Meandering on the Way — May 16 to 26

Thursday May 16th

Yikes! A distinguished visitor has come to Oregon and is staying with us! What are we going to do? Well, today was tertulia day, so we invited her to come along for morning coffee with J and R. Then, at lunchtime, she accompanied E to a meeting of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society. The meeting was held at Gathering Together Farms, where the food is delicious, but the menu does not include lemon meringue pie. This might seem odd. Our guest, however, whom we will refer to as Mrs. H, had some previous knowledge of the unpredictable and occasionally raucous nature of LMPS, so she was probably not too surprised. After lunch E took Mrs H for her first visit ever to Burst’s chocolate shop.

Friday May 17th

Today we made a trip over to the Coast. For the first leg of the trip we took Highway 34. Our guest was very impressed by the number of sharp curves on our route, remarking that it might be the curviest road she had ever experienced. E was quick to assure her that although the route was slow and tortuous, it had the advantage of leading directly to one of the best bakeries in the area. And sure enough, we eventually reached Waldport and were able to stock up on bread and treats at Pacific Sourdough. In the parking lot we also found a food truck specializing in coffee. This gave Mrs H another new experience. It was the first time she had ever been charged $6.75(!) for a coffee drink. The coffee truck was created from a 1955 Olson Kurbside step van. The chassis and drivetrain were supplied by Chevrolet; the all-aluminum body was made by Grumman-Olson.

From Waldport we drove up the coast and stopped for a two and half mile beach walk on the south side of Yaquina Bay. Mrs H is an inveterate walker and at no point during this activity did she accuse E of trying to kill her. After the walk, we made the short drive over to Local Ocean for lunch. Once fed, we went across the street and walked around the fishing boat docks. There wasn’t too much human activity there at two in the afternoon, but we did run across a bunch of noisy animals.

Saturday May 18th

In the morning E and Mrs H walked over to Le Pattissier, so that our guest could see this important Corvallis institution. It would have been impolite to just drop in and look around, so they felt they really had to buy something, i.e., some pain au chocolate for tomorrow’s breakfast. For today’s lunch we provided a Spanish sort of meal with jamon serrano, manchego cheese, and anchoa-stuffed olives, all accompanied by slices of pepper parmesan bread that we had brought back from the coast. After lunch E and Mrs H went downtown to do some shopping. This included a return visit to Burst’s Chocolate.

In the evening we all watched Episode 1 of The Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a Korean series now showing on Netflix. We all loved it.

Sunday May 19th

Today we took a long walk around the OSU campus. We saw a quite tidy-looking pro-Palestinian “encampment” in one corner of the Memorial union quad. But what we mainly came to see were the very large Rhododendron trees in the oldest parts of the campus. It’s prime season for Rhodie blossoms.

For lunch we ordered a couple of sandwiches to be delivered by robot to the OSU Library main entrance.

Monday May 20th

Today we went up to see the Alsea Falls…

… and also made a quick stop at nearby Hubert McBee Memorial Park. McBee is the site of the oldest local version of the “world’s longest picnic table.” It dates from the 1960’s and is dilapidated now: some of the roof has fallen away, sections of bench are missing, and the many of the concrete supports for the table are leaning and about to fall. But the main table surface is still quite intact. It’s a single piece of fir a hundred feet long, three feet wide, and three inches thick, .

On the way home we stopped and ate our lunch at Bellfountain County Park, where there is a very similar table, this one newer and in excellent condition. It seats 120.

Tuesday May 21st

After a week of very nice Spring weather, it was suddenly cloudy and cool this morning. This was to be Mrs H’s last day in Oregon and our plan was to leave Corvallis before noon and head north to the Portland area, stopping for a picnic lunch along the way. Once there, we’d take Mrs. H for a short excursion up the Columbia Gorge to see the sights. Then we’d go back to Portland and have dinner before dropping her off at the Portland airport to catch her flight home. And that’s what we did, sort of.

We left on schedule, bur after just forty-five minutes on the road, it started raining. And the farther north we got, the harder it rained. We ended up picnicking in the car, stopping in a public park in the town of Hubbard, OR. Hubbard is home to the annual Hops Festival, but is otherwise decidedly unremarkable. (It has a nice park though.)

Once we got to the Gorge, the rain was really coming down so we decided to cut the excursion short and just visit Multnomah falls. Viewing a waterfall in the pouring rain is not ideal, you might say, but the falls didn’t suffer for it and it was still a beautiful scene.

We did not linger but instead headed back toward Portland somewhat earlier than we had planned. That was fortunate as it turned out that traffic was so heavy that it took an hour or so to go twenty miles. But we still made an on-time arrival at the Heathman Lodge where we were meeting the Andees for dinner. After that it was a short hop over to the airport and time to say our goodbyes. It was quite a wonderful visit.

Thursday May 23rd

E had her exercise class in the morning and Laughter Yoga late in the late afternoon. Between times, she drove M to and from his cataract surgery.

Friday May 24th

M had his post-op appointment. The new lens is in the left eye, so we had them pop the left lens out of his primary glasses. M is wondering if he’ll look weird going around with one lens missing from his glasses, but E told him not to worry–he doesn’t look any weirder than he did before.

E had time to go for a forest walk and then make a trip to the nursery. She bought a gaura to replace one that did not survive the winter. She also got two new Japanese anemones–because our old ones are pathetic.

Saturday May 25th

E planted her gaura and weeded the bed that it went into. And then she was tired. But she revived in time for our anniversary dinner at Sybaris.

Sunday May 26th

The celebration continued with almond croissants for breakfast. So buttery! Then E had to plant her new anemones. M has been told not to do any heavy work and, above all, not to bend over to tie his shoes. He is annoyed. But he managed to direct E to perform some simple garden tasks that he is forbidden to do..

Our solar panels have produced 379 kilowatt hours of power so far. As far as we can tell, that’s roughly 33% more than our usage over the same period. But we’ll have to see what our next bill says…