Aloha and goodbye

Jana and Travis

Late October saw me heading to Hawaii, to help my sister and her family. Denese is having serious health issues, the most distressing being serious cognitive deficits. We won't know more until she sees a neurologist and gets an MRI. I was convinced to make the trip when B old me frankly "She'll never be as good as she is today." So I took the plunge.

Feather has five children so I'm trying to help by ferrying Denese to appointments and supervising the kids when Feather needs to work on his home, where Denese has joined them. It's mentally exhausting and I find myself tumbling into bed at a much earlier hour than is usual for me. Travis has joined me, to help Feather with the house. 

Feather with his brood in tow

My sister Denese in her new home

Travis and Feather at work

Pele and Keli'i

 

A little Japan, a little Italian

 The week before our anniversary we toured the Japanese Garden in Portland. Missed the deepest fall colors, probably by a week or two but it was lovely. And the COVID crowd was very small indeed. And after we ate dinner in the Pearl at a likewise quiet restaurant. 

COVID cider, the newest thing

This year's cider weekend was odd. COVID caused us to cancel our Portland cider-making and the group in the Valley was small. We spent two days at the rental house fixing an electrical problem, getting the electrical going and the winterizing the mower. 

Leah and Michael arrived and we picked a full bin of Honeycrisps. Next day we pressed more than 40 gallons of cider and kicked back for. a chili feed. The sun shone the whole time and it was breathtakingly beautiful. Capped it off with a visit to Nancy in Wenatchee. 

 

Bayocean backpacking

Well, after years of trying B finally got me out on a backpacking outing. I picked the venue -- Tillamook Bay spit -- because it was beautiful and short. We could hike four miles in, set up camp and stay one night and hike out the next day. No water or bathrooms out there, though, where we were. The trailhead parking lot was packed with cars but the spit was quiet once you hiked in a few miles. 

We picked a campsite at the very end, in sight of Barview jetty, where we scattered my mother's ashes. As we ate dinner we listened to the disturbingly close foghorn on the buoy at the river's mouth and wondered. Sure enough I had a terrible night's sleep, between the foghorn and the hard ground (you'd think sand would be softer but...not so much) 

We took Luna on the trip and she was a champ. Given that there wasn't room for her in the tent and the fact that there were deer and elk around, we worried, but she was perfect. The sun came out the next day and our walk out along the beach was lovely.  

 

See the forest for the trees? Wildfire blues

September was the month the West was on fire. If you didn't live somewhere with wildfires, you lived somewhere inundated by smoke. Portland got socked in so bad the streets looked like a sci-fi dystopian movie set in an urban area. The coast was no better. While we were down in Pacific City the air got to unhealthy levels and eventually we fled for home and air conditioning.