weather – Page 28 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Cross-country Runs

Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins… we had to get up early as the cleaners were due at 7.30. We went out to the Bagel Factory for breakfast. Very nice bagel with far too much salad including bean sprouts that think they’re dental floss. And a huge gherkin (pickle) that even Liesel didn’t fancy.

Liesel had booked a massage at the gym so to keep her company, I walked fast on the treadmill for half an hour. Every time I do that, I think how much I prefer walking around outside. But I told myself that it was OK to be exercising inside when it’s so cold outside.

Cold and wet. Klaus went out to run some errands, came back and told us about the big black cloud heading our way.

I was going to walk to Kincaid Park but by the time I’d got ready, it was raining really hard. Surely, I thought, they’ll cancel the cross-country race. But no.

In the end, I accepted a lift from Klaus and we watched the race that Asa took part in. It was cold and raining hard, just how I used to enjoy my cross-country runs at school. (I didn’t. See below(*))

Thanks to Jodi for the photo — Asa just finishing the race

There was a huge discrepancy between the actual temperature and what the internet told me. 16°C is 60°F. In fact, it was 47°F, a chilly 8°C.

We drove over to Aaron and Jodi’s in the evening for dinner and to be shown around the house. They’re off to New Orleans for ten days and Liesel and I are in charge of looking after Asa and Gideon!

They live downtown, nearer the city centre, so hopefully we’ll still be able to do some walking, even if much of it is inside the gigantic shops and department stores, away from the cold weather.

Did I mention that it has suddenly become really cold? Aaron commented that it was the first time he’d seen me wearing long trousers and long sleeves.

We have plans for our nephews: and that is meant in the best possible way, no manic laughter implied!!

(*) Yes, cross-country running wasn’t my favourite sports activity at school, mainly because I can’t run fast nor far, never could. I can still visualise the route through the woods at school, and how grateful I was when a friend, who lived nearby, showed us the shortcut.

A couple of years later, in a moment of madness, I volunteered to join the school team in a race which happened to be close to where I lived in Park Barn, Guildford. It was on what was then Bannister’s playing field, now occupied by Tesco. It was raining that day too, but at least I’d been taken most of the way home on the coach.

I was destined to come in last place from the very start, but my fate was sealed when, running back, my shoe became stuck in the mud and came off. Trying to pull a shoe out of thick clay, in the rain, while trying not to put the shoeless foot down and trying not to fall over was difficult but I managed. And yes, I secured my last place.

I was never picked for a cross-country team again, and I never volunteered.

Hikes and Bites

We seem to have settled into a routine of going for a walk or a hike and going out to eat or drink. That’s OK, that’s what holidays are for.

An early walk with Jyoti in Kincaid Park was interesting because we had to make a detour to avoid getting too close to a moose, not once, but twice.

Mountain bikes presumably – maybe skiers treat this as a challenge too

And then, in the bushes, we saw a group of three mooses all together. Photos? Nah: I’m pretty blasé about seeing them in the wild, now. Yes, it’s still a thrill (for me, at least) to see them, but they all look the same in photos (no offence, mooses)!

Liesel and I had a late breakfast (early lunch) with another long-lost friend at Organic Oasis. We all chose the same item from the menu, but whereas the two ladies went for small, I chose big. We all agreed that none of us know what we want to do when we grow up, having had a succession of jobs, in offices and elsewhere, that in retrospect, were just a stop-gap until the real thing comes along.

The musical accompaniment here was songs by Paul McCartney, then by George Harrison and a bit later, by John Lennon. No solo Ringo Starr, unfortunately, but we did hear the Beatles’ Hello Goodbye just before we left!

Having slipped on the muddy trail a couple of times in the morning, Liesel decided it was time to buy some new trainers, from REI.

We had a coffee, of course, and by coincidence, Una was having lunch in the nearby Yak and Yeti and she joined us for a moment.

While Liesel was having more treatment from the physio, I went for a walk down towards the railway line and the inlet. Despite being close to the city centre, there was still plenty of Autumnal colour.

Actually nowhere near the railway station

At 10:18 on Wednesday 3rd, Liesel’s phone made horrible noise. “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” Well, the klaxon certainly stirred me from my near slumber. But where was my message? I had to wait until 10:28 for mine. And then I received a second message six minutes later. Was the test successful? On Twitter, I saw that someone had received the alert three times. Another person complained that soon afterwards, they’d been sent a message inviting them to a rally being held by the President, and was this related? And of course, there was some fun to be had:

Liesel wanted to go out to have some quality girl time, sans moi. At one point, her plans included having two lunches! In the end, she only had a light first lunch, anticipating a second, which then didn’t happen. Oops.

