Last week in Salem

It's Friday and, all of a sudden, the weather has changed from being warm and sunny to cool and cloudy - and apparently tomorrow even more so. It appears that Fall is arriving. We head down to Southern California on Monday with Lucy, Audrey, Kendall & Kennedy - it's been 95 F there this week, which is hot for the coast, but is apparently dropping for the first couple of days of our stay.

Fyi, Salem is on the 45th parallel - i.e. halfway between the equator and the North Pole. It's on a line of latitude with Bordeaux and similar to Toronto.

On Monday, Lucy was off work - she's doing Tue-Fri this week while Scott has worked Mon-Thu. Lucy wanted to use her work's gym so Jo and I went with her and we did a stroll around Bush's Pasture Park:

We then drove over to Willamette Valley Pie Company - very tasty.

On Tuesday, Jo and I drove downtown to the State Capitol. This particular building is very art deco as it was built in the 1930's after the previous two had burnt down. The golden man that sits on top of the building represents an early pioneer:

Jo in entrance hall

On Wednesday we made a return visit to the Germanic town of Mt. Angel where there was a huge Oktoberfest a couple of weeks ago. We spent most of the time at the nearby Benedictene Abbey, which looks surprisingly modern - although the original tiny chapel is still standing:

Our decision for lunch was to drive over to the larger nearby town of Silverton which has a trail of all the murals painted on the buildings:

Lunch at Mac's Place was German sausage - shared of course - and we had a lovely high table looking over the creek below:

Driving between the two towns we had witnessed a little bit of the hazelnut harvest (pity we just missed the huge hop harvest). This area supplies 99% of the US market for hazelnuts - there are trees growing them everywhere. Unlike hops, grapes etc, hazelnuts are not picked - they wait until this time of year when they fall. The fallen nuts are then swept out from under the trees in to long lines between the trees where a mechanical device comes along and scoops them all up and deposits them in wooden crates:

Yesterday (Thursday) we took a drive north up the I-5 to Bridgeport Village mall, which, unlike the multitude of other shopping malls, is laid out - as its name suggests - like a pretty little village. We spent hours in the huge, 2-storey Barnes & Noble, topping up our reading material. Lucy had also recommended ice creams at Salt & Straw - and they were excellent. I was trying to set up the timer for a snap of the two of us when a young girl/woman, spotting my difficulty, offered to take our photo:

Rather than return on the I-5 we decided to take the slightly quieter country roads and divert via McMinnville where we stopped over with Scott and Lucy some years ago. On that occasion we had stayed at one of McMenamin's Historic Hotels - Hotel Oregon by name - and it was easy enough to find it this time:

On our walk around the town we came across a bench with (apparently) Benjamin Franklin:

We found a brewpub - Grain Station - not one we'd been at before - and, although I was driving, we had one of the growlers in the back of Lucy's Jeep and Jo agreed to be guinea pig and do the flight on her own to help us select the beer we would fill the growler with:

The stout was chosen and we jumped back in the Jeep:

We headed back to Salem with Google leading the way. Along the route, it announced that there was an alternative route back that was 11 minutes shorter so we said yes. Little did we - nor apparently Google - recognise that this road involved a small ferry to cross the mighty Willamette river! The ferry only took 9 cars so we didn't make it on the first crossing, so, at the end of the day, our "saved" 11 minutes was wiped out by the 20 minutes we had to wait to make the crossing!:

That's all, folks!

October in Northern Oregon

Can't believe it's 4 weeks today that we arrived in USA. Just over a couple of weeks left in our holiday.

Scott and Lucy have completed their first week in their new jobs - it was all introductory stuff with a lot of computer modules. They can't wait to get some proper patient care done. They normally work 4 day weeks - 9 hours per day with the week lengths varying. Tomorrow (Monday), Scott's at work but Lucy has a day off - she'll be child minding for part of it.

I can't quite recall everything we've done over the last week - if I don't take photos, I don't have any record to fall back on - but I do know that on Wednesday we took a drive downtown to hunt down a particular type of collagen that Jo wanted. We took Lucy's recommendation and paid a visit to Gerry Frank's "Konditorei" - a cake cafe basically - https://gerryfrankskonditorei.com/.

You'd think that by now we'd have wised up to US-sized portions, but, no - we both had a cake each:

Jo's carrot cake in particular was a real killer. We must remember to order only one of any food and share it.

I had checked the weather forecast earlier in the week to see when it would be best to take a trip to the coast and Thursday looked like the best day. The Pacific coastal climate is completely different from inland Oregon - and, incidentally, I've noticed that Salem is a fair bit cooler than Grants Pass. I've been monitoring the relative daily temperatures over the last month and I reckon Southern Oregon - the Applegate Valley - is easily 8 or 9 degrees F (5 C) warmer than this part of Northern Oregon at this time of year. That's not to say that it's cold here - far from it - it's 80 F (27 C) this weekend. The coast, however, is 20 F (7 C) cooler just now.

