2011

Times does march on whether one is paying attention to it or not. 2011 slid one quarter of the way by without too much of anything happening. We did have our 7th Annual Superbowl Party though this time we skipped the white elephant part. 11 people attended - pretty much the same group that we've had for the last several years. Everyone seemed to have a good time and the party was deemed a success. The following week June went to the Crab Feed with our friend Louise. Janet was feeling a bit under the weather and passed on it.

March brought June's birthday once again. We hadn't planned on it being a special event, but Mother Earth thought differently. The huge earthquake in Japan the day before caused a Tsunami and the entire west coast was under a watch. Crescent City and Santa Cruz reported damage to boats tied up at their docks. One young man thought one wave was it and was pulled to his death by a second wave.. We heard there was some flooding in Bandon. Coos Bay skated by with only an early turn of the tide. We were down at the sewage treatment plant and noted the tide was quite low with a half hour to go before it turned and started back. A few minutes later, as we were leaving, we noted that the water had begun to come back in and had in fact come quite a ways in even though we had yet to reach low tide according to the tables. That was the tsunmai effect that we saw. It wasn't much at all - thank goodness. However, it brought the whole possibility of a major event to the forefront of everyone's mind and will cause us to consider our preparedness once more.

After our morning adventure at the bay, we went on to celebrate June's birthday with games and wonderful chocolate cream pie in the afternoon followed by a scrumptuous dinner at Benetti's Restaurant with our friends, Linda and Tully. Leftovers will continue to be enjoyed for at least one more day.

Our first RVing Women Rally of the year was at Sutherlin. The weekend was rainy, but it stopped at appropriate times like when we went to visit the animal safari park at Winston. We had gone there 10 years ago and were not impressed. Then it was summer, a hot afternoon and we had to leave Loki in a kennel there. Any self respecting animal was holed up in the shade so there wasn't much to see. This time we went in the morning when they were being fed and in March it was much cooler. We had a great time and highly recommend it!

The rhea sticking his head in the car window is Steve. He does that with everyone. The giraffe and rhino were also pretty car friendly. The primates are on little islands so they can have the run of the structures without cages. They hop from beam-to-beam swinging and climbing to the admiration of all watching. This Tibetan Yak was one of a small herd. Park literature said they are becoming extinct which will be a sad day indeed.

On Sunday we went to visit an alpaca farm that belongs to the daughter of one of our members. The alpacas were very cute. They are smaller than llamas and not as likely to spit at you as their cousins. We were able to see some up close and personal and see how their coats grow and why the fleece is so valuable. We also got to feed a couple of them. They only have two teeth on the bottom so they nuzzle your hand with their lips to gather the pellets. The have multiple stomachas so they chew their cud like cattle. We bought some socks and they are very soft and warmer than wool.

The RV park in Sutherlin was built at an old drive-in theater so we also got to see a movie on the big screen. Some of us watched "Secretariat" from our vehicles and a few actually were able to see it from the comfort of their rigs.

We also played lots of games and enjoyed the general cameraderie that is typical or our group. The puzzle makers ran a little short of time and had to give up on completing their jigsaw puzzle but there's always next month.

They say April showers bring May flowers but it seems like this year March showers brought more showers in April. It was a long, wet winter with few glimmers of spring. However we managed to have some fun along the way with another RVing Women weekend in Bandon and then a guest from Brazil - just in time for Janet's birthday.

Daniel arrived on the 17th and with Janet's birthday on the 20th we had lots of cause for celebration and fun. We did many of the usual tourist things we do with visitors but we also celebrated Janet's birthday (and ours too) by going to the Dollar Store and buying a few trinkets for each person. We were so busy in the meantime that we didn't exchange those trinkets for a couple of days. On the 21st we went to Eugene with friends to see Wicked once again. It was the first time for our friends, but the 3rd time for Janet and I - we love that show! We also went to the Reedsport Discovery Center and the Bandon Wildlife Park where we saw 4 week old Bengal tiger cubs. That place is always lots of fun.

The June RVW rally was in Elkton and we finally got some decent weather for part of the weekend. It did rain Sunday afternoon and evening but stopped long enough for us all to get packed up and on our way at the end of the weekend. We really enjoyed that campground. It's right on the Umpqua river and very peaceful. We got to play ladder golf with our new set which is very sturdy. We also played lots of Square Nine, ate way too much food and just had an all around fun weekend. We actually went one day early and after getting set up, drove into Eugene with our friends, Linda and Tully, to see one of the traveling Cirque du Soleil shows. It was really good and we especially liked the fact that we didn't feel overwhelmed by having so many things going on at once. They did one thing at a time so we really got to watch and enjoy what we were seeing.

