Yard Sale Encounter Reveals Reality of Losing a Life Partner

Dear Readers. This post is a departure from my usual photo-heavy accounts of travel and everyday life. Instead, it is a look back to the 1980s when I was a 30-something reporter/columnist at southern Oregon's Grants Pass Daily Courier, an independent newspaper that is still publishing.

I wrote this column decades ago. Now I'm older than the widowed man who inspired it. Now I have friends who've lost their life partners and many others who are facing this inevitability. As are we all.

I found this yellowed clipping in a tucked-away "miscellaneous" folder. I was surprised that the younger me kinda got it about this time of life. The older me sure does. 

                                                                                   

This was an early weekly column of mine published in the newspaper.
 Later it was called Second Thoughts. 

I was driving between Rogue River and Gold Hill late in the afternoon last week, reveling in the richness of spring, when my car swung a quick left into a yard sale.


The drive led through high brush and opened onto a rough clearing. It was the kind of clearing that looks like the forest would gobble it up if your back was turned too long.

An older fella sat on a straight-backed chair at the edge of an unkempt yard. He tipped back in his chair to look me over as I stepped out of my VW van. 

The yard sale was disappointing. There wasn't much in the way of toys for my little boy, who was with me. No plaid wool shirt for my husband, no vintage clothing or kitchen gadgets for me.

The old man, however, was interesting. He followed us around the sale, offering a comment here and there. He seemed disoriented like it wasn't really his stuff at the yard sale. He seemed to feel a need to explain. 

"Ya, I've been alone now six months," he said. ""No need for all these things now. No one to answer to when I get up in the morning. No work and no wife." And he laughed a dry little laugh.

I poked around in the yard sale: a pressure cooker, polyester women's clothing, a few colored bottles, ashtrays, books.

My son spotted a tiny electric organ and wanted to try it.

"Oh, it's all full of dust," the man apologized. His light blue eyes were watery and bloodshot. His face was blustery. He spat tobacco and shuffled around, wanting to talk.

"My wife got this for me," he said, nodding toward the organ.
"Never did learn to play it."

Together we got the thing to work. It wheezed thin organ noise, but the sound was lost in the racket of a near-by mill and the roaring traffic on the I-5 corridor.

I fiddled with a lawn decoration, a donkey that kicked its heels when a propeller it was attached to was spun around.

"Wife got that for me," the man said. "Almost don't feel right selling it. She said I was a jackass and got that for me when I come home from a work trip," he said, a smile trying to happen. "It has real sentimental value."

The plastic donkey kicked up its heels while my little boy spun its propeller, oblivious to sentimental value, growing old or losing a life partner.

"I got a call in Alaska that she was sick," he said like he still could not believe it. "Six months later, she was gone."

"Cancer?" I asked. 

"Yes," he said and spat into the dust. 

"We had plans," he told me. "We were going to do so many things when we retired, but now all that is gone."

We spoke a bit about how nothing on this earth can be counted on to last. He told me of his plans to travel and, like the plastic donkey, kick up his heels.

"Maybe one day I'll settle down again," he mused, but it didn't seem like he was ready for any heel-kicking. 

"We pretty much got wiped out this last year," he said to no one in particular. "Hospital bills came to about $75,000 and not much covered by insurance. About wiped us out. About wiped me out," he amended.

His words leaked out in slow motion and hung around his head a while before disappearing into the woods. His trailer house squatted against a lush Oregon hillside. An old log structure sat incongruously nearby. The yard sale surrounded him.

"I'm selling everything," he said, sweeping a hand around. "Everything."

Together we looked at what represented everything in his life. Old boots, a folding cot, his wife's clothing, cracked dishes. The donkey yard decoration.

Another potential customer drove into the yard. A young man busted out of his pickup as if he was afraid somebody else would get the juicy bargains if he didn't get to them first.

"Well," I said, lamely. "Goodbye. And good luck in your travels."

The man did not respond but looked past me into the Rogue Valley's afternoon haze.

