Espresso Deal

Berta and I went to Prescott yesterday morning for her eye appointment. Then had the rest of the day to play. Which for us is, hit the Thrift Stores, and lunch at Maya.

At St Vincent De Paul’s I bought this...

Stainless steel "moka" maker, makes from 3-9 cups of cappuccino, and it also steams the milk, or in my case the heavy whipping cream. Yummmmm! Original price online, $89.95. My price, $8.

It certainly won’t replace my electric espresso machine. But sure will be nice when I’m away from home. I just can’t face the day without a jump start, almond mocha breve.

Oregon Caves tour (Part two)

For My World Tuesday click here.



Welcome back to Oregon Caves National Monument. If you didn’t leave the cave at the 110 exit then there’s about 400 more stairs to go. Click here for first part of cave tour.

Cathedral Arch

Caves actually get more beautiful with age.

Banana Grove

Niagara Falls

Up until 1886 Niagara Falls was the end of the cave. Then one day Walter Burch felt a breeze and found a small hole which he enlarged. He had to crawl through in his longjohns to get through, pushing his clothes in front of him and carrying a candle for light.
Walter climbed about 30 feet down a rope and crawled through the “blow hole” ....

Blow hole passage. Big stalagmite called the wishing post was once rubbed by every visitor.

...and found himself in what is now called Miller’s Chapel.

Miller’s Chapel

Named after Joquin Miller, also known as the poet of the Sierras, who helped the cave become protected in 1909. The “Chapel” part, because of a wedding.

Historic photo from NPS archives

Time to move on to the largest room in the cave.

Leaving Miller’s Chapel

The Ghost Room

Welcome to the Ghost Room, the size of a football field. Sorry no ghosts. From here we’ll be making a side trip...

Stairs up to Paradise Lost

...climbing about 90 steps round trip. You can pass on this if you want, but....

Paradise Lost

From the Ghost Room floor we are about 150 feet underground. It’s all uphill from here.

Angel Falls

Entering the Wedding Cake Room

We’re on the last leg of our journey and will be passing through more human blasted tunnels and natural cave.

Broken flowstone shows calcite crystal formation

Black bear bones

During reconstruction of the trail in 1998 black bear bones dating 3,000 years old were discovered. Many fossils of small animals have been found near cave openings. But the oldest bones belong to a 38,000 year old jaguar discovered not far from the Ghost Room in the early 1990s.

Exit tunnel and air-lock door

If we can just make it through this door we’ll see the light of day again.

Looking out cave exit

I’ll bet you figured we’d never make it out of the cave. We only saw about one third of the total cave, the rest requires much crawling and climbing. There’s three and a half miles of cave passages. So, do you want to go back in and crawl around?

Looking back at cave exit

My World Tuesday - The gypsy life of a seasonal park ranger

Desert sunset

Ah, the winter desert was beautiful to walk through and the sunsets were spectacular. (See last week’s My World.) Yet as spring approached I knew it was time to head back to the Northwest and return to work as a cave guide at Oregon Caves National Monument.

Oregon Caves Chalet houses the Visitor Center & dormitory above. (Sorry the pano is contorted, the building is not bent.)

When I arrived in March there was still snow.

View into the Siskiyou Mountains from Lake Mt.

Yet it soon melted and the beauty of spring and summer slipped away, mostly underground.

Calcite deposit formations, Oregon Caves National Monument

Carson and I went hiking after work almost every day; the forest was right outside our door.

Carson in Lake Creek, Siskyou National Forest

Sometimes I’d hike on the monument where he couldn’t go along.

Big Tree trail, Douglas fir has widest girth in Oregon

As fall approached I decided to...(See next week’s My World Tuesday for the continued story of the gypsy life of a season Park Ranger.)

For more glimpses of life around the world please go to My World Tuesday or click here.


For a virtual cave tour, scroll down.

Oregon Caves tour (Part one)

Welcome to Oregon Caves National Monument. We are about to go on a virtual cave tour. Hope you’re ready to climb 527 stairs in the next half mile, mostly up. In order to protect this special place, I will ask you not to touch the cave walls as oils from your skin are left behind and the story of this cave is based on water. Oil and water just don’t mix.

The main entrance of four natural cave entrances

Elijah Davidson discovered the cave in 1874 on a hunting trip when he followed his dog chasing a bear into a dark cave opening. With only six matches he didn’t go far. Yet he ran out of fire and groped his way through the dark exiting the cave several hours later.

