Meandering on the Way — August 22 to 28

Thursday, August 22nd

Another busy day, beginning with tertulia at 8:00 with R and J. R has just had cataract surgeries using adjustable replacement lenses. He is in the adjustment phase now and is already seeing well. Later in the morning, E had her exercise class. At 2:00 PM it was time for our estate planning session at the lawyer’s office. And because that topic was so hilarious, E had to log in to Laughter Yoga at 4:00. This was followed by a dinner meeting of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society. Two entire pies came to the meeting, but only two wedges survived, one of which was brought home for M.

We’ve been having very good weather lately, a great relief from the hot dry days earlier in the summer. We’ve had cool temperatures, lots of partial clouds and even some rain now and again.

Friday, August 23rd

We zipped over to the coast today and went hiking in the area just inland from Ona Beach. The little river than enters the ocean at Ona is called Beaver Creek and to get to our hike we drove east just about a mile up Beaver Creek Road. The first part of the Beaver Creek trail crosses a large flat area that could be a beautiful meadow but which in fact is a beautiful swamp. Our guidebook warned that unless we were hiking in the dry months of August and September, we would need rubber boots to get across. As it happens, neither one of us has rubber boots at this stage of our lives, but since we were almost sure that we were in August, we thought we’d be okay. Ha-ha-ha. Yes, much of the trail was dryish, but not all of it. We almost got through it without sinking in over our shoe tops. Almost.

However, the two-mile loop trail on the other side of the swamp turned out to be great. Our route up was a narrow trail that climbed to a 300 ft. summit. It was steepish in places and hadn’t been maintained recently. The most exciting part was where it led through a large patch of blackberry onto which a big old branch had fallen. Fortunately E was in the lead at that point and demonstrated how one could get through it. The other half of the loop was on a mile-long section of long-closed road. In some ways, a long-closed road is the best possible place to hike.

Portions of the hill were homesteaded long ago. Today there is no evidence of structures, but you do see lots of grassy open spaces wherever the slope is gentle enough to make fields. These openings in the forest are gradually being filled in by alders, spruce and hemlock. Also blackberry, which our guidebook did not mention.

Saturday, August 24th

We had some delightful bread for breakfast this morning–pepper parmesan sour dough. M says that it wasn’t quite as tasty as the pecan bourbon bar that he had for lunch yesterday, but it was close. (We just happened to pass the Waldport bakery yesterday when we were trying to find Ona Beach. We get so confused.)

M has downloaded an app called onX to help him navigate in the backcountry. And no, it doesn’t help you find bakeries, but it does seem promising. First, you go online and create the map you need. Then you download the map to your phone to be used offline in conjunction with your phone’s GPS. But how exactly do you do this? M plans to make a trial run to see if he and onX are going to be able to work together.

Sunday, August 25th

And what better place for a trial run than that complicated forest area in NW Lane County? So M drove down to Monroe, continued south on the territorial highway, turned right onto Ferguson road, and headed into the unknown, planning to come out at Alsea. The test went well with only two glitches. One was when onX directed M to drive through a locked steel gate, which M flatly refused to do. The other occurred when M took a wrong turn due entirely to not paying attention.

That wrong turn yielded unexpected vistas, as they sometimes do.

Monday, August 26th

We did our usual Monday morning grocery shopping and then had an errand in Albany. While we were there, we took the Ioniq 5 to Electrify America for free electrons. And got back in time for E’s Zoom Yoga class. After dinner we watched two episodes of Dalgliesh, the British series based on the novels of P. D. James. We’re watching Series 1, which was released in 2021 and stars Bertie Carvel as the enigmatic title character. It’s a bit formulaic, but the characters are strong, Carvel creates a wonderful Dalgliesh, and it is all very well done. The stories are set in the seventies, so there’s not a cell phone in sight. There are cars, however, including a period ambulance and lots of period MG’s. Dalgliesh himself drives a dark green 1971 Jaguar V-12 2+2 E-Type, while his lazy and not so nice sergeant drives a red-orange Ford Capri 3000 GXL. Dalgliesh Series 1 is streaming on AMC+.

Tuesday, August 27th

M spent the morning helping N rebuild the workbench in her garage. N used to be a farmer and is used to tearing down and building things. Really she only needed M for some heavy lifting. Between the two of them, the job went pretty fast.

E had her BBB exercise class.

Wednesday, August 28th

After some garden chores early, we took a long hike in the OSU Forest on the Vineyard Mountain trail. It was a great day for it, cool and sunny. A bit like fall. Unfortunately, we went at lunchtime and didn’t take a lunch. That was lazy and not so nice!

Good omen of the day: E went to the Co-op to buy vegetables for paella and also found saffron.