Tag: friends

10-28-2018 How Will I Write About Italy?

Current Location: Sunset House in Grants Pass Oregon Cloudy and rainy and 63 F

Our guests have departed. There is nowhere I have to be for at least another week.  Crashed on the loveseat on a only slightly drippy Sunday afternoon, I lifted my body from what daughter Melody calls “Landscape Mode”, and said to Mo, “It’s time to try to write the blog about my trip to Italy”.  She said, “How do you plan to do that? How many posts?  Where will you start?”  I said, “No clue, I won’t know till I get started”.

When I got home a week and a half ago, I was all ready to go.  Photos processed and uploaded while still in Italy, no less, notes kept on the calendar and even a few draft blog post days ready to be filled in and fleshed out.  But then, just a few hours after Mo picked me up from the airport, Mo’s sister-in-law Nancy came to visit for a few days.  It is fun having Nancy around, and we took things fairly easy while she was here.  In fact, I don’t remember much about her visit except that it was pleasant and we took her to Schmidt Vineyards for a glass of wine and wood fired pizza on the lovely grounds.  I guess I don’t remember because I was still caught up in a bit of jet lag, or maybe not even jet lag, but trip lag. 

Nancy left on Friday and on Saturday Mo and I packed up the car and the dog to go over the pass to Klamath Falls for a few days.  Not sure if my Italy suitcase was fully unpacked when I loaded it up again for the short trip.  I was looking forward to a day at Rocky Point at the annual Chili Feed where I had volunteered to be a cashier to help support the fire department. Long day, but still fun to see all the old Rocky Point friends and participate.  Instead of coming back to Grants Pass, we went home to the apartments to spend a few days doing maintenance things, Mo did outdoor stuff and I painted one of the bedrooms in the one apartment that we keep available for ourselves when we need it. 

We stayed only long enough for the EPA meeting to celebrate the final season of the cleanup of the Northridge Estates Area.  (You can check out the info here if you are interested, or don’t remember how this affected us).  Making a beeline back to Grants Pass, I knew that the next day it would be time to clean the house and rake some leaves, and sure enough we got a phone call from Nickie and Jimmy saying they would be heading our way the next day, and was that OK.  Of course that was OK, but I did have to rush a bit to get the rest of my stuff out of the Italy suitcase and the apartment suitcase and make sure the house looked spiffy again.  They haven’t visited since we finished building and moved in.

We had a great visit with them as well, 3 days and 2 nights of fun times, including a hike up into Cathedral Hills on what was supposed to be a rainy day and instead was quite nice.  Cool and a bit drippy, but pleasant.  Mattie was thrilled to have them here, she so loves company and of course more people around usually means a few more treats.  I told Nickie I couldn’t cook, and instead we went out to dinner at our new favorite little bistro, the Bohemian, in downtown Grants Pass, in the historic area.  Fabulous dinner!  The next evening we went to a crazy thing listed in the entertainment section of the paper, The Popovich Comedy Pet Theater, which is basically indescribable, but very funny, and a lot of fun, with a full house of kids young and old laughing a LOT.

We had simple tacos last night, watched the Streisand version of “A Star is Born”, and decided that the new Lady Gaga version was more well written and actually much better.  Never in a million years would have thought that this old diehard Streisand fan would say that.

I am here at long last, at the computer, with most everything caught up, and ready to start writing about my fabulous, incredible, magnificent, wonderful, amazing trip to Italy, with my fabulous, incredible, magnificent, wonderful, amazing daughter Deanna.  Three weeks of travel on our own without a glitch.  Well, I guess that is giving the story away, but tune in and the next few posts will tell the tale.  (I actually have no idea how many posts it will take, I will figure it out as I go).  Thank goodness I kept good notes during the trip, so some of the finer details and fun stuff won’t be lost. 

Next Post:  Italy

08-16-2018 Why do they call them Dog Days?

Current Location: Sunset House in Grants Pass at 75 degrees F at 9pm

I read my last post, just to take a moment to catch up with myself.  I needed to remember what I had written and hopefully not repeat myself.  Ahh, yes, I was raving about how incredibly gorgeous the summer had been thus far, blue skies, no fires, no smoke to mar the air.  Tonight, as I write, I can count 30 consecutive days of smoke filled skies, with air quality ranging from a fabulous “Moderate” (once or twice) to a more normal Very Unhealthy or Hazardous.  This has been the case every single day except one, last Sunday, when a breeze blew in from the west and for one fresh air filled day we had a taste of what summer could be like in our beautiful Southern Oregon.

This is not our house, it is across the street toward the east, and this is the side where the new fence will be located, about as high as the neighbors current chain link fence.  Ours will be wood.

It is hard to maintain a sense of balance when it is like this.  Not only is the world dimmed to a dull grayish brown and the sun to an angry red-orange, there are the horror stories on the news about the progress of the literally dozens of fires that surround us.  Stories of evacuations and misery abound.  It wears on one’s soul, deeply. 

I went to the store this morning, and in the process noticed that I was very easily irritated, like my scratchy eyes, my spirit felt scratchy.  I saw myself reacting quickly to the smallest inconveniences, angry at stupid people, frustrated with lack of supplies on the shelves.  I realized that I was getting all gritchy on an average of every 30 seconds or so.  What a waste of energy!  Noticing did help a bit, I tried to slow down and pay attention to myself, to stop the constant nasty internal outbursts at slow old people, fast little people, stupid drivers, and the constant brown sky.

