Category: Meandering on the Way

Saturday, April 8

We’re thinking of going to stay overnight on the coast. We’d go over in the afternoon, stay the night, and then hike on the following day before heading home. For some reason, it seemed best to do it on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was supposed to be very rainy, but Tuesday was supposed to be only moderately rainy. That should work.

Monday, April 10

As predicted, it’s really rainy today. And…the forecast has changed. It now calls for lots of rain tomorrow also. Oh well, we’re committed now.

We stayed at the Adobe resort in Yachats. We ate dinner in their dining room, which sits on a low cliff just a few yards from where the waves are crashing against the nearest rocks. Lots of big windows give a panoramic view of the ocean, up and down the coast. Will those few yards of rock and earth eventually wear away and the Adobe dining room fall into the sea? Maybe. But maybe not for a while. The food was very good, but expensive. We paid more for dinner than for our room.

Tuesday, April 11

Woke up at 7:00 and it was pouring down rain. By the time we got breakfast the sun was out. Huh? It stayed mostly sunny all day. So much for forecasts.

Our hike was in the Sutton Recreation Area, about 40 minutes south of Yachats, almost to Florence. To get there we drove south down Highway 101. For most of the way the highway runs very near the rugged coast and the views are spectacular. But then, about ten miles north of the town of Florence the highway drifts southeast away from the shore and runs inland. On the satellite image below, Highways 101 is the prominent blue line that goes up and down through the right half of the picture. Our hike began at the end of Sutton Beach Road, the smaller road that runs up closer to the beach.

The land between the beach and the highway consists of ancient sand dunes that have been mostly–but not entirely–colonized by what is now a forest ecosystem.

The hiking trail was a four and a half mile loop. The first part of the trail passed through dense vegetation along the banks of Sutton Creek. Then, at about the two and a half mile mark, the trail crossed into the mostly empty Sutton Creek Campground. We found ourselves a table and had a leisurely lunch. On the return leg the trail moved up to higher ground and crossed a large sandy area where the plant kingdom has not got much of a foothold. At least not yet. We were lucky with the weather and the whole length of the route was soft underfoot. A lovely hike.

Wednesday, April 12

E had a HEPAJ meeting today. They had lunch at a restaurant that everyone calls the Australian meat pie place. That name annoys E and before she went she called them to see if they had anything in the way of pies that weren’t meat filled. As it turned out, they did, and E enjoyed a nice vegetable korma pie.

Meanwhile, M took his truck in to the Nissan dealer to deal with a recall. At issue was a possibly malfunctioning parking pawl. A parking pawl is what prevents an automatic transmission vehicle from moving when you put it in Park. If the pawl does not engage properly, the car can just roll, roll, roll away, gently down the street. In the photo below the pawl is engaged. The driveshaft cannot rotate and thus the car’s wheels are not able to turn. As soon as a car is shifted out of Park, the pawl is pulled back and the shaft is free to turn. The part in the lower right corner is called the hand. Although not many people know this, there is actually a person inside your automatic transmission who uses a finger to move the pawl in and out. The work is stressful and it is not surprising that occasionally an intervention is required.

Thursay, April 13

Tertulia today with J and R, who have just returned from a tour around the Rhône region of France. They had a few days in Lyon, just a week or two after we did. They too had some troubles with disruptions due to protests over the issue of raising the retirement age in France from 62 to 64. Harumph.

E had two classes today–Laughter Yoga and Better Bones. M had no classes at all.

Friday, April 14

E needs a new wallet and wants it to be exactly like the old one. So off she went down to Eugene Leatherworks and ordered herself one. She’ll get the same color, size, shape and features as the old one, with a few little upgrades. It’s promised by August. Here’s the old one and the planned materials for its replacement.

:

E returned from Eugene in time for a meeting of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society. They met at A’s house, with E, H, T and L in attendance. The pie was delicious and a good time was had by all.

But the events of the day were not over. In the late afternoon a package arrived. Here’s what it contained–the newest member of our household.

Saturday, April 15

Nice day–mid fifties and lightly overcast. Also, chocolate croissants for breakfast! Then a hike in the OSU forest to check on the wildflowers. There were lots of trilliums around, but many were turning pink and drooping. The height of their season has passed. The fawn lily blossoms, on the other hand, have not quite arrived. We’ll need to check next week.

What we noticed most today were the yellow violets.

Sunday, April 16

M went out trucking in the rain today, messing around in the Coast Range, where there isn’t any snow. The plan was to go west on Hwy 20 to Burnt Woods, then south to Harlan, then farther south across the mountains to connect with the Falls Creek road and finally come out on Hwy 34 near the fish hatchery sign. It didn’t work out though. M came out onto 34 okay, but had drifted too far east to even come close to Falls Creek. Must try again sometime.

Monday, February 20, 2023

Today it seemed as though we had travelled back through time. Were we looking at the prehistoric cave paintings at Altamira? No, no, not that far back. Did we visit the castle where Columbus made his pitch to Isabella and Ferdinand? No, not that either. We traveled back to a time that for many of us is within living memory. We visited a travel agency.

