Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

one day as we were going into town we passed a pasture with a horse and two little horses near the road. you know that what that means. “STOP JERRY” so he did and i got out to take some pictures. as i walked across the street the horse started walking to the fence. jerry brought be some carrots and i started giving some to him. the owner saw us stopped and came out to see if we needed help. i said no, i just wanted to take a picture and was it ok to give him a carrot? of course she said.

look at what herman had on his head.

the large horse was named ‘herman’ a 29 year old thouroghbred. he’s just a pet now. i didn’t hear what she called these guys.

i started to give the carrot to herman and then the two little one came over.

he didn’t like the carrot too big. so i had to make little pieces for him

what a joy it is to pet a horse and have him take a carrot from your hand.

the next post will be from sweet home where they filmed parts of the movie ‘stand by me’

stay tuned

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did you all see the exlipse? we watched it from our campground. it was an earth connecting experience. i loved it. we actually saw some stars. this is my only picture when it was a total and i took my glasses off. you won’t see this one on the internet.

and if you rotate it a little…….

who is that up there?

someone told us about mcdowell park not far from the campground. it was so pretty and lush. we went sunday before the eclipse.

someone was flying a drone taking pictures and a dog began barking at it and trying to get it.

they have these picnic tables that are in little coves. a great idea. but probably a headache to maintain.

i liked the the way this picture turned out with the sun behind the moss.

i’m sure amy will see the heart in this one.

we left our campground this morning. we had been there six days. it was so relaxing and fun to be in one spot for awhile.

we are at a mcdonalds in sweet home, headed towards reno.

stay tuned.

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we found this one kind of by accident and good detective work. it’s a county park right on the south santiam river. and again only $22 dollars a night with hook-ups. we booked 3 nights, planning to drive up towards madras and staying in culver, 5 miles south.  but we can stay here, in the path of totality, 3 more days. let’s see. it was going to $350 in culver for 3 nights. here it would be $66. hmmmmmm. what would you do?

we almost have it to ourselves right now. it will probably fill up buy sunday.

jerry took a wrong turn going into town. he should have turned left but he turned right. we ended up on ‘the road less traveled’. it was very scenic.

we made it to town and found a thrift store with 50% off. found a lot unopened jigsaw puzzles. we’re in lebanon now tracy. not too far from berlin.  we got a domino’s pizza and took it back to camp. it’s the worst meal we’ve had so far. we took it back this morning.

the weather is nice now. as we ate and played domino’s the kids by us ventured over close to us and played on this picnic table for hours. it was dark when they went in.

see the adults in the background? it reminded me of when we were kids we would go in the other room to record white owl commercials on daddy’s reel to reel tape recorded, while our parents would play cards in the kitchen.   “white owl, white owl, white owlll”

and they were right back this morning.

three more days until the eclipse

stay tuned

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we left newport and headed towards corvalis. it’s a typical college town, kind of cute. this is where jessica is going to college. she’s in portland right now on an intership with boeing. so we didn’t get to see her.  tracy suggested we go in a shop she likes. a free trade store with goods from all over the world. i bought some greeting cards.

many hands trading co

i liked the logo on this bar in corvalis

we got on the road again looking for a campground for the night. there are a lot of full campgrounds.

i noticed the redwoods trees have changed to douglas fir trees. my favorite christmas tree. did i say christmas trees?

are you seeing these martha and ray?  they are all over the place here. we haven’t tried it. oh, and thank you for the guacamole you sent with us martha. it’s so good.

the smoke from the fire up here shouldn’t be a problem for the eclipse for us.

i have some room on this post to put these pictures in, we saw this in bandon

recycle, recycle, recycle

we did find a really good campground.

stay tuned

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One of the best pictures didn’t get published. 

The view from our campsite in Newport. 

The restaurant is on the left at the end. 

