Sunday
After nearly a week… I’m back. And, since it has been almost a week since I’ve posted, this will be a L-O-N-G entry. It was a good trip. A lot of work. Colder than brass monkey balls. But, all in all, it was a good trip. Sandi, Jim, Julie and the boys moved to a VERRA nice house that is right on the Deschutes River. Literally. They step out of their back door (or down from the deck) and they are… 20 yards from the river. In fact, it is in the Deschutes National Forest. And the night sky there… Amazing. I can only think of one other place that I have been where I have seen such a star-laden sky. It was nothing short of incredible. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.


Tuesday

  • Got up finished getting packed.
  • Made the final leave-the-house preparations.
  • It started to snow. SNOW!?!? Here in the valley?!? What in the Nine Hells!?! That did not augur well. Fortunately, it was just a squall and was over shortly after it started.
  • Sandi and Jim picked us up and we headed to their place for the last bit of packing, and then….
  • We were off! We stopped at a McDonald’s (before getting onto the freeway) to get a bite to eat. I had noticed that my hip and thigh were cold, but I had attributed it to the fact that I was still cold from moving things into the truck. Wrong. Jess had a Pepsi that she had gotten earlier… and set on the seat of the truck under/behind some other things. It had spilled, slowly (I guess that would be more of a “leak,” then”) all over my left thigh. Wonderful. So, I had the pleasure of changing pants. In the McD’s bathroom. A few minutes (and a clean pair of jeans) later, we were off to Boise.
  • Fog had settled around some of the mountains in Ogden; it looked like something out of Lord of the Rings.
  • In northern Utah, we saw signs for deer crossings… and a few that said “Game Crossing.” I had to ask Jess if she had seen the same thing, just to make sure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. She confirmed it: “Game Crossing.” I half expected to see board games crossing the road.
  • Somewhere between Snowville, UT and the Idaho state line, we ran into blizzards. Not singular. BLIZZARDS!!! Two of them!
  • We finally got to Boise, but didn’t have a chance to do any exploring. We stayed in a hotel that was across the interstate from the Boise, ID Temple. I went to a few gas stations to look for Idaho postcards. Went to three gas stations – NO LUCK!
  • On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at the BK Lounge for late-night dinner.

Wednesday

  • Julie came in way too early (0645) to get the boys (who were sleeping in our room).
  • We got up, got ready and then went to get something to eat. I opened the door… and it was WAY TOO COLD! Wa-a-a-a-a-ay too cold. Following a light fare, we loaded up and got back on the road.
  • Drive… and drive… and drive. With LOTS of nothing to look at until we got to Bend. We stopped at what, by definition only, was a “rest stop,” about an hour outside of Burns, OR. It looked like a two-stall outhouse. Scary. Everyone else braved the cold and the facilities. I decided to wait. Then, we were off again. We passed “through” a small towns. Lots of them. We drove though Brothers, OR… which was almost non-existent. Finally, we got to….
  • Burns. It was a small town. It reminded me of Reidsville (the city in NC where my mother lives). We ate at a small (and I do mean “small”) casino.
  • On the road between Burns and Bend there was plenty of nothing to look at… again. However, there were more interesting signs. This time they were “culvert” signs. Denoting where storm culverts crossed under the road. I wasn’t 100% sure that I had read the first one correctly, but I was Ivory Soap sure (99.44%) that it did say “culvert.” I had to laugh.
  • We rolled into Bend – FINALLY!!! We got to the house and started to unload the trucks. And it was still very cold. VERY cold. Too damned cold.
  • We went out for dinner and then did a little shopping (groceries and miscellaneous things). Something of which I had not been previously aware: Drivers are not allowed to pump their own gas in Oregon. Interesting. ALL of the gas stations are full-service. I felt sorry for the pump attendants for having to be out in the cold all night (or for a good portion of it).

Thursday

  • More unpacking.
  • It was STILL cold.
  • Jim and I went into Sunriver for a bit so that he could take care of some paperwork (and so that I could get out of the house).
  • MORE unpacking.
  • Sandi and Julie took Bryeson and Brayden trick-or-treating while the rest of us stayed at home. I took this opportunity to avail myself of the SHOWER!!! May I just say that, in my opinion, a pair of mankind’s greatest inventions are: Indoor plumbing and the hot water heater.
  • The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful: Dinner and watching TV.

Friday

  • Breakfast.
  • Dropped off the moving trucks.
  • Unpacked/moved more furniture and boxes.
  • Jim went to work, the rest of us decided to head into Bend. It’s a small city (population 55,080) but it’s a nice place. I told Sandi that she and Jim could stay there since they had not only a Bank of America (which simply do not exist here behind the Zion Curtain), some used book stores and a comic book store. It was still quite cold, but it was nice to get a (brief) look at the city.
  • When we got back to the house, I finished setting up the tech equipment. It was at this point that I realized that doing tech support for them will now be roughly as difficult as it is to do for my parents (due to the distance).

Saturday

  • We woke up, observed the necessary hygiene rituals, finished packing and then headed to Portland to catch our flight back. The drive was uneventful, but it was also very scenic in some areas – especially when we were going through Mt. Hood National Forest. Wow. I had almost forgotten how much I missed trees and “green.” We had a little bit of a problem finding a restaurant at which to eat, so we finally stopped at the Embassy Suites near the airport. It turns out that the same firm that designed the Portland hotel was the same firm that designed the one in Greensboro, NC. There were a number of immediately-evident design similarities.
  • Sandi dropped us off at Portland International Airport about an hour before our flight. Nice airport. Thanks to the benefits of membership in the Southwest Airlines “Rapid Rewards” program, Jess and I were able to take the “Express” line to the security gates. Of course, that didn’t do anything to diminish the time that it took Patrick (one of the agents at the security area) to go through my laptop case. He was a pleasant enough gentleman, though. The flight was relatively fast, about an hour-and-a-half.
  • Adrian picked us up and brought us home. The three of us then went to dinner and bowling. Here’s the part where I should say that my game sucked, but that would be far too much of an understatement. Therefore, I will make no reference to how poorly I played and thus shall the extent of my shame be known only to me and to those who were there. I can deal with them one-by-one… Then it was off to V.I. for late-night eats and then home.
    I know that most people think of a “vacation” as a time to do as little “work” as possible and get as much R&R as possible. Well…. this wasn’t one of those vacations. But, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Why not? Well, let’s see…

    • I got to visit a place to which I had never been. Technically, a couple of places: My Idaho experience, prior to this trip, had been limited to a small town in the southeastern corner of the state.
    • I got to help the inlaws move.
    • I got to see a bald eagle in the wild… or at least the back of it. Close enough.
    • And, most importantly, I was on vacation. Not at work. Not in the valley. On vacation. And it felt damn good. Well, it did once the soreness of the riding/moving wore off.

    ::: Football Update :::
    The Ravens played the Falcons today. They lost. 20 – 17. They had a poor first half, but they seemed to more or less pull it together in the second half… but it was too late. And the mistakes that would be all too easy to call “stupid mistakes” were prevalent, but they happen. And they were costly. Hopefully, they won’t continue to plague the team over the rest of the season.
    ::: End Update :::

    And that’s pretty much all of the news from Lake Wobegon Saline.

    Namaste.