August & September - Good bye Northwest

Arriving back in the Portland Oregon area August 1st was nice.  Coming home to no sales tax, friends, family and where license plates look like ours, completed the feeling we were  home.  There is a strange feeling when you travel and everyone you pass knows you are not from wherever you are currently passing through.  The only time I do not feel like a standout is when we are in a tourist area and there are more cars from outside the current state.  As we travel down the road I look at all the cars we pass to find some comfort in familiar plates from our beloved Northwest.

Our first night home, we opted for Mexican food and a margarita.  The waitress told us there were three sizes of drinks, and being 'thirsty' we both ordered the grande..... OMG... we were surprise to find we needed a ladder to drink from the glass.

Being old and gray has its benefits.... the owner realized we were in over our heads (literally)  with the drinks and put them in very large to go cups when we finished our dinners.

Working  back at Champoeg State Park was like coming home too.  Although there have been some changes in the rangers here, we folded right back into our responsibilities and partying with the other hosts.

Spent a number of meals with D'enne, Mike and Matt while we were here.   D'enne is a great cook and we had some awesome food.  Ribs, steaks and veggies from the garden were particularly good and playing games after dinner was fun.


The LPGA Tournament is in August out at the Reserve Golf Course, and Deane and I volunteered once again on Cindy and Chris' team. We were on the 18th hole which meant we had to be there until the last group played through. For volunteering a Saturday afternoon, we spent 8 hours out in the sun. The day before was one of the hottest days of the year, about 103. We were so happy the temps dropped 25 degrees the day we were there.



Girls trip to beach - happy hour
on the deck

Top of the sand dune at Pacific City

Being 'home' was great and easy to fall back into the routine of seeing friends, having a long girls weekend  trip.



Friends Jane and Stan hosted a party at their beautiful home to welcome us back and another party in September for my 66th birthday.  I love to stretch out celebrating my day and managed to party for about a week.

part of the gang at Jane and Stan's

Deane surprised me with a Portland Epicurean walking tour.  Started by meeting our tour group at the Heathman Hotel and from there we walked to and visited 5 establishments where we tasted things like grilled watermelon, orange and tomato soup, a Korean Taco (which by the way was wonderful), a Cuban sandwich,  4 beers at a microbrewery and ended the day at Voodoo Donuts http://voodoodoughnut.com/  We walked about 2 miles over 3 hours and not only visited some interesting out of the way places and new foods, we heard great stories about the history of Portland.

Besides tasting foods, we visited an Olive Oil and Balsamic vinegar tasting room and a Salt and spice shop where we were introduced to some wonderful new flavors of salt.

Ending my week long birthday celebration was with D'enne, Michael and Matthew taking us out to dinner.  We supped at Sweet Tomatoes, a place I had never been to.  A comprehensive buffet with good food and wonderful company.


Good part of our two months here was spent establishing new doctors.  Since this is where we will most likely come off the road to, we thought it best if doctors here knew who the heck we were and what all of our little aches and pains were all about.  This was we will be able to see someone we are familiar with when we are back in the area.  Oh yea, definitely wanted to make sure Deane had a cardiologist for his pacemaker which by the way, is still ticking and doing great as is he!

One of the things Deane wanted to make sure he did while here was to spend as much time as he could with grandson Matthew.  Matt spent a number of nights with us in August before he started school.  He and Deane went to the Evergreen Museum water park where Matt loves the wave pool and Deane loves the water slides from the 747 that sits on top of the roof.

When Matt stays with us, we are always amazed at how limber he is.  He found a comfortable position to watch TV.  Guess chairs are not build for 8 year olds!  Check out who has possession of the remote.

Matt is very bright for an 8 year old and his computer skills could put most adults to shame.  Deane discovered that when he showed him Flight Simulator.  After about an hour of 'flying'  different planes, Matt showed Grandpa a couple of features in the program he never knew were there.




Deane and Matt

The last weekend we could spend with Matt we picked him up and headed for the new Oregon Rail Heritage Museum that was celebrating it's grand opening in Portland  http://www.orhf.org/.  We toured the trains that used to run through Portland. 

Building dams and waterways

Next stop that day was across the street,  OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) which is made for kids of any age.  Spent about 4 hours playing with all the hands on things, viewing an IMAX movie and then a wacky science laser show in the planaterium.





Austin and Alex

While we were here in Portland, grandsons Joshua turned 12 and Austin turned one.  We could not be with them, but we have pictures.


Joshua's jersey with his
favorite Mariner player
Ackley #13

Fall has arrived here in Oregon.  The days are still wonderfully warm and the nights are getting cool and have caused the leaves to start to change to beautiful yellows and oranges.  Saturday the 29th we pull out of Champoeg State Park, headed across country about as far away as we can get.  For those who don't know, we are heading to Florida for the winter.  We will miss our family and friends, as well as friends from Mesa Arizona this season.

We will take almost 3 weeks to get to the Tampa Bay area stopping to experience new sights, people and adventures as well as reconnecting with old friends along the way,

We will be posting more often as we head southeast, so stay tuned.