Can’t wait until summer…

The last leaves of summer are clinging to the trees, but I’m already looking forward to next summer.

My pal Donna says “C’mon over” for a visit to her mansion in the mountains of central California next summer. I said, “You bet!” This time I won’t have a broken wrist.

Dave says they’ve been invited to daughter Deanna’s home in San Francisco for Thanksgiving Dinner, so I’ll probably be inviting myself to Lora’s or Arline’s for that holiday. Or I’ll buy half a gallon of Tillamook ice cream and stay home. Ooops. Wrong holiday. I need a pumpkin pie to feel like Thanksgiving.

Some people feel sorry for me living alone in a big house. Most are a bit envious but don’t think they could handle the loneliness. Nobody was made to be alone. If it falls your lot, enjoy what is good about it and carry on, one day at a time. Here are the advantages I enjoy to a solitary life:

• I can watch TV, sing, play the piano, or fall sleep any time of the day or night I choose
• No meal preparing based on other people’s preferences and time table
• I can carry on a conversation with my Lord without being judged as crazy

Church, family, the computer and the telephone are my links to the outside world. My bro Dave is a good friend of mine and so is his wife. I’m at the west end and they’re at the east end of this 20-acre plot, so I see them a lot. My nieces are hospitable and friendly. I have a lot of friends at church. Don’t feel sorry for me!

Up for air

Every now and then it seems everybody who’s ever owed me money is sending me checks, and I am drowning. I’m glad it’s happening because it looks like I’ll be able to pay off two years of income taxes soon. I have so many hopes for fixing my house and making it truly livable. It can happen if business keeps on doing as well as it is now.

A year ago I was visiting my friend Donna near Angwin, California. Such fun. Made me realize how little I want to live in the mountains of that state! I wouldn’t mind handling the slopes of the city in Los Angeles, but I don’t think I’d like a remote cottage in the forest at the end of a winding road.

This is the year I took an 8-day tour offered by the city’s recreation department. I’m not keen on their trip for next year, to Bryce and other canyons. Just as I imagined, too much group stuff. Everybody at the same place at the same time doing the same thing. I need a choke chain and a muzzle, and Rusty and I can go anywhere!

I do need to socialize more. I don’t have many friends here in Caldwell, and the ones I have are all married gals in the church! Except my bro, and he’s a married man. Same thing. I wonder if Dorothy Solomon would like a visit from me. Maybe I’ll ask her, or just pop in. Then there’s Sarah Taylor, but she has family around a lot. Joyce runs community services, works full-time as a nurse, and has a boyfriend. She’s not much of a prospect! And Judy Loop. She’s a lot of fun, really. So is Carol Shultz, but three hours away. I’m going to look around at church tomorrow and see if I can identify anyone who’s female, single, about my age, and not attached to a family.

An unsought adventure

The tropical trees give it away: But my tire was that flat!

 It’s not true that I live a high-risk life and seek opportunities to extend my capabilities. Not true at all. In fact, my “adventure” yesterday afternoon was rather tame, as such adventures go.

After meeting with church members attending a campout at the Farewell Bend State Park, I felt an urge to find a forest and enjoy the Oregon mountains. So I drove north on the freeway to Durkee and then took a road called “Burnt Creek Canyon Road,” which soon turned from pavement to gravel. The creek was wide much of the way, with meadows and a few trees. I talked to a man in a pickup truck with Oregon plates. He said his place was just up the road and advised turning right at the end of the road I was on.

So I did, and a while later I came to a road marked “Baker” and pointing to the right. Off I went. I saw a sign pointing to Baker, 25 or so miles away. That road is beautiful. Smooth, wide, and well paved, but lots of tight curves. I felt like I was in a park. I didn’t see any traffic.

Breathtaking. The road was hilly and curvy, but flawlessly paved and marked. Two wide lanes with a double yellow stripe down the middle. Obviously a no-passing road. Pretty soon I came to a sign informing me I was now in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. I didn’t see any camp sites, but soaked in the beauty. There was no traffic.

Then as I was coming out of a sharp turn I saw a smooth rock right in my path. A more severe swerve might have toppled the car, and my feeble attempt didn’t miss the rock. It wrecked my front right tire.

Then I remembered…No traffic on this road. I wondered how long I would sit there. I unloaded my trunk and started getting things ready, when a pickup with an older man and woman drove up. The man got the jack to work, but just as the tire cleared the ground, the car lurched forward a few inches and broke the jack.

 

He decided to try his jack and wasn’t being very successful. Just then another car drove by with a young guy and three gals, all dressed nicely. The guy helped the man set the tools properly and got the tire up and changed it. Of course the “change” meant putting on the wimpy wheel and driving slowly into town, 15 miles away.

 

Got into town. By now it was about 6:30, and Saturday, and nothing was open. The guys at the ”Humble” service station told me I could get service at Les Schwab but would have to pay an after-hours fee. I called the number and met the service guy at Les Schwab.

 

The fee? $90. I just about fell over. Lou, the young fellow who met me at Les Schwab, agreed it was way too much. They’d just raised it that week, he said, I think they tripled it from $30.

 

I tried to call my bro Dave and my nephew Cliff, but no answer. I wanted advice. Should I drive slowly home, 100 miles, at night by myself, from Baker to Caldwell? The guys at the service station didn’t think that was a good idea. Lou told me I’d have to drive slowly and stop every now and then to let the tire cool down. If I was careful, I could probably make it home, but if anything went wrong, I’d be in real trouble. He didn’t think it was the best choice.

 

A friend of Lou’s and a gal stopped by, and I asked him what he thought. He had strong opinons. He said I could probably make it, but still, if it were him, he said, he’d probably pay the $90. And he definitely would not let “her” drive 100 miles alone at night with the wimpy wheel.

