Summer Vacation in Oregon

Using the occasion of Labor Day week, the metaphorical end of summer, to write about my summer trips. 

Gonna try something new this week, breaking those trips into four shorter posts instead of one or two long ones, with the goal of posting one per day on this shortened week. 

And by short, I mean 2,000ish words each…

Our primary goal was to hit a number of national parks while Daughter still got in free as a fourth grader.

But before we could hit the first one, which was Crater Lake, we spent a few days in southwestern Oregon. This post will cover all you need to know about cats and trees and rivers. Then I’ll be back in the next few days to take you in depth into Crater Lake, Lassen, and Channel Islands national parks.

Tree House

I learned about the tree house resort a long time ago, but had never really found myself nearby. It’s not in a spot that’s convenient to, well, anything. Even Crater Lake, which was our excuse for visiting this area, was nowhere near it. But I doubt I’ll ever be en route somewhere closer. 

Besides, once I had shown the pictures to Daughter, there was no way we were staying anywhere else. 

A fact I remind her of the first fifty times she asked a variation of “Are we there yet?”

The treehouses are part hotel, part campsite, a fact I wasn’t as aware of as I should’ve been. Other families had brought hamburgers and hot dogs to grill, some even brought ice cream to store in the freezer. We brought… um… some chips for the car.

What we really ought to have brought was water. I can’t remember the last time I was so thirsty as that first night. I bought a Pellegrino from the office and milked it as long as I could, even though I’m not really much of a Pellegrino fan. If they’d had Crystal Geyser, I might’ve traded in my car for it.

Not that I should be too hydrated, because the last thing I wanted was to need the bathroom in the middle of the night. The closest facilities to our treehouse was down some rickety stairs, the bottom four of which went off in a different direction than the rest, so I’m pretty sure if I tried to use them in the middle of the night, I would’ve walked right off the platform and broken an ankle.

Another amenity I’m used to at hotels, but that was missing from the treehouses, is soap. Their website said they had showers, which they do, so I guess I just assumed that shower meant more than “something that sprays water on you from above.” The closest I came to cleaning myself while I was there was putting some of the foam soap from the toilet sink onto a washcloth before jumping in the shower. Needless to say, that’s not stretching across my entire body. Never mind my hair.

Before our excursion to Grants Pass, I told Daughter in no uncertain terms that she was going to shower before we left for Crater Lake the next day. After I attempted to use the shower that night, I told her, “You know what? Just wait till we’re back in civilization.”

The treehouse resort had drastically different treehouse sizes. Many were large, even some multi-houses connected by rope bridges that accommodated multiple families. Some of those groups who were grilling up food seemed to be multiple families who showed up together, and it appeared to be a regular thing for them, maybe a yearly “camping” trip. 

Our treehouse was on the dinkier side. It was bi-level, so Daughter could climb a wooden ladder up to an extra nook to sleep on an air mattress. My “bed” wasn’t much more comfortable. Due to the small size of the treehouse, and to allow Daughter to go up the ladder, my bed was a U-shaped couch during the day with an extra piece to fill in the U at bedtime. The final piece didn’t come in as flush as you might want, so when I laid down, it felt like I was on a chiropractor’s table.

As soon as I got home, I had to visit the chiropractor’s table. 

Minor gripes out of the way, the treehouse resort was pretty fun. What they called a “Fresh Water Pool” was actually a legitimate pond fed by a mountain stream. Daughter wasn’t expecting how cold the water, but considering it was almost a hundred degrees that day, was quite refreshed once she got used to it.

If you feel like sticking around the premises during the day (since in summer they have a two night minimum), they have zip lines and horseback riding and a Tarzan swing. 

Unfortunately, most of those have to be booked ahead of time and aren’t exactly cheap. Plus many of them require minimum parties to book. I get it, since they have to bring in extra staff to work those areas, but which was frustrating when there were only two of us. Our first night, we were informed that horseback riding required a minimum of two people under 220 pounds. There was only one of us that fit that description. The Tarzan Swing, meanwhile, required four people minimum. Both of them, I was told, could be booked if I was willing to pay for all the ghost riders.

I understand that most of the treehouses cater to large families or groups. However, we weren’t in the only small treehouse. The woman seemed shocked, Shocked!, that a treehouse with one couch-bed and one air mattress would only have two people to partake in their activities. And only one under 220 pounds.

That being said, she worked her ass off to get us into the activities we wanted. She said they would let me ride Major, that fat-bearing horse, if we could do it at 6:00 that evening. Unfortunately, we already had plans. And I really didn’t want to ride the fat horse if I could avoid it. As soon as some other kids signed up for the first horseback ride of the following morning, the woman searched the grounds until she found us to give us the option of tacking on. She found Daughter first, who jumped at the chance even before I could assent.

Same thing happened with the Tarzan Swing. Four person minimum, they said. But if anyone else signed up, they’d be sure to let us know. Then they said some of the zip-liners would probably tack it on to the end of their trek. So if we just sort of hung around the end of the zipline at the right time of day, we could pull a Harry Belafonte and jump in the line. 

