Month: June 2021

Monday, June 21   Deaths  2,756 (+2)   New cases 78

M went grocery shopping and dropped by the liquor store for a couple of agave wine cocktails, that we thought we might enjoy with dinner at the camp. We did a lot of packing and a certain amount of garden watering. E rigged up shade cloth to protect her pansies. It seemed that all was well.

Tuesday, June 22   Deaths  2,757 (+1)   New cases 267

Our camping expedition left Corvallis at about 7:30, headed east in the Nissan truck. We arrived at the Sisters Bakery by 10:00. We found a new policy in place–no donuts on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Well. Fortunately they have lots of other good stuff. We got a couple of Marionberry scones. Very nice. The land around Sisters and Bend is good ranch land, but as you go east the terrain rapidly becomes drier and unsuited to agriculture of any kind. There are miles and miles of empty sage brush vistas as you drive on roads that run dead straight for ten miles at a time. We didn’t see a single solitary cow for over a hour. But then, near a place called Hampton, suddenly there it was: we saw a cow, a single solitary cow, in an otherwise empty landscape. Then, five minutes later, we started seeing lots of cows. We passed Riley and Hines and stopped for a break in Burns. We went to the little park next to the highway on the east end of town. Whoa. There were three or four police cars there. There wasn’t much action though. The incident that brought them seemed to have ended. We found a rickety table and ate our lunch. Then it was back onto the road.

Our first hint of trouble was when we arrived at the address of the vacation rental where we had planned to stay on our first night.  

Now we have to admit that this was not actually the one in the photo. In fact we hadn’t got a ‘vacation rental’ at all and we don’t know how this photo even got in here. We actually had a reservation in a Best Western in Ontario on the Oregon/Idaho border. It was fine. All still seemed well.

Wednesday, June 23   Deaths  2,759 (+2)   New cases 233

Our Best Western breakfast was not all that great but it sufficed. We got on our way about nine and decided to top up the gas tank. So…uh…should we buy Idaho gas (self-serve) or Oregon gas, where an attendant must pump it for you? Very confusingly, we ended up at a self-serve Chevron on the Oregon side! Huh? What? It seems that a change in Oregon law has allowed a few exceptions to the prohibition against self-serve. We had heard about this radical new idea, but we’d never seen an example. 

On our way to Lake Owyhee we passed some onion fields. The leaves were a rich dark green; each plant consisting of a tight bunch of vertical spears about a foot high. There were lots of onion fields, miles and miles of onion fields. So exciting. And then there were the sugar beet fields. There were lots of them too. And the biggest excitement? An actual sugar factory! For Eve it had an awesome grandeur. She said that it was too bad we didn’t have time to stop and take a factory tour. To M, this factory looked like it would be very unlikely to be offering factory tours. But who knows? The factory had no obvious company name, but there was a large sign with a picture of a bag of White Satin sugar. So we can guess that the factory is owned by the Amalgamated Sugar Company. Although its headquarters is currently in Boise, that company was originally founded in M’s hometown of Ogden, Utah in 1897. About 55% of the sugar produced in the U.S. is made from sugar beets; 45% from sugar cane.

 

So that was exciting, but what about camping? Well, we went down to the town of Nyssa, and thence to the small town of Adrian, then a few miles farther. Suddenly we had left farm country and were traveling into a range of low and barren mountains, following the course of the Owyhee river. We were a little anxious about finding a campsite because there were very few campgrounds in the area and none of the tent sites are reservable. When we arrived at the campground, we were pleased to see that in fact we had our pick of any site we wanted.

So that seemed pretty good. But then we got some bad news. As we were putting up our tent, we were informed that there was a strong likelihood of a severe storm developing in the early evening, with winds gusting to 85 mph. Well. Pitching our tent did not seem wise. Sleeping in the truck did not seem pleasant. (It’s a small truck.) We couldn’t know how severe the storm might be, or even if it would come at all. As you can see from the photos, the weather was pretty nice at the moment. But still. We decided to retreat to a motel and continue our visit as a series of day trips. Off we went. But then we got more bad news. There were no motel rooms available anywhere nearby. Zero. None of the search engines offered us any options. As soon as we entered any date from June 23 to 25, we got the simplest possible message. “No rooms available.” By searching farther afield, we did find an opening at a La Quinta in Boise; they had one room left at $379 plus 20% tax. That seemed like a lot, especially since Boise was nearly a hundred miles away in the wrong direction. Late June is a busy travel time in normal years, but this year is special. It seems pretty clear that large masses of people are feeling confident about getting out on the road again and staying in motels.