 

So I paid $90 plus $50 for a used tire and came on home. Now I think I made the wrong choice. I could have limped home just fine.

Who chased summer away?

(This fellow got to Farewell Bend State Park before I did.)

Temperatures started to drop the minute we crossed into fall. It’s still pleasant, running from about 75 to 82 most days, and good sunshine.

Tomorrow I’m spending the day with the church family at the Farewell Bend State Park just a ways out of Ontario. I’ve never been to that place, although I’ve driven past the signs pointing to it dozens of times. I thought it was a park on the river where you could park your RV. Now I’m learning it’s quite a ways from the Snake River and accommodates tents as well as RVs. The stalwart among us are leaving this afternoon and spending the whole week end there. I’m leaving about 8 a.m. so I can be there in time for services. My dog and best friend Rusty is going with me.

Rusty, patiently waiting

I noticed at least two families, my bro’s and my assistant’s, who are taking off this Sabbath but are not going to the church campout. Dave and Miriam are headed north to see their daughters Lora and Arline in Pendleton and College Place, possibly camping on the way. Kay wouldn’t tell me where they’re going. Says it’s a secret.

Moving into the future

My goal is to empty all the rooms of my house, even the garage, of extra stuff I’ll never need.

So far I’ve done a fairly good job in my office, second bedroom, and living room downstairs, and can finish the kitchen and dining room this week end if I work on it.

Looks like I’ll have to pay my dentist about $2,500 for the bridge I’m getting. Yikes! I need to make some money. I’ve been at about 50% of normal for two and a half months now. Plenty coming in, but not here yet.

News that Sandra Bruce is leaving Saint Al’s for a bigger better job in Chicago has me shaking in my boots. If her replacement doesn’t “believe” in print marketing, I’m finished. On the other hand, I’ve been here a very long time, so maybe they’ll hang on to me. I hope so!

A museum that doesn’t quit

I’m not sure where we were, probably somewhere in Idaho but maybe in Montana. We were greeted by this metal fellow with a big grin:

Howdy, tourists, one and all!

 While we’re here, we’re going to take a soundless trip through the grand display acres…

 Or maybe not. This is too much work.

Not sure if it’s for sale or just on display…

Equipment to start up the family farm again.

Here we go!

The bus is loaded–with us!

The bus began rolling sharply at 8 a.m. Tuesday, August 12, with 45 men and women aboard and ready for whatever adventure was around the corner.

And here we are (don’t take this slide show seriously for sequence) floating on Lake McDowell in Glacier Park. The mountain everyone is looking at is supposed to be familiar to every American because it occupies a central place on the logo for Paramount Pictures. Or did for many years.

Don

This is the Catholic church in Helena where a pilot took a $100 bet and flew his plane between the two steeples, only to lose his pilot’s license and never fly again. By the way, he had three inches to spare.

I shared the above story with a dear relative of mine, who later informed me that this Helena story is a super huge hoax. Never happened. Never will. So much for believing the tour guide!

I probably won’t do more until I get home, but this is a start!

Joyce

Where’s home?

This is my friend Marilyn (right) with me on a scenic spot in Oregon.
Marilyn’s husband Larry took the picture.

On a rubber raft floating on the Boise River right through the city.

My summer home. Air-conditioning is free.

Jet boating

Just a few shots from my three-day adventure including a trip by jet boat from the landing 70 miles due west of Riggins on the Snake River.

The regular bus couldn’t maneuver the winding mountain road from Riggins on the Salmon River to the landing on the Snake River, so we all boarded the school bus for that part of the ride.

Here we go! I was so busy looking that I didn’t take many pictures, but here’s one. We were all soaking wet before the trip was over.

We stopped a few times, once to see this old settlement from the 1860s. This building is called the log cabin “mansion,” and it is certainly a spacious modern house for its day.

Ironing board, iron, wood stove–all the comforts of a modern life.

We chose the smaller of the two jet boats for the trip. That’s Judy, my traveling partner and friend from many years back.

Hot and quiet on the front

Today we may break records for the highest outdoor temp on this date. A prediction of 94 before the day is over should do it.

I fully intend to empty out my old downstairs living room today. Just get rid of it. I’m taking books from authors to our local mailer for recycling, throwing stuff away, and putting some items out on the front lawn for people to pick up. The other day I put out a box of new books that I don’t want any more, and within twenty minutes the whole box was gone. I’d so much rather do that than throw books away.

Stopped by my cousin’s place on my way home from church yesterday. That happened because I drove home on Beech instead of Linden to save a few drops of gasoline. I saw action at the Eastham place and pulled in for a short visit. Tom says he hasn’t had any construction work for two and a half months, but he’s spent $8,000 and a lot of time fixing up the old house. Putting in new windows and repainting the exterior right now. Tom says he’s never had air-conditioning, not even when he and Diane lived in sweltering hot southern California. Kathy is always friendly and full of life.

I attended my bro’s class, taught by Marvin Moore yesterday, continuing on studying Romans. About 20 minutes of the 80 minutes in class were actually spent in the Bible, but it was an enjoyable visit anyway. Yesterday afternoon some of Dave’s class took their lawn chairs out to the upper dam (Lake Lowell) just to sit in the shade. On the first hot week end of the year, we expected to see hundreds of people there, and we were right. But we found shade and comfort to sit and visit anyway. I took Rusty, and she was well behaved around Leo, the miniature greyhound that belongs to my bro Dave. They usually get along well if they’re both outdoors.

I hope to get some lawn mowing done this evening before sunset. I think if I start mowing about 8 pm I should finish before dark.