Smokey Skies

Well, you all have heard about the smokey skies we are having up here in the foothills. Yes, they are smokey. Took a couple of pictures from our back deck so you could see. It is like fog out there. Heading out to Napa for a girl weekend away and sure hoping there is no smoke down there.

The Road Home

Well, we started heading home on Monday. We made it 1/2 way and stayed at a great RV resort at the 7 Feathers Indian Casino.

Things we learned on the road, if you are in Oregon, get a Freddy Meyer card. It gives you 3 cents off the Gas and more if you use this card to get credit for your grocery purchases. Or use Costco and/or the Indian Reservations for cheaper priced gas.

It was great seeing everyone and seeing the sights.

We were going to stop in Lake Shasta on Tuesday, but because of the fires and the smoke we headed home.

It is hot and very smokey. Lucky for us the fires aren't putting us in any danger, but the smoke outside is very bad. It is like fog uphere big time. Just keeping my fingers crossed they get these fires under control so no one else loses their home and/or life.

Hope you enjoyed our travel log. Our next trip won't be until the fall. Howver, I am meeting a girlfriend who is coming out from Ohio in a couple of weeks up in Napa. Her and I are going to do the mud baths, springs and stuff. I'll take some pictures, but not sure you will see one of us in the mud bath.

Take care,

Liz and Ron

Pictures from our Trip

Pictures from our trip, okay it takes me a little while to figure this stuff out.

First, here are pictures from our Kayaking demo:

Kayaking on the Lake

Meeting with The Cheeses

Well, after doing the guy thing (which I really did enjoy), the 3 of us headed over to Tilamook Country on Sunday. Oh my god, it was like 7 Greyhound buses let off everyone when we got to the Tilamook cheese company. First, you stand in line to get into the place, then you stand in line to go thru the self guided tour, then you stand in line if you want to buy their ice cream (which we decided, we would buy it at the store if we wanted it), then you had to stand in line to sample 4 cheeses that you can buy at Costco.

So, we did the Liz version and I told the boys to follow me. We zipped thru over to the self guided tour and read a couple of bio's on who was responsible for getting Tilamook on the map and the dairy farmers (that was kind of interesting), saw the different quick video's of the cheese/butter process, then I zipped into the gift shop and bought my shot glass (I collect shot glasses instead of spoons when we visit places),Oh, we did get to watch a box of cheese on their conveyor belt as the production line was on vacation, yippeee!!!! we got the heck out of there and headed over to The Blue Heron. What a difference, no parking lot full of cars, vans and/or RV's. The place is a lot difference. They have more of a cheese shop but we got to sample cheeses you normally don't see in the grocery store and/or Costco. They also have all kinds of jellys, jams, etc. So we settled on some crackers, smoked brie and summer sausage. Then we walked over to their wine tasting area (I can't pass that up you all know). As Oregon is known for their Pinot's wanted to sample a couple of those. We bought a really nice Riesling (yes, I bought a Pinot but saving that for later), Jim bought us all special wine glasses and we went outside and had a great little lunch.

I have come to realize that every day around noonish, the wind comes up on the Coast and inland parts of Oregon. As Tilamook, is fairly close to the coast, you got it, the wind was up. Hey, it beats the fog and dampness.

We had a good time and then we headed down the coast a bit and on back to Portland.

We settled on Japanese food for dinner at a little place near Jim's house. It was wonderful, Jim and I feasted on Sushi and Sashimi. Ron had Pork Tonkatsu as he is not a real Sushi person. Tried Roe for the first time and it wasn't bad.

We had a great visit with Jim and have enjoyed our trip here in Oregon. After being gone for 3 1/2 weeks, we are getting ready to get home.

Jim got me a book on clamming in Oregon. We are talking about coming back up in the fall and having Jim trying to meet us on the coast so we can do some crabbing and clamming.

4th of July in Portland

Well, we defintley veg'd out on the 4th of July. Took it pretty lazy and then in the afternoon we drove to downtown Portland to a boat party with Jim and his friends. There is a Blues Festival that goes the entire 4th of July weekend. So we rode on one of the many small dingies that was ferrying people over to friends boats and listened to the various bands and singers. It was great, we got to hear Charlie Musslewhite, Canned Heat and some other groups. It was fun being on the boat, drinking some wine, eating and visiting with people. The Portland Marina area filled up pretty fast with boats coming in to not only hear the Blue's festival but to also see the fire works.

