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Lebanon, Oregon, United States
We are Terry & Cathye Kinkelaar. If you've followed my blog in the past, you know that Lydia, my beautiful wife of 52 years, and I made the lifestyle choice to move to Oregon in 2017. You've seen my posts about losing her in May 2020 to cancer. Although I was left alone, I am pleased to say that I have found happiness again. In April 2021, I met Cathye, who also lost her longtime husband in 2020. Well, we fell in love and were married in April 2022. So, if folks are still interested, I will continue to post here as we move forward with our lives and adventures!

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Oregon Living 2017 – Blog #42 – Eclipse Day Plus a New House


Monday, August 21st, 2017…..   Today is Eclipse Day! We got up early, showered, and prepped for the day.  Ok, we went out to the porch about 9:00am! We had listened to all of the hype on the news – we had our eclipse glasses – we were ready!  The whole area up here was in to eclipse frenzy and they expected hundreds of thousands of folks to flock here. We watched the news stations and saw eclipse parties all over the viewing path. They told us that as it got darker we could expect the cattle and sheep to head back to the barn.  Birds would land in the trees for the night. Dogs and cats would get nervous as it got closer. Owls and night predators would come out. Really! Everyone was ready for this! But I was expecting something rather boring.  Not true!  Turns out it was spectacular. It was really pretty cool!  We had excellent weather – clear skies and a clear view. 










The sky got progressively darker and our porch lights even came on! With our eclipse glasses we could see the partial starting. 



The temp really dropped and had Janie running for her jacket and blankets! After about 45 minutes it went totally into a corona!  They say it lasted for 2 ½ minutes but it seemed shorter than that to us.  




Afterward, we came back in and watched the news about other folks’ reactions.  Those people in stadiums and amphitheaters and parks were starting to head home and the roads got clogged up pretty quickly.  They made it to be a big deal but it looked like just another day of rush hour traffic in SoCal! No biggie.  But we stayed put and didn’t have any worries.  Later in the day, we decided to skip lunch and have linner.  Penny was waiting for the call that her bank had funded the payment and she could get her keys so we wanted to be ready.  They fixed chili dogs and a few minutes later she got the call.  The house was hers! We headed over in two cars and got to work.  She had already figured out we needed two locksets and three deadbolts. We also needed door stops and weather stripping for the doors so Rick and I headed to Home Depot/Lowe’s for that.  The girls went to Walmart for cleaning supplies.  We returned and I got the locks changed.  Tomorrow we will bring chairs and ladders and more stuff to get things started.


Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017…..  Rick and Janie were figuring out their trip back home.  They are debating whether to cross over and hit the coast and head that way, or go back down I5.  But they are here today so they helped us at the house again.  Penny had to go get the city office to get the water turned back on and in her name.  Lydia took the car and I loaded the stuff in my truck and we all left together and met at Kevin’s Café for breakfast. Afterward, we went to Home Depot and to Costco and picked up stuff, including two new toilets. We decided to have linner so we all drove to Ixtapa and had a nice meal.  Then we all met back at the house and started in. It was a busy day but we got the toilets in, light bulbs replaced, vent covers installed, a sink drain replaced, and more. In total, a lot of stuff done.  





















We returned home and watched Master Chef and went to bed after a long day.  

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