I am not always like this, in fact I am not really often like this.  Sometimes, even in the midst of the nasty smoke, hot temperatures and ugly air, I can find true happiness.  Toward the end of July, about 2 weeks into the fire smoke season, Mo and I drove through the verdant and lovely Applegate Valley on a Thursday afternoon.  The Red Lily winery is among our favorites, and there we shared food truck goodies and a bottle of truly epic wine in big red chairs beside the river as we listened to the great music and watched all the happy people.  The sun was orange-red on that day as well, and yet I somehow found joy.

If you read my facebook, you probably already saw this, or who knows, it might have scrolled right past you, but either way, I wanted to repeat it here because it made me happy, and I don’t want to lose that feeling that I had that evening sitting by the river.

“Joy. It comes at the strangest times. I can’t call it in, and have no clue what makes it come, but when it does, I am in awe. Tonight, watching the red sun through the smoke as we sat along the Applegate River at Red Lily Vineyards, I felt awash in Joy. Listening to great music, drinking truly great wine, watching families and friends having fun together, I felt it. Overwhelming joy. I forgot my camera, forgot my phone, just had to experience it in the moment. Wondering if the fact that I didn’t have any kind of way to record the moment made it even more precious. When I got home, I ran outside with the camera, capturing the red sun setting through the smoke of the Taylor Fire just west of Grants Pass. Still remembering those precious moments of inexplicable joy. Treasuring the clarity of fresh air beneath the smoke, the mountains in the distance opened up from some unknown wind.”

I have also learned in this last 30 days to look downward, to look up close at the world.  Skip the sweeping vistas, they are invisible anyway, and just look at what is right in front of me.  We haven’t done a lot in the last few weeks, other than hang around home, working in the yard in the mornings, avoiding the worst of the heat and smoke, walking the dog in the evenings after it settles down a bit.

All thoughts of local hikes and kayak trips evaporated with the fires that began with a wild thunderstorm that crossed most of Northern California and Southern Oregon on July 15.  That very day Mo and I had driven south along the Applegate River to visit a beautiful lavender farm that opened up to the public for the 2018 Lavender Festival.  We have the Applegate Wine Trail, and we also have the Applegate Lavender Trail, with 15 farms participating.

The small acreage was beautiful, abuzz with bees and lovely people walking around picking their lavender bundles.  We ate lavender ice cream and listened to live music on the patio, and hid from the lightning strikes that we knew would bring sadness in the coming days, but at the time, it all seemed just so lovely.

That night there were more than 1,100 lightning strikes over the Rogue Valley and the Siskiyou Mountains, and the fires that started then are still raging all around us.  The horrible Carr Fire in Redding started a bit later, with a flat tire causing sparks on the pavement that ignited an inferno that killed 7 people and destroyed over 1000 homes.  Fire season has only just begun, and there is no end in sight.  We have until October to wait for the rains to at last extinguish the fires, but until then, anything goes.  Fire/smoke season in Oregon, in the entire West, is now a reality, and something that must be planned for always.  If you travel here, don’t come during fire season.  It has happened every single year now since 2012, and most years prior to that since the Biscuit Fire in 2002.

I wanted to write a blog, wanted to fill the empty space that is July and August in my memory banks, but as I write I can see how very much the fires and the smoke affect everything that I do.  So with that out of the way, maybe now I can think and write about some of the sweetness.

Early in July, Merikay and Craig of Merikay’s Dream decided to visit while they were camped at Valley of the Rogue State Park just a few miles south.  I cooked up a good supper, Merikay brought yummy cheesecake, and we showed them around Sunset House before settling in for dinner and a rousing game of that silly card game we learned last spring from John and Carol of “Our Trip Around the Sun”.  We had such a good time neither of us remembered to take any photos! Merikay and Craig are cruising around the Pacific Northwest and John and Carol are living the lifetime dream of traveling through Alaska in their motorhome. 

Mid July I drove back over the Cascades to Rocky Point to help out the quilt group with the annual Rocky Point BBQ, the major fund raiser for the local volunteer fire department.  It was great seeing old friends, and I invited the entire group to Sunset House for a get together, maybe some quilting, and maybe some crafting. 

None of this particular group of friends had been over the mountain to visit Sunset House, so I had fun showing them around, and they enjoyed seeing the real thing after all the photos I have shared of our house and the process of building it.

I actually baked a couple of epic quiches, one vegetarian and one traditional with all the bacon I could fit.  We laughed and talked, and then managed to make a big mess of fun with shaving cream and water color paints making marbleized art pieces for handmade greeting cards. It was a silly thing, but we had fun doing it.  Mo isn’t part of the quilt group, but all the women have been friends of hers long before I showed up on the Rocky Point scene.  It was a good day.

I especially enjoyed showing off the fabulous quilting done by Janna from Restoration Cowboy Style on my One Block Wonder quilt. She did an amazing job and the quilt ladies were duly impressed, Janna! I have been doing a bit of quilting on hot days as well, working on a big blooming nine patch with brilliant fabrics.  I hope to have Janna quilt it, but will probably have to wait until spring because I am not going to get it done in time.  I never sewed so many little nine patches, ever!

For everyday entertainment, I have been working on small landscaping projects while Mo works on fixing up her workshop.  Mo decided that a bit of help would be nice, and invited her brother Dan and his wife Chere down for a visit and a consultation on just how to construct the new porch overhang for the small building.

