It was another cold, damp day, but off we went for a walk down at Snag Boat Bend south of Peoria. (E loves this hike, but loves its name even more.) The first part of the main trail is a boardwalk, built to cross three or four hundred feet of ground that tends to get mucky when wet. Usually we like boardwalks. They’re softer underfoot than gravel or pavement. But we didn’t like this one. The planks were a little worn and had gotten super slippery after many days of rain. So each step was an adventure. On our return leg we took another route.
After the boardwalk ended and we were back in contact with planet Earth, the trail followed along the bank of an old meander channel of the Willamette, which is now a backwater. The color palette was mostly soft greens and grays, but then…
…we found this stand of something or other, just blossoming away in mid December.. At first we thought that it might be tansy ragwort, infamous killer of livestock. But no, this is common tansy, another member of the aster family, much less lethal.
Snag Boat Bend is a detached ‘Unit’ of the Finley National Refuge. It’s a small area just in the middle of the flattest part of the Willamette Valley. The soil is excellent here and the unit is surrounded by farmland. Here’s a little of what that looks like.
We thought this might be a grass seed field, but we found out it wasn’t. This grass is growing for the benefit of sheep. We know that because as we walked along the south edge of the refuge, we came across a couple of farmers building fence along the north edge of the field. We exchanged a few words while E knelt for a moment to reassure their dog, who was nervous about us. The fence making moved fast and consumed only minimal resources: just short, skinny poles holding up a single strand of soft wire. The poles appeared to be bambu and were thin enough to be pushed into the wet ground easily. We doubt that the farmers were thrilled to have visitors strolling by as they worked, but they were very pleasant to us and of course we did not linger. This was the most interesting part of our walk, and also the most difficult for us to describe. All we have are questions. Who are they? How long have they been farming? What is their life like? How do they manage to work in the cold? What are they going to have for lunch?
Friday, December 13th
M has been under the weather lately, leaving E to her own devices. She went hiking in our old neighborhood of McDonald Forest and found an unusual view of Cronemiller Lake.
Cronemiller Lake: Infognito
And for reference, Cronemiller Lake: Defognito
E was super impressed by this novel shopping cart at Natural Grocer’s. It’s a mini cart frame into which you can set your grocery basket. She has been waiting a lifetime for this invention.
Saturday, December 14th
Here she finds some pretty red berries among snow-covered branches. Except it isn’t really snow. More like dead moss.
Not surprisingly, our nearby wetland is pretty wet. If you live here long enough, you start thinking this is beautiful.
Wednesday, December 18th
The holiday season proceeds apace. Best wishes to all.
Rain all day today, the real stuff. We were thinking of a hike out in the Crestwood Land Trust area, but we decided it was too wet for that. Instead we just went up to Calloway Creek. Much of the trail there goes through a managed fir forest that was thinned a number of years ago and these days there are three distinct levels of vegetation there. The lowest layer consists of fern and blackberry. Then comes a layer of foliage from deciduous understory trees. At Calloway, these are mostly Oregon hazel,–unimpressive, tattered looking things that grow about eight feet high. Above them you see only the spiky trunks of middle-aged firs, unless you really crane your neck to see their crowns.
Most of the year, the middle layer isn’t very noticeable. But when it turns yellow in the fall, you can’t miss it.
Thursday, November 14th
A couple of flickers have been visiting the back yard.
Friday, November 15th
There is still lots of rain going on these days. We did get to see the recent full moon, but only through a layer of cloud.
What would happen to animals–pets, domesticated or wild–if humans were to suddenly die off? We have both just finished reading Hollow Kingdom, a novel that suggests some possible answers to that question, in an entertaining sort of way. The story is told from the viewpoint of a pet crow. Once the apocalypse begins, the crow has a lot to learn, as do all the other creatures who survive.
E’s current book is James, the re-imagining of the Huckleberry Finn story from the viewpoint of Huck’s companion, the escaped slave Jim.
Sunday, November 17th
We went up to Salem today and had dinner at Happy Bibimbap. A and A drove down from Vancouver and met us there. It was a lovely evening and the food was good. (But if anyone offers you a Korean beer called Terra, you might want to give it a pass.)
Tuesday, November 18th
Margaret Atwood came to Corvallis today–on her birthday–to give a talk as part of Oregon State’s Provost’s Lecture Series. The lecture was to be accessible either in-person at PRAx or via streaming. We were both interested in seeing Atwood, as was our friend H. H managed to get tickets to attend in person while we had to settle for watching the stream.
M’s interest in Atwood dates from long ago and centers on an early novel of hers called Surfacing, which he first read in the 1970’s. In 2018, the year of M’s great purging of the books, Surfacing was one of only twenty or so books that M couldn’t bear to part with. One of the very earliest entries to this very blog included a photo of the striking cover of his 1972 copy of the book, along with some thoughts about it.
OSU is primarily an Ag, Science and Tech school, but these days it does have a rather nice arts complex. The PRAx center for the creative arts at OSU was completed just two years ago with funds provided largely by private donors, including a $25 million gift from Patricia Valian Reser, who graduated from OSU in 1960. Patricia Valian was born in 1938 in Windsor, Ontario Canada and was the daughter of a sheet metal worker. You can see an oral history sketch of her life here.
