Being tourists in Oregon

   

Nick and Les fly the Spruce Goose

Betsy and Marie

A good photo?

    Les shook his head.  "Isn't it something," he said, "how we don't go to these places  until we have visitors." Marie and Nick were here from Virginia for three days. They stayed in an apartment in Betsy and Les' s downtown building.  In the evenings, we ate dinner looking out at sparkling views of downtown Portland.  During the day, we wanted to hit some Oregon highlights. Les drove us in his van.  He and Nick sat in front, solving the problems of the world. Betsy, Marie and I sat in back and built on forty years of friendship.
     At Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, Marie had the same reaction I had the first time I visited a mountain in the Northwest.    There's snow on the ground, in late June!  And people are wearing shorts!
   
    At the coast, we ate pastries
at a bakery that Betsy and Les had discovered,  and walked through tall grasses to the beach.  It was my first time in Gearhart.  At Ecola State Park (  Ebola?  Ecoli?  we kept stumbling on the name) Nick took photos which will grace his walls back in Virginia.

Marie and Nick at Gearhart

   On the third day, we attempted to get past the notorious traffic light at Dundee.  Even in mid -day in mid -week, there was a four mile backup.  We took a long short cut through the wine country of Yamhill. We ended up at the Evergreen air museum, home of Howard Hughes' enormous airplane, the Spruce Goose.  Nick and Les explored the cockpit while the rest of us ate minestrone soup and ice cream  in a cafe overlooking lots of shiny old airplanes

Girls dancing to Judy's music

and cars.
   Everyone came to dinner at our house  that evening.   Marie and Nick left early the next morning.  Marie said the visit was like perfume--just a little bit, but strong, and it has to last a long time.

Judy at Vista House

    Judy had stayed home while we were sightseeing,  saving her energy for her performance on Saturday with  the Upriver Dulcimer Group.  The group plays old- time music on autoharps, dulcimers, guitars, and washboards.  They have a regular gig at Vista House, a domed marble  observatory overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.  As the musicians played, tourists wandered through, smiling with delight.  Some sang along: a woman from Thailand and another from Pakistan danced, their hands moving  in graceful expressions.  A group of five girls stood at the edge of the crowd, joking and urging each other forward.  They looked to be just at the age when girls can become crippled with self-consciousness.  But these girls danced with great energy and enthusiasm, laughing and changing steps until the music ended.