Oneonta

Please excuse any typos/choppy writing. Today I worked an 8 hour shift at Petco only to go straight to the vet clinic for a few more hours of work. But I am determined to make this blog post even though I am afraid I am going to fall asleep on the keyboard.

So my husband and I turned 21 a few days ago (yes, we have the same birthday). So to celebrate, instead of going out and getting so drunk that we vomited all over the place, we decided to go on a little road (day) trip. Oh, don't get me wrong. We did drink on our birthday (we went on the trip the day after our birthday). I got to try my first drink in a bar. It was a Caribbean Cosmo (soo yummy). I also had a huckleberry lemon drop served in a glass made of ice. Mmmm! See? I told you I was going to be all over with this post ;)

Back to the main story...Oneonta Gorge is one of my favorite places to go looking for "snot lizards" (AKA salamanders) and other amphibians. It is just down the road from horsetail falls and the famous Multnomah Falls. It is well worth spending 8-hours in the car. Especially when your husband's company gives you a company vehicle and pays for gas :)

We started at the base of Horsetail Falls and hiked along a trail to Ponytail Falls. My legs (and entire body) were very sore from work, so I wasn't too happy about hiking up a steep trail. About halfway up, I stopped and sat down on a rock. When we were ready to resume our hike, my husband pointed out a little Northern Red-Legged frog sitting on the rock next to me. Here are a few pictures of the little guy.

So cute!

Me holding the frog. See my new haircut?

See why they call them red-legged frogs? He wasn't too happy with me in this picture.

Fortunatly, the trail leveled out pretty quickly. After a nice hike, we reached Ponytail Falls.

Behind the falls

 We found a ton of amphibians here. 2 Dunn's salamanders, at least 10 Torrent Salamanders, 2 larval giant salamanders (like Pig), and a bunch of red-legged frogs. Including this giant girl...

Remember that picture of me holding the cute little red-legged frog? Well here is a picture of me holding this monster.

For some reason, I have never seen a red-legged frog this big anywhere outside of the Oneonta area. She meowed at me when I picked her up! That's right. She MEOWED! Like a little kitten! I love when they make noises at me :)

So here are a few pictures of the other slimy critters we found...

Cascade Torrent Salamander

Dunn's Salamander with unusual coloration

Another Torrent. He is walking away :)

So after we were done snapping away at the pretty snot-lizards and monster red-legged frog, we continued along the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

Another Dunn's salamander

 

 My husband looked over at a tiny pool of water and found this adorable little guy.

A larval torrent salamander

We hiked back down and drove to Oneonta Gorge (just down the road). There we found too many larval giant salamanders and little red-legged frogs to count.

A larval giant salamander (same species as pig)

I was following my husband along the creek. He decided to start climbing on th log jam to look for Giants. I didn't feel like climbing, so I just waited for him at the bottom. I got bored and turned a little bit to look at the rock face next to me, and I saw a terrestrial giant salamander (the same species as Pig and Reptar, and the same stage as Reptar).

He was just hanging out on the rock wall. At my eye level :)

Me holding the giant. I kinda has the crazy eyes in this picture. o_O

He has crazy eyes, too :)

If you climb over the log jam and hike through the chasm, you will reach a neat waterfall. But you have to hike through really cold water (in some places, it can reach your hips during low-flow). The waterfall is practically impossible to get to most of the year. It has to be late summer so that the water flow is low enough that you can walk through. It also has to be a really hot day so that you can stand the freezing cold water. It was waaaay to cold to hike up to the waterfall.

After that we hopped in the car and started our journey home. We stopped at Multnomah for a little while to enjoy the gift shop and heated restrooms. Once in Washington, we decided to make a "quick" stop at an Applebees to use the gift card I got as a birthday present. It took them an hour to bring out my Lemon Drop (which tasted like rubbing alcohol with lemon. Eww) and it took them another 45 minutes to bring out our potato skins. Note to self: "Applebees" and "quick" do not go in the same sentence unless the phrase "is not" is put in between them!

Anyway, that is it for our little birthday trip. I should update with more posts soon. I still have to make a post about the newest member of our family...Merlin the corn snake! He was rescued from a friend. But more on that later ;) See ya!