My empty words spiraled and fell flat into the dust. 

John Day River trip - old friends, peace, and elaborate geology

I wasn't expecting much from our mid-May float trip on the John Day River in North Central Oregon.

A couple decades ago, PK and Chris (when he was between 8 and 11) floated the river a few springs with two other dads and their young sons. I heard stories about fishing, sleeping on tiny prickly, rocky beaches with rattlesnakes, and running one significant rapid.

No thank you.

Not once did my husband or my son mention the John Day River's fantastic scenery and fascinating geology. I'm glad I saw it. I came away with a camera load of eye candy and warm feelings induced by longtime friendships forged, in part, by shared river trips through the decades.

Sue Orris nearing the top of an overlook behind one of our John Day River camps. 

The John Day cuts through 281 miles of Central Oregon's high desert before converging with the Columbia River. One hundred and forty-seven miles of the John Day are designated Wild and Scenic, including the 72-mile stretch we navigated. It is the longest undammed river in Oregon, and one of the longest undammed rivers in the USA. On the map, our put-in at Clarno is just off the bottom (sorry) and the take-out is at the Cottonwood Bridge. In between is a serpentine river whose curves and canyons have been formed over millions of years. On the scenic scale, I give it a 7+ with the Grand Canyon being 10.

I all but gave up river trips about 14 years ago.  (Links to river-related blogs follow.)

However, running rivers remains WAY high on PK's must-do-whenever-possible list. I've I agreed to one trip a year with him. This year, I'll do two. The John Day trip was the first. 

The trip reminded me of what I like about river running, and what I don't.

What I really like is great scenery, and crazy geologic features such as this.

And this jumble of folds, creases, and layering.

Next time, we must have a geologist along to interpret. Google led me to the fact that the John Day basin is part of the massive Colombia River Flood Basalts, one of the largest of such formations on the planet.

The outrageous rock formations and land forms just kept coming.

What's good about river trips

• Camping in sublime surroundings with a few good people.
• Being untethered from technology - five days and the only screen time witnessed was me using my iPhone to take photos.
• Experiencing total quiet, except for river and wildlife sounds. (Occasional 💤 noises coming from certain tents)
• Starry skies without light pollution
• If the trip is longer than a few days, getting into nature's rhythm: up at dawn, to bed when darkness descends.
• Seeing wildlife up close, even bears and snakes. (Not rattlers, though)
• Beautiful natural surroundings - of course

In addition to osprey, we saw bald and golden eagles, ducks and geese, California big horn sheep, scarabs, thousands of swallows and boatloads of small mouth bass.

• 
  
• Being self and group reliant
• Traveling with my life partner, who is happier on the river than anywhere else, except perhaps with his grandchildren.
• Photographing everything. It helps me see and appreciate.

• 

  Clarno Rapid is the only significant rapid on this section of the river. We scouted on the left and also ran it on the left. At this water level, it was probably Class 3.5 on a scale of 6. It is reportedly not runnable at low water. The boating season ends sometime in June once snows in the Strawberry Mountains, where the river's water originates, dry up, and agricultural operations continue to draw irrigation water. The water quality when we ran the river in May was already compromised by agricultural run-off.
  
  Cattle (pic below) are a major pollution source. These guys were miffed because we took their spot our first night out. It was evident that they favored this campsite as cow pies of various ripeness were all over the place. PK and I pitched our tent not too far from a fresh pile, which we marked with a shovel, and also a red ant hill, over which we placed sticks so as not to step on it.
  
  

What's irksome about river trips

• Getting ready - requires planning, packing and prep sometimes out of proportion to trip enjoyment.
• Setting up our 30-year-old old Moss tent. The damn thing never wears out!
• Lugging heavy containers up steep river banks, then down again to the raft
• Sitting for hours at a time, even with great scenery (Even in the Grand Canyon!)
• But the worst thing? Using the loo.

The loo is always situated in a private spot with a scenic view.

