Pirates On The Oregon Coast! - Harvey 2.0

We were getting toward the end of the Harvey trip ...

This is the second summer in a row that we've done a journey with our three oldest grandsons - I say oldest because we have a new one! just weeks old now, but far too young for this trip! - and we were heading down the home stretch of the road trip.   
Last year we went in a Recreational Vehicle, y'know ... an RV.  But the boys renamed it a Har-Vee, or using a proper name, a Harvey. Hence the Harvey 2.0 name for this trek.

We had been up on the North Coast of Oregon in the Fort area - Fort Stevens, Fort Clatsop etc. - and worked our way down through a series of stops all the way to Newport.  We have an apartment there, and spent the last couple days in that town.

There is a park nearby where we stay and it's call the Pirate Park because all the toys there are shaped like Pirate ships and such. There is a big honkin slide there.  The boys had a great time playing, and part of the goal is to wear them out!  Later that night we watched a DVD called "Babe" - it's and older movie now with the pig that became a sheep dog ....

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A highlight was a treasure/scavenger hunt on the last morning of the trip.  I went out for my morning jog, but with a secret plan.  I had a bag of cool toys that little boys would like.  This took a fair amount of planning in advance, and we had to keep the stuff hidden while we spent the week with the lads.








So there is a really cool trail nearby.  As I was "jogging" and made my way through there, I used orange flagging tape to mark spots where there was a toy nearby, which I had hidden in the bushes.  It took a little time, and I was slightly concerned that someone else might come along and find all this hidden stuff.

Anyway, upon my return to the apartment, I announced that we were going to have a scavenger hunt.  I anticipated great excitement over this, but was met with ... indifference.  

So I then changed tactics and announced that it was a Treasure Hunt! for awesome toys hidden by Pirates!  This new approach received a much more enthusiastic "AAAwesome!!! Dude! COOL!!  Let's go!"

Off we went, and it worked out really good.  They raced up the trail and found the goodies and had a great time.  Except you have expect the inevitable "he got more than I did" comments.   So at the end it all came out okay as they swapped stuff and shared stuff.  

And then they promptly forgot most of their "treasures" and began to chant - WE WANT BREAKFAST!  We want Breakfast! ... you get the picture.  Little boys, like many adults, have a short attention span. 

We headed off to Pig and Pancake and wolfed down a whole bunch of unhealthy goo.   Hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream should be illegal ...

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Almost Home ...

At long last we began our return to the Willamette Valley with one final event that I was not looking forward to.  We were going to have a camp out in our side yard.  Frankly, this is the last thing I wanted to do, I was exhausted and halfway sick from a bug I got on the trip.

So we talked our son TK into sleeping in the tent with the boys, and he deserves a prize.  It was a long night, or maybe I should say a short night, as they woke up early and nobody slept much.  

Of course, before bed we had one final surprise ... sparklers!  And Of course, we built this up too. Hey, you have to do a little promotion of your cool surprise features!  They loved it, just in time to go to bed and be really pumped up!  Who's idea was this?

You go as long as you can on these trips and you give it your best, but after a week, well ... you kind of run out of gas.  It was a lot of fun and maybe we'll do this next year? ... Maybe?

Harvey 2.0 - Kids Say the Darndest Things

Since we left Fort Stevens, things have gone South ...

 
In other words, we are driving South and have reached Newport. However, the weather has changed dramatically and it's raining steady and hard.   Very wet here on the coast, which puts a damper on outdoor activity.

We didn't get very far yesterday on our way deeper down the coast before we hit a rather nasty accident on Hwy 101 and traffic stopped.  There are no alternatives to this road for quite a ways, so the only option was to sit and wait.  Kind of a momentum killer.

We eventually got through and as I mentioned yesterday, we pigged out at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, eating way too much.  But we pressed on and made it to Otter Crest, where we spent the night. The kids headed right for the pool, which was expected, and spent a couple hours there until we finally made them get out around 7:00 at night.   Watched a movie and then to bed. 

 
Woke up that day to a steady rain and had to make new plans.  This called for indoor activities and we spent much the day at the Marine Science Center in Newport.  This is a terrific facility with a lot more than just displays.  There are a lot of activities, it's a perfect place for a rainy day. 

  
Then we had a late lunch and spent some time at the excellent Newport Library.  Again, in the hard rain, you have to find ways to amuse kids and keep them busy and occupied.  It worked. 

