Pre-Wedding: Santa Cruz

We had an easy flight from PDX to SJC in primero classe. Dave met us at the airport in San Jose, and we got checked in to our fantastic AirBnB and then headed to Venus Spirits for a delightful dinner with Tim and Alyssa. It’s amazing to see Tim beaming like that all the time, and Alyssa seemed happy and extremely calm for someone whose wedding was in only a few days. 

Just a word here about our AirBnB – 4 bedrooms, a huge kitchen stocked with every kitchen gadget you can imagine (and some I never have, like the faucet that swivels to fill pots on the stove) and seating for 15, a giant living room with huge TV, throw blankets everywhere (Bubby was pleased) and a gigantic backyard with outdoor kitchen, lots of tables and chairs, and lemon, lime, and satsuma mandarin bushes – all about 5 short blocks from the ocean. We were exhausted and ready for bed when we got home.

 Thursday11/3 Started with Dave kindly being my student for an hour of Pilates, then we got cleaned up (the only downside to our fabulous house is that it only has 2 tiny bathrooms, one of which is in Bubby’s room) and headed to the Marine Center to MEET THE DOLPHINS. Bubby was a little hesitant but with a little encouragement got into the swing of things, and enjoyed meeting the dolphins and the elephant seal almost as much as I had exactly 4 years before. The part where you walk out and suddenly there are two dolphins right there will never cease to make me smile, and I loved that Alyssa had taught Tim to do a trick with the dolphins.

Photograph taken under NMFS permit # 24054

We went to Jack’s for lunch, which is where we ate 4 years ago when I first met the dolphins (and Alyssa), and I had the salmon burger which was yummy. After lunch we went back to the house and had a relaxed afternoon, including a very nice walk on the shore for Dave and I. We went back to the Seymour Center for the rehearsal, which was very sunny and nice. They had a wedding coordinator who was really great and managed all the details – maybe that’s why Alyssa was relaxed? Afterwards we headed to Avant restauranti for the dinner, which turned out very very well – we were in a side room and they’d not put anyone in the other tables, and I had the idea to order apps for the table which worked out great. The food was way better than expected also. By the time we got back to the house it was bedtime, although the bridal party apparently went out clubbing (aller en boite in French, if you wondered).

Friday morning Dave once again was my pilates student, and then we headed downtown for a little sightseeing and lunch. I got a cute T shirt with a bee on it and Bubby fell in love with the bookstore. We stopped in at a shop called Artisans & Agency which had art by Doug Ross which I liked very much. We had lunch at Mozaic, a mediocre-to-poor middle eastern restaurant. 

Ben and Ira arrived after lunch, and we took them to Humble Sea for a beer and to see Tim and Alyssa. We walked around a little bit and found the most amazing charcuterie store, where we bought a bunch of stuff including some Meat Sticks for Ben.  Josh and Jen showed up in the late afternoon, and we had a pizza night – Tim and Alyssa stopped by for a short visit, which was so nice. The house performed beautifully, although Ira’s fold-out couch was not very comfortable.

We’d all been watching the weather and sadly it wasn’t encouraging – Rain was coming in addition to the unusual cold (highs in the low 60s). The hourly forecast was not all bad – the rain wasn’t supposed to start until after the ceremony, and Alyssa said it might not rain at all.

Bonus photo: Bubby's Cozy Spot

Pre-Wedding/Oregon

The Dress: I hadn’t realized that I was going to need something super fancy until I was at Alyssa’s wedding shower (Sept 25) and saw a picture of what Alyssa’s mom Cathy was wearing to the wedding. So when I got back to PDX I started the hunt. Unfortunately most online places want a minimum of 8 weeks, which I didn’t have. After a disastrous trip to Dave’s Bridal in Vancouver (only tan or black dresses; I tried on a black one and looked SPECTACULAR but it had so many stays and corestty-things that I couldn’t sit down or breathe) I ended up at BHLDN by Anthropologie, where the one dress they had fit like a dream and looked amazing. And was on sale for $42. I bought it and ordered the green one, then set up an appointment to have them altered. The green one arrived 2 days before the alteration appointment, and I was able to pick them up on Friday 10/28 and have the green one with me on 10/29 when I went to have my mani-pedi – amazing.

Meanwhile, I had as usual procrastinated doing my teaching hours for my Pilates advanced mat certification, so I was stuffing them in everywhere I could, and I also started working on Wed & Thu at David Hill Winery, so things had been kind of crazy that way. I needed 3 more hours of teaching when the Bubster arrived.

