Saturday, October 12th
We joined J, B and H at the old Lewisburg Grange Hall for a special midday dinner. The hall, once the site of M&E’s wedding, currently belongs to the St. Anne’s Greek Orthodox Church, the organizers of our annual Greek Fest. The food is invariably delicious.
After the main meal, we all got dessert to take away and adjourned to our back patio, where M served Greek coffee that he made in a Turkish cezve. (Hope St Anne is not reading this.)
Friday, October 19th
A couple of out of state readers have shared some beautiful photos of fall foliage. Here’s a contribution from Oregon…
Sunday, October 20th
Time for another visit to Dufur, Oregon and a two-night stay at the Balch Hotel. We packed up the electric car and left Corvallis around 10:00 in the morning. The weather was cloudy with rain in the forecast. But we were headed east, and it would likely be clearer over that way. As we got into the mountains, we stopped for a driver change at Cascade Park, as we often do. It was deserted, and still lovely at this time of year. While we were there, did we discover that we had forgotten to bring our luggage? No.
We went over the Cascade mountains to Redmond and then turned north, stopping in Madras to charge up and do some shopping for snacks. By late afternoon we were in Dufur, just 20 miles south the Columbia River, safely checked into the Balch Hotel.
In its original form the hotel had 28 rooms and four shared bathrooms. Some of the rooms have since been converted to have their own baths, but many others remain pretty much as they were. They look like this.
The four original shared bathrooms have all been preserved and are also lovely. Each one is really two separate rooms–one for the tub and one for the toilet and sink.
Our dinner at the Balch was excellent–salmon cakes for E, grilled salmon for M, and chocolate cake to share.
Monday, October 21st
Our plan for the day was to zip up to the Gorge and take I-84 a few miles east to the mouth of the Deschutes River, where we would go hiking. But on the way, we stopped at the Dufur Community Cemetery. The cemetery was established in the late nineteenth century and for many years was known as the Dufur Rebeckah Lodge Cemetery. The Rebeckahs deeded it to the county in 1975.
We got to the Deschutes State Recreation Area around 11:00. The Deschutes River is 252 miles long, originating far to the south near the border with California and flowing north all the way to the Columbia, which forms the border with Washington. In the photo you can see the Deschutes as it flows under the highway and railroad bridges and into the big river.
(Click the photo to see their end-of-season discounts.)
We hiked about four miles, first walking upstream on a trail that runs along the river’s edge, then changing to a different trail higher up on the hill.
Tuesday, October 22nd
Time to start the trip home. We checked out of the Balch at around 10:00 and headed back up to I-84. We were getting low on charge, but the internet told us that there was a fast charger in Hood River, just 30 miles away in the direction of Portland. Luckily, that proved to be true, and after twenty minutes of charging at Electrify America, we continued on our way. Around 12:30 we were through Portland and entering the suburb of Tigard, where we stopped at the REI at Bridgeport Village. This allowed us to achieve one of the other objectives of the trip, which was to get E some new waterproof hiking/walking shoes. Lunch was had in the REI parking lot, where we dined on leftovers from the previous night’s dinner at a brewpub in The Dalles. (The Balch restaurant wasn’t open on Monday.) A parking lot might sound like a terrible place to have lunch; but if you’ve been to that particular one, you know it’s actually pretty nice.
Wednesday, October 23rd
E is reading Goodnight Sweet Prince, a book about actor John Barrymore that was published in 1944, shortly after his death. Barrymore’s long acting career began in live theatre in the early 1900’s and then partially transitioned into silent movies beginning in 1912. Barrymore later made an easy transition into talking pictures in the early 1930’s. Barrymore’s greatest acting triumphs were in the early phases–the period before his life-long alcoholism started to catch up with him. Of his many stage performances, his portrayals of Richard III and of Hamlet were the best known. Orson Welles said many years later that Barrymore’s 1922 performance in New York was the best Hamlet he had ever seen. In 1925 Barrymore took his version of Hamlet to London, where it received positive reviews and was seen by a very young actor named John Geilgud. On his program, Geilgud jotted down his impressions, noting that Barrymore “had a wonderful edge and a demonic sense of humor” and also that his performance had “tenderness, remoteness, and neurosis all placed with great delicacy and used with immense effectiveness and admirable judgment”.
Barrymore made many silent films, most of which were judged by critics to be low quality movies partially redeemed by the brilliance of their star. The best known of these might be 1924’s Beau Brummell. During the filming, it is said that Barrymore, then forty, had an affair with co-star Mary Astor, who was then seventeen.
These days the easiest way to see Barrymore’s work is to watch the talking pictures from the 1930’s. Tonight we watched Grand Hotel, a pre-code, pre-color film starring John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. It’s a wonderful movie with great acting from all of the principal players, and of course includes one of the most famous lines of dialogue in all of cinema history. (If you don’t know what that line might be, here’s a hint. It’s not Barrymore’s line and it’s not Crawford’s either; it’s Garbo’s.)
Thursday, October 24th
E attended a meeting of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society. Although the members all enjoyed getting together, the occasion was marred by an inferior lemon meringue pie! Sourced from a previously reliable bakery, this pie, says E, was an all round flop with watery filling, soggy crust and partially uncooked meringue. Yikes. Not a single plate was licked.