The lid opens to a plastic bag, supported by a mesh bag, with a scoop of chemical beads that somehow renders the contents acceptable for tossing into waste receptacles. 

Once closed,  the plastic bag, called a Wag Bag, joins previous days' bags in a plastic bucket with a secure lid. Then somebody gets to carry it on his or her boat. Lucky us!

Overall, this toilet system is good. Common sense and wilderness etiquette dictate that human waste — all waste— be carried out. No trace left behind, even it it comes from behind. Ha ha.

But here's the thing. Liquids are are no-no  in the loo. Instead, river trippers  pee in the surrounding area, the river, or into a can. Only solids are directed into the Wag Bag.

I find separating elimination functions problematic, as may other women past a certain age. Enough said!

Overall, this river trip leaned heavily into the pleasure category, despite the few disconcerting moments at the loo or fleeting boredom floating for hours at a time. 

Just the dog and I were up early enough to admire the sunrise at this, our first camp of the river trip. Three nights to go. I loved this camp. Loved them all, really.

The John Day River experience reminded me that a majority of people who read my blog (thank you!)  haven't experienced self-guided wilderness river trips. Here's what it's like.

First somebody gets a river permit, or a wild hair, and sets in motion the mandatory planning and preparation, which I do not enjoy.

In our group of eight, Beth and Jeffrey had the wild hair and they instigated and led the trip. Permits are required, but anybody can get one. (On the John Day River, at least. Other river-permit applications are lotteries that disappoint the majority.)

Once a permit is secured, meals, transportation, shuttles, toilets, trash disposal, composting, water, clothing, etc. etc. must be organized, which requires people with better-than-average organizational skills.

I admire well organized people.

I'm not one, but I'm married to one, and at least four in our group could be in that category.

Beth is top dog. She has her shit together, always. On this trip, she used a 20+-year-old guidebook, plus experience with two previous trips on the John Day, to help us locate camps, petroglyphs, and keep track of historic events that had transpired along this stretch of river. Although a current guide lists 92 camps (!), few are obvious.

Beth may be addressing the wind on this blustery day.
She is unable to organize wind and weather.

Beth rows as Jeff, a fishing aficionado, tempts small mouth bass with lurid flies. He was not disappointed. The catch-and-release victims did not like the surprise, I'm guessing.

But back to the beginning.

Somebody gets the river trip urge. We plan. We pack. We drive close to 300 miles (on this trip) to the river. We look at all our stuff piled on the boat ramp. We balk.

Rafters are not minimalists. The packing-light conversation happens but does not result in restraint. Gotta have options. Right? We got em.

The put-in for our 72-mile trip on mostly flat water began at Clarno, where a bridge crosses the river and easy access is provided by the BLM, which manages the area.  According to the BLM website, one other party was putting on the river this day, but we never saw them. We had the ramp and river to ourselves

A fraction of our gear stacked up at the Clarno put-in.

What do we need for our river trip?

Everything! Including a toilet, water treatment (and/or clean water in containers from home), tents and sleeping bags, pads, food for five days, shelter in case of rain. We also bring a kitchen including stoves, Dutch ovens, charcoal, and every person's coffee-brewing device.

On a long-ago river trip, someone even brought a gasoline-powered blender to make margaritas. At least we got over that.

But I may be the worst offender since I packed clothes I never wore, food we never ate, and
a recently purchased solar panel to charge devices I never used. 

Finally we're on the river, which meanders through agricultural flat land for several miles before squeezing into scenic canyons.  In mid-May the river was still flush with snowmelt from the Strawberry Mountains, where it originates. We had strong currents, gentle wind, moderate temperatures and ideal spring conditions. By the end of June, I understand, snowmelt stops, and irrigation draws down the river until li's suitable only for canoes or kayaks. Agricultural runoff was evident even with spring flows. 

Downstream vista under a cotton tufts  sky.

What goes out of the raft must be repacked and reloaded, which requires
a couple hours each day, altogether. 

Sue and Ferron brought their dog, which fulfilled our needs for canine charm. The dog was easy to pack. I like that about well-behaved dogs. He also scarfed up leftovers.

