A Quick (B)Logging Stop In Chiloquin, OR
Since my last post we’ve moved another 150 miles or so (our preferred driving distance) north and we’ve entered…..OREGON!! Whoooooo Hooooooo! I can’t tell you how excited we are to be back here.
Those of you that have followed the blog for a long time know that we “discovered” Oregon quite by accident in 2011 because of our big drivers-side slide issues. It was never our plan to RV here (for whatever reason the State wasn’t even on “the list” for me), but we were forced into it by our repair needs and my, oh, my have I thanked the serendipity Gods for that ever since. We’ve come to LOVE and ADORE this State, so much so that we’ve come back every single year since. How’s that for an endorsement?
So, when we crossed the State line this year around, Paul and I both high-fived each other and smiled like giddy kids in a chocolate factory. We’ve made it back to the land of green, forests, mountains, and 100% dog-friendly coast, and we just couldn’t be happier.
This time around we decided to stop at a completely new spot, the area of Chiloquin, OR just north of Klamath Falls. Our main purpose here was to find a quiet place to stay a few nights so I could get my new blog theme up and running. A bonus was nearby hiking trails. Since we arrived early season, the area State Park (Collier Memorial, which gets outstanding reviews by the way) was not yet opened, but just a few miles south the friendly Kla-Mo-Ya Casino (review coming) was ready to accept us with open arms, for free no less. We rolled into their spacious lot complete with lush, green tree views just a few days ago and got down to business.
Blogging Stuff
As some of you might have noticed my new theme went up yesterday….FINALLY. I’ve been working on this bloody thing, driving myself half crazy (since I’m both rather picky and rather OCD) for over a week now, and it was a relief to finally get it up there. The new theme is 100% mobile-friendly, but it still has very slow page-loading times (according to Google) so I guess I’ve got more work to do (argh!!). Other than that I hope you all like the new look. I’ve tried to keep it “true” to the original design while updating some of the fonts & sizes (hopefully those with older eyes will approve) and encouraging some of the pics to “pop” a bit more. If you see something that doesn’t work (or doesn’t format properly) please let me know!!! The more eyes I have on this the better.
Logging Stuff
A fun aside to our little stop here was the logging museum at Collier Memorial State Park.
Although the park itself is still closed, the Museum is open for viewing and what a treat it is! This 537-acre outdoor museum contains a detailed history of logging from the days of horse-drawn carriages to the present. It is CHOCK-packed full of panels, historic cabins, and equipment all set amongst pine with a lovely dog-friendly walking trail that meanders through.
Logging is such a huge part of the history of Oregon and if you’ve ever wanted to know anything about it, this is quite clearly the place. We preceded the museum visit with a beautiful (and relaxing) 3-mile hike along the Williamson River. Such a great re-introduction to Oregon and exactly what I needed to clear my mind of all this blogging business.
Note/ Both the Williamson Trail and the Logging Museum are 100% dog-friendly.
So, there you are. Today we move northward and onward towards one of our FAVORITE beer spots (outside of San Diego, that is) in the country. Care to guess where we might end up?
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The new site looks great, I am viewing it on my laptop. When we go back to Jackson Hole in the summer we are excited. It’s like going “home”. It’s nice to find places that tug at you heart like that.
So how long are you going to be in Bend? 🙂
Nina, I understand your pain around the blog – I just paid a freelancer to move my blog to a new theme (mobile friendly) to beat G’s April deadline. While the site is functional it is certainly not “pretty.”
I struggled big-time with the “pretty” thing. Most of the mobile themes I looked at just seemed functional, at best and I wanted to retain at least a bit of “character” on the blog. In the end I ended up buying a theme and spending days customizing it. It wasn’t easy by any means!
Nina
P.S. VERY good guess on our destination 🙂
It all looks great! A nice new polished version of the same blog we all love. I am on a surface pro, browsed around at most of the pages and everything seemed to show up correctly for me and the photos look beautiful. Congrats, I know that was a lot of work.
