Home again, home again, jiggity-jig

July 12-19, 2013
Corvallis, Oregon
Chez Cook’s RV Pad



After leaving a family reunion in Southern Oregon last week, we drove about two hours to the Seven Feathers RV Resort for a relaxing day before making our final three hour drive back to our hometown of Corvallis.  We are blessed to have many dear friends that we are anxious to see in this area and quite lucky to have close friends who have a spot for us to park with water and electric hook-ups for our month-long stay here. As you can see in the photo below, our motorhome has its own little niche right next to the fence bordering their luscious garden.  I took this photo from the deck on the back of their house where we enjoy a barbeque together almost nightly.  It is very sweet to be just ten minutes from downtown Corvallis or the campus of Oregon State University, yet out in the country where there always seems to be a refreshing breeze and the bonus of country roosters crowing in the morning. Thank you Ann and Don for your generous hospitality and special friendship!






Coming “home” again always tugs at my heart strings in different ways. My memories of this town are quite varied as I moved here in 1983 with my first husband when my boys were four and four months old. I went back to school here that same year to get my teaching certificate and later my master’s degree and ended up spending my entire teaching career in the Corvallis School District.  I taught long enough to have two generations of students in my classrooms and now I even see that second generation around town with their young families. It’s a pretty small town overall (55,000) so the anonymity I have become accustomed to in our travels is a rare experience here. I was a single mom in this town for almost ten years and then spent the last twelve years of my time here married to Victor in a home that we thought we would live in for the rest of our lives. As the reality of my retirement date drew near, a restless spirit took over and we came up with the idea of traveling around for a few years in a motorhome. Yet, we had an implicit agreement that we would always return to the Northwest in the summers as we both have a love affair with Oregon that we are not totally willing to give up.  It’s funny that we never talked about where we would spend summers. It was just a given to come back here. Even though we have discovered that we like Florida best for the winter months, we make the most of the lengthy trek back to Oregon as an opportunity to take different routes and explore new places along the way.



We have also found there is some truth in Thomas Wolfe’s admonition: “You can’t go home again.”  The beauty of this lush green valley with its winding river and snow-capped mountains in the distance all remains the same, but the rituals of life we used to enjoy here are forever altered. Friends have moved away (retired like us!), my sons no longer live here, and the ties we used to feel to the community have loosened.  Not all bad—just different. Perhaps home has little to do with geography. Some motorhomes display the sign: home is where we park it—and that seems true as well.  Life is full of paradox and change—maybe that’s the jiggity-jig!

Before we moved away, almost two years ago, we had a party at our home and took this crazy photo of some of our closest friends in our backyard. You can probably tell we know how to have a good time.  Fortunately, all but two of these friends are still in the area, so we have been lucky to be able to reconnect and enjoy the bounty of Oregon together during our stay here.



While we are here, another major focus is scheduling all of our annual appointments, not only for us but even the dogs, the Jeep, and the motorhome. After having attended Camp Freightliner, Vic is religious about taking the motorhome every summer to McCoy Freightliner in Salem for the strongly recommended 12 months or 15,000 miles service. Vic uses the service checklist Freightliner provides to make sure they do all the necessary oil, filters, lube, and inspections.  We also get our annual inspections at our primary care doctors, plus I do an annual mammogram and dermatology appointment. At some point, we will need to find new doctors but for now it is nice to see ones who know us and have our complete history. Thankfully, neither of us is on any medication so that makes life easier when we are on the road.  We don’t take our good health for granted.



One other lovely aspect of staying here a month is having time to just be. We are both enjoying some summer reading. I am finally getting around to reading Dave Egger’s memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Vic is reading In the President’s Secret Service by Ronald Kessler.  I have taken a bit of a break from internet activities as well—somewhat of a holdover from summer’s past when vacation from teaching meant getting unplugged. Sorry if that has meant fewer comments on blog posts and only weekly updates.



The weather in the mid-Willamette Valley has been almost perfect with most days in the 80s and temps in the 50s at night. The cool nights means it takes almost all day to reach the high temperature so the only really warm time is between 4 and 6 p.m. Just like we remembered it. We have only had one day that reached into the low 90s causing us to run the generator (running on 20 amps here) to run the a/c for a couple hours.  If it looks like a hot spell is coming this way, we only need to take an hour’s drive to the coast where the temperature will be about 20 degrees cooler, something we want to do anyway.
I will leave you with a few classic images of summertime from the Corvallis riverfront area on a Saturday morning.