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Keeping in theme with the rainy day atmosphere, I thought I would reflect and recap many noteworthy and amusing comments by the three grand sons on our trip.

• We were passing by a cemetery, which indicated that we were close to our destination and the boys were glad.  Yoppie said we should not be glad, we should be sad.  "If you see a graveyard you have to cry ... Ohh, boohoo, my ancestors died!"

• There was a program on the radio and one of the characters said something about "people" and "people means not kids" Sam piped up from the back: "Technically, kids are people too." 

• Yoppie declares while sitting around the campfire one night: "Smoke in my mouth makes my fruit snacks taste like beef!"

• At one point we were handing out snacks and somebody complained about their portion.  One of the others reminded him of the saying that: "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit!"

•  The boys were talking about the Little Rascals, and which one was their favorite.  Sam said his favorite was Dorky, HaHa!  Jackson quickly corrected him "It's Porky, not Dorky ... you dork!"

• The boys regularly invent games, they get this from me.  So Sam is trying to get me to play a game he made up with goofy rules and it's way too complicated.  So I tell him: "This game is dumb - do you like this game Yoppie?"  and Yoppie, trying to be polite says: "Hmmm, it's kinda strange ..."

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• We're sitting around eating chicken around the campfire at dinner time and Jackson reaches into his mouth and fiddles around for a minute and pulls out a tooth.  There is a stream of blood and saliva that drools out of his mouth.  He throws the tooth on the table, hocks a spit to clear his mouth, and takes another bite of chicken.  ... the tooth had been loose for a while.  Tough kid. 

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• I had an attack of vertigo, which I get once in a while.  It's been a while, but this time it was kinda bad.  I was trying to explain to Yoppie what vertigo is, where you get dizzy.  He says:  "I don't know what that's called, but it sure is a weird disease!"

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We are talking about people we know and Yoppie says something about Lilly Von.  We don't know who that is.  

He is surprised, "you don't know who Lilly Von is?"

We answer: "No, who is she?"  

Yoppie says: "She's in my class"  

And we are like "What? How are we supposed to know someone who is in your class? ... do you like her?"

Fiona asks:  ".. is she cute?" 

Yoppie:  "No, she's not cute, she's seven". 

Kids say the darndest things.  We all have a good laugh when we're on these trips.  

Harvey 2.0 - The Return of the Summer Road Trip!

Readers of this blog may remember a trip last year we took with our grandsons

It was called the Harvey trip.  

The name came from the fact that we were driving around Oregon in an RV, which the grandsons named "Harvey" after a character in a Disney movie.  It was a cartoon, and the character was actually an RV = "Harvey" - get it?  Anyway, we're doing it again, only this time it's not quite an RV, more like a mini-van. 

So we set out on Monday morning after a very hectic last couple weeks.  June is Birthday time around our family, and our son TK came home from Nicaragua, and other assorted activities - and best of all - our other son Lewis and his wife Ruby just had a baby, their first, a boy.

Therefore we didn't have as much time to lay out elaborate travel plans.  We just packed up as much as we could and off we went.

On the way up to the north coast of Oregon, we were passing through Portland and out through Hillsboro with a destination of Fort Stevens at the northwest tip of Oregon, west of Astoria.  

While driving there I was talking to Fiona and I stated that I would like for this trip to be a "McDonalds free" zone, with a focus on eating right with the three boys and trying to be healthy.   So where was the very first place we stopped?  You guessed it - McDonalds.   

The following conversation ensued over lunch:
Me:  Sam, how many chicken nuggets do you think you've had in your life?     Sam:  Oh, maybe like thirty.
Me:  Thirty?  That's not very many, I'm sure you've had a lot more than that ...    Sam:  Hmmm, Okay well, maybe like a million ...

We pull into Fort Stevens and we have a special treat for the boys, we're staying in a Yurt!

What's a Yurt, you might ask?  It's a round tent like structure, based on the traditional portable housing of Mongolian nomads.  No, really, that's where they come from.  And they're pretty cool. 

It was fun and interesting and - we were completely unprepared.  It's more like camping than we thought and we didn't bring hardly anything for cooking or other such needs, other than a big frying pan, shown in the back seat next to Fiona's shoes.  We did have some firewood, however, and built a good fire to cook some basic breakfast 

We didn't bring bikes along this time, but we had scooters.  The only problem - the camp rangers wouldn't let them ride without helmets (really? in a campground? seriously?).  It just so happens they sell them ... so we bought some and then named the boys "The Red Helmet Club" - with matching stop sign. 

