Concert Under the Stars

Tonight we returned to Central Park to enjoy another performance by the Corvallis Community Band. Tonight's theme was All That Jazz! The music was great, as usual, but what I'll remember was despite this being the first time that we brought chairs for ourselves, partway through I got the urge to lie down on the cool grass and watch the stars come out as dusk darkened the sky. Today was a scorcher, but tonight was just the perfect temperature for an evening performance. No breeze, not warm, not chilly. I encouraged Joshua to be my co-conspirator and lie down next to me, though it was not the same kind of relaxing experience for his antsy body! He saw a plane blinking across the sky, far far away, and squeaked out to his daddy to look. (Thankfully the train's not-so-distant whistle helped to muffle Joshua's minor lapses of 4-year-old reverence.) He persuaded Leif to join us, and although Joshua and I got a little punchy at times (which was marvelous too), it was so peaceful to feel the cool grass beneath our heads, listen to the clarinet-dominated performance, and gaze out into the sky to find emerging stars. We both remarked that sadly neither of us could remember the last time we simply lied on our backs and star gazed...yet we both know tonight will be far from the last time that we enjoy this summertime treat.

Visit from Pauline & Bob - Aug 8-10

It didn't take Joshua long to find a very cuddly spot.

Leif's mom and friend recently came for a short visit, and we packed in as much as we could while they were here. We gave Pauline and Bob the dime tour of Corvallis, including the gorgeous, wildflower-studded riverfront walk; some historic neighborhoods and the large brick churches within them; the wooded northwest area and how residents there cope with the hills and deer with raised, cleverly and often discreetly enclosed fencing; the bricked buildings of the OSU campus; and a couple of our favorite parks, Castle Park and Avery Park (the latter known for its authentic, accessible locomotive and semi-buried, not-so authentic dinosaur bones). We also squeezed in as many small thrills as we could:

A very intense game of Candyland

Poor Pauline had the worst luck - she kept drawing all the characters that send you backwards on the path. Her son and grandson found great entertainment in this.

Good game, everyone!

Blueberry picking: This was the first time for Pauline, but Joshua's old hat at this by now. Of course, for him it's all about finding the right stick to wave about as you carry your bucket overflowing with about 7 blueberries.

After picking blueberries, what was more appropriate than reading "Blueberries for Sal"?

Still reading, but this time it's "47 Beavers on the Big Blue Sea". It came with a sing-along CD, which didn't sound right once we finally got around to listening to it after Pauline left. All I could hear were the voices she'd already given to the characters and the cadence in her reading, which were much more entertaining than the CD!

I think Joshua could sense that Pauline & Bob's trip was drawing to a close. Two and a half days, three intense Scrabble games, many adventures and lots of driving later and the time for them to return to their California life was nearly upon them. Here Joshua waited until Pauline and Bob had made themselves comfortable, then he climbed up and planted himself right in the middle. They were all quite happy to be so cozy.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we were fortunate enough that P&B's visit coincided with a Tuesday evening performance of the Corvallis Community Band. It was a fitting finale to a wonderful, too-short visit. (photo by Joshua)

New Places; New Faces

In a former life I've worked a great deal with customers, mostly as a waitress but I've put in some time as a barista as well. Not surprisingly, everywhere I've worked there have been regulars - the ones who come in so frequently that not only do we know their name, but their favorite order and most likely, some details about their lives too. Just recently I've discovered that while I may have enjoyed serving my "regulars", to some of them I may have been about the only "regular" they knew at the time.

We recently were lucky to greet Leif's mom and friend as they visited us in our new town. We were more than thrilled to see them, and mostly because of who they are in our lives. But there was the very tiny part of that thrill that was due simply to seeing people we knew. It's hard to describe the sheer pleasure of seeing familiar faces in a town where the people we know best are the post office clerks, the librarians, Joshua's preschool teachers, and a couple clerks at Safeway and Trader Joe's and our local bakery. I never realized that it's these people who tend to the be the initial greeters of newcomers in a town...and I wonder if they themselves realize it.