This photo of the old shed is from 2013.  Fires then as well. Look closely at the skinny blue door on the right, that is the same door on the right of what is left of the building in the photo below. 

I thought it might be fun to throw in a shot of the old outbuilding from the days when we first owned the property.  Most of it is gone now except for the main part of the building

She has been working on it for some time now, caulking and trimming, getting all the old wood cleaned up and painted.  Before winter there will be a new roof and a new porch overhang, a place for her to use her saws with some protection from the weather, but not inside the building with all that sawdust getting into everything.

It is always fun spending time with Dan and Chere, and having them here for a couple of days was wonderful. We ate good food both at home and at a great restaurant in Grants Pass we hadn’t tried before, Blondie’s Bistro.  First thing I noticed was that the balsamic reduction on the salad was every bit as good as any I have had, including my own. Actually, sometimes I burn mine and it ends up like caramel, and once it even turned into a sticky candy mess.  So I do really appreciate a good balsamic reduction.

My gardening projects have been small, mostly getting more shrubs planted, and adding mulch to the borders around the house.  With our heat, mulch makes all the difference, keeping roots cool enough, and within days after putting down the mulch, the plants look happier.  We don’t yet have an automatic sprinkler system, so my mornings are spent watering, lots of hand watering.  It is a job I really love, contemplative and quiet, and it gives me a chance to visit with each plant and flower, and check in on them.

We took in bids for a new fence along street side of the house and with the company 8 weeks out, I may not see the fence before I leave for Italy in September.  We also contracted to get a sun shade for the porch.  We love the view, but the western sun at dinner time is a bit much to bear.  Whenever we have company, we pull down the brown sheet that has served for shelter until the shade arrives.  It’s the little things.

We took the MoHo to Guaranty of Junction City, Oregon  for an all around check up and going through, making sure everything is in good order before we head off on a trip of several thousand miles.  It is a 3 hour drive, but folks from all over the country know about the service for RV’s available in Junction City, so it is worth it.

The days just seem to be so full, and I can’t really figure out why.  We are taking care of dental things, some physical therapy for Mo’s ankle and for my knee, doctor appointments to get caught up with the new doctor, going to the meat market for the Thursday sales, to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings for all that lovely produce coming in from the Applegate.

I water the flowers, walk the dog, clean the house, cook, do some quilting, watch some news and check out the smoky sunsets. I made applesauce with Mo’s help peeling the apples from our Gravenstein apple tree, have spent many hours working on reservations and plans for our winter trip to Florida, spent more hours working on final plans for the three week trip to Italy. 

A couple of days ago my computer started acting weird, so I tried to be sure all was backed up, and sure enough, out she went.  Probably the hard drive, and she is going to the computer doctor back in Klamath Falls when we go there this weekend.  Oh yes, there is that as well.  A tenant moved out and we spent a couple of days at the apartments cleaning up, and will spend a couple more days there this coming weekend painting for the new tenant.  Always something, it seems. 

At least I have the old laptop to fill in while the big girl gets fixed.  And of course, I am soo soo tempted to buy a new laptop.  This one is really so very old, and the plugin doesn’t work properly and it is slow, and and and…..How do you keep from buying something new and nice when you know better?

How can such little stuff keep me so busy? How can I think that all this little stuff is even worth writing about? How very few people will read to the end of this story.  Ha!  Reminds me of all those facebook memes rolling around that are really long, and at the end they say something like “you probably won’t read all of this, but if you do, copy and paste to your wall etc etc etc.”  I never do even if I DO read it all.  So don’t copy and paste, but if you made it this far, maybe you could comment.  Ha!

Nickie  (Out and About with Jimmy and Nicky) called me today to commiserate about all the smoke and heat and frustration about being house bound in summer and I think we both felt better after the phone call.  She laughed about having nothing to blog about except the grandbaby and I don’t even have that.  Still, for me, as always, it is about memory.  I need to be sure than when I return to the blog there isn’t a giant hole where July and August reside.

May–It started with Iris and Ended with Roses, and More Guests.

I lost last month somehow.  Friend Jeanne wrote a quick note making sure we were OK.  I looked at Mo and thought, “Are we OK?”

Of course we are, everything is great.  Except for a few irritating little things that just won’t seem to go away, like knees, hips, ankles, blood tests, dentists, doctors, an emergency appendectomy for Mo.  Multiply that by two people and you get the idea.  Somehow it all got away from me and the only way I could figure out where it went was to return to the trusty Google calendar, and Mo’s trusty paper pocket calendar. 

Mother’s Day weekend was upon us right after our guests, Erin and Mui, departed, and Daughter Melody and her Robert and my grandsons showed up on Saturday night to help me celebrate.  They came with grocery bags full of food and took over the kitchen to make a wonderful dinner.  I don’t think I even loaded the dishwasher! 

Melody and Robert took the guest room and we spread sleeping bags on the floor for the grandkids.  It felt like old times when I lived in my tiny house in Idaho and all the kids would come over and sleep on the floor.  Axel brought a cute video game to share, promising me that it wasn’t violent, perfectly G rated. 

My daughter took a video of me trying to figure out where I was on the screen and what in the world I was supposed to be doing.  It was great fun to share the silly game with family.

Left to right: Deborah, Matthew, Xavier, Axel, Melody, Robert, Mo

On Sunday morning we drove down to the river to our favorite Mother’s Day brunch restaurant, the TapRock Grill.  The brunch is lovely and there are no reservations taken, so we were really surprised when we arrived and were immediately shown to a table.  In years past we have waitied more than an hour, something I never minded because it is fun to see all the mothers with flowers and corsages.  Remember when all the mom’s at church got a corsage?