A postcard from Astoria, Oregon

 
March 8-20, 2013
Corvallis & Astoria, Oregon
 

Spanning the mighty Columbia River, the Astoria-Megler Bridge stretches 4 miles from Astoria, Oregon, to Point Ellice, Washington. The bridge contains the longest continuous three-span through-truss in the world

 
Note: I am trying to catch up on blog posts after taking a ten day hiatus from our RV campground in Florida.  About three weeks ago,  I took advantage of mileage points with Alaska airlines and booked a trip to Oregon to visit my sons. We had been in Fort Myers at the same campground for two months (a record for us) and it seemed a good time to take advantage of a solo getaway before Vic and I start the slow trek back to the west coast in April. 
 
After twenty months of spending 24-7 together and only a few nights of sleeping in a bed other than the motorhome, it felt incredibly strange to leave The Big EZ and be out on my own. This sentence sounds strange even as I type it as I was single for almost ten years before marrying Vic and I have a fierce independent streak. So aside from this trip being an opportunity to spend with my kids, it was healthy for Vic and me to have a chance to be apart. A friend of mine once called it a time to gain some altitude on your life—and that was literally true flying across the United States—but more figuratively true as a time to reflect on our full-time lifestyle and think about retirement plans that we may pursue in the future.
 
I flew in to the Portland airport on what may have been one of the prettiest March days I could recall in Oregon. Instead of a rainy overcast day, the skies were clear blue and the lushness of early spring could be seen everywhere.
 


I had made arrangements to stay with a dear friend in her home which is like a bed and breakfast right near downtown Corvallis. (Thank you for a being a great host Sue Lyn!) One of the first things I did after arriving was take a walk to the downtown area on this remarkably beautiful day (with a high of 68) to check out the sights.



The county courthouse has always been one of the best architectural landmarks in town and it looked just as good as ever on this spring day.  The crocuses were on the wane and daffodils were pushing up everywhere.



In honor of my friend's birthday and for having me as a guest in her home, I took her out to dinner at one of the finer restaurants in Corvallis, Luc, where we dined on roasted beet and goat cheese salad, crab and fennel salad, and homemade gnocchi with rabbit.  A splurge of a meal, but well worth it. It was great to have time to reconnect and toast to Sue Lyn's 70th birthday!

Feeling a fair amount of jet lag as well as the three hour time difference, I decided to have a lazy day before going out to Sweet Home, about a 45-minute drive, to see my youngest son Jesse. It felt a little weird to be in town and not call all of my friends and make arrangements to see them, but my biggest priority was to spend time with Jesse and later in the week go to see my son Brooks in Astoria, about a three-hour drive north.

During the first part of my week in the valley, Jesse and I spent lots of time together just hanging out and having a few meals in some new spots near his place in Sweet Home. We also checked out a few RV parks in the area. The nicest one by far is part of the Mallard Creek Golf Course in Lebanon. Vic and I don’t golf, but Jesse is an avid golfer so he thought their “stay and play” packages that included unlimited golf for two people were quite reasonable at $300-$400 a week. Almost makes me want to take up golf.



One of the best parts of my stay in Oregon was that Jesse was able to take time off to travel with me to Astoria to see my oldest son Brooks.  We realized that the three of us had not spent time alone together in probably fifteen years—way too long! Astoria is best known as a world class destination for salmon fishing on the Columbia River and its tributaries. Brooks has a state job working for Fish and Wildlife monitoring gill net fishing in the area.

I booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express right on the Columbia River near downtown Astoria.  What a view we had from our room. Usually I don’t like to hang out in hotel rooms, but with a gas fireplace, an amazing view, and lots of hot tea options to make right in the room, we didn't mind spending time here catching up on our lives. 



We did plenty of other things together as we were lucky to catch Brooks at the beginning of his days off.  The first night I wanted to have a special meal together. Brooks chose the Bridgewater Bistro, a great restaurant just a couple blocks west of our hotel. The chef happens to be Brooks’ roommate and the food was some of the best I have had in a long time. This guy has some serious talent and creativity. I had what they call a Mayan Salad—with red quinoa, roasted beets and yams, avocado, corn-black bean relish, and a honey lime dressing. Jesse had the amazing pan roasted Willapa Bay oysters with homemade creole remoulade and Brooks had one of the specials, Osso Busco, with polenta—major comfort food—and it was off the charts. We passed on dessert, but the waitress brought us a passionfruit sorbet to share because she wanted us to try it. What a great way to start our time together. 



