We made it to our next hosting assignment,Collier State Park.A beautiful area of south central Oregon just 35 miles north of Klamath Falls. The park is just off hwy 97 in the rugged ponderosa pine forest. I apologize for the quality of our pictures as the Internet up here is very slow and unreliable. The park has 68 campsites 53 which are full hookups.The park also features a big grassy day use area with a creek and a river bordering the day use area.
The big attraction for the park is its logging museum,one of the largest collection of artifacts from logging's hay day back in the 1800's.The museum has a quaint gift shop,modern restroom facilities,and many informative kiosks
like the one Jeni is standing next to.We spent the whole day here learning about the history of the rugged loggers and their lifestyle.It was hard,backbreaking,dangerous work.The living conditions were bare minimum at best.
On the weekends the park has guided tours of the museum.Jeni and I took one to learn more about this bygone era,and the machinery that moved the trees from forest to mills. The guy standing next to me is the "gift shop host" Vern. He and his wife Geri work in the gift shop and give tours of the museum on weekends.He is on duty as he has his hosting vest on. Jeni and I are off today so no vest!
This is some of the equipment the loggers used. This is a loader that suspends the fresh logs and loads them on a train flat car.
This is one of the meager cabins the loggers lived in.
This is the modern restroom facilities the loggers had back in the 1800's
This is an early 1800's steam engine
that hauled the logs out of the forest.
Another log sled that ran on rails.
Another steam sled!
This is a tandem saw on rails to cut down the trees deep in the forest.(sorry about the quality of the picture)
No this isn't a civil war cannon,It is another piece of equipment that gets the logs out of the forest and to the mill.They put the the log on the rail of the wagon and oxen or horses pulled it out of the forest to the mill.
Well enough about the museum,We have a beautiful site by the other hosts.There are four hosts including us. We are the "service hosts",we do odd jobs around the park like painting,fixing picnic tables,and general cleanup.Two days a week we relieve the camp hosts.There is a "maint. and repair host,a gift shop host,a camp host, and us.
Jeni really likes it here because they have a laundry right in the campground.Shopping is 35 miles away in Klamath Falls.The hosts here are really social partly because we a situated so close to each other in the campground.Every Sunday we all go down to a little "greasy spoon" Malita's,a couple miles down the road for breakfast.All in all we really like it here and we plan on doing a lot of sight seeing while were here.This is a pleasant surprise finding this spot for our September hosting,a diamond in the rough,Welcome to Collier State Park!