Meanwhile I went for a long walk to Carrs to buy a mirror to replace the one that broke a few days ago.

Not a model village, but a whole new neighbourhood built in a big hole

A man walking towards me said, conspiratorially, “And so, the sky’s walking today.” I thought, he thinks I’m a fellow Russian spy, or something, and I don’t even know the secret reponse. Then my brain kicked in and I realised that he’d really said, “It’s all us guys walking today.”

What a long walk, just to buy a hand mirror. Yes, maybe, but I rewarded myself with another massage while I was there.

As it was two days after International Coffee Day, on the way home, I felt obligated to stop at Kaladi Bros on Jewel Lake for one of their delicious lattes. With a breakfast burrito, this time, for a late lunch. Which was just enough fuel to get me home again. Except…

As I was walking home, Liesel drove by and picked me up. We delivered the chalk to the local elementary school. Chalk that was left over from the garage sale and has been in the boot of the car ever since. The staff at the school were grateful, so I hope the children have some fun with it.

At last, we decided on and bought a wireless speaker. It’s not too bulky, nor too heavy, and it means we can listen to music from both our phones anywhere in pretty good quality. And as I type, I can confirm: my phone can talk to two devices via Bluetooth at the same time!

Asa was supposed to take part in a cross-country run in the afternoon but as he wasn’t feeling well, we didn’t have to go and show support nor did we have to risk sending the runners the wrong way in our rôle as marshals! Instead, Liesel suggested to her parents that we go out for dinner.

We went to Siam Cuisine where I had a bowl of curry noodles with tofu and vegetables. When I say bowl, I mean it was nearly the size of a washing-up bowl. No way could I finish it, and I took the rest home in a carton. Klaus had oxtail soup and I recalled my favourite ever oxtail soup: from a vending machine at Waterloo Station, forty years ago or so!

Cafés and restaurants often (usually?) play music from the Beatles. Well, Siam Cuisine didn’t, they were playing Siamese music, I think. But they did have this blackboard as a nod to the fab four:

Jyoti’s car is now just like me: re-tired. Yes, Jyoti took her car in to have the snow tyres fitted in anticipation of it being snowy and icy when she returns home from her forthcoming trip to Indianapolis and the east coast.

She drove us to Hilltop for a hike through the woods. It was quite chilly and I was very nearly tempted to put on my jacket. But I managed to stay warm enough, the trail was undulating and we had the place to ourselves. Apart from the lady near the beginning who walked by hurriedly with her dog close behind. Hurriedly, and we soon found out why: her big dog had left a big steaming pile on the trail. Very unusual for local dog owners.

The only other person came by on his mountain bike at about 90 mph. Twice. We saw a moose in the distance, thinking about having a go on the ski-jump. Other than that, and a spruce-head bird, nothing. Although Liesel was heard to say “There’s too much wildlife in Anchorage”.

When Liesel and Jyoti are walking, they are also talking. I can’t talk that much. Don’t know what they’re talking about as I listen out for the sound of animals in the bushes!

And I think I’ve found out why they call Autumn ‘Fall’ in America: it’s because that’s when the trees start falling over like drunken teenagers or Judge Kavanaugh.

Yes, I know we used to call it Fall in England too until a couple of hundred years ago, when we started to use the French word Automne!

Oh guess what I found in the email Spam folder? A message from the estate agent that sold our house, asking for a review. Here’s the link, it said, to make it easy for you. Except the link just took me to the page that I would see if I Googled the name of the estate agent. So, sorry, they won’t be getting a review.

In the evening, we joined chef Jyoti at her house for supper: aloo gobi, saag paneer and rice. Us two, Jyoti and Jyoti’s daughter’s boyfriend’s brother Calvin! It was cold and raining when we left, but we were well sated.

Mountains

It’s Wednesday again. The day the cleaners arrive by 7.30am meaning that we have to be up and out of bed. So we went out for breakfast. It was cold that early in the day, brrr, Liesel even suggested I put on a coat and long trousers. Pfft. Later on, the weather lady on TV confirmed that it was indeed the coldest start to a day since mid-May.

We went to see Yoshi, a friend of Wayne’s, for some advice about our trip to Japan. He’s been organising tours for many years and knows the place backwards. He’s also Japanese. While speaking with him in his 12th floor office, we watched a bank of fog roll in over Anchorage and roll away again. We have our train tickets sorted and a tour of Tokyo a couple of days after we arrive.