The next day we took a tour of Astoria and high on the list of things to do was visit one of Astoria's most famous landmarks: The Goonies House!  My kids have seen this 1985 cult movie countless times. As soon as we arrived, they started their comical impersonations of the characters while quoting some of their favorite lines. Why don`t we just spread chocolate all over the floor and let Chunk eat his way through? First you gotta do the truffle shuffle.  Goonies never say die! Heeyyyyy Yooooouuu Guyyyyyys!

It was fun to see them get into the memories of being so enamored with this movie when they were kids. For me, the truth is I hardly remember it. I was teaching school, grading papers, and shuttling these guys around to all their sports events, so TV or movie watching was pretty low on the list.  We thought about renting the DVD while we were there but they both agreed it was a better memory as it was. There were, however, many more conversations about the other Goonie set locations as we continued to explore the town. 

Next up was checking out The Astoria Column. The column, a 125 ft. structure, is a notable landmark that sits on a bluff above Astoria. Vic and I visited this area last August and I did a post on it then, but it was fun to see it for a second time.  You can climb the column’s 164 stairs to a viewing area at the top which looks out on a 360 degree view of the bar where the Columbia River meets the Pacific,  the snow-capped  volcanoes of the Cascade Range to the east, and the peaks of Saddle Mountain (Brooks’ favorite elk hunting grounds) overlooking Youngs River to the south. (We did climb the 164 steps and my legs were sore the next day, but I didn't admit this to my kids.)



The outside of the column is painted with scenes that begin with the history of this area before man arrived.  As the column rises, the scenes trace the history of the first encounters with white men leading up to Lewis and Clark and beyond.



This is the most amazing view from the bluff as you can see the Pacific Ocean way to the left and the picturesque bridge spanning the Columbia River.



Here is the view of Saddle Mountain to the far left and Youngs River, but something went weird with my camera (only had my droid phone with me) because the clouds were not black and smokey looking.

From The Column off we went to show Jesse Long Beach, Washington about a twenty minute ride after crossing the Astoria-Megler Bridge. It was an unusually pretty day to check out what they claim is the world’s longest beach. The surprising thing is they allow people to drive their cars on the beach—not an idea I favor especially since this is a well-known clam digging beach. This area is also known for some of the best tasting farmed oysters I have ever eaten from Willapa Bay. They are supposedly from one of the cleanest estuaries in the United States. I found Willapa Bay oysters in the fish section of a Sweetbay grocery store in Florida so they must have quite an oyster industry in this area.
 





After a brisk walk on the beach, we found a cute little seafood cafe called Castaways where we had outrageously good clam chowder and another Northwest favorite, razor clams.  A good way to end our afternoon on Long Beach together.

Sadly, our last day together came way too soon. We decided we had time to check out Fort Clatsop National Historic Park, the place where Lewis and Clark wintered from Dec. 1805 to March 1806. Lewis and Clark chose this spot because it was high ground for staying relatively dry in the winter, had large herds of elk and deer, and close access to the ocean for making salt to cure their meat.  The actual forts on the grounds are all replicas some of which were just reconstructed again due to a fire in 2005.  The museum inside is very well done showing illustrated sections of the journals describing the expedition in this area along with their various tools, hunting and fishing gear, clothing, and cooking utensils.  We especially enjoyed walking the trails outside imagining these were the very woods where they hunted and fished.


 


After visiting Fort Clatsop, Brooks wanted to show us one of his favorite fishing holes just below Youngs River Falls, about a twenty minute drive from Fort Clatsop. The falls were first discovered by some members of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Today the 65 ft. falls have become fairly popular as they have been featured in television commercials and a few movies: Free Willy 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, and Benji the Hunted.



After viewing the falls, we chose a funky little Mexican restaurant, La Cabana de Raya, in Astoria with a nice view of Youngs Bay for a late lunch before our departure. The food was excellent with homemade tortillas, fresh ceviche made from local sole, and authentic sauces prepared from scratch. Pretty surprising little find.   We asked the waitress to take a photo of us with my smart phone—not the best—but still one I will cherish for the memory of this special time together.



It was now time to say adios to Brooks as Jesse and I made the trip back to Corvallis. Vic and I plan to return to Astoria this August during the beginning of the fall Chinook salmon run to visit Brooks and do some kayak fishing in the area. We will be back in Oregon in the motorhome in early July and hope to have other opportunities to spend time together even before our trip to Astoria—so I tell myself--as saying goodbye seems harder than ever. Jesse and I had a rainy trip back across Hwy 30 and south on I-5 then it was time for another goodbye. And a lovely time in Oregon comes to an end. I take a long moment to fully experience the gratitude I feel to have had this special time together with two amazing young men.  Blessings abound.