When we got there, the dude said we’d probably go last since the zipliners would already be harnessed up. We were fine with that. 

But the zipliners were taking a longer than expected, so he switched gears and took us first. By the time we were finished, there were still no zipliners. Some had come down and not come over to us, so there’s a chance none of them opted for the add-on and they actuality opened up the Tarzan Swing for a two-person minimum. Like I said, they seemed to bend over backwards trying to get us into their activities even if they initially gave us a hard time about a couple of loners.

Maybe that had something to do with the $100 I forked over for the horses and additional $35 for each Tarzan Swing. 

Sorry, getting ahead of myself. While I assume you know what “horseback riding” is,  you might be unfamiliar with this Tarzan Swing I keep referencing. 

As was I. 

Which is probably why I let them talk me into it. 

After all the back-and-forth about how lucky we were to have it open for just two of us, I wasn’t going to say, “You mean one?” The dude didn’t rally ask if I was doing it or not, he just strapped me in a harness, at which point I was pot-committed. 

It’s a rope swing. No big deal. That they attach to a waterski rope that you hold onto behind your head. Okay, got it so far. Then they drive a golf cart in the opposite direction pulling the ski rope, and the idiot holding onto it, fifty-five feet in the air. 

What the what?!?

Then you have to let go of the rope and let physics, or maybe evolution, take over. 

Daughter went first. I filmed from the bottom and, yeah, she looked high up there, but it wasn’t for very long, and as soon as she was up there, she let go and was sailing through a parabolic arc. The golf cart guy worried she was freaking out or passing out, because she didn’t really make a sound like most, but I could see the smile on her face from my vantage point, fifty-five feet away.

She went again and this time she laughed. As soon as she slowed down, she asked if she could have one or both of my swings. Dude turned to me and said, “She’s only ten? I hope you realize you’re jumping out of an airplane at some point.” 

That’s my daughter.

So they strapped my 240 pounds into the same contraption that held her 80. The golf cart was Honey Badger, it didn’t give a shit. 

Since you’re kinda lying down at the base of the swing, you have to reach over your head/behind you to grab the ski rope, then it starts tugging and you’re yanked backward and up. It isn’t a rough pull, but it ain’t exactly gentle. Kinda like water skiing, except it’s in the opposite direction. A direction you can’t see.

A direction you CAN see, however, is straight down and holy shit! That ground is fifty-five feet away!

Again, I had just seen Daughter do the same thing, but looking up at an object fifty-five feet in the air is substantially different than looking down from that same height. It might be just a little over halfway between home plate and first base but, well, you wouldn’t want to be dropped from first base. Fifty-five feet is, what, the sixth floor of a building?

And it’s up to me to decide when to let go and start the swing. All you have to do is let go. Easy enough, although Dude told me the longest somebody waited while freaking out was a minute, forty-three seconds. Not the case for me. It’s not comfortable being held up in the air by your arms hanging from a ski rope. The moment he gave me the okay, I was letting go. Hell, on my second ride, I wanted to let go at about thirty feet, but I wasn’t sure if that would fuck with liability.

So I let go. And then I flew. 

It was basically a swing. Times ten. You pick up some serious acceleration on the way down. Obviously, as parabolic arcs go, the uphill portion brought me almost as high as the point from which I’d been dropped, only now the ground was behind me, so no big deal. By the time I returned to the pinnacle the second time, I noticed that my leg was shaking. Pent-up adrenaline or potential energy or whatever caused it, it was uncontrollable and hilarious. Honestly, I didn’t really think I was pent up at all before I dropped, but clearly something needed to get out. It happened again on my second swing. 

So yeah, two thumbs up on the Out n’ About Treehouses. Just bring your own water and food.

Southwestern Oregon

Since the treehouses had a two-night minimum, we ventured out for a couple stops on the day in between.

First up was the Great Cats World Park. It’s a zoo just for cats. Lions and tigers and… um, jaguars.

As we drove up to the rinky little gravel lot in the middle of Podunk, Oregon, I worried we might be venturing into Tiger King territory. Fortunately, they seemed to at least give half a shit about their animals. Plus both the animals and the tour guides had all their teeth.

The tour guides were very knowledgeable about each of the breeds. They let us know about all the things that were threatening each cat’s existence and, unlike Tiger King, the Great Cats World Park wasn’t top of the list. They also seemed to be rooting against extinction, and for more reasons than its effect on their profits. Either that or they’re very good at faking compassion. 

The cats were well fed, primarily because the tour guides kept throwing raw meat to get them to approach because, mind you, most cats are nocturnal, a fact I always remark uponnote at zoos when the “most ferocious predators” are napping in the shade for the entire day. The tour guides, mostly girls between 15-25, had no problem tossing the meat, sometimes with tongs and sometimes with their bare hands. Our first guide’s hands were literally cracking with dried meat juice. Unlike “likes cats and dislikes extinction”, I didn’t have “comfortable handling raw chopped-up porterhouse” high on my list of twentysomething female traits. 