On Saturday we went over to see the Butterfly Pavillion, garden and Fort Umpqua. It's been too cool for many butterflies, but the Painted Ladies, like this one on the left, were out. The garden is quite lovely and the fort, a replica of what they think the original looked like, was very interesting. The Docent was very knowledgable, but a bit long winded for most of us.

Then over Father's Day weekend we once again made the journey to the Annual Chainsaw Carving Competition in Reedsport. There are lots of good entries though I think a few less than the year before. We were able to go Friday and Sunday and see the progress. That's really a good way to do it.

At the end of June we headed up to Portland to attend the National Convention for Mensa. Janet is the member, not me. But they were happy to have me signed up for some volunteer duties along with Janet. We worked the registation table the first night and were very glad that we hadn't signed up earlier in the day when many folks were first arriving. The next day we went to one lecture on the history of Oregon - we thought we should learn a bit more about our adopted state. The next 2 lectures were busts - the first one because of our hearing and the second one because there was no place to sit or stand by the time we found the room. So we called it a day after that. We did meet a friend we hadn't seen for several years for dinner that night and got a nice chance to catch up.

The next day we decided to skip the rest of the convention and instead take a drive around Mt. Hood. Any other time we had been in the area Mt. Hood always seemed to be surrounded by clouds but it was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed our drive. We also went up by Timerline Lodge and found that there were kids still snowboarding on the mountain. It didn't look like any lifts were running but they were having fun.

From here we went to Camp Dakota to try out two things we had on our bucket list - paint ball and zip lines. The zip lines did require a little leap of faith when we stepped off the platform for the first time. Then we tried paint ball. I never thought about what it would feel like to get hit with a paint ball - it HURTS!!!! I got a couple of nice bruises from our little battle with a couple of guys about 1/3 our age. There were 4 of us against 2 of them. We did take the flag 2 out of 4 times but we have no desire to ever do that again and have crossed it off our list.

August took us on another RVing Women Weekend - this time to Blue River which is near McKenzie in the Cascade Mountains. The drive there reminded me of driving in the Adirondacks - a very similar look in many places. We were about 30 miles from Bend and Sisters. We did a little sight seeing to the Sahalie Waterfall and the DeSchutes National Forest where there is a huge field of black lava rocks and an observation building built from the same. We first saw this area in 2000 at the beginning of our cross country trip in our van. It was so memorable that we came back for another look.

Pretty as the scenery was, what makes these weekends so much fun is the cameraderie and games we play as a group. With the beautiful weather we had, we were able to get outside for a variety of lawn games. The most memorable were a relay race that June got suckered into - she was the last person for her team but to no avail- they lost. Also fun was a version of musical chairs played with statements rather than music. We haven't laughed so hard in a long, long time.

Our September ORVW rally was back at North Lake, the first place we went with Oregon RVing Women. At that time we were tenting. That was the event that got us interested in getting a rig and the rest, as they say, is history. Linda and Tully were our hosts and they had a weekend full of indoor and outdoor games planned. We had a ball! And we did quite well in the competitions - Janet placed first in the Square Nine competition. I came in second. And we won the ladder golf tournament! Our prize(s) were a nice Square Nine kit.

For Thanksgiving we had a potluck with friends who were solo or didn't have other plans for the big day. No photos though - oops. We spent some time in December volunteering for the Egyptian Theatre - selling calendars at the mall and Christmas concert and serving punch and hot cider to visitors to Shore Acres. We had remarkable weather in December until a couple of days after Christmas when the rain started. We're way behind on rain though - norm for the month is over 10 inches and we had around 4 with most of that between the 27th and the end of the month.

We ended the year by helping a friend move up to the Portland area and making a quick trip over to Hillsboro to see brother Tom and his wife LeeAnn. Christmas was low key with a quiet day at home and stockings. We decided to not do big gifts to each other and instead filled 4 bags with gifts for senior citizens from the tree of names in the mall. We really enjoy doing that.

A few days after Christmas we made a trip to Eugene to see the opera Carmen and stop at a store to stock up on a peanut treat that Janet really likes.

New Year's Eve we played games with our friends, Linda and Tully, but we called it a night early to get home before dark and tend to our critters. And so, 2011 has come to an end but we look forward to more fun times in 2012.