D

 Daughter Deborah and Grandson Matthew

Deborah and Melody brought mommy gifts, in addition to the surprise package received from Daughter Deanna in the mail, and I was treated to some amazing presents, including a spiralizer for my Kitchen Aid Mixer, and another shredding gadget for the mixer, all to help my new low carb eating plan.  Spiralized zucchini “zoodles” are a new favorite! Daughter Melody brought more magical painted rocks to add to the wondrous tiny painting she made of my favorite spot in Capitol Reef.  It was a very sweet day in the sunshine, and we repeated our traditional walk through the lovely grounds to enjoy the river, the sculptures, and the gorgeous murals.

Trying to remember what happened during the rest of the month, I looked at the blog for a bit of help, and opened to a gorgeous photo of Crater Lake, shared with Erin and Mui more than a month ago.  Once that lovely week was behind us, Mo and I settled into the home routines of mowing and more planting, watering, raking, taking more stuff to the Goodwill and the landfill, the everyday stuff of life.

Someone asked somewhere along the way on a Facebook post, “What gives your life meaning on a daily basis?”.  The question haunted me for days.  What!?  I could think of many things that give my life meaning that  happen much less often than daily.  After a few days of thinking about this, as I cleaned and cooked and laundered, and gardened, I suddenly remembered an old Buddhist proverb.  There is more to it than this, but essentially, it is Chop Wood and Carry Water.  I realized that the mundane everyday chores are what give life meaning on that daily level.  Most of the time, I enjoy those simple things, but the question made me think about it differently, helped me to pay a bit more attention to being in the now and actually paying attention to the wood chopping and water carrying of life.

Today’s simple chores include spraying the roses with Liquid Fence, the natural but very smelly reason that I can grow roses at all in a land of neighborhood deer herds.  I also spent some time picking cherries from our two trees, one with sour cherries for jams or pies, and the other with big, fat juicy sweet cherries for eating.  This year we actually got to the cherries before the birds did!.

The afternoon is warming up and I am grateful for a cool home where I can retreat and catch up on processing photos, and yes, writing this blog.

The second highlight of our “friends” month was a visit from Maryruth and Gerald.  They last visited us when the house was a mere shell, camping at Valley of the Rogue State Park in the heat of August.  This visit we had a guest room and bath to offer them, and pleasant evenings on the porch with more yummy food.

Decisions about what to do were easy, and the choice to spend the first evening and the next day doing absolutely nothing was a good one.  As a hostess, it felt a bit strange to have nothing on the agenda, but the day flowed easily with a long lazy breakfast, good conversation, drinks on the porch, and playing the card game we learned back in April from Carol and John.  Cooking for them is easy, even though Maryruth is a great cook, they both seemed quite happy with our meals.


It was a lovely week, if a bit cool, and perfect weather to explore the beautiful Applegate Valley.  The northern entrance to the valley is just a few miles south of our home. The Applegate Wine Trail is becoming quite well known in the world of wine, and the wineries are beautiful and welcoming.

Mo and I were delighted to discover that many of the vineyards have incredible gardens and outdoor seating areas that include live music and snacks on summer evenings.  With a short 7 mile drive to Schmidt Vineyards, I am sure that before the summer is over the two of us will amble down there on a Saturday evening for wine and wood fired pizzas.

Maryruth and I were the official “tasters”, and as happened before when she and I visited Napa Valley just a little over a year ago, two tastings were just about all we could handle.  The rest of the time we walked and explored, talked and visited with the very friendly wine stewards who shared their knowledge of the grapes, the wine making process, and the Applegate Valley.

Our favorite wines came from Troon Vineyards, but the second favorite was the Red Lily, with their incredible lovely dry summer rosé.  Wooldridge Vineyards had the most beautiful views, and made goat cheeses as well, and the previously mentioned Schmidt Vineyards had the most lovely gardens.

Reaching the charming little town of Jacksonville in late afternoon was perfect timing for a lovely late lunch/early dinner at Bella Union, a well known and very good restaurant in a building that dates back more than 150 years.  The shops and stores beckoned, but after our day we had no desire to shop, in spite of all the cuteness of the historic gold town.

Weather held for another day and we decided that a trip to the coast was our best choice.  Maryruth and Gerald have shared Brookings with us a few times, both at Mo’s condo she once owned in town on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and camping in a yurt at Harris Beach State Park.  This time we decided to explore Crescent City for something new and different.

Jedediah Smith State Park is on the route, and we stopped at the lovely visitor center for the Redwoods National and State Parks, including this portion of Jedediah Smith.  With lots of helpful information and maps in hand, we decided to take the packed dirt road that led past the beautiful Stout Grove and directly to Crescent City through the park rather than staying on the highway.

It was a lovely drive, and in our car, the potholes were impressive, but not daunting.  We looked for a log in the sun to spread a picnic, but no sun was to be found in that deep shade. Instead we opted for a wide place in the road to open up the hatch of the car for an al fresco lunch in the forest.

We were glad of that decision when we left the forest and drove toward Pebble Beach and saw that the winds  would have made a beachside lunch uncomfortable.  Following along on the “ten best things to do in Crescent City”, we visited the lovely lighthouse, inaccessible due to tides when we were there.  We drove Pebble Beach, and found the biggest surprise at the Del Norte County Historical Museum.