We decided to just abort and go home. It was a long drive, but interesting in its way. Here’s a view out the windshield as E had us tearing along at 73 miles per hour. We know it was 73 because…well, never mind.

E was still at the wheel when we reached Bend. It was clouding up a little as we reached the town; perhaps a few sprinkles were in the offing. We went on through town, planning to stop for a picnic dinner in Sisters, twenty miles farther on. Just we were leaving Bend, however, we ran into major drama–an intense hail storm. Hail the size of mothballs started banging on the hood and cab of the truck. What a racket. We did not have the presence of mind to take a video. What we did have was time. The storm went on and on. Visibility was very low and we pulled off to the side of the road for a bit, as did some other drivers. After a while, even though the racket continued unabated, the view ahead cleared just a little. We realized that we might as well push on through. The storm, after all, came from the west; the quickest way out was to drive straight through it. 

And how about our planned picnic in Sisters, a few miles down the road? It was fine–a peaceful 80 degrees and sunny. M drove from there across the mountains to home. 

Thursday, June 24   Deaths  2,760 (+1)   New cases 232

Here we are home again, where we are quite comfortable and where the winds are only gusting up to 8 mph. We did a little shopping and a lot of putting things away. We dined on smoked salmon, steamed chard, and a rice salad. Later we watched another long episode of Bitter Daisies, a Spanish series set in Galicia. It’s funny how some many shows these days seem to be descended from Twin Peaks. In this one, a young Guardia Civil officer tries to solve a series of murders. Galicia is in the northwest part of Spain and includes the city of Santiago de Compostela, which is the end point of the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James), perhaps the best known pilgrimage route in Europe. The show is exposing us to Galician Spanish, which is quite strange in places. The series is well-done and we like the actors, but we’ve been put off by some gratuitous sexual content.

Friday, June 25   Deaths  2,761 (+1)   New cases 232

E got a flat of raspberries today and made two batches low sugar freezer jam. We missed out last year because of a serious and inexplicable shortage of low sugar recipe pectin. So this is a major event. Besides the purchased berries, the new jam includes a pint or so of our own raspberries, which are small but very tasty. E made a total of 15 jars. Here are some of them. The two tall ones in the back are jars that we brought back from Turkey twelve years ago. They have been used many a time since.

M did reading, writing and weeding. For dinner we went off to J and B’s for a Cypriot meze dinner featuring grilled haloumi and stuffed grape leaves. We contributed fava beans and baklava. 

Saturday, June 26   Deaths  2,763 (+2)   New cases 227

It’s Becca’s birthday today. We went out and got ourselves a piece of cake to mark the occasion. Eve talked for a long time with A and also spoke via Zoom to an old friend who was close by when Becca was born in Madrid, forty-six years ago. Several of E’s friends faithfully remember Becca’s birthday. It means a lot. 

Ninety-nine degrees today, 109 forecast for tomorrow.

We watched the ending of Bitter Daisies. It was very good. It had a couple of nice surprise twists  and also some very satisfying developments which confirmed a couple of things that we had suspected.  

Sunday, June 27   Deaths  2,763 (+0)   New cases 138

Toast and jam for breakfast. Delightful. We did some watering in the morning. E worries that about the heat and its effect on plants, bugs, birds and everything else. 

M, being a kind of masochist, went to a minor league baseball game down in Eugene. Originally he was to go in company with four other Corvallis guys. Tickets were bought and all arrangements made. Then came the forecast of 110 degree temperatures. Four of the group, not being masochists, decided to take a pass and go some other time. But M had already had to change plans once this week due to weather. He wasn’t ready to change plans again.

The crowd was sparse, but the game was pretty good. If the young players were suffering, they didn’t show it. M’s reserved seat–originally picked out by his savvy friend R–was as good as it could be, being in deep shade just behind home plate. Attendance was on the sparse side.