Thanks Nikki! I know you guys went through this not too long ago yourselves, so I’m sure the “pain” of transition is still fresh. The things we go through to make our sites look “just right” eh?
Nina
Gotta be Bend!
Good guess…VERY good guess 🙂
Nina
Hi Nina, the new layout looks good on an iPad. Just letting you know that the groups of the three photos don’t show up on the email subscription version
Thanks Jane!
Unfortunately those Gallery photos never show up on e-mails. It’s a long-time problem I’ve had with the Jetpack plugin that I use to create them. SOoooo wish they would fix it (I’ve reported it multiple times). At least that particular problem isn’t related to my theme, but thanks for reporting back on it nonetheless!
Nina
I LOVE the new look…clean and fresh and yes, easier on the eyes in more ways than one!! WordPress is an amazing platform!
But, GASP!!!!! What happened to the links at the top of each post of going to the previous and next post?? (they appeared below the Header Banner and link bar but above the Post Title.)
I’ve been reading your site since your first post and use these links to navigate along the timeline. I guesss I’ll have top open the archive for a given month and use that as an chapter page to go to each entry for that month.
P.S. I’ve vewied the site on my Mac desktop and iPhone with fabulous results! All your great work has paid off!
You are ABSOLUTELY right!! Those previous/next links disappeared. Argh! Seems my “new” theme doesn’t support such old-fashioned navigation. I’m going to see if I can find some CSS code that will put them back in, even if it’s at the bottom of the posts. I liked those links!
Nina
Bless you, child!!
I’ve experienced many happy hours reading your blog as a travelogue / book…I’ve made it to “A Stroll on The Appalachian” posted October 10, 2010 so have a few more years to go!
FIXED it! There are now “previous” and “next” links at the bottom of each post. That was easier than I anticipated. The links are not particularly pretty & don’t include the blog title, but I can always work on that later. At least there is a navigation option in there now.
Nina
AWESOME !!!!!! You are the Bee’s Knees !!!!!!!
Thank you!!
Nina, I may have found a small problem / bug that I’d be happy to help troubleshoot, but I don’t want to clog up the comments of this post with a lot back-and-forth. If you’d like to email me directly (I presume that you can see my email on your admin side), I’d be more than happy to help. Website testing is actually part of my consulting work. I’ll even waive my normal fee of a dozen chocolate chip cookies!!!
Basically it seems that the Previous / Next links on the new theme are pointing differently than the old theme page that I’ve had open for a few days.
On the “old format” page for the post “A Stroll on The Appalachian” (https://www.wheelingit.us/2010/10/10/a-stroll-on-the-appalachian/), the Previous link points to “NF Campground Rating – Rock Creek, Cherokee Forest (Erwin, TN)” (https://www.wheelingit.us/2010/10/08/nf-campground-rating-rock-creek-cherokee-forest-erwin-tn/) and the Next link points to “Boosting Your Internet In the Boonies” (https://www.wheelingit.us/2010/10/13/boosting-your-internet-in-the-boonies/).
On the “new format” page for the same post, the Previous link points to (https://www.wheelingit.us/2010/10/05/geeks-in-the-forest-pondering-the-equations-of-life/) and the Next link points to (https://www.wheelingit.us/2010/10/15/this-must-be-the-place/).
I believe that you previously posted that you self-host your WordPress site. You may want to see if you can force a re-index of your site if this doesn’t not clear up in a couple of days.
Again, if I can help in any way, please zip me an email.
Most definitely I will accept any help I can get. I kinda muddle through all this stuff on my own. I will send you a mail.
Nina
Ale Trail, no doubt.
LOVE the new blog theme and it’s working just fine on my desktop. I might go check it out on the iPad.
So glad Oregon favored you with such a stupendous sunset. Welcome back! Did you skip the wildlife reserve?
We DID skip the refuge in the end. We had the best of plans to go, but I ended up lost in blogging never-never land and we had to settle for the logging museum instead. We drove by on the way up through. Next time!
Nina
Welcome back to Bend! We’ve got the weather dialed in for you.
Cheers,
John
You sure have! It’s looking good….veeeery good.
Nina
I love the new look of the blog! We look forward to discovering Oregon ourselves in September.
It’s going to be a treat for you to discover this State. No secret how we feel about the place, that’s for sure 🙂
Nina
New blog looks great! Will be anxious for you to compare Bend beer to San Diego.
Me too!! We were BLOWN AWAY by the beer here last year, but now that we’ve had beer in San Diego I wonder if we’ll feel the same? First test tonight!
Nina
Welcome back to my beautiful home state – but I can’t wait to see some red rock and desert in Utah and Arizona! Our Aug 1 departure date is on track! Hope to see you “out there” someday!
Your new site looks great on both my RCA tablet (Android) and iPad mini – no issues on iPhone either- great pics, load quickly, love tne new font! Happy Trails!
Glad you like it! Thanks for reporting back!
Nina
Congrats on arriving in Oregon! And it is an amazingly beautiful and diverse state.
Blogging Stuff: Bad – yes, it is quite slow to load on my iPhone 5S and my iPad Air, both running iOS 8.3.
The good – it is noticeably different, but not drastic, and very nice. I like it.
The mobile version works well on the iPhone. The desktop site comes up on the iPad, which I usually prefer anyway.
It is easier to read for these not-as-young eyes.
Tapping on the photos immediately enlarges them, and they look great, as always. My eyes can’t tell a difference in “pop” but they do appear inviting.
Beer Spot: Outside of your favorite, San Diego, and in Oregon, that has enough to be a great beer lover’s destination? It’s gotta be Bend, Oregon.
I’m an IPA guy, have on for me when you get there! (Even if it’s not Bend) 🙂
Thanks for the feedback Rowanova. Unfortunately the biggest “culprit” for slow loading is my pics. I’ve got so many of them, and they just take up so much space. I’m trying to run an optimization program on them right now to see if I can improve this a bit without degrading the look, but I may just have to live with it.
You guys are clearly ALL beer aficionados.
Nina
It looks great on my Kindle Fiire HDX.
Great!! I wasn’t able to test any pads other than Ipad (since that’s all we have), so that’s great to know!
Nina
hi…love the new blog…but what does it mean new theme….
also where is the mapping you had with all the camping spots…I don’t see it…
Found your comment! The new theme basically means a new “look”. This particular one resizes to different devices automatically so that you get readable text whether you’re looking at it on phone or a desktop.
And yes, the camping map link was dropped to the bottom.
Nina
never mind…I did not go down enuf…I see it…
Looks great on the mobile! Photos fit perfect.
MacAir is 12in across. 5.5 in is your text. 1.25 grey at each side. The Mac and Safari: (Safari has a “Deal Today ” right side into grey and more ( .5in that does interfere w the photo and text–the orange “Deal” verticle w a number above) ((Chrome doesnt have “Deal Today”)) both have a sidebar w/ ads and About Us etc. but in Safari w/ iPod Touch has none of that. The photos rock on the mobile but the text at the side of them gets pretty thin.
((Although
the park
itself
is still
closed, the))
I’ve been a fan of the blog reader Feedly. I like Feedly because the photos get extra big, fonts large and its easy. Doesn’t have the comments though. (Feedly will follow the comments but it gets cluttered quickly)
Some Feedly blog sites make it so theres only a couple lines of text and “View Site”. Yours is complete.
Thanks for your new face, maybe we didnt see the non-smile version while you were at the grindstone.
Lookin good!
Paul’s checking his Safari and can’t replicate what you’re seeing. I don’t have any “Deal today” that I know of, unless you have some extra advertising on your devices (not from my blog)? Can you send me screen shots of what you’re seeing? I will e-mail you.
Nina
Kindle HD not HDX 7in
The winner. Photos are the same size as the iPod mobile but notably brighter/clearer.
I noticed the same on my computer browser (Chrome) versus Paul’s Safari. The inserted pics are a tad more blurry in Safari. No idea why. It seems to be on the browser side?
