Dear Liza

Dear Liza,

Yesterday we set off on our big trip north. We got Mouse and the house ready to be without us for a while by hiring Garrett the cat sitter and moving plants to a kitchen counter for him to water. The laundry and dishes were done.

We ate all the perishables and packed our own equivalent of “sandwiches for the train”.

At 1:30 we got a Lyft car to the Union Depot. This beautiful, historic train station was built in 1896 and I used it in my story of 1903! I am excited to be able to travel from this piece of history.

After finding our seats and loading our luggage, we got settled and experienced “Train Peace”. This is an expression I coined years ago while we were traveling in Europe. It is that feeling when you know you can relax once you are on the train, because now it is up someone else to get you where you are going.

We pulled out of Portland and headed north, crossing first the Willamette, where we got to see the St. John’s Bridge from a whole different angle. It was wonderful.

Then we crossed the mighty Columbia!! It is wide, sparkly and full of industrial shipping for a while, then we traveled with the river on one side and open fields, lumber yards, back yard sheds, and cows on the other, usually seen through the trees planted as a screen between the landscape and the train.

Since the train ran at ground level, we went under as many bridges as we went over, and as the sun went down and the light changed, we lived for the occasional flicker of a city or reflections on the Puget Sound.

Running late, our train got us into Vancouver well past midnight. We stayed awake through customs, getting a cab to the 7-11 where we picked up our key, then walked to the airbandb.

It is a modern apartment on the tenth floor or a nice, but rather noisy, building. Earplugs for sure tonight!

We have views of a freeway bridge, all sorts of old and new buildings, cyclists, bendy busses, and four high-rise buildings under construction.

I will tell you more tomorrow!!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Today we leave for our first big trip away from our new home in Portland. We are taking an Amtrak train called The Cascades all the way to Vancouver, Canada, with a stop or two in between.

Since we haven’t left yet, I can’t tell you about it, but I can remember other trips we’ve been on.

Grandpa Nelson first took me to London in 2004. It was our first time “overseas”, as they say, and it took some getting used to. Traffic, foods, ways of getting around…they were all different. But we learned and had a ball!

Our next trip was in 2006, when we started out in London but branched off to Stratford on Avon (to see Shakespeare’s home town) and then Cambridge, just because.

Grandpa Nelson’s surprise for me was that we then had a three day, experimental trip to Paris!!! This was BIG. I didn’t know any French at the time, and it was a real challenge to even travel or order food. But again, we learned.

In 2008, we got to take Auntie Bridgett to Europe. Our world got bigger as we went back to Paris and on to Calais, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Tournay. We got better at figuring things out as we went along, and less scared about new places.

As we kept traveling back to Europe, we saw Christmas Faires in Strasbourg got rattled by New Year’s fireworks in Amsterdam, sat by the ocean in La Rochelle and celebrated comics in Angouleme.

This trip To Canada should be less culture shock, because the main language is English. Still, none of us have been to Vancouver. I am so excited to see new things!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last night, we went out to dinner with Auntie Katie and the Cousins! We met up at Pastini, a nice Italian place on SE Division. Since Grandpa Nelson wanted to have some wine, we took a Lyft car through the rain.

Pastini is an informal, family sort of place, with really friendly wait staff. They offer fun Children’s Menus and will make changes to dishes as needed for picky eaters, and make sure you have boxes for your leftovers of their generous servings.

The Children’s Menu, in our case, served as blank pages for drawing on. Jasper and his Mom drew a Pokemon scenario and Kestrel and I decorated spirals.

Being a certified picky eater, Kestrel got Perfectly Plain Pasta. I love that such a thing is even an option. I enjoyed half my lasagna (the rest will be lunch today) and Auntie Bridgett brought home half of her giant chicken artichoke salad.

After dinner, Jasper navigated us through the neighborhood (he is good at that, at almost ten years old!) to Fifty Licks, an ice cream parlor with unusual, subtle flavors. Auntie Bridget and I shared a horchata cone, Grandpa Nelson had a chocolate milkshake (he had skipped dinner, not being a fan of Italian food).

We enjoyed the sweets and conversation as the kids read the wall, which is covered by hundreds of Tintin comics.

By eight o’clock, the rain had stopped and we all hugged and walked to our own homes. It’s a little more than a mile from Division Street to our place, but after such a yummy evening, we had lots of energy.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

We are well and happy here, enjoying the change from summer into fall.

Auntie Bridgett has painted a new sandwich board to help bring folks into The SideStreet Arts Gallery where she is a member. It is so cute!

Walking in the park yesterday, we noticed that the huge maple tree that lost a big branch last summer has dropped another one. This time it did a surprising amount of damage to a stainless steel structure and sign. We wondered if this happened during our big rain storm the other night, or just in the clear blue skies of mid-day, like the last time.

Leaves are starting to change, but it feels odd. The ground is littered with “leaf slime” but the trees above are still green and full. It’s like these leaves have come from somewhere else. Weird.

We are looking forward to our upcoming adventure, which I will tell you about as it happens.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

I don’t have anything to write about today. I have been busy, but it’s the in-my-head, working-on-the-story kind of busy that doesn’t make for an interesting blog post.