Daughter loved the tour. For me it got a little redundant. Especially after we were handed off to a second tour guide (while the first presumably went to wash her hands or contract e-coli) who repeated a lot of the same amazing factoids. But still, I managed to learn some things.

For instance: There’s no such thing as a panther, so both Marvel and the Carolina NFL team are using black jaguars.

Also, none of the jaguars sported a teal color like seen on Jacksonville helmets, making the NFL 0-for-2 on representing felines. I didn’t check to see if any of the lions were named Barry Sanders.

There’s a tiny cat called a Geoffroy’s Cat that was adorable and looked like a domestic cat. We all just assumed Geoffroy was the owner of the park and thought it would be funny to put his own cat in a section of the park during the day. Turns out that, no, a Geoffroy’s Cat is a mean little SOB who will kill another Geoffroy’s Cat. Or Jeffrey’s cat, for that matter. 

 In fact, the Geoffroy’s Cat is the only feline that will kill its species for no damn reason. Just like real-life Geoffs. I never trusted guys who couldn’t spell Jeff correctly.

After spending time with cats, we visited their favorite locale, water. 

(Except for the Otter Cat that evolved specifically to be fine with water, including hair that instantly dried. One of the cooler cats at the park.)

We took the Hellsgate Jet Boats out of Grants Pass. It’s about an hour down the Rogue River to a spot called Hellsgate, which to me just looked like a regular ol’ canyon, then back. We took the last boat of the day, which also included dinner at a rustic mountain lodge themed restaurant, making it a four-hour sojourn.

Their website shows the boats doing twirlies in the river. I figured they’d do it maybe once or twice so we could write fancy reviews. Instead, we spun close to twenty times. Many of them were when our boat was alone, but there were five total jetboats leaving around the same time, and plenty of the spins were done in tandem with those other boats. 

The driver alternated spinning left and right to ensure different people got soaked. The front row got it the worst, plus the side people in the first few rows. Honestly, if you were in the middle of row five or six, I don’t think you would’ve gotten more than an occasional spray. Daughter was on the far edge of row three, so she loved it. It was like a four-hour long amusement park rafting ride.

Ironically. when spinning, the side on the inside of the spin got the most soaked. The ones on the outside got the initial splash as their side of the boat cut into the water, and that’s the one everyone saw coming and cowered from. But when we finished our turn, effectively coming to a complete stop, the trailing wave then came over the other side, drenching those on the opposite side. 

By the end, most of the boat still didn’t understand those physics. The boat driver said we could do one more spin and asked which direction we wanted to go. The whole front row pointed the direction that instinct, but not experience, told them would keep them dry.

The driver said it wasn’t fair, so we did two more spins, once each direction.

Then I think we caught up with another boat and did it again.

Those were the ones that drenched us all. Because then, instead of waiting for your trail of water to catch up with part of your boat, you’re going straight through the vertical sheet of water tossed up by the other boat. Even the middle of the last row got some of those. 

And, of course, we made sure to return the favor to the other boat, now that we were ahead of them. Sometimes we did it with three boats. 

Everyone seemed to be having a great time. It probably helped that it was ninety-five degrees that day. The boat driver said their first trips of the season tended to be when the high was fifty-five, and those customers weren’t quite as keen on the splashes.

The dinner was fun. Haven’t had family style with strangers in a while. Feels so 2019. 

Daughter isn’t a big BBQ sauce fan, so she was kinda screwed with options of bbq ribs and bbq chicken. But there was plenty of bread to keep her happy. And it’s not like the bbq flavor goes much past the surface of a chicken breast.

The beer and wine was unlimited, too. Sure, it wasn’t good, but beggars and choosers, right? By the time we sat down, the beer had been sitting in a pitcher for a while and was both warm and flat, but it was probably C-minus or Miller Lite, so it’s not like the temperature and carbonation would’ve made it any better. In fact, when we polished off the first pitcher, they brought out a fresh pitcher. I didn’t notice much difference.

Our plates hadn’t even been cleared, much less dessert, when we got the warning that the boats would be leaving in fifteen minutes. Some of the regulars had already mentioned that the service seemed a little off this night, whether from new cooks or new servers. This whole Sophie’s Choice between a wee bit o’ cobbler and spending the night alone out in the elements was a new experience. 

Probably not the best time for the waiters to bust out the gratuity buckets.

In the end, we were able to scarf down some cobbler and high-tail it down to the dock, banking on all those old fogeys not making it down the hill as fast as we would. You don’t have to be faster than the bear, only faster than the slowest person.

Even better, all the ribs and cobbler and flat beer stayed inside my body through all the twirlies on the boat ride home. Twice that day, with the Tarzan Swing, I managed the feat of neither shitting my pants nor spewing my guts! Huzzah!

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