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September 29, 2006

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

As I was typing the date, I thought to myself ... hum, September is over already, where did it go? I know we have been gone a lot, camping at Kah-nee-ta, going to Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival and the weather has been so great; it is hard to believe it is fall already. But wait a minute! It sure is beginning to feel like fall with that "nip" in the air at night.

Dave left for the drag races last weekend and I decided I needed to spend some time getting caught up around this place. So I did some yard work, mowed the lawn and cleared some more brush. Dave came home after the races on Saturday and crawled into bed around 2:00 a.m. After he woke up to a beautiful day, I suggested we invite some friends and his sister, Leanna to a steamboat ride up the Nehalem River. Dave went down to the Captain Bell early to get it steamed up while Leanna and I packed a few drinks and snacks to enjoy while on our trip. When we joined Dave on the dock, he was soaked! He was wet and VERY upset. He had been filling the boat up with fuel when another boat came by going way too fast and way too close and the resulting wake caused him to lose his balance and he went overboard! He managed to climb right back up on the dock, but in the process, he lost his glasses. And remember that new cell phone he got a couple of weeks ago after losing the first one in the river? He was wearing the new one on his belt clip and so that one was toast too! So, he had to get another pair of glasses (actually his old ones from the optometrist) and yet another new cell phone. I won't tell you how much grief he got from everyone for that little trick. But, our ride on the steamboat was perfect without any more mishaps. Our friends Ray and Char Hakala rode along with us. We went about 5 miles up the river - past where the north fork comes in. It's always fun to see that area from the river, and it's the farthest Char had ever been up the river. We did have to make an unscheduled stop to put more water in the boiler but other than that, Dave was very pleased with the performance of the boat. That used to not happen very often before we got the boat fixed, so it was a real pleasant ride. As long as the weather holds up we hope to keep the boat in the water for a couple more weeks.

I started with my water aerobics classes again this week. With all the time that I was gone and the pool pump being broken it has been about 6 weeks since I have been able to get any exercise. Boy, was I feeling it this week. My legs and arms are a little stiff from lack of exercise. But it sure is nice to be able to get some exercise on a regular basis and I'm enjoying the sessions each morning.

Dave and I also spent some time putting the last coat of paint on the public restrooms downtown. This has been an ongoing project of the Wheeler Business Association all summer long and we wanted to get it wrapped up before the weather changed. There were only three of us that turned out for the work party but we got it done! It really turned out nice and is a noticeable attraction when you come into town. The barn red color doesn't hurt either!

I had my first garden club meeting of the season this week. We take the summer off, so it's nice to get back in the swing of things again. We learned all about planting garlic and I think I may give it a try. I learned that the best time to plant garlic is in October and harvesting is in May or June. The garden club had also purchased a load of processed manure from the Tillamook Digester (Don't ask. It's a machine that makes fertilizer out of what the cows leave behind.) and made it available for all members. I got Dave to help me bring home a garbage can load of the "black gold" stuff this week and I plan on using it in my garden. The stuff is great. Last summer when our club visited the Manure Digester plant in Tillamook we were allowed to bring some containers home. I used it in all my flowerpots and my flowers were absolutely gorgeous this year.

Ray and Char paid us back for their ride on the steamboat by inviting us to go sailing in their boat on Wednesday up in Astoria on the Columbia River. Actually, we had planned to go out with them quite a while back, and we decided that if we were going to do it this season, we'd better do it this week! They have a 29-foot Cascade that they keep in the marina up there and it was real comfortable. The weather was perfect with just enough wind to sail in. We were going about 3-4 knots most of the time. We sailed around Tongue Point where we ate our lunch and then back downriver to the marina. It was about a three-hour round trip. We wanted to go a little farther upriver, but the gillnet fishermen had nets spread from one side of the channel to the other. It was like we were a fly and we were trying to avoid the spider's web. Finally, after detouring around the fifth net, we decided we were probably going to get trapped in that section of river if we didn't get back out. We finally made it out of there, but we had to put an extra mile or two on the boat just zigging and zagging around the nets! This was the first time I had been on a sailboat and so I didn't know what to expect. Ray and Char are good sailors and it was really enjoyable.

The road crew is back and they have been paving in front of our place the last couple of days. They started tearing up the highway before Labor Day and are just now getting around to getting the final repaving done. It's all single lane traffic with a pilot car taking traffic around the work zone. I have had to wait up to 10 minutes on our street before they let me out on the highway. In the beginning of this project, they were working all night and now they decided since the weather has changed, they would switch to days. It takes us about a half an hour to go up town to pick up our mail and get back home. I was late to my aerobics class too because of the holdup. I will be glad when they "move on" with their project. They tell us they'll finish our part of the job by tonight, and then the only time we'll have to deal with them will be when we go north on 101.

Thursday, Dave got a call from our friend Stan. He needed Dave to drive down to Pacific City to check on some wiring that Stan had done on a couple of new houses. They needed to have the furnaces in working order for the carpet people to place the carpet in the house. Well, Pacific City is about an hour down the coast, so I rode along to act as "electrical apprentice" and afterwards we stopped for a late lunch at the Pelican Pub on the beach. However, it was so foggy, we could hardly see the ocean, but it was a nice drive anyway. It only took Dave a few minutes to do what he needed to do, so we were only gone about three hours.

Today is a busy day. I have an eye appointment in Hillsboro first thing in the morning, and then will meet my old office friends for lunch. One of the gals I used to work with is retiring and they invited me to join them. After that, I will head over to West Linn to get my haircut and spend the night with Lara, Greg, Jadyn and Jaysa. Dave and I are driving separately because he has races to announce again on Friday and Saturday nights and I want to get back home on Saturday.