So anyway, how was the lecture? Well, E and M haven’t actually seen it yet. H says it was good. She has seen it, but via a video stream instead of in-person. Huh? What? Didn’t she go to PRAx to see it? Yes she did, but when she got there she found out that the lecture had been…not cancelled exactly…but changed. The reasons are somewhat murky. One story has it that there was a bomb threat. But the more accepted explanation is that when Atwood arrived in town and found out that OSU’s graduate teaching assistants were on strike, she informed OSU that she couldn’t give the talk because she did not cross picket lines.
Apparently some sort of compromise was reached. Atwood agreed to give the talk, but only for the camera. The talk was then streamed, but access to the stream was limited to only those who had originally registered to attend in person. People like us, who had originally registered for streaming would be able to stream eventually, but not until November 25th. Well.
Thursday, November 21st
We had J and B over to dinner tonight. It was great to catch up with them. B had shoulder surgery just four weeks ago and is wearing a sling. This did not prevent him from bringing along a very nice autumn salad of brussels sprouts and cabbage dressed with hints of maple syrup. E and M contributed tomato cheese pie and gelato. J came through with a bottle of local pinot noir. The winery is called Lumos and is located just a dozen miles away from us. Here’s how the Lumos people describe their Pumphouse pinot : Lean, hungry, and playful, the 2019 vintage of the Pumphouse block carries on the windswept tradition of previous years with its aromas of wet brick, goji berries, and blood orange. Flavors of thimbleberry and cinnamon intermingle with these scents…
The wine was very good. We were pleased to see that it was a wet brick wine as we have never found a dry brick wine that we like. We did not detect the flavor of thimbleberry, but this is only due to our own ignorance. Even though we grow thimbleberries, we have never tasted them. We also missed the cinnamon note and could not fully appreciate the wine’s windsweptness. This was probably due to our old and worn down taste buds.
Friday, November 22nd
Today we took a hike in the Crestwood Land Trust natural area, the hike that we had postponed the week before. As we were preparing to leave our house, the weather was quite nice: periods of sun, though with some ominous clouds. Our drive to the trailhead took about 40 minutes and was an eventful one. At the 20 minute mark we saw a beautiful rainbow, an arch that reached out in the direction we were going and appeared to touch down almost exactly at the place where our hike would start. Ah-ha! said we, we’re going to find the end of the rainbow. But, alas, when we got to the trailhead, we found that the “bow” part of rainbow had been deleted and the other part had taken over. It was raining pretty hard.
So we bundled up and walked out into the rain like people who didn’t know any better. On the first part of the trail we searched in vain for all the acorn woodpeckers that we had seen on our last visit. They weren’t dumb. We took just a photo or two of the soggy scene.
Here’s a typical oak savanna landscape, the kind that people say was common here before the Europeans came. And speaking of previous eras, that car is even older than we are.
And here’s the Mary’s river flowing by. It’s always new. As we stood there with the rain falling on us, the picnic table did not look at all inviting.
After a while, though, the weather started to improve. Soon we had our hoods off and a little after that we noticed we had shadows. By the time we got to the viewpoint where we planned to have lunch, it was pretty nice.
There are two different picnic spots up there. Here’s one of them…
… and here’s the other. We ended up using the first. This one looked too fancy for us.
By the time we had eaten and hiked back to the car, another rainbow had appeared and seemed to be coming to earth right close to us. No pot of gold though. Darn.
In the evening E and her friend H went to a folk music concert at the Best Cellar Coffeehouse in the basement of the Methodist church. They enjoyed it immensely. Since neither E nor H can see well enough at night to drive, they relied on the Ü-beck transportation service to get them there. In the interest of fairness they used an Ü-beck competitor to get themselves home.
Sunday, November 24th
It’s been a nice weekend, cool and damp, but not really raining very much. Both of us have been working outside a bit, cutting away dead things and prepping plants for winter. On Saturday morning, E went out early and walked to the French pastry shop to secure us three weeks’ worth of croissants. That evening she walked with M over to Tacovore for dinner. On Sunday she walked again–just in the neighborhood–and found a holly bush with berries.
E thinks of holly berries as a sign of winter. But at our house, in an area that never sees the sun at this time of year, we still have signs of summer: two azalea bushes in bloom accompanied by a pink and purple fuchsia. It’s a little confusing.
M was off into the mountains again, taking a ‘short cut’ from Five Rivers Road to a place on the Alsea River called Missouri Bend. Things were damp and misty over there, but it only rained a little.
Wednesday, November 6th
E went to the OSU Repair Fair last night, with M serving as chauffeur. She took along her old folding camp chair that she purchased at a Greek big-box store in Cyprus in 2003. Over the years some of the fabric had begun to fail, threatening serious structural collapse. In the sewing section of the Fair, E found a young woman willing to take on the job, even though it required hand sewing because the fabric could not be removed from the chair. First she fixed it; then she decorated the mended place. Results below.
front of repair arearear of repair areathree color darn for cup holder
In other news, it’s been raining pretty steadily here for a week. It’s about time. Happily, the rains held off during the trick or treating hours on Halloween.
We also note that our readers have not, at least so far, shown any enthusiasm for M’s suggestion that a fine route from Corvallis to Yachats would be to travel via New York, Mumbai, and San Francisco. Yeah…we know; it’s hard to believe. Of course people might have been distracted by other things that were going on in the world in early November…
…things like B’s marionberry pie and ice cream.