I asked if I could take photos, and the docents said they appreciated me asking, and “no”, please do not.  We wandered the three floors and many rooms of the old building, amazing at the incredible collection of “stuff”, all displayed beautifully.  The star of the show, however, was the First Order Fresnel lens that was once in the famous St George Lighthouse located in the ocean on a lonely rock just north of Crescent City.

With the chilly wind blowing hard, we didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors, stepping out now and then to walk a little bit, to look at the ocean and enjoy the surf. 

Once again we decided on a late afternoon lunch/early supper with a visit to the Chart Room, a favorite fish spot for Mo and I that we were happy to share.  Dinner was yummy!  I had a fish taco salad that was quite different than anything I had before, with excellent grilled fish on a bed of cabbage.  Sounds terribly boring, but the sauces are what made it, and I can’t begin to describe them, but really yummy., some kind of chipotle cream and a cilantro cream drizzled over it all that are making my mouth water as I write this.

The drive home was easy, just 84 miles of beautiful highway 199 along the gorgeous Smith River. We spent a last lovely evening visiting on the porch.  It is fun for Maryruth and I to remember other times in our lives when things weren’t so simple.  Somehow looking back at the hard times with someone who shared them with me makes the present good times even sweeter. 

On a final note, I will leave you with an attempted selfie that I took at Schmidt Vineyards in the gardens.  I have no idea why, but every time I see this picture I burst out laughing.  The epitome of silly.

05-07-2018 Magical May brings Erin and Mui to Oregon

I told our friends that May was the best month to visit Oregon.  Not early summer when the tourists show up in droves. Not late summer when the wildfires in the western forests fill the days with murky smoke.  They listened and began their trek north to Washington State at just the right moment. Lucky us, their route brought them close to us.  We had four Magical May Days with them.

I am enamored with the progression of Spring this year. I have watched the progression for a bit more than a month now, with changes every single day.  Every trip to the grocery store or to town or to the Grange to buy annuals or Bi-Mart to buy mulch is rewarded with another evolution. I don’t think I have actually noticed before that the flowering trees come and go in a beautiful sequence, slow motion waves of color beginning with that first blush of pinky pink on the flowering plums.  The leaves aren’t out yet at that stage, but the pinks are everywhere, and some whites as well, with the early flowering pears sprinkling snowdrifts of white blooms against the skies.

In just days, the plums begin to fade and the cherries begin their ballerina pink show, fluffy big flowers that up close look exactly like tutus. I noticed this year that Grants Pass must be a perfect climate for the cherries, especially the magnificent Kwanzan cherries, with some trees covering half a parking lot with their pinkness and solid trunks the size of oak trees. 

About this time all the yellows begin, with daffodils everywhere, especially along the roadsides where they seem to have naturalized on their own.  I can’t imagine anyone could actually plant that many daffodils.  In our own yard, where I planted a few dozen when we first got the property, they seem like a small dab of yellow compared to those huge drifts I see along the roadway.  I kept wanting to figure out a way to park and take photos of some of those drifts, but with narrow roads and fast traffic I never quite figured it out.

The cherries must have lasted three weeks, with a world dominated by pink and yellow but still very few leaves.  As the cherry flowers began to mature, the rhodies burst into their brilliant reds, pinks and purples, and right about that same time was the magical “leaf day”, the moment when suddenly a backlit tree in the late afternoon sun is glowing with fluorescent green.  It is an amazing moment, with willows showing first and then the birches and aspens, the maples, and finally in a crazy wild burst of incredible magic, the oak leaves unfurl from their pale reddish curls into full green magnificence.  Suddenly the world is somehow completely different.  The oak leaves leave shadow traces against the house and make sunlight flicker through the living room windows. This time of year, the green is still new, still lime colored and shades of chartreuse, unsullied by dust and hot summer winds.

The cherry blossoms are giving way to leaves as they begin to fall, but just as that pink fades, the brighter coral pinks of the dogwoods have burst into bloom and other white dogwoods light the skies with their clouds of happy flowers.  The daffodils have faded but in their place the irises are opening.  We are a mere 300 feet in elevation above the main part of town, but the irises bloomed there a full week before mine opened up.  Now we are in full on iris season as the brilliant flowers of the rhodies begin to fade and fall.  Other shrubs are beginning to bloom and the colors shift from pastel  pinks and yellows to brighter shades of late spring and the lime green leaves turn a darker green with every passing day. The roses and peonies are now covered with fat buds, waiting for their turn.  I have a lovely pink oriental poppy that is opening in the afternoon sun today, one flower at a time, joining in the noisy wild joy of spring.

Erin and Mui arrived Monday, after a long 300 mile day driving north from Reno, landing at Valley of the Rogue State Park late in the afternoon after a bit of a scary moment on the highway.  I’ll let Erin tell you about that one in her own blog. (Erin writes one of my favorite travel blogs of all time, with amazing photography and wondrous detail.  Don’t miss it!).

I put together an early summer supper of Copper River Salmon on the grill with pineapple-mango salsa, an “interesting” side dish of quinoa, lentils, and pine nuts that they were kind enough to enjoy, but Mo said maybe don’t make that one again.  Ha!  Plated Greek salads with reduced balsamic drizzled over the feta dressing were a hit, though, and kept us all entertained while the fish cooked.