Jim's friend Dad was out from New York and we found out that he retired from Rochester Telephone Co., just can't get away from those phone people.

Tomorrow we are headed out to Tillamook to visit some of the Cheese factories. We are getting ready to head back home on Monday. Looking forward to seeing how my garden is doing, sleeping in my own bed and just being home.

Maritime Museum in Astoria

By now, we must sound like the Oregon Travel Center. Last Thursday, we traveled over to Astoria, OR so the boys could visit the Maritime Museum. It was pretty interesting and they had some neat items to look at. They cover the fishing, canning, coast guard and naval activities around Astoria and the Oregon coast from the early 1800's to current time.

They have a floating lighthouse the Coast guard had in service until 1977. This boat would be out at sea to help/warm ships/boats about weather and/or assist them. They were out at sea even during the worst storms, lots of guts!!!!!

Sharing a couple of pictures and we lucked out as it was a beautiful day. For my knitting buddies, check out the swifter, it is made out of whale bones. Afterwards, we drove down to one of the coastal towns and had a great dinner at Norma's in Seaside, Oregon.

Portland and Evergreen Air/Space Museum

Well we certainly played the tourista in downtown Portland with Jim this past weekend. We went over to Powell's Book store and spent about 3 hours checking out this place. If you ever are in Portland and want to visit a great bookstore check this place out. They have about 3 levels and the sections are color coded, but that didn't always help me as I got turned around a couple of times. We all spent our wad in this place and got some new, used and hard to find books.

We then walked about the Marina and a great farmer's market.

Did not realize how humid it gets out here in Portland and by the end of the day, I was a pretty wilted person.

The next day we headed down to McMinville and visited the Air/Space Museum. The Spruce Goose is now housed there, which is what most of these pictures show. It is a HUGE plane. What a wonderful museum. Spent the whole day there and had a really great time.

The other great thing at the Museum was the wine tasting they had there. Needless, to say when I got finished with the Air museum and was waiting for the boys to get done, I checked out the wine tasting. There were about 4 other females there tasting wine as well and guess where their hubbies were? Yep, still going through the museum. They defintely are playing off the "Spruce Goose" for the naming of some of their wines, but they had a Pino Noir that was pretty good. Yes, I bought a bottle!!!

The space portion of the museum is still farily new, but they are doing a really nice job setting up some neat displays. We also caught the 3D movie "Space Station".

I am including a couple of pictures from the air-space museum. Seem to have gone brain dead again on how to upload the link for the pictures, so I can only do 4 at a time until I figure it out again.

From Florence to Portland

Well after having a great time out on the Oregon coast, we headed out to Portland and have been here since last Friday.

So, if any of you are ever in the Florence, OR area here are some great places to eat:

Rosa's (on the coast highway in town). Some of the best Mexican food that we have had in a long time.

The Beachcomber Bar, don't let the Harley's out front scare you away. This place has great food and serves nice COLD Beer whether it is on tap or in the bottle. Plus, the Harley's out front are just your weekend warrior's.

We left Florence last Friday and are now in Portland. I have been trying to update the blog and I am just about there.

A very clean RV place is called Pacific Pines. Very reasonable rates and very clean facilities.

Kayaking and Friends

After getting together with Dave and the Matlocks, we had a down day where we did absolutely nothing except read and watch TV. What a way to relax. But then Ron was getting a little restless so we found a kayak shop and did some information gathering on Kayak's (our 2nd trip on info gathering)!!. We met with a really neat guy and he introduced us to the Hobie line. As this was not a line that Ron and I had even considered we were a little skeptical at first. With the old engineer trying to figure out how it worked, it was a concept Ron wanted to understand better. Hobie has this drive that goes into a well like and you put this drive down in there. It has these 2 fins and they go underneath the kayak in the water. It kind of works on a penquin type of concept if you can imagine this. Hobie has rudders with all of their boats regardless of the lenght whereas their competitors usually don't start recommending a rudder until you reach the 14' lenght. As most of the kayaks we have been looking at are made of a hard shell material we have being careful as to lenght and weight. Hobie has a new line of inflatable which are a lot lighter than the hard shell version. After we spent a couple of hours with the sales guy, we signed up for their demo day during the week.