Thursday, November 7th
The rain has stopped and we’ve taken the opportunity to rake leaves and do other garden chores.
Friday, November 8th
We took a walk in the forest today. Saw a couple of slugs, quite a bit of moss, and many thousands of maple leaves. Also, fungi.
Back at the house, we noticed that the November sun is low in the south even in the middle of the day.
If the clouds happen to part, there’s a lot of light coming in at lunchtime.
In the evening E accompanied her friend H to a reception given by the OSU Foundation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a major renovation of the OSU Library. Some of us remember that renovation because in 1999, when it was going on, M, H and E all had offices just across the street from the construction. The building being renovated dated from the 1960’s. It was a large, five-story cube in that infamous sixties block style, so from the outside it was pretty ugly. Indeed, it was almost as ugly as the building just across the street that housed the English Language Institute.
So, back then, despite the construction noise, we were happy to see that the library was getting a remodel. And the result was not disappointing. It was much nicer looking and we no longer got brutal sun glare from its glass paneled southern wall. Even better, they added a full service coffee shop, which we came to enjoy very much. (This is the very shop that came to be the scene of the Barista Décolletage Incident of 2007, but that’s another story.)
H is a long time donor to various OSU departments, which explains her invitation to the day’s event, an invitation that allowed her to bring a guest of her choice. The event included a tour followed by a buffet served in the fourth floor rotunda. There were two separate age groups on hand. The great majority of the donors were seniors, while the OSU hosts and speakers were mostly women similar in age to E’s and H’s daughters. Both H and E were impressed by how well the event was organized–especially in the matter of catering. As E put it, the girls did a great job.
There are many benefits to slow travel. We see more. We relax more. We have more time to absorb our new experiences and integrate them into our understanding of the world. For example, almost everyone in Corvallis knows how to get to Yachats: You take either U.S. 20 to Newport or U.S. 34 to Waldport, then turn left and drive down the coast until you see the Adobe on your right and you realize you’re almost there. It doesn’t take very long. But now imagine traveling from Corvallis to Yachats by first walking from Corvallis to New York City, then traveling by ship around the Horn of Africa, past India, through Oceania and across the Pacific to the Port of San Francisco. You could then finish by hitchhiking up U.S. Highway 101 to Yachats. Now that would be an adventure. For most of us, however, it’s just not practical. Here’s a better way.
Take Hwy 34 to Alsea and turn left down the Alsea Deadwood Highway. When you see a small sign for Little Lobster Valley Road, ignore it. Instead, stay on the paved road and bear right only when you see the obvious sign for Lobster Valley. Stay on Lobster Valley Road for a few miles. It’s a quiet valley, so don’t drive fast. Stop at the Lone Fir Cemetery if you like. When presented with the option of turning left onto Preacher Creek Road, resist it. Stay on Lobster Valley Road for some more miles until it ends at Five Rivers Road. Turn left, over the bridge, and follow Five Rivers Road for about eight miles. Keep an eye out for a right turn onto the narrow Buck Creek bridge. If you come to a red covered bridge in the town of Fisher, that means that you have missed the Buck Creek turn and will have to go back. Keep a better eye out this time. (We know this strategy will work because we have used it ourselves.) Once you find and cross the Buck Creek bridge, immediately bear right onto East Buck Creek Road. Follow the road past all the houses and up into the forest. Up there, the road is also called Forest Road 3705. In its upper reaches, it’s a little rough, so go slow and watch for potholes. There are some nice views along the way, especially for the people on the passenger side. (Whoopee!) The road ends at a T-junction with Forest Road 58. Turn left onto 58 and then, after just half a mile or so, turn right onto a quite nice looking gravel road that leads downward. Stay determinedly on this road. After a few miles it will turn from gravel to pavement. Ten miles after that it will spit you out onto Hwy 101 in downtown Yachats. Takes about three hours. Return via Mumbai.
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.
PasticcioSpanakopitaBraised LambDolmas
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…
…poison oak on a fir trunk.
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.
The last rose of summer?
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.
This is a big wheat and cattle growing region and the land around Dufur tends to look like this…
…except when it looks like this.
Here’s the back of the Balch. The door at the top of the steps leads into the dining room. The hotel was built in 1907 by Charles Balch, a local pharmacist and rancher. The bricks are of local origin; in fact, they were produced in a brick factory that Balch created in one of his pastures.
The Balch Hotel is on the edge of town; here’s a view from our window.
From the front of the hotel, you get this view of an equipment collection just across the road.
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.
That’s Mount Hood in the background, mostly covered in clouds.
A precious one from us has gone; a voice we loved is stilled; a place is vacant in our hearts; which never can be filled.
Did anyone mention infant and child mortality in those times?
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.
Yes, that’s a Columbia River cruise ship. (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.
Here’s a photo from E looking back down to from where we started.
And here’s one of E herself still charging forward.
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”.
A sketch of John Barrymore by John Singer Sargent in 1923, when Barrymore was 41. By the time he made Grand Hotel, he was 52.
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.
Salt Lake City is just an hour and half flight from Eugene, so this was an easy travel day. We packed a lunch at home and ate it in the airport while waiting to board. Towards the end of the flight we again got a wonderful view of the Wasatch Mountains as the plane made its descent into Salt Lake. Once we landed, however, E received a text with terrible news concerning her favorite canine friend and walking partner. Asher had been found to have an inoperable tumor on his heart and had just been put down. Asher was one of the finest gentlemen we have known–of any species. He will be missed.