Crème Brule for dessert, a choice of vanilla or latte flavors were fun.  The only glitch in the day was the failure of the culinary torch to fill with butane.  I panicked, drove wildly to the kitchen store, bought another torch and another canister of butane, only to get home and have it not work, again.  More panic, the brule’s were sitting on the counter with the raw sugar waiting for the fire!  A quick internet search and a You Tube video informed me that I was holding the canister right side up instead of upside down.  What in the world did we do without online videos?!

Even though we have not actually visited with Erin and Mui in person since our trip through Texas in 2014, it was as though no time had passed at all.  Erin and Mui are so incredibly delightful and easy to be around.  We sat on the porch of Sunset House long into the evening, and confirmed sight seeing plans for the upcoming week before they returned to the Phaeton at Valley of the Rogue.  Sad to say, even though we have a sewer hookup and 30 amp, our drive cannot accommodate a 40 foot rig.

Mo missed out on our first day sight seeing due to a required follow-up visit with her doctor.  She was just a week out from an emergency appendectomy and needed to be sure everything was OK.  We have been to Crater Lake often, so it was an OK day to miss, although we all really missed having her with us.

I picked Erin and Mui up at the park and we headed up the highway, over the hills, crossing the Rogue River several times before we arrived at the mandatory Natural Bridge Viewpoint where the Rogue roars in and out of lava caves and tunnels through a gorgeous wild canyon.  Erin and I share a love of photography, and I enjoyed following her around and watching how she framed shots so carefully. 

Continuing up the mountain toward the lake, we saw the green leaves of springtime give way to the more somber greenish black of conifers at an elevation where spring is still to come.  Mui wasn’t yet 62 when the price of the Senior Lifetime Pass went from $10 to $80, but with that birthday behind him, he was happy to go into the visitor center and purchase his new pass.  Even at $80, that pass is a fabulous deal for visiting national parks for free for the rest of your life, among other benefits, including half price camping at federal facilities.

I was excited to see my home country through new eyes.  Somehow showing people our beautiful part of Oregon who are seeing for the first time, reminds me to really look at my surroundings in a different way.  Approaching the Rim View area is always thrilling, but this time not quite so much because the snow banks were so high that we couldn’t yet see the lake.  We drove toward the beautiful historic lodge, which was closed until May 18, and finally found a snowbank we could climb to at last get that first view of Crater Lake.

So gorgeous, and the blue really IS that blue.  Somehow the surrounding snow on the cliffs and mountains added to the drama, and the ribbons of cloud in the sky make the lake reflections even more interesting.

I had planned a picnic, thinking we might find a table, but all the tables were deeply buried under the snowbanks, so we opened the tailgate and had a picnic right there in the parking lot. As we were finishing up our lunch, I mentioned that during the winter the Park Service has free snow shoe trips around the trails and even provides the snow shoes.  Within minutes after I spoke, a big long line of kids appeared over the ridge, clomping on the snow shoes as they reached the parking lot.  I had no idea they did the tours this late in the year, but we decided it must have been a special school tour of some sort.

The road around the lake was still closed with deep snows, and we were only able to drive up the west side road for an additional mile to Discovery Point for a few more amazing photos.  With a twinge of sadness, we left the lake behind and traveled east and down the hill into the beautiful Wood River Valley, not far from our old Rocky Point home.  We took a side trip to the Headwaters of the Wood River, but by the time we got there the skies were gray and threatening, and the mosquitos were out, so we were quite happy that we had already had our picnic. Still, I think Erin got some photos of the gorgeous blues of the spring where the Wood River emerges almost fully formed.  I didn’t even take out my camera this time!

As I said, I didn’t take out my camera.  This photo of the Headwaters is from last summer

Continuing back toward Rocky Point I showed them our previous home in the woods.  It looks very different now, since the new owners have yet to live there full time and the gardens and lawns are unkept.  I felt no sadness as we drove past the house, our new life and our new home is wonderful and while we have great memories, I am so happy to live in the sunlight and openness of Sunset House.

For our next day, we had originally planned to do a shorter trip through the Applegate Valley, viewing some of the wineries, maybe picnicking somewhere along the way, visiting Jacksonville and then home.  A nice short day for people who have been on the road a LOT lately.  That all changed as we checked out the weather and Mo and I started talking about maybe going to the coast instead.  I wrote a note to Erin suggesting a change of plans and they were right on board. 

Neither of them have seen the Oregon Coast, or the Redwoods, and with Brookings just a short 2 hours away, they were up for another long day of sight seeing with a great destination.  Once again, I loved driving 199 with guests so I could appreciate the drama of the Smith River below the winding road, and savor the ferns and waterfalls along the way. 

Mattie even got to go with us on this day, with Erin and Mui being great sports about sharing the back seat with her.  Mattie loves company, and made another set of good friends who enjoyed her almost as much as she enjoyed them.

We got to the coast in early afternoon, just in time to find a perfect picnic table at Macklyn Cove Beach where we once again brought out the goodies for lunch.  Mo and I love this little beach because Mattie can run free here in the off leash area, unlike Harris Beach State Park where leashes are required. 

After lunch we decided to hike the Chetco Point Trail, a perfect little jaunt to a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean, the town, and the beach below. 

A short drive north after our hike led us to Harris Beach, but along the way we found a small 55 plus community that had the biggest rhododendrons I have ever seen in my life.  It was like something out of a dream, with these huge pink trees completely covered in blossoms dwarfing the small modest homes beneath them.  Amazing.