And you know what? It was really busy. There were six agents working and several more customers waiting for a turn. When you walked in, you had to take a number. Our number was R74. After a minute or two, we noticed that there was a big board that showed which numbers were being currently served. Oh good, now maybe we could get some idea of how long we might have to wait. Or could we? The number that had just been called was K42. Hmm. The next customers called had number M60. Hmm. But wait, those particular people had come in right before we had! Our spirits rose. We had to be getting close. But when the next number was called, it was J03. Our spirits fell. But, as it happened, J03 was a no show. And the next number was ours.

Our agent was Alejandra, a young Spanish-Venezuelan woman whose family lives in Florida. She was great, although her computer system was really slow. But it was good enough so that we could make all the basic arrangements for our late March travels to France, Switzerland and Germany. Good!

By the way, if you’re thinking that most of the customers in the travel agency were older people…you’d be right.

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Today we took the train north and had another nice day with M and M. First we did a walk along the river and then had a nice meal at their place. M made merluza (hake) and it was delicious. (We don’t get hake in Corvallis, which is a shame.) M’s merluza recipe involves a sauce which consists of tomato sauce, sweet red pepper and mayonnaise. We could have just dipped fresh bread into the sauce and even without the fish we would have eaten pretty darn well.

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Today we made a visit to the Gran Cafe de Gijón. It’s a Madrid landmark and as one writer puts it, es uno de los Cafés más prestigiosos del mundo. It was established in 1888 by a man named Gumersindo Garcia. He was from the northern coast of Spain and he named his new cafe after his hometown of Gijón. Over the years it developed a reputation as a literary and cultural gathering place and was frequented by several generations of celebrated Spanish writers and artists. In her day, Mata Hari came to the Cafe Gijón, as did Hemingway during his time in Spain. But we did not visit the cafe to imbibe the exalted literary atmosphere. No. We visited because of another, even more important figure who was also connected with the Cafe Gijón. In the early seventies E herself taught classes in a building two doors down. Every day, at around 11:00, she would take her coffee break in the nearest cafe. She doesn’t remember meeting any geniuses there, but she does remember the pastries. They were good.

E recognized the Gijón interior right away. After a bit M noticed that the Gijón still had a cigarette vending machine. When he pointed it out, E said, “Oh, that’s what’s really different, this room used to be full of smoke.”

When M zoomed way in on this picture, he could make out the names of the cigarette brands currently on offer. As a former smoker he found them interesting. He saw Fortuna, a brand that he smoked when he lived in Barcelona, and a few unfamiliar brands such as Nobel and West. But the great majority were old American brands: Lucky Strikes, Marlboro, Chesterfield, L&M, Winston, and Camel. Chesterfield? Seriously? Back in the day, Chesterfields were the original coffin nails—long, fat and unfiltered.

Thursday, February 23

We got up really early today, had a quick bite for breakfast, then got a taxi to the train station at 6:15. E’s friend, another of the M’s, was taking us on a day trip to see the city of Leon, which is in the northwest of Spain. Leon is three hours from Madrid by car, but just two hours by high speed train. In our case, the train got us to the outskirts of Leon real fast, but then came to a halt. There were some issues to resolve before we could actually get into the station, 45 minutes worth.

Eventually we got off the train and began walking into the center of town. It turns out that Leon is a really lovely city. It was quite cold, so once we got to the center we were happy to drop into a cafe for cafe con leche and some little do-nuts called buñuelos. Then we were off to see the Leon Cathedral—which is awesome.

Another place we visited was the Casa Botines, which was designed and built by Antonio Gaudi between 1891 and 1894. Gaudi is most famous for the design of the Sagrada Familia and other buildings in Barcelona. Casa Botines is one of only three of his creations that were built outside his home region. Now a museum, it was originally designed as a mixed use building. The ground floor housed the family’s textile business while the Botines family lived on the top four floors.

A little after 1:00 we stopped for lunch at a cafe/restaurant where a member of M’s family worked as a cook in times gone by. The dining room didn’t open till 1:30; we had a glass of wine while we waited. The barman also helped us warm up with some little cups of hot fish broth on the house.

We also had a tour of the Basilica of San Isidoro, a religious building whose history dates back to the early tenth century when a Christian church was built over the ruins an ancient Roman temple to the god Mercury. That church was destroyed in the middle of the tenth century by invading Arabs. A new Christian church was built just a few decades later at the beginning of the 11th century. Parts of this church still exist and our tour guide helped us to see the difference between those oldest parts and the many later additions.

In the book room of the basilica we saw hundreds of medieval era books, the oldest dating back to the 7th century. Another room, called the Pantheon of Kings, shows wall art from the 12th century. And, yes, the Holy Grail is also here, the very cup that Jesus drank from at the last supper, more than two thousand years ago. Wow. But how do they know for sure that this is the one? And aren’t there also more than a hundred other places in Europe that claim to have the Holy Grail? Well, yes. But hey, maybe more than one cup was used during that meal. Anyway, the one here is technically known as the Chalice of Doña Urraca. It has definitely been in Leon for a thousand years; but during the thousand years before that, the story is a little sketchy.

