Trick or Treat

At the last minute (oh this morning) I got in the halloween spirit, bought some plastic spiders, candy corn and safety-pinned a towel to Dog’s halter so he could be in costume.

I also decorated our front door with plastic spiders.

Set out my halloween candle holders, put up some orange ribbon that says “trick or treat” in the window and carved my pumpkin.

Found!

One of the frustrating things about moving is not being able to find stuff both in home and in the new town. While I feel silly saying we aren’t yet fully unpacked (I mean come on, it’s been over a month) it is true. We unpacked most of what we need to function daily, but it is the little details that stay buried for a while. After two weeks our packing inventory went out the window when we started digging through boxes for that one needed item or re-using boxes completely (little used kitchen stuff went back in boxes). I think I have finally unpacked all the boxes of books and this feels good, now I just need to get them in order on the bookshelves (and decide to what degree of obsessive I want to follow).

And I am very happy to report I found my to go mug! Not that anyone else in the world was worried but me. I was sad without my pretty to go mug (in fact I took it with me on errands this morning filled with yummy Jasmine Green tea).

And, even better, I finally found drive-up USPS mailboxes–in two different locations. I wouldn’t be opposed to walking to a mailbox to send everything wider than a greeting card (ie netflix envelopes) if there was one reasonably near me, but until today I had to park the car to walk the Netflix envelope to the mailbox situated inconveiently for me. Sadly the USPS website simply uses Switchboard for their “locate a postal office” feature. It probably isn’t Switchboard’s problem that the USPS doesn’t clue people into where the drive-up mailboxes are located (or that they don’t tell you what services are available at which post office locations… my first attempt found a “package pick-up” only location).

In other news (the weekend trip update) we went on another apple pilgrimage (because we were almost out of apples). This time it was on a Saturday so more fruit stands were open (and we brought more cash, in hindsight that might have been a mistake). Our find of the day was a stand selling apples and pears at 25 cents/pound (the most we paid was 85 cents/pound). We stopped at 4 different stands, bought 12 varieties of apples and 3 varieties of pears (plus 2 small squash, 1 jar lavender honey, 1 jar raspberry jam, 1 lavender scented soy candle tin, 2 lavender-white chocolate truffles, and 3 skeins of alpaca worsted weight yarn). We now have three boxes in the garage (dark and cool) storing slightly less than 94 (original total) apples and pears.

My turn, the beach

Another weekend trip. We started at Cannon Beach , just walking along the beach and enjoying the day. We strolled through the town as well, stopping for an early dinner and then salt water taffy (the blackberry and sour apple were fabulous).

Finally we ended the day watching the sun set at Hug Point:

A Pilgrimage, diverted

The 11 o’clock start was later than either of us would have liked, so we skipped the waterfalls for the first time. The waterfalls were the first thing that awed me about Oregon, and now they are part of the trip that we skip. The exceptional becomes routine I guess.

We did take time to stop at Wygant State Natural Area. It was uneventful except for the wind. It was 60 out, but I zipped my fleece to fight the wind. I don’t want to imagine living there in the winter if the wind doesn’t relent in the cold.

After a quick lunch, we found apple goodness for 50 cents/pound. 8 pounds and 5 varieties later we left the first fruit stand. I bought several varieties of apples I had never heard of, and we got some Asian pears and Pear Hazelnut preserves. It was a nice stand, and we had planned on going to several more, but our first fruit stand turned out to be our last fruit stand.

Other than the from the summit, Lost Lake is supposed to have one of the best views of Mt. Hood. So after seeing a road sign, we decided to ditch my search for alpacas and pilgrimage for apples to take a hike. One curvy ascent later, we started the easy 3.2 mile hike. The view was indescribable — least of all by me. I like Missouri, and miss it, but the beauty of Oregon is overwhelming.

We got back at from our hike at 4:50, but the odd clicking noise we heard near the car told us there might be a cold night or a long walk ahead. Luckily, the noise was the blinker I had left on. Luckier still, the park ranger was still there and gave us a jump.

All is well and all that, but we should definitely start keeping an emergency kit in the car. If we would have gotten back to the car 10 minutes later, we would have been stuck. It was 12 miles to the nearest pay phone, and there was no cell phone coverage.