The home team has a dual identity. Usually they are the Eugene Emeralds, part of the San Francisco Giants organization, and are clad in green. Occasionally, though, they transform themselves into the Monarcas, who wear black. And so it was on this day. 

It was 102 when M arrived with a small but welcome breeze blowing out toward left. M saw four home runs hit in that direction. Between innings there was usually a bit of entertainment. One of those was an interview with Eugene outfielder Ismael Munguia, who is from Nicaragua. They asked him what got him into baseball–his father. Who was his favorite player–Jose Altuve. What was his best baseball memory–winning the Nicaraguan championship. Then they asked him what he liked best about being in Eugene, Oregon. “The heat,” he said. “I hate the cold. Baseball is really good in the heat.” It was about 108 at that point, so we must assume that he was happy. By the end of the seventh inning it was 110 and the home team was up 7-2. M decided that was enough and took a nice walk in the sun back to his truck. He found out later that 7-2 was also the final score.

Monday, June 14   Deaths  2,730 (+0)   New cases 127

It’s nice to start the week with good news on the COVID front: no new deaths and a relatively low number of new cases. 

Shopping in the morning: E to the Co-op, M to Market of Choice and Trader Joe’ . Around 10:30, when the weather cleared, M went out to attend to the weakest section of the front rain gutter. Armed with drill, hammer, spikes and ferrules, up the ladder he went. A titanic struggle ensued, but finally success was won and that which was weak is now strong(ish). M found that some gutter cleaning was also in order. Messy work, but satisfying.

In the afternoon we had a visit from R who showed up in a new Honda Accord, a very nice car. M approves the choice and says that R and G’s former car, a Honda Fit, did not actually ‘fit’ with R’s personality.  

Tuesday, June 15   Deaths  2,737 (+7)   New cases 314

So E went to two different doctors today and found both visits quite helpful. She also visited the jewelry store–which required making an appointment in advance. She decided to reward herself by having a Bodhi’s scone for lunch along with a banana. That lunch was delicious but also a little rich for her system. Bohdi’s scones are that way. She then went for a walk in the OSU forest, went downtown again to trade her five pound dumbbells for some four pound dumbbells, and finally returned home and announced that she was hungry and that we needed to eat at 4:30. Too bad, said M, our slow cooker meal will not be done until 5:30. Somehow she managed to wait and was rewarded with a dish that the vegetarian slow cooker cookbook calls Arroz Con Pollo. Of course it has no pollo, and instead has a host of other things including chick peas, carrots, green beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, olives and fresh salsa. M, who was the one who got to put it all together, calls it Arroz Con Todo. Anyway, he served it with chard and a California cabernet to rave reviews.

Before serving up that delicious meal, M spent most of the day on a Porsche trip to the an area southwest of Eugene where some of the forest roads are paved. They are also narrow, winding (see below) and mainly empty. At one point M drove for an hour without seeing another moving vehicle. All told, he was gone five hours. The day was warm and beautiful, with lots of sun punctuated with the occasional sudden, drenching shower. The Porsche top went up and down three or four times.

 

Wednesday, June 16   Deaths  2,744 (+7)   New cases 247

We took a short hike today, up in the Dunn Forest, just a mile up and a mile back on Road 420. We climbed the equivalent of eight floors, or so our phones tell us. Back home M started planning for next week’s camping trip. He wants to buy an air mattress. They have really nice ones now. 

Our camping destination is the Owyhee River canyon in southeastern Oregon. The river got its name in 1819, when two Hawaiian fur trappers working for the North West Fur Company were killed there. Company administrators decided to name the river in their honor. “Owyhee” is how Captain James Cook spelled the “native name” of the Hawaiian islands when he first made report of them in 1778. His spelling persisted for most of a century but was eventually replaced by the one we use now.

Here in 2021, E zipped down to the OSU Thrift Shop and bought a couple of sherry glasses that she had had her eye on. The two glasses were identical, obviously part of a set, but one was marked $3.00 and the other was marked $1.00. The volunteer who was staffing the cash register decided that $2.00 for the pair would be fine. Now if we only had some sherry.

