Last week of holiday

It's the start of the last week of our mammoth holiday. It's now Saturday morning here in Grants Pass and the rain that was originally forecast to arrive yesterday afternoon didn't come until overnight. It's just stopped but it's brought the temperature right back down after the heat of the last few days. Meanwhile, I believe it's El Scorchio in Scotland, so it was very unusual viewing on my weather app this morning:

or, for my American friends:

OK - it was only early morning here when I took this and it is forecast to heat up again later - and the next week looks fine too - but it's unusual to see Banchory at the top of any temperature chart.

Yesterday (Friday), Jo and I headed up to Cathedral Hills and completed the Outback trail - the jagged line below:

Here's a few photos I took along the way:

Note the walker in kilt and gaiters in the background

Tricky negotiation, Jo

We went for lunch afterwards at Goodness Gracious. No matter how often we come to the States, we never cease to be amazed at the size of the portions - way more than the light lunch I was planning. We visited a couple of downtown bookstores afterwards and then headed off to the new (brewery) kid on the block - https://www.weekendbeercompany.com/ - to refill my growler. The place has only been open for 6 months but it had a nice vibe to it - may have to pay another visit as yesterday was Good Friday and Jo was abstaining.

Last night we watched a movie on PPV - Holmes and Watson. Here comes the health warning - avoid at all costs - it's pretty dreadful. How does Will Ferrell get away with this?

We're heading to Medford this afternoon and will probably pop in to Kaleidoscope, our favourite Grateful Dead themed pizza pub - you don't get many of them, do you?

First week in Grants Pass

This apparently is my 1,600th blog post.

After our first couple of cool days here, the temperatures have steadily climbed - it almost hit 90F yesterday (Thursday) and the outlook seems set fair although we may get a shower this afternoon. I think we'll go for a walk this morning (Friday).

Yesterday we took a drive, taking in our favourite towns round here - Jacksonville and Ashland. We did a short trail walk in Jacksonville, which included a bit of a hike up one of the hills overlooking the town:

In Ashland, we walked through Lithia Park, where we'd been with the Lesinas on many previous holidays - fond memories of playing in the water with the boys. Jo posed on a bridge:

The day before (Wednesday) was Lucy's day off. She got through her chores, including taking the dogs out and then went for a run. I took the opportunity to get back on the bike again after a break of a couple of months. I took it pretty easy and did a bit of a circle round the town, coming back along the riverside trail:

You can probably see that the river is still high after the weekend rain - plus some snow melt from the mountains. We're not used to seeing it this high - normally when we're here in July/August, the water levels have dropped substantially.

What did we do on Tuesday then? Obviously not a lot - I can't remember and didn't take any photos.

We don't see much of Cade nowadays - he's either working or spending the night at his girlfriend's. This is his (empty) room:

Braeden is usually around - and we met his girlfriend the other day. Here's his room:

What this photo doesn't really show is the size of the TV on the right of the picture - it's enormous.

That's about it for now - need to get dressed and out before the forecast afternoon showers.

Palm Desert (2) and back to Oregon

Wednesday was pretty windy in the desert - at least in the morning - so we postponed our initial plans to go up to the top of San Jacinto mountain by what they called the Aerial Tramway, which was really a cable car, until the afternoon. It gave Scott time to try to make a few phone calls and deal with the theft of his dirt bike, which happened at home on Friday night - somebody apparently got in to the garage and took the bike, but was spotted by a neighbour at 3 am, acting suspiciously. As yet, the police haven't managed to file a charge nor recover the bike.

Mount San Jacinto is pretty high - over 8,500 feet - not the tallest in the range (which is almost 12,000 feet) but still high enough to have snow lying in April, despite the heat in the desert below:

It was alternately chilly and warm as we travelled on one of the many mountain top walks. The views of the Coachella Valley far below were good too:

I moved on by myself from Notch 4 to Notch 5, expecting the others to follow close behind on the downward trail, but I waited for a while and there was no sign of them. Best just to take a selfie then:

The other 3 had taken a wrong turning and ended up on another trail but eventually found their way to meet me at Notch 5. Of course, this was my fault for having left them in the first place and Jo had been worried that I'd got lost.

Thursday was a busy day - in the morning we drove over to see Cabot's Pueblo. Built as recently as 1941 by the Dutch adventurer, trader and artist Cabot Yerxa with his bare hands and a few basic tools, in the style of the Hopi Indians' - sorry Native Americans' - pueblos, from reclaimed and found materials, it is a treasure trove of artefacts from all round the world. It was abandoned a couple of times after his death in 1965 but is now run as a museum with guided tours. It's astonishing to see what he created - but why? It all seems pretty random and illogical, a product of a fertile and restless mind we suspect:

On the way back to the resort, we stopped for a quick bite at an Italian restaurant, then Scott and I hit the golf course again. We got a freebie this time - I think the assistant pro took a shine to my accent and the fact that, like his grandfather, I came from Glasgow. "I've got it covered" he said when I asked about paying. Bonus.

Lucy and Jo went back to the pool in the afternoon and we then tried to finish off the contents of our fridge as this was our last day at the resort - we were leaving one day early as we decided to break the long drive back to Oregon - 14 hours it would have been.

As it was, we spent a good chunk of Friday on the road, stopping occasionally to refuel both the car and ourselves. One pit stop we made was at a place called Bravo Farms, which looks like an old fashioned Wild West trading post, although I rather suspect, it's a modern faux facade:

Our overnight stay was in Sacramento. Our hotel, which was really a motel, was handily placed close to the Old Town area and the river so we walked out there for a quick beer and something to eat:

We settled on Fat City eventually. We were all a little tired over dinner, especially Scott, who had done all the driving, but we tried to make a good fist of the photos:

After a night's sleep, we were on the road again at 8 am. We made a coffee/fuel stop at Redding, where Scott and Lucy first met. You may recall the city was the scene of major fire devastation last summer and a lot of work still has to be done to restore parts of the town and the surrounding forests. Many of the tall pine trunks are still standing, although heavily blackened by the fires that took out their branches and all the undergrowth, but a good number must be dangerously fragile now. We spotted choppers at work moving some of the larger trunks.

We got back to Grants Pass in good time, leaving the afternoon free for Scott and Lucy to catch up with their domestic chores - mostly trying to get the house back to normal after the boys had pretty much had a free run for over a week, albeit Scott's mother, Karen, was in attendance trying to keep them on an even keel!

It's now Monday afternoon and it's been pretty cool and damp since we got back - the coldest since we left Scotland mid-February. Temperatures are supposed to be getting back up to the 80's Fahrenheit by Thursday - let's hope so. We didn't do much on Sunday, other than go downtown for a coffee, and today (Monday) is back to work and school day so Jo and I are on our own. We chose to take a trip to Medford to do a little shopping, which included a visit to our favourite book store, Barnes and Noble, where, amazingly, for the first time ever, we both left having bought precisely nothing.