Newport, Oregon

 
 
 
 

Trying to get our travels updated. After Jim left us in Florence, we headed up the coast and made it above Newport, OR. Enoyed this city and did a little site seeing around the area. We made it up to the lighthouses. The day we went up as I got ready to take my pictures, realized my camera was kaput!!! No charged battery. So the next day, Ron and I headed out to get some pictures.

Hope you enjoy.

Crabbing in Florence, OR

 
 
 
 

Well, Jim drove down from Portland and met us in Florence, OR. We really lucked out with the weather and had a great time crabbing. As, I took one look at the boat, decided to let Dennis be the first tryout. Even though I may be a good swimmer have a really good respect for the Ocean.

Dennis and Jim made it back and their haul was about 3 crabs. On Sunday, I went out with Jim. Don't know if it was because we went out in the morning or just my lucky day, but we got 12 crabs that morning!! And yes, I was giving the boys a hard time. Jim made me work for those crabs. Dennis had the camera that day, so I need to get the picture he took of me as it sure was not hard to miss me that day. Imagine my outift was neon Green...

Jim was realy good letting me get used to the zodiac and how it worked. After about 20 minutes, I was doing good and we were flying around the bay in the Zodiac, picking up our crab pots and resetting them in different places.

Dennis went out in the afternoon and they got about 6, so we ended up with about 22 in all. Cooked them all up that evening and then divided them all up the next day.

As to our clamming attempt, not as good as when we were up there in June. Maybe it had something to do with the tide tables. We were more in a plus mode vs in June when we were had more "minus" footage.

We had a great weekend and really enoyed ourselves.

Listening to the Radio

Well, we met up with Cathy and Dennis in Eureka. As we headed up the road to Winchester Bay, OR we were flipping through the radio stations. You defintely know you are out of the big city areas as it seems you get some darn good music on the radio stations. Now as a child from the 60's living in SF, FM was considered in those day's (I can't believe I am saying this), underground stations. You listened to full albums or the entire track of a song and the music was not you heard on regular radio. Nowaday's all you get on FM stations is what I call "Top 40"!!!

Anyhow, as we were driving up the coast, we were enjoying the music and then we realized the stations we were listening too was being provided from the colleges located up and down the coast. Good mix of music and also some we had not heard before.

One station in Oregon was doing a Elvis Presley and Beatles day. Not really a Elvis or Beatles fan but the music was good. Found myself singing along pretty good with the Beatles song. What was really great was hearing their songs that you don't normally hear on Radio.

On the Road Again

Yes, we are doing another RV trip back up to Oregon. We are meeting Dennis and Cathy in Northern CA and then we are going to head up the coast of Oregon.

As we headed out last week, we went I-5 and then took Hwy 20 to get us over to Eureka. Going Westbound on 20 sure brought back many memories as we got to Clear Lake.

Clear Lake was always the place we went to in the summertime. The area has not changed that much in oh so many years. As we drove through the upper part of Clear Lake, I began thinking of my Mom. She was a character. I can still see her pulling the car over and going over into the orchards and pulling fruit off of some farmer's tree. We were so lucky some farmer did not come after us with a shotgun. Lots of good memories of summers spent up at Clear Lake.

Now, we actually drove a lot longer and further than we planned. We got into Willits late that night and could not find a RV place around 12:30 a.m. So we decided to dry camp in the Safeway parking lot. Yes, we did that. The good news, they open early and I was able to get a latte to start the day off. Willits is a small town and defintely has not changed either in 25+ years.

We made it out of Willits the next day and met the Menta's in Eureka. Great weather going up the coast of California. You know us Californian's keep forgetting how diverse our state is. Sierra's, desert, the valley and the coast!!!

Getting Ready for Travels--Old Habits Die Hard

Well we are once again getting ready to leave, but why is it that I do all this stuff before I leave? These are defintely things I do because it was always what my Mom did. And these are the stuff that I said I would never do when I grew up, but I do. You wonder what these are:

Always put on clean sheets
Clean the house top to bottom
Make sure there is no dirty laundry
All the dishes are cleaned

You want to know why, because my Mom said if something happened to me while I was gone at least people would know that I kept a clean house and the bedsheet were clean, haha!!!!! But I still do this after all of these years.

Maybe one of these days, I just won't do this. You want to know why? Because when we get back from our travels, the house is dusty, we may bring back dirty laundry and who really cares about the dishes, they are in the diswasher!!!

Well see what happens, but until then, I do all of this stuff.

Fall is in the Air & Thoughts of San Francisco

Yes, Fall is in the air around here in Northern CA. We are getting cooler nights and our temp's during the day are not as warm. As we have Oaks and Pines we see the color change on the trees and the falling of pine needles. Oh, those pine needles, you can sweep the back deck of leaves and pine needles then 2 days later it looks like you never did anything.

This last weekend as I was sweeping the deck again, my mind started wandering back as to how this city girl ended up in living in the country. As I thought back to my growing up years in San Francisco, yes, I am one of those individuals who was raised in SF (aka the city). Remembering living in the Noe Valley area of the City, my idea of what was green and trees was either Dolores Street (with it's strip of grass and Palm Trees) that ran from Mission Street North/South to Market street or Golden Gate Park which is a wonderful area. We had no grass in our front yards or flowers because everyone had cement. Cement walk-ways and sidewalks was the norm. If people had flowers and/or trees, they were more likely in their back yards if you were lucky enough to have the area to do this.