We stopped briefly in another religious museum so that M could say hello to an artifact from her personal history: the old wooden confessional from the parish church of her childhood.

After the museums, we spent some time having hot chocolate and churros at the Parador, the Hostal San Marcos. Then we walked back to the train station and caught another fast train home. It was late by then, so there we were rolling along at 150 miles an hour through the darkness, letting someone else drive, wearing no seatbelts, and facing backwards.

Friday, February 24

Fresh raspberries for breakfast today. From Morocco. Awesome. And then a nice restful day. Some grocery shopping in the morning. Later E went to the papelería and got us an actual paper map of Madrid. She’s busy working back and forth between what she sees now and the host of places and memories that rise up out of the past.

Saturday, February 25

Two days in a row with nothing major on the schedule. Nice. We did take a walk down to the nearest plaza to get a few essentials: pastry treats for our traditional Sunday breakfast and a bottle of champagne for some occasion TBA. It was about 1:00 PM on a cold, sunny day and it seemed like everybody was out and about. Despite the temperature, the cafes had all their outdoor tables out and just about all of them were full. Twelve o’clock to 1:00ish is the time for the aperitivo, a pre-dinner drink usually served with a little snack. We found a table outside a place called Bar 29 and ordered two small beers. They came with a complementary dish of green olives. By around 1:30 the tables started emptying out as people returned home to get ready for their midday meal. We headed home for the same reason.

Sunday, February 26

Today, we went to a birthday celebration at M and M’s place up north. There were two birthday honorees: M and M’s daughter E and our very own E. Dinner featured two rice dishes: a yellow one called arroz a banda and another that they call black rice. Here’s a photo of the latter.

After dinner there were cupcakes made by L and C, with help from their grandma, and also grandma’s wonderful pineapple upside down cake. There was candle lighting and Happy Birthday singing—in English.

Monday, February 13

7:30: Breakfast and final packing. 8:30: Metro to Chamartin Station. 9:00-9:45: Locate car rental place, sign out VW Golf, find our way back to our neighborhood, find parking place. Whew! 10:00: Have small second breakfast. 10:20: Wheel luggage down the block to parking place, depart for the Basque Country, M driving, Siri giving directions, E reminding M to stop at stoplights. 10:38: Notice that we are finally out of Madrid and on the freeway north. Whew!

By 1:00 PM we were more than half way to our destination, but our energy was flagging. We decided to stop in the next little town, which happened to be Lerma. Couldn’t find a parking place at first, had to go down a side street.

We went to small cafe and had coffee and bizcocho, a kind of pound cake. They said it was de la casa and it was good. We also went into a little supermarket, where E found some face cream that she’d been looking for.

Fifty miles later we stopped for gas near the town of Mondragón. By this time we were officially in the Basque country, much of which seems to be quite mountainous. We didn’t go over or around any mountains, though, we went straight through them. We’ve never seen so many tunnels, at least a dozen.

It’s close to 3:00 by the time we reach our destination, the town of Hondarribia in the extreme northeast corner of Spain, just a few miles from the French border. The border makes a political separation between the French and Spanish parts of the Basque Country; as far as language and culture are concerned, the two parts are much the same.

Our hotel is the Parador Hondarribia, which has been created within the walls of a castle fortress whose history goes back to the 12th Century. The castle was built at the top of a hill overlooking the harbor. We could see two or three (hundred) sailboats moored just across from us.

Tuesday, February 14

Early in the morning we woke up and looked out the east facing window of our room. Some lights were still on in the town, but things were definitely happening in the east. And speaking of things to the east of us, we’re pretty sure that mountain is in France.

The castle walls are pretty thick, close to three feet, so the windows in our room look like this:

We spent the morning exploring the area around the castle, which seems to be the oldest part of the city.

In the afternoon, we got back in the Golf and drove to San Sebastián, a much larger Basque city just twenty miles away. En route we took a small detour up to the top of another hill to see the Fuerte Guadalupe, an early 20th Century fortress. It turned out to be pretty strange looking. It appears to have been mostly underground and is now long abandoned, so it just looks like a bunch of grassy mounds.

We found that downtown San Sebastián is lovely, but a challenge to drive around in if you’re a stranger. As recommended by our friend M, we had coffee at the Hotel Maria Cristina, a lovely palace-like building in the central area of the city. The coffees were five euros apiece, but the setting was pretty nice.

Wednesday, February 15

Breakfast is served in shifts here at the Parador, sort of like on the train. Our scheduled time was 8:15. Did we make it on time? You bet we did. And what a breakfast—fruits, fresh juice, cheeses, baked goods and cold cuts of all descriptions, eggs or omelets if you want them. It was a challenge, but we did our best.

So that was one major goal accomplished. Next we had to get ready to check out and move on to the next segment of our journey. Since the next leg was only 70 or 80 miles, it promised to be a pretty easy day. We had time to take a few photos of the hotel before we left.