Entering Watson’s Grotto

Please watch your head. Is everybody comfortable? I can let you out the gate right now. Otherwise, you’re stuck with me until we reach the 110 exit, about half way through the cave tour.

The rock surrounding us is marble which metamorphosed from limestone that was once at the bottom of the ocean. Uplift caused cracks and fractures in the marble which was then dissolved and eroded away by the power of water.

Leaving Watson’s Grotto

We’ll be walking through some of these enlarged fractures.

Petrified Gardens

And discover how water can also decorate a cave. As acidic water from above ground slowly works its way through cracks in the marble it absorbs and carries the mineral calcite. Then when the drop of water enters an air filled passage the carbon dioxide is released into the air, the water falls, and the calcite is deposited. If the water falls slowly the deposit is usually on the ceiling in the form of stalactites (that’s “c” for ceiling). If the water falls rapidly the calcite can be deposited as flowstone or stalagmites (that’s “g” for ground). We’ll see stalagmites further ahead.

At about 60 ft, deepest known Douglas Fir tree root

Enter the Belly of the Whale

An active creek still runs through parts of the cave and flows out the main entrance. This flowing water erodes rock and increases the size of passages. Openings in caves come and go over time changing the dynamics of the creek. This key-hole passage formed because of the change in flow. Evidence is seen by the shelf-like bevels on the walls. Look down into the River Styx to see how it still carves the marble.

Water erosion reveals the true shades-of-gray marble

Dynamite blasted connection tunnel

Yet humans also had a hand in shaping the cave. During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps blasted a connecting tunnel between two known cave passages to make touring easier. No more crawling on hands and knees unless desired.

Jack’s Pass once had a bottle-jack sporting some rock fall

We’ll just lip through Jack’s Pass into the Imagination Room.

I call this the “heart” of the cave, Imagination Room

This imaginative heart shape is formed by a combination of mineral and bacteria. Originally named Gnome’s Milk in Germany, it is believed to have curative properties similar to Neosporin.

We’re almost to the next natural cave entrance, or exit if you’re ready to leave. Just up these stairs...

Stairs from Imagination Room

....and through this squeeze.

Originally called “Fat man’s squeeze”

This is called the 110 exit as we have climbed about 110 feet up inside the mountain. Historically, it was referred to as “the ladies entrance” because of the easier and shorter journey deeper into the cave from here. Imagine crawling in long skirts. So you can leave here and walk a gentle quarter mile on paved trail back to the visitor center.

110 exit

Or continue with me deeper into the earth and discover more natural sculpture in part two of the tour.

I know it’s long and that’s why I broke it up into two parts. Guess I’ve had too much time on my hands lately. Thanks for joining me. Hope you enjoyed the first half of the cave tour.

Carson's grave

Carson's final sleep

A quiet day for reflection. I’ve started an altar over Carson’s grave. I want it to be bird friendly and not javelina bothered. A scrub jay is the first to sing Carson’s praises, drinking from his water bowl. Soon the sparrows are bathing. Later even the Quail bobble over.

Me burying Carson

Thanks to everyone for the kind words.

Carson's grave

Memorial to Carsondog - bears, bones, & balls

This post is a very long ramble. For Sky Watch please scroll down.

Carson was diagnosed with a tumor pressing on his esophagus. There may be more. I believe it’s called lymphatic cancer. Nothing can be done, and it’s only a matter of time. I brought him back home Wednesday knowing I’d have to take him back, when I decide too. So that’s today, Friday, at 4:30pm, when I set his spirit free.

Summer 1997 Carson, Washington

It’s been an amazing 11 ½ years. I’m so glad Carson picked me out of a litter of nine. From the spotted puppy wearing a beret and sleeping with a stuffed teddy bear bigger than he was. The watchdog in training who wanted to greet every person that came his way.

1997 Wind River flea market Carson, Washington

Fetching a ball or stick until my arm wore out. And always wagging his tail so hard that his whole body wagged along. The first time he went to the desert and walked from shade bush to shade bush, or sat in my shadow. He’d shiver and run into the bus when the coyotes howled. Or sometimes he’d sit between Dale and I out at the fire. I don’t know who was protecting who. Smart enough to teach himself how to sit up and beg.

2004 Me & Carson Vicksburg, Arizona

Singing with the harmonica, recorder or ocarina, a D dog. Frolicking in the snow, pouncing on snowballs or gingerly carrying them back to me. No, he didn’t always come when he was called. But he did always come eventually. Motsy and he running together, sometimes both carrying the same stick. The adorable nine puppies they produced.

