Oregon Coast with the Bryan and Toni Norton

James and I left on Friday afternoon to drive out to the beach and spend the weekend in the Norton's beach house with Toni and Bryan. We met the Nortons in Tillamook, and after having Chinese food for dinner we headed north to Rockaway. Friday night was spent in their home playing dice games, laughing, talking and watching 1/2 of the Marx Brother's movie, "Night at the Opera". There were no Trick-or-Treaters and so we had to eat the candy.

The next day the weather was cloudy, but still very beautiful. After breakfast, Toni and I worked on our EKG certification so that Adventist can become a known Chest Pain center while James and Bryan, with the help of Zeke, finished watching the Marx Brother's movie. Later, James and Bryan rode the scooters for over an hour. James was brave enough to wear Toni's helmet even though it was pink. He said, "I can't see what color it is, it doesn't bother me!" Toni and I walked (with Zeke the dog) down to the beach and watched the waves, then into St. Mary's chapel by the sea. On the way back we met up with James and Bryan and they gave us a ride back to the house.
















We drove down Highway 101, along the beach and then towards Cloverdale. We had to stop for an hour at a roadside farmers market because of an accident and then continued on to Cloverdale where we stopped at a pharmacy there that had a real soda fountain and we all had chocolate malts. Then we headed back to their beach house and from there home. It was a short visit to the beach, but a wonderful get-away with our friends the Nortons.

3rd Annual Tuna Day with Laura and Maggie

This was our 3rd annual tuna cook-off and like the others, this day did not go by without a hitch. Everytime we have canned tuna, something interesting has happened. Such as almost burning the kitchen down, and having to ask the neighbors for help in opening a pressure cooker--in the bathtub! (It remained unopened until 6 hours later when James was able to spend some time with it.) This year after doing 200 jars of tuna, we couldn't figure out why I didn't have more tuna jars because mine were smaller. We figured it out two days later when Maggie went home and found 10 additional pounds of tuna still frozen in her fridge. Laura and Maggie canned the tuna for me the next day.

Tuna day is a lot of work. Laura and Maggie drive out to the coast to pick it up; (This year it was only 100 pounds.) then we spend the whole day at my house cutting, stuffing jars with tuna and pressure cooking the jars out on the deck. My whole house smells like tuna for days and we end up throwing some towels away. This year we did 50 pounds for me and my whole family love it. Once you have tasted this tuna, you never want to have anything else. We have decided that we need to can tuna every year now because the kids love it so much it is going faster and faster as they have their own families.

Matt's 24th Birthday

Happy Birthday to Matt! We celebrated with a trip to Todai in downtown Portland. We ate sushi until we couldn't eat any more...then we started on the desserts. We visited Grandpa on our way home and once home we ate cake and watched Matt open his presents.

Crater Lake/ Lake Tahoe/Yosemite/Jackson

Several months ago Kris made reservations for 2 of Mom's Condos in Tahoe Village at Heavenly, Stateline, Nevada. The Tighe's took one Condo and the Kammeyer's occupied the other Condo. We had a wonderful week all of us together. Meals and cooking was shared and we found the week to be very relaxing for all.

James and I left Troutdale on Sunday, September 28th. We drove along the Clackamas River and enjoyed the river and beautiful fall colors. The day was gorgeous! We met up with the Tighe's at Crater Lake in Southern Oregon.



James and I.










Brent, Kristine, Alex and Ryan Tighe.














Kathleen and Kristine.












We brought the tandem with us and went on our first bike ride on one of the many paths around Lake Tahoe. We packed a lunch and ate it down by the lake. The day was sunny, not too warm and beautiful.


















We crawled up into a tree and asked a professional to take a picture. We rode about 18 miles from the Lake to Emerald Bay.





On October 1st we visited Virginia City, Nevada. It lies up in the hills past the capital of Carson City. It is hard to imagine that this city, which now only has about 1000 people used to have over 100 saloons and was busling 24 hours a day. Virginia City lost over 2000 buildings in the fire of 1875. It was interesting to walk along the wooded sidewalks and see a part of what the town looked like back then.










James and I rode the tandem on the west shore, out past Camp Richardson and Emerald Bay. We only rode 10 miles from Sugar Pine State Park to Tahoma.












Emerald Bay.







On October 3rd we drove to Yosemite with the Tighe's. When we lived in Jackson we were only 2 hours from Yosemite. We thought that we were about that distance while in Lake Tahoe. As it turned out, we were 4 hours from the Park. We stopped by a lake to have lunch. We were able to see colorful hills as well as waterfalls that were not as spectacular as they normally are because there has not been a lot of rain.



Lauren and Aaron










Katherine and Matt













Kammeyer Family

Aaron, Lauren, Kathleen, James, Katherine, Matt


We stopped and had a good dinner at "The Big Oak Restaurant". It didn't look promising, however we were adventurous and it was really quite good. We left the restaurant at 8 PM and had a very long ride home on windy roads. We arrived back in Tahoe at 11:30 PM. It was snowing as we pulled in. Shortly thereafter, just as we were getting ready for bed, the power went off and didn't come back on until 6 AM. We realized what 'pitch black' really was; we had no lights--except our cell phone light that we kept pushing to keep on.




On Saturday, October 4th we took the 2 hour ride down the Sierra's to our old stomping grounds. We had breakfast with some dear friends Linda and Larry Critchfield and their son Jared and his wife Sarah and their daughter Jenna. Jared was Aaron's best friend while we lived in Jackson. My good friend Lisa and her son Ethan joined us for a short time as did another good friend Joanne Dutra. It was wonderful to see all our friends and spend some time with them.


After visiting with our friends, we drove around Jackson and reminced about a part of our lives that was only 3 years long and yet made a significant impact on us. We keep in touch with our friends, and although we don't see them as often as we would like, when we do, we seem to pick up where we left off--our friendship is eternal. We drove past the townhouse at 29 Raggio Road where we lived when we first moved down from Seattle. We drove past the house on Buena Vista Drive. Jackson used to be a mining town and one of our favorite places to take people when they visited were the Kennedy and Argonaut tailing wheels. We brought the kids here once again. We also drove through Jackson and visited some of the shops.

















Kammeyer Family at the Kennedy Tailing Wheel.





















Downtown Jackson, California as well as the old Nationa Hotel established in 1852.




























On October 5th Matt, Katherine, James and I drove (once again) to Emerald Bay. The view was spectacular. That night Lauren and I drove Matt and Katherine to Reno where we put them on a plane back to Portland. I was stopped by a Nevada State Patrol on the way home because he didn't like the blue 'lights' that Aaron had on his car. James said that I made him defensive from the start because when he walked up I said, "I am so nervous, I have never gotten a ticket before...why did you pull me over?" He said, "Let me see your license and your registration and then I will tell you why I pulled you over." I thought they had to do this at the first? He turned out to be a nice officer, but imagine my horror when we pulled away and saw there there were 4 cop cars surrounding me as well as several cops standing around and a K9 unit! They must have thought they had someone really dangerous in that white VW Golf they pulled over.