Our other friends, the Frankhouser's were out at an RV Ralley so they did not get home until Sunday, so on Monday we went over and visited with them. We were telling Mike and Bobbie about our kayak search and Bobbie was really interested in joining us for the demo day. So on Wednesday morning Bobbie, Ron and I went out to a lake in Florence. Thank goodness it was warmer (68 degrees) and sunny and no wind. We had an absolute blast. After about 20 minutes, I looked over at Ron and told him forget this paddling stuff, we are going to become peddlars. Yeah, the die heart kayakers will make fun of us, but that is okay with me. I am including a link so you can check out some of the pictures from our demo day. Bobbie brought along Bella, their very friendly lab and she had a great time out in the lake and on the kayaks with us as well. Mike who was in no way interested came out later in the morning. We talked him in to trying it out and he likes it as well. As I was not a big fan of the inflatable kayak, Hobie makes a great one and they have 2 new converts.

Okay, you are all wondering if we bought them, well no and yes. We were going to get the tandem as we figured that would be a good one to get for us when we were traveling. The shop we were negotiating with had a new one coming in. Well, when we went to go put it inside the back of the jeep, it was a struggle. We then took 2 singles and they fit perfectly in the back of the jeep. Since we were in Oregon, we wanted to take advantage of the no sales tax in Oregon. However, we could not come to agreement with the shop out here. After we talked about it, we decided to buy 2 singles from one of the local shops out in Grass Valley. This way if there was any issue with the kayaks we would have a local shop to deal with vs an out of state
shop.

So enjoy the pictures below. We had a really great time and I'll get those legs into shape!!!! hahaha

 
 
 
 

The Oregon Coast and Aquarium

After visiting with friends over the weekend, we decided to have a day or doing nothing. Except that old "laundry need". While we have a washer/dryer in the RV, it is defintely a lot faster doing the laundry where there are multiple machines available, just bring lots of quarters....

Ron and I went on a drive up the coast of Oregon had a nice little drive. We also visiting the Oregon museum. It is a nice one, not as big as the Monterey Aquarium but covers different items.

One thing about the weather on the coast of Oregon, you can count on the wind and fog. Lucky for us when we did some of our driving and out door events, the weather was clear and comfortable.

Hope you enjoy.

 
 
 

Getting Together w/Old Friends

Before we left Winchester Bay, on the last night before we all left one of the ladies made Soupa's, a great Portuguese speciality. The other campers that were part of the group (about 20 other couples and/or families) brought a pot luck dish. It was a great feast and her Soupas were great. Micah and Jason's great grandparents were very active in the Portuguese community and their Dad and I were always going to all of the festivals and special dinners.

After leaving Winchester Bay, we headed up towards Florence, OR to visit friends and check out new places. Well, what a big drive trip that was from Winchester Bay, a whole 18 miles!!!!

We found a really nice and QUIET campground in Florence and set off to meet with an old workmate of mine, Dave Rathbun. Dave lives about 7 miles North of town. Ron and I went and visited with him and then we all went out for Mexican food in town. Was ready for something different after having mainly fish the week prior. Had a great visit with Dave and was so glad we got to see him.

Then on Sunday we got together with Jim and Barbara Matlock. Jim was a support manager of mine from AT&T and he was the one responsible for promoting me first into the management ranks, yes he was the culprit!!! We originally had planned on parking our RV over at their place, but Jim recently had back surgery, so we decided to stay at the campground over in Florence, have lunch and a visit with him and Barbara. They both look great and are keeping pretty active in the Waldport area. They both volunteer (Barb more than Jim) at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. They gave us free passes for us to use. Jim does quite a bit of crabbing and all with his fishing buddy Dave. We are talking about coming back up in the fall and go do some crabbing with them and maybe have our son Jim come over from Portland. We had a great lunch and visit with them as well.

We are so glad that we got a chance to visit with Dave and the Matlocks. We all laughed about our times of working together and the trouble we all used to get into.

Including a couple of pictures of the old gang.