We realized we didn't have sleeping bags so Fiona bought some last minute and the boys used the bags for sack races!  Rather ingenious I would say.  

We made our way to the nearby beach where the boys got entirely covered in wet sand and other assorted states of dirty.  I got a picture of them in front of the historic shipwreck of the Peter Iredale in the waves.  

We were still digging sand out of Sam's ear the next day.

When we got to Fort Stevens of course the boys loved it. There were a bunch of big cannons there.  They played soldiers and ran and jumped around and pretended like they were shooting bombs.  Great fun for little boys.  

They found a big old rusty cannon from the days of World War II and they used their imagination about the past.  Jackson is usually the ring leader and convinced the boys that "we can blast ourselves into the past if we work together!" if they said it while placing hands on the old relic. 

 

Lewis & Clark were the best ...

After that we went to Fort Clatsop, where the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped when they finally reached the Pacific Coast after the Voyage of Discovery across the "virgin American wilderness" in 1805.  It's a place I really love.  I have studied a lot about Lewis and Clark and this place holds a real fascination for me. 

On the way there, we went to another standard spot for lunch - Costco (in Warrenton).  We got pizza, hot dogs, and ice cream.  Yeah, really super healthy.  On the way out, the boys can't resist climbing and playing on everything.  Just as I was taking a picture of them horsing around on the shopping cart cage, Yoppie plunged to the ground and did a face plant.  Great Fun!  Well, he was just a little hurt ....

Our next to last stop that day was at the Astor Column in Astoria, Oregon.  Jackson, Yoppie and I climbed all the way to the top.  It's really tall and I'm not real good with heights.  Jackson isn't either.  He boldly declared that he would "conquer his fear" but it still took some coaxing to get him to the top.  We snapped a selfie when we got back down.  The view from the top was spectacular!  

Oh, and one last thing we did that second day, we went to the movies in the evening in Astoria and took the boys to see "Finding Dory" which was a terrific fun movie.  

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We departed after a couple days there at Fort Stevens State Park, and started south to Tillamook, where we toured the cheese factory. It's pretty touristy and everybody goes there, but you can't resist the place, and all the good food.  

On the road again ...

Not So Fun Times in Albania - Part II

Where we left off ... was where ... we were left off ... the bus 

If you missed the first installment of this adventure, we had crossed the remote mountains from Greece to the border of Albania here. 
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The big problem was that our bus took off without us, and we were stranded in the middle of nowhere without our luggage or anything. On the positive side, we did have our passports!

We walked out of the passport office and looked around.  All you could see were hills surrounding us, and a few worn taxis with dangerous looking drivers waiting for victims.   No one spoke English.  We were sixty miles from civilization. 

Fiona and I looked at each other, "what are we going to do?"  We decided to just sit and wait.  At some point, we would figure out what to do.  It was still early, before six in the morning.  We went back inside to talk to the passport officer.  We told him our bus left us behind, and he didn't seem surprised and didn't seem to care.  
"Welcome to Albania ..."

Without any options, we continued to wait.  "I'm not getting in one of those taxis", Fiona said, and I agreed.  We waited.  Lo and behold, after quite a while, another bus came along.  Maybe this is our chance!

We explained to the bus driver in sign language (nobody spoke much English in those parts) about our predicament, and he motioned "no problem, just get on my bus, only you'll have to stand ..." and he continued "maybe I can catch the bastard."

So we stood.  The bus was full people and kids and chickens and goats, but hey, we're moving.  The driver was really moving too, careening over the sometimes steep hills on bad roads and we had to hang on or we would fall over. 



 
 Eventually to our surprise, we caught up with the other bus!  Our guy starts honking and gets our original bus to pull over.  The driver comes back and sees us and says (I'm paraphrasing here) "Hey, what happened to you guys?"  
"You left us behind - you turkey!" 
And the driver replies "Turkey?"  
He looks around puzzled "Theese not Turkey, theese Albania!"
If we weren't so upset, this would have been quite funny.

So he invites us back to our first bus, but we're still ticked off.  We'll  just get our bags and ride our rescue bus.  We reached Korce, Albania, sometime mid morning.  

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On the way during the bus ride, we kept seeing these bunker like concrete structures built into the slopes alongside the road.  It seemed like they were everywhere.  They looked like rounded concrete defensive structures where soldiers could be inside with slits for the guns to shoot out - which is exactly what they were.  