Another walk down the South Beach Trail took us to the water once again.  Mattie had a great time running and playing ( beyond the state park boundary) and Mui did his favorite thing of walking right along the water.  It was a bit early for sea stars but the weather was incredible, with warm temperatures, full sunshine, and no wind.  What an amazing lucky treat for a quickie day on the Oregon Coast.

The trip home along Highway 199 gave us a chance to stop in for a drive through Jedediah Smith State Park to let Erin and Mui experience the huge redwoods for the first time.  We had great fun trying to get the phones and cameras to do the proper vertical panoramas to capture the incredible height of these ancient trees. 

By the time we arrived back in Grants Pass it was almost 7, and everyone was tired and ready to retire to their own space.  Mo and I talked about how we live here most of all because it is so accessible to everything we love.  We can do the beach in a day, do the high Cascades in a day, can kayak our favorite creeks in a day, and can even get to the high desert in just a day if we choose. 

Erin and Mui are thinking about the long term future, where they might want to settle down someday.  Mui asked me specifically what I DIDN”T like about living in Oregon.  I spent three days trying to come up with something and all I could think of was that what I like least are the late summer fires and smoke season.  Maybe a bit more fog in the winter than I might like, or a bit more heat in the summer, but nothing at all that would convince me to live anywhere else.  Ever.

The next day was to be a quiet one, with Mui preparing for our luncheon feast.  Mui brought Erin to the store where I picked her up so she and I could play around in Grants Pass with our cameras and I could show her a bit more of our charming small town.  We wandered about taking photos of the murals and the town bears that are brought out every summer to grace the street corners.

Wonderful to have a great photographer around to take really good pictures.  Thank you, Erin

Back home, we picked up Mo and Mattie at the house and drove again to the State Park where Mui greeted us in his fabulous Harrod’s apron.  I learned that Harrod’s is NOT Harrah’s.  The first being a very classy high end place in London and the second a big casino in Reno and Vegas. 

Ha!  Mui definitely earned his apron stripes with the lunch he has prepared for us, including homemade hummus with olive oil and paprika, Turkish ‘cacik’ cold yogurt soup, grilled beef and lamb kofte (Turkish meat patties) that were moist and tender, a delicious ancient grain dish that was exponentially better than my attempt, and home made brownies and ice cream for dessert.  I love Mui’s cooking, and he loves doing it as well. 

We visited the rest of the afternoon. laughing and sharing stories, talking about future plans and upcoming adventures.  We talked about ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances’, and agreed that we are truly friends.  It was a bit sad when we left, wondering when we might cross paths again.  I am sure we will, and in the mean time, we will share blogs, and photos, and emails, and facebook posts, and private messages about whatever.  It’s what friends do.  And when we get together again it will be as though no time has passed.

02-07 to 02-11-2018 Tucson

Tucson.  Even the name has a bit of a romantic ring to it. I will always associate it in my mind with one of my favorite books by Barbara Kingsolver, “Animal Dreams”.  I imagine the heat before the monsoons come because of the way she described it, not because I have actually lived it.  I imagine coyotes in the washes and the wet dust smell when the rains hit the dirt and flood the washes.  Barbara Kingsolver left Tucson behind for a more sustainable life in Appalachia, her original homeland, but I will always think of her as a product of the Southwest, just because that book and “Pigs in Heaven” were the first books I read that she wrote.

Tucson from the viewpoint on the Catalina Highway to Mt Lemmon

Our friends love living in Tucson, or maybe love-hate I should say.  They say the summer heat is almost unbearable, and for a moment they thought about relocating to the Hill Country of Texas, but it was hot there as well, and humid, and a LOT more expensive.  Still, the early mornings even in summer are beautiful and the evenings give them the opportunity to enjoy their shaded porches.They love the monsoons, and would always drive back to Tucson from Rocky Point in time for the big rains with amazing skies.  Their beautiful desert style home in the suburb of Sauharita looks toward Madera Canyon and there is a wash in their back yard that is home to many critters, although Wes said that there are fewer humans creeping through the wash than they saw a few years ago.

Their gardens are walled and manicured, planted for 15 years now with desert plants, cactus, and mulched with rock and gravel.  Wes is meticulous and his gardens are beautiful.  On our first day visiting with the two of them, we sat outside in the sunshine at the umbrella shaded patio table and had another one of Gayle’s glorious meals.  Gayle can take anything, even simple store bought pulled pork, and make it seem as though you are dining in a fine restaurant.  Lovely dishes, beautiful presentation, little condiments to accompany the meal.  I try to emulate Gayle quite often when I make dinner for someone.

Mo’s long time friend Joan, who once lived in the Bay Area of San Francisco when Mo lived in Monterra, has relocated to Tucson in her retirement as well.  She and her husband settled in to Green Valley, in an area insulated from so much, including any residents under 55.  It is a beautifully manicured community, and now that Joan is without Joe, she says it is a perfect place for her to be in her 80’s.  She loves the heat, loves her desert garden, her life and her community.

We travel to Tucson to be with these friends, not so much to visit Tucson.  There are some amazing things to see and do near and around the city, though, and each time we go it seems we find something new to enjoy.

After lunch at Wes and Gayle’s, the four of us thought, “Why don’t we go to Tubac?”.  We had been there in the past with Joan, but there was an art show going on, and I had a bit of an ulterior motive.  Mo and I were still cruising for some outdoor art pieces for the house back home, and Tubac is a plethora of all kinds of art, indoor and especially outdoor art with that colorful southwest bent. 

