Summer R&R

You wouldn't guess from the way we've been relaxing, visiting friends and enjoying this beautiful weather that were in the process of selling a home, planning a world trip and selling and packing up all of our belongings. Ah well, that seems to be our style - doing it all at the last minute and not getting too worked up about it. It makes for stressful days sometimes, but things seem to have a way of working out.

At any rate, early in the month we finally got to go spend a part of a weekend on the Umpqua with one of Keith's best friends and his family (including baby on the way!). Their family owns a cabin on probably one of the best stretches of the river. It's a great swimming hole, with rocks to climb around on and tunnels to swim through. The water was the perfect temperature. The dogs loved it as well. What? A golden and a lab loving the water? Couldn't be. Here is a picture of them all tuckered out, although doesn't it look like it's missing captions where Gracie is pleading with Ashley to be her friend and pay her some attention?...either that or she just looks plain scared - Ash can get a little protective of her toys, as Gracie has been told a time or two.


The mornings brought this erie fog, soon to be followed by 90 degree scorchers.


After that, Keith being "retired", had time to go out to the coast for a couple days to help a good friend paint their family cabin. It was a male bonding type of thing, so I stayed home and worked on the deck (what else?). I also made the first concrete step of our trip and forked over a large sum of cash that will get us our first three major flights of our trip - Seattle to Auckland, Christchurch to Bali (via Sydney), then Jakarta to Singapore. We're committed now!

In return, I then deserted Keith to spend three days up in the mayhem of the greater (and it is gettting greater - as in so unbelievably crowded at all times of the day) Seattle area to visit a bunch of my friends. I spent my first day hanging out with old and dear high school friends. Then spent the next day hiking up Mt Si (East of Seattle) with dearly missed college friends, one of which happened to be in visiting from New York. The timing was perfect. And we had a beautiful hike. And a scrumptious BBQ at the Gibson's afterwards. It was great to see you all!! Thank you everyone for your hospitality!
Here are my favorite pics from the hike:




This one shows the scramble at the end. A little hair-raising at times, but we all made it. Our shorts on the backside might be a little thinner now, but lack of broken limbs is well worth a little worn fabric.

The Latest

It's been a while since we've posted a log here. And as I sit here, I'm trying to figure out what we did with July! Not much except plow away on the deck, I guess. Speaking of, I'm sure the throngs that visit this site have been waiting with bated breath to see how it's coming. Well, wait no longer. We are getting very close to being done with the whole darn thing. There aren't many in between pictures from the last one we posted, so here is what it looks like as of today. The floorplan is done, all boards screwed down and stained:



We've been enjoying some lovely late evening dinners on the deck as the weather has been fabulous. Almost too nice - considering the deck (i.e. our site of work) sees quite a bit of the day's sun. Here is another look from a different angle. Note Keith sitting there comtemplating the best strategy for creating the stairs.



Emily's folks just left after a nice long visit. As usual we got lots of work out of The Parents. Henry helped Keith with some vital construction on the back side of the deck, and Neena was invaluable in helping to keep the place clean for potential home buyers, cooking wonderful meals, prepping deck boards and keeping everyone on task and in line! We did allow them some R&R. We spent one morning canoeing a stretch of the Santiam right here through Lebanon and another day up in the Cascades mountain biking a stretch of the McKenzie River trail. Some pics from the bike ride:

Stopping along the way - we did this frequently as we Gracie needed the cool down. For the limited amount of activity we have given our dog (and ourselves) lately, we were nicely impressed with how well Gracie did along the entire 10 mile stretch.




She even had energy towards the end to do some high flying, log walking tricks:


Keith and I rode the entire stretch from North to South. Emily's folks started from the South and rode South to North about five miles to where we all met up at this cute little hot spring right along the river. It was a perfect way to end the day.

4th of July

Fourth of July is one of the "tradition" holidays for the Oxford side of the Caldera family (huh?). Which means it's a big deal, and people always try their best to show up. Thankgiving is the other holiday like this for Keith's side of the family. Anyway, the 4th consists of rustic camping out in BLM land along the Smith River west of Eugene. Rustic is becoming a relative term, as the number of luxurious camp trailers and RV's is starting to outnumber the tents and tarps. They've been coming out here to camp each year for all of Keith's life minus a few exceptions where they tried the "civilized" camps with rangers and formal camp spots - it wasn't to their liking as they were a little too loud and rambunctious for the camp host's liking.