Somewhat somberly, we found our rental car and made our way 35 miles north toward Ogden. Our motel was located just at the mouth of Weber Canyon, a spot that M well remembered as being one of the windiest places in the area. A lot has changed since M left Utah. All the roads are different and much of the landscape has been transformed. But the wind hasn’t changed. When we got out of the car, it almost knocked us over.
Friday, Sept. 20th
We met up with L today, who graciously came down from Heber and met us at Taggart, just half an hour away from our hotel. We had a walk along the river followed by lunch at the town’s eponymous restaurant.
It had rained a few days before and the sides of the canyon were greener than M was expecting.
The rabbitbrush was in bloom. M remembered seeing the same plant in Nevada just days before.
In the evening we went to a small gathering of some of M’s middle school and high school friends. It was a lovely evening at B’s wonderful house on the hill. M had a chance to share memories and catch up on a little of what had happened in Ogden for the many years that he was away from it, either in Oregon or overseas. And of course there were remembrances of friends who are no longer with us. The menu consisted of salad, pizza and ice cream, which we found quite suitable to the occasion. Here’s a photo.
Saturday, Sept. 21st
We hit the road again this morning, starting the 300-mile trip up to Grand Teton National Park. We took the western route, north on I-15 into Idaho, then jogging west into Wyoming, north to Jackson Hole and into the Park at Moran. As we neared Moran, we got our first sight of the mountains. They are awesome. We didn’t stop to admire them, though. Instead we headed straight for our cabin at Colter Bay. We were tired.
The cabin contained two double beds and one twin plus eleven(!) pillows. Apparently that’s normal here…
Sunday, Sept. 22nd
One of the neat things about the Tetons is that a largish river–the Snake–flows past them. But we hadn’t seen it yesterday. After breakfast, we drove south to a place called Schwabacher Landing.
Here’s a view of the highest of the Tetons, which is called, naturally, the Grand Teton. You don’t see the Snake river from here, but it’s down there among the trees. There’s moisture there because the river has carved out a wide path for itself that is now many feet lower than the surrounding sagebrush flats.
Our hike took us along an old side channel of the river.
While we were down there, we noticed that the moon was up.
In the afternoon we took a boat tour of Jackson Lake. Conveniently, the boats depart from our temporary home location at Colter Bay. Also convenient, you could say, was that today happened to be the final day of cruises for the 2024 season.
In this clip we’re passing the southern end of Elk Island. The island is about one square mile. Grizzly bears have been seen swimming to the island and our guide said that there is one bear currently in residence there. Grizzlies, he said, can swim quite long distances; when they get tired, they turn over and float on their backs to rest.
A view behind us as the boat was returning to Colter Bay in the late afternoon.
Monday, Sept. 23rd
Early in the morning there were low clouds drifting past this 11,000 ft peak. The trees seen here are growing on a narrow arm of land that forms Colter Bay. Behind them you’d have to cross three and half miles of lake to reach the mountain’s base.
Today we drove down to Jenny Lake and took a shuttle boat over to the Cascade Canyon trailhead. Jenny Lake is the single most popular destination in the park, so we were definitely not alone. But the trail was still very nice.
The first trailside attraction is just a few hundred yards from the boat landing. It is called Hidden Falls and is quite difficult to see from anywhere except this particular spot. Of course by now thousands and thousands of people have taken a photo from here, including a dozen or so who were crowded around M as he took his turn.
After passing the falls the trail climbs steeply up the north flank of the canyon, gaining more than a thousand feet of elevation in just three quarters of a mile. Much of this part of the trail features wide stone steps that were set in place by CCC workers in the 1930’s. Near the top, though, there are a few more rugged spots. The immediate reward is an overlook called Inspiration Point, which provides a dramatic view of the lake and the sage lands beyond. For some of the crowd, this was enough. But the overlook is not actually the best of what this trail offers. For that you must continue, strolling along a very lovely and gently climbing trail that takes you up Cascade Canyon and in among the peaks. The trail goes on for many miles, leading up to a high pass and then down the other side. Needless to say, we didn’t go that far. But we did continue for another mile or so beyond the lookout, enough to get a taste.
We finally stopped for lunch–none too soon–at the spot shown in the video above. After lunch we turned around, leaving the higher reaches of the route to younger and faster hikers. The way down was only a couple of miles, which was good since we were feeling weary and getting a little tired of trying to breathe properly at 7,200 feet.
Back at the dock we queued up for the shuttle boat, which took us back to the east side of the lake. Then came another hike back to where we’d parked the car. Once back in our cabin, we rested and cleaned up a bit before finishing the day’s events with a fancy meal. For that we went to the Mural Room of the Grand Teton Lodge. M’s Angus steak was good; E’s Idaho trout was superb. Uncharacteristically, E found that the view out the window actually rivaled the delicious meal.
Tuesday, Sept. 24th
Time to start our long journey home. We left the park around ten and headed south, taking a somewhat different route than on the way up. We stopped in Afton, Idaho and got a take-out lunch from Taco Time, then drove for another 45 minutes before stopping to eat it at a public park in Montpelier, Idaho. After lunch we went into Utah, passing around the west side of Bear Lake, then jogged east back into Wyoming and finally south down to I-80. This was handy because I-80–dontcha know–runs down to Evanston (where Utahns go to buy fireworks that are illegal in Utah), then to Park City, and then to Salt Lake City, where it passes right by the Salt Lake Airport on its way to Reno.