Curry, rescued from the Curry County Animal Shelter, worries about his people.  He doesn't want to be apart from either one, hence he traipses back and forth, benefitting from their patience and skillful rowing. A reluctant swimmer, he fell in only once.

The kitchen set up includes two three-burner stoves and three tables.The tarp was erected because we'd had heavy but brief rain earlier in the day. 

PK spent hours every day performing catch and release operations on small mouth bass.
Sometimes I rowed while he fished.

I loved that Beth figured out where some hard-to-find petroglyphs
were located and led us to them, despite our doubts. 

Who were the people who survived this harsh land without
portable toilets,inflatable mattresses, and more food than they could eat?
 More resourceful than we are, no doubt. But it's unlikely any of them
lived as long as our group of mostly sixty-somethings.

Lichen decorates petroglyphs.

Margaret has been rowing for at least 30 years. Greg isn't interested, but he goes along for the ride. Near the end of the trip here, I bet he's thinking about baseball. 

We saw scarab beetles in most camps. 

Sheep in the John Day River wilderness are primarily California Big Horn sheep, which are smaller than Rocky Mountain Big Horn sheep. We saw a lot of them, including one that picked its way down an impossibly steep cliff to reach the river as we watched from our camp.

Our tent across from the cliff navigated top to bottom by a sheep.

Lichens, natural rock hues and a bit of photo enhancement give this wall a mid-day
glow. I'd love to see this in magical light - sunrise or sunset. 

A wind turbine and power towers signal we're back to civilization.
We'll see hundreds of these on our way to Moro.
Goodbye, John Day River.

BLM How to get a permit for the John Day River

Posts about earlier river experiences

A River to Run  - the Mighty Rogue

Near Drowning at the Picket Fence

Camp cooking on the river

Korbulic family history regarding the Rogue

Bears on the river

Second thoughts about running the Rogue

Loving the Rogue and why I mostly gave it up

Nomad kayaking son....Will I survive?

Easy as falling off a cliff?  

Nile River - Class 5 Fright

69 days 8 hours underground - Such a big deal!

The Chilean miners were trapped nearly underground for 69 days 8 hours. To quote a Newsweek online article.

To be sure, some of the potential problems for the men have easy fixes: a 3.19-inch-wide supply line provides them with food, water, and nutritional supplements such as vitamin D, which can replace the nutrients they are not getting from sunlight. But the physical and psychological toll of the darkness is harder to combat.

I do not dispute the horrific nature of being trapped underground in total darkness for any period of time, let alone more than two months. It's terrible. But these guys had a lifeline. They had food and communication with the outside world, and knew that their loved ones were anxiously hovering above.They had hope, and lots of it. They got organized. They were amazing.
And they were foresighted. They pledged to share equally in any and all profits from their ordeal. They realized with was coming.  Movies, books, trips, cash awards. Their entrapment could be the best thing that happened to these guys for surviving a compelling drama.

The media attention? You've seen it non stop. This could-have-been-tragedy became prime-media material because up until the last guy was on-top, one of them could have died in the claustrophobic tube in which they journeyed to the earth's crust, and we would have seen the resulting dead body on live television. It was comparable to when Baby Jessica (1987?) was trapped in the well and international media was brought to its knees in gratitude for a riveting story about which thousands of outlets reported second-by-second.

We all love a good story and we really want the best results, but just like in car races, we would not be averse to carnage, much as we might deny it.

Speaking of carnage, I don't have any pictures, but kids die anonymously every day because they don't have enough to eat, or can't get enough to eat because of cleft palates, or contract preventable diseases such as polio, malaria, or simple dehydration because of diarrhea. Few people pay attention, and the media is mostly absent. It's difficult to connect with these kids because we don't see their faces, except in those compelling ads about cleft palates, and there are so many of them!  I'm not even bringing in the multitudes of suffering adults. To have all these buried-alive miners was just an amazing gift to the media! It was so so easy. It's much harder focusing on silent and mostly invisible suffering.

