HinesSight

October beauty (and dog fun) on the Oregon coast

We were ready to head to central Oregon last weekend. But the weather report showed cold. And Laurel was getting a cold. The sunny, balmier Oregon coast seemed more appealing.

Good choice.

 
We had our peanut butter sandwich lunch at Neskowin, north of Lincoln City. The beach is a short walk from the parking area.

Walking toward the ocean, a large rock that's often surrounded by water looks like an island in the sand.

Damn! I hate the crowded Oregon beaches! Laurel and Serena can barely move without stepping on a...

Seagull. God, I love the powerful zoom lens and image stabilization on my new Sony camera.

Along with watching the waves crash onto the "island" rock.

Next stop up the coast was Cape Lookout State Park. We got there fairly late in the day, so weren't able to quite make it to the end of the Cape Trail, which starts out looking like a typical forest walk.

However, it doesn't take long before peek-a-boo views of the southern exposure start appearing through the trees.

Then the scenery really opens up.

The trail meanders back and forth between the south and north sides of Cape Lookout. Here's a photo looking north.

We were glad the ground was almost entirely firm and dry, rather than slippery and wet. In many places along the trail the dropoffs are attention-getting. And lacking guard rails.

Wet season walking is aided by boardwalks.

Our overnight stop was Cannon Beach. We got to the Hallmark Resort after dark. So the morning view of Haystack Rock from our room's balcony was an appealing surprise.

Things looked pretty nice in the other direction also.

Avid boogie boarder (in Hawaii) that I am, I lusted after the waves. But not the cold water.

I had a good time taking dogs-on-the-beach photos from our room with the zoom lens zoomed. These three canines had just met up and instantly started a play group.

Our own canine took advantage of a tennis ball thoughtfully provided by the dog-friendly Hallmark Resort. For $20 your dog can stay in the room with you, and gets a basket filled with doggie goodies.

Serena, however, spent much of her ball-throwing time ignoring the ball (unless Laurel bribed her with a treat). Here she is, engaged in a more entertaining activity which she never tires of: making some territory with pee. (Serena hit every abandoned sand castle she came to along the beach; keep this in mind next time you resurrect a used sand castle on the Oregon coast.)

Serena makes a friend. The other dog was quicker retrieving a stick, but Serena was hot on his/her heels.

When we were getting some coffee in Neskowin, Laurel pointed out some outrageously colored hoodie sweatshirts as a joke. She didn't think that I'd get one. Hey, I couldn't resist. This one made me think "far out!" Also, "on sale."

Laurel is a bit more conservatively dressed. Serena is licking her chops, recalling the cat that she almost caught on the beach earlier in the day.

This bright American flag against a misty backdrop of Cannon Beach mountains caught my eye on our beach walk.

Exciting news! Serena, our Shepherd-Lab mix, could be more mixed than we thought. We'd always wondered where her curly tail came from. Talking with the owners of this Malamute, it was agreed that the similar tails and coloring implied that Serena might have some sled dog genes in her.

Hawk attacks on Portland swifts captured on video

Last Tuesday Laurel and I journeyed to northwest Portland to be part of September's daily swift watch -- when many thousands of Vaux's Swifts circle the large chimney at Chapman Elementary School before darting down it in a marvelous display of aerial avian acrobatics.

My You Tube video won't make it on the Discovery Channel, but I got some good shots of a couple of hawk attacks. Kind of sad, but part of the balance of nature. 

In addition to the swifts, who naturally are the main attraction, I show the happy crowd of swift watchers perched on the grassy knoll above Chapman Elementary.

I also took some still photographs with my Sony DSC-HX1, which proved to be quite capable as a video camera (first time I'd taken video with it).

The vibe at the swift watch was wonderful. A real feeling of community: lots of laughter, hugs, sharing of food, dogs, children playing. Living out in the country as we do, I was reminded of the appeal of city living in a got-it-together place like northwest Portland.

Walking to the school, I wondered why so many people were carrying large pieces of cardboard. Getting there, I saw that dry hard grass and a steep slope make for a lot of fun, no matter your age.

The Audubon Society of Portland does a great job organizing the swift watch. Their FAQs will tell you what you need to know.

An Oregon Public Broadcasting video supplies additional info about swifts. They can't perch, given how their claws are arranged, but they can cling. So when they aren't in chimneys (the modern replacement for hollow Douglas Fir snags), they're flying around.

Swiftly.

More photos of the Metolius (can't help myself)

OK, I admit it: I'm addicted to central Oregon's Metolius River basin. Can't get enough of this beautiful slice of Mother Earth. Have to share photos of my lovely every chance I can.

Some headless horses in the "Johnson meadow" near the head of the Metolius.

Looking upstream at Black Butte and toward the headwaters of the Metolius.

Stump carved into a double-sided "chair" on the bank across from the Riverside campground.

Laurel and Serena enjoying a quiet rest moment after going up and down a knoll near the Metolius.

In late afternoon the sun filters through tall Ponderosas along the banks, making for natural spotlighting.

The Forest Service recently dragged a bunch of logs out of the forest and laid them in the Metolius for fish habitat. I've got mixed feelings about this. Despite best efforts, some of the logs look decidedly artificial in this designated Wild and Scenic river.

Another view of logs. The trees were pulled out, rather than cut down, so the roots could anchor the logs and provide a richer fish habitat (or so I understand).

Along the bank, an interesting mix of red leaves and white fuzziness. Every time I go for a walk along the Metolius, something new catches my eye. Like life itself, it's an everchanging river.

Panoramic Metolius River photos

It got up to 103 degrees here in rural south Salem today, so this is a good time to dig out some photos I took recently at what was a much cooler spot in Oregon -- the Metolius River.