As we were having dinner in the SLC airport, we got a text from A with a photo of her and the other A having dinner in the Portland airport. After comparing notes, we found that she was headed to a conference in San Diego and would be changing planes in SLC. Her flight was also on Delta, landing 5 gates away from ours, so we hustled over there to greet her. We had a lovely little visit for 15 minutes, after which we each boarded our respective 10:55 p.m. departures. Synchronicity!
After gaining an hour due to the time change we arrived in Eugene around midnight.
Wednesday, Sept. 25th
Arrived home at around 1:15 a.m. We checked to see if the puzzle fairies had finished our jigsaw for us while we were gone. They hadn’t.
Thursday, Sept. 26th
E was busy again: taking her car to the shop, going to exercise class in the park, and then doing Laughter Yoga via Zoom in the afternoon. M went to Shonnard’s, where they had just gotten in a shipment of native shrubs.
Friday, Sept. 27th
E had an eye appointment and then went to lunch at Gathering Together with her THEPAJ group.
Saturday, Sept. 28th
We had M and L (Asher’s housemates) over for a late breakfast: home-cooked blueberry muffins and espresso. We shared some favorite memories of Asher and enjoyed a tour of the back yard on this sunny morning.
It’s Fall Festival time in Corvallis. M went down early to get some native bulbs from the Benton Soil and Water Conservation District Fall Plant Sale. E went down later to see her friend L playing in a Marimba band.
The puzzle’s not done yet, but it’s getting there.
In the morning M loaded camping stuff into the truck, transforming it from a sensible vehicle into a low-rent off-road adventurer. That done, he said goodbye to E and drove off toward Nevada. At 11:00 E went for a garden tour at her friend B’s house, which was a very nice thing to do. After the tour, they sat on the covered patio and had tea and goodies. Right up E’s alley.
For dinner, in accordance with her vow not to cook anything while M was away, she got take-out from Tacovore. The meal consisted of a tempeh chorizo taco and one of their world-renowned margaritas, the latter of which she knew would last her for several days if she behaved herself. Then she got to work on the jigsaw puzzle that we had started a few days before when Cuz was here.
Friday, September 13th
After a night at the wrong motel in Lakeview–he’d gotten the Executive Inn1 confused with the Interstate 82–M left early the next morning and drove down into California to make his return to Surprise Valley. One of the little towns there is called Lake City. When M had been there last April, the 71 residents of Lake City could look out at a big, beautiful blue lake. In September the view was a little different.
(1Few executives ever visit Lakeview and they’re unlikely to stay here when they do. 2The nearest interstate is 110 miles away.)
M’s next stop in Surprise Valley was Cedarville, a bustling urban center with more than 700 residents and the valley’s only gas station. M gassed up and headed east into Nevada.
At this crossroads just across the Nevada line M declined Gerlach and went on to Vya. Founded in 1910, Vya is said to have been quite a town once. Between 1910 and the early 1920’s many homesteaders claimed land in the area and were able to farm it successfully. Vya had a post office, a library and a school as well as a number of businesses. As it happened, though, the years 1910-21 were abnormally wet years. When normal drought conditions returned, the farms began to be abandoned and the town gradually declined. These days there’s a road junction there and lots of sage brush.
M soon turned southeast at the junction and headed down in the direction of High Rock Canyon, his chief destination for this trip. Ten minutes later, a pickup truck came up from the other direction. It looked like some kind of modern camping rig–piloted by another lone desert traveller. It was the last car or person that M would see for the next 24 hours. In the two photos below you can get a notion of the scenery.
M was smart enough not to try and drive up this little road. It was too rough and too steep and there was no place to turn around at the top.
Instead, he parked the truck and walked up the hill in order to have some exercise and take in the view.
Fiinally, M reached the serious part of the expedition, the drive down High Rock Canyon. Hmm. As it turned out, this drive was not one of M’s greatest ideas. He had suspected that it would be a rough road, but OnX had rated it as just moderate, which sounded okay. More ominous was the Bureau of Land Management warning sign on the way in:
Somehow this message did not quite get through to M. This was mostly his own fault of course, but he complains that the warning is a little short on details. It doesn’t mention, for example, that there with be portions of the route that are so narrow that branches will scratch the paint on both sides of the car at the same time. Nor does it mention the place where the road ends at a small drop-off and then blithely continues three or four feet lower down. Driving over a cliff–even a short cliff–and just hoping for the best? How is that even a road? Still, the sign did use the word “extremely” and that should have been a clue.
It was a laborious and harrowing passage. Both M and his truck survived, but the latter suffered a nasty gash on the bottom of the passenger side door. That happened while M was descending a steep, narrow, boulder-strewn slope that bore only the faintest of connections to the word “road.” While traveling at the rate of roughly one and a half miles per hour, the truck suddenly slipped sideways a few inches. M heard a short scrape and felt a solid thunk. Oh well. Fate.
Once out of the canyon, M started looking for a place to make camp. This was a different kind of challenge. He was prepared for the lack of campgrounds. But there was the matter making sure to camp on BLM land rather than ranch land. And of course M was very particular about a place. It had to be off the ‘main road’ on which he was travelling and it had to be in the hills rather than out on the flats.