I'm just going to draw attention to one kid, one rescue. I have her photo but I don't have her permission. So trust me, this is a real story. There was once an Indian baby left at an Indian orphanage when she was just days old because she was disabled.  Her young mother lived on the streets and couldn't possibly cope. So she gave her up.

This little girl wasn't in imminent danger of dying, but of living a low-level existence pretty much without hope. She'd have to leave the orphanage at some point, and then what? Live on the streets as a beggar? Probably. She has cerebral palsy. At the time we (her adoptive mother's friends) were brought into this small drama, she was two years old. She lived mostly in her crib vying with others in the crowded orphanage for a scrap of attention.

Her adoptive mother, a Stanford grad attorney and person of magnificent sensibilities and pretty-much-ignored disabilities, had toured India solo and saw the kids on the streets and in the orphanages and decided she wanted to help. Help just one. As a single person, she applied to adopt  a child with disabilities. Her family's cautionary warnings were shoved aside in favor of her heart's leading. It took two wrenching years. But finally she ended up with this child, by then more than four years old, although her weight was more like she was two, and she couldn't even begin to walk. Her little feet were curled under and her toes were clenched. She spoke not a word of English.

She howled for the first few days she was in her new home in Portland, Oregon. Now it's nearly two years later. She's had surgeries and therapy and walks! Well, she hurtles. But she navigates one way or another and speaks perfect English, and she has a future. Her education is assured. Health care is not an issue. This is a child who was spared from dragging herself around Indian streets in a life of begging. She has a loving extended family. I hope one day she will recognize this.

This hasn't been easy for the adoptive mom or her family, which has been incredibly supportive.
But back to those Chilean miners. Thank God they're safe, and thanks to the amazing technology and will that brought them to safety.

But let's not forget other rescues, those quiet but Herculean efforts which require incredible courage and strength and get little, if any, recognition. I'm pretty sure that if someday this little girl looks at her adoptive mom and says, Thank you, Mom. I love you, it will be better than all the media deals accruing to the miners.

 

What's so bad about November?

For starters, the sunflowers, once lords and ladies of the garden, are fallen, picked clean of seeds and crumbling to dust. A lone gold finch alighted for a final meal a few days ago as I prepared toppled giants for the "melt-down" pile, but alas, nary a seed remained. The bewildered bird flew off, probably looking for a finch soup kitchen. It was only a couple months ago that the sunflowers  were in their glory. How quickly glory fades, and light too, another of November's sorry lessons, within which one must search for hope.

For example, I started this post at 4:57 p.m. and it was almost dark.
But hello, that's a perfect rationale to start happy hour earlier! And also dinner. Ominous clouds fill part of the sky most days, whether it rains or not.
But that makes for dramatic lighting, which sends me scampering for even more photos, most of which are losers. But taking them (or making them, as current vernacular goes) satisfies my growing itch to capture moments before they go the way of sunflowers. Also on the cheery side of November, diminishing light primes deciduous tress to transform into sweeps of brilliant color, including those planted by PK in 1984 when we built our house, trees that now embrace with glowing arms our little Southern Oregon nest.

Some bad news this November: one friend was diagnosed with  cancer, and another is scheduled for throat surgery, relegating the  rhino virus currently mashing around in my head to its appropriate category: trifling. Then there's the same old, same old, having naught to do with November, but coincidentally, it came to my attention this month that:

1. Too many old people are sad, lonely, and bored.
2. Soldiers and civilians continue to suffer and die in wars that beggar justification.
3. Muslim fundamentalists hate you and me more deeply everyday just because of where we were born. 
4. Politicians dick around with national health care, and how does anybody believe that things will get better if insurance companies continue to rule?
5. Young girls still want to look like Barbie.
   