At any rate, here is a look at what goes on during a typical 4th of July camp:

First and foremost.....lots of eating and hanging around:


Each night there is a poker game of some sort - as of late it has been Texas Hold'em as that is what everyone is playing these days:


Lots of horseshoe playing (note the big RV behind Dwayne - tough life if you have to sleep in that! - needless to say that was not where Keith and I settled down to sleep for the night):


For the second year in a row we had a rousing Cribbage tournament. Emily was the big champ last year, and Keith took the prize this year.


Weather permitting (or not for some folks) there is always large parts of the day devoted to the two swimming holes:


Where Gracie impresses all with her rock catching ability:


This is another shot of the "big" water hole that has this cool "waterfall" to soak under:


And the new activity added this year thanks to the plethera of children that showed up was waterfights with big soakers. Kiel put us all to shame.

Latest on the Deck

We were without our digital camera for a while, so it looks like we've made a lot of progress. Keith is very close to having this be his full time job, so hopefully we'll see some even faster progress from here on out. The boards you see lain out here over the supports have not yet been stained, and they are not actually nailed down yet. We needed a walkway to get to the master bedroom deck so we just laid down the boards that have been planed. We need to plane more before we start securing these boards down, but the planer went belly up. Keith has got some work to do on that now before we get rolling again....ahh the beauty of old machinery. It breaks down! Yes, but it is old and sturdy, so it can be repaired (with a little bit of patience!).

You can now see the shape the deck will take with this picture:




With the planer down, we moved on to the deck off the master bedroom as those boards are already to go - so I thought we should grab a "before" picture:

Coos Bay Sunset

A couple weeks ago, we spent the weekend in Coos Bay visiting Keith's folks and helping them around their house a bit. In the mornings and evenings we like to walk down to the bay to let the dog run. It's just two blocks from their house and sometimes the timing is right and we get treated to views like these:

Graduation & River Trips

We had a fantastic trip to California. We got to meet Carl's roomates, their families, and Tory's family, and lots of Carl's friends and instructors. What a pleasure to meet such a fun and genuine group of people. After SLO, we got a wild ride down the Kings River.

Our first night in SLO, we hung out at the Farmer's Market, watching Carl and his roomies promote themselves - you can see pictures of their efforts on their website: http://www.bikeusa05.com/
Then it was hanging around their place (which I failed to get pictures of). Real estate in SLO is ridiculous, so to be affordable these guys have been living in a two bedroom duplex for the last three years - one room is the shared bedroom, then other is the shared living space. They've done great with the limited space they have - a testimount to their friendship. We thought it would be easiest if we just set up our tent outside to sleep, to stay out of their way and enjoy the fresh air. A true sign that we are now old, we failed to remember what it's like in a college town at the end of finals week. Pure chaos in the streets. OK, that's an exaggeration, but it was quite loud out there - lots of drunken yelling, people peering into our tent, etc. So finally at about 2:00 AM, we moved our stuff inside and crashed on the floor of the living room.

Next day, we hiked up to Bishop's Peak - which gave us a great view of SLO and the ocean:


Carl was then off to take his last final, and Keith and I drove out to the coast, and up and through scenic See Canyon. That evening, Orb's parents showed up at the house, and we all cooked up a bunch of food for the graduates, and sat around and chatted - talking about organic farming, naturopathic remedies, and parasites in SE Asia (naturally our upcoming trip is fodder for conversation, so we get plenty of advice on dangers, remedies, etc.). Our most interesting to date is to eat a good size chunk of ginger each day to keep the system rolling.

More visiting throughout the night, then the rest of Orb's family showed up (two brothers, one nephew, a sister, and a significant other), all of who were also going to be staying in this tiny place. So the rent payers of the place were forced to sleep out in the garage as the family members took over the inside. I got a better night sleep that night as I claimed a very comfortable couch for myself.

The next day was graduation day, but Carl had decided not to walk, so we took the morning and went out to the coast and did some spectacular sea kayaking out of Shell Beach, CA. We risked the breakers, and explored caves, "surfed" the waves, watched seals, and befriended birds. A great time, and beautiful scenery. Keith was the only one to capsize and did it in a rather hairy part of one of the caves. Needless to say, I was the timid one and chickened out on some of the caves as the mixture of crashing surf and sharp rocks, and lack of deft kayak skills did not appeal to me as much.

Back at the house we tried to help repair a window which fell victim to a flying lotion bottle, then got cleaned up and headed to campus to watch Tory graduate in the smaller, more "intimate" ceremony. Sitting in the stands, watching all his Physics compatriots living it up in their black garbs, you could tell Carl was wishing he was down with them. There were lots of empty seats, so we encouraged him to go down and sit with them anyway - it didn't take much encouragement....

