Oregon Living 2018 – Blog #108 – More Visitors & Geo Caching!

  

Wednesday, August 15th, 2018……  For some reason, Rylee woke me up around midnight.  I took her out but she didn’t need to potty, so we went back to bed and back to sleep. It may have been too hot for her even with the door open. We also have had some smoke settle in from the fires so maybe that got to her.  Today we had plans to go to breakfast and then shopping. We took Mike & Cheri to Shirley May’s and I think they liked it!

Then it was off to Costco to pick up some things for dinner this week. We got back and rested and visited for a bit. Mike needed to go to the urgent care facility to have blood drawn for tests he is doing. We got in the truck and headed out. But, on the way out, I spotted a car pulling a trailer and I thought I recognized the driver and passenger, so I turned around and found that it was our friends, Paul & Alice! They were on their way to their son’s house in Yamhill (southwest of Portland) and were bringing up some items for them to store. They wanted to stop by on the way up and visit with us a bit. They told us they have made the decision to sell their home in Anaheim and find a place up here somewhere. With Mike and Cheri here, it was like old home week, with our old square dance friends. They stayed about an hour or so then headed north. Mike & I went off to urgent care and Lydia & Cheri went to Walmart. Urgent Care sent us over to the lab in the community hospital across the street for the blood draw. That done, we headed back home and the girls started dinner. We had bought bbq ribs from Costco and my sister came over to help us eat all of them. Yummy! We sat around after dinner and visited until it was time for bed. 

      

Thursday, August 16th, 2018……  This morning we fixed breakfast. We planned to go out to show them Foster Lake and the surrounding area. But I got a call from another long time square dance friend, Carol. She had previously told Lydia that she and hubby Gene were going to be up in the Seattle area and might be stopping by on their way back home. Well, today was that day!  We waited around and they showed up about 11:00am. They only stayed about an hour or so but we had a nice visit. 

They headed out and we took off to go tour a bit. We hit Sweet Home and Foster Lake then went by my sister’s house. She came by later and we drove to Coburg for pizza. It was as good as always! We are registered as customers there so I get special deals emailed to me every month. This month we got, with two pizzas (any size) a free family size baked spaghetti dish. So, we each ordered a small pizza. But we got the spaghetti to go since we had way enough to eat. After the drive back home, we were ready for a rest! 

      

After pizza, we went over to Walt's for ice cream cones. They had a concert in the park so we walked over there and enjoyed that as well. 

  

Friday, August 17th, 2018……  Today we went geo caching! Mike & Cheri have been doing this for several years and we were interested in how it all works. There are websites you can go to and read all about how it all started. You can download an app on your phone and it will show you a map with spots all over it where caches are placed. The object is to use your locator on the app to zero in on the spot. Clues may be available to help you find the object. Once you find it, you write on the log in the object and log it into your files. We didn’t find the first one but found one on the way to Albany (it is in the metal post of the old famous honey sign billboard on Santiam Hwy). They logged it in and then we headed off to Albany. We wanted to show them the carousel. I think they liked it!

We were able to go downstairs and got a tour of the carving shop. I have been tracking the progress on Geno the whale. Here is a shot from a few months ago and then one from yesterday.

We walked around and enjoyed ourselves for a bit then headed off home. We did stop at the Lebanon Water Gardens (in the courtyard of the Premier Hotel in town). We tracked down another geo cache there. We came home and heated up the spaghetti dish plus all of the leftover pizza and had a nice filling dinner. Then it was time to play dominoes for a while until it was time to call it a night.