Last Friday Felix and I awoke at 6 am so we could be on the road, driving to Medford (Oregon) by 7 am. Our first stop during our 4-day weekend was the home of friend Baldassare Mineo, also the former site of Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery.

The Medford Garden Club was having a meeting and tea there at noon so I knew I just had to get Felix there in time to meet new friends.

It was wonderful to briefly meet the group and to hear their speaker. Gardening community matters to me, and it was nice to be “on vacation” supporting others and hearing about their projects and interests.

After a fun time with Baldassare, Felix and I were off and on our way in the morning to the home and garden of Kathy Allen. While I am a NARGS member, I’m not exactly a rock, crevice or trough gardener, but I HAVE slowly been learning about these plants for both home and work. Visiting Kathy’s is always a treat and this time of year there are so many plants in bloom.

(Just be warned not to write to your friend Baldassare lol or he’ll remind you to reference his book. D’oh!)

Mostly I shopped, but more on that later.

This trip was really more of a vacation for Felix than one of my usual botanical journeys. I didn’t want to admit that the Jeep had been purchased with the hope that Felix would enjoy camping and sleeping in it with me. If I could achieve that, I could feel safe sleeping in a campground alone with him. Yurts are great, but they’re rarely available, and I just cannot sleep in a tent alone and feel safe even if the campground is full as they often are this time of year.

Before we ended up at the campground, we did go to Eight Dollar Mountain. The other laugh about this trip was that Sean Hogan had joked with Dan Hinkley a year or so ago that Felix would go botanizing with them in Southern Oregon if they let him in the car. Honestly, while I thought that was funny, I wasn’t sure. I had just brought him in to work that day and was honestly kind of embarrassed that they hadn’t already left for their trip when we’d arrived. (Nothing like wheeling a cat around in a pet carriage when a famous plantsman is around. Talk about being taken seriously—as a crazy cat mom lol!)

Turns out though, that Sean was correct. And just like the rest of us, Felix arrived and immediately started to purr because he liked the area so much. I wandered about a little bit but we had to move quickly to get to Brookings and up the Chetco River to the campground at Alfred A. Loeb State Park.

I was nervous that Felix might begin to get more anxious. Nope.

We made it to the beach and it was amazing. Felix loves the beach already—especially when he can climb on nearby rocks. This allows him to feel safe since there are a lot of dogs off leash—even though there are signs saying that leashes must be used at all times. It’d be a losing war to fight anyone over this since most folks go there just to let their pups run free. All it takes is that one dog though to kill my cat.

So I use caution and love the beaches along the southern coast for these huge rocks. (We have a backpack carrier now as well and that was an extra piece of safety equipment for this trip.)

Car camping with Felix was amazing. He was not the least bit anxious and he enjoys people watching so he had a lot of fun. My only regret was not having a little heater for him in the morning. Luckily I was able to get a little attachment for a propane tank along our route. He loved it and so did I. We’ll be set next time.

We stopped a few more times before we reached our next campground on Sunday. Of course I slid down a small hill I just had to climb in order to take a photo of a rhododendron. I kind of did end up sore from that but that only meant I slept well that night. With my cat. In my Jeep.

Bandon and Bullards Beach State Park were our next two stops. I avoided getting distracted completely by plants, and decided to just park it at the campground and enjoy myself “in the moment”. This of course meant buying firewood and hauling it back to our site.

I’d purchased a chair to sit in beside the fire and of course the cat took it. Felix stared at the other campers as they walked by—some with their dogs. Many of them absolutely loved him and he knew it.

Lots of people stopped to say “Hi” to him during our stops and I’m seriously proud of him. He travels far better than most people I know and now I know that I can take him out with Grandpa.

Speaking of Grandpa, tomorrow it’s back to Southern Oregon again to pay our respects to Frank Moore along with other fisherfolk or fisher-people.

Funny that this all relates back to my first trip to the Glide Wildflower Show last month but I haven’t posted about that yet since I wanted to wait until after the memorial service on Saturday.