Also, when we were in Newport Oct 10-15 I’d had a possible retinal tear, which we had checked out and it was ok. But on Friday morning the 21^st, when Dave was supposed to be leaving for the workshop, things got very bad. We ended up at Dr Miller’s office, then at Hillsboro Eye Care where my friend Jori works & kept my spirits up and Dr Finley did a quick repair and Dave was on the road by 2.

(Dave’s story: On Wednesday morning Oct 19 we got a call from Royal Oaks that Mama, who had stopped eating a week or so before, had died. It was both sad and a relief, as her last years hadn’t been good. He was scheduled for a week long recorder workshop in Monterey, so everyone decided he should go to that (what a great memorial to Mama) and then drive down to LA for a small funeral. Which he did, so on Monday at 9 while we were heading to Holladay Park he was at Forest Lawn. He spent the time between the workshop and the wedding in LA dealing with things, then drove up to meet us)

Pre-wedding festivities started on Sat 10/29 when I picked the Bubster up at PDX at 10:30. She had a wonderful wheelchair person who wheeled her all the way out to the car, which I didn’t know they did. She’s perfectly able to walk all that way, but the wheelchair makes travel much easier.

Sunday the 30^th we mostly hung out at home except for a trip to the grocery store to buy food. We had excellent hotdogs and beans for lunch because we were too starved to do any cooking. We got out the Comfy, which was too hot even for Bubby.

Monday the 31^st was when the fun really began. Our first appointment was at Holladay Park, the least expensive option, which did not show well. It was cold and rainy, so the beautiful views and sunny apartments that I saw were dark and dreary, and Bubby thought it was brown and depressing, the tan chihuli-inspired light fixture in the entryway notwithstanding. She also did not get a “my people” vibe from the folks we passed.  We got more of a “my people” vibe at the Screen Door Café where we stopped for a surprisingly tasty lunch, even though it’s not really our kind of food.

Our second stop was Mirabella, the most expensive place. We used the valet parking in their underground garage where they had many expensive cars stacked 2 high, which was impressive. The tour went well, Renee the sales lady was her usual warm self, and the perfect apartment had just come available. And, of course, their chihuli-inspired sculpture is not brown. Although it was still cloudy and rainy things felt light and bright. Unfortunately, when we sat down with Renee to talk $$$, she said that Bubby was short by about $200,000… but that she’d “talk to her manager.” What? We got home and were having some difficult conversations when Bubby got an e-mail from Renee saying that they thought she had plenty of money and she should move in. What? Dinner was a Bubby Salad, quite yummy.

Tuesday Nov 1 we had originally planned 2 stops, at Rose Schnitzer Manor and Terwilliger Plaza, but we decided there was no point in RSM since 1) it’s assisted only and more importantly 2) they don’t have a pool. That freed up our morning nicely, and we went to see JoJo at Terwilliger plaza, which I thought was excellent, but Bubby didn’t like the dining room. It’s the middle in terms of affordability but is not in a walkable neighborhood, even though it has the best pool. Also they don’t have a meal plan or a SNF, so not as good as Mirabella. We headed home with lots to think about and enjoyed another Bubby salad and Holy Matrimony, which she had never seen before.

Wed Nov 2 Our original plan was to head to Santa Cruz on a 10:00 am flight, but that seemed like too early. I called Alaska to see about changing our tickets and they wanted a ton of money, but then they told me about the check-in fares – you can change to an earlier or later flight as part of the check in process for only $50/person. So we did, and that made for a much easier day. We left plenty of time to get to the airport which turned out to be a good thing. We stopped at the terminal to get Bubby a wheelchair, then I went to park the car. Once again the blue lot was closed, so I had to park in the red lot which I hate, because there are never any spaces except by shelter A where the bus never seems to come. I drove around for a while and then gave up and parked at A3, and was walking toward the bus stop when a blue lot bus from shelter X went by and stopped to pick me up. I was the only one on the bus and was soon enjoying my “VIP bus” with my driver Adolf… until we got halfway to the terminal and I realized I’d forgotten my phone. Adolf took great care of me – he zoomed up to the terminal, stopped long enough to pick up the one passenger there, then zoomed back through the lot and stopped to wait for me to run to get to my phone. We still had plenty of time to sit and wait in the terminal before our first class flight – somehow I’d found a $139 first class ticket, I don’t know how.