Thursday, June 17   Deaths  2,745 (+1)   New cases 300

Tertulia on J and R’s deck this morning. J had made chocolate chip scones; R made cappuccinos. Excellent all around. We got to see the progress on their new addition–a main floor master bedroom with bath and an adjoining deck. So far the foundations and subfloors are done, along with the framing for the exterior walls. Today was interior wall framing day. Roof trusses arrive next Monday. We also got to see their five-year old granddaughter, who did not wish to socialize but instead watched us from afar. Maybe next time.

Next up came hair appointments. M went to see his favorite barber, who is harder and harder to find these days because he is focusing more on his other career as a house painter. E, whose long-time stylist retired, went to try out a new person. Decidedly mixed results. Nice cut, strange color. 

After lunch it was off to Portland to buy an air mattress and some camp food at REI and look for shoes at the New Balance Store. Success in the first case, no luck with the latter.

M provided take-out dinner from Tacovore. Our order included a generous glass of Tacovore’s own virgin margarita mix, which we deflowered by adding our own ice and t’kill ya. Yum.

Friday, June 18   Deaths  2,750 (+5)   New cases 315

Big doings today, we’ve invited H and daughter T for dinner. We thought we might eat outside on the patio, so E spent a lot of time bringing table and chairs out of hibernation and generally spiffing up the area. She was also corresponding with the Extension Office about what’s wrong with our poor sick lilacs. M did a bit of garden work and then rummaged around in the camping equipment that hasn’t been used for ages. We need to sort out what’s relevant to our upcoming trip and what is not. As for dinner prep, we already had a couple of main courses prepared (one by M and one by E) and H had promised to bring a salad, but what about dessert? E decided on chocolate mousse, to be served in demitasse cups. This latter method has the advantage that the cups are so small that accepting a second helping seems quite natural. It is required, really, out of simple courtesy. In the end we had a lovely evening and appreciated being able to socialize in person with good friends. 

Saturday, June 19   Deaths  2,753 (+2)   New cases 289

We did trip planning and equipment sorting, then continued on with list making. This camping thing seems to require so much preparation. Was it always that way? Later E went foraging out in the country to get eggs and then paid a visit to Natural Grocers. M went to Bi-Mart to secure a sufficient stock of dark chocolate M&M’s. E also found time to issue a Zoom invite to her siblings. Soon it was time to make a flying visit to Albany and pick up our online order from Ba’s Vietnamese Comfort Food. They make these wonderful noodle salad dinner bowls, a meaty one and a vegan one, either being just right for a warm evening. 

Sunday, June 20   Deaths  2,754 (+1)   New cases 200

Took a walk in the OSU forest this morning. Quite beautiful. It seems like early summer now, with clear skies and lots of sun. Thankfully, the severe heat is still to the south of us, in California and Nevada. For now, even in the desert where we plan to go camping next week, the forecast is for highs mostly in the eighties. 

We had a good Zoom meeting with brothers J and J. (Hard to tell those two apart, isn’t it?) They are well. J the younger showed us a present he got for Father’s Day, a wooden nameplate to be attached to his newly built cottage at the lake. Pine Ledge will be its name. E showed the sibs a freeze-dried ice cream sandwich, one of two that we just acquired. 

The garden is in fine fettle. So far, only the grass is heat stressed. We have to announce that the most successful plant in our yard was not actually planted by us. It’s a giant sunflower, which we have accepted even though we did not invite it. It’s already seven feet tall and if you look closely, you can see that it appears to be hosting of its own ecosystem. Here’s a pic of the one of the top predators.

Monday, June 7   Deaths  2,694 (+0)   New cases 125

Our second day at the coast. As usual it was cloudy, but still we had a nice view of the ocean as we ate our modest breakfast. Then we walked a fourth of a mile or so over to the Devil’s Punchbowl, which was in fine form at near high tide. For lunch we drove down to the Newport bay front to Local Ocean restaurant. E had a crab and avocado po’r boy and M had a breaded rockfish sandwich. They were delicious and right-sized (not too big). The cabbage and fennel slaw was a new thing for us. It was very good and looked to be very simple to make. While we were eating we couldn’t help but notice a very noisy orange and white Lamborghini as it passed by, first in one direction and then in another. After lunch we drove about twenty miles up the coast to Depot Bay in search of the Spouting Horn. Alas, the tide was wrong to see spouting. We did see the Lambo again though. Hard to miss. 