Later on, we went for a walk with Jyoti down in Kincaid Park. We hiked along a very damp grassy trail, quite hilly in fact, and we ended up overlooking the inlet and Fire Island and some mountains way over there.

We came across an old open-cast car-tyre mine, which is obviously no longer in operation.

The snow-clad mountains look like a postcard. Looking at a map, this is either the Neacola or the Chigmit Mountain Range, but as always, I’m open to correction. Either way, the snow came down much further than that in the Chugach range. So far, but the season is young.

Good Greeff, another unusual sign. And no, on this occasion, there were no high-speed skiers or mountain bikers coming our way.

Nutburgers and chips for supper. I listened to Word of Mouth twice (because I nodded off during the first attempt) and to the Cerys Matthews Blues Programme.

Autumn Colours (again)

My mission, which I chose to accept, was to sell some items left over from the Garage Sale a few weeks ago. We have old National Geographic magazines, old jigsaw puzzles, a set of German porcelain and some other bits and pieces. I’m not having much luck. Nobody showed any interest on eBay. Facebook Marketplace keeps giving me error messages. And Craig’s List won’t let me upload more than one photo at a time. It really is Mission: Impossible. But I shall persevere and I will make some progress before the end of the movie.

On the way to see her financial advisor this afternoon, Liesel dropped me off elsewhere. I had a fantastic massage: my muscles and bones creaked and groaned as she used thumbs, elbows, knees and feet to gain maximum pressure and leverage. She must have thought my fingers and toes were telescopic, the way she pulled at them, clicking each knuckle in turn. And she really messed up my hair with the head massage. But it was great, I think I feel better for it, much less tight and coiled up.

Afterwards, I walked home as it was warm, the sky was blue, the wind had died down and it was a thoroughly pleasant jaunt.

I was thinking how clean the roads are here compared with England. There are $1000 fines for littering, and sections of the highway are taken care of by different groups or organisations.

You too can sponsor a section of highway

Today, though, I began to notice things that were out of place.

Quite a pretty thing: I think it’s dry, now

This is universal: a traffic cone in the wrong place

And the ubiquitous plastic bag of course

Someone came all the way from Manchester to throw this old cupboard into the bushes

But never mind the rubbish, the views are still fantastic.

Apart from the views, though, walking around this part of Anchorage is not as interesting as, say, walking around Chessington. There, I can make it up as I go along and I can make sudden changes to the planned route, left, right, right, left, etc. Here in Anchorage, though, the roads are long and straight and I can’t deviate or decide to take a shortcut and take a long detour. There is one route from A to B and that’s it.

A cyclist stop to warn me that there was a female moose further down the road, and that she was a bit grumpy, so this cyclist and her children were going to cross the road. She set off, her daughter set off, but her son stayed put. His chain had fallen off so I did my good turn for the day and put it back onto the derailleur. I can report that Alaskan grass is just as good as English grass at wiping bicycle chain oil off my hands.

I was hoping, of course, to see some wildlife: moose, bear, wolf, yeti, wolverine, polar bear, sasquatch, orca, beaver, otter, marmot, marmite, eskimo, something big and interesting, but again, I was disapppointed. I did see and nearly trip over this alien though:

After supper, Liesel and I went for another quick walk, this time to Kincaid Park. Liesel is still suffereing some discomfort, sadly. Having a rest day or two helps a bit but walking any distance seems to bring back the pain to some extent. The Sun was low in the sky and really lit up this tree, you could almost warm your hands on it.

All the runners that passed us waved hello, such a friendly, young and fit bunch of people.

Autumnal Equinox

After the medics, a couple of days of pure fun. No more dentists, no more doctors, at least for the time being. Then the following dialogue:

Liesel: My tooth just fell out.
Mick: Oh no, not again.
Liesel: Out of my purse.

Yes, Liesel was hoping the tooth fairy would visit her purse and leave a bright shiny sixpence for the piece of tooth that fell out of her actual mouth a week ago.

Liesel got up first, as usual, and I stayed in bed with Cerys. Her music show on BBC 6 Music is probably my favourite and I’ve been missing it for a few months.

Later, Liesel and I were meeting up with Amrit for lunch. We arranged to meet at Pad Thai, which was closed last time due to refurbishment. And, guess what? It was temporarily closed today as well, due to a gas leak. We’ll have one more attempt before accepting that the cosmic forces just don’t want the three of us to eat at Pad Thai.