Can you find Carl in the above picture?

He proceeded to fill out his information card and actually walked! Onstage and everything, no one blinked an eye. The folks sitting behind us said something like, "Typical for a physics student..." referring to the lack of formal garb. It was great. And I think the Dean got a kick out of it as well.


That night was spent visiting with Tory and her awesome family, eating lots of good food. And the next day we drove out to the country to celebrate some more at Kyle's parents beautiful new home, with more good food and nice visiting. A final farewell to these guys as the shove off to embark on their journey.

From there Keith and I took off to the Kings River to meet up with Elizabeth at her summer place of employment: http://www.whitewatervoyages.com/rivers/kingsriver.html
For a small fee, some quality beer, and a couple stints doing dishes, we got two trips down the river, lots of good meals, and met some more quality people.

Our guides and hosts for the weekend.

The river was running extremely high and fast this weekend because of all the snow California got this past winter coupled with the fact that they were experiencing their first truly hot days - so snow was melting fast, making for a fast run, and lots of big water.

Elizabeth has been guiding for three years now, and I have to say I was very impressed with her skill and command of the river. Confident, and she knew exactly how to get us into the biggest water and in the safest way. However, we did fall under the "family and friend" curse. We flipped. Everyone in the boat out, and the boat upside down. This was only the second time this happened to her, and it happend on a relatively small rapid. At any rate it happened in a good spot as there was a long stretch of calm water to get the raft turned upright and get us all back in. She handled it beautifully and we didn't need assistance from any of the other boats.
The second day, we all stayed in, but one of the other boats in our group had a bad spill and lost some of the riders, including the guide. Those left in the boat were shellshocked and frozen in place, with no one taking charge. So Elizabeth went to the rescue and guided us over to them to assist in cleaning up the "carnage" and get the other raft to shore - again she handled it in a very calm, collected manner - taking charge of the situation. If any of you ever raft with Whitewater Voyages, ask for Liz to be your guide!
Here are some good pics of us on the river:

To Cali for Vacation!

We woke to an unwelcome alarm this AM at 5:30. I have gotten pretty used to the swing shift schedule where I vaguely hear Keith's alarm go off around 6:00 each morning, but can smile to myself and fall back into neverland knowing I can sleep in as long as my body wants....which has been about 9:00 lately. Not this morning. Today I had to drag myself out of bed bright and early as we had a plane to catch out of PDX at 10:30. We are heading to the sun to finally visit Carl at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo (SLO) - this is our last chance to do so, as this is his graduation weekend!

We had an uneventful trip to Portland and on through to San Jose, landing down a bit early. Then we hit the rental car line. Apparently we didn't get some special, one time deal. Dollar Rental has got to be giving cheap cars out to everyone because the line was LONG and SLOW. As we were in no hurry, we went with it, and did not get irritated.....About 45 minutes later at the counter, I eavesdrop on the lady next to me (OK, so I've been eavesdropping and people watching since I entered the airport....it's one of my downfalls, OK?). She was inquiring about the size of her car. When she was told it would be smaller than a Geo and without power steering, I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. As she proceeded to agree to pay for an upgrade, I asked the lady helping me if that is how small our car was going to be. She looked at me, gave me a half-nod and a knowing-winking kind of smile. Not knowing what to make of that, I shrugged it off as we weren't too concerned about the car and as Keith pointed out, "it'll get good gas mileage at least".

However, my rental car attendant (what do you call them anyway?) continued to act very suspicious and at one point gave me that smile again, only this time putting the top of her pen just above her upper lip (just under the nose). Well that did it. I was then convinced I had a big booger hanging from my nose, and finally understood why she was acting so weird. So I slyly brushed my hand against my nose a couple times with no results. As she finished up the paperwork, she leaned in real close and said, "Don't tell those other people, but I got you a real nice car - a Dodge Stratus." (aka, not a roller skate on wheels). I have no idea why she did that for us....just caught her at the right time I suppose....

So now we sit in mid-size rental car luxury driving south on 101 through Salinas and beyond towards SLO. Passing lots of pretty valleys, agriculture, and hunched over migrant workers. Looking down the fields as we pass by is almost like watching a flip book as the images appear briefly at the end of each row. We had a nice lunch in Gonzales, which distinctly reminded me of Mexico - the houses, restaurants, everything written in Spanish. And now pushing onwards to the graduation festivities in SLO....