Anyway, Thursday it was for our coastal trip - first stop Lincoln City, which had a slightly run-down, end of season look about it, but we found a nice bakery, book shop and record store - and a lovely, huge beach:

Heading south towards Newport we made a couple of pit stops to take in the views at Rocky Creek and the Devil's Punchbowl (https://stateparks.oregon.gov/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=156). Here I am at the former and a beach view from the latter:

 

Newport, a town we last visited 10 years ago, also has huge beaches - I posted a few photos on Facebook. When we decided to loop back home we came across a problem with some extensive roadworks which Apple Maps didn't seem to know about - thankfully, Google Maps was more clued up and we made it back to NE Salem via an alternative route.

Scott and Lucy were both off on Friday and they took us to Independence for a spot of lunch in the local brewpub, quaintly called Gilgamesh. The menu explained where the name came from:

 Here we all are:

After lunch we took a stroll round the local park, leading down to the Willamette river. We had just missed the local Fresh Hop Festival which celebrates the harvest.

Yesterday (Saturday), Jo and I took a short drive to Willamette Mission State Park (https://stateparks.oregon.gov/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=99). We took a walk round one of the trails which, at one point, allowed us access in to one of the hop fields (which are numerous round here). As mentioned above we had just missed the harvest so all the tall bines were gone, leaving just their support frames:

We did find a random hop on the ground:

Here we are a bit later at the water's edge:

After leaving the park we drove over to Keizer Station mall and had a late lunch at Hops 'n' Drops:

Scott was on the barbecue again that evening - huge steaks - and they were delicious.

Today (Sunday) is a go-slow day for us - book reading, blogging, crocheting.

End September in Salem

It's Sunday 27th September and it's Scott's and Lucy's last day of freedom - the holiday's over for them as they both start their new jobs with Salem Health tomorrow.

So what have we all been up to these last couple of weeks? Scott and I have had another couple of rounds of golf - both just 9 holes but at a course that was exceptionally green and played very long. Most courses here are dry and brown with the ball running miles but Evergreen Golf (https://www.evergreenoregon.com/) is what it says - extremely well watered and maintained.

We've been over to Cade's and Audrey's place - the first time we've seen it. Hallowe'en is still over a month away but everywhere seems to be going crazy for it already - many houses are decorated and the stores are all full of paraphernalia and pumpkins - and Cade and Audrey are starting to get in to the spirit too judging by the entrance to their house:

Kendall is the boss of course - her toys and her room:

Meanwhile, Scott was looking after Kennedy:

We've been on a couple of preliminary house-hunting trips with Scott and Lucy too. On the second of them we returned to the pub we had discovered had real ale - Santiam Brewing (https://www.santiambrewing.com/):

We went to the final day of Oktoberfest at Mt. Angel - what a huge event it was. It was a bit quieter when Jo and I took a trip downtown to visit Deepwood House:

We took a walk round the trails in the extensive garden:

We followed that up with a visit to one of the houses of the 2 (female) landscape gardeners who designed this and hundreds of other prestigious gardens throughout the state and beyond:

Yesterday (Saturday), Scott was driving back to Grants Pass to cut the lawn and also attend nephew Lincoln's 16th birthday. Lucy took Jo and me to The Oregon Garden (https://oregongarden.org/) - a huge expanse:

That's me up to date again. 

September whizzing by

As usual, a brief health report. Knee still not 100% but we soldier on. Dental surgery in Aberdeen finally complete. Two appointments arranged with local dentist when we return from USA to fit the cap to the implant.

Jo's knee much better now but we did recently attend the breast clinic at ARI. They were very thorough - 2 mammograms, a scan and a biopsy - and we've now received the results - all clear. They will follow up with a further ultrasound scan in 3 months but it seems fairly certain now that it was all related to the heavy fall Jo took when she cut her knee.

Our car was a little unhealthy too - for a while we were getting all sorts of false error messages - seemed like a software fault. It took ages to get an appointment at John Clark Volvo and that was only for the initial diagnosis. We had to wait a further 2 weeks before the work was done to fix it - but even then, as I was about to drive away, another (unrelated) fault appeared. It'll get fixed when the car goes in for its annual service next month,

Lots of golf before we flew to USA - and our group's annual walking break was in Orkney this year, returning with just one day to spare before our transatlantic flights.

Our front room fireplace is finally complete with the beam above the wood burner now installed:

(The picture above has since been replaced with the mirror that was there before). All we need now is some logs - they've been ordered and should be there before we get back.