We have a post office box, and for the first several weeks I had to wait in line to inquire after any of our mail in the "general delivery" pile. The clerks stopped asking for ID since I came in so frequently. Most were quite courteous, but one still refuses to crack a smile. I wonder if he knows that he's one of about 7 people I recognize in this town, and as much of a sourpuss that he is, I'm still glad to see him simply because he's familiar? I know his mannerism has nothing to do with me personally, but it makes me think back to my days of waitressing and making coffee drinks for customers who don't even get two minutes of my time...and I wonder, was I ever that familiar face for someone new in town? And was I friendly enough? When I was a teacher, an inspirational phrase was well known: To the world you might just be one person...but to one person, you may just be the world. It makes obvious sense in the world of teachers and children, but I have realized that it still applies to this child right here. One who will someday not be the new face in town, but may be the greeter to someone else; and I hope I remember what it was like on this side, so that it helps me to better reach out to that new person and be one of their very few familiar faces...smiling to welcome them.

Corvallis Community Band - Aug 3

We have tried to make it to the 8:00 pm Tuesday night Corvallis Community Band's concert in Central Park for a couple of weeks now, but our tired guy has foiled our plans each week! Two weeks ago he literally curled up on the floor after dinner and put himself to sleep, and the week after that he was so grumpy we just knew it wouldn't work. This week I got smart and wore him out to the point of not being able to resist a nap in the afternoon (hurray! I've sure missed those days). So off we went.

Many towns have a concert series in the summer, bringing in local or somewhat lesser famous bands to put on a show on a summer night. Here, it's a little different. This is a community band, open to any member of the community with a high school playing level. Each week has a different theme: Marches, Marches, Marches and For the Kids were the two we'd already missed. This week they were playing selections from Oklahoma! as well as some Irling Berlin favorites. In addition, International Scottish Fiddling champion, Rebecca Lomnicky, would be playing her fiddle.

When we first got here (at scarcely 5 minutes before showtime!) we didn't realize that everyone else had most likely arrived at 7:00 to watch rehearsal, and chairs weren't just optional - they were standard fare! It didn't take long for us to shift over to a better viewing spot to the trees over to the left.

Rehearsal is an hour before performance time, and I suspect much of the audience shows up at 7 and revels in two performances. There must have been a couple hundred in the crowd, huddled in sweatshirts and under blankets on their lawn chairs on this cool evening. And the band! There had to be about 60 members in it, ages ranging from high school to senior. What a great opportunity for those with a love for playing an instrument but (usually) no forum in which to play if you do not elect to play professionally.

Hard to tell in the picture, but the band is playing behind Joshua here. The train runs by Central Park and one had just blown its whistle. Joshua was so intent on not missing the train, or any others after it, that he spent the entire concert facing away from it. :)

UPDATE: During Pauline and Bob's visit the following week we returned for another Corvallis Community Band performance. This time we brought our freshly picked blueberries to snack on and actually ran into someone we knew! Well, barely - but as newcomers to the area, we were still ecstatic to see a familiar face! Leif, Joshua and I all go to the library's Bedtime Storytime on Monday nights, put on by a group of volunteer former teachers and librarians, and Leif spotted one of the recent storytellers sitting nearby! Joshua and I wandered over to say hello to this tiny, sprightly woman of about 75 and her face lit up to see one of the children from her brief storytime visit. Then we sat back and were treated to "classical night" by the band, including a guest vocalist singing a medley of favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber songs: “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from “Jesus Christ Superstar”; “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from “Evita”; “Memory” from “Cats”; and “Phantom of the Opera.” We munched our blueberries and marveled at the not-too-cool evening (very unlike the week prior!). The CCB is definitely a treasure in this town, and deservedly well-loved.

