Days Inn Red Bluf Red Bluff

(With apologies to Carly Simon!) Well, it's not ALL just waiting. There's obsessively checking the weather in Rome; revising the packing list; dithering about which luggage to use; shopping for must-haves, and then returning them...Very important step today: got my husband set up to use Skype! Only one big hurdle remains: SHOES!

Any delusions that we would have a lot of sun while in California were dashed pretty soon. You may have read about the bad storm that moved through CA bringing high winds and torrential rain. We rode the storm out at an RV park near the Klamath River (which fortuantely did not overflow!) and then headed inland towards Redding, CA. We thought things had eased up but we ran into a lot of rain on the ...

... we stayed at in Bellingham for when we get back home.

When we arrived at our hotel we thought the best way to get rid of the road kinks was to go for a swim, which we did. It felt great! After a shower and clean clothes, we walked a couple of blocks to the the Ramos Mexican Restaurant and split the Mexico City Tacos--perfect!


Title Language: Spanish

... my supervisor and Jean, big boss met us downstairs to escort us to get new pictures taken for our "key cards" It appears the first ones taken were too dark and had to be redone.

We then walked around and met everyone (major who's who people) and the rest of Diane's Unit. I was given a tour of the building and discovered that until I received my "key-card" I could leave my area to go to the restroom but could not re-enter my ...

Our plan had been to drive from Roseburg to Crater Lake, then camp at the Mazama campground in the park.  When we drove in to the campground, however, we noticed heavy-duty bear boxes at every campsite and lots of signs saying, "Bears Are In This Campground!"  First sign we saw, I heard C's intake of breath.  Next thing he said was, "Let's not camp here."  I was in agreement even though there were lots of (otherwise desirable) vacant campsites.  Neither of us was up for the likelihood ...

... tour groups back, not just one at a time. So, the boat came back for us. Though, when the boat pulled back up to the shore, one of the kids that was on our tour dropped a pair of binoculars into the shallow water. His dad was able to get the binoculars, thankfully, but as he was fishing for them the kid was saying in a near panic, "Get them! Get the binoculars, dad! Otherwise it's littering!" Yes, we had some darling, very curious and enthusiastic kids on the ...

Another long day, watching the professional development. It began to rain, and rained most of the day. After lunch, we made the long drive home, mostly through the rain, rain, rain. When I reached home, I made a margarita and sat in the hot tub. Exhausted.

Had meetings all day at the county offices of education. We ended up with a long lunch break, so walked around a lot, then had a meal at La Corona Mexican (which had been recommended: good salsa). Our walk was fairly entertaining. We first walked along Main Street, with its antique shops and hair salons, then turned up one of the side streets, thinking that ...

... the dams killed off the salmon (a problem that many people are working to rectify) and the supply can't keep up with the growing demand. Now some of their electricity comes from nuclear and coal. In an earlier blog we reflected on a number of similarities we saw between Oregon and Vermont. But the weather wasn't one of them. Northwest winters are mostly rainy, and the summers are very dry--too much of an extreme for our liking. Spring comes a whole lot earlier in the ...

Brad, Nath & I went to the US for 3 weeks to visit our oldest son Adam & his wife Kristina who had recently moved from Denver to Portland Oregon.

We flew into San Francisco from Australia & picked up our hire car ( Brad immediately driving on the wrong side to oncoming traffic!!!) & headed north ...