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on our way we passed heceta head lighthouse. i didn’t get a good shot of it from where we pulled over. some of you might remember we stayed one night in the lightkeepers cottage, which you can see in the picture.

this bridge was where we stopped

the beaches here are so big and wide and long. we stopped at one but it’s hard to get the scope in a picture. here’s forward, left and right.

a lot of campgrounds are full already, especially the ones on the coast. i was very happy where we stayed on my birthday. we were lucky to find it and it was only $20 a night. and guess what?  it was right next to the ROUGE BREWERY. and it had a resturant. and we had dinner there. and on your birthday look what you get!

we had a nice dinner. our waitress was great. i asked for a doggie bag for the beer and said we don’t do that, but what i don’t see…….. she did bring me a bag and 2 bottles of the draft beer i was drinking. jerry gave a good tip.

we went back to the campground and enjoyed the view.

a nice way to spend my 71rst birthday

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florence was a very nice town. we didn’t need a campground so we asked at a safeway  if we could park overnight. they said sure, just go over on the right side. no problem. just saved $40. a lot of the campgrounds are full because of “eclipse weekend’.

florence’s back yard is the oregon dunes national recreation area. a 40 mile long area for dune buggys, 4 wheel drive vehicles, atv’s, and horses. of course people too. it’s a vast area of sand that has hills and valley’s in every configuration. to say the least it’s beautiful. and we got to see it in style. that’s what i wanted for my birthday and i got it.

ok, lets go

going up a hill was the scariest. you think what was going to be on the other side?

it was so much fun. i don’t know why but i laughed the whole time. i was having so much fun,fun,fun!    we’re a little sore this morning but not bad.

i’ll tell you where we ate in the next blog

stay tuned

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first of all i want to thank everyone for the great comments and birthday wishes this morning. now i’m blushing with such kind words. and i’m going to do whatever i want tracy. probably thrift stores! the only starbucks in town, florence, was closed because of plumbing problems. so we are at a mcdonalds. dad bought a newspaper and read me pickles.

have a great trip ray and martha. are you staying in portland or a suburb? have a good visit with crhis. i hope you will still have time to check the blog and of course leave your great comment.

we had a nice day to drive. we bypassed all the trees of mystery, one log houses, drive through houses, grandfather trees, confusion hill,  big foot souvenir shop, redwood carving places, to name a few.  we did stop at this one to take a picture for amy. then i spotted one to take a picture for ray.

we made it to gold beach when it was time to stop. we ended up staying at a campground we have stayed at before.

we were greeted with this fantastic cloud. it could be a lot of things. what do you think?

it was just a short walk to the beach.

we will need a semi for all that driftwood. i would love to make a fence for the front yard with it.

you can be fooled by these heart rocks. now you see it, move it and then you don’t

the sand was so soft, you would sink with every step.

the campground has this small replica of a lighthouse you can climb up and see the sunset better.

see the line on the right side of the sun? it stayed even after the sun was down.

it was really cold on the beach the next morning

bye until next time

hope you stay tuned

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we finally had our artichokes. jerry cooked them to perfection in the one big pan we have. it was the biggest and best artichoke i’ve ever had. with melted butter it melted in your mouth.

they do create a mess though.

as we got back on 101 we were moving along nicely. enjoying the trees again. then a familiar site.

lucky for us it was open. but look up the road on the other side. see all the cars. well that went on for miles. because of this.

we couldn’t believe they kept one lane stopped for so long. i was just taking pictures at random intervals. it was  r e a l l y   l o n g!

when we got to agate beach, the one we’ve found beautiful agates at. (they look like diamonds in the sand as the sun hits them). alas, they are no more to be found.  i did find a few rocks.

watching the dog play in the water was very entertaining. and having chili dogs and beer with this view was alright too.

can we take this home jerry?

we made it to oregon

stay tuned

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i’ve had little success with dahlias at home. i can grow the little ones somethimes but not these big ones. i mean huge ones. they are so gorgeous. there are as much as 150 varieties and 400 plants.

i found one to match my hair

SO  MUCH  JOY  JOY  JOY!

SO  MUCH  FUN  FUN  FUN!  

we’re headed for agate beach next

stay tuned

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