Back in Corvallis, E already knew where she was camping for the night, but she needed to figure out what to eat. She settled on more take-out: jobchae from Koriander.
M already knew what he was going to eat; he just had to find a suitable spot. Eventually he found an abandoned but still passable road leading up into a fold in the hills. Then he found a nice flat space to park. Once there, he had time to explore and walked a little farther up the draw. The road soon petered out as a road but continued as a trail.
Before long he came to an oasis of sorts. A stream was slowly trickling along, and an actual tree was growing. Just a ways beyond the tree, there was even a kind of wetland.
There was also a little old stone house. The roof was long gone but four sturdy walls still stood. With a little TLC you could live in it today.
Back at the campsite, this old fire ring showed that M was hardly the first to have camped here. BTW, that large gray mound in the foreground isn’t part of the ring. It’s a cowpie.
Besides the fire ring and a flat space to park, the site did provide one other amenity: a sleeping bag in case you forgot your own.
It was a lovely night to be out. First, a fat moon lit up the landscape. Then, after the moon had set, the stars were awesome. M was camped inside an area that is said to be the darkest place in the continental U.S., with little or no night lighting for at least 70 miles in any direction.
Saturday, September 14th
Today, M made his way–not without difficulty–from deep in North Central Nevada to Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge way up there in Oregon. It was a lot of driving with only a few stops: one as he entered a Paiute reservation and stopped to take a photo of a sign, one to ask directions from a rancher after his OnX app had gone wonky, and one to buy seven gallons of very expensive gas at Denio junction. He spent the night at a place called Camp Hart. The original Camp Hart was created in 1936, the same year that the refuge was established. The first buildings were four temporary barracks to house the many CCC workers who would build the roads and other refuge infrastructure. The barracks are long gone and most of those young workers are probably gone too. But much of what they built still remains in various parts of the refuge. Camp Hart itself is today just a bare bones campground in a lovely spot at the base of Hart Mountain.
Among the PLEASE BE AWARE items are such things as Drive Cautiously, No Emergency Services Available, No Fuel for Sale on Reservation, and Please DO NOT Bother Reservation Residents.
Here’s a view east from the Camp Hart campground in late afternoon…
,,,and here’s a view west a few hours later.
E also travelled north today, but only up to Salem for a party at K and J’s house. It was a great party–as usual at K and J’s–with marvelous Octoberfest costumes and decorations. E was excited to join a small team of party-goers in a grape harvesting activity. The hosts provided baskets, scissors, and a lush vine full of grapes. Rumor has it that they will soon attempt to make dolmas using the leftover grape leaves.
Octoberfest in September
Sunday, September 15th
From Camp Hart, M returned to Corvallis via Plush, Lakeview, Sprague River, Chiloquin, and Oakridge.
E hosted a potluck gathering on the patio. It was the second annual in-person gathering of her Zoom yoga class. The food was delicious, the camaraderie delightful, and both were enhanced by the perfect sunny weather.
Monday, September 16th
M spent the day putting things away and cleaning up the truck. The good news is that a good rub with scratch remover took care of most of the scratches in the clear coat finish. Fie on the bad news.
Tuesday, September 17th
In the morning we did grocery shopping and then M did a little gardening while E continued her preparations for hosting her book club meeting. Among other things, this involved baking two different berry cobblers, one with gluten and one without. This month’s book was The Measure by Nikki Erlich. The members had fun talking about whether or not they would want to know exactly how long they were going to live.
Wednesday, September 18th
Packing and last minute chores before leaving tomorrow for Grand Teton National Park. On the way we’ll stop in Utah.
The story of the origin of the COVID virus has become clearer in the last few years, based largely on information that has become available via Freedom of Information Act requests. M has been looking at two YouTube videos. One is an Aug. 2023 interview with Jeffrey Sachs, chairman of the Lancet COVID 19 Commission. The other is a Nov. 2022 interview with Emily Kopp, an investigative reporter for U.S. Right to Know, an organization that initiated some of the Freedom in Information Act requests. One suspects that it was Kopp herself who sifted through thousands of pages of documents in order to find evidence of what was really going on. She’s an interesting young woman. Overall, the sequence of events that Sachs and Kopp reveal makes for a fascinating story. For M–the old lit. major–it is very reminiscent of Greek tragedy.
We had a few people over for dinner, which consisted of paella from E, salad from B, and a flourless cake from Ma, all of which were awfully good. We had dinner inside, then dessert outside when the weather had improved. Ma and J have just returned from a year in Brasilia, where Ma was an English Language Fellow. While she kept busy teaching university classes and doing other ELF-type projects, J improved his Portuguese, did yoga, and went adventuring into the fascinating world of Brazilian visa requirements.
Saturday, August 31th
We went over to the coast again today because S invited us over to stay at a house he was renting at the beach just north of Yachats. The little house was in the “fish district” on Perch Street. We were able to walk from there to the Gerdemann Botanic Preserve and Public Footpath, where a trail through the preserve links to a trail into the Suislaw National Forest. S is a tireless walker and we also walked back to the ocean. There we followed a path along the edge of the bluffs that lie between the fish district and downtown. S told us how this route was once part of the very early coach and wagon road that provided the only access to the town of Yachats. The road led down from Waldport. The first seven miles of the road were on the beach and then, when the beach ended at the place where Salmon Street is now, it climbed up to go along the bluff. In the 1970s there was a long struggle to make the old bluff road into a walking trail. The effort was mostly successful and was only settled after the case went to the Oregon Supreme Court.