The ceiling of our porch needed a bit of TLC so Ross painted it - and I gave the old external bench a bit of a spruce up too:

Our travel to USA went smoothly enough but it was a full 24 hours before we were sitting in Grants Pass having beers and yet another meal! That was Sunday - Monday and Tuesday were packing days and then on Wednesday we were on the move to the Lesinas' new home town - Salem, the capital of Oregon, a couple of hundred miles north up the I-5.

We travelled in convoy - Scott drove the large U-Haul truck, packed with all the furniture etc; Jo and I followed in Scott's truck with Lucy a little behind in her Jeep. Scott and Lucy are heading back to Grants Pass tomorrow (Tuesday) to pick up the remaining stuff that there was no room for, and also a final tidy-up for any potential house viewers.

The temporary rental in Salem is a modern 4-bedroom house in a new estate - plenty of room for the 5 of us, although the external area is smaller than GP.

Scott and Lucy start their new jobs at the end of the month so there's time for them to get properly settled here - and spend more time with their family. We've visited the local brewpub; Scott and I had a game of golf; and Lucy, Jo and I had a quick visit to downtown Salem:

The temperature dropped over the weekend and there was the occasional very slight spit of rain. Today (Monday) is a bit brighter and the mercury is heading upwards again this week.

Today we visited a local farm that had loads of attractions - sadly most of them closed until the weekend, but we hung around for a while anyway:

We then moved to a nice little town called Silverton where Kendall spent time in the playpark, then we had a walk around the town followed by lunch at one of the breweries.

August already

So the World Cup is over but the political wranglings go on. Never mind, the Scottish football season has now started so all's well - well, nearly all. Let me explain:

Knees - it's now a year since my op and the pain and stiffness have still not fully gone. There has been some improvement but it's so slow compared with the previous knee replacement - although that was 13 years ago when I was just a relative youngster of 64!

More recently, it's Jo's knee that has been the bigger issue but she seems to be slowly getting over it now.

Generally, July's weather has been pretty good. The continuing severe heatwaves being experienced in the southern part of Britain haven't really migrated north - thank goodness - but we have had plenty of sunshine and mid-low 20's temperatures - and virtually no rain. Until last Wednesday - when it did rain - our golf course was brown and white like a links course.

There's been a huge fire in the Cairngorms National Park the last few weeks and, last Friday, the wind suddenly changed direction and Banchory and as far east as Aberdeen briefly experienced the taste, smell and smoke in the air.

Meanwhile my dental surgeries continue. On 2nd July, my gums were cut and peeled back again as they had regressed since the previous surgery. I got the stitches out 2 weeks later. I'm under the knife again in 2 weeks when he opens access to my new implant post. Those stitches come out 2 weeks later and soon after we're on our way to USA. It's going to be nearly Xmas before all the implant work is finished.

This is Honey - the latest of Gary's foster greyhounds:

Luca is down in England visiting relatives - he drove there all alone.

I've coped not too bad with golf recently - with the help of the occasional buggy. In fact, I won our Wednesday Quaich 3 weeks in a row - it helps to have a high handicap! Here I am on one of those occasions, receiving the prize ball from Jim Fowler:

Another golf photo - this time from our Summer Tour, based in Seahouses,  Northumberland, with the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle in the background:

Me, Ken Black & Harry Salter

I had forgotten that the yellow shirt was the colour of pollen and I was covered in small flies attracted to it!

Jo, Ross and I went to see the Odyssey last week. Fantasy, albeit historical, is not really my thing and I wondered whether I could sit through a 3 hour film but I have to say it seemed to pass fairly quickly. We ate in Thaikun (https://www.thaikhun.co.uk/thai-restaurant/aberdeen) in Union Square afterwards.

Last week was pretty busy - we went to the Crail Festival with Anne and Leslie Mason, primarily to see Anne's brother Tom playing with his band. We took a walk around Crail harbour after lunch at the Balgove Steak Barn in St. Andrews:

Me, Jo, Anne & Leslie

Note the golf cap - Dutcher Creek, in the style of a hunting hat. Scott left it behind last summer

No sooner were we back from that, than I was off down to Glasgow for the 2nd of my old school reunions this year. Nice lunch in the Drum and Monkey:

Robert Rowan (2nd left) was in nearly all my classes at school and Alex Noddings (3rd left) lived just round the corner from our home in Foxbar Drive - Dawn was pals with his sister Mary. Most of the others were a year ahead of me at school and I've only got to know them fairly recently.

Our local branch of CAMRA has commissioned Braemar Brewing to brew a one-of special edition ale for our branch's 50th anniversary later this year. We're hoping for a tasting of a trial brew soon - before we go to USA with any luck.

I'll close with 3 photos of the younger generations:

Cade, Kendall & newly out of the US Army, Braeden

Dawn's grand-daughter Avery in rainbow colours

Asher and his best pal Milo