More pictures here!
I always wondered why I never bothered to separate the
Salt & Pepper Adventure blog from our Backyard Chicken Extravaganza blog,
and now I know why: The day has come to
combine traveling in Salt with our love of chickens. Voila, the Cluck Truck Adventures.
To be clear, though, we are not back on the road
full-time. We are starting a new business,
privatecamping.net, and in doing so need to be out on the road some of the time
to locate new properties. For this trip,
we packed up the dogs and chickens and headed to our prime RV rental location
on Orcas Island, WA.
After doing some research on traveling with chickens, we
determined that they would be happiest and safest in their own individual traveling
crates. Thus we purchased five wire
crates with plastic bottoms and decked them out with individual water, food,
grit, and oyster-shell eating areas all with individual perches. The chickens hate them. Of course, we lined the bottom with a few
inches of pine shavings and plenty of straw which, every single day, Thelma pushes
right out of her cage. (I long suspected
Thelma of being the nest-wrecker in the coop back home and now I know for
sure.)
Chickens, being social creatures despite their almost incessant
desire to peck each other, were not thrilled with the separate cage arrangement;
the exception being Goldie Hen who, as soon as she heard of the plans, began
her own rendition of MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” in anticipation of days
without being hen-pecked by her coop mates.
Preparation done, it was time to set out. We had a little more than 1,400 miles to go
from Evergreen, Colorado to Orcas Island, Washington but wanted to make sure The Ladies had
time in the morning and evening to run in their free-range travel cage (a 10x10
netted bug tent with an open bottom—sets up in seconds and was perfect!) so
planned only a little over 300 miles per day.
We also found out of the way places to stop, assuming most KOA’s would
not relish the idea of a free-range chicken tent in their yards. Here we go:
Day 1:
Goal: Jim Bridger
Recreation Area, WY
Actual Stop: BLM
Land off of WY-84.
Egg Count: 4 (All
the Single Ladies except Louise.)
Kit’s Chicken Stress Level: 5 (out of 5.)
Loaded up the chickens from (what must now look to them
like a country club) their ¼ acre free-range, worm filled yard and plopped them
into their travel cages. Everyone went in
willingly enough (once they saw the scratch being tossed inside) except for
Louise whom I had to chase around for a good ten minutes, finally trapping her
between the cage and the fence and physically putting her inside.
During the drive, I worried every time we hit a bump or
took a sharp turn. “Those poor chickens!”
was almost a constant lament. I checked
on them at every stop and they had all hunkered down and gone into a bit of a
dazed state. But they were still laying eggs
which is always a good sign.
A side note: If
you are ever west of Cheyenne, WY on I-80, there is a gorgeous National Forest, Medicine Bow Routt National Forest, with plenty of campgrounds. I would have loved to stop but we needed more
miles, baby.
We kept on cluck-trucking toward our first choice for the
night, the Jim Bridger Recreation Area (near the Jim Bridger Power Plant in
Wyoming.) Unfortunately, it turned out to be a day use area which is really too
bad as there were a couple of small lakes and lots of picnic tables with no one
around. Deciding to obey the No
Overnight Camping signs, we opted to head over to some BLM land off of Black
Buttes Road (WY-84), along Bitter Creek (which is close to bitterly dry.) We backed Salt up a side road, jumped out,
set up the chicken tent, unloaded the crates from the truck to the inside of
the tent and set The Ladies free. They
were thrilled and did not seem to mind the sandy, desert soil at all but jumped
right to hunting and pecking around. We
unlatched the bikes and took a short ride along the dirt roads.
Nearing dusk The Ladies were getting anxious to bed down
for the night but chose not put themselves to bed in the crates (damn! A human can hope, can’t she?) It took a bit more scratch, and, of course,
chasing Louise, but I managed to get them all loaded in and the crates back
into the truck for safety overnight.
When morning came I ran out there and reversed the
processes, giving them at least an hour of free range time before we packed them
back in for another 300 mile day.
Day 2:
Goal: Lake Wolcott,
Idaho.
Egg Count: 2
(Thelma & Louise)
Kit’s Chicken Stress Level: 4 (The Ladies’ egg production of Day 1
providing some hope that they weren’t fairing too badly back there.)
On the drive we had everything from rain to sleet to snow
but arrived at the lovely and serene Lake Wolcott by 3:30 PM. There are only 18 RV sites, most with a nice
amount of space between them with lovely grassy areas (chicken heaven) and level,
asphalt pitches (Kit heaven.) The lake,
however, we have declared fish-less. (To
our defense, it is rather early in the year.)
