Endemic Diary — May 9 to 22, 2022

Monday, May 9, 2022

More rain and clouds. The grass is growing like crazy and many lawns in the neighborhood are looking shaggy. Only the lawn service lawns are neat and trim. The professionals work in all weathers; residents who mow their own wait for better days.

Tuesday, May 10. 2022

And here’s a better day now, bright sun from early in the morning. They say we’ll have two days of sun before the rain returns. Very good, says M, one day for the back yard and one day for the front.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

As promised, we got sunshine today also. There was lots of mowing going on up and down the street. But, more importantly, E made her first rhubarb pie of the season! It was delightful! 

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Back to rain. Hard and steady with gusts of wind. Pretty nasty, actually. Across the street, lawn service workers in heavy rain gear are making an inordinate amount of noise… 

Friday, May 13, 2022

We went to see the new Corvallis Museum. It’s not terrible.

Sunday, May 15, 2022

E went off to Portland today and met A at the Saturday Market in Vancouver, WA. She was expecting some kind of farmers’ market like we have here, but no, the Vancouver Saturday Market runs more to upscale crafts than to upscale veggies. The two of them had a great time looking around at all the pretty things and clever ideas. They had lunch at a place near the market and then went to A’s house for tea. E came home with a wall mountable planter to go next to our front door. It’s meant for succulents and is quite pretty. Plus, it came wrapped in several pages of a newspaper called The Epoch Times, which had a number of catchy headlines, as for example 1) How the Specter of Communism Rules Our World, 2) How China is Using Amazon to Destroy Democracy, and 3) The Infrastructure Bill is the Royal Road to Communism. There was also an ad for a new book about how we know the earth is flat. The book is titled–cunningly enough–The Flat Earth. 

M, meanwhile, went “shopping” up in the mountains and came home with some rocks and a few pieces of wood with which to decorate the back yard. The first rock supply yard that he came to was relatively small and featured mostly gray rocks. M likes gray, so he picked out three examples, with his main selection criterion being that the rocks had to be small enough for him to pick up and carry.

Later on he came to another place that specialized in rocks that weren’t gray. He picked out a couple of those too.

Once he had his rocks, M was free to enjoy the scenery. Here’s Canyon Creek in its springtime glory.

And finally, the photo below shows where M turned around and headed home. This is Willamette National Forest Road 2024, which goes up along Two Girls Creek over toward Road 2032. To M, this infrastructure does not appear to be part of the royal road to communism, but you never know.

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Breakfast at Bodhi’s today. We’ve been there five or six times now and have been frustrated that only once did we find chocolate chip scones. What’s wrong with these people? Their scones are very good, but lately we have been forced to try all sorts of weird varieties. Finally, today, we realized something important: all their scones taste pretty much the same. And they’re all pretty good. 

After breakfast M left for Day 1 of his Porsche tour of central Oregon. Day 1 was spent getting from Corvallis up to the The Dalles in the Columbia Gorge. M did a part of the trip on what is now called Historic Highway 30. Completed in 1922, 30 was the first auto route up the gorge. It was built to facilitate tourism and features a number of lookouts and viewpoints. Here’s the view from one such place, near the town of Mosier.

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

E was halfway through breakfast when she noticed something quite disturbing: there was no glass of juice next to her placemat! Worse yet, no one had even started making the coffee! Staffing shortages strike again. 

M breakfasted on bad yogurt and a stale donut, then left The Dalles and headed east to Arlington, finally reaching the area that he wanted to explore. As planned, he went south down OR Highway 19, then crossed over to OR 74 on a nameless east-west rural connector. Wonderful road.

In Hepner M bought a sandwich at a grocery store deli, then took OR 207 south to Kimberly. From there he went east to Long Creek. Beautiful scenery and trafficless roads. Lots of curves. Warm enough and dry enough to have the top down, at least for a while.

From Long Creek, M went south down US 395 through John Day to Burns. This was a road he’d driven several times before. Parts of the route can be very fast. 

So M made it to Burns in a timely manner and found his motel. He’d got a good deal on his room by going through a booking site called Traveluro. It was so cheap that he was worried about whether it was for real; but it all seemed to work. After checking in, M got a message from Traveluro thanking him for using them and wishing him all the best during his stay. He then got another text from Traveluro congratulating him on having chosen to visit ‘Burnsville’ (!) and reminding him to be sure and visit Culzean Castle as well as the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. Foolishly, M skipped both of these and visited a Mexican restaurant instead.

Thursday, May 19, 2022

M got up early and headed even farther south on 395. He wanted to see Lake Abert again.

Then it was time to turn for home so as to be back in time for H’s birthday dinner at Sybaris. He got back to Corvallis around 3:30. His three-day trip covered 912 miles. At $5.65 a gallon for premium, the fuel bill was $185.  

And how did the dinner at Sybaris go? It was wonderful. H had sole, M had vindaloo sausage, and E had pasta primavera. The sauces were all delicious and everything came with early spring vegetables: paper-thin snow peas, tiny asparagus sprigs, spicy greens, and more. Did we sensibly forego having an appetizer and then all eat too much for dessert? Yes we did.

Saturday, May 21, 2022

E went to a weed pulling party this morning, answering a call for volunteers from the Benton County Soil and Water Conservation District. The setting was Mary’s River Park in Philomath and the main targets were Himalayan blackberry and English ivy. E went after ivy. The most interesting thing she learned was that ivy does not flower on the ground. Only when it gets high in the tree does it produce flowers, and then seeds which are easily scattered by the wind. So severing vines from their roots is an effective way of deterring the proliferation of ivy. E enjoyed cutting and pulling vines, and when it was over, she was delighted to sample the donuts generously provided by our host.

Meanwhile M went to a baseball game with R. They went to see the OSU Beavers, who have been doing very well this year, despite a late season slump. The opposing team was from UCLA, a school where M was once a graduate student. OSU won, 9-3, and ended up finishing second in the Pac-12. 

M and R sat in the right field bleachers, their usual spot. Here’s what it looked like. Two of the buildings visible here bring back memories. In the late 70’s, M and E had offices in the older building in the center. In the 90’s and 00’s, M, E, and R were all based in the somewhat uglier blue building on the right.