There seemed to be hundreds, even thousands of them.  They were everywhere.  In fact, according to some sources, there are over 700,000 of them!

I asked the bus driver about them, and he was able to explain in broken English (along with help from another passenger), that the former communist government was very paranoid.  They thought  that America and the West were going to invade Albania at any moment, so they built these fortifications all over the country, designed to be manned with armed soldiers.

I almost laughed.  They couldn't be serious!  Why would America - or anybody else for that matter - every invade this small, impoverished, third rate, isolated, dysfunctional country for any reason? Most people couldn't even find this place on a map if they had to.  

At this point, they assured me, there are no soldiers anymore.  The former president was overthrown and died and "Now we have anarchy!"  

This is why you travel, to learn things like this that defy common sense, and even reality. 

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We finally reach Korce after driving through some fairly primitive countryside. 

Not knowing how long we'd be there, we had to find accommodations.  Some guy points us around the corner up the street and says "hotel".  We walk there and look up at this big, old, ominous Soviet bloc building.  We pause, and then walk inside.  

The clerk says they have rooms available, for cheap, and gives us a key and instructions upstairs.  We get to the room, and take one look, and know immediately we're not staying there.  We open the solid metal door, and it's like a concrete cell, with cots for beds and bars on the windows.  It's very cold and there is no heat.  For all we knew, it used to be a prison.  No thanks.

 
We walk downstairs and hand back the key, he doesn't seem too surprised.  We ask if there is anything else with a little better quality in town, and he just stares at us.  Customer service is non-existent in this country.  He shakes his head.  
We start to wander out and he says there might be a "luxury" hotel up the road a ways off, but it's very expensive!

We'll take our chances there.  We find it, but it's not what any traveler would call luxury.  Actually it was not too bad, even had a working TV.  It was only about fifty bucks a night - expensive?

So we need to get some local currency.  I have a some American dollars and ask the clerk at the front desk if there is a bank nearby. 

Clerk:  Bank?  Oh no, we don't have banks, this is Albania.
Me:  Hmmm, I need to change some money, how do I do that?
Clerk:  Oh no problem, you can do that.
Me:  Where do I go?
Clerk:  Just walk down the road here and take a left and go to the plaza, there's a money changer there.
Me:  Like an office?
Clerk:  No, no office, just a big mean looking guy.
Me:  How will I know who it is?
Clerk:  Oh!  Ha! Don't worry. When you see him ... You will know!  

This sounds funny and again, under different circumstances, it would have been.  But I was nervous walking around.  Albania was rather notorious for violence and such.   But I come to the plaza and look around and sure enough there is a huge mean looking guy with a big black coat standing on the corner.  

I walk up and hold out a bunch of dollars and the guy looks at me and grunts. He reaches inside his coat and pulls out a wad of money as big as a roll of toilet paper, and peals off a few notes and hands them to me. I look down and try to count them and we waves me off, like get outta here - now. 

 

When I get back to the hotel, Fiona asks me if I got a good exchange rate!  I replied, "I have no idea, HA! and I wasn't gonna negotiate with that gnarly looking thug.  You take what you get and move on!"

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The next step was to find our contact, and all we had was a name we had written down on a piece of paper.  It was a missionary who could point us in the direction of the refugee camps for the Kosovars.  Keep in mind, this is a long time ago and there is no phone book or other resource to find someone or contact them, especially in Albania. 

We ponder the situation; how are we going to find our contact?  We asked the clerk how to find this person and he looked at us as though we had just dropped out of a space ship.  No help. We were on our own.  

I hatched an idea - why don't we just start walking down the street and see if we can find him?  Fiona looked at me like I was an idiot (which sometimes I am).  She thought sounded like a ridiculous idea.   But okay, this town is big but not that big, and we can just ask around and keep wandering and see if we discover something, and ... do you have a better idea?

So that's what we did.  We walked around with a curious look on our face.  Eventually we found a guy who looked like a person from the West.  You know, you can usually tell when someone is not local.  For one thing, he had a decent haircut.  

Excuse me, do you speak English?  I asked him.  He turned to me and looked shocked.  "Yes, ... yes, I do!"  It's just that he had not encountered anyone, especially on the street, that spoke English to him.  We talked for a minute and ducked inside a coffee shop to discuss things over a cup of seriously strong Albanian coffee.  Geez, do they put Vodka in their coffee?

