Category: walkabout / local

rDay Four-Hundred-Fifty-Two: Union

Father’s Day.  The idea today for our customary Sunday hike was to rediscover an area in the Valley that we had visited when the kids were quite young.  But failing to find the location, we found ourselves near the greater metropolitan region of Union, so we explored it instead.  Starting at the city park through which runs Catherine Creek, we went on to walk main and side streets, then returned to the park and Union Hotel before making our way back home.  Charlie loved wading in Catherine Creek and “met” many other dogs as we zigzagged around the town.  We went by some sculptures in a downtown window by the amazing Brenna Tyler (see a video on her work at the bottom of this post; she is the adopted sister of Kim’s yoga instructor), spotted a few uncharacteristic vehicles parked behind the Historic Union Hotel, and just plain wandered about.  And passed by the home and fleet of vehicles of our good friend, jamesa. 

And, now, Brenna Tyler …

rDay Four-Hundred-Forty-Five: Rinehart

Until ill health interfered, we had planned to make some field trips in connection with the annual Ladd Marsh Bird Festival in May. One of its field trip destinations was “Rinehart Canyon”.  Never knowing of such a place, and failing to find it on local maps, we asked around a bit. Janet, remembering from her birding days, generally placed it along the Grande Ronde River between Imbler and Elgin. Someone also said that it was in the vicinity of Mt. Harris. So Sunday morning, we set off driving up the Elgin Highway until we came upon a small sign for Rinehart Lane, just past the Summerville turnoff and with Harris to our right. While we never saw any formal Rinehart Canyon signage, we followed the rough gravel road that called itself Rinehart Lane along the river and up over the hills.

The river area was teeming with airborne critters and more, so we guessed we were in the right place.

Following Rinehart Lane for a few miles, we saw rugged, rocky hills and irrigated farm fields and livestock and plenty of dogs. And Kim watched for more birds with her binoculars.

And the river itself …

rDay Four-Hundred-Thirty-Four

A day of action and surprises, at least by the usual standards of our quiet life.

First, hardly sooner than we decided to seek quotes on trimming dead limbs (see yesterday), it turns out that our desired tree surgeon just happened to be working on our neighbor’s trees across the street and consented to working our needs, bypassing a schedule that would normally require an appointment at least two weeks out.  So the large dead limb that was hanging precariously over the front of the house, along with some other defunct appendages in both trees, were expunged.  And the tree guys also had along their remote control “grown-ups / man-toy” stump remover to reduce the backyard ex-walnut tree remains to a mere hole in the ground (that Charlie later found fascinating).

Next, we took a late afternoon walk around the nearby EOU campus, paying particular attention to the relatively new flower plantings around the library.   Tried to get the wind to back off, so that the flowers and bees could be passably photographed …

And while doing so, a braver person than me was flying overhead in some sort of ultra-light aircraft.  But Charlie paid little attention.

And, finally, back home.

rDay Four-Hundred-Thirty-Two: Memorial Day

This afternoon my destination was Kevin’s house, where we were to watch a video of the Monaco Gran Prix (ran yesterday, so we avoided spoilers) and  to discuss All Things Porsche and other weighty matters.  But before I got there, I walked — accompanied by Kim and Charlie for much of the way — through alleys and side streets for a dozen or more blocks and stumbled upon not one, not two, but four freaking VW campers, and met a guy named Shane who owned two of them.

Got to Kevin’s house just as he was returning from a ride to Anthony Lakes with his BMW R1200 bike.  CJ pulled in with his 944, and we spent some time in the carport inspecting Kevin’s 951 Turbo plus his brand-new (2007) Volvo XC-70 that he had just found and brought back from Montana two days earlier. Finally, we hooked up the race video to the TV and did it, sans beer and junk food, just talk.  Both CJ and Kevin follow Formula 1 racing closely, so I learned quite a bit — just like when I used to listen to Jamesa when I was with EONI.