A Full-time Life

THE END OF THE TRIP AND HOME AGAIN

      

Yes, our annual summer migration is over.... in real life we've been home since the very end of June and, with this early August post, the trip will be over even in blog-land.    (It was a long trip, but not quite as long as it's been here on the blog.)

 

 

 

 Since our ultimate destination (our Northwest home) was Eugene Oregon  ....

 

 

.... I'm tempted to say, in the words of local icon and world-famous  author Ken Kesey "What a long, strange trip it's been." 

 

But although our home city might be a little  different -- "left of normal" (and we're all proud of that), our trip itself was actually a great one, with nothing strange about it.   We explored new places and favorite old ones, had not a speck of trouble on the road, and arrived safely.

 The above pictures are from around town, close to our apartment.   The Eugene Parade was held about a week after we got home ...  we were watching on a street corner less than a block away from our upstairs terrace apartment  -- where the street noise doesn't reach,  but the street excitement is  close by. 

  

 

 

Here is the road-map for the last part of our trip -- from Longmont Colorado  (where we stayed with our son and daughter-in-law) to Eugene Oregon.   The map for the first part of the journey (from our winter home in Florida to Colorado) is HERE.    Because we always break up the trip with a lovely stay with our Colorado family, I've called that our half-way point, but  that's not at all accurate.    (We drove 2,159 miles from Fort Myers to Longmont and then 1,222 miles from there to home.  A total of 3,381 road miles -- not counting side-trips  (mostly in Colorado and Utah).   

 

Abandoned -- along a back-road somewhere  --- Wyoming or Utah or Idaho  -- but the poppies don't know or care.

 

We did not necessarily take the shortest possible route on either 'half' of the journey  and we do not drive long days.  We never have enjoyed that kind of travel -- even when we were younger.    We also took a little longer on the second part of the trip because, while we were in Idaho, we read that temperatures of over 100 F were happening in Eugene.  So we decided to play on the road a bit until it cooled down some at home.

 

Onion seed field somewhere in Idaho

 

Temperatures in the triple digits do not make for good moving-back-in-weather.    And we knew that, this being western Oregon, the extreme heat would not last for long.   Happily it did soon cool down a bit and we arrived in good time for the family picnic on the Fourth of July:

   

  

 

Here are two members of the clan who do not mind having their pictures taken one bit.   We were in the "woods" .... the far back part of the boys' grandparents place.   (Their grandparents are our daughter and son-in-law. We are proud to be the 'GGs' ... the great-grandparents.)  

I took the bird pictures below a couple of days before the Holiday, also in our daughter's yard (closer to their house.)    I was meant to be unpacking our travel van, which we leave out there (we have a small generic car for city use) -- but it was more fun to sit and chat with the family while watching the birds.

 

 

I'm not having any luck identifying this amusing 'little brown job'.  We used to call all our brown feeder birds "LBJs" but that was years ago .   Now it bothers me not to be able to name all the birds we see and I'd love any help I can get with a name for this one.

 

 

Seen in many yards in Eugene 

 

It's good to be home on the West Coast.  We like it here!

   

LINKING this week to:  OUR WORLD on Tuesday; ALL SEASONS; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY; SIGNS SIGNS; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B'BIRDING.

Thanks to all of the hosts for providing these sharing opportunities. 

 

A FLAG-FLYING DAY!

 We lived in Washington State until our kids were aged around 12 down to 6.  In those days (before all the birthdays were combined into one President's Day), February 22 was celebrated as Washington's Birthday -- both our first President's and the State's, because it was the date Washington was admitted to the Union. 

 

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FEBRUARY 22 is also our daughter's birthday!

One year on her birthday -- she was about four or five -- I heard her tell her brothers, in all seriousness:  "They fly flags on MY  birthday.  But not on yours."    Well yes.  You can't argue with the truth.   I don't know if they still fly flags on this date in Washington, but we still always think about flags flying on this red-letter day!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Cyndi. (It's the big _0  one).

 

May banners fly high on your birthday and all year long  -- because you deserve it -- and may all your wishes come true. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

  
From everyone at our house to everyone at yours.  Merry Christmas!

We have had this silly bean-bag Santa Claus ever since our first RV Christmas.  In a warm climate (where he could sit out on the porch), he brought just the right whimsical holiday note to our traveling home.  Most of the year, he lives under the bed, where we have quite a bit of storage.  I dug him out one evening a couple of weeks ago and, since he can't go outside here in Oregon, plopped him on the step between our "split-levels."  (The bed/bath is actually two steps above the living/kitchen in our tiny house.) 