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Turns out this guy was from Canada and he was working there with a foreign aid program.  He had been there about a year, and didn't have a lot of good things to say about the country or the people. We explained our goal on the trip and he was amazed we would come there on our own and attempt something like this. 

He did have a good idea though, and led us to a building with a big metal gate, and banged on the door.  This country is really concerned about security, it's kind of a lawless place.  They let us in once they realized who he was and he mentioned the name of the manager, who turned out to be a lady.  

She was also intrigued by our quest, and she had some contacts who might know this person or how to find him.  We thanked our newly made friend and set off to a place the lady sent us.  It was another upstairs office across town where we got some more clues, and this went on for a while, until we got an address.  This whole thing took all day.  

We walked to this address and banged on the door.  It was around dinner time by then, and when the man opened the door he was astonished.  How did you find me?!?!  How did you get here?!?!
He was dumbfounded, and once he overcame his shock, he invited us in.  He had a family with a wife and a couple kids.  

We explained our goal to work with the refugees from Kosovo, and were trying to make contact with agencies who could point us in the right direction.  We explained that we took the midnight bus from Thessalonika, and his jaw dropped.  

"You took the midnight bus? And lived to tell about it?"  He was astounded. "Even the local people don't do that!"   I think he figured we were out of our minds for this whole adventure, but we just figured, well you gotta do what you gotta do. 

So we talked for a while into the evening shared ideas and plans and agreed to meet again the next day.  At one point a colleague of his came to the house and joined the conversation.  We started to leave and he asked how we were going to get back to the hotel.  We said we were going to walk and he said - "No, you don't want to walk here at night!  It's not safe!  My friend will take you back to the hotel.  And keep the doors locked in the car!"

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We got back to the hotel and felt right asleep, exhausted.  When we awoke in the morning, we turned on the funky TV which surprisingly actually had the CNN international broadcast.  The headline came on when they showed Kosovo and Albania.  There were tanks and soldiers and people climbing fences and running.  What was going on?

 
Well, the Russians had beaten the Americans to the punch (pardon the pun) and invaded Kosovo with tanks and foot soldiers to stop the bloodshed of Serbians killing Kosovars.  Just like that, the war was effectively over.  

The people climbing the fences were Kosovo refugees leaving Albania to return home.  By the looks of it, they couldn't wait to get out of Albania.  Within days the refugee camps were empty.  Our trip was all for naught.  There would be no refugees to help.  

Well, we gave it our level best, and I don't think the effort was wasted - we had a terrific adventure.  To follow up, we were able to reach our local contact and we agreed there was no point in pursuing a humanitarian aid as all the "displaced persons" had gone home. Although the future was still uncertain (isn't it always?), there was no place for us here in Albania.  

We left the next day.  This time we took a daytime bus.  I'm not sure I would recommend Albania as a place for tourists.  

Let's Go Way Back, to 1999 for a story from the past

Ever been stranded way far away from ... anything?

In the interest of keeping this blog interesting ... I've decided to relive a moment in the past that was extremely ... interesting.

 

Over the years, Fiona and I have led a lot of trips for providing aid or assistance through humanitarian efforts, church efforts, or eventually through the Andando Foundation for many people in many countries.  

Way back in 1999, this effort took us to Albania - a little known (almost unknown) country with a rather mixed history of violence and hostility - so we found ourselves on our way to that destination on a trip to Europe seventeen years ago.  

 

We were actually in the process of a trip to Venice and other nice destinations, but since we were so close, we decided to take a sojourn to Albania (because of the political situation at that time) with the purpose of setting up a near term aid and assistance effort for refugees in a crisis.

  

The source of the crisis was Kosovo, where a war had broken out spilling over from the conflict in Bosnia and Serbia.  Note: This area has been a source of conflict and war since ... the beginning of time. Ironically, the Kosovars were fleeing ethnic violence to ... Albania.  

 

To give readers a perspective on this choice, it would be like jumping off the top of a ten story building to escape a fire.  In other words, either option is really bad.  For the Kosovars caught in the crossfire of a war, it was almost like they could choose to die in Kosovo or suffer a terrible fate in ... Albania. 

The biggest problem for us in this endeavor to provide help is that Albania is not an easy place to get to. In fact, it's an extraordinarily difficult place to get to - something we found out in person.  As we plotted our journey, it contained no options but to travel overland from Greece.  

