BELDEN TOWN, HAT CREEK AND THEN OREGON

Feather River road is beautiful. It winds for a very long time — and I mean winds!!! Enough to make me feel my car sickness I struggled with as a kid. But worth it. I didn’t get one photo of the beauty, but truthfully a photo could not capture much of what there is to experience.

Non existent are towns, cafes, gas stations, or any other places to stop for anything. Once in a while a pull-out to allow faster traffic to pass. This is much of its charm though and simply taking in the beauty is enough.

Nearing the end of the long miles of that road, and feeling a tinge of hunger, there came what one might call an oasis.

A town? Well that turns out to be a bit of an exaggeration, but there was food! One long building holds the hotel rooms upstairs, a store and bar/restaurant at street level.

Susan picking the fruit.

Restaurant might also be an exaggeration. There was food. The establishment was a wee bit eerie. Susan thought the bar tender/waiter/cook reminded her of psycho.

They offer rooms at the hotel, and camping somewhere on the property. Not one other customer was there and what you see in the photos is what you see there. The store has many bare shelves, and much old stuff that is on the shelves. I passed up the old bras and panties hanging over at the side wall.

Seems it was once a thriving place, and may still be a draw for fishermen.

As we were leaving, Susan said she felt like we were in “Deliverance”. Yes, that was the feeling alright.

Lunch was ok.

Back on the road we had to search for a place to camp for the night. All — ALL campgrounds at Lassen National Forest were closed and not to open until May.

Maybe this had something to do with that.

Driving along, there was quite a bit of snow on the roadsides, none on the roads. We searched the map and atlas to come up with what MIGHT have a spot for the night and finally found Hat Creek Resort and Campground.

We were one of three campers here and the gentleman we stopped to ask questions of said he works here, and you actually need a reservation to stay here. But, since they were just now opening for the season he thought we could stay the one night and pay in the morning when the office was open, THIS was the oasis!

We went to the store to pay up and sure enough, Jill said that Bret had sent her a text about the two “nice ladies” who were camped in #18 and would pay her today.

That morning we entered into Oregon where we did find La Pine Campground open for business. Along the way we made a stop for something and I found this little calf looking at me.

There are three camping areas at La Pine, with only one open. To get in my bike ride I rode through all the closed camp sites and the closed day use area. Things will open up in a few more weeks.

Champoeg Stat Park, near Salem, would be our home for two nights before we would begin our last thrust to home. My short bike rides, dictated by our driving hours and accommodations, have no doubt been helpful in my recovery from the cold that still lingers. I tend to push myself a bit and will ride longer even when that is a counterproductive thing to do! My forced short riding days have been to my advantage.

Good thing, because I would have three short recovery rides here at Champoeg, mostly repeat rides with variety of searching eyes for a photo or two to share here as well as on my 30 Days of Biking site. ;’-).

A nice bike trail through the campground.

I explored the trail and offshoots on my own on the first day and found a marker about the park. I know it is not the correct way to pronounce the French word, but locally everyone calls it “Shampooey”. That’s close enough.

Susan joined me again for a day of riding around and that is always a treat. Some of the sights I chose as quite nice…

Susan was happy to find that the park has bike tools available. ;’-). Though she likely has each one of these in her “just in case” panniers!

So off we went to the Butteville store.

Nice grounds, these taken from the road toward the informative Visitor Center.

Our destination: Butteville Historic Store. We made it there for lunch and ice cream on the deck.

Some artifacts inside as well.

And just like that, it was time to head back to our campsite. Over the bridge and through the woods and along the way loop into the group site.

If you look back at my post from February 19th you will see this park in the snow when we were here with the SOTF. We took a spin through the group area where we had stayed at that time.

Then…

Now… Two months later – almost to the day!

Departing for home tomorrow and I doubt there will be anything more to post for this trip. So I will try to post now and hope it goes through. Thanks for reading, see you next time.