When I got up the next morning, I found him on the chair -- apparently he was in "somebody's" way on the step.  So I left him there and started making breakfast.  When Bill sat down, I snapped this picture.  The kind of scary part is that neither of the two of them said a word when the camera flashed. 

Here's where we decided Santa could  sit for a couple of weeks -- until he goes back under the bed.  (He's up on top of the kitchen cabinets and opposite our "front" door.)

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Here are some Christmas pictures of the rest of our condo-on-wheels. 

 

       

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No decorations on the rear window, but you can see that morning's view, which is ever-changing.  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM FERN RIDGE SHORES.   

FAVORITE THINGS

   

Raindrops on roses.....

 
  

  

  

 

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And whiskers on kittens .....

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Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages (taped up, no strings),

These are a few of my favorite things.

Cream colored ponies ...

 

 

 

 

.... and crisp apple streudels

Doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles. 

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.....

 

 

These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in (red dresses with blue apron sashes) ...

 
 

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes (well maybe not)

Silver white winters that melt into springs.

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad.

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Sound of Music.  "My Favorite Things", Rogers and Hammerstein

Rose:  in a yard at Fern Ridge Shores RV Park, November 2009

Kitten:  Jeff and Cyndi's house (Jeff's cat).  Sound of Music is Jeff's  favorite movie. 

Package:  Given by Andy and Denae to everybody at Thanksgiving time  (because they won't be here at Christmas) -- made us all think of this song

Apple streudel:  This past summer, our friends taught us how to make real apple streudel 

Geese:  On Bosque del Apache, New Mexico, Fall 2006

Plaid dress:  Our granddaughter Kelsey (all grown up and married now and living in South Carolina).  We missed her and Bradley at Thanksgiving and I remembered this picture, where she is helping me cook cranberries for Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. 

RUBY TUESDAY MEME CLICK HERE: RUBY TUESDAY

OH YEAH, I CAN DRIVE THAT (Remember Whensday)

  ( I haven't been sharing on ""Remember Whensday" lately because our scanner is not working. These are the last two pictures I managed to get done before the printer connection went gunnybags.  It's attached to the computer that will stay here when we go to Florida, so we're waiting till we get there to worry about it.  I'm taking photo albums with us.)

Those are 3/4 of our kids peeking out the window of our Greenbriar wagon -- sometime around 1968 or so.  This is the car we had when I first learned to drive.  I never saw much reason to learn before that and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into becoming a (semi)independent capable 1960s woman.  This was the year that Bill decided to go back to college and so if I were going to be able to go anywhere or do anything I pretty much had to get that license. 

This is me (not in the driver's seat yet) and our kids -- the oldest one, who wasn't in the top picture for some reason, is there this time too -- and a cousin or two and a passel of neighborhood friends.  We are heading off to the circus.  Remember when the grocery stores used to hand out free tickets?   The Greenbriar looked like a circus wagon itself!  And inside it probably sounded like one  -- full of noisy clowns.

This Wagon had standard transmission (remember those?) and I did learn to drive that without too many problems.  Except I could never put it into reverse gear.  (I borrowed a car from my parents in order to take my driver's test).  Now the funny part of this is that Bill thought, with good reason, that it was just me being a beginner.  Because he didn't have any trouble with it. 

Until one day we needed to borrow my father-in-law's pickup for some reason and so we traded cars for a day. When "Grandpa Al" brought it back he said quietly "Billy, there's something wrong with this (*&%) car.  It won't go into reverse gear."  Um --- let's just say that he didn't get quite the exact reaction from Bill that I did when I made the same complaint ;>))).   I guess the wagon was just a one-man car.  

I can't remember how we resolved this problem.  Bill probably fixed it -- as he has done pretty much every other thing that ever went wrong -- eventually!  The scanner's next on the list.

A PIONEER HERITAGE (Remember Whensday)

Here's a backyard picnic with several generations of Bill's family.  The picture was taken in the late '40s. It is in Clarkston Washington, where both Bill and I grew up.  Third from the right on the right hand side of the table is his great-grandmother who, as a small girl, was on one of the last wagon trains to cross the country on the Oregon Trail.  She said she walked it twice.  (To get rid of her excess energy, her parents would send her to run ahead of the wagon for awhile and then back.)  Great-grandmother Elliot did not pass away until Bill was in his early teens, so he remembers a few good pioneer stories. 