Instead, we went for an Indian buffet and that was very enjoyable.

We walked to the Performing Arts Center to buy tickets for an Anchorage Symphony concert in a couple of weeks time.

When we were in Italy two years with Jyoti, Suvan and Gita, we visited a lot of museums and galleries, the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, all the usual visitor attractions. We greatly admired the artwork of course but at the risk of being struck by a thunderbolt, we did get a bit fed up with all the Madonna and Child paintings. The Pokémon GO of the time.

So imagine our surprise when we visited Kaladi Brothers Coffee Downtown branch

to be greeted by a Madonna and Child. A Leonardo original. Well, maybe not.

Liesel: We’re going to join Monica for a stake-out.
Mick: Oh, whereabouts?
Liesel: Sullivan’s.

So, yes, Sullivan’s Steakhouse was where we met Monica for a lovely glass of Glenlivet, so smooth on the tongue. And another reminder that we need our hearing tested!

We’d offered to take Asa out for a meal, but it was quite hard tracking him down.

By mistake, we went into an ice hockey venue, which was pretty cold, surprisingly. But even more surprising was the size of the pucks they were playing with: almost as big as car tyres.

And as a mathematician, I was intrigued by the local addresses being shown in binary notation:

Eventually, we found Asa in a different sports centre.

La Cabana was where we ended up after two first choice restaurants had long waits, over half an hour. We had a good time and lots of good food. Too much food, really, for this English person with an English-sized stomach.

car alarm (noun) (1) Device installed in a vehicle designed to wake up everyone in the neighbourhood, in the middle of the night, apart from the owner of the vehicle. (2) Arguably the worst invention ever.

This is how the day began for us. The sound even drowned out the torrential rain that had tried to keep us awake all night.

We walked around to Jyoti’s house for breakfast where I again managed to eat too much.

We both remarked on how lovely the Autumn season is on this equinoctial weekend. It was a little bit cooler today and the headwind was a bit annoying. But the trees are very pretty.

But Winter draws on too. The first snow has fallen on top of the mountains way over there in the distance. As time goes on, the snow will appear lower and lower down the mountains until it threatens to leave Anchorage knee-deep in snow and ice. One weather app briefly forecast snow for Monday but thankfully, that’s changed, and the person responsible has been severely punished.

We walked home again and a couple of cars pulled up beside us. We were warned that there was a bull moose close to the path, just round the corner. Well, again, I was torn between wanting to see the moose and wanting to stay safe. We crossed the road, but we never did see the bull: it had probably just crossed the road and gone straight into the woods.

We drove to see Amy and her family for a chat and to taste test Kathy’s peach cobbler. I had to have two slices just to make sure it was OK. It was delicious! I’d met Kathy and Wayne, Amy’s parents, just once, probably over ten years ago. Amy’s sister Kara came by too.

Wayne and Kathy gave us lots of useful tips for our trip to Japan, and we talked about our overall travel plans.

Docs and Glocks

A couple of days of mainly medical matters, not very interesting really. So here’s a picture of some daisies, Liesel’s favourite flowers.

Liesel went to the dentist as one of her teeth broke a couple of days ago. She also arranged to collect a new batch of her prescription drugs. The pharmacy was inside Walmart so while waiting, I wandered over to the firearms department. The handguns are cheaper than mobile phones. I couldn’t decide which one to go for, but like 99% of the population in USA, I don’t really need one anyway. On a day in which there were three, yes, three mass shootings in USA, I’m glad I decided to save my money.

Handguns – no idea if any of them are Glocks

We tidied up Jyoti’s house a bit, we were moving back to Klaus and Leslie’s today. Later on I walked home from Jyoti’s house and I can confirm that Autumn is here. The colours are changing.

In the evening, Klaus watched Blue Bloods on TV. We all did. Too much TV recently. On the other hand, I did listen to some familiar radio programmes so I don’t feel too badly sullied.

It was my turn to visit a doctor today to get a prescription for my meds. Lots of form-filling for such a formality. A man came up to us in the car park. I thought we were being reprimanded for parking in the wrong place. But no. He was interested in buying Klaus’s sports car, the one Liesel and I were using. I was open to offers but it’s not really for sale at this time.

I really should stop taking pictures inside lavatories, but this little graffiti made me laugh:

We went to the airport to pick Jyoti up: she’d spent a few ore days with Gita and Josh in Portland. While waiting close by the Alaska Aviation Museum, I went to take some photos and Liesel warned me that I was about to walk over a working runway. I looked both ways and saw no planes coming before running across!

