Meandering on the Way — July 16 to 23, 2024

Tuesday, July 16th

Thursday, July 18th

Things continue to be a little strange around Corvallis in these lazy days of summer. The monthly meeting of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society, for example, was not held in any kind of pie place. Instead, it took place at 6:00 p.m. at KH Grill. B, T, H and E were in attendance. KH Grill is a Vietnamese restaurant owned by a veteran Korean chef and staffed mostly by Hispanics. E had vegetarian spring rolls and reports that the rolls were larger but not quite as tasty as when Kim Hoa himself ran the place. She did like that peanut sauce though.

Friday, July 19th

Today E braved the heat of late morning to check out the first day of Sidewalk Sales Weekend in downtown Corvallis. The event used to be called Crazy Days. M has assumed that they changed the name to avoid the appearance of exclusionary bias against people who are not crazy, but E says that wasn’t the reason. She came home with a pair of hot weather gauzy pants, a visor for swimming in the lake and a tank top for working in the yard. What lake, you might ask. Well, E’s trip to Lake George is upcoming in just a couple of weeks.

While she was downtown, E got a call from A , who was just heading out for a camping trip. She was heading south from Vancouver and was planning a stop to charge her Leaf at the I-5 exit nearest Corvallis. We decided to go out and meet her and keep her company while the charging was going on. We talked for about 25 minutes seated around a table in one of those A&W’s that are attached to a gas station. M got himself a root beer float, of which E took a small sip.

A told us about a dog that had come in with an eye problem. The owner said that the dog had been keeping the eye firmly shut for several days and would not allow anyone to touch it. A and her assistant sedated the dog so that A could have a look. What she found were two long blades of grass, scrunched up and folded over, and pushed way back behind the eyeball. A plucked them out and when the dog woke up, the eye opened normally and the dog acted as if nothing had ever been wrong. A says it was probably the most instantaneous veterinary success she has ever had.

Saturday, July 20th

It’s not super hot here, but warm enough. Highs are around 90. We work in the yard early, but we stop around 9:00. Today E tried going out for her walk just at 9:00, but she says that by the end it wasn’t very pleasant.

Even though it was a hot day, E felt it was time to release the flamingo to the yard, rather than keeping it prisoner in the house. It is, however, contained within a little protective fence and seems to be doing well. Next step is to find a little kiddy pool for it to lounge in.

Sunday, July 21st

We went off to Bend today, traveling in the electric car. It would be our longest trip ever in the Ioniq 5. We were sure we had enough range to make it. But still, it was a new and different experience. Bend is only 140 miles away, and the car can theoretically go 260 miles on one charge. But Bend is at 3,600 feet of elevation and the trip involves crossing two 4,500 foot passes. As it happened we needn’t have worried. When we arrived , we still had a comfortable 44% of battery remaining.

Which is not to say that we did not have moments of great anguish and consternation along the way. The worst of these occurred when we were about a third of the way to our destination. We had stopped at Cascadia for a picnic lunch when we looked into the back of the car and noticed that we had forgotten to bring a few things. Had we forgotten the lunch? No, no, we had plenty of lunch. What we had forgotten was our luggage. Ouch! Say it isn’t so! Hmm. What to do. Go back and get it? No, all things considered, it was too late in the day for that. And it was only an overnight trip. We may have lacked luggage, but we were not without resources. We had phones, credit cards, sunglasses and hiking shoes. What more does a person really need? We pushed on toward Bend.

Once we had checked into our hotel, we again took stock of our situation. We now had toothbrushes courtesy of the front desk. But we lacked socks. We were planning to hike the next morning and we would want socks for that. So off we went to the Old Mill Mall and found some. And since E really didn’t want to hike in her traveling clothes, she found a few other things to accompany her new socks. M got a t-shirt so as to have another layer if one were needed.

It was 92 degrees in Bend and the weather had seemed mostly sunny. But just as we came out of the store, a sudden heavy shower came pelting down, which complicated our walk back to where we’d parked the car. The oversized raindrops soon changed to zillions of largish hailstones. At first we took shelter next to a building, but finally we just made a run for it to the car. A few minutes later it was all over, except that the parking lot was temporarily flooded.

By then it was time for dinner. Bend has a very active restaurant scene. We went to a downtown cocktail and tapas place called Bar Rio. E had a margarita and Jibaritos: fried plantains tossed in Tajín, filled with grilled yam, guacamole, and verde salsa. She liked it a lot. M had cava and a dish they called paella. It had chorizo and rice in it, but it didn’t taste like paella at all. And, in fact, calling it paella was an insult to real paellas everywhere. Once you got past that, however, it was delicious.

After dinner, we found our Electrify America station at the Bend Walmart and charged up.

Monday, July 22th

Up early and had a good breakfast at our Fairfield Inn by Marriot. Then we headed back westward to our hiking destination: the Sahalie Waterfalls Trail on the MacKenzie River. When we arrived, the weather was cool and the site uncrowded. (By the time we left, things were different.)

After our hike we headed back to Corvallis, arriving in the early afternoon with a very comfortable 58% of charge still remaining in the Ioniq’s battery. In the kitchen we found our luggage still waiting patiently for us to do something with it. We noticed that we had done quite a nice job of packing. But at that point E had to get busy and bake a cake cuz today was M’s birthday. Besides making M’s favorite cake, she also gave him presents! Altogether it was a quite wonderful day.

Tuesday, July 23rd

E was busy again today, what with a medical appointment, an exercise class and lunch with her THEPAJ group at Common Fields. M worked at home on this and that. His lunch included a piece of birthday cake.