Of note: The water
at the pitches was turned off (not sure if this was a seasonal thing or they
are permanently turned off) but if you have a long hose, you can pull over to
the day use parking area and fill up via the red faucet near the bathrooms. I pass this along as we only noticed it by watching
our neighbors drive over, the whole time thinking, “What in the world are they
doing?” Electricity was on at the sites.
While in their free range tent, JJ and Dom set about
feuding over two of the crates, each chicken going in and setting up a nest
before the other one came in and chased them out. This went on for at least an hour. JJ finally won (no surprise there) and laid
an egg overnight in one of coveted cages.
Day 3:
Goal: La Grande,
Oregon (343 miles)
Actual Destination:
Farewell Bend, Oregon State Park (250 miles)
Egg Count: 3 (JJ, Dom, Louise)
Kit’s Chicken Stress Level: 3 (They seem to be getting enough free run
time as they are often just milling around cleaning their feathers after a
couple of hours outside the crates.)
We got a late start due to hot showers!! Yahoo!
(Drove over to the aforementioned day use area at Lake Wolcott, hooked
up to the faucet and showered like there was no tomorrow.) We also opted to stop twice on the road to
attempt to catch some fish. Still
nothing. Still too early in the
season. Still our story.
When the clocked passed 4:00 PM and we were still on the road
with about 100 miles to go to La Grande, we carpe campem’d when Alan noticed a
sign for Farewell Bend, an Oregon State Park just after crossing the border from Idaho on
I-84. Ahh, those Oregon State
Parks! Never disappointing. Lovely (and large but empty this time of
year) campground along the shores of the Snake River's Brownlee Reservoir. Lots of pitch types to choose from and we
opted for one in the back with lots of area for the chicken tent.
Up went the tent in record time (it was a long, hot day
back there for The Ladies) and out they popped and almost immediately began a
dirt bath extravaganza. The first one of
the trip and they were really digging in.
With The Ladies so happy, we poured a cocktail and nestled near the
campfire for some quiet time. Before I
had finished my gin, I noticed people trying to take pictures of the chickens
from afar; I invited them over for a closer look.
They were four Canadians heading home from Arizona and
amazed that we were traveling with chickens. (They
might be the first on the trip to even notice we had chickens along.) Lovely people (as most Canadians are) and
they departed with eight fresh eggs for breakfast. I am betting that is a camping story that will get told!
Day 4:
Goal: Cle Elum, WA
Egg Count: 2 (Thelma & Dom)
Kit’s Chicken Stress Level: 2
(When Louise, of all chickens, jumps up on your back for a ride, you
know things can’t be that bad.)
In preparation for the trip, I had done a ton of research
to find out-of-the-way places in which to camp; one such place was the Red Mountain Campground (USFS) outside of Cle Elum, WA. Although it is technically closed for the
winter, it is one of the few campgrounds that allow you to dry camp for
free. Winding along the Cle Elum River,
it is a beautiful spot. Being very off
season, we expected the campground to be empty and were disappointed to find
that at least three other vehicles had found the place before we did.
None-the-less, it was a nice spot and Alan scouted out a
site that I reserved by standing in while he drove ahead to turn Salt around. During his drive, he found an even better site
in one of the dispersed camping areas.
So he came back to get me and we set up camp just down the road. Chickens ranging in their tent, we set about
fishing the river to no avail. But the
sun was mostly out (“mostly” being a good percentage for the Pacific Northwest)
and the evening was delightfully complete with Manhattans and a campfire.
Day 5:
Goal: Orcas Island
and our own Private Camping spot!
Egg Count: 4
(All the Single Ladies but Dom)
Kit’s Chicken Stress Level: 0
Packed up in the light snowfall and were on the road
extra early. Delightful to be driving in
an area we know almost by heart! We
stopped at a couple of new favorites in Mount Vernon: The Calico Cupboard for bread and a Mexican grocery
(can’t find them on Google maps but they are on the corner of Freeway Road and
I-5) for marinated meats and one old favorite, Compass Wines in Anacortes,
before getting into the ferry line. We
had hours to spare so I used the time to collect eggs and clean out Salt.
We arrived at the site while it was still light out (a
must if you are going to rent this site!) and with the sun shining, it was
gorgeous. Our intention while here is to
get it ready for rental on Private Camping and we have our work cut out for us: We forgot how mossy things (drives!) become
when in the Pacific Northwest so we will be adding “Gravel Drive & Pitch”
to our list of to-do’s (which include “Erect Chicken Coop” and “Build Shed”.) In between work, we plan on hiking, biking,
tennis and finding all the other fun things to do on the island which I will
write about on our Privatecamping.net blog.
-K
No comments:
Post a Comment