We took Jyoti home and we had time for a quick walk before Liesel’s next physio appointment. More dry needling in the bum, with extra long needles today, woohoo! While she was being poked, and indeed having her back massaged as well, I walked to the post office to send off some items. Lots of form-filling for such a simple task.

Liesel and I met for a coffee before picking up my meds from Target.

Meanwhile, today, Klaus had a haircut and a pedicure. I too need a haircut, so so I keep being told. But I am not seeking treatment for my bashed-up nose.

The good news is that we’ve experienced the warmest September in Anchorage, ever! Maybe paying for temporary gym membership was worth it: we’d rather have the good weather than have to go to the gym because it’s horrible outside.

Today’s front page, Anchorage Daily News

Scandal

Liesel’s birthday was celebrated in style. Her Mom made her famous pull-aparts for breakfast! No birthday cake, though. One highlight was a video from lovely Martha wishing her Oma a happy birthday.

Gita took us to see Josh, who was working today in the nearby Nehalem Bay State Park, with plenty of food for his very late breakfast. His commute between here and Portland is quite a long one, so he sometimes kips in the car near the park. Staying in a house with us all for a few days was luxury.

I walked back to our accommodation, not sure whether I should be talking loudly to myself or singing: I didn’t think to ask if there were bears in the area.

But there are elks. I didn’t see one, but I did see the warning sign on our drive to Seaside later in the day.

Gita drove us: it rained a lot on the way. The main attraction for the ladies was the outlets. I didn’t need to see any shopping centres, I’ve seen the mall, as they say.

So after agreeing to meet up with them two hours later, I went for a walk. I was on the search for coffee. What a disaster that was. Number 1 didn’t look very nice. Number 2 looked interesting from a distance but was closed due to refurbishment. Number 3, despite calling itself a café, only sold wine and beer. And Number 4 was a drive-through coffee shop and I would have felt totally stupid queueing behind a huge 4×4. So, no coffee for me, at that time.

But I did enjoy the walk to the actual beach, infinitely more enjoyable than walking round shops when you know you shouldn’t be buying stuff!

I would have gone for a dip… but…. shark??

It’s halfway through September so I suspect this little front garden cemetary has nothing to do with Hallowe’en:

On my return to the shops, I met Liesel, Gita and Jyoti. Liesel had bought me a couple of shirts (hooray!) and some other bits and pieces for the little people we know back home.

I described my lack-of-coffee experience so Jyoti used her nose and her phone to Google local coffee shops and found one a few blocks away. We drove there and had a great coffee. The barista was very cheerful, happy and smiley, jolly and full of fun and laughter, with red hair and tattoos. I asked for a latte with whatever drugs she was on. (No, of course I didn’t, but I thought about it.)

We’ve noticed that as well as playing Beatles and other British music, many coffee shops support local artists by displaying their works. Most of it is fantastic, some (to me) is nothing special but every now and then, we see a picture that we’d really like to own.

The weather had changed for the better, so on the drive back to Manzanita, we were able to see things. beautiful things, the sea, stacks, so we stopped at a few of the viewpoints and wandered down to a beach.

The Oregon coast is wonderful: trees right up to the beach

We didn’t see elk or any other wildlife larger than a seagull and a squirrel. The most unusual creature was a hairy, yellow caterpillar just over an inch long.

It was too cloudy that night to try for more photos of the stars. And the next day, we had to leave this little paradise and return to Anchorage.

Liesel drove along The Pacific Highway, 101, most of the way back to Seattle International Airport.

The music played by my phone was different today. We heard songs from people we hadn’t heard before on this trip. Tom Hingley, Terra Naomi, Bic Runga, Tom Robinson, Pink Floyd, Björk all made a welcome appearance or two. Mary Hopkin’s new recording of Those Were the Days is stunning.

We stopped to have a look at and climb up Astoria Column for a terrific view all round.

I counted 164 steps up the spiral staircase only to find that at the top, every one of those steps was numbered and sponsored by an individual.

We’re planning our 2044 holiday already. We want to be here for the opening of this time capsule:

One surprise was when I looked down at the GPS display and it told us we were at Lake Tahoe. I thought we were driving north to Seattle, not south to California and Nevada. How do you explain this? No prizes, just for fun.

We drove over a really long bridge into Washington state: another fantastic feat of engineering.

Astoria-Megler Bridge – the longest continuous truss bridge in north America

Autumn really is coming on, here, the leaves are turning yellow and are just waiting to be blown off the trees.