We left Hondarribia around 11:00 and headed southwest toward a different part of the Basque Country. On the way, we took a side trip to what the map said was a nature park. It turned out to be way up high in the mountains, and the narrow road up to it had some of the sharpest hairpin curves that we could remember. There was snow up there, but fortunately not too much.

We didn’t stay long, though it would have been a really nice place to hike had we been prepared for it. But we were trying to take it easy, so we made our way down the mountain and back onto the main road. By 2:00, we were checking into our next hotel, the Parador Argomaniz, which is in the southern part of the Basque Country near the city of Vitoria-Gastiez.

Thursday, February 16

Clearly, we’ve come out of the mountains and away from the ocean. The weather here is cooler than on the coast, but still lovely—in a late winter/early spring kind of way.

After breakfast, we set off on another ridiculously complicated project, a visit to Bilbao. Bilbao is the capital of the Basque Country and by all accounts it is a city worth seeing. And since it is only about an hour’s drive north of Vitoria, we thought we’d run up there to see the Guggenheim and maybe have some lunch. Easy as pie.

(But what exactly does that expression mean? Easy as eating a pie? Easy as making a pie? Easy as picking the berries to make the pie? Easy as planting some wheat and harvesting the grain to grind some flour to make the crust? We’re not sure.)

Anyway, we made it into the center of Bilbao, the famous and very beautiful Plaza de Euskadi, and found ourselves a parking place not too many levels underground. Back above ground, we went into the Museo de Bellas Artes. Entrance was free and the art was arranged so that in each exhibition room there was a mixture of old art and new. We found several things of both sorts that we liked. Then we went down the street to the see the Guggenheim—Frank Gehry’s mishmash architectural masterpiece.

What a building.

The featured artist was Joan Miro. That seemed worth a look, so we paid our seven euros each and went inside.

Eventually, enough was enough. We went out through the gift shop—where M bought a Kandinsky mousepad and E got some socks—and then went to a cafe for a snack. It was warm in Bilbao, perfect weather for sitting outside, especially if you were wearing sun block, which of course M was not…

Next we located our car, extricated it from the underworld, and made the drive back to Argomaniz. We ended the day with dinner in the hotel cafe and a walk around the grounds to look at the stars.

Friday, February 17

Today was travel day and also use the car while you can day. We left Argomaniz around 10:00 and got back to Madrid at 2:00. At that point, instead of going straight to our apartment, we stopped at a shopping center called Gran Vía. There we ate lunch. One floor of the mall was a little bit like a food court, so E went to Rodilla and got a tuna salad that came with a crustless sandwich and M went to Bosforos and got a chicken kebab plate. Then we met up and shared a table. It was pretty nice.

Then we did our grocery shopping in the big supermarket, trying to focus on heavy items that are harder to carry on our walks to and from our local market. It seemed like it would be a lot easier to just load everything into the car. Of course when we got home, we still had the major job of hauling both food and luggage from parking place to apartment. (We will spare you the details of how all that works. Suffice to say that the process involves four different keys.) Once we had everything inside, we breathed a sigh of relief and sat down for a short break. Then it was time to go out again and return the rental car at the train station. That done, we took the Metro home.

So there we were sitting on our couch with lots of food on hand but both too tired to make dinner. But actually that didn’t matter. After a Parador breakfast and a mall lunch, neither of us was too hungry. So we sat down in our dining nook with wine, a banana, peanuts, and a cookie or two. We then watched an old James Garner movie on TV. It was in Spanish and—for those who might have trouble understanding spoken Spanish—it also had Spanish subtitles. It was fine.

Saturday, February 18, 2023

A quiet day today, but we did make a nice discovery in our local shopping area. We went into the Herbolaria—a small place packed full of organic, eco-friendly items, mostly personal care things. E was delighted to find a couple of things that she was running out of. From there we went to the paper store because E was looking for ribbon to wrap some gifts. It turns out they didn’t carry ribbon, but they offered to just give us some from their own roll that they kept at the counter. E happily accepted about 12 inches. We didn’t think of paying anything. Should we have? Too late now.

Back at home we decided to try and adapt to local rhythms by having a fairly big lunch around 2:00 and planning only a light supper later. E made a green salad dressed with some of our newly purchased vinegar and olive oil. M heated up some Barilla bottled spaghetti sauce and boiled some fresh spinach and cheese ravioli. We also had bread and wine plus a small flan for dessert. In other domestic news, we did laundry, which involves throwing stuff into the washing machine located in a little unheated room off the kitchen, and then setting up the drying rack next to the radiator in the living room.

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Today we had dinner with the C family at Taberna de la Daniella, a restaurant that specializes in something called Cocido Madrileño. MC is a Spanish friend of E’s from the days when they both lived in Chicago. When MC had a baby, who is now a distinguished architect, E became a godmother. She’s been a rather distant godmother over the years, but they’ve always kept in touch. Today we got to see the godson as well as the many of the rest of MC’s extended family, including the youngest generation. It was wonderful for us to get to meet them all. E, playing Santa, had brought enough gifts for everybody.

