Our trip through Oregon and Washington brings the first leg of our retirement to an end. Nearly three months of traveling thousands of miles in our RV and the Saturn was filled with special moments with nearly a hundred family and friends and some of the best times of our lives. But most importantly it gave us time to reflect on what is really important. This friendship poem by Angela Salvey is a tribute to our time we spent with our family and friends. We plan to continue updating this web site. Your thoughts and ideas would be appreciated. To email us click here. Larry and Glorine. |
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| Labor Day weekend in Central Oregon south of Bend with Larry's sister Claudia and Lou and their son Bryon. The weather could not have been any better--cool nights and warm days, which gave us lots to do. |
Claudia's daughter (Lynne) and her family (Jim, Elizabeth and Christopher) added more excitement with sightseeing, games and just catching up. |
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| On Monday, we spent the day at Crater Lake National Park. At 1,943 feet deep, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the US and the seventh deepest lake in the world! It was more stunning and breath taking than one could have imagined. Here are a number of smaller picture that you can enlarge by clicking on them. There is no boating allowed except for one touring boat that is shown on the lower left picture. |
Seven mile from the Lake along a deep canyon were slender cones called Pinnacles. Plumes of vapor escaped through vents at about 740 degrees welding the walls into tubes. After thousands of years of erosion, these pinnacles are now exposed displaying the colors of the layers of earth that once surrounded them. |
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| After Labor Day, we spent an evening in Eugene with Larry's nephew Steve and his family (Elaine, Ashley, Mason, Veronica and Cole). They are into Geocaching in a big way and Steve gave us some advanced lessons. We went north of Eugene and searched for four caches and found three. We also learned some short cuts on the Internet on finding coordinates and hints on finding caches. Another great visit. |
High Stakes Poker! From Steve's, we met up with Claudia and Lou at our cousin's place in Garibaldi, along the Oregon. Jim and Dorothy Hatzenbihler are Larry's second cousins. They are retired and Jim spends as much time as he can in his fishing boat in Tillamook Bay or the ocean catching fish or crab. When they are not fishing, poker is one of their many pass times. |
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| To keep in shape, we took up Nordic walking using these Nordic Walking Poles. We bought them before we left in June, but only got proficient with them near the end of our travels. They handle well on sand, gravel or concrete and are great for incorporating some upper body conditioning while you're walking. They are now a part of our daily rituals. |
While sightseeing in Tillamook, we saw this old Minneapolis-Moline tractor, which is like the one that Larry used on the farm near Mandan, ND. It brought back lots of memories, mostly those that caused him not to become a farmer. |
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| After leaving the ocean, we spent the night in Portland with Glorine's niece, Vickie, Mike and Emily. Vickie and Mike are GREAT cooks and displayed that talent with a delicious dinner. Emily introduced us to a couple of board games, mostly she won. |
My, can you believe Emily is starting the first grade. At this rate, she will be a six footer some day. |
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| One of our goals for our Oregon/Washington visit was to watch the Boise State/Univ. of Washington football game. We were sitting in Row WW, which is near the nose-bleed section. One of the advantages of these seats was the splendid views we had of Seattle and the lakes near campus. |
The Boise State Broncos lost 24-10. It was a heart breaker, but we lost it fair and square. Despite the loss, which gave us a 1-1 win/loss record for this season, the Associated Press poll ranked Boise State number 22 in the country. Now is off to our Homecoming game against Wyoming. GO BRONCOS!! |
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| The University of Washington sits along the shores of Lake Union and is a picturesque campus. After the game, we did some Geocaching on the campus (over 50 geocaches within a one mile radius of campus). |
After the game, we drove to some friends from our high school days. Herb and Elaine Schaff live south of Seattle in a beautiful home overlooking a small fishing lake. They are both recently retired and enjoying the sweet life of fun and relaxation. |
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| While Herb and Elaine travel a lot, they take the time to create one of the nicest landscaped lawns we have seen in a long time. Must be the extra time they have in retirement. |
We introduced Herb and Elaine to Geocaching. We found three caches on the Internet that were within a couple of miles from their home. This one was directly across the lake from their home. Here we are solving a puzzle that gave us the "real" coordinates to the cache, which was about 1/2 mile from this site. It was fun catching up and learning a great retirement pass time called Geocaching. |
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| Driving the back road of Washington gave us sights that we would not have seen had we taken the Interstate Highway. The roads were hilly and windy, but the views were phenomenal. |
Being retired gives us more time to stop and smell the roses. Here we found a quaint restaurant/bar made up of three old railroad dining cars. In the old working days, we would have rushed by it, thinking what a pretty place, but not taking the time to stop, look around, sample the food and beer. Very Nice! |
