Washed out in Oregon

It's been wet - very wet - noisy enough on the roof of the trailer to keep me awake. Some people found the noise of the rain strangely re-assuring, but they were mostly the ones who were sleeping under a proper roof. It's been cold too - we had snow on the hills around us yesterday:



Thankfully, it's stopped for now - and we've even had a bit of sunshine - enough to get the shorts back on - but don't be fooled - it still feels like Scotland with the cold wind coming off the mountains. The only difference is that because we're so much further south (Grants Pass is 42 degrees of latitude, compared with Aberdeen, which is 57 degrees) - roughly on a par with Barcelona - when the sun does come out, it's more immediately above us and you can feel the heat from it much more.

Last night at dinner, Cade produced his first efforts at crocheting a beany hat - and Jo couldn't help but join in:



I don't know if you can quite make it out or not, but Cade dropped a stitch which left a very convenient hole for his hair to stick out of - he's very in to the surfer boy style just now and is growing his hair out.

Incidentally, as we finished off Scott's birthday cake - and yummy it was too - we had two types of Blue Bunny ice cream:



In case you're wondering what "Turtle Sundae" is, it's chocolate shaped in turtle shells - lovely jubbly.

I had a bit of a communications disaster yesterday - my Blackberry failed on me at the same time as our works VPN and Webmail went down. It was a new battery I needed - should be no problem to get one for a standard product like Blackberry Bold? Think again - I spent a very frustrating afternoon in Medford going round all the usual suspects - including a battery specialist - but nobody could supply one - although they could order one for delivery in 7 days - and, of course, if it's a new phone you want, or a new service plan/provider, no problem - instantly available and hundreds to choose from. I got back to GP and Scott instantly solved the problem for me with one quick phone call and I picked up the new battery this morning.

Jo and I went shoe shopping this morning - new trainers for her and a pair of waterproof walking/hiking shoes for me - all for only $60, courtesy of a deal that was on, plus a discount voucher Lucy gave us - we would have paid much more than twice this back home. We had lunch at the Laughing Clam afterwards - nice pub and always a good selection of microbrews on.

I've finished another book now - a whimsical one I picked up at Laguna Beach last Friday - all about the bittersweet tale of Jan & Dean's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_and_Dean) late career. I've now started on an old American classic, first published in the 40's - Catcher in the Rye. I always meant to read this but never got round to it. I finished Catch 22 last year and I'll probably tackle Jack Kerouac next year - all of this decades later than I should have read them.

Here's some sunnier shots to finish with: