Two falls and a submission

It's Wednesday evening. The Lesinas are packing for their annual camp at Ballard. This year, they're not taking the trailer - we're sleeping in it just now and it would probably have been too much bother to get it ready for them for a few days and then back to us on Sunday/Monday, so they're taking tents for the first time - although Karen and Bill have their trailer there with room for at least 2 others, so we'll see who lasts the course in the tents.

We've not long returned from Ashland, picking up Cade from his last day at football camp. We watched him for a while, but then Jo and I took off on bikes along the Bear Creek Greenway. We had to get to the trail first, however, from Southern Oregon University. T'internet told me it was a mere 9 minute ride, but guess how long it took us? Exactly one hour! Sure, there was a bit of traffic and Jo wasn't keen to ride in it, but the principal problem was that she couldn't engage the brakes on Braeden's bike for some reason. As a result, she insisted on walking all downhill stretches.

I confess I couldn't understand the problem the first time I looked at it, but I burst out laughing when I finally sussed it the second time I stopped to see what the problem was. Jo was riding the bike with the front wheel round the wrong way! She'd spun the handlebars round somehow and it was now impossible for her to reach the brake levers. Anyway, that was a relief and from there on, progress was a little better - that is, until two separate falls, neither of which I witnessed. Her knees were just recovering from her fall 10 days ago when we cycled up to Judy's blueberry farm, but they're now an even bigger mess. The dogs enjoy licking the blood spots, however.

Here's Jo, riding across a bridge between two parts of the trail, just after her second fall today:

To give you an idea of what Cade's football camp final day looked like:

While the Lesinas are away, Jo and I are going to take another epic circular road trip round bits of Oregon we've never been to before. Just 2 nights away but about 12 hours of driving.

Monday and Tuesday were really quiet. A few of us were feeling a bit down - not bad enough to lie in bed, but just enough to take the edge off our appetites and desire to exercise or do anything productive. About all I managed to do was do a bit of car transporting for Lucy's cars.

Sunday evening post

Three days on from my last post - if I don't keep the gaps between posts relatively short and/or take sufficient photos, then there's going to be gaps in this blog diary.

I've been watching a bit of the Euro championships from France. The 2 pm ko's in Europe mean a 6 am start here - I've seen a few but the best times for me have been when the ko has been 4 pm Euro time so I can watch them after breakfast. The evening matches are at noon here and we're often up to something by then, so that doesn't suit quite as well.

I was watching a match the other day when the broadcast was rudely interrupted for several minutes and this appeared on the screen:

Apparently a number of the cable companies have got together and devised this system which alerts the public to a situation of national emergency. This was just a test, but there's nothing you can do to stop it - the TV and the cable box are effectively frozen, and it applied to a large number of the states in USA.

That was probably the most exciting part of Thursday, which was also the first full day of the summer vacation for all the schools here. There was a weather front passing through and it brought unseasonably low temperatures and some rainfall, so our usual dining outdoors was curtailed for a few days. The upside was that it was a good time for me to go on a longer bike ride on Friday morning - almost 50 kms - quite a stretch. I went out to Robertson Bridge and back down to Grants Pass via Wildlife Images, where we've been a couple of times:

In Grants Pass, I cycled through Tussing Park:

That was a prelude to the Eric Burdon gig at Britt Fest, Jacksonville on Friday night. I've been there virtually every year since Scott and Lucy moved to Oregon, but I've never had to worry about the weather in the past. This time, however, was different. We were amongst the early arrivals, queuing up for our tickets and a good spot on the lawn. We had just got settled when the heavens opened. We had been partially prepared for some rain, but this was something else, so we hurriedly bought a couple of ponchos. Fortunately, the rain relented before the bands started playing, but, by then, Jo was pretty wet. I had managed to keep myself fairly dry somehow and I think, as a result, I enjoyed it a bit more than Jo did. Here's a brief dry moment before the start:

You can read more about the gig at http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.com/

Saturday was fairly uneventful apart from a minor injury I incurred. Jo put her half full coffee cup down on the table in the trailer, right next to my laptop. I said "risk assessment - don't do that" and leaned forward to pick up the cup, but cracked my head on the corner of one of the overhead cupboards, resulting in a fairly deep gash in my head:

We were about to leave for Medford to pick up Cade's meds before he went to football camp, so Lucy quickly got a freezer pack out and I held it to my head in the car on the way down to keep the swelling down.

When we returned, Scott showed off this display in the "shop":

Sunday morning was Father's Day and Lucy made Scott and I egg bake for breakfast - and I got this gift as well:

Braeden went off with his pal and the rest of us drove down to Ashland to drop off Cade - and all his gear - at his football camp at Southern Oregon University. Whilst they registered, Jo and I sat in the car park and waited for a while before moving nearer the dorms:

After taking Cade for a sushi lunch, the 4 of us wandered round lovely little Ashland, browsing book stores etc. I had finished the second in the Lewis trilogies in the car on the way down and spotted the third one in a bookshop and acquired it to complete the set. After that, we went from brewery to brewery - Standing Stones first, then Swing Tree, followed by Caldera. Nice afternoon.