Nina
Look forward to your casino review. I stayed there for a few nights last summer when, I too, fell in love with Oregon.
We totally understand that excited feeling when you return to a favorite place. We feel that way about Durango Colorado and can’t WAIT to get there in late June. That place totally puts us into the ‘high five’ mode! Your blog looks great. I love the new fonts. However, I do miss the previous and next links at the top of each post along with their titles.
You are totally right. The “previous” and “next” links disappeared and I want them back! I’ve re-installed them w/ some code at the bottom of each post, but it seems they’re not pointing to the right posts. So, I’ve still got some work to do. Hope to have those links working properly soon.
Nina
Rogue river brewery?
Not quite, but we DO love that place!!
Nina
Blog looks fine from within iPhone5 and iPad2. Drilled down through maps/review of LaPine SP and nothing seemed out of whack.
Not experienced in the brew scene but can point to a couple favorite places with great gluten free options:
Fav Breakfast is Chow (also Original Pancake House)
Great Coffee at Strictly Organic
Good dinner at Hola’s
I searched your site for High Desert Museum with no hits…..expensive entry fee but it’s a pretty cool place!
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite geocaching locations in the area. Shevlin Park at the NW edge of the city and any of the trails along the Deschutes River SW part of town and continuing on SW out of town.
We will be over there early july – Patricia photo shoot of Smith Rocks and Sparks Lake.
Have fun…..
Cheers for the tips!! We drove past Desert Museum on the way up and I was wondering if it was any good. Great to know it is!
Also good info on the breakfast and coffee.
Nina
Nina, just finished a Fresh Squeezed IPA at Big Dogs Growlers in the South end of town(Bend). Hope you and Paul find a suitable watering hole. 🙂
Sweet tip! I think we’re headed to Crux first. Just can’t resist!
Nina
Crux is fine! Big Dogs is neighborhood growler refill station so it’s an easy stop from home. And you skip the crowds. 🙂 Should be a beautiful view from Crux tonight.
We’re about to take a 5 month unplanned RV trip as our new home won’t be done until the end of September. Enjoy your stay!
I guess beautiful Bend, home to more than 20 brewpubs and one of your faithful readers. Welcome back to Oregon!
GOOD guess! Seems we’ve got a lot of long-time blog readers here, so I’m going to try and arrange a greet and meet for anyone who wants it. I’ll post details on the blog soon.
Nina
I commented two times and neither one has come up…am I doing something wrong…it said I had to be approved (which is new) and I asked what themes meant as well as saying how much I like the changes in the blog…
Sorry Jil. Not sure what happened there. Sometimes people get stuck in WP who’ve been commenting a long time. Don’t really understand it. I’ll try and find those comments if I can. I’m sure they went somewhere logical.
Nina
thanks…now I see my original comment…go figure…technology!
Another great post Nina, I like the “new look”, easy to read. Is the “tip jar” at the end new, or has it always been there unnoticed by me?
Its funny, Oregon was never on our list of places to visit either, we only went there because Jesse was going to grad. school in Eugene (where we first met you and Paul). Now I can’t wait to get back again, it just seems to get under ones skin doesn’t it!
Hope to cross paths with you all this next year, its been a long time.
Sue
Yup, the tip jar is new. I had an extra space down there, so I put it in. Hopefully folks don’t find it too obtrusive or cheesy.
Nina
Some probably will and some won’t!
I’m going to take a guess at your beer spots! McMenamins Hillsboro, McMenamins Forest Grove, McMenamins Hood River, McMenamins Portland….Here is a link for you! http://www.portlandbeer.org/breweries
I am missing Oregon! Jealous….I have a Portland tour list for you…Powells Bookstore, Zombie Donuts, Saturday Market might be open now. I think a spanish coffee at Hubers in Portland is a must do…It is one of the old restaurants and is smaller and there is a line to get in, but once you do it is quaint and fun! The waiter comes to your table to make the spanish coffees. The best way to get around in Portland is via the Max transit system. Free zones in Portland. The Zoo and Rose garden for a great view! Both can be accessed via the Max and you go through the tunel! More fun!! Take the elevator up to the zoo parking lot. I think they have parking for Rv’s too! Great place for picnics and hiking with dogs! I am not sure about overnight parking. I am racking my brain to think of someone with a good place for you to park.