The End

 

Our morning walk was an experimental walk from Driftwood Beach, just a couple miles north of us, to Seal Rock. It wasn’t completely clear from looking at the maps if there would be places where there was no beach to walk on between the two ends, but we decided to try it anyway. Leaving from Driftwood beach we saw what might have been the beginnings of the cool sand waves that we used to play in on Agate Beach. The beach is wide until you get close to Seal Rock, then there are a couple of places where you have to scramble over some rocky outcrops to get through. We made it just to the south edge of Seal Beach, but didn’t climb down from the sunset watching rock onto the beach because we were worried about the tide – there’s one section that would have been little dicey if the tide came in. 

Cliff dwelling

Slickrock, but wet

Once we’d gotten back past the nervous point we were able to relax and take our time and visit the tide pools. There are fewer tide pool creatures here – we didn’t see any starfish or mussels. We also had fun noticing things that look like Sedona, but aren't. We had a smooth walk back to access point 66, and a short stop at the trailer before heading to town for lunch at the big Rogue brewery, which I don’t like as much as the one across the bridge. After lunch we walked out on the jetty where many people were crabbing. While we were out there it was windy and there was starting to be some fog out on the ocean. We walked back to the truck and went across the bridge to get gas, and by the time we came back the bridge was completely fogged in, and it was foggy for most of the drive back to the KOA. It cleared up around Driftwood Beach, and when we got back it was lovely and sunny where we were but foggy out on the ocean. I sat outside to watch the fog and ended up having a lovely nap.

We had another wonderful afternoon of relaxing – knitting, duolingo, and online CPR/First aid training for me; online forklift operator training and image processing tutorials for Dave. We’re thinking we’d rather be in South Beach State Park than here – it’s much closer to Newport and has hiking trails you don’t have to drive to – but we have made great use of the wifi here at the KOA. We had yummy green chili chicken enchiladas from home for our trailer dinner and spent another relaxing evening doing our favorite trailer-y things. That is all.

Zurita! And a bunch of stuff before.

 

Thursday

You may have noticed a pattern of taking a walk in the morning, and today, another beautiful sunny day, was no different. Last time we were here we walked from the Hobbit Trail Trailhead to the Heceta Head lighthouse and back. The way back starts with long, steep climb, and I’d gotten quite out of breath. We were curious to see if all the walking we’ve been doing had any effect, so we went back and yes, it had – what had seemed like a long, difficult hike seemed much easier this time, although we did stop a couple times on the way up. The forest near the lighthouse is very young, and none of the forest is all that old, just a few big trees near the top of the trail. We still wonder why that is. 

It's fall, and in Oregon that means mushrooms. We saw a lot of cool small mushrooms and some that almost looked like leaves, and on the hike back we met a woman who was collecting chanterelles. We looked for them on the rest of the hike but don't have the knack (and don't worry, we wouldn't have picked and eaten them without having them checked by a mushroom expert). When we got back to the trailhead I decided I wanted to walk down to the beach, remembering it as a short, gently sloping walk. It turned out to be about ½ mile and a significant drop. I wanted to see if you can see the lighthouse from there. You can’t. There was very light fog on that part of the walk, though, and it was very cool walking through it and seeing the light reflecting off of it.

We got back from the walk and thought we might eat at Yachats Brewing, but it was just after 11 and they don’t open until noon and we were starving, so we went up to Newport to revisit Wolf Tree, where the food and beer are reliably good. It’s also in a very interesting area, a subdivision called Wilder Corner, with houses and apartments that look like you could be in Beaverton. There’s also a disc golf course and some hiking there on timber land. If you send them a picture of your driver’s license you can get a permit to go hiking there, which we did, but the permit didn’t come until the next day and we were pretty walked out anyway, so we went back to the trailer for another relaxing afternoon.(Look for the permit e-mail in the starred inbox) 

When we got here on Monday the campground was pretty much empty, and we were the only ones on the river end. Today several more folks pulled in, including two huge RVs on either side of us, so we lost most of our view, which is too bad. We still have a nice view from the grassy area behind the trailer.