And then drilling down to the more serious muck:  I know that right now, not far away, some out-of-control parent is whaling—physically or emotionally—on his or her kid, or closing a  door and a heart on a screaming baby, or sexually abusing a child. Or a woman is being brutalized by her husband, boyfriend, or father. Or a miserable pet is chained outside in the rain. Or a homeless teen is selling sex for food. And the ugly images go on and on and on. If I let them.

That's why I, and most more-or-less healthy people, cultivate art, music, dance, gardening, nature, and sport too. To create a balance of beauty and vitality with evil and decay, to construct a reality separate from the gut-dragging underside of humanity. Even though I live in rural USA, the snarling sad face of the loveless is as prevalent in Southern Oregon as it is anywhere in the world. Rural America is not at all spared from home-based hometown brutality. It's all here, same as it ever was, although not exactly as the Talking Heads sang. It's more like a scene out of a David Lynch film or a Stephen King novel. Our pastoral landscapes and safe-looking streets and neat little homes (and a fair number of McMansions) can and do hide brutality, ignorance, and pain. Somebody has to do something, and somebody does.

But for now, it's not me. I've resigned, after nearly seven years, my position as a board member for the Womens Crisis Support Team, a still-passionate grassroots organization addressing local domestic violence. But I will soon follow my heart into  an organization such as CASA, which advocates in the legal system for child victims. I'm fortunate to do paid work for an affordable health care organization, La Clinica, in Jackson County, Oregon. One of its program is Healthy Start, Oregon's most effective child-abuse prevention program. Tragically its funding has been reduced, and more cuts are threatened, putting at least 50 local kids, mostly babies and toddlers of first-time ill-equipped and isolated young moms, at risk for abuse and neglect. This drives me crazy.
So I create my own reality with plants, food, flowers, friends and family making November not such a bad time, after all. Some images to back up my claim.

Arizona - A zone of its own - Spring road trip 2017

A crested saguaro in Green River, AZ, represents a fraction of the beautiful desert flora typical of the area. Magnificent Saguaro National Park is nearby and so is the not-to-be-missed Tucson Sonora Desert Museum. We've visited Arizona, and other desert regions, maybe a dozen times over the years. I've become fond of the sun-drenched red and gold cacti-studded landscapes, and there's no matching a desert in bloom. 

Growing up in North Dakota and then spending most of the rest of my life in Oregon, I've come to think of Arizona as the place people go when they get old and just want to be warm. Not necessarily the place they actually call home, but where a person can set up a lounge chair by the pool in November, and  relax until late March when the trees up north are beginning to  bud. Then they jump into their rigs and go home.

Why is it I never thought of doing this annual migration myself? Or, rather, why haven't We  - PK, my mate of 40 years -  and I considered being snowbirds?

It's no secret that Oregon is sad and sodden three to five months a year. Depending upon your tolerance for cold, rainy gray days, or the calibre of what you have to do with your time indoors, I'm surprised anybody who's retired and solvent stays in a miserable climate for months at a time. Why not head south?

I am not forgetting, of course, the wonderous road trips we've enjoyed off and on since 2010, which in the past couple years, have become longer in mileage and months. But as with our most recent trip, we're not exactly escaping winter. We left home in early March and returned in mid-April.

Bye bye to prehistoric ocotillos in Joshua Tree National Park.

After leaving Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, our first day in Arizona was spent driving Interstate 10 until we took a right turn south on highway 85 en route to Tucson. Interstate 10 was busy busy busy.  Not a relaxing drive at all. Much of it was lined by bushes covered with bright yellow flowers. Pollen tinged  the air and collected on the windshield. I am thankful not to have allergies.

We stayed in a drab but clean and huge RV Park in Gila Bend.  It was 3/4  empty because most winter residents had disconnected from the plumbing and electricity and were headed north.

Earlier in the day, we'd passed Quartzite, which we learned is a magnet for RVing snowbirds. A load of commercial RV parks dot the area, but the main attraction appears to be free or low-cost camping (boondocking) on BLM lands. This link describes the  temporary communities and the colorful stores and rock and gem shows and other fun stuff that come and go each winter with the adventurous RV crowd.

