The Gulpha Gorge Campground was one of the prettiest, cleanest campgrounds I'd seen. The creek was just down a hill 20 feet, and each campsite was hidden by trees so it felt less like a campground and more like wilderness. So waking up to that was peaceful. I hung around in bed for an hour or so before getting up and making some breakfast. We would be walking up to Hot Springs today to look around at the town. So once we all ate breakfast we began on the trail. Kim hadn't told us much about the path, so I didn't know what to prepare for. Anyway once annoying the biting fish for a few minutes we began. To get to Hot Springs we had to climb over a ridge. Even though it was only 90 degrees outside, the humidity made it feel like 100. We were all overheating and we didn't have water because there was supposed to be a spring nearby, we never found this so called 'spring'. We did however see a lot of different bugs, including a very beautiful butterfly that landed on Kim's hat while we were walking.
The trail was a little over a mile long. Every little bit we saw signs that would say .3 miles. We saw about 5 of those signs. We soon realized that those signs were saying .3 to the next trail crossing. We were walking in the shade, but the trail kept on rising up and down hills, and in the humidity it got to be annoying. After a while we reached the end and were plopped out right next to the visitor center. We were all very overheated and dehydrated from the walk so we were very thankful to enter the cold visitor center/bathhouse museum. We toured the museum for a little while enjoying the AC. Then we lounged around in the entry room chairs for almost an hour. Kim made some phone calls and Daniel and I became bored so we walked a few blocks outside. We didn't last long however, even though the visitor center was cold didn't mean that outside would be. I was getting to be quite hungry and so was everybody else. Daniel and I got back to the visitor center and right away left again in search of a restaurant with the rest of our family.
We asked some of the locals where good vegan food was and we were pointed straight down the street to a all vegan restaurant. Once we were seated we looked over their menu and ordered some food. About 10-20 minutes later we were served. The food was delicious, less of a full meal and more of a snack food but still very good. Once we had finished our 2 courses we left, walked a couple blocks to a trail that led back to the campground. The way back was much faster then the way to Hot Springs, even though it was practically the same trail we had came on there didn't seam to be as many ups and downs as before, which I was thankful for. Once we got back to the Rv we all changed into our swimsuits and dunked our heads underwater. Kim began to annoy the biting fish again, and then realized there was actually 2 of them! I looked over at the 2 different fish, they were identical, this made us suspect that they weren't biting to protect eggs but maybe for some other reason.
A lady who was sitting by the water came over and looked at the fish as well and then told us they were Sun Perch fish, and that they made for a good meal. I looked down by my feet and realized there was actually a third one right by my feet. Later we realized there was actually a fourth one as well. I guess they got good food in that area and liked their habitat there. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more around as well.
We have a butterfly that looks a lot like that in Eugene. Ours is a Fenders Blue, an endangered species that feeds only on and endangered lupine flower that grows only in the Willamette Valley. I think a lot of the blues are a particular subspecies that feed only on one plant.