Sarah's Day: September 2014

So sorry for the delay.

I must say it is my pet peeve when I go to someone’s blog and it’s all out of date. Usually by a couple of years.

I’m not that bad. And I have an excuse--I have been recently traveling. Yes I have.

Last Thursday, which was 9/11, I flew to Seattle at the height of rush hour so my sister could fight traffic to come and pick me up at 5:50 pm. You’re welcome. It’s a character builder. Fortunately she left her house 20 miles away from the airport by 2 PM so was pretty close to on time.

The purpose of getting to Seattle on Thursday was so that we could get up bright and early Friday and take Grampa to Sun River.

Last year at the gala Grampa bought two nights at Sun River. After that I moved back to MN and handed the responsibility reins to Martha who planned to drive them down to Oregon. As it turned out, she would be driving by herself so I decided it would be as good a time as ever to come back for a work week and to add in a little vacay to central Oregon. I do love me some Sun River. And no one should have to face a trip like that by themselves. Survivor-Old People Edition. It’s just not right.

Anyway, we didn’t actually stay at the resort-we stayed in a house within the Sun River, #2 Butternut. But more about that later.

We had a lovely drive down. We took I-5 to Salem, had a delicious lunch at The Wild Pear.

That is what I’m talking about.

We took a left at Salem and started over the Santiam pass. It was lovely.

Beautiful Rivers

Wooded hills

There’s a mountain between those trees

This is a big burn that happened in the past. It’s like a tree graveyard and kinda spooky.

Long straight hiways

This selfie needs no explanation.

We arrived at our destination around 6ish or so. We decided that the area has definitely changed since we hung around there about 35-40 years ago. Funny how that happens. Sisters, a town we remember as rather dumpy and not all that inviting is now a huge tourist destination complete with traffic jam. Who knew?

Sun River is lovely place. When we got there we rested a bit, then off to the brewery for delicious dinner. Sweet.

Saturday was another beautiful day and Martha and I started out with a brisk morning walk in which we promptly got lost. We saw lots of people walking their dogs. We tried to keep the ladies on our phones who were giving us directions quiet but every time someone passed by they’d start yelling at us-RECALCULATING. It was only slightly humiliating. After a 5 mile stroll we found the place we were looking for about a mile from our house. Jeesh. We only took one wrong turn on the way back.

Sunrise out the back door.

Hey-you scared us. But not for long because we are used to humans and we like eating tasty shrubbery.

Mt Bachelor over the meadow.

We finally got home and rousted the old people and travelled over to the head of the Metolius. As Martha says “It’s a river that comes out of the ground fully formed”. I believe that says it all.

On the way over we saw some beauteous mountains-these are the Three Sisters.

I think this is Mt Washington

Mt Jefferson

Black Butte-where the Head of the Metolius is

Here’s the educational roadside plaque.

And, selfie at the viewpoint. Ha. Selfies. This trip was completely dedicated to the selfie. I tried to make them tell a story. Like the one above… I mostly took them to send to Dave. I don’t think he was impressed much. (I can see why-not my best selfie-yet)

Selfie with mountain in the background which I am not looking at or even interested in at this moment.

We resumed our search for the Metolius. It took a while to find it. Because Martha and I were really good at finding things this day. We again took the long way. But-----

Here’s the sign at the head of the trail. My goal was to take pictures of signs that can’t be read. So far so good.

Trail

Blue Skies

Arty shot

And the Head of the Metolius-fully formed about 200 feet long at this point.

And…..selfie

(I need to find the edit that removes saggy neck skin-but I have a new computer and I haven’t found that command yet)

After this, we headed back to Sisters and Martha and I went to the Stitchin’ Post-a sort of famous quilt store in Sisters.

I didn’t take one dang picture. Not even a selfie. What was I thinking?

I didn’t take this, I stole it from the interwebs. Lovely store AND there was also yarn. Win win, right?

By this time the old people were tired so we went home and fixed them lunch. Martha and I walked some more because we didn’t get enough walking in. We got yelled at by a biker wanting more walking trail because obviously we were taking up way too much of it. If I hadn’t been so frightened by his shouting at us I think I would have come back with a decidedly unfriendly retort. We walked 9 miles that day. Which made up for the two 7 hour travel days of only walking to rest stops and to get food-both basic bodily needs.

We had dinner at the SunRiver Lodge. The Meadows it was called because it overlooked some meadows. There were river otters out there in the Sun River too. I didn’t get a picture of them. I got a picture of the twilight.

Mount Bachelor at sunset.

We left Sunday early.

The old people were super tired from all the fun and games.

No, I’m not laughing at them sleeping or making fun of them in any way, shape, or form. Not. At. All.

Breakfast somewhere in Oregon with a bear theme.

Martha escorting old people who are blinded by the radiant sun.

And…selfie

I look a little worse for wear too. It’s ex-haus-ting keeping the old people in line. They are deceptively cunning. Just saying. They are easy to lose too. Not that we tried to lose them, they just got lost a couple of times. Hey, it happens.

We arrived back in T-town, and I picked up my rental car at the airport.

Seriously, it’s almost the Blueberry-(those in the know, know)

Laura thought it was classic and I should get my picture inside it. But I couldn’t stand another selfie and a selfie wouldn’t capture the whole ambiance of me in the actual blueberry.

I worked all week long and let me tell you-there’s a reason I do better outside the office, about 1700 miles east. Really. There is.

Because at the end of the week I had to go and get this--

A mini Growler. Which I drank. All by myself. And a couple of Stella’s to top it off.

Cubicle dwelling will do that to you. The real surprise is that I wasn’t drinking this while in the office. Although, note to self, maybe next time.

I went back to the graves in Portland on Saturday to do some business with the G-Pa.

It’s really a beautiful place to ride bikes and enjoy the peace and quiet ~~because dead people are really quiet~~.

On the way home I saw this and thought of Dave-his own personal Mecca.

Who knew this existed in the great Pacific Northwest-land of organic fruit and honey?

got back to T-town and returned to Nina’s, where I was staying, and we went out to dinner with her friend Brian (are you tired yet because this trip kicked my ass so bad I was ill on Monday and couldn’t go to work at the quilt store-I am just pointing out that right now you should be saying to yourself-what? She did more? Wasn’t she tired? How did she do that? She must be SUPERHUMAN. And…you would be right).

Here’s a bad selfie we took at dinner. Yes, graded on the curve against all the other selfies it’s, well, not that great but amused us to no end.

This is what happens when you know someone for 45 years. That’s forty five years. Nina is about 8 hours older than me. Doesn’t she look it?? I tell her that all the time.

The view was pretty nice too.