Hobbit Beach is #93

Next up, we headed into Newport for dinner at Zurita, a new restaurant in the Nye Beach section of Newport, about a block from Nana’s. When we first walked in it was a little off putting – for one thing, it was very cold, and the décor looks a little like a cheap Mexican restaurant except it has maps of Spain. We ended up eating in the big upstairs space which was COLD but with a more funky vibe and also a giant hibiscus plant and little tiny bits of ocean view through the windows. And then the food came. We had 4 small plates, two of which (the tortilla espanola and the roasted asparagus and artichokes) were spectacular (I’m drooling right now remembering them) and two of which were merely delicious. Dave enjoyed trying several of their Spanish wines, and I had a cocktail made of sherry, bitter lemon soda and mint that was just superb. For dessert we shared the goat cheese custard with a cinnamon-apple puree that was outstanding. If you’re ever in Newport be sure to hit Zurita, is all I can say. Then it was back to the trailer for even more relaxing.

Bonus Photo: Leaflike mushroom

From P to shining P

Just before we went to Cape Cod this summer, we got a paid version of the AllTrails app, and it has been a great thing. You can go on the app and look for trails nearby, filtering by how long they are and how far away. I’d done some looking and one of the hikes took off not far south of here and went along the beach. We ended up doing a section of the hike, starting at the Governor Patterson State Park parking lot (#68), walking past the Big Stump, and popping up at the Beachside State Recreation Site (#70) for a stop at their restrooms before heading back up. While we were at Beachside we thought it would be fun to check out their campsite, which is right on the beach. We discovered site 63, which is absolutely fantastic – slightly separated from the others, and angled so that we’d be looking out over the ocean from our recliners. It’s our goal to reserve it next fall. 

Beachside Campsite 63

The whole roundtrip was just over 5 miles, so a good start to the day. There aren’t as many big monoliths on the coast here – seal rock is about the only one – so beach walking isn’t quite as interesting as it is in the Arch Cape/Cannon Beach area that we’re so familiar with, and of course since we aren’t familiar with this area, we can’t do a sand report. It was another gorgeous day out. We stopped at the trailer and got cleaned up, then headed to Newport for our afternoon activities. We had lunch at the Bayfront Rogue Brewing, picked up our boarding pass, and walked around the historic bayfront area for about an hour before lining up to board the Discovery for some ocean and river sightseeing. The historic bayfront seems a little less tacky touristy than I remember it – it’s still touristy, but the shops actually had some things you might like to bring home.

A gorgeous day

Dave got to drive

Last fall when we were in Newport we’d taken the Discovery (that’s the name of the ship) and run into a wall of fog on the ocean. It was a beautiful day today so no chance of that. We ended up being on the ship with a large group of well behaved 6^th graders from Cascades Academy in Bend. We went out into the ocean and had a fun time going up and down the swells. I liked having the kids on board because they were all hooting and hollering as the boat went up and down, which meant I could too, without people staring at me. I was hoping we’d see some gray whales, but I think we used up all our whale watching luck off the Cape this summer. After too short a time we turned around and did some cruising up the estuary, stopping to pick up the crab pots which had caught quite a few crabs, including a huge Dungeness that the tour guide said was the biggest she’d ever seen – maybe 7.5-8” across.

Back on land the ice cream shop next to the tour office was just opening up, so we stopped and got ice cream cones – chocolate peanut butter for me, and mudslide for Dave. He was planning on just having some tastes of mine but he really doesn’t like that flavor so he got his own. It turned out to be a good thing, because walking around town on our way back to the car eating yummy ice cream on a warm sunny day turned out to be one of the highlights of this trip for both of us.

We got back to the trailer a little after 5 and had delicious Pasta a la Norma from home, and watched “October Skies”. A good day.

Waldport/Newport KOA

One of the biggest benefits of not working is that we can go places during the week, when they are less crowded. So on Monday (having made not 1, 2, or 3 but 4 appointments for Bubby to visit retirement communities while she’s here) we hitched up the trailer with minimal difficulty and headed towards the coast. It was a beautiful sunny day without much traffic, and we didn’t let the google lady take us “the back way” the way we did last year. As we approached Lincoln City we could see the fog sliding down the hills, and sure enough Newport was completely socked in, cold and cloudy. When we checked in at the KOA we found out it was that way all last week, but Tuesday was supposed to be nicer. Fingers crossed. We drove through the nearly empty campground to our spot overlooking the Alsea Bay (#27) and got set up, again with a minimum of difficulty. The view from the back of our site is just magnificent. One of our main goals for this trip is to get some relaxing in before things get completely crazy busy, and we worked on that goal for a couple of hours before we headed south to Yachats for dinner at Ona’s, where the food continues to delight. The roast oysters were different from but as good as the much-touted oysters from Winslows, and I love the mushroom pate – Jen might too! We got more relaxing done back in the trailer.

