Taking the backroad: One of our goals as we travel is to get off the main drag, avoid the standardized restaurants and markets that are the mainstay of the highway traveler, and to find the towns and scenery bypassed by the freeways of the last century’s transportation explosion. Often, our choices lead us into bits…
We’ve packed for a lot of trips in our life together. Long trips to Jamaica and England. Shorter trips by train across America to Vermont, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Colorado. Car or camper trips to Glacier and Monument Valley. Our epic trip on Hwy. 20 from Newport, Oregon to its other…
9:00 AM in Phoenix and we’ve only been up a few minutes. We had to wake yesterday at 2:00 AM to catch our flight from Eugene. Arriving, we caught a shuttle to the car rental center, upgraded to a Camry, and wandered around Phoenix until we found our resort. I think we were addled by…
I think that it was in Sometimes A Great Notion that Ken Kesey talked about the “standin’ and starings”, a condition endemic to people of the Northwest once the holidays are over and the long days of rain have set in. It is a condition somewhere between a hypnotic state, severe depression, and Zen…
It’s a grey day on the south coast. If you’re an Oregonian, you know what I mean without explanation. The sky is overcast in a high grey dome. It has been misting, though now the mist has turned to a steady drizzle. A slight fog has drifted in so that even the air is grey.…
The rain began as I got ready for bed, a few polite taps on the roof, a cluster of knocks as larger drops fell from the cedar in our site, released by the first gusts of the wind off the ocean. By the time I closed my book and put my head down the comforting…
We have begun to develop a rhythm here on the south coast. It is Sunday morning. It rained steadily all day yesterday, but today pale blue sky appears between patches of high, grey clouds. Water still drips from the Spanish moss that dangles from the tips of the evergreen trees around our camp. My…
Paul Tillich defined life as “one damn thing after another.” I like to think that he was smiling slightly as he said it. Rueful. So it was with us yesterday as the wheel of karma played games with us. It was to say the least, one damn thing after another. It was our first full…
At four in the morning the ocean waves make a steady background drone in the darkness. Occasionally a car passing on the bridge adds an alto hum. By lantern I read quietly while Lyd and Annie sleep. It was a rough night for Lydia again, so after she drank a cup of cocoa I made…
Our holiday preparations have included preparing for a two month move to the southern Oregon coast this year. We have never been snow birds as such and find the long trip to the Southwest beyond what we want of our winter relaxation. We elected to try the Gold Beach area as a warmer clime yet…
barelyaboomer 