We’ve had Cocido Madrileño twice now, so maybe we know enough to describe it. First comes a soup course, thin little noodles in a yellowish broth that looks like chicken broth but tastes much more complicated. Then comes a plate of chickpeas served with boiled potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. After that, they bring out a giant platter full of all sorts of meatish things including chicken, ham, sausage, beef, tocino, morcilla and whatever else they have on hand. (Tocino is a kind of salt pork—pretty much all fat—and morcilla is a kind of blood sausage made with rice.) E, of course, skipped all the meat, except for the morcilla, which she has always loved. M liked it too, though he hadn’t expected to.

When we got home, M took a nap while E went out for a stroll in the beautiful weather. She found a sidewalk cafe and ordered an orange soda. Oops! She had forgotten that beverages often come accompanied by a free tidbit of food. This time it was a very small open faced sandwich of Serrano ham. E was still full from lunch and doesn’t usually eat ham, but she couldn’t let it go to waste. It was very good.

Sunday, January 29, 2023

A bright, sunny day. After a long stretch of clouds and fog, suddenly the world is full of light. But we’re busy packing. Our trip starts on Monday and we want to be ready! We’ve been packing for days, which seems ridiculous. Making a list of things to take is not too hard; narrowing it down to what will actually fit in a suitcase is a little harder.

Monday January 30, 2023

Still packing. It’s hard to pack for two months. And it’s not just our clothes and things. There are also all those presents that we need to take. In fact, each day that passes, E finds that she needs one or two more presents. Finally we just give up and leave, whether we have packed correctly or not.

We’re heading up to Portland in a rental car, which turns out to be a Prius with adaptive cruise control, which we have never tried before. M is happy. Once settled in Portland, we have a nice dinner at ParkStone and then go back to the Comfort Inn and set our alarms for 4:00 AM.

Tuesday January 31, 2023

Off we go into the sky, headed for JFK. We’re on Delta again, flying Comfort+ class, which just means more leg room. That’s fine. Our layover in New York is three hours. We depart just as darkness falls. Delta gives us dinner. Not too bad. One dinner option is chicken and one is vegetarian pasta. In the old days, E would have to make a special request for a vegetarian meal and then might or might not have gotten it. We don’t miss that. 

Boarding at JFK was interesting. There were two lines. In one line people had to show a boarding pass for scanning, either a paper one or one on their phone. But in the other line, which we happened to be in, you just showed your face to a scanner and the agent waved you on. Yo! We might have known that it would come to that. But it’s here already?

The flight to Madrid took six and a half hours. M usually can’t sleep on planes, but this time, thanks to chemistry and a kindly supplier, he slept for half the flight. 

Wednesday February 1, 2023

It’s just after 8:00 in the morning and we’re sitting surrounded by our luggage in an airport restaurant breakfasting on cafe cortado and croissants. We’ve landed, shown our passports, and collected our bags. But one thing remains, a formality related to our phones. We must face the dreaded activation of the E-sim. We purchased and installed these a few days ago. M has signed up for a cellular data plan. He won’t be able to make European phone calls, but he’ll have internet. E will have cellular data plus a European phone number, so she can call actual people and talk to them. But not unless we can successfully activate, which can’t be done until you’re in country. A tense moment. Will they work? After a bit of fumbling around…yes!

E then made direct contact with our AirBnb host to set up our arrival time. She also called her friend M who tells us not to take the airport train, but to take the airport Metro line (subway) instead. The Metro took us most of the way to our little apartment. A taxi took us the rest of the way. Soon we were installed and mostly unpacked. Whew. 

That was the end of the easy part.

Thursday February 2, 2023

So our apartment turns out to be in a somewhat weird spot, not weird in a bad way, just a bit different from anywhere we’ve lived before. The immediate area consists mostly of apartment buildings, seven or eight stories high. There is lots of open space, however. The buildings are often arranged around large courtyards with mature trees, most of those now leafless. Our place, for example, is near a fairly busy street, but we are never aware of it because our apartment looks down into the courtyard rather than outward to the larger world. 

Our particular place is on the fourth floor and has three rooms: kitchen, living room, and bedroom. All the rooms are small, but the kitchen is fully functional with oven, cooktop and fridge; the bedroom has a nice large closet; and the living room has…a really tired couch and some interesting artwork. Here’s what our building looks like from the outside. Our place is in the middle of the photo. That air conditioner type thing is just under our living room window. The window to the right, on the rounded part of the building is our kitchen and breakfast nook. The window on the left is the bedroom.

Although most of our view is down into the courtyard, we can also get a glimpse of the outer world. Here’s what that looked like at dawn this morning.