Photo of Mimi and Bob taken by Joshua

Blueberry Picking and Alsea Falls - July 31

Did you know there are more than 20 varieties of blueberries grown in the Oregon area? Varieties that are on the sweeter side, the tarter sider, more flavorful, milder, better for baking muffins, better for canning, better for snacking. Different varieties come in different sizes too, as well as different hues of that deep purple-blue color and different amounts of the fine powdery coating. We found this out as we went traveling the whole 5 minutes from our apartment to go blueberry picking last Saturday at Blueberry Meadows, one of several blueberry farms in the area. U-pick blueberries go for $1.25 a pound, and we couldn't wait. We'd been lured to a roadside blueberry farm on a past trip through Oregon last year and the memory of the candy-like blueberries (that lasted for barely an hour during our car ride) still lingered.

Of course, at that time we just thought the sweet, rich flavor of the blueberries was due to buying them fresh from an Oregon farm. While that's definitely part of it, what we city folks are learning is that the variety itself determined that wonderful snackability. As we check in at the counter at our U-Pick farm of choice on this overcast summer day, we are delighted to discover that the picking begins with snacking. (Excellent!) There are about eight little bowls of blueberries, each labeled with their names, and we are told their descriptions and ideal purpose by someone whose familiarity with the subtle distinctions between such similar looking berries is fairly remarkable. We each try a berry from every bowl, feeling slightly piggish but being encouraged to do so, and decide on our favorites. The gal writes these down, along with the rows in which to find these treasures, we're given our buckets and we're on our way. Of course, once we picked each of the varieties we'd chosen, the buckets get dumped into a paper bag and everything got all mixed together so that once we started snacking from the bag (the minute we buckled up in the car, that is) it was anyone's guess what we were getting. Ultimately, it didn't matter to us as they were all quite delicious!

Next, we snacked our way over to Alsea Falls - the most accessible falls I've ever visited. They're not the tallest or grandest waterfalls, but for hiking around (as well as rock climbing and log straddling) and actually being able to stand right next to the waterfalls, this area was great. We managed to arrive when only a photographer and a couple of great-grandmothers were there, so it was as if we had the place to ourselves. The great-grandmothers had somehow made it halfway over the river, pausing on a large rock and contemplating whether or not to figure out the rest of the way. We took the lead from there, leaping from rock to boulder, precariously stepping along a fallen log to cross over, and hopping down to explore the other side. Joshua loved it - we felt like adventurers!

Our city kid is becoming quite the bug lover lately.

Of course, it could have something to do with having recently watched A Bug's Life!

One of the ladies in the background is a great-grandmother to 6, and here she was climbing and crawling her way across the river! This shot is taken looking downstream, right at the area we had to cross. It's hard to capture the boulders and logs we traveled to get here, but it was worth it! We ended up returning before the ladies did, but I kept watching them out of the corner of my eye to make sure they made it back across all right. I was impressed by their gumption, but slightly nervous for them at the same time. It wasn't easy to get a good footing going across the bumpy logs and mossy rocks - but good for them! My role models.

Crater Lake and more - July 24 & 25

My mom and step-dad have always wanted to visit Crater Lake so it was quite convenient that their daughter and family moved to Oregon so we could all make it a family trip! We've realized that Southern Oregon is actually a nice midpoint between our home bases so this trip is sure to be first in hopefully many more adventures discovering the Southern Oregon area. And boy was it memorable! Crater Lake is a caldera lake (lake formed by a volcanic eruption) created about 7,700 years ago. At a depth of 1943 feet, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and 9th deepest in the world. It gets an average of 44 feet of snow each year (some of which was still on the ground during our visit in July!) and its water is some of the purest and clearest found anywhere in the world. Our visit was on a day with blue, blue skies with very little breeze and the many shades of blues of the water were remarkable. The clear, still water showed reflections of the clouds, trees and cliffs, and you could even see through the water to the bottom in the shallow areas surrounding the island. We drove the 33 miles around the rim, taking our sweet time and doing it in about 2 1/2 hours. After a while the pictures all start to have a similar look, but here are some of the highlights!

Look closely - it's not just the reflection you can see, but over to the right you can see the graduated slope of the lake floor beneath the surface of the lake!

Vidae Falls

We had to take a picture of the trolley for our little train and trolley fan. Sure would be a way to tour around the lake in style!