Otter Crest is a resort about ten miles north of Newport. E and her family had a time share there in the 80’s and 90’s. E and A both have lots of good memories of the place and it does E good to see it again once in a while.

Otter Crest is aging now, but it is pretty well-maintained and E says that the grounds are more beautiful than ever since it’s a bit overgrown with some native species creeping back.

Tuesday, June 8   Deaths  2,700(+6)   New cases 307

We had to leave Otter Crest at 9:00 so as to get back in time for the Mazda’s oil change appointment at 11:00. With the Mazda delivered to the shop, we walked over to Tried and True for a coffee, then stepped into Peak Sports, which is always fun. E got sunglasses and a very lightweight Patagonia rain shell made from recycled nylon. M got an Osprey daypack. Soon we were all back home and the rest of the day was mostly quiet, though E did track down the Joe Coffee mystery. She did not lose any money, but she did have to get a new credit card number. Sigh. 

M spent some time working an a more detailed posting about last Sundays trip to Valsetz and the Siletz River Gorge.

In Oregon COVID news, we’re seeing that positive test rates have been quite low lately, averaging only 2.78% over the last 21 days.

Wednesday, June 9   Deaths  2,716 (+16)   New cases 269

Sixteen Oregon COVID deaths today! Where did that come from?

Lovely spring day, mostly sunny with temps in the seventies. E mowed the front lawn and worked on dead heading; M pulled some weeds and tied up the ninebark next to the clematis. The clematis is doing fine, by the way. The brown towards the bottom is the ninebark. We’re going to make them grow together whether they like it or not. 

Thursday, June 10   Deaths  2,726 (+10)   New cases 370

The rate of positive tests remains low, but Oregon deaths have spiked in the last few days. Not what we want to see. Here in Benton county, reports for the last 24 hours show eight new cases but no new deaths. 

Another almost normal tertulia today. While M and E had been dodging potholes in the forest on the weekend, J and R had been serenely kayaking on a calm lake. Sensible people. After her tea and zen roll, E had to get back home for exercise class. It was the last one of the term, so now she gets two weeks off. After class, we worked in the garden a bit and then decided that it was time to buy more plants! Off we went to the nursery and returned with five marigolds, one coreopsis, and a pair of thimbleberries. The first six are for E; the last two for M. There they sit on the patio, as neither of us felt like running out and planting them.

E then had a HEPAJ meeting at Common Fields, a new food cart pod on the edge of downtown. The pod is on a property that used to be a transmission shop. Times change. 

While she was gone, M pretended to be an electrician and replaced a broken wall outlet in the sewing room. Or was it the guest room? Whatever it is, it’s in the older part of the house, where the wiring dates from the early sixties. That wiring did not include ground wires for either ceiling lights or wall outlets. So the old outlets have only two slots and will not accept modern three pronged plugs. This is annoying, of course, when you’re trying to plug in anything newish. Generally, you can get around this in any number of fun ways. For one, you can just take a pair of pliers and rip out the third prong on the cord you’re trying to plug in. Simple and effective, but inelegant and destructive. Another method is to just replace the old outlet with a modern outlet, which does accept three-pronged plugs. The new outlet will have a place to connect a ground wire; but since you don’t have a ground wire, you just ignore it. The new fixture costs three dollars or so and is not difficult to install. (Unless you forget to turn off the power first, then it could be hardish.) One potential problem is that anyone who sees the new outlet is likely to believe that it really is grounded, which conceivably could have serious safety issues. You’d have to put a little sign on the outlet with a warning stating that it is not what it appears. That would be quite inelegant, at least until it fell off and was lost. 

The best option, short of rewiring, is to replace the old outlet with a new GFCI outlet, which provides a different kind of fault protection without requiring a ground wire. M chose this option, though he grumbled about the GFCI outlet costing four times as much as the normal one. Once he got the new outlet installed he tested it and found that it didn’t work. Deadsville. Eventually he realized that it needed to be turned on. 

After that, M needed a nap and E had Laughter Yoga. For TV we watched an episode of the PBS’s Mrs. Wilson. It’s good, but we’re struggling to figure out if we’ve seen it before. 