Friday February 3, 2023

Today we went with E’s old friends M and L on a drive up to Salamanca, where their daughter T lives. T is a cloistered nun who is currently serving as the leader of a group of Clarisan Sisters. Her monasterio is located in a small village out on the Salamanca plain. To get there we drove on the autopista for a little over an hour and then turned off into a mostly flat agricultural area with broad fields punctuated occasionally by villages and small towns. Eventually we came to T’s village and found our way to the monastery, a long, two-story, beige-colored building with a mostly blank facade. We parked near the main entrance, which was a heavy door of darkened wood. We pushed a button and after a bit someone buzzed us in. We entered into a wide, high-ceilinged hallway, somewhat dimly lit, which ended in another heavy wood door. On the right hand wall of the hallway, there was a built-in display case showing examples of the various baked goods produced by the order. On the left side there was an open doorway that led to the visiting area. This was a plain but cheerful room with an orange tile floor.

It was really fascinating for us, first just to have a chance to see the setting, and then to see how such a visit took place. E and M sat in the two chairs facing the window, while T’s father sat on the left side of the table and her mother the right. After a few moments T came and pulled back the curtain on her side, which revealed a similar sized room on that side of the dividing wall. T greeted us all and sat facing us through bars. Parents and child all seemed really happy to see each other and we also felt welcome. We sat and talked for a long time. The whole visit lasted several hours and included a nice midday meal served at our table. This included tomato rice soup, lettuce salad with flakes of tuna and olives, baked fish with a layer of mashed potatoes and cheese on top, menestra de verduras (mixed vegetables in a thick sauce,) a fruit selection, and, finally, tiramisu with a selection of cookies from their bakery. After the meal we were joined by about twenty other sisters who sat in rows of chairs in the room behind Teresa. So we had a chance to chat with them as well. We talked about all sorts of things. It was quite an experience. On our way out we decided to buy some cookies, both because we wanted to show our appreciation for feeding us and because the cookies that we had sampled at lunch were so delicious.

Saturday February 4, 2023

We took an early walk this morning and picked up some pan rústica for breakfast along with a few other items we’ve been missing. A mouse tried to get at the bread. And it turns out that it was a mouse that E herself had brought back from the monastery! The things that M has to put up with.

Later in the day we went to visit some more old friends, who had invited us for dinner. P and M live in a town north of Madrid. We went by Metro and train to Las Matas station where P picked us up and took us to their lovely house in the hills. What a nice time. We talked a lot and ate too much.

Sunday February 5, 2023

Today we saw M and L again and had a meal at their house in a suburb to the south of Madrid. It’s not easy dealing with all this public transport, but for the second day in a row we managed to get where were going without getting lost or even being late. Good for us.

M and L—along with Buddy, Ke, and Jaeger—invited us for a dog walk into the nearby hills that overlook the Jarama river valley. The area was the site of a great deal of fighting during the Spanish Civil War, when a Francoist army came up from the south as part of a campaign to capture Madrid from Republican Loyalist forces that included International Brigade volunteers. During the fighting the hills were stripped of vegetation, but since then they have been reforested with Mediterranean pines. The area is now a reserve heavily used by cyclists and dog owners.

After our walk we had appetizers and drinks by the pool. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, L served us up a lavish dinner of Cocido Madrileño, a traditional sort of stew with garbanzos flavored with salt pork and various meats and vegetables. L made a special effort to prepare this so that M could try it for the first time. E had eaten it years ago, but it was a much simpler version.

Monday February 6, 2023

We went the Corte Ingles department store in the Nuevos Ministerios neighborhood. We did a little shopping and then went up to the top floor cafeteria for a midday snack, just as E was wont to do back in the seventies, when she was a Madrileña. We were happy to see that despite the march of time and change, it was still a nice place to be.

Back at home we did some household chores: vacuumed, did laundry, cooked our own dinner. Wow. And then, having purchased a mat at Corte Ingles, E joined her Zoom Yoga class. 10:30 PM here, 1:30 PM back in Corvallis. It’s odd how seamless everything can be if you have a good internet connection. Stream Netflix? Sure. YouTube? Apple+? Banking? All pretty much the same. A little strange.

Thursday, January 12, 2023

We have a slow leak in the left front tire of the Mazda. We took it to the tire shop, but they couldn’t find anything. That was weeks ago. So it’s still leaking and we keep on filling it back up. At least we have one of those new-fangled inflators right in our own garage. Not that we’re going to be driving much. We’re off to Cancun tomorrow, traveling by Uber, airport shuttle and Delta.

Friday, January 13, 2023

Our flight was at 7:00 PM, so we dutifully checked in at the Portland Airport around 5:00. The security check was our first opportunity to try out our newly purchased TSAPre status. Which did not work. We were rejected from the line of privilege despite what it said on our boarding passes. Plus M was selected for a random check even after he got through. Sigh. Is this what we get for traveling on Friday the 13th? But after that everything went well. We flew to LAX, then got onto the long flight to Cancun. M couldn’t sleep during the flight and ended up watching Triangle of Sadness, the Palme d’Or winning movie about a group of super rich folks on a luxury cruise. Was that a good thing to see while on one’s way to a full-service tropical resort? Maybe. Maybe not.