Our GPS had a couple of hiccups. After we joined the I-5, it tried to take us off on and drive an extra loop before rejoining the highway. Not once, but twice. And as we drove through the Lewis-McChord military base. the GPS displayed no features other than the road itself. Everything else was greyed out.

We dropped the car off, and entered the airport. Good news: the rocking chairs were good fun. Bad news: we sat to eat at a table that was located right by the toilets.

It was nice to see facilities provided for breast-feeding mothers. Or: it was very disappointing to see that breast-feeding mothers are supposed to hide in a cupboard in case somebody takes offence at the sight of a baby with a boob. The hard plastic seat inside didn’t look very comfortable, either.

Well, the flight was OK, I played a couple of games, thrashed the aeroplane at backgammon, I listened to the new album by Florence + the Machine, the one that Felix had played for us the other day. And I read a lot.

Liesel’s long time friend Amy was kind enough to come out at nearly midnight to pick us up from Anchorage airport. Liesel and I are spending a couple of nights at Jyoti’s house as our room at Liesel’s parents is currently occupied by two young German visitors.

I incurred the first serious injury of the trip when the car boot door tried to break my nose. Fortunately, my glasses were not affected.

We’ve had a couple of relatively quiet days based at Jyoti’s. Reading, listening to radio programmes, binge-watching old series of Scandal. I walked up to the bluff for the scenic view, and into the woods a bit.

I would have gone further but I kept hearing animal noises. Scary.

We set out to walk back to the folks’ house, a couple of miles away, but Klaus drove by on his way back from the supermarket and gave us a lift home. On the path, though, I did manage to get a couple of photos of dragonflies. Not the pretty blue ones we’d seen close to water. And not on a nice, green, leafy background either. But it was good to see that they can sit down and have a little rest for me.

After a sandwich at home, Liesel drove to the physio again for more dry needling. I walked to a coffee shop and met Liesel at Carrs for more food shopping. I was pleased to see the full and correct name of a popular time traveller:

Today, we went out for a walk with Una at noon along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. We passed many other walkers, runners and cyclists. In fact, at one point there is a display showing how many cyclists have passed by today, this month, last month and the yearly total.

The photo doesn’t show the display correctly, but there were over 700 today and 58,000 this month. Quite impressive.

Una returned to work at the courthouse and Liesel and I went for a brunch / lunch at The Beartooth.

At Kaladi Brothers Coffee over the road, I confirmed why the world is in such a mess, Bexit, Trump, everything. Someone summed it up in one succinct scrawl:

Reality TV –> Apprentice –> President Trump

Liesel dropped me off to buy some apples and I walked the last mile back to Jyoti’s

Jewel Lake is a very pretty lake and there were a few people fishing from the jetty. Close to Jewel Lake, we find Emerald Drive, Jade Street and Topaz Avenue. There’s a theme here, I thought. But I was walking along a big spelling mistake: W Dimond Boulevard. Oops, no. It’s named after Anthony Dimond, a local politician from way back.

Oh: Lake Tahoe. No, we weren’t there, obviously. The screen also displays the name of the song being played at the time and Lake Tahoe is by the fabulous Kate Bush.

The Drive to Portland

Wednesday was a sad day. We said goodbye to Holly and her family. We hope to see them all again soon, sometime, somewhere and of course they’ll always be welcome to visit us in Manchester when we’re back home!

As soon as Liesel started the car today, the audio system started playing music from my phone. Without asking, the Bluetooth connected and turned on my music-playing app. I’ll never understand this technology. A few days ago, the car and my phone didn’t want to talk to each other at all. Today, they couldn’t wait to rush into each other’s arms.

Also, it started to rain again more or less straightaway. So again, we didn’t see much from the I-5. Cascades? Over there somewhere, through the murk.

Liesel requested shuffle mode on the music, so we had quite a variety. Neil Diamond was the first artiste to give us two tracks while Seth Lakeman was the first to 3 and to 4. Not that I was counting. But the view from the car was disappointing. We’d not seen anything on the drive north the other night because it was dark. Today, it was raining. Raining so hard that Liesel was being hypnotised by the windscreen wipers.

Most of Washington state looks like this, apparently

We stopped at the first Panera Bread we found for coffee and a loaf of cheesey bread. The assistant apologised for cutting it thin instead of thick, but we didn’t mind, it wouldn’t last long! Like a good novel, it was unputdownable.

What a strange juxtaposition: Elbow followed by Slim Dusty.