Somehow I'd pictured Arizona snowbirds living in upscale planned communities, but I get it about not wanting to tie down to a particular place. We met RVers all over the SW and Texas who winter in the south and relocate seasonally. A few we met were selling their wares, following the crowds from festival to festival, gem show to gem show. Some return north for the summer to live in stick homes. Others just live in their RVs, wherever that may take them.

We're not ready to do this yet, apparently. We're tied to home for a number of reasons not the least of which are friendships that span decades and a still-too-ambitious garden.  But I have to admit that during our spring 2017 road trip, I  dared to consider, for the first time, relocating south, even imagining, if just for a nanosecond, living in a planned retirement community. Based on reports from friends who've made the big move, it's not a bad idea.

PK's thought? Not a bad idea? A terrible idea!

Lenny and Dusty Friedman influencing me
about the benefits of retirement communities.
Their smiles say it all.

He may have softened a bit when we visited friends in Green Valley, AZ, a popular perch for snowbirds, whether they migrate back north or not. Our friends, the Friedmans, no longer migrate.

They used to live (and garden) a few miles from us in Southern Oregon, but moved to AZ full-time in 2016. They worked hard on behalf of our community. Our loss, Green Valley's gain.

Lenny, who'd been an entrepreneur, a middle school teacher, and a community volunteer/activist, among other roles, says that for years he doubted his ability or desire to live in a planned community.

I wouldn't be writing this if he didn't now love it. He and Dusty are totally adapted to and happy with this new phase of their life.

The Friedmans enjoyed showing us around. This is part of the wider community's raised-bed garden, park, picnic area and playground. A picnic area is behind the closed door. The park is not included in their retirement community, but is nearby and they like going there. Lenny's talents include building labyrinths, and he's working on one adjacent to this little park. 

PK joins the Friedmans in another labyrinth Lenny is completing, this one near a vast planned community under construction not far from where they live. Most labyrinths are contemplative spaces for walking meditation. I wonder if PK is meditating on spending winters in the south?

We were sad to leave the Friedman's after only one night, but were happy to be headed to a little town I've always wanted to see - Bisbee, AZ.

Bisbee has a hyperactive Chamber of Commerce, but this claim may be true. At 5,538 feet elevation, it escapes the worst of the scorching summer temperatures typical of southern Arizona. With a population of around 6,000, Sunset magazine and USA Today both named it the country's Best Historic Town in 2016. Bisbee attracted a wave of counterculture types in the 1960s and that element still enlivens the town. 

Here we are later in the trip, me decked out in my new
favorite shirt, purchased from a street vendor in Bisbee.

The "free store" in Bisbee didn't have much to offer, but it's the thought that counts, right? Definitely a hold-over from Bisbee's hippie past. 

The heart of Bisbee, AZ, as seen from the Queen Mine RV Park, which is a five-minute walk from the historic downtown. I loved Bisbee, how it's all stacked up on steep hills, full of artists, artisans, tourists, music, quirkiness, and New Age vibes. It thrives on its mining history, and a tour of the Queen Mine is the #1 thing to do, according to TripAdvisor. (We loved the mine tour.) We spent a day and a night in Bisbee, but we could have used a couple more days. Lucky for us, we visited on a Saturday night when the downtown was jumping with live music. I got a big-time dance fix at St.Elmo's bar. PK was ready to leave before I was, and walking back alone after midnight felt safe. And happy! Bisbee has also been named in an AARP publication as one of the most "alive" towns in which to retire. I wouldn't mind spending a winter there.

Dang it! The Day the FBI came calling post is still in the works. 

Earlier posts - Spring Road Trip 2017

Joshua Tree National Park  

Start it UP! - SW Road Trip Spring 2017

Gal-camping get-away to Lemolo Lake, OR

Girlfriends are happy to be at Lemolo Falls, via a 1.5-mile steep trail 
at the end of an off-the-beaten track 4WD road. 
Photo credit - Margaret Bradford

You notice I didn't claim that my girlfriends and I were glamping, which has, I think, taken on a commercial twist. But the term still includes excursions in amped-up vintage trailers with lively paint jobs, coquettish decor, and enthusiastic owners, mostly female.

