The Ray Adventures: End of Summer Blog

             Holy Smokes! Where did summer go? We've been in Salem four and a half months and suddenly it's time to hit the road.

Our granddaughter Eleisha got married May 4th, what a fun wedding! An outdoor venue in Green Bluff, a suburb of Spokane out in the country in the midst of apple orchards. Both Eleisha and new hubby Austin are BIG Star Wars fans, May the Forth be With you. Her cousin Brendan officiated, Sister Patti was Maid of Honor and Aunt Stacy was a bridesmaid. Family pictures were taken after, a large family, her grandma was the oldest of 15 and her mom Barbara has five sisters. Our side of the family was represented by Chris and Micah and us. The reception dinner was catered by a company from Couer 'd Alene, Id., an excellent BBq, ribs, chicken and brisket with the best ever mac and cheese. We've eaten bbq all over the country and we think it's probably the best we've ever eaten. I digress. It was a beautiful day, early May in Spokane you couldn't have asked for better weather. We stayed on at Stacy's for 10 days to help out, he had shoulder surgery on the 8th. On our way to Salem we stopped in Kennewick overnight to see our friends Mary and Gerry, they moved from Salem about 30 years ago. Their son Keith and wife Rachelle joined us for dinner, Keith was our "rent-a-kid". Long story.

We finally arrived in Salem May 20th, 7 weeks after we left Rockport. We have been at the Salem Elks RV Park, a great place for Luci, it backs up to a large city park. Yes, she does rule our lives. We asked the overworked park host Darrell if we could help with the landscape maintenance, it was quite overgrown and full of weeds, man did we have a project! What a difference we made, many people thanked us personally and we even were mentioned in the Club's newsletter. We "futzed" around the yard all summer, Darrell gave us 6 weeks of rent and comped all of our dinners at the clubhouse for the entire summer. I haven't cooked much this summer, oh man! I'll come back to reality the 4th, the day we leave.

We met our newest great-grandaughter Kallie Jo, she was born 4/24. Of course she is a beautiful baby. Big sis Lyla is over 2 1/2 now, she was quite taken with the dashboard in the coach, lots of buttons to push and of all things she was really fascinated with our shower. Papa Nick is in Med School in Yakina, Wa., and was on his summer break. His wife Sam, his middle school sweetheart is a delight.

Our son-in-law Micah who is a huge Grateful Dead Fan, had many many well loved t-shirts, Chris asked me to make him a T-shirt quilt. When I wasn't out weeding I was busy sewing. Even if I do say so myself it turned out great!

In July we took the coach to Brookings (196 mi) on the southern Oregon coast for a kite festival. It's crazy, I grew up on the Oregon coast and had never been to kite festival before. The kite fliers choreographed their moves to music. The PA announcer explained how many different ways there are to make a quilt. it was a buffet for your eyes, all the beautiful colors, sizes and styles. A group of 4 men from the Bay Area flew their long narrow kites with streamer in unison and to music. Wow! The weather was amazing, but the fliers could have used a little more wind. One large Teddy Bear kite couldn't quite make it off the ground. We took Luci to the beach a couple of times, boy does she love the sand.

We had some sad news, our friend Charlene died in July from lung cancer although she never smoked. We traveled with Dan and her to warm water destinations so the guys could go diving. She is missed.

Chris and I went to Goat Yoga in Oregon City, we were supposed to do 30 minutes of yoga then we could interact with the 14 pygmy goats. One goat, Tucker, was bigger than the rest, he loved to jump from back to back without encouragement, he was a bit heavy for me, we crashed. In the photos, Melanie, the goat wrangler placed the goats on our back. We had so much fun, we laughed and laughed, we didn't do many yoga poses. One of them peed on Chris's mat and I got a special surprise on the bottom of mine. Melanie gave Chris another mat to use while it was rinsed and dried. Fun, fun fun!

Most people would agree I'm no Martha Stewart but believe it or not, Chris and I made Marionberry freezer jam. Marionberries were named for Marion County (where Salem is) because they were created by grafting blackberries and raspberries here in the county. Our valley grows 90 % of the berries in the world. They are my fav!

I visited with my cousin Linda, she's had MS since the mid 80's, I haven't seen her walk for years. This summer she is able to walk without the use of a cane. Chris and I went to see her on a Friday afternoon to look at her genealogy file. I mentioned friday afternoon in the summer because her town of Wilsonville is known for heavy traffic all the time, an hour and a half later we made it to Salem, usually a 30 minute drive.

The weather this summer has been perfect, only a few high 90 days but mostly perfect mid 80's with just a few days of rain. One night we had a nasty t-storm, we rocked and rolled about an hour. There is nothing more wonderful than a NW summer.

We had many lunch and dinner get togethers with family and friends. I'm not even going to mention the weight gain. We've had a lovely time this summer, we'll miss everyone BUT the Gypsies in us are ready to head out again for more adventures.

Enjoy the pic's!

TTFN,

Gary and Pam