We made our way to the best jumping off point - Thessalonika, in Greece.  This is a rather enchanting coastal city that may be familiar to many as the target of the Biblical book of Thessalonians. 

At any rate, we found ourselves there in Thessalonika with the challenge of getting to Albania.  You might stop and question this rather unusual scenario where Fiona and I are putting ourselves in harm's way to help people we've never met in a place we've never been to.  We eventually adopted that frame of mind through a curious turn of events. 

So the only way to get to Albania from Greece is by bus, over the mountains from Thessalonika to Korce (pronounced core-cha), where we hoped to make contact with a name we had on a scrap of paper.  Hey, this was a while back, in the days before the internet - or common sense, for that matter. 

Turns out the bus leaves at midnight.  This became quickly apparent as the worst possible time to begin a bus trip.  Why?  Because the unruly passengers chose to pass the time before the bus left by drinking vast amounts of alcohol.  As they began to board the bus, everyone began to push and shove and ... this led to drunken men throwing punches and it got very rowdy.  

However, we had tickets!  So we pushed and shoved our way to the front of the line and (because we look like affluent foreigners) we were allowed to board.  Others were not so fortunate, and things got very rough, as it became obvious that everyone would not fit on the bus.  There was a lot of shouting and obscenities in foreign languages, and more punches thrown.  Worst boarding procedure I have ever seen.  It was dang near a riot.  

So, off we go, with a very uncertain feeling about the whole thing. It is very unsettling to begin a trip to God knows where with a brawl and no one speaks English and we don't even know what we're going to do when we get there.

The bus trip starts off okay, but quickly descends into chaos.  We climb a mountain range over treacherous roads in the dark until we reach the top of a hill and stop.  All the men get out and go to the right side of the bus to pee.  All the women get off the bus and go to the left side to vomit.  

And we've got a long way to go!  We're just getting started.  So we sort of pile and stagger back on to the bus and the driver decides to check for tickets.  Keep in mind that the driver at this stage ... well, he is the Law.  He is a big gnarly dude and he is going down the aisle and checking for tickets.  I'm thinking "how did people get on the bus without tickets?"

 

He found out some lady had no tickets and he slapped her hard!  Geez!  This is getting weird.  Then he found some "stowaway" guy who had no ticket and he became furious and began to thrash the hell out of the guy, beating the crap out of him!  And the driver dragged this guy to the front of the bus and grabbed him by the collar and back of his pants and hurled him off the bus!  The passenger tumbled off over the side of the hill!

Fiona and I shrunk down in our seats.  We waved our tickets in the air so the driver wouldn't beat us up, and he smiled and said we were fine.  Whew!  Dodged a bullet there, or at least a beating.  

So we continue on into the night over hill and dale into one of the more remote parts of the world.  At this point it was hard to sleep, we were very nervous and began to second guess our decision to make this trip. 

As the night wore on, we made progress over the mountain range separating Greece from Albania.   As the early morning light began to appear, we came to a remote passport control post, the border between the two countries.  It was SO not close to anywhere.  All we could see was mountains and hills and guys with guns.  

So the driver announces, "Everyone off the bus! Go to the office!"

Of course, no one spoke English, but we could get the picture, so we just followed the rest of the bus crowd into the office.  It was a fairly crude operation with antiquated buildings.  All the Albanians went in one line, and the few Greeks went in another line, and we (the only Americans, or any kind of foreigners) went in a third line. 

This whole process took forever.  You think American bureaucracy is a hassle? ... try the stuff overseas.  And right on cue, when the Albanian border guard realizes we're American, the price goes up. "You need to pay more money!" he says.  

"Why?" I ask.  

"Because!"  he answers. 

So we play the game and wait while he stamps the numerous papers.  It takes a long time.  We notice that the other lines are moving faster, and most of the people are back on the bus.  Pretty soon, EVERYONE is back on the bus - but us.  What is taking this border guy so long? 

The bus begins to move.  It starts rolling forward.  I say to Fiona "surely, he is going to stop ..."  But the bus keeps rolling and picking up speed.  I ask the border guy to hurry up - he has no idea what we're saying and doesn't really care. 

 

I again state (for my own reassurance) "This bus guy is going to stop isn't he?" and the bus keeps rolling.  Our border guard couldn't care less and is oblivious to the situation.  Fiona and I stop and stare with our mouths wide open and realize - the bus driver is not going to stop.  And the bus drives off!