I think you are headed through the gorge? We always gas up in Troutdale. Small outlet mall there. Right off the freeway! The Multnomah Waterfall comes next and is spectacular! It is definetly a nice break after traffic from leaving Portland. It has large parking spaces for you. There is a restaurant/snack shack, clean restrooms. You can take your dog with you an stretch your legs. I have been to Wallowa Lake as well for a family reunion if you have any questions. Do take the Gondola ride to the top of the Mountain! There is a fee and I would have to check for when the season opens to ride it. Incredible views up there of the Rockies!! Incredible views on the ride up too! Have fun in Oregon!
Greaaaaat tips! Portland is actually our next stop after here.
Nina
Really like the new theme. As new bloggers we are having so much fun figuring out how to make ours reader friendly (insert sarcastic voice for this sentence). Will be very glad when we can get up to Oregon, probably sometime next summer. You have made it sound so inviting that we can’t wait to get up there.
I’m so impressed with Oregon, and particularly Portland, that I decided to be born there some 6x years ago. Actually, it was my mother’s idea. 🙂
Sounds like she’s a lady with impeccable taste 🙂
Nina
Bend +whatever! We RV’d there last summer for the first time, and fell hook, line & sinker in love.
Favorite Do: Kayaking the Rogue River
Favorie Nosh: Dukkah Nuts, Bread & Dipping Oil (OMG!) at Joolz
Favorite Eat: Forbidden Black Rice Chicken Bowl, also at Joolz
Favorite Brewery/Brew: Boneyard. Out of their garage no lesd.
Favorite Quirk: Bathroom-now-employee-brew-tasting-‘room’ at Deschutes Brewery
Awesome! Yet another vote for Boneyard! And cheers for the tip on the eatery!
Nina
I follow your blog and enjoy all your posts. Yesterday we finally were able to enjoy one of your favorite spots in CA. We took the 395, as we left Death Valley, we hit 395 and stopped at Silver Lake resort. We are enthralled by the beauty of this place. Thank you so much for your blog. Go with God Karen
Oh fabulous!! I hope you managed to eat breakfast at the cafe there? BEST omelettes ever! And of course now they have a brewery right down the road too. I already miss those mountains!
Nina
Hi Nina,
On the iPhone, it looks great. The only thing is that the text becomes really narrow when there are a lot of replies on replies. I could mail you a screenshot if you want.
I also love Oregon. Have fun out there.
Koos
Good point. I just checked on my iPhone and I see exactly what you mean. Not sure I can figure out how to fix that since it’s kind of “fixed” in the theme. It would be nice if the comments flattened out on mobile, wouldn’t it? I’ll add it to my list just in case I’m able to find some code that changes it.
Nina
Here is an interesting British website (also available as an app) for boondockers. Look up http://www.what3words.com. You could probably make a nice article on this in one of your bloggs.
If you f.x. type in “songwriter.flames.lingo” on the website or in the app, you get the exact location (within a 3 meter by 3 meter square) of where the Monaco group meet up in January outside Quartzsite. This must be useful for boondocking purposes I would have thought.
BTW – I have no interest – financially or otherwise – in this company. I just found it to be really brainy.
All the best and safe RVing.
Ups – mistyped the code with “songwriter” incorrectly. Try this instead: “loyalty.punt.piggy”
What an interesting concept. Just went over and played around with it a bit. Definitely interesting.
Nina
Your new look is spot on! And I am pretty sure you must be headed for Bend!
