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.
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.