Friday, June 11   Deaths  2,726 (+0)   New cases 308

Rain in the morning kept us indoors for a while, but soon we were out putting yesterday’s plant purchases into the ground. Eve had Zoom yoga in the early afternoon and later on went to visit her friend P. M mounted his newly arrived license plates onto the Nissan. Dinner was tempeh, squash and sautéed mushrooms, followed by the last piece of anniversary cake. 

Saturday, June 12   Deaths  2,729 (+3)   New cases 285

The morning was cloudy, damp but rainless. Having given up on the too-crowded Patissier, E went to the grocery early and got some fresh kalamata olive bread for breakfast. She promptly slathered hers with peanut butter, raspberry jam, and Divina Sour Cherry Fruit Spread. She says she had to include that last ingredient because it comes from Greece and thus complements the olives in the bread. M dabbed a bit of jam on his but was more focused on the butter.

Then we did some yard work. E trimmed azaleas and M made some emergency repairs to the rain gutters, which were failing in two different places. Clearly, the gutters are old and need replacing. But M wants to try shoring up the weak spots first and see how long he can extend the old gutters’ useful life. Now if that sounds like a dumb idea, that’s because it probably is. You can’t tell M that, though; he has already ordered some 7” gutter spikes with 5” ferrules. And he’s thrilled to have learned a new word: ferrule. So we’ll see how that goes. 

Rain began in the early afternoon and kept us inside. E did correspondence and M did various sorts of route planning. In the evening E spent time with her book about Ladybird Johnson, which she is liking more and more as she gets into it. Johnson was an early proponent of natural landscaping with native plants and was also a powerful force in efforts to create and preserve green spaces in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Johnson’s predecessor as First Lady had been the quite glamorous Jacqueline Kennedy. When a reporter asked Ladybird what kind of clothes she liked, she is said to have replied that unfortunately her clothes were completely unremarkable and to have suggested that they talk about something else. The biography, which is subtitled Hiding in Plain Sight, is by Julia Sweig and is based largely upon Lady Bird’s White House diaries.

Sunday, June 13   Deaths  2,730 (+1)   New cases 167

We had rain off and on through the night, then a quiet overcast morning. The yard was damp and beautiful. It looked pleased with itself and asked for no immediate attention. We stayed in and did some trip planning. We’ve reserved a campsite at a state park in the Wallowa mountains. We took the first free dates we could find, which were in the second week of September. 

The rain started up again around noon and continued all afternoon. We went out anyway and took a walk up to the natural area by the water tanks. The foliage is getting thick up there. Everything is leafed out and growing madly. We saw a doe with a little fawn, the smallest either of us had ever seen. It was amazing to watch it bouncing along behind its mother.

Alas, we fear that both doe and fawn could be in grave danger. A powerful predator has been seen in the neighborhood.

Monday, May 31   Deaths  2,671 (+3)   New cases 220

COVID continued taking its toll in May, with daily average deaths returning to about the level of March.

Tuesday, June 1   Deaths  2,674 (+3)   New cases 177

On Memorial Day, M and E went for a drive in the mountains and forests west of Corvallis. The holiday meant that no log trucks would be about. We went to the same area where M had gotten lost more than once on his previous journeys. While he did succeed in finding his way out of the forest on those occasions, he never managed to come out of the forest where he had planned to come out. Ah, but this time would be different, because we now have a detailed map. Here’s a  portion of it, showing some of the area M had been trying to cross. As you see, there are lots of roads, most of which are dead ends and none of which are straight. Plus there is very little useful signage down there. The squares are one-mile sections.

This is part of a downloadable map that cost us $5.99 and opens in an app on the iPhone. We didn’t get turn-by-turn directions, but the phone was able to tell us exactly where we were in the maze.

So, did we go in where we planned and come out where we planned? Of course we did. With E helping with navigation, we made nary a wrong turn. It was lovely and cool up there among the trees. And once in a while, big clearcuts would open up the scene to the big picture.

Wednesday, June 2   Deaths  2,676 (+2)   New cases 356

The New York Times–according to our sources–has revealed that some New Yorkers are now able to “show they were vaccinated using a phone app.” Exciting news. It is not yet clear when this might be available in the rest of the country. 