Are you kidding me?  Our bags are on the bus - we are in the middle of nowhere - it's about 4:30 in the morning, we're not far from a war zone, nobody speaks English, and we have been abandoned by the only connection to the outside world.  Hey man, this really sucks!  I have rarely felt so alone or isolate in my life. 

What the hell are we going to do now????  

I hate to do this, but the story gets even more complicated. 

To be continued ... 

  

All's Well That Ends Well, June 4th is a special day for me

So today was full of activities with a few twists ...

This interesting day started out when we woke up at the coast in Newport, Oregon.  I went for a jog, which is something I've done every morning for the last 43 years, more or less.  I am generally pretty faithful about keeping fit, and running is how I do it.  

I'm not as fast as I used to be.  In fact, I was never really fast, but pretty steady.  These days I am a bit hobbled with a badly mangled toe, something I managed to do on a recent trip to Central America. 

Actually, when we first awoke and looked out the window with our coffee in hand, there was a Marathon going on; probably a couple thousand runners.  

Newport was where I ran my first Marathon in 1999.  I finished ... in well, not too bad a time ... under four hours.  I went on to run another seven marathons, in three different states and three foreign countries.  My times did not improve much as the years rolled on, but I was always able to finish under four hours. 

Not long after that, Fiona and I went for a walk to have breakfast. We love to walk.  It was a beautiful morning - sunny, clear, and warm.  It reached 80 degrees at the coast - no way! - yes way!  

After breakfast, we went back to our apartment to ... clean the windows. Woo-hoo! Everyone's idea of fun!  It was a little hairy hanging out over the second story (heights are not my thing) but it was a successful effort. 

Then we went to the Yaquina Head lighthouse, which is always a spectacular setting.  For some reason, I have acquired a liking for watching waves crashing on rocks.  Not sure why, but I can watch waves crashing on rocks for hours, when I get the rare chance.  It helps me keep things in perspective. 

Mid-afternoon, we headed back to Corvallis for a party.  There were lots of family members there and grandkids, and general mayhem ensued.  When we get together as a family, there is a lot of energy and mischief. The weather today was really hot here in the Willamette Valley, so naturally we had a water fight.  I lost (and got soaked in the process), which was not entirely unpleasant. 

Things take a turn for the worse ...

In the middle of the party, I got a cell phone call from my neighbor at home.  Our power went out - on a day when the temperature in our car said 102 degrees - great timing!  I guess the whole area in South Salem and Jefferson lost power.  And "oh, by the way," my neighbor said, "I think someone stole your mail".   Jolly good news in the middle of a party. 

Did I mention that this party was for me?  Today is my birthday, and I'm older than most people reading this let's just say I continue to reach new levels of maturity, Ha!

---------------------------------------------------

This has been a good week, with my son Lewis and his wife Ruby blessed with the birth of their first child, a son.  So we packed up the party and were going to head over to Lewis' house (not far away) for some cousin pictures.  Only, as we set out in two different rigs, we had left the pizza on top of the car.  

My daughter Alison was honking the horn but the occupants of the other car couldn't understand why she was shouting, until a passing motorist yelled "HEY! You've got a pizza on top of your car!"  The pizza was rescued, whew!

We got to Lewis and Ruby's and apologized in advance for the disruption that was coming, and sure enough, it got a little rowdy, and ended with the boys jumping off the front porch, but we got a picture of the five cousin grandkids, with little Sullivan only four days old.

We wanted to leave before somebody got hurt, so we bundled back up in the two cars and set off.  When we got back to Beka's, Fiona flew into a minor (major?) panic when she realized she had left her cell phone on top of the car (really? seriously? twice in one afternoon? driving around with items on top of a car?) only this time, the phone was gone!  

So we called Lewis who went walking down the street as Fiona raced back over, and remarkably, Lewis found the iPhone in the road about a quarter mile away.  It worked, but it was badly smashed. 

We finished up the party, with everyone (meaning the kids) too hot and too full of sugar and birthday cake, and getting too edgy and falling apart and ... oookaaay, ....  it's time to leave! 

We made it home just in time for a beautiful sunset.  We even went for a walk around our hill.  Hey fitness buffs, I reached 19,000 steps for the day, dude!   

I love days that are packed with activity, with little unexpected twists.  Oh, and our power came back on just before we got home. And turns out our mail did not get stolen.  Life is full of blessings.