Final Weekend

We left Salem on Friday afternoon and headed back up to the Portland area to spend the weekend. Since our friends are still of the working variety they wouldn't be home until about 7, so we had a couple of hours to kill. We first decided to visit Portland Central Church of the Nazarene because their worship arts pastor, Stephen List, used to be on staff at Garden Grove. Alas, Friday was his day off, so he wasn't there, but a bazillion ladybugs were, and about a dozen made it into the car before we left. We then drove out to Multnomah Falls, just south of the Columbia River, advertised as the 2nd highest year-round waterfall in the country. It was OK, but looking up at it didn't do much for my intermittent vertigo. Found an outlet mall on the way home, got a nice Eddie Bauer jacket/vest on sale, and was so grateful I left them my credit card. Finally got together with Bret and Paula, went to dinner with them and son Kyle and wife Elsa. Kyle and Elsa have two very large dogs whom we left in the house with the resident Italian greyhounds. The result was returning to a house that looked like it had been tp'd--on the inside. Titus-the 6 month old Great Dane-had found a new roll of paper towels, and his mates helped him shred and spread it all over the house.

Saturday morning dawned rainy, so of course we went golfing. Bret, Kyle and I were joined by my nephew Todd, who drove over from Vancouver. He was supposed to work, but very logically concluded he could work any Saturday, while Uncle Rick only was up there for golf on rare occasions. We played the Wildwood course, which is northwest of Portland on the way to Astoria, and if you ever are in the area and are a golfer, I highly recommend it. First of all, we played on a weekend, and it was $37 with a cart for 18 holes. The course is carved out of the mountainside and forest, resulting in many elevation changes and dogleg holes, and the par 4s are short enough for me to reach. Kyle and Todd had a lot of fun together, including the hole where they both managed to hit their drives into a treetrunk that was only about 6 inches wide.

Forgot to mention that their other son, Nate, brought their 15-month old grandson, Oliver, over to have gramma and grampa babysit while he went fishing. Oliver's mom works nights, so she was sleeping. Nate picked up Oliver before we went golfing, and managed to find time to put the Oregon State football website into my favorites list on my laptop. We were not amused!!

Todd and Meredith and their oldest son Mac came down Sunday morning for brunch with the 4 of us, and it was great to see them again. Drove down to Medford to spend Sunday night, trying to decide whether to spend one or two more days getting home. Two days was leading the voting at the time.

Had breakfast Monday morning in Yreka with our friend Kenny, who runs Grandma's House restaurant there. If you are driving I-5 on the way to Oregon, it is a must stop. We hadn't seen Kenny in a few years as he had gone through a divorce from another good friend of ours, so it was good to reconnect with him and see things are going well. He's a big Raider fan, and had gone to the game Sunday, so I'm sure he was in a better mood than he is most Mondays! We then hit the road and decided to just drive and see how we felt. Turns out we felt like coming home, so we covered the entire 725 miles and arrived home about 9:30 last night.

So our longest vacation is over, and we will have lifetime memories as well as a list of places we want to revisit. But it's great to be home. I've been retired since June, but until today we have always been planning for an event, ranging from Hawaii to my retirement party to our trip to Canada. Now it's just re-orienting ourselves, and making sure we are prepared when the tax business ramps up in earnest next year. Took care of renewing my license while on vacation, am in the process of finalizing my paperwork with IRS so I can e-file all of my clients, and am looking forward to getting back into regular attendance at FCC.