That's not us. Instead I'm talking about women friends who own plain vanilla RVs, most often with a man, but who are capable of handling said RV without the man. And also, they occasionally want to get the H out of Dodge with their girlfriends. Hence our three-day getaway to one of Southern Oregon's most iconic areas - the North Umpqua River corridor along highway 138.
Ten waterfalls. Thirteen public campgrounds. Numerous trails. Beauty abounds.

Our camp was close to Lake Lemolo. 

Lemolo Lake in the early morning, steam rising from lake water that's warmer than the air. Mt. Thielsen is reflected. Crater Lake is close by. A few hours later, this view was obscured by wildfire smoke.

Just a few miles from Lemolo Lake is a short easy trail to Warm Springs Falls.

The way we roll has nothing to do with glamour but is a giant step up from tent camping. We're done with that! (Except for two of the seven women on this trip who still backpack) Our group included two ride-alongs, one who was new to camping, and one who wasn't, but she's done plenty without a man, including raising a musical man-child with dreads and a lion's heart.

We all have petite rigs. Gail pulls a Casita and Margaret an ECON trailer, a bit more commodious with a 3-foot pullout, but still smallish. Jeanne drives a 4WD truck with a cozy pick-up camper. Sueji pilots an older Pleasure Way van and I enjoy road tripping in a 2008 Roadtrek Agile van.

Nothing wrong with a little wine on a before-dinner hike around the lake, is there? 

Most of us are in an extended group of friends-for-decades who are aging together. We've all turned gray. What a trip! We've seen one another through the harried childrearing and work years and slogged together through menopause. We're now bounding into the last third of life, where friendships are more nourishing than ever. And the view from our backyards is always beautiful.

Lots of gray hair here, but not an "old lady" in the bunch. Spirited? Yes. Even feisty.

Gail is the only one of us who has taken a solo RV trip. We won't get into detail about that episode, but getting away by herself was just what she needed.

And our recent trip together was what we all needed, in one way or another. Sometimes it isn't just getting into the outdoors, but who you're with when you go there.

We caravaned about 100 miles from our Southern Oregon homes to Lemolo Lake, not far from Crater Lake. What did we do besides hike to waterfalls and around the lake? Talked a lot about life changes, ate voluptuous salads and allowed ourselves ginger bars and thin slices of coffeecake dripping with icing. We drank wine and a tad bit too much vodka.

We did not spend even one-second man-bashing. Of a certain age, between 62 and 72, we explored the new reality we're all facing in different stages. (Sorry, Paula. You might be younger.)

I'd never seen this butterfly, but Jeanne knew
 its name immediately -  a mourning cloak.

One camper's beloved husband died in March, a fresh wound that we know could be ours. Or our mate's. We all know people who are gravely ill or dying, including parents. We know, we know.

One thing we reaffirmed.  Life is bitter-sweet. Grab every moment and run for the hills, the ocean, the rivers, the woods, and the wild places while you still can.

And don't forget to spend quality time with your friends.

If you want to visit the Lemolo Lake area

Here's a guide to all the North Umpqua River waterfalls along Highway 138.  Including ones accessed via Lemolo Lake. Note that the directions for Lemolo Falls do not lead to the view-from-the-bottom as my photo above depicts. It's a lot easier to reach the trailhead described. But if you want to see the falls from below (way better) check with the resort for directions and condition of the 4WD road. Muddy may not be good. Otherwise, no problem except clearance.

I'll leave you with a photo of a close-by waterfall we'd all seen before and didn't visit this time. 

Even without a kayaker in it, I think Toketee Falls
is the most spectacular of the North Umpqua's waterfalls.
That is son Chris Korbulic in 2011. 

An addendum: I got this in an "Only in Oregon" email today and just had to add the link.

HIGHWAY OF WATERFALLS