I was quite happy that there were no duplicates played and no MP3 radio programmes being played. At least, not for a very long time. Much later, I had to hastily turn off episode 9 of the latest series of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

I commented on the absense of songs by Björk but of course, Liesel was quite happy about that. She said at one point, pretty soon you’re gonna have to start taking notes! I told her I already was. Liesel rolled her eyes.

Before Seattle, we were able to use the HOV lane. That’s for buses and cars with 2 or more occupants. We found out that HOV just means Heavily Occupied Vehicle. As we passed dozens, scores, hundreds of almost stationary cars in the other lanes, I said “so long, suckers”. Well, karma came up and bit us on the ass: we turned off the road by mistake, towards the Park & Ride car park, and lost a lot of time trying to rejoin the interstate.

Jyoti sent a message to say that she was already in Portland, it was sunny and she was cooking. It was hard to believe the weather would change that much during the next 80-odd miles. All we could see was black clouds and rain.

I wondered why the Highway numbers on the GPS and on road signs had a mushroom cloud as a background image. But on close inspection, I realised it’s a profile of George Washington!

I chuckled at an Ian Dury song that came on: Razzle in my Pocket. I thought I should create a playlist from our music collection consisting of funny songs: that would certainly lift the mood on a long drive like this.

Because I’m a wimp, I’d decided I wouldn’t drive this car on (to me) the wrong side of the road, but I did feel a little bit bad that Liesel was doing all the hard work, especially in such conditions.

Just as I was thinking how well the roads were constructed and how good they were at dealing with all this water falling from the sky, the spray from the other carriageway swept over the central reservation: we had our own little Niagara Falls.

It was a long drive and the music was varied, but even so, we were now hearing several songs from the same artistes and I realised that I should have copied over an even more extensive subset of our music collection. The other problem was, some tracks were a lot quieter than others, and not just because some are downloaded MP3 while others are copied from CDs. Plus, I do miss hearing new (to me) music from time to time such as you’d get from Cerys Matthews on 6 Music.

And as I was thinking that, along came Ruarri Joseph. Yes, we have the CD, but we’re not that familiar with it, yet. Good stuff!

As I was looking out of the right side of the car, Liesel told me Mount St Helens, the volcano, was on the left side. Somewhere. Through the murk! We’ll just add it to our list of places to go back to sometime.

Lo and behold! The Sun came out just as we heard sunshine from the car’s speakers: Israel Kamakawiwo’ole singing Panini Pua Kea in Hawaiian!

We passed close by Vancouver but this was a different, smaller one, in Washington. In fact, it’s a suburb of Portland, Oregon. One city divided across two states by the Columbia river. When we drove over the bridge, we felt we were nearly there.

At one place, two lines of traffic merge. The lights quickly flip from green to red to green, letting just one car at a time from each lane move forward. That’s strange, but it seems to work and you’re not relying on other drivers being courteous.

The first stop was Beaverton, the location of our Airbnb. It’s just along the road from Nike’s world headquarters and they’ve been in the news recently for using Colin Kaepernick in their adverts.

Tyler met us at the door, showed us round. There is a white noise machine in our room, in case we need help getting to sleep: some noisy neighbours, apparently! What we didn’t realise was that the only noise would come from our hosts, Tyler and David, doing their laundry late at night!

We set off for Gita’s place in the centre of town. Not far away, but really awkward to get to. In the end, Gita and Jyoti came out on to the street to jump about and wave so we could see where we were trying to get to!

In the apartment, Jyoti gave us donuts and a coffee that she’d bought for me earlier.

It was good to meet Gita again after all this time. We’d last seen her in Italy a couple of years ago.

Gita’s partner Josh returned from work: this is the first time Liesel and I had met him although we’d heard a lot about him from Jyoti!

Over the course of the evening, Jyoti’s brother-in-law Eric arrived with his wife Laurie as did some of Gita’s friends from Portland State University. I think there were 13 people in the apartment at one point, plus a dog. Again, Jyoti’s food was the main attraction and brilliant it was too. And so much of it…

Gita’s Uncle Eric was chatting and as he moved back, he stood on the dog’s squeaky toy. This made eveyone laugh, but outside, there was an immediate and very loud clap of thunder. Eric won’t be standing on any squeaky toys for a little while! It rains a lot here, but apparently it’s very rare to have a thunderstorm.

Liesel drove us home and I think we were both asleep very quickly. Liesel was obviously worn out from all the driving but I’d had limited exercise all day and somehow still felt exhausted. Sympathetic fatigue, probably.