1998 Motsy with 1 day old puppies

Carson's always been a traveler

“Get in the truck,” and there he’d be sitting in the passenger seat. Or the driver’s seat if it was empty. Nose prints on all truck windows he rode in. Asking to sleep on the bed when I was in it and treating it as his own when I wasn’t. Never chewed anything that wasn’t his. Knew the difference between my bones and his. Only once made a mess in the house and he was sick so couldn’t be faulted. He could hold urine for 12-14 hours, and then pee like a race horse. How he howled and cried when he ran into a pickup truck causing the pancake right rear foot. And when it got cold outside he’d run ever after with a hitch in his giddy up. Only in the last year did he learn to walk semi-nicely on a leash. And that with the help of neighbors and friends who walked him more than I did. So my fault that he’d tug and pull on the leash and one time pulled me to my knees to chase another dog.

2007 Cave Creek campground Oregon

And how he loved to swim and chase sticks in the water. Even trying to pull roots out of banks that were underwater bubbles rising up from his nose. But he’d only go in the water if he could walk into it not jump. And he didn’t like the ocean. How he’d shake and cower during fireworks trying to hide in a space smaller than himself. Bumping his butt on anybody and anything, trying to scratch his g-spot. Looking at me in the mirror to ask permission to go upstairs into the bedroom. Playing fetch side by side with Kaley. Digging a hole in the earth under the trailer, his dog house. Wrapping his rope around trees, poles, stumps, rocks, even clumps of grass and undoing it when I wasn’t home but barking for help when I was. Whacking the empty water or food bowl to just remind me. Rolling in poop and dead things when he was young. Eating huckleberries right off the bush. Meeting a cholla cactus with his nose and patiently letting me pull out the spines.

1999 Atalon Lake, Washington

Chin on couch and sad eyes looking for attention. Laying still and quiet watching the birds. Slowly creeping forward on his belly when told to lie down and stay. Bringing toys to greet visitors at the door. The thump he’d make as he jumped off the bed when I’d come home. The crunch as he chewed on a bone. Barking at every dog that goes by. Stinky farts and “the look” that went with. How he held a pebble in his teeth to scratch his foot, then sit it down purposefully between his feet, wash and pick it up to do it again. How he cocked his head listening. His mixed message of back hair standing up in a stripe while tail wagged.

2005

Those big beautiful soft gentle brown eyes. How he’d jump up and down but not on you. Well maybe your toes. I almost named him Tigger for that jump. All stuffed toys were bears and all toys began with a “b”: bones, balls or bears. A dog treat every morning after his first trip outside. Going to bed before me and getting up after me. Getting stung by bees after digging up a ground nest. He never knew when he got a shot. Does he know he’s dying? Sniffing smoke: cigarette, campfire, diesel, smudge. Breaking his clothes-line rope and staying within his boundaries with two feet of rope dangling from his collar. Light brindled as a puppy, darkening as an adult and lightening back to gray as a senior. Snoring. Letting me wipe his feet. Scratching the door to go in or out. Learning how to lick his lips from Duece, Cyindi’s Rotty. The Vet gave him a shot to calm him and now he’s lying outside half in sun and shade sleeping, peacefully. The unconditional love.

2008 Yarnell, Arizona

Rolling on his back, belly to the sun. Not eating 2 ½-3 days when I’d go away. I got a man in my life so I needed a dog in my life. Carson was around twice as long as the man. Gray brows. Someone to talk to, my companion and partner. Stepping over him and usually missing. Dog hair, my hair. Hair everywhere. It’s so hard. I really don’t want to do this again. My house will be so empty. Circle, circle, circle then lay down. Tripping me with his rope. Little kicks and murmurs when he’s sleeping, maybe dreaming of a big chase. Wearing my old Forest Service belt made into a collar. The yawn talk. Such a good boy. Silky ears. My labby mutt. Little woofers. Snapping at flies, afraid of bees and knowing the difference. Best friend. Bed warmer. Funny boy. Nose bumping my arm to get scratches. Laying touching my feet. Hiking...........

Summer 2008

I dug a grave where Carson can watch the birds. I buried him with bears, balls and bones.

His spirit energy simply took on new form within the universe. But oh, how I will miss this simple form of mass covered with silky hair, tail wagging, and those brown eyes staring into my soul.

"And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up." --Charles Dickens