Hey, welcome to Oregon, enjoy the brews down in Bend. we live at Crooked River Ranch at Terrebonne and we ordered this nice weather just for you, LOL. The new blog seems to be working well so far on my laptop, I haven’t checked it on my phone yet. We really enjoy your blog and it has been really helpful for us on uour travels as we use it to find great boondocking sites. Enjoy your stay in Oregon, maybe we will run into you while you are here. If Paul is looking for a great golf course, Crooked River Ranch has one of the most scenic and popular courses in Oregon!! I dont play but know a lot of people here on the ranch that play almost daily here.
Enjoy a good brew in Bend for us!
Ah yes, Paul was eyeing Crooked River last year. We’ll see if he can fit in some golfing. If so, I’ll definitely contact you!
Nina
I found Oregon last fall traveling by MH from NJ to Glacier NP and on to the Columbia Gorge to Portland and then down the coast to SF. Loved their SP’s. Thought you might stay in Newport and do Rogue Brewery. Loved their farmer’s mkt on Saturdays. Love the new look of the blog. Your blog inspired me to do the journey. 7600 miles RT. Ready to do it again. Safe journeys.
Oh how I love Newport!! So glad I inspired you to get out here aaaand you enjoyed it 🙂
Nina
New theme is awesome! I tried it on my iPhone too and it looked great. I’m in love with the font especially – great job! Good to see you’re back in your beloved Oregon – I love the story of how you first discovered it.
And ha – just saw the Post It, Baby! when I went to post…LOL. 🙂
Glad you like it! I put a few “fun” things in the theme just to personalize it a bit. Spent FAR too much time on stuff like that.
Nina
I am excited to see more of your adventures in Oregon!
Congratulations on the new theme, Nina. It looks great. I get an urge to drive to Oregon 🙂
All the best,
Hanna
The very little time each of us have spent in Oregon was enough to make it a key destination. We plan to spend most of September there. Your campground reviews have been sooooo helpful in planning our first route – I too prefer a short travel day – and if the beast fit I know we will 🙂 Thanks for all your hard work on the blog!! Love the new font, everything loads quickly on my laptop and mobile, pics are even more beautiful.
Very glad I inspired you to come to Oregon! We DO love this State. September is going to be absolutely perfect here.
Nina
Congrats on the new Theme – I know how much work goes into that. Looks great.
Did you also find a new place to host it?
No, I’m still hosting in the same place. Despite the difficulties I encountered earlier this week, it’s still the most inexpensive option I can find for my traffic size. The only other viable option out there is WP Engine and I would need to choose the $100/mo option to cover my traffic. Ugh! So, for now I’m still with the same hosting engine.
Nina
Your blogs make me so envious (in a good way!) I so wish we could do this, but for now we have to stay put for some time to save and purchase the RV of my dreams, (older but with good bones) if it’s not sold by then…. and then have my husband work for another 18 months to have saved enough again to be able to take off with a good cushion. I have tried to read your DH’s blog but I understand NADA. Maybe the reason why we have no money? 😉
Don’t feel too bad. Half the time I don’t understand hubby’s blog either 🙂 I keep trying to persuade him to do a “investing for beginners” series, but I haven’t convinced him yet. Maybe soon!
Nina
I’m in on the “Bend” wagon guess as well! We are in Sisters. Would love to have a meet and greet over a beer if you have the time and inclination 🙂 Enjoy!
Sounds like I have MULTIPLE readers in this area. I’m going to see if we can squeeze in a meet and greet with everyone. Maybe next week-end? I’ll post it on the blog.
Nina
Congratulations on getting the new theme installed! I know just how obsessive, time consuming, and hair pulling website changes can be. Everything looks great on my Mac laptop and iPhone. Glad you persevered with artistry and didn’t settle for plain vanilla. And welcome back to Oregon, our adopted home state! Have fun in Bend. 🙂
Getting the website “pretty” took most of my time. I just didn’t want it to look like everyone else’s. I’ve still got a bunch of tweaks I need to do, but most of it is where I want it now, thank goodness.
Nina
Love the font!
It must be Bend!
