Sunday 23rd July 2017

We are still rat free.  Yippee!!! Hopefully our invasion last month was a rodent anomaly.

It was time for some relaxing. We moved to a nice little campground next to the Metolius River.  It is a beautiful spring fed icy cold river. The water is crystal clear and is a very popular fly fishing area.

We walked several miles on trails each side of the river.

Dean was always on the look out for interesting wildlife.

We stopped for a bit at the Wizard Falls fish hatchery.  I sure would have enjoyed snagging a couple of those rainbow trout in the holding area.  I could almost taste them frying in the pan with butter and sliced almonds. The river fishing is all catch and release which seems a big waste of time to me.  I like catch and eat better.

We enjoyed evenings sitting by the river.

We had a nice day hike to Canyon Creek meadows. This picture from 2004 .  A huge fire had decimated the lower area in 2003.

14 years later and plenty of new growth has popped up.

The wildflowers appreciated all the extra sunlight. This whole hillside was packed with bear grass, larkspur and lupines.

We could not reach the alpine meadows due to lots of snow still on the ground.  This area had recently  greened up and wildflowers were just starting to emerge.

We were close to Sisters and lucky enough (me anyway) to visit the Famous Quilt show.  This is the worlds largest outdoor quilt show. The small town has just over 2000 residents. They close the main street to traffic for the day and the many thousands of visitors can wander about enjoying the artistry. There were over 1300 quilts from all across the world.  Every available space was covered in quilts.

Every color combination was covered.

Every style of quilt was also there.

I have never seen so many ladies in one place before.

I thought about my friend Gigi (who makes lovely quilts) when I saw this beast of a quilting sewing machine.  These suckers run about $6,0000.  For that price it should wash the dishes too.

We were quite intrigued with this store.  Dean saw HOP and thought it was a brew pub.

Closer investigation revealed it was a spa. They had wooden bathtubs that were filled with beer for your soaking pleasure. That’s Oregon for you.

We saw this tiny house being readied for transport on a side street.  The tiny house movement seems to be pretty popular. We have been tiny housing it for 13 years, although our camper isn’t as colorful as this one.

We finally got our new fridge.  The delivery guys were very nice and helped us heave the monster in through the window.

It spent a couple of days on the platform whilst Dean adjusted the hole to make it all fit.

Nice and secure and baby we have ice which is very, very nice (Especially since it has been quite toasty warm lately).  Dean has to do a bit of trim work at a later point.

We have moved onto to Portland but I will post about that later.  Got to get ready for our month long trip to the Motherland.

Hey my lovely English family.  Are you ready for your sis and the Yank?