Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Counting backward from Tuesday.
Today. Woke up
at a reasonable hour and made coffee and breakfast. Shared breakfast with the dogs because I’m running low on
dog food. Ok, this sounds like I’m crossing the Rocky Mountains in the dead of
winter. However, I am running low
on dog food, and we did have breakfast.
The showers here are lovely. The weather was great: kind of overcast and warm but not too
hot with a gentle breeze. After
the shower, we did some walking around the campground and checking out the
different campers and tenters. It’s always fun to see where people are
from. Lots of people admired the
poodz. They all LOVE Zeus because
he’s so little and cute, and he limps.
I put up the awing on the trailer, forgetting which parts
went with which other parts, so it was a sweaty endeavor until was all
done. Then, I sat in shady luxury
and knitted while the dogs slept.
Brookie, Sarah, and Uzzi arrived about 3:30 or 4:00, and we
went to the lake and goofed around.
Uzzi and I got wet, and the poodz got to practice their swimming. Zeus is possibly the worlds worst dog
paddler. Odd, he is a dog after
all.
We returned to our campsite where Sarah and I built a fire
with extremely wet wood and made sheepherder stew. Mmmmm. Wes and
Bethany joined us for dinner, dessert, and the obligatory marshmallow
battle. We played bananagrams and
laughed and had a wonderful time.
It is so good to spend time with family.
Monday.
I got up early in Sisters, let the dogs out, then started packing
the trailer. Tina made tortillas
to go with our breakfast.
Mmmmm. I LOVE home made
tortillas, and hers are the very best on the planet. After looking at pottery
designs, rounding up my scattered possessions, collecting my credit card from
the mail box, and saying reluctant good byes, it was one the road to Silver
Falls State Park.
The road was
nice, except that a big truck got in front of everyone doing about 35-45
mph. Now that would have been OK
with me, but the people behind a trailer always blame the trailer for going
slow. I pulled over and let a
whole string of traffic pass. I guess they don’t have the “five car rule” here
in Oregon.
We arrived at the campground about 3:30 pm and got to our
spot, which is wonderful. After unhitching the trailer and getting set up
Brookie, Mark, Sarah, Uzzi, Wesley, and Bethany arrived. Brookie brought me a TON of fruit. Fresh-picked strawberries, fresh
blueberries, fresh peaches, fresh raspberries, and some big ol’ marion berry
looking berries. Of course, none of that can cross the border into Canada, so
it was fruit, fruit, fruit. I
really wasn’t suffering. We had a
wonderful visit.
Sunday
THE COUNTRY FAIR! Yes!
I love the Country Fair.
It’s in Veneta, near Eugene.
It’s a ginormous hippie gathering of crafts people, musicians, dancers,
performers, vendors, food boothers, and people who like to have fun. The temperature was just right –
probably between 70 and 80. To get
there, we drove about two hours south of Sisters through some of the most
gorgeous scenery in Oregon – unlike the stuff I crossed GETTING to Sisters.
Once in Eugene, we boarded a bus and headed to the
fair. It’s hard to describe the
Country Fair. It’s huge and
something new and interesting is around every bend. There are occasional punny parades. For example, we got to see the Nose
Parade. Large noses followed by
Kleenex boxes. There were Ents,
stilt people, Gumby, and the black and white parade.
After a full day of walking, eating, shopping, watching
people, visiting with people, it was time to go home. What a great day!
Saturday
THE SISTERS QUILT SHOW.
Fabulous. Tina
and I wanted to go early because it was supposed to be hot, and the weather man
was warning about thundershowers.
Mike had already gone off to cut wood, so we ate breakfast, got on our
bikes and headed toward Sisters from Tollgate. Mike and Tina are trading me a dishset for a new quilt, so
we had fun looking at quilts, and Tina was deciding what she wanted. There were so many cool ones.
Last time I went I don’t remember them being divided into
categories, but this year they were.
There was a display of quilts made by men, a display of quilts inspired
by a paint chip color, quilts made by the employees of the Stitchin’ Post. Traditional quilts, art quilts, hand
quilted quilts, large quilts, small quilts, everything! All of them beautiful and
impressive. Just when you think
you’ve seen them all, you go down another street and see more.
As we left, the thunderclouds gathered overhead. We hadn’t been home very long before
thunder, lightning, and rain hit.
We wondered how they got those quilts under cover.
Even though Mike had fortified the dog enclosure, Zorro
greeted us as we rode our bikes into the yard. At least he had the good sense to stay around.
Friday
This was the day of the glazing party. Mike is throwing a
set of dishes for a couple and for their wedding they want to give each guest a
hand-thrown cup. So a bunch of
them got together and threw 260 cups (without handles). Most of them had been bisque fired and
were ready to be glazed.
Mike cooked a turkey in his barbecue, and the guests arrived
and we began the assembly line of glazing the cups. First they (the cups, not the guests) have to be sanded, then dusted, then waxed,
then glazed, then the wax wiped clean of glaze, then dipped in the gold-rim
glaze. It was fun and friendly,
and we got them all done. After a
delicious dinner, we all enjoyed sitting around in the warm evening
visiting. (That’s one thing I
really love here – the warm evenings.)
Thursday
After recuperating from my drive across the endless desert
by sleeping in a real bed, I was ready to get up and be useful. I “helped” Mike mix up some glazes and
visited while he trimmed pots.
My truck needed the oil changed, and that happens in Bend,
so Tina followed me over there and I dropped off the truck. When it was time to pick it up, she
stopped and picked up her grand daughter Loa. What a sweetie pie!
Wednesday
“I been through the desert in a truck with no name. I’d have given anything for a little
bit of rain.” This was Day 2 of “The Big Mistake.” Who knew the route across southern
Oregon would be SO desolate. We
had camped in a pull off where the smell of juniper was just intoxicating and
the temperature cooled down from at least 100 to a decent 70 or so. I expected
a shortage of gas stations in the Yukon, but in Oregon? It was nothing but miles and miles of
nothing but miles and miles. And
hotter than the hubs of hell.
Because we had gone so far the night before looking for a
place to camp and crossing into Pacific Daylight Time we got into Sisters
earlier than we expected to. I
parked the trailer, unhitched it, plugged it in, turned on the fan and prepared
for a break from traveling.
Tuesday.
I left Missoula early after deciding to take the road over
Lolo Pass. Once I got go Weiser,
Idaho, I was going to take a southern route across Oregon to Sisters. It looked good on paper (the map). Lolo Pass was beautiful, but after that
things went uphill and downhill, mostly downhill. It was HOT.
Very hot. There was no
access to any of the rivers. Fewer
pullouts than they have in Alberta.
No rest areas. HOT. Barren. HOT.
I kept looking for a place to pull over and stop so the dogs
could get out of the back of the truck.
Finally, I stopped in some Godforsaken little town and moved the junk
from the cab of the truck to the canopy so they could be in the air-conditioned
part of the truck. By then, I’d
picked my fingernails to bits with anxiety for them. It looked like we were never going to find a place to stop.
After crossing the invisible time zone line, passing innumerable craggy rock
piles, hundreds of empty pastures, a beautiful turn off appeared and we stopped
for the night. By then the sun had
set, and the junipers were releasing their scent into the air. We were far enough off the road that
the dogs could run as they pleased and dig up gopher holes. That was one campsite I will be
eternally grateful to have found.
After a good sleep and a good breakfast the next day, we
headed off to Sisters.
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