Category Archives: Orleans

Salmon River, Blue Hole. May 21, 2023.

For years and years Blue Hole was our swimming hole on the Salmon. But at some point, because of changing water pattern or high water, the shade dwindled to almost nothing. We had to lean against some willows to catch a break from the sun.

I also felt like you went and had a nice swim in refreshingly cold water and then had to hike up the hot bank and crawl into a scorching hot car and that undid the whole point of going to the swimming hole. I can’t remember the last time I swam down there.

When I was in Orleans the Klamath was high and frothy (photos to come) and I asked Mom if she wanted to take a little drive and see what the Salmon looked like.

Too bad I don’t have any good Blue Hole non-spring photos handy. I think I have them non-digitally in a box somewhere.

During swim season it is slow-moving, bright-blue water.

Look at this wide, muddy froth.

I was in Orleans for just over a week and I am still playing catch up.

I saw 4 bear on this trip which is a world record.

This was not the bear I saw. (Yikes! What big feet you have!)

These photos were taken on Dolan’s Bar.

We saw 2 bear (1 black, 1 cinnamon) on the float trip between Persido Bar and that take out that’s under the bridge (Stuart’s?). Both times they were scampering up a steep mountain face. There was a third bear but I did not see it, only heard it.

I left Sunday morning at 5:30am and I saw two more bear on the road between Orleans and Happy Camp. Same thing, one black, one cinnamon. One scampering up a steep mountain face and the other bounding across the road. If I had a dash cam I would have a picture.

I have so many updates and scribbled notes and I am not feeling super energetic about sitting at the computer.

Possibly some more updates or a few photos or something to come.

We were originally going to go to Orleans at the end of March. Clearly that didn’t happen.

Then we were going to go the weekend after Labor Day which was the week with so many terrible fires.

Then we picked another weekend when but a there was a giant rain storm in the forecast. The rain is much needed, but I didn’t want to drive all that way and then sit in the house.

We finally made it happen.

The weather was perfect: 84 degrees in the day but cooling off at night. It was a little bit hazy from the smoke but not terrible. One night we came home from dinner and we got out of the car and looked at the sky and all three of us gasped because the sky was so clear and there were so many stars.

I was curious whether anyone had seen Starlink. Auntie said she’d seen it but it wasn’t visible while we were there.

We cleaned out all the empty canning jars to pass on to canning households. Mom said her canning days are finished.

Also, I think it depends on where you are and what you are looking for but canning supplies have been scarce this year. Mom had an unopened box of wide mouth lids. GOLD!

This cat always looks like it wants to kill you. He was stalking birds in the garden and I scared them away. He apparently thought this meant I was too stupid to hunt birds for myself and on two separate occasions he very helpfully brought me a live bird still flapping in his jaws while he meowed begging to be let in.

I took the wildlife cam to Orleans. I moved it around each night. The first night I put it behind the trailer and got nothing.

The second night I put it in the meadow and I got these three barely-there clips.

See the fox?

How about now can you see the fox?

The following night I aimed it toward the trail that goes along the meadow toward the river. Nothing.

Then I had the bright idea to mount it on a sawhorse and I had it positioned much better to catch any animals headed to the river. But I forgot to turn it on.

Here’s a glimpse of a deer from night 2. You can barely see it on a bigger screen. It’s just faint blur here.

Check it out! Tribally branded condoms.

Auntie had a bunch on her kitchen table last time I visited.

“They have a big bowl of them at the clinic. Take all you need.”

Well, technically I don’t *need* any. But I took one because I thought they were funny.