In 1981, Jim and Janice Gerdemann purchased a small, heavily forested tract of land on a hill rising above the coastline. Their intention was to create a botanical garden by planting a number of exotic plants and growing them in and among the native vegetation.
One of the exotics imported by the Gerdemann’s was the Himalayan rhododendron. It resembles the native Oregon plant but has larger leaves. Hence the local name of Big Leaf Rhododendron. (We do not know what it is called in its native lands.)
Here’s a typical Oregon coast scene. The walking trail that follows the historic road passes within a few yards of this spot.
Tuesday, September 3rd
We took a drive up to Salem today and took the Ioniq 5 to the Hyundai dealership for a system update. While that was going on, we got a Lyft courtesy of the dealership and went for lunch to the Thai Beer restaurant. Thai Beer is a place that we really liked when we visited a few years ago. Was it still as good? Well…we gobbled it right up, so maybe it was. Both of us agreed, though, that everything was just a little sweet and more than a little salty.
In the evening, we watched two episodes of Dark Winds on Netflix. The series is based on the novels of Tony Hillerman that feature Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn. Leaphorn is played byZahn MacClarnon, whom you will recognize if you ever watched Longmire. Dark Winds has received lots of good reviews and we can understand why. The stories, characters, and scenery are all very absorbing.
M is also giving some attention to the Korean series Crash Landing on You. It is only occasionally absorbing–every hour and ten minute episods seems interminable. E watched one and a third episodes and then gave up, as most rational people would.
Wednesday, September 4th
We did a little garden clean-up this morning. This was prompted by the fact that one of E’s friends from her book club was coming for a tour at noon. The back yard is dry and rather dull this time of year, but it’s still interesting to us and it was nice to have someone who wanted to look at it.
It’s time for the bees to get real interested in the autumn joy.
Our first blossom from the old Japanese anemones that we painstakingly moved and then carefully watered this year. This is already a much better result than last year, but it was an awful lot of trouble.
Nice little flowers though.
Thursday, September 5th
M had an eye appointment this morning and learned that his macular swelling has receded completely. He will be tapering off his anti-inflammatory eye drops for the next few weeks, which with hopefully prevent it from coming back. While he was doing that, E went up to the Portland Airport to pick up C and Z, who have come up from California for a visit.
Friday, September 6th
We dragged C over toward the coast today, but we didn’t quite make it to the ocean. Instead we went into the mountains near Lincoln City and hiked down to the Drift Creek bridge. Naturally, once we were there, we had a picnic. In the brief video below we’ve just finished the main part of lunch and are about to have a bit of chocolate for dessert.
The venue featured live lunchtime entertainment.
We had a minor emergency on the drive home when it was determined that one of our party had been too long without ice cream. We solved this with a stop at the Monmouth Burgerville.
Saturday, September 7th
E took C to the Corvallis Saturday Market. As a Farm Advisor for UC Davis, C was involved with many a farmers’ market down in Placer County, CA. So she was interested to see what was going on up here.
For lunch we went out to Gathering Together Farms, which is the only place left–as far as we know–where a person can get a decent Sunburger.
Sunday, September 8th
In the morning we went for a walk at Finley Preserve. We noticed that one section of the Woodpecker Loop has a striking number of unusual looking trees.
In the afternoon A came down from Vancouver to meet Z. She said hello to C also.
Monday, September 9th
While hiking on Mary’s Peak, we found that C has an eye for unusually formed trees, this one for example:
Tuesday, September 10th
A quieter day. E and C poked around downtown. M starting preparing for his trip the wilds of northern Nevada. Z dozed on the couch.
Wednesday, September 11th
After days and days of nice weather, we’re starting to get some rain. C and Z, both Californians, immediately headed back south.
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.
The swamp had its fair share of frogs.
Looking back down the trail.
We had lunch at a spot overlooking what might once have been a homesteader’s field.
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.
Look at all those sticks!
And someone left a toy loader on the hillside.
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 3000GXL. 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.
There has been a spate of credit card fraud in Corvallis. Both E and her friend H have been affected. Early this morning E checked her Visa statement online and discovered that just yesterday her credentials had been used to pay a $126 check at a local restaurant. Wanting to clear this up before departing for her trip, she immediately called the fraud prevention number. To prevent further fraud, the card was blocked. Fortunately E had another card that she could use on her trip. Then E happened to examine her card more closely. What she noticed was that it wasn’t her card. In fact it was her friend H’s card. She and H had had lunch together two days before; the cards must have gotten mixed up then.
So E went over to H’s place and they exchanged cards. So that was good, and E would be able to go off on her trip knowing that the mystery was solved. But it wasn’t clear what was going to happen about the $126. Who would end up paying and what were the ramifications? Had this simply been an accident? Or had H realized immediately that she had someone else’s card, at which point she had called her family together and announced that they were all getting a free all-you-can-eat party at the Indian restaurant, whoopee?
Then, three hours later, that was a new development. E got a text from H saying that she had checked her own Visa account and found that some fraudster had been on a spending spree! There were three separate charges that came to a total of $101. Oddly enough, the three shops involved were the same three shops that E had visited when she was out shopping the previous day. What an incredible coincidence! Or maybe not.