Tuesday we woke to beautiful sunny skies. Our plan for was a morning hike at South Beach, but I was having some weird flashes in the corner of my eye. At 7:12 I  sent an e-mail to Baseline Vision Clinic in Hillsboro, and by 9:00 the amazing Dr Joan Miller had called to talk about it and made an 9:30 appointment for me at Newport Vision Clinic, where they dilated my eyes and made me look at the machine with the asterisk and we were all reassured to find it was normal aging and not any kind of scary detachment. Dave got to get a live view of my eyes through the asterisk machine and said it was cool. It turned out that the eye clinic was right up the street from Newport Brewing, and while we were walking around waiting for my eyes to dilate we found a secret parking lot for it. After the appointment we went to South Beach State Park and walked out to the South Jetty, and then it was time for lunch. We went back to Newport brewing and parked in the secret lot, which is above the restaurant and involves walking down a long flight of stairs. We were feeling quite smug and like locals since we knew about the secret lot until we got to the main entrance and discovered that they have a giant parking lot right out front. Last time we were there Dave had nachos and they were Not Good, but I’d had a yummy elote bowl and good beer, so Dave was willing to try it again. This time his food was very good, and we did the “crab” beer sampler, 6 beer tasters on a plastic fluorescent pink/orange crab shaped tray. I liked all the beers but Dave thought the sour gose was really awful, like sour milk. I quite liked it. Then it was back to the trailer to get more relaxing taken care of. It was such a beautiful day that I was able to sit outside most of the afternoon.

Usually we plan all our dinners in advance, since places fill up. Since it’s the middle of the week and the off season we’ve been winging it, and we were mulling over our dinner choices when Dave remembered Nana’s Irish Pub. We got there around 6 and were seated right away (!!) and enjoyed our delicious Nana food – Sausages in puff pastry for Dave and a steak and guinness pie for me. Way too much food but too yummy to stop eating. They had a reuben on the menu and I almost got it – the person sitting at the next table had one and it looked delicious, but I stuck with the pie. When we got back we had a fire in our firepit and watched the moon rise. A very nice day.

Bend September 2022

 

Moon Viewing

I have to start with a little musing. Dave and I always have a good time when we travel, it’s just how we roll. Sometimes it can be a little challenging, usually due to the weather, but in general we keep on and have fun. This trip was a bit of a struggle for both of us, partly because of the weather and partly because of what the weather represented. There were definitely more moments than usual when we had to do deliberate attitude adjustments, and overall we were very successful, except in one thing: neither of us took very many pictures, because the scenery highlighted the problem – we managed to exactly fit our trip into Bend’s first smoke filled days of summer 2022, and thinking about the fires, and climate change, and climate deniers, and deniers of other things… well, it was a rabbit hole we kept stumbling into. So if you’re wondering why there aren’t many pictures, and why sometimes the tone is a little down, now you know.

Meanwhile…

After a wonderful time at the Moon Viewing on Saturday night, we left on Sunday the 11^th and did not have an uneventful trip. There had been some smoke in the air in FG for a couple of days, and in Bend as well, from the Cedar Creek fire, but it was forecasted to get better in the next 24-48 hours, so we figured we’d head on out. On the way down there were some strange noises and then a THUMP, and when we pulled over to take a look the rear passenger taillight was hanging by its wires. Dave duct taped it back on, and we continued on, but not very long after there were more strange noises and then a thump, and there went the taillight. Fortunately, the truck had two sets of tail/signal lights on each side, so we could still have signal and brake and backup lights, but it was not an auspicious beginning. We continued on our journey and the closer we got to Bend the smokier the skies were, so much that by the time we got to Sisters we’d already put on our masks. We got to Tumalo State Park about 3, and got ourselves settled into site Coyote 56, an excellent site with a rocky hill outside the windows. We relaxed in the trailer for a while then headed out for dinner at Boxwood Kitchen in the Old Mill District – very good food, also they were playing the 3^rd Indiana Jones movie which was fun to watch. Back to the trailer and early to bed – travel is exhausting!

