AGAIN. The mechanic thought the problem was either the turbocharger or exhaust manifolds. Saying neither would damage the engine in the short term, we kept on toward Boulder, Wyoming to see cousins Marilyn and Lynn and their new cabin.

We had a nice time with Marilyn and Lynn and their cabin is beautiful.

Back to our adventure…  During our first day in Boulder the truck noise got worse. The Check Engine light came on and we decided Randy should take the truck to Rock Springs, 90 minutes south, to get it diagnosed and fixed.

We were concerned about pulling the trailer given the truck situation so the trailer, Elko and I stayed at the very nice RV Park in Boulder.

The service department in Rock Springs worked us in and looked at our truck Thursday morning. They were uncertain if the problem was only the exhaust manifolds or the manifolds and the turbocharger. They began manifold work right away but could not determine the state of the turbocharger until that work was done. If it was just the manifolds they could be done on Friday, if it was both we would been staying around until Tuesday.

Both of those scenarios were better than getting stranded on the side of the road if the truck broke down who knows where with us needing to get a tow for both the truck and the trailer.

The Ford dealership loaned Randy a truck so we had transportation back and forth to the cabin and back and forth to Rock Springs. Randy has been very pleased with their service. As I write Friday afternoon, Randy is on the way back from Rock Springs with our truck, the fourth 90 minute trip he has taken in 2 days.

Unfortunately, our extended warranty was well over the mileage expiration (not the date expiration we were planning on) so this repair is on our own dime – or dollar – or thousands of dollars.   $2162 to be precise – $1500 in labor, and miscellaneous other charges, to replace $26 in gaskets!   But, it is presumably fixed and we can be on our way tomorrow with just slight changes to our route and schedule.

Unfortunately for Randy, the first 90 minutes are again south through Rock Springs!

Cancer treatments be damned – We have had a great time visiting our old lives in Boise. Our stay here turned from penalty box to blessing box. Our “peeps” in Boise have turned on the support for us in a big way and we are very grateful.   It has been a blessing to be here during this time and we have had a blast!

Mondays (treatment days) weren’t really a blast but neither have they been a big deal. Randy had one very uncomfortable treatment but the other four were easy. He had to stay home on Monday afternoons, but that just gave us a chance to rest.

He has not felt sick at all, either from the cancer, or the treatments. He has been able to golf and go to lunch, play with Archer…and fix things! I have been able to see friends, help with Vacation Bible School and line dance. Together we have seen friends, played games, gone to movies and baseball games.

We went with friends John and Deb to Silver City, an old mining town a couple hours southwest of Boise. About 70 buildings remain from the 1870’s heyday. All are privately owned with most utilized as summer cabins.

The fanciest building in town, the Stoddard Mansion, was in rough shape the last time we were in Silver City, roughly 15 years ago.  It was an unexpected surprise to be able to see the inside of this 1870 home courtesy of the person who owned it at the time.

This Silver City church was originally built as St. James Episcopal Church.  The building was purchased for one dollar in 1933 and became Our Lady of Tears Catholic Church.

There is something about outhouses in Silver City….members only, by appointment only and double deckers!

We walked by Deadman’s Alley, so named because of the gunfight death of Joseph Koenig by Colonel Dewey. The alley was also the demarkation between Silver City’s Chinatown and the business district.

It seems all old mining towns or ghost towns have a cemetery.  Most graves were very old and a disproportionate number were for children and women.

There were a number of fenced plots by Stewart Iron Works of Cincinnati, Ohio. I wondered how iron works from Cincinnati end up in the remote Owyhee mountains of Idaho. That thought meant I had research  to do on Stewart Iron Works.

Begun in 1862, Stewart Iron Works specializes in metal artistry. The company is still in business and has a vast array of past projects, foreign and domestic. The following information came from the Stewart Iron website:

“Stewart Iron created all of the benches and site amenities for New York City’s Central Park, the light fixtures in Congress, the fencing and gates surrounding the Panama Canal, and the jail cells for such notorious prisons as Alcatraz, Sing-Sing, and Leavenworth…. Stewart cornered the market on cemetery fencing across America…. and merged with US Motor Trucks ultimately manufacturing all of the heavy duty trucks used by the US Army during WWI.”

There is always something to learn!

As used to be our summer tradition, we went to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, also with John and Deb.   We saw Hamlet, not for the first time, and were amazed at how many commonly used quotes and figures of speech come from that play. Below is a partial list:

To be or not to be…that is the question
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Though this be madness, there is method in it
What a piece of work is man
This above all, To thine own self be true
Frailty, thy name is woman
In my minds eye
Make your hair stand on end
Primrose path
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
O’ Woe is me
Get thee to a nunnery
The Lady doth protest too much

As much as we appreciate our Boise friends, we also have Road friends and were glad to be able to visit with two couples this last week.

Teri and Mark are volunteering near LaGrande, Oregon. Their primary duty is to rehabilitate the Ladd Marsh volunteer site that hasn’t been used in several years.

We also saw fellow Umpqua Lighthouse State park volunteer friends, Jess and Jean.   They are now at Farewell Bend State Park near Ontario, Oregon. It was great to visit with them again.

As much as we’ve enjoyed Boise, we are anxious to get on the road again. Randy has one more treatment in this cycle on Monday morning.  We are hoping to leave town that same day and head east to Elkhart, Indiana. We have a significant trailer repair to do in Elkhart,  lots of new places to explore, and friends to see on our five week trip.

My blogging fingers will need to step it up again!

Randy’s bladder has us in the penalty box. We were suppose to be on a road trip this month but are back in Boise for Randy’s cancer treatments. Even though we enjoyed living in Boise for many years, we don’t really want to be here so it feels like we are in the penalty box.