We’ve made reservations to spend a couple of nights in Newport, on the Oregon coast, starting on Sunday. Although there is fine paved highway that leads directly from Corvallis to Newport, M has suggested a different route for the trip over. Of course he has. 

That fine paved highway, by the way, is U.S. Highway 20, currently the longest active Federal highway. From Corvallis to the west it goes 49 miles to Newport where it ends at the junction with U.S. Highway 101, half a mile from the Pacific Ocean. To the east it goes 3,310 miles, ending at Kenmore Square in ___________? 

Thursday, June 3   Deaths  2,683 (+7)   New cases 267

A full day today, whew. M got up at 4:30 to set his drip irrigation timers. Later, but not much later, E got up and went out to do watering. Then it was time for Tertulia at 8:00 at Coffee Culture. J and R arrived on their electric bikes, but M and E, prosaically, came by car. It was nice, warm enough to sit outside. And with no mask requirement it seemed like old times. J and R’s house addition has progressed through foundation work and now has floor joists. 

We had to rush off so as to get E home for her Zoom exercise class and for M to get busy on his edging project. After class E prepared for her last infusion session, which involved packing up bakery treats to give to the staff at center. After the last infusion, the PICC tube was removed and the staff made a kind of completion ceremony, which included telling her that they never wanted to see her there again. After all, 5 weeks of daily infusions is enough!

After lunch, M took a long nap while E used her time to have a phone call with her brother John. At 4:00 she had her weekly laughter yoga session. M woke up in time to cook some spinach and open some sardines and kippers that we could have for dinner along with E’s potato salad. 

After our post dinner walk we watched a Tom Hanks movie called News of the World. It’s about a young girl who was taken captive by Kiowa Indians when she was very young and then ‘rescued’ by the U.S. Army about 10 years later. The story comes from a novel by Paulette Jiles and contains some basis in fact. 

Friday, June 4   Deaths  2,686 (+3)   New cases 436

A routine day today. E celebrated her first day of freedom from infusion by working in the garden waging war on spider mites. Her weapon is a garden hose. M worked on spreading compost and bark mulch on good old Hummock #3. That project has to be done soon, doesn’t it? Later on we looked at bank statements and paid some bills. Why, asks E, am I paying another $4.75 to Joe Coffee when they are doing nothing for me?  

Saturday, June 5   Deaths  2,691 (+5)   New cases 330

We planned to get some croissants this morning at Le Patissier. Arriving at 8:10 in the morning, we saw perhaps thirty other folks standing in line outside with the same idea. Oh, that’s a long line, and, as we know, it is not a line that moves fast. Fond as we are of those pastries…just a few hundred yards away, the  Mother of Markets also had croissants and they’re weren’t bad.

Then came another morning of weeding and fighting the mite wars. It was great weather to be outside and we got a lot done. Then it was time for grocery shopping and rhubarb harvesting. Sadly, there was not enough time to turn around and make a pie. Hopefully sometime soon. 

Later in the afternoon, E had a phone conference to discuss Cousin’s Week accommodation issues. We made progress there too. 

Sunday, June 6   Deaths  2,694 (+3)   New cases 258

Time to head for the ocean, which is just the other side of the Coast Range. We took the scenic route, leaving the pavement at Falls City and traveling from there to the site of the old company town of Valsetz. The road was washboarded in places, but also wide and pretty easy to follow. We had the same basic GPS as our last trip but hardly needed it. We stopped to eat our tuna sandwiches at the site of the old Valsetz mill. Valsetz was founded in 1924 and continued in existence until 1979. It was a company town in the true sense. Everything was company owned. When the company shut down operations, they also removed all structures and replanted. Just forty years later there are no obvious signs that the town even existed. That’s probably enough of that, but M is planning a separate post about Valsetz, in case anyone would like to know more. It will be in the Road Trips category

After lunch our problem was how to get down off the highlands and make our way to the ocean. In theory, the route was simple, just follow the North Fork of the Siletz River from its headwaters near Valsetz down to where it passes a hamlet called Upper Farm, from which a paved road would take us to the Newport highway. This part of the trip was more of an adventure–no GPS and a narrow, pot-holed road–but eventually it took us through a lovely area called the Siletz River Gorge.