Tennant Lake

Pat, Liesel and I went for a walk to Tennant Lake. There’s a nice boardwalk there, so it shouldn’t be too muddy, we thought.

What we didn’t anticipate was that the boardwalk would be closed because it’s now hunting season.

But not to be deterred, we had a nice walk anyway, just not as far.

We climbed the tower from where we had a good view of the water-lily covered lake.

The Fragrance Garden was very pleasant. Lots of aromatic plants and some suitable for handling, a great place for visually impaired people to enjoy plantlife.

Variegated leaf, not changing for Autumn

My favourite tree is of course the sequoia, as it contains all five vowels. And I’m pleased to report they had one here!

We walked back to where we’d parked the car, and saw the river. What’s it called? The Nooksack. I won’t repeat what I thought Pat said. There were more gardens to see too, lots of vegetables and fruit as well as colourful flowers.

We stopped at Woods for a coffee (hooray!) before going back home.

The Sun was still out, and my legs were itchy for more exercise, so, in the afternoon, I went for a walk with Penny. We covered over three miles, or 21 dog miles since her legs are much shorter than mine.

We could hear thunder rumbling from the dark clouds over the mountains in the east, but Penny wasn’t bothered, she just kept on pulling slightly at the lead, always wanting to go just a little faster than me. Until, that is, she got tired as we were reaching home.

Some of us non-canines went to OnRice for a Thai meal in the evening. And what a result that was! While Liesel and I were passing time waiting to meet up with Holly, Felix and Malin, I finally took some photos of a dragonfly! Yes, really! Sadly, not outside, in its natural habitat. Instead, it was caught in the window of an arty shop and there was so much clutter, you couldn’t get to the window to help the poor thing escape. Clutter? I mean valuable works of art, of course.

How much is that dragonfly in the window?

The menu at OnRice provded some humour too. But my ‘medium’ spicy pad thai could have been a little spicier.

PS we have started a list of places that we need to return to and spend more time in. Vancouver. Even Stanley Park has much more to offer than we saw in one day. Everyone says we should visit Victoria, BC too. And Tennant Lake of course, we’ll come back when it’s not the hunting season. It’s named after David Tennant, who played the tenth Doctor in the long-running TV series Doctor Who. Either that or John Tennant, an early settler in the area.

Canada

Monday morning saw a return to school for those who go to learn or to teach. Liesel and I stayed indoors chatting with Pat for longer than intended before we set off for Canada.

The I-5 in Washington becomes the BC-99 at the border, just 15 miles or so north of Ferndale.

The first moment of excitement was when I managed to connect my phone to the car’s audio system via Bluetooth. So we had music: our own music.

Crossing the border was OK: my electronic visa worked even though I had a minor panic when I read the confirmation email and it said I could enter Canada by air.

The Canadian border official asked if we were carrying any firearms.

With a totally different set of priorities, the US border official, on our return later in the day, asked whether we were carrying any clothing.

Very soon, we were welcomed to Surrey, followed soon after for signs to Westminster and Richmond. You know, just in case we were getting homesick.

We drove to Vancouver and specifically, to Stanley Park, as recommended by Holly and her family. The weather was a bit dodgy, so we thought we’d hang out in a location where we could take cover if necessary.

The aquarium suited us very well, some interesting animals there, including a dolphin named Helen.

Hmm, we were in two minds but I think on balance, we’re glad the only killer whale we saw was this bronze sculpture by Bill Reid.

There were many large ships in the sea, and just one little kayak making slow progress towrds the beach.

We attempted a selfie with a nice background and this is as good as it gets. Selfies is for young people, obvs.

Selfie, Mick and Liesel and a pretty background

In the city, there were many flags telling us about Vancouver Pride, but we still don’t know when that takes place. We did like the rainbow pedestrian crossings: almost as cool as the pedestrian crossing lights at Trafalgar Square!

Yes, it rained on and off, but we missed it, either being in the car, or inside at the aquarium. Mission accomplished. The drive home was easy (for me).

Later in the evening, Kira was in her own little world playing Minecraft. She showed me her chickens and her cat, a skeleton horse and a zombie horse. She navigated the world that she’d built herself: Kira’s fingers were a blur on the controller.

One thing I thought I’d never say out loud: “You can’t feed raw fish to a horse”. Kira did ride a real horse: well, real in the Minecraft world! And she confirmed that yes, the donkey is stuck inside the wall.

Meanwhile, the grown-ups were watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, catching up on events in the real world. It’s a tough call, but I think I know which world is safer and more peaceful.