It was a warm afternoon, and even though the crowds were big, Wes found a place to park and we slipped into the paths and walkways meandering around the galleries and restaurants of Tubac. The area has been populated by humans for millenia, first by the mammoth hunters, then the Hohokam, followed by Pima and native O’odham, who greeted the Spanish when they arrived in the early 1700’s.  The Jesuits built missions there, and there is an historic presidio in addition to the Tumacacari Mission ruins which we visited later in the afternoon.

The galleries were wonderful, and with the addition of all the art booths for the juried show, we had lots of eye candy to peruse.  I looked long and hard at several pieces for the house, but it was Mo who spotted the very best one on an upper exterior wall of Michele’s Gallery.  We bought the sun sculpture, and Wes dutifully carried it back to the car for us.  We also found a colorful metal sculpture of sunflowers, toned down a bit from the bright southwest colors, but still pretty for our home back in Grants Pass.  Wes also carried that one back to the car for us as well.

We took Mattie on a leash with her halter, and it was a bit challenging to say the least.  So many little dogs!  And of course she wanted to play with them all.  Some of them she thought deserved a bark and she was really a pain in the neck.  Mo spent a lot of time holding her in and scolding her.  I think our big mistake was letting her play unfettered with the big old red bloodhound that lived near the apartments in Klamath Falls.  He was her best buddy and would let her jump and climb on him, and drag him around by the lip.  She didn’t have to learn manners playing with Red.  Now she needs some manners and it takes constant attention.

Wes drove south just a mile or so to the Tumacacari National Park, where the ruins of the Tumacacari Mission are protected.  We entered with our geezer’s passes, and Wes offered to stay outside the walls with Mattie so that Mo and I could both go in the park, where dogs are NOT allowed.

The history was fascinating, the stories were interesting, and the museum was very well done.  I loved the light and color of the old mission ruins, especially the grain storage jars lined up in the rounded impressions in the old adobe.  Recreating what the past must have looked like is an interesting pursuit, and I appreciate that curators do that for us.

That evening we returned to Wes and Gayle’s home for another meal, this time a fabulous dinner that was again one of Gayle’s masterpieces of flavor, color, and presentation, in beautiful dinnerware, with good wine, and yummy dessert, in their lovely dining room.  Did I mention that it is always a treat to enjoy Gayle’s meals? We didn’t get back to our site at the base until very very late that evening.

The next morning, we had arranged for them to meet us outside the gates of the base to drive up the Mt Lemmon Road.  There were choices, including hiking Sabina Canyon, something that is on our list and will remain on our list.  Madera Canyon is another place to hike, but we only had time for so much, and with the beautiful, clear weather, Mt Lemmon was our first choice.

The road to the summit and the ski resort there is called the Catalina Highway.  As we wound up that curving, and sometimes steep road, we were amazed at what it must have taken to build it.  It was built around the same era ad the CCC roads we have so admired, but didn’t have quite the same characteristics of those roads, so we knew it had to be some other builder.  I found this information on the internet:

“Construction on the Catalina Highway began in 1933, owing in large part to the efforts of Frank Harris Hitchcock, former Postmaster General of the United States. As a part of the effort, a federal prison camp was established at the foot of the mountains specifically to supply labor for the construction of the highway. During World War II, the camp was converted into an internment camp named the Catalina Honor Camp, and the internees were forced to work on construction of the roadway. One of the Japanese American prisoners at the camp, Gordon Hirabayashi, was later honored in 1999 when the site of the Honor Camp was converted into the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Area.

The highway would not be completed until 1950, 17 years after it began. Upon its completion, the highway was named after Hitchcock, who had died in 1935.

The original paved road was narrow, in places had little or no shoulder, featured vertical drop-offs near the road, and was bumpy along most of its length due to years of patchwork repairs. It was long regarded as “one of the most dangerous roads in Pima County.” In 1988, the Federal Lands Highway program began a series of seven projects aimed at significantly improving the roadway, with the assistance of the US Forest Service and Pima County. The projects were aimed at improving the quality of the roadway and increasing safety for travelers, while minimizing the impact on the visual aspects and natural beauty of the surrounding mountains. The final project was completed in 2007, at a cost of $15 million, and the road is now much wider and features adequate shoulders, passing areas, and extensive guard rails.”

The road is still winding and narrow, but there are several campgrounds and trailheads along the route that we explored a bit.  Most of the trailheads are much like other hiking trails in the Catalina Mountains, very steep and very rocky, at least the parts that we could see without actually hiking them.

My favorite part was the magnificent view from the overlook area with stone walls, and pathways, old rock restrooms that were a bit like the CCC buildings, and open well worn trails that led to the best viewpoints.  It was thrilling to look out over the canyons and mountains from the weathered granite boulders that formed this famous “sky island” in the desert.  The Chisos Mountains in Big Bend are another example of this typical southwest landscape of mountains rising above the desert surrounding them and supporting a completely different array of plants and animals than are found at lower elevations.

After our day of touring, we settled on dinner for the four of us at the Texas Roadhouse on Broadway, not far from the base.  The food was good, but oh my, the noise!  It made it very hard to relax and enjoy our meal, much less have any kind of conversation.  I don’t for the life of me understand this trend for big noisy restaurants.  Gayle and I decided it makes you eat faster and talk less because you get all wound up inside and a bit frantic. 

We spent Saturday visiting with Joan before returning to the base to dump tanks, take on water, checking everything in the MoHo, and taking long showers. We wanted to be sure we were ready for our Sunday morning exit north from Tucson.