After dinner it was time for us to start off for the Portland airport where E was to catch a redeye to Albany, NY. We are proud to report that we did remember to bring her luggage with us.
Monday, August 6th
Mrs H met E at the Albany airport. On their way north from there, they stopped over near Corinth to see JSC, who has just had a house built for himself. E says JSC is very pleased with it.
Tuesday, August 6th
Today E moved from Mrs H’s place up to JAC’s place at Lake George. (We suspect that the trip included a stop for ice cream at the Hillbilly Fun Park.) She is staying in a small loft apartment belonging to JAC’s neighbor–the perfect location.
Back in Oregon, M took the Jaguar out for a drive into the Cascades, up over Tombstone Pass and then south down Highway 126 to MacKenzie Bridge. From there he drove Highway 242 up to the top of MacKenzie Pass, which is quite a ride. The road has dozens of very tight turns as it gains 3,500 feet of elevation in just 21 miles. At first the road climbs through forests but eventually enters a vast barrens of old lava flows.
The top of Three Finger Jack is visible to the north.
The Three Sisters are to the south.
Thursday, August 8th
M had tertulia with J and R, E having skipped town. He then went on another driving expedition, this time in the truck. He went into an area of the coast range which is quite near Corvallis. His goal was to go through the town of Alpine, Oregon and continue south. This would lead him into a 100 square mile area of rather rugged terrain, the kind that is too up and down for regular farming but perfect for tree farms and also the kind of place with no through roads but lots and lots of log hauling routes. The idea was to go in on the east side and come out on the west side.
This turned out to be a struggle. M’s map was vaguely accurate but imperfect. M’s map reading ability is much the same. Once he was into the mountains, there was only one route west, but finding it remained elusive. After several false starts, M finally found what he thought was a road that would take him to a road that would take him to the right road. Things were looking up! After a bit, however, he noticed a big pile of gravel, one that he had seen before, which meant that he was somehow circling back to where he had started. Not a happy thought.
Here’s one route that didn’t work out. It was a nice place to stop for lunch though.
Here are two views from another route that turned out not to go much of anywhere. First, M took this photo looking south…
…and then turned around and took this one facing north.
Finally, M decided he had to give up. He was going to have to drive down out of the mountains and get himself to somewhere (anywhere) with pavement and cell service. He picked a likely looking road and off he went, much downcast about his failure and curious about exactly where he would come out. After driving another half an hour or so, he started getting more and more curious and eventually came to an inescapable conclusion: he was on exactly the road that he had always intended to take. It reminded him of the old joke about the three holes. Well, well, well.
Sunday, August 11th
Eve departed the lake today as JAC took her up north to see N, D, and H in Malone. There she was presented with a cake(!) and also got to meet Bodie.
Bodie is not one of those little dogs.
Monday, August 12th
E stayed up the north country today so that she could visit her friend S, who lives in Saranac Lake. S lives on the upper floor of a carriage house in a nice neighborhood. The classic Saranac Lake Hotel has been recently restored and luxuriously furnished.
A view from the street in front of S’s place.
Back in Oregon M continued his exploration of the wilds of Benton County, this time driving from Alsea through Lobster Valley and other southwesterly places. Lobster Valley is a lovely strip of mostly level land that is enclosed on all sides by forested ridges. It’s way back in the hills and was very quiet on this summer morning. Perhaps the quietest place is the Lone Fir Cemetery.
Lone Fir is an untended place…
…but is the more beautiful for it.
Mabel, Daughter of John and Eudora Sapp, B. Oct 21, 1895, D. Sep 15, 1897, Age 22 Mons and 15 Days
The Sapp family were among the first Europeans to homestead in Lobster Valley and it was they who donated the land for the cemetery. Sapp descendants still live in Benton County. M met a fellow named Bob Sapp back in the seventies.
Also on this trip, M found what he believes to be a new and quite excellent route from Corvallis to Yachats. More on that another time.
Tuesday, August 13th
The next morning Mrs H drove up to join E and S for breakfast. Mrs. H–the only halfway civilized member of the group–is the one wearing shoes. Later in the day E went back with her to Glens Falls. And what did she find awaiting her there? More cake! And equally delicious.
E had a wonderful time on this trip, interacting with the younger generations at the lake, then visiting with her last surviving aunt up north, and getting to talk to some of her own old friends. She might have liked to do a bit more of that, but unfortunately she was called away by a much less happy event: JSC, who had so recently moved into his new house, was in the hospital following a stroke. She was able to visit him today and be reassured by his smiling face and alert presence. The stroke was serious, resulting in paralysis of the left side of his body, but his mind and speech are fully functional. He has already regained some control of the left arm, and will soon begin intensive therapy at a rehab facility. A sobering and sad turn of events, but there is room for optimism.
Wednesday, August 14th
E’s flight left Albany at 1:00 PM, so she had plenty of time to pack up a bit of each kind of cake and put it into her carryon. At 8:00 in the evening she arrived back at the Portland airport, only to find that it had been utterly transformed during her absence! A whole new area, long under construction, had just been opened to the public–a new arrivals hall, new ticket counters, new TSA screening areas, a beautiful ceiling and even some brand new carpet in the exact same pattern as the much lamented old carpet, the one that was removed during the Great PDX Carpet Replacement Tragedy of 2015.