Love the new look! Glad you found Oregon bt accident, being from BC, Oregon is one of our favourite places to camp.
I really like the new look of your blog Nina. Sorry it was such a hassle to bring it to this point.
We are at Tuttle Creek Campground, having arrived yesterday afternoon. We went back through your posts of the area as we are planning to get to Independence and Big Pine next week and will most likely do some of the hikes that you and your friends did. I think I will just follow everything you did in Bishop as it sounds like you all had a blast there! 🙂
Once up 395 we are planning a stop in Ashland and Bend, then it’s on to Washington for us.
Not sure what you did to your blog to make your photos pop, but it works…beautiful!
Whoooo hoooooo…so happy you guys are on your way!! Enjoy the area. Weather is perfect and the mountains are amazing!
Nina
I like the new theme and it loads super fast. It would be interesting to hear what you did to improve the page load time. My current blog is on Blogger, but I’ve been in the process of moving it to WordPress. I’m amazed at the stuff I’ve had to learn but it came easy as I’m an old programmer. And I’m taking it slow so I get it right before I do the final switch over. Image optimization is my last frontier. I like to showcase my travel pictures in my blog and don’t want to give up too much quality. Perhaps it might make a good blog post to share some of the stuff you do to keep it loading fast and preserve your blog quality. Thanks and I enjoy following your travels.
Ahhh…Pagespeed. I’ve been working on Pagespeed for the past 2 weeks! Mine is actually still not great (according to Google Pagepeed), but I’ve managed to improve it from abysmal to OK. A few of the things I did:
1/ Caching – you’ve got to have some kind of caching going on. My host (Dreampress) has an integrated Varnish, but if your host has nothing then I suggest W3 Total Cache or equivalent.
2/ Browser Caching – specifically to add expirations on all your static content for repeat visitors. I put some code into my .htacces file to take care of this. I think W3 Total Cache has an option for this too.
3/ Image Optimization – wish I’d found a great solution here, but I haven’t. I tried EWWW optimizer, but my images are still my absolute slowest loading feature, and I can’t compress further without affecting image quality. From what I’ve read I may only be able to improve this with a CDN (content distribution network) to deliver my images from a super-fast service. It’s more $$ so not sure I’m ready for that.
4/ JS and CSS minify – I’m still getting dinged on Google Pagespeed for “above the fold blocking scripts” whatever that means. Trying to work with minifying plugins to resolve this, but haven’t figured it out yet. I believe W3 has an option here too.
Theme choice and server/hosting choice are also super important of course. I tried to go with a “light” theme framework (if you’re comfortable with programming I recommend either Genesis or Thesis. They are both mobile responsive and light. Foundation is a newer entry and also gets good reviews from developers.)
That’s it for now, without becoming too wordy. If you find a good pic optimizing solution let me know. I’m still not there yet.
Nina
Thanks Nina. On my WP site (jdawgjourneys.com), I did caching with W3 Total Cache and did some browser caching but my theme (Travelify) doesn’t work when I Gzip stuff. I did the JS and CSS minify with W3. For image optimization, I’m using WP Smush. Once I got the header images and all the front page stuff smushed it loads faster. I do see some noise now in the photo’s but it’s tolerable. I’ve got about 1/2 of my photos smushed. I also deactivated plugins and got rid of an Amazon script and went to a link. When I started my Google PageSpeed scores where both 0/100. Now my mobile is 67/100 and desktop is 87/100. I also get the warning on above the fold rendering. Thanks for responding. Always nice to compare notes with someone.
J. Dawg
Your pagespeed scores are better than mine! I’m only around 60 on mobile. My Varnish cache does help loading though, and I’m not clear my Pagespeed scores reflect the full effect. Sounds like you’ve made HUGE improvements. I’d be very happy with these scores!
Nina
Nina, not sure if any of these resources are of any use but right after reading about your challenge with page load speed and all the images I got an email from WP Beginner discussing just this issue. Here’s a link to their post – http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/17-best-wordpress-plugins-for-photographers/