This picture of Bill was taken at around the same time as as the family snapshot above.  Back then, he would far rather play with the dog than have his picture taken with his parents and grandparents.  Weren't we all like that back then?  And now wouldn't it be nice to be able to go back and revisit those days, so we could hear more stories?

(Click on the snapshots to see them better.  This is my first attempt to scan old pictures and it really works well!)

When we were older than most of those old relatives in the first picture, we were lucky to get to visit the museum at the start of the Oregon Trail in St. Joseph Missouri.  And here is Grandmother Elliot's great-grandson standing at the point where she started her journey way back when.  We would ask her more about the journey if we could.

Click on the link below to see other peoples' "Remember Whensdays":

Remember Whensday

 

FAMILY AT THE ZOO (Remember Whensday)

Our 2004 road trip took us through Louisville Kentucky, where my mother was born and raised.  In 1938, she came west for a job, met my dad and never really went home again. It was interesting (and poignant) to look up the old places that Mom always talked about.  Here I'm standing on the property where her childhood home used to be.  (If you click on the picture, you can see a liquor store sign -- I don't think it existed when she lived there!)  In the 1950s, the family property was purchased by the city for use as a school, then became a media center.  Now the population has shifted again and it is once more a high school.

The school was named for my great-grandmother and this is a painting of her.  It is hanging in the auditorium.  The other picture is my great-uncle Lydian, a bachelor who still lived on the property when it first became the school.  He was able to stay in his house on the school property until he passed away. 

 

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Many generations ago, my mother's ancestors owned a farm that was part of the land that now houses the Louisville Zoo.   When the zoo was being built, they discovered some old family burial plots. So the city fenced off the tiny graveyard and a stone was erected. I guess there are about a million descendents of these Louisville pioneers by now.  I hope they all know that they have family at the Zoo.  

 

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MEMORIES IN A TUMBLE-DOWN TOWN

We've been married just about forever and sometime back at the dawning of civilization*, we lived for a couple of years in New Pine Creek.  We went to see it last week when we were in Southeast Oregon.  It's a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place that straddles the Oregon-California border on Highway 395. 

  This little farm community is twenty miles south of Lakeview Oregon and 50 miles north of Alturas California, with nothing much else in between.  It's the outback of the outback.  Back then (*it really was 1959 through 1961), we thought we were so lucky to get to move there.  Bill had just graduated from a two-year program at a Teacher's College in Idaho and he got a position as teacher/principal (and janitor) at New Pine Creek Elementary, a one-room school on the California side of the border.  (California!  It paid more than Idaho, where most of his fellow graduates went.)  

We had a one-year old son and a baby on the way.  (Our daughter was born in Lakeview).  This is the house where we lived -- as you can see, it is  about a foot from the highway.  The house actually looks better now than it did then; we didn't have siding or a fence.  It snowed a lot in the Winters we were there. The snowplow would come past several times a day and plow the snow into drifts that blocked the house in.  Those winter days were long!

This is the old school building -- it was about the length of two blocks straight up the highway from our house.  Someone is living in it now; the school closed years ago.  It is funny to realize that the eighth-graders Bill taught were actually only six or seven years younger than he was. 

It was a very small village even then.  But there were a couple of grocery stores, a good butcher, a barbershop and a Grange Hall that had an active social schedule. Now the Grange Building looks like something straight out of a ghost story.

There isn't much left of the town now.  Both of the grocery store buildings are still standing, but they are now "antique" stores.   Junk shops -- especially when there are more than two in a three block stretch -- must be the last dying gasp of a small town. 

After our two years here, we moved back to Eastern Washington.  LIving there again, we had two more sons, bought our first house, worked a bunch of various jobs between us, and, eventually, Bill completed his degree.  (That last sentence alone would be worth a hundred posts if this were really that kind of blog!)   In 1971, we moved to Lane County, Oregon -- the opposite side of the State of Oregon from NPC, in every possible definition.

Our visit last week was only the third or fourth time we've been through here since we moved and we've long since lost track of the people we knew.   But we'll always remember our two years here -- we did a lot of growing up and had a lot of fun too. 

I wonder if there will be anything left of the town if we ever drive through here again.