Saturday, January 14, 2023

We arrived in Cancun early in the morning. It took a little while, but eventually a hotel shuttle arrived and soon we found ourselves in a lovely room in the Solaris Grand Caribe. 

The hotel strip in Cancun extends along 14 miles of a sand dune peninsula shaped like the number seven.

Along with the Andees, our friends K and J had also come down. One of the nicest things about the trip was having a chance to visit with all of them. 

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Wonderful day at the beach. Some areas of the beach were closed due to ocean conditions; others were open. Where we went the surf was just rough enough to be entertaining.

Monday, January 16, 2023

The Andees hired a car and took us all to Tulum, about an hour and a half away. Tulum is a Mayan city that was built around the year 900. The Mayans abandoned it soon after the Spaniards arrived in the 1500’s.

We had a wonderful guide, a Mayan himself, who had lots to tell us about Mayan history and culture. Along with much else, he taught us the Mayan number system and also told us a dramatic story about how the Mayan written language was deciphered. This last may be have been apocryphal. 

Tuesday, January 16, 2023

We took a bus today up along the strip to a shopping area. We got some tee-shirts and some Mexican vanilla, the latter costing about the same price as it would in Corvallis, but never mind. Along the way we passed lots and lots of hotels. There were a few ugly square towers, but most of the architecture was impressive. And the sheer scale was awesome. There are more than 80 hotels along the 7-shaped strip, enough to accommodate many thousands of guests and to provide some thousands of jobs. 

This was our first experience with an all-inclusive resort and it was pretty nice. It’s true that the free drinks weren’t very strong, but that’s actually a good thing because it means you can have many drinks with little ill effect. (And real drinks are also available, at the so-called Premium Bar.) The food was mostly good, which is to say, rarely great but very rarely bad. Day-long free food sounds dangerous; but when a buffet is free, there’s really less motivation to heap up your plate. There were also sit down dinner options, which were awesome because the portions were small! What a welcome change that was. Also, we never had to deal with a bill at the end of the meal. Very nice.

On our last evening there was a members only ‘gala dinner’ with live entertainment. Just before we went down to dinner, we took at last glance at the sunset.

Wednesday, January 17, 2023

Up at 4:30 to get an airport shuttle at 5:00. A long travel day, but all went well. All planes on time or early. Even our Portland to Corvallis shuttle found light traffic all the way.

Thursday, January 19, 2023

So now we’re home. The Mazda tire was way low again. We took it back to the tire shop and this time they fixed it. Okay! But wait, now we have to get Roto-Rooter to unplug the sewer lines. Geez! Shoulda stayed in Cancun.

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Okay, so maybe we can relax today. Not too much though because we have another, bigger trip coming up in a week or so…

Thursday, January 5, 2023

The day has arrived for the belated birthday party for A and N. E’s plan was to start the proceedings with dinner at Kim Hoa’s Vietnamese, followed by a pavlova dessert at our place. She made the meringue early in the afternoon. A arrived from Vancouver at 5:00 and at around six we set off for the restaurant, picking up H on the way. N joined us there. By 7:00 or so we were back at our place and E started whipping cream and spreading berries. N opened a bottle of champagne and M found sparkling cider for H and some suitably fluted glasses. After candles and song, the pavlova was served. Vay, vay vay, as the Turks might say. It was good. There wasn’t much left at the end.

E had also gotten each honoree a confetti popper. They were spectacular, firing out masses of shiny, sliced up ribbon. Made almost entirely of hard plastic, they were about as environmentally unfriendly as you can get. Fun though.

Friday, January 6, 2023

January 6 is a special day in Spain, the day the Wise Men arrive bearing gifts. Here there was a special event of another kind. There was a small gathering by the river to celebrate the birthday of Morris Walker, a recently deceased acquaintance. There was flute playing by a native American, memorial remarks and finally the tossing of a little bottle of ashes into the river. The amazing part about the bottle is that it was made of some sort of dissolvable salt that would not hurt the river.

Monday, January 9, 2023

M has been reading The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan, which is basically just an annotated list of sixty-six American popular songs from various eras and musical genres. Each entry shows the song’s title, the songwriter, the performer, and the date of release along with a number of photos that are related to the song’s time period or genre. And of course each song gets a few pages of text wherein Dylan shares some of his thoughts about it. Some of the songs are quite old–the oldest are from the 1920’s–and a few are from the early 21st century. The great majority, though, are from the years between 1945 and 1980. 

Many of the songs are very well-known or at least somewhat familiar to people of a certain age, e.g., Blue Suede Shoes, On The Road Again, Strangers in the Night, Mack the Knife, On the Street Where You Live; but quite a few are decidedly lesser known. For M this latter group would include such titles as Nelly Was a Lady, The Little Cloud That Cried, Take Me from the Garden of Evil, and Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy. Part of the fun is to see how many of the songs you recognize. And then you’re curious to see what Bob Dylan has to say about them. What you find is that his response to each song–famous or not–will go off in all kinds of (mostly) interesting directions.  