On Monday first thing Dave had to run to the Tumalo general store to get the milk we forgot. The smoke seemed a little better, so we started out on an extended walk around the old mill district – it’s called the Bend 10K loop. We ended up doing out own version of it, about 4 miles. We didn’t quite finish the loop, then discovered that our lunch spot, Sunriver Brewing (Bend location – a favorite) was just past the end of the loop, which would have been a nice thing to do in the middle of our walk. It was fun anyway. During our walk the smoke got worse, so back on with the masks. After lunch we went back to the trailer, and I worked on my knitting – a raglan sleeve sweater in a bulky yarn with size 9 needles – while Dave read and played a little recorder. He wished he’d brought his Windows computer so he could play with his astrophotography. At around 3 we decided to go to the High Desert Museum and spent a nice time looking at their indoor exhibits. Of particular note: burrowing owls yelling, a giant climb on eagle’s nest (sadly, for kids only) and an exhibit tracing the changes in inhabitants of the area from early man to the mid-1900s. We masked up and walked around outside a little. Dinner was a trailer meal – Pasta a la Norma leftovers from home, with bread and a bag’o’salad. Delicious. More reading and knitting and a little duolingo after dinner.

Tuesday dawned cool and… smoky. Bend was really bad, so we drove north a bit to Smith Rock, our favorite escape from smoky Bend. We started out on the 7-mile Burma Road hike, but decided it was too smoky for that much exertion, so we turned around and walked down by the river on the left side across from the big rock, where it was shady and quiet. We were back in Bend in time for lunch at The Cellar, which is supposed to be like an English Pub and succeeds very well. Many delicious low alcohol cask-conditioned beers and the only thing they have on the menu are savory hot water crust pies in about 8 flavors, served with baked beans or mushy peas and a pickled pearl onion. Absolutely delightful and delicious. I had the chicken curry pie and Dave had the sausage and potato pie and I got another chicken curry pie to take home. A new favorite place for me. The smoke was better, so we went back to the campsite to change, then rented kayaks at Tumalo Creek Kayak and enjoyed paddling up the river where we’d walked the day before. It was our first time using sit on (as opposed to sit in) kayaks and we weren’t particularly big fans, but we had fun playing in the tiny rapids and also zooming downstream on the way back. I got a blister on my thumb (nothing on my little finger). Then it was rush-rush-rush back to the campground (fortunately only about 15 minutes away) for showers and back to downtown for dinner at 900 Wall, a restaurant which everyone but me has liked. Turns out I now like it too, even if their wine list no longer has Miller High Life in the sparkling wine section. Dave’s gnudi and my fried green beans and onion soup (separate items) were delicious, and I had a drink with habanero vodka and passion fruit that was both delicious and crazy hot, which was fun. The brownie sundae dessert was also delicious, but too much food.

Not our campsite, but it goves you the idea- this is A91

Wednesday dawned cool and… smoky, although we thought maybe a little less smoky. We drove up the road a bit to Sawyer Park and did a lovely loop up to Archie Briggs Canyon, on a wide smooth path that went gently up and down. We did a little bonus loop, so we got to walk down the canyon too. I loved this hike, because the path runs along the river between lots of gigantic expensive houses, so it’s very quiet and peaceful and also you get to see all of the huge houses. We masked up on the hike and felt better. We stopped at Worth Brewing for lunch where they had rye bread from Sparrow bakery who have an outlet here in Portland, so eventually I will need to go get some. We stopped at Freddy’s on the way home to get a DVD (we forgot to bring any). We ended up getting the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Back at the trailer for a rest, then we headed out on the “River Trail”, a trail that takes off from the group camp area and isn’t on any map but goes all the way out to the northern intersection of Highway 20 and OB Riley Rd – about a mile each way. We also walked a bit around the campground, especially enjoying the tent camping loop (A for Alder). A 91 and 92 would be cool places to park the RV and dry camp. Dinner was trailer dinner again, enchiladas from home. We settled in to watch the DVD only to find that it wasn’t a DVD, it was blue-ray, and our player doesn’t do that. We ended up watching a strange British real estate show. The smoke had cleared out a lot, so Dave made a fire and we sat outside and enjoyed it.

Thursday dawned much less smoky, and we thought we might take another hike, but we both woke up with Go Fever so we packed up and were on the road by 8:30. We’d cleaned the trailer out pretty well as we packed, so when we got home we backed the trailer up into the driveway, unloaded, and took it to the storage place. We had a yummy lunch at Deep Space Brewing and came home and got everything put away and had a few minutes to relax before Jen and Diana got here – they’re up visiting with a friend of Diana’s. We chatted a while before they headed out for dinner at Eem, then Dave did some packing for his trip to Seattle this weekend.

The End. Bring DVDs.