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We’re On the Road Again

We left Depoe Bay on Saturday morning and arrived in Salem in the early afternoon. My sister Amy quickly suggested that there were a number of estate sales in the area to investigate. I have mentioned before that estate sales seem to be very popular in Oregon, and sometimes they are even really estate sales, not just yard sales. We found several right in their neighborhood, and Amy bought some egg cups, while I procured a set of sturdy sawhorses for Cy, who had mentioned he needed them, for a bargain price. How they will get to Depoe Bay I am not sure, but Cy and Amanda do run over to Salem frequently, since there is no Home Depot or Lowes on the coast, so they will probably pick them up on a jaunt over there (although my brother-in-law Rob was plotting a possible visit to the coast for him and my nephew Duncan). In any event, the estate sales were fruitful.


Estate sales turn up many interesting items
in Oregon, including these sawhorses

The sawhorses reminded me of a project that was delayed for various reasons back in Depoe Bay. I will have to check with Cy to see if he has moved forward with it--the tree that he chopped down in their side yard yielded quite a lot of wood, and Cy was interested in cutting it into blanks, perhaps to make an interesting bookcase. YouTube yielded some videos on how to make your own “Alaskan sawmill” using a chainsaw. It required some long bolts that had to be ordered, and other projects plus some hiccups in figuring out how to keep the board on top parallel to cut the planks put it on the back burner, but I expect he will get back to it sometime.


What’s he building out there?
An Alaskan sawmill!

 Back in Salem, there was more shopping to be done—Amy, Jesse, and I headed to an outlet mall that was supposedly nearby but seemed more like near Portland. Well worth it, though. They definitely had some bargains, and though not a bargain, they also had delicious See Candies, and we scored double samples there, so that was delightful. (I did buy some dark chocolate turtles as well.)

A quick side note about berry season in the Pacific Northwest. As a teenager, I read a book by Tom Robbins called Still Life with Woodpecker. It’s an odd book, but one thing that stuck with me was his reference to the Blackberry Kingdom. About this time of year, the northwest Pacific coast seems to be a world filled with berries. Visiting the islands in Puget Sound some years ago when Cy worked up that way, we picked buckets of blackberries that surrounded the house where he was living, and then we found even more berries at an abandoned insane asylum further north. Interestingly enough, Cy lived just across a channel from where Tom Robbins lived for most of his adult life, so he did indeed know what he was talking about when he mentioned the Blackberry Kingdom.

There are some blackberry bushes in the
woods behind Cy and Amanda’s house

Down Salem way, there are marionberries, a hybrid blackberry that is big and juicy and named after Marion County, in which Salem resides. While visiting the folks in Salem, we had berry cobbler twice, once made from marionberries that they had collected along the Willamette River in Salem. Marionberries are delicious, and well, cobbler is always tops in my book.

Sunday morning, we departed from Salem and headed to Redmond for a short visit with Amanda’s parents, since they still had a lot going on with the house. We were tired after driving over the mountains (although it is always fun to find Three-Fingered Jack peering over the treetops, to spot Mount Washington from the overlook that also has a great view of many tiny volcanoes, and to pass Black Butte). We had a nice dinner and a nice visit and really enjoyed the warmth of the desert. A long day and a long drive over the mountains, we fell asleep early that night.

But I woke up just before dawn to see the planetary alignment—I saw three of the five planets. I think they were Mercury, Venus, and Saturn. There was a beautiful full moon as well. Later in the morning, Crystal and Paul convinced us we should stay another day, so long as we didn’t mind the contractors coming in and out. That was fine with us, and in fact I accompanied Paul and Crystal to Bend, where we went to Costco. Afterward we went out to eat to celebrate Paul’s recent retirement. Yes, they’ve got a lot going on! And we never miss a chance to walk down to the Deschutes River to see some of the lovely Central Cascade Mountains you can see from Tetherow Park—the Three Sisters.


The Three Sisters, from Tetherow Park along
the Deschutes River outside Redmond, Oregon

On Tuesday morning, there were plumbers and electricians around when we took our leave. We’ll miss visiting them at their lovely desert house, just steps from the very floatable Deschutes River, but Paul and Crystal have plans to move to Salem, not far from my sister and her family, so that will be convenient when we come to visit.

We headed north through the mostly uninhabited desert, and as we drove, we continued the viewing of big snow-capped mountains, first Mount Washington, then Mount Jefferson, Mount Hood, and in the distance as we approached the Columbia, Mount Adams in southern Washington.


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