Inevitably, you’ll want to listen to each song when you read about it. Once Dylan lets you know, for example, that the harmonica part in a certain song was played by Stevie Wonder, how can you not want to hear that song? In the old days, finding and playing it might have been difficult. Now it’s just hey Siri, play Ball of Confusion by the Temptations…

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

We made a return visit to the Herbert Farm Natural Area. Went a little farther this time.

In the evening we had dinner with J, B and C at J and B’s house. A fine meal followed by peppermint pig smashing and a shortbread crust lemon tart. Hard to beat.

Wednesday, January 11

Today it’s back to work for E, who is trying desperately to finish sewing a beach cover-up for our upcoming mini-trip to Mexico with the ANDEES and friends. Oh boy!

Of course after yesterday’s indulgences, E is thinking she may have to enlarge the waistband on the beach skirt.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

A Christmas miracle: the temperature rose and along with it came rain and a great thawing. Suddenly the roads were passable, and the ANDEES were able to come for Christmas. A good time was had by all, we hope. We had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner of salmon and trimmings enclosed in the Dock Box that we ordered from Local Ocean, a seafood restaurant at the coast. Santa came overnight and we opened our presents the next morning.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Here’s a quick summary of the last three days. Rain. Cold rain. Steady rain. Lots of rain. And sometimes, gusty winds to go with it. 

Thursday, December 29, 2022

We met R and J for coffee this morning. We went to Tried and True down in the south part of town and breakfasted on great coffee and so-so croissants. Thus fortified, the four of us headed farther south for a mile or two to Herbert Avenue, intending to do some walking. There’s a place down there, past the edge of town, called the Herbert Farm Natural Area, which we had never heard of till Joe the builder told us about it. It wasn’t a bad day for a hike–rainy, windy and cold, but not seriously so. Bad weather in a jovial mood, you might say.

The chief feature of the natural area is Muddy Creek. The headwaters of Muddy Creek are only 18 miles away as the crow flies, but the creek wanders a lot and its total length might be twice that. Muddy Creek flows into the Mary’s river just half a mile north of where we went walking. Usually the creek is a lazy thing only a few feet wide. Trees and brush grow thick on either side of it, so you usually don’t see any actual water as it winds its way through farm fields and across a part of the Finley Refuge. But if it rains enough and you get close enough…

The satellite map below shows what the area looks like in the summer. We walked in from the east along the road that you can see in the upper right of the map. On the way we found that a short section of the road was flooded, but we were able to detour around it. But then, when we came to the place where the road curves to the left, we found it completely submerged under rapidly flowing water. We were able to continue our walk, but we had to go along the edge of an old field to do it. R pointed out that the higher ground at the edge of the field didn’t seem natural. Past farmers had probably moved earth to the area to create a berm to keep Muddy Creek out.

We walked all the way down to the lower left corner of the map. See the big oval broccoli floret down there? It’s a single oak tree. That, of course, was in the summertime. Here’s what it looks like from ground level in the winter.

At the place where the road was just about to dip down and disappear into the creek, we found something interesting. Here’s what it looked and sounded like. (Turn up your sound for the full effect.)

The bubbles, we think, come from air that is being forced out of the soil as water begins to saturate it. As the water pushes in, the air is compressed. What we were hearing was the sound of the air escaping from the ground under the water of this puddle. As we stood watching the bubbles rise in the water, we also noticed something else. At our feet we saw tiny spurts of water popping up out of openings in the soil. These were silent, appearing and disappearing in an instant. It was like the ground was spitting at us.  

These phenomena suggested the possibility that the floodwaters were spreading as the creek continued to rise. That was an unsettling thought. The whole area, including the parking lot and the road back to the highway, is just a foot or so higher than the water. In the end, though, if it was rising, it wasn’t rising very fast and we were fine.

Later, as we were driving back toward the main highway, we saw more evidence of earthmoving activities sometime in the past.

Saturday December 31, 2022

The forecast for today called for rain of the intermittent sort. We decided to take our chances and go for a hike in another place we’d never been before. It’s a place about an hour north of us called Miller Woods. Frieda Miller donated the area to the Yamhill County Soil and Water Conservation District in 2004. The drive up was pretty rainy, but our luck was good and things had improved greatly by the time we arrived. Our walk through the Woods covered about three and a half miles.

Later in the day, this being New Year’s Eve and all, we had to deal with three long-standing traditions: fondue, champagne and jigsaw.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Serious puzzle work.

Monday, January 2, 2023

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Nice weather in the morning today. The dark clouds have given way to some white ones, which makes a big difference. After spending a couple of days obsessing over the puzzle, we now turn to more real life concerns such as taking down the Christmas tree, tending to appointments, and planning a dessert gathering for two December birthday girls. We also need to do something about all of these horrible Christmas sweets. We’ve eaten enough to make us woozy and fat. The rest we need to freeze, give away, or maybe just toss out the window of the car next time we take a joy ride. (Except for the Frigor and the Christopher Elbow. We’re not done with those.)