Presidents Day is celebrated in the United States on the third Monday of February.  In Klamath Falls, Oregon, that entire weekend is dedicated to the Winter Wings Festival and birds.  The festival is headquartered at Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT).  There we found vendors of all things birding – and more, presentations, seminars, art and [...]

Updated: November 25, 2011 – Whether tracking wild animals is your reason to explore or an addition to your other adventures, it’s a fun thing to do and can be a  wonderful learning experience.  When I was growing up,  I enjoyed finding tracks in the mud or snow and determining who made them, where the [...]

Gourmet Food for Free . . . Our early ancestors survived by foraging for wild foods.  Many of us relive a deeply buried memory of that heritage when we experience the joy in successfully finding, and ultimately consuming, a gourmet wild edible.  In many parts of the world, morel mushrooms are considered a premier delicacy.  [...]

Birding is a great reason to get out and explore our world, but even if you aren’t really into the wide variety of birds to be seen, checking out bald eagles can still be a wonderful adventure for you and your family.  If you want to see lots of bald eagles, the Upper Klamath Basin [...]

Motivation to Explore . . . If you are a person that needs motivation to get outside and explore, finding a topic that interests you then pursuing that topic may work for you.  Many people like to collect things and it’s quite possible and very enjoyable to collect native American rock art.  Obviously, physically taking [...]

Hagelstein County Park . . . Hagelstein Park is about 10 miles north of Klamath Falls, Oregon on the east side of US-97.   The 5-acre park offers modern restrooms (although they were out of order at the time of my visit), drinking water, 10 camping spots and boat access to Upper Klamath Lake, all adjacent [...]

Geocaching is a great basis for your explorations. The sport gives you a goal (a known latitude and longitude) and a treasure to find (the cache). See our background article about geocaching for some history of the sport. Key to this activity is a GPS unit. It’s a tool that, like compass and sextant of [...]

Orienteering, the predecessor of geocaching,  is the skill of navigating from place to place, typically on land, using only a map and a compass. This skill has been practiced for centuries.  More recently it has evolved into a sport that requires the participant to race against time – and competitors – to complete a specific [...]