L'aventure américaine

It is beautiful here. Snow, sunshine, mountains... Just gorgeous. It is also cooooold!  Last night we checked into a little motel rather late and huddled on the bed until the room finally warmed up. 7 degrees. Even the dogs were happy to be tucked in!  It's been beautiful though and we have loved our drive eastward. We have enjoyed some lovely snowy hikes and great microbrews (man, Oregon had a lot of beer).  I even walked along the ruts of the Oregon Trail wagon train! (No dysentery or cholera yet... Thank goodness.) This is Mt. Hood waving goodbye.  And Randal exploring a very icy, very narrow, very over-a-rushing-and-freezing-river bridge.  And we enjoy our chilly, beautiful time in eastern Oregon!

Randal and I left Klamath Falls on Wednesday morning to go to Portland. There we met 20 of our friends from Klamath to represent Klamath Falls at the Oregon Healthiest State Launch.   Oregon Healthiest State is an initiative by the governor, Nike, the Cambia foundation, and OHSU. They intend to choose two communities in the state for local transformation communities. We want to Klamath to be one of them. So, we demonstrated our need (we are the least healthy county in the state) and our will, by showing up in matching T-shirts en masse.  You can find our picture and a description of the event on Oregon Public Broadcasting's website, but since I am on my iPhone, I do not have the link readily available.  It was an inspiring public health event and I felt very revved up afterwards. It was a great way to start our vacation.   Randal and I spent our first night in Portland with friends, visiting Basecamp brewery (started by Klamath Falls people), and enjoying delicious f...

One day after our Klamath Halloween, we were greeted with sunshine, blustery winds, and the smell of winter. It was cold, but the perfect way to begin a month: with the house a mess, candy wrappers strewn about, and the satisfaction of having thrown an excellent Halloween party.  It should be VERY obvious what our costumes were, but in case your brains are in a post-sugar haze, Randal and Adam were Goose and Maverick from "Top Gun" and my friends and I were  foosball players. We were excellent and very skilled at jumping and kicking in coordination. Maizie and Juneau were super dogs (obviously not a stretch) and Bogey was a beautiful lion for about 15 minutes.  We had nearly 600 trick-or-treaters, despite some rain and cold and had about 40-50 people join us for some Hallowen debauchery. So, it was pretty much fantastic.  To cleanse today, Randal picked apples and I hiked up one of our local mountains.  And we continue to be grateful for this wonderful community...