Randy marked the half way point in his first treatment cycle today. His treatments are interesting. They insert tuberculosis in saline into his bladder with a catheter. He keeps the fluid in for 2 hours and then voids it in the normal way. Side effects are generally flu like symptoms with a very slight chance of getting tuberculosis. There are some minor precautions to take so that I don’t get tuberculosis.

Overall he has done well with no side effects except a slight headache. His cancer was found very early so he doesn’t feel sick. Life is pretty normal except we are in our penalty box.

As we needed to stay home this afternoon for Randy to flush out his system by drinking lots of water, we took advantage of the hot weather to shampoo our carpets. It was nice that everything dried out quickly and we could turn on both air-conditioners!

As always, we are very glad to spend time with our daughter, son-in-law and grandson while in Boise.

We have been able to take Archer to the zoo, Chuck-E-Cheese and the playground. No telling what else we’ll experience with him this summer so that is a benefit.

We are spending time with our friends and that is definitely a benefit.

I’ve been able to connect with several of my teacher friends who are usually challenging to schedule when we are here in the spring and fall so that is a benefit.

We are grateful for our church family and friends everywhere who have been supportive with prayers and good wishes as we go through this process. We feel that benefit.

So we are in the penalty box – but a penalty box with benefits.

 

We have had lots of experience with water falling over the past month! Like many places, Oregon has had even more than its normal, generous annual rainfall. We dodged raindrops most of our first weeks here.  The weather has been better lately and we’ve been able to get out more.

The water falling makes everything green, green and more green – with some color for good measure!  Rhododendrons are prolific in the area and have been beautiful.

These pictures are from Shore Acres State Park, once a private estate.   The grounds are now available for strolling and special events.

At our site, the salmonberries behind us have grown several feet in the past month. If we were here another month, the back end of our trailer might disappear!

Of course all the water falling from the sky made for spectacular waterfalls!  We went on two hikes to see some remote falls. The first hike took us to Golden Falls and Silver Falls.

Golden Falls

Looking down from Golden Falls

Even though Oregon State Parks are generally superb, these restrooms at the Golden and Silver Falls Trailhead were the worst we have ever seen! I thought they might be from a third world prison and Randy said they were worse than the restrooms he saw in India. The area is remote but sheesh!

The second remote hike was the Sweet Creek Trail with eleven waterfalls in 1.1 miles.  This was one of the best hikes we’ve ever been on for its sheer beauty.

At the Sweet Creek Falls viewpoint I asked Randy to take the picture because he was in the corner nearest the waterfall. He climbed the fence to get even closer.    I don’t usually get nervous when he does things like that because he does things like that all the time.   However, this time I was very nervous because the rocks were mossy and wet.  I hadn’t wanted the picture that badly!

As we finish out our month volunteering near the Oregon coast, we have learned we enjoy cleaning yurts and will look to do it again in future volunteer gigs.  We weren’t really “on the coast” so we had to specifically drive there if we wanted to go to the ocean. It was always worth it!

The human wildlife has arrived in the area for the Memorial Day Weekend!   There haven’t been any RVs around this lake until the last few days.  The sand vehicles run at all hours of the day and night.  People seem to be having fun!

During this past week we celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary and our third anniversary of living as full time RVers!

Next foe up is Randy’s traitorous bladder.  God willing, we’ll get it too.  Treatments begin next week in Boise.

First the friends…..

When we came to the Oregon Coast we knew we’d be seeing our friend Beth again. We catch up with each other frequently on the road. We saw Beth at her volunteer site at Beverly Beach State Park and met her guy, Art.

We’ve been able to see Beth a few more times, including when she and her friend Kathy came by our place at Umpqua Lighthouse State park.

We also met some new friends here at our park. Sharon and Stu lived in Boise for many years and are new full timers. Sharon made a point of speaking to me because of our Ada County Idaho license plates.

Boise friends take a close look – some of you probably know Sharon and Stu. It was AMAZING how many times our lives might have intersected in Boise but didn’t. We lived in the same part of town. Their daughter went to a school I taught in. Sharon was a nursing professor at Boise State when Natasha was in the nursing program. Their girls went to the same high school as our daughter. We know some of the same people.

Funnier still is that they are annual lighthouse keepers at the Dungeness  Lighthouse I wrote about a few weeks ago in the blogpost The Spit, Slobber and Slime. They remember meeting our friends Mark and Teri on the spit in early March. It was so enjoyable to meet Sharon and Stu and compare lives over several evenings.   Hopefully we’ll have chances to catch up with them again on the road as well.

And now for the foes…..

Stellar’s Jays are common here. They are beautiful but seem to be ornery. They are never around when I have the camera but are always flitting about when I am without it. I am on a campaign to get a good picture before we leave, but so far the birds are winning. Devious foes….

Randy spotted this Rough-Skinned Newt along our lake trail, a foe to humans and animals alike. These newt exude a strong toxin from their skin that acts as a warning to other animals. Touching one of these newts can cause skin irritation and even death if one is ingested.  Although I am not the least bit concerned I  will ingest one, I’m still not interested in tangling with this foe!

 We went to the Darlingtonia Wayside, the only Oregon State Park dedicated to protecting a plant species. This botanical preserve is set aside for observing the carnivorous plant, darlingtonia californica. It is a foe to insects (and not humans) so we felt comfortable walking the boardwalk amongst the carnivores.

These plants feed by attracting the insect prey with blooms and confusing them in a maze of transparent areas. The insect falls, is trapped, digested and absorbed.  Darlingtonia, also called Cobra Lilly and Cobra Orchid, live in bogs in northern California and southwestern Oregon.

We have passed the halfway point in our month on the Oregon coast. Hopefully we’ll meet more friends, see no new foes, and finally get a good photo of those pesky birds.