Oregon Living 2021 – Blog #30 – Another Date & Keeping the Fire Burning

 

 

Wednesday, April 28^th., 2021…… Today was my outing with the lady from Albany. I had bought the tickets for the 12:00noon guided tour at Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. The drive up to McMinnville was about an hour long but I wanted to take the country roads up there so I picked her up around 8:30am and we headed off to Elmer’s for a nice breakfast. She used to work in McMinnville and suggested a leisurely route and we took that. We got there around 11:15 and had a few minutes to cruise around the town a bit. I remembered a hotel that had rooftop dining and wanted to find that for future reference and then she had me drive by the high school her construction company had remodeled a few years ago. We got to the museum

and masked up and checked in. I had chosen the guided tour over the self-guided and our tour was a personal tour just for the two of us, and docent Clint took us around the aviation building. This is where they house the famous Spruce Goose. Even though it was predominately displayed in the building, and we could walk all around it, our tour didn’t cover the inside of the plane. That would have to be another trip. But Clint was very good and walked us through ‘history’ from the Wright Bros plane (replica – the original is in the Smithsonian), the Spirit of St. Louis, and so on up to the planes from the 50s and 60s.

We left that building and were handed off to Bud, who walked us to the sister building next door. This was the space section and covered both US and Russian history in the space exploration. Tons of pictures in there too but here are a few….

            

The day went well and we had a very nice time. I took her home and called Cathy and told her about my day. I was nervous because I didn’t want to upset her and was happy we were good. She has been communicating with other men and understood completely. We can now go forward from here and I am SO HAPPY! Neither of us is even opening any mail from Match. Does that tell you how it’s going!!!              

Thursday, April 29^th., 2021…… I was up early again today. The weather here is nice with no rain in the forecast. The grass is high and needs mowing and today was the day!  I didn’t want sis coming over to help given her soreness and not knowing until the mri what is causing her issues. Better to be safe than sorry!  So, I headed out and weed-whacked around the water pipes and then put the tarp in the truck and then got out the zero turn and started in. I had the blade setting up higher so I wasn’t going for volume but I still filled up the truck with clippings. After mowing, I took that to the recycle place and then came home and cleaned up the truck and put everything away and took a shower. I may go out tomorrow with the lawn tractor and mow the field grass. Also, still have to work on that tree project. Of course, I spent time talking with Cathy. She had been in Minnesota with Jim’s family and was heading today to Missouri for more of the same, only this is for her family. Her son is getting married tomorrow!  We talked before and after her flight. She doesn’t get back until next week. I can hardly wait!  I really miss her!    

Friday, April 30^th., 2021……  The weather was good today and I was ready to mow the field grass. But I decided to first work on that crooked tree project. I took a come-a-long out there and attached it to both the crooked tree and one next to it and tightened it up until I liked where it was. Then, with that tension on the tree, I reattached the cable and tensioner. Once I released the come-a-long, the cable system picked up the pull. I now have the turnbuckle to use if needed.

          

As you can in the pics, the shrub is pretty good sized and the tree is rather close. But at the rate the tree is growing, it will tower over the shrub pretty quickly and will look a lot better. Cathy is busy today with wedding prep and then the wedding and reception, but she took time to call a few times during the day and we had more great times just relaxing and spending time talking with each other!  Oh, just to note – I didn’t get out to the mower for the field grass today. Hey, I’m retired!  There’s always tomorrow!  I heard back later that everything went well but she was pooped! Still a good talk before we said our goodnights.  I also talked with some SoCal friends today. Carol is going back on Match and we discussed details on that. She is a good friend and I think I helped direct her a little bit, the 'expert' that I am now!  ha ha!  I also talked with Janie and Rick, who are out with my camping club this weekend. Some of the group popped in on the call and it was so nice to hear from them again! Love those guys!     

Saturday, May 1^st., 2021…...  Even though it’s May, we got an April shower last night! Not enough to do much more than water everything (which is good for me!) but enough to make the grass wet. But no rain when I walked Rylee and there is no more in the forecast until the end of the week so mowing is planned for some time later.  I thought about going in to Albany to Lowes to get some material to build shelves in my office. These will be used to display all of the Nascar 1/24 scale model cars that were Jeff’s. But I decided instead, to let the working public use the weekend to shop at the big box stores and I will go next week for my business.  Speaking of the models, I didn’t mention it before, but I received a bunch of boxes last week from Krista, including Jeff’s ashes. I sorted through them and separated all of it out. A lot I will keep and display, and a some will get re-boxed back up and stored.  I made an appointment and went to the mortuary and ordered an urn for the ashes. It is similar to his mom’s. Closure….

I spent the rest of the day working on my blog and on my billing spreadsheet and then watched my taped races for the remainder of the day and evening.