I'm still learning how to make my new Sony DSC-HX1 do its camera tricks. I hadn't played around much with the Sweep Panorama mode, so decided to give it more of a try. Here's a description:

World's first digital camera with Sweep Panorama. Equipped with Sweep Panorama mode, the HX1 reaches beyond the limits of wide angle lenses and makes it easy to capture expansive, breathtaking panoramic shots. Simply press the shutter button and "sweep" the camera horizontally or vertically—and the camera assembles the shots into a single frame which can cover up to 224 degrees field of view. 

Here's a shot of the Metolius not far from the spring-fed headwaters. You certainly get a better feel for the mood of the river with 224 degrees of camera vision.

When we're in Camp Sherman, Serena and I usually take our late afternoon dog walk upstream, then return to the cabin through the Riverside campground.

Small Ponderosas have been thinned out, so the campground is close to what a mature old growth Ponderosa forest probably looks like (large trees resist fire better than small ones, so I've read that before humans started controlling wildfires, central Oregon forests had larger and fewer Ponderosa pines, compared to today).

To contrast the panorama mode, here's a normal photo of the Metolius taken from about the same spot as the top photo above. Nice, but different. I like having another picture-taking option.

Along that line, I discovered that reducing the resolution of the image taken by the Sony to the smallest choice ("email"), the already powerful 20x zoom turns into a 108x zoom.

I stood in the middle of the bridge leading to the charming Camp Sherman store and pointed the camera downriver. The small image resolution reduces the photo quality.

But, wow, the 108x zoom would be great for spying. Resting the camera on the bridge railing, combined with image stabilization, produced this image of the cabin barely visible in the non-zoomed photo above. Cool!

Ending on a cute note, this is "Bling," a dog I encountered at a street fair booth when we went to Sisters last Sunday. Laurel keeps telling me that I need a little white dog. I don't know about that. But I'm sure attracted to happy canine faces like this one. My nose got licked, big time.

Horse riding lessons and the meaning of life

Is it possible to get in touch with life's meaning, or the lack thereof, while getting some riding instruction in an outdoor arena? Absolutely.

I've been re-reading Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus." Here's some existential pondering that applies to a couple of hours of horse riding lessons Laurel and I experienced a few days ago.

I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living. It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable. Once and for all, value judgments are discarded here in favor of factual judgments. I have merely to draw the conclusions from what I can see and to risk nothing that is hypothetical.

...A subclerk in the post office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them. All experiences are indifferent in this regard. There are some that do either a service or a disservice to man. They do him a service if he is conscious.

Well, heck, actually those quotes apply to everything. But as Camus implies, some experiences lead us to be more conscious of existence. Such as...getting on a horse and trying to make it do what you intend.

Laurel has done a lot more riding that I have. She's had both English and Western lessons. I've had a few Western lessons, and done considerable trail riding. Not much in an arena, though.

So I didn't know what to expect when we headed off to the Emerald Ranch outside of Sisters (in central Oregon) and joined up with Jessica for some instruction in horse handling. It turned out that my scootering/motorcycling and Tai Chi experience fit right in with Jessica's main message.

Which was: feel what's going on. Stay balanced and centered on the horse (Laurel had to break some forward-leaning English habits). Use your whole body to control movement, not just your arms.

For example, on the first day Jessica had us focus on getting our horse going by raising our hips up and forward, lightening our seat. To stop or slow down, she had us settling back onto the saddle, loosening up "like spaghetti."

After a while, and once in a while, I could get a glimpse of what Jessica was leading us towards -- controlling the horse more with whole-bodied intention and less with pulling on the reins or nudging with our legs/feet (which had been my emphasis before).

She kept reminding us to be conscious of what we were feeling. How is the horse moving? When the horse steps in this fashion, what happens to our hips? How are we connected with the horse, and the horse connected with us?

I realized early on that there is a whole lot more to riding a horse than I thought. Jessica saw things, and could do things, that I'd been completely clueless about.

On the second day she had us pulling the reins in a certain way, the goal being to get our horse's head down and the rear settled, producing an arched posture that would make riding more comfortable and satisfying for both horse and rider.

All new to me and Laurel. Once in a while I'd manage to get Danny, my horse, into a semi-correct position and Jessica would yell, "Yes, yes, yes! That's it! Great, Brian!"

Then the moment would pass.

Danny and I would be back to our not-so-great walking, trotting, and cantering around the arena. But what I enjoyed throughout the lessons was the feeling of being present in the moment of whatever I was doing.

Nothing like driving a car.

No daydreaming. No listening to the radio. No going on automatic pilot. Laurel and I had to remain aware of a lot of nuances -- what our horse was doing, what we were doing, where we were in the arena, what Jessica was telling us to do.

So often, there's a screen between me and reality. Not so much physical (though that's what TV produces), but psychological.

I'm thinking about what I'm doing rather than simply doing it. My attention is divided between activities past, present, and future rather than zeroed in on what's happening right now.

For our final exercise, Jessica set up three barrels in the arena. "We're going to do some barrel racing," she told us. Well, not exactly racing, because we weren't competing with anyone but ourselves.

Still, it was cool. Growing up in California, I'd watched a lot of barrel racing at the annual Three Rivers rodeo. Those girls could fly on their horses.

Laurel and I didn't exactly fly.

But after a few practice runs we got some pretty good turns in around the first two barrels, and a satisfying quick canter back to what I imagined was the finish line -- where, in my own mind at least, I won the World Championship Barrel Racing trophy on Danny.

As Camus says, every experience contains all of existence within it. Riding a horse, doing the dishes, whatever. We just need to be aware.

Thinking is not unifying or making the appearance familiar under the guise of a great principle. Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.

In other words, phenomenology declines to explain the world, it wants to be merely a description