We continued the adventure by caravanning southwest to Medford and along the way stopping at the Rogue River Gorge near historic Union Creek on Highway 62. The sound is indescribable: a constant crashing of water coursing through its collapsed lava tubes. You certainly have to raise your voice quite a bit to be heard, but then again, what did we have to say? We just watched and listened in awe as gallons of water swooshed by each second. (By the way, this scenic stop is right next to a well-known pie stop: Beckie's Cafe. We can attest to the scrumptious berry pies - yum!!)

The next morning we shared our favorite Ashland restaurant with my parents: the Ashland original, the Breadboard! It's the kind of local establishment where the servers know all the customers and harass everyone in sight. The menu is incredible and practically every dish is served with a little cup of their famous homemade marionberry jam. You have to get something with bacon, or at least order it on the side - it's the best you'll ever have: thick, crunchy, savory - I'm torturing myself right now thinking about it and that jam. Here's Leif and Joshua, playing their favorite parlor trick of hiding Leif's watch and picking the right hand to find it.

The trip ended with a great walk around Lithia Park where we amazingly took no pictures at all. Oh well - guess we'll have to plan another trip - maybe in the fall when the leaves start displaying their amazing colors!

Taft Beach at Mouth of Siletz Bay - July 17

A couple years ago, Leif's longtime barber moved to - guess where! - Oregon and opened a little hole-in-the-wall barber shop in Lincoln City. So we decided to pop in since we're so close now. (Close being a relative word, of course, as an hour and a half is still a bit too far to travel for regular haircuts. Now and then is doable, though, especially as it means a trip to the coast!) So after the da Vinci Days parade we headed west, stopping at another hole-in-the-wall location: a restaurant we'd discovered on last year's trip along the coast. It's this little Mexican restaurant called Mazatlan, with incredible food and very nice folks working there. It only has about a dozen or so tables, and most look right out to Depoe Bay, Whale-Watching Capital of the West. And while we didn't spot any grey whales, it wasn't for a lack of trying!

Each table has a pair of binoculars for the guests to use.

Mike's barber shop is quite conveniently located right next to a family-owned, old-fashioned candy shop. They make their own fudge and taffy, as well as all sorts of other sweets, and they have a viewing window so shoppers can drool over whatever is being twisted and poured. Joshua never used to like sweets very much but has recently discovered he very much likes suckers, so we found him a close match in a sour apple rock candy stick. I think he liked it.

Finally, on the way back home (by the way, it still gave us shivers knowing that while it felt like we were on vacation, we were actually about to drive only an hour and a half back home!) we stopped off to try out Taft Beach. Taft is an area in Lincoln City and this beach was well populated. It's located at the mouth of the Siletz Bay so the water just inside the mouth was very calm and easy for children to walk out into and play. Although I don't know how as it was FREEZING!! Driftwood covered the beach (as did some debris, sadly), and several DIY crabbers. (What do you call someone who brings their 5 gallon, old kitty litter bucket, weighs it down and attaches their crabbing net?) However, just a short walk toward the ocean brought an entirely different beach into view. Since the waves were quite active in this area fewer families had set up camp here, but the view was amazing. It was that gorgeous time of day when the sun is starting to set and casts its lights into millions of diamonds on the water. The beach itself was so flat that as the waves came in and eased back to the ocean they left a smooth, shimmering, foamy layer behind. It was just beautiful. Pictures cannot convey the beauty, much less the sound, the smell, and the awe we felt as we stood here watching the water...but here goes anyway. :)

View of Taft Beach from the mouth of the Siletz Bay. See those yellow spots on the beach? Yep, old kitty litter buckets holding down the crabbing lines.

Leif took a picture of me wandering down the coastline to the mouth of the Bay. This is our pattern: we arrive at a beach, Leif sits down and plays with Joshua (he's so good at that) and I tend to start wandering along the water's edge. The water here is very calm as part of the bay, but the water's edge curves to the right and then over to the left. That's the mouth of the bay, and just beyond that curve is where the waves are coming in.