Living in the city during the fall months meant we had warmer weather and the fog would only hang around in the mornings. Now, you must understand, our idea of warmer weather meant it was above 60 degrees. A hot day to us living in the city was 75 degrees!!!!

I had very little exposure to trees changing color, as Palm Trees and the other Trees around the City were always green. You must remember this was before we had all these magazines and tv shows that talked about the different colors of fall. And driving out of the city was mostly done during the summer months up to Clear Lake and the Russian River area. Additionally, driving out of the City meant we were going to the country and just going over the Bay Bridge to the East Bay was an adventure as we were the big city kids (haha). Funny how you think that way when you are a kid and/or teenager.

Now, don't think us city kids had it boring, because we didn't. One of my knitting buddies (who also grew up in the City) her and I were laughing the other day about the fun things we used to do growing up there. Her and I both remember sliding down and around people's inside stairway bansisters. The more stairs and levels meant more turns in the banisters and a longer ride. We both agreed, the best banisters to slide on were the ones with all of the turns. You had to be careful if you got to much speed going as you had to remember and pay attention as to when your ride was getting to the end.

Yes, I love living up in the country where you have space, you can grow a garden and have privacy, but sweeping off the back deck and very long driveway every 2 days is not fun during the fall months. Now, before you go feeling sorry for me and picturing me out there with a broom, hubby did buy me a power blower which makes it a lot easier job getting rid of the leaves and pine needles.

So, I'll continue to enjoy living out in the country, dealing with the fall issues and enjoy my fond memories of growing up in the City.

2nd Batch of Halloween Decorations

Here are a couple of more. You can click on the photos to see more of the detail. It takes me about 2 1/2 days to do all of this setting up and about a day to take all down. And yes, I have the Turkey stuff out for Thanksgiving, Santa's for Christmas and I also do Valentine's Day.

Halloween Decorations

Well it is that time of the year when I start decorating the inside of the house, yes, Halloween kicks it off big time. So enjoy the pictures. We have been able to consolidate the villages down to 2 big locations instead of 4 around the house.

The big bummer is that we don't get the trick or treaters out here in the country, rather the kids from our area go into town. I don't blame them, most us have 2 to 5 acres so that makes for less places to get their treats.

Well I spent a good hour and half trying to find out to post my web album on to my blog as I get a little brain dead in between from the last time I did an upload of my photo albums. Looks like Picasa has changed this and you can only post your album as a slide show, I have done this before but the slide is so small you cannot see the detail in the pictures as these. So bare with me as I post multiple post to share the pictures. I'll have to possibly find another photo software so I can share the pictures as an album vs a slide show.

Enjoy......

Enjoying the Day

Well, Ron and I have defintely been enjoying kayaking around the area. The last couple of weekends we have been meeting up with Bev and Jim up at Sugar Pine Res. They are paddlers and we are peddlars. The difference you ask? Well as a paddler, they use an oar and we peddle through the water. Hobie kayaks have this mirage drive and there are peddles that you operate. It is defintely a matter of preference and I am sure the die hard kayakers (paddlers) think we are odd, but hey, to each their own.

Each method gets a different kind of workout. The paddlers get the exercise in the upper body and the peddlars get the workout in the legs and abdomen.


So enjoy.

The Knaughty Knitters

After many years of wanting to learn how to knit, I finally took a class about 2 years ago. I am hooked, it is so much fun and has been a great way for me to make new friends. One of the classes that I attend (yes I take 2 different classes), there is a small group of us known affectionally as the "Knaughty Knitter's".

In the spring our instructor challenged us to knit these old fashioned type of bra's. The group took it 1 step further and decided that we would do a theme based decorated bra and about 17 of us chose which month we wanted.

Our instructor then mentioned to us about the "Auburn Art Walk" and we all decided to enter our knitted bra's as a group display. We affectionally named our group entry "Supporting the Art's". Each of the monthly bra's have a theme and the knitters involved all put their own artistic touch to the bra's. We even made the front page of the local paper the Auburn Journal, understand it is a local paper (haha). Our display was a big hit and many comments were received, some positive and some not. We took all of this in stride as we were glad for the many smiles we did put on people's faces as that was our main intent.

Well, the group then decided to enter our entry into the California State Fair. Our submission was accepted, except we had to reduce the number from 17 down to 12, as they only wanted 1 bra for each month. Our project garnered an Award of Merit" and we got a check for $60. It has been funny to get phone calls from friends who saw our exhibit.

Now, the bra's are traveling back to the Midwest to a couple of shops for a showing and we are working on a calendar. Any monies we may receive for our calendars are going to be donated to a local charity.

Needless to say, I chose February as my knitted bra as I was born on Valentine's Day. She has been christened "Ms. February". It was so much fun doing this project and all of us involved really got a kick doing this.

Yes, some people may find this project silly and/or may be offended, but there are many more who have enjoyed it as much as we have. As I said in the little bio I had to provide, it has been great to see the smiles, laughs and little chuckles our group project has brought to many.

Additionally, for the knitters it was a great way for many of us to get to know each other a little better. How each of us interpreted each month's theme was really cool to see as well.

So I hope you as well get a little chuckle on the couple of pictures I have chosen to share with you as I can only display 4 pictures. On the day we did the group picture for the Auburn Journal, there were only about 10 of us who were able to make it for the photo shoot.

In case you are wondering what the kids thought of all of this. They thought it was neat, shook their heads and said "That's our Mom"!!!!!