My characters are getting more complicated and intense, which is good, but I am constantly amazed at how long it is taking me to see really obvious flaws. My second story, if I live to write it, has got to be easier.

But enough of that for now. On a more visual level, I have realized that I really like circles. They are complete, powerful, calming symbols for me, and I find that I take a lot of pictures of them.

Here are some of my favorites. More news next week!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

This week we got to celebrate Auntie Bridgett’s Birthday, and it was fun! It was also the first really rainy day of the Fall.

We unwrapped presents at the house after breakfast, and Mouse helped. Gift cards for Dick Blick art supplies, a big box of very stylish postcards, and a book on color started the day right.

Then she and I headed toward downtown. We stopped at two shops in the Fairhaired Dumbell, a very unusual, oddly placed building on Burnside by the river. It is built on a small lot in the middle of traffic, so you need to step quickly to get there without getting run over.

The shops are 11:11, a high end stationary, office supplies and organizational shop. Next door was Crema, a small coffee shop, where we enjoyed a pain au chocolat to hold us until lunch.

We walked across the Burnside Bridge and caught the bus to Scrap, a second-hand art supply store that is an artist’s, mom’s, and teacher’s dream come true!

So many wonderful, recycled materials like Scrabble letters, old piano keys and tiles, and fabrics, could make for some fabulous, and very affordable, art projects.

Science would be easier, and cheaper, to teach with new, donated vials, tweezers, and microscope slides. For just a moment I wished I was still teaching….

Grandpa Nelson met us and we headed for lunch at a new place just across the street from Scrap, the Boise Fry Company, who specialize in Grandpa Nelson’s favorite food! Ironically, their turkey burger and Fun-Guy Burger (70% beef, 30% mushroom) were delicious, but their French Fries were soggy and disappointing. We met a nice server, though. Nice folks make things better.

We watched the pouring rain outside the shop form wide puddles around the equipment that is there to re-do the drainage system, and imagined someone saying, “I told you guys we shoulda got this done in August!”

When the rain slowed, we took the bus home for a rest before our next adventure….Dinner at La Moule. We got dressed up and took a Lyft car south to the Clinton neighborhood. We enjoyed some nice local wines, absinthe (of course) , mussels, halibut and some REALLY good fries for Grandpa Nelson.

Sadly, Auntie Bridgett realized she had left her umbrella in the Lyft, but we will find her a new one soon.

We got home after watching a great sunset, watched baseball (Yay, Giants!) and fell asleep. What a day!!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

While we were visiting the city of Bend, we walked to the Deschutes River, whose bend the city is built on. It is a wonderfully smooth river, at least through town. The surface doesn’t let you know how fast it is moving, but play a game of Pooh Sticks from the foot bridge and watch them scoot away!

The river, of course, is why the city is here. There was water for crops and people, power for a lumber mill, and transportation to get the lumber to the Columbia River markets. It is historically the heart of the city.

Now, the river is mostly recreational and decorative. In drier weather, there would be hundreds of folks out on kayaks or stand up boards. Today, because of the intermittent storms, there were mostly ducks and reflections.

It was getting late, and we still had the four hour drive back to Portland, so we waved goodbye to Bend and drove past the tiny town of Sisters, through more great weather, past pointy Mount Washington, and home to a happy Mouse-cat.

Another fine adventure.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

I’ve told you about my Aunt Bea. She is one of my Dad’s two surviving sisters, and the one I am closest to. She was living in Corvallis when I got to visit her at Easter, and has now moved to an assisted living apartment in Bend. So, you know what that means….

Road Trip!!

The trip around Mount Hood was delightfully foresty, reminding me of all those summer vacations I spent camping with my parents. We drove hours through maples, then pines, then entered the layered volcanic plateau and lost almost all the trees. As we gained elevation we found lodgepole pines and junipers, and when we got out of the car in Bend, the air smelled of gin and tonic!

Our reservations were at a McMenamin’s Hotel, the first such establishment we have ever slept at. It was magical.

The Old St. Francis School started life as the first Catholic School in Central Oregon. Founded by Fathers Luke and Dominic in 1936, it was St. Francis School until 2000, when the growing student population needed more space out of town.

Brothers Brian and Mike, the McMenamins, bought the property, added their magic, and opened for business in 2004, with a major renovation in 2016.

All the elements we love about the McMenamin’s style were there.

The history of the place was celebrated everywhere, even the names of the rooms. We stayed in the Ed Danahy room, named for the janitor of the St. Francis School, and remembered by many students as their favorite adult there. He had a sense of humor and was a good listener. We were honored to be in his smiling presence.

Art was everywhere, framed on the walls, but also in unexpected portraits over doorways and a stained glass portrait of Brother Luke. The orbs that are a featured motif were everywhere, all hand painted and wonderful.

Finally, it was quirky. In the newest building, called The Art building, there were hidden rooms. When you would see a blue light in the ceiling, you needed to start pushing on the walls to find the hidden room! It was so much fun!

We had been told of a bar called The Broom Closet. When we found it, we realized that these weren’t sweeping brooms, these were flying brooms! But the bar was there, just the same. We were amazed.

There is a lot more to tell, and we DID get to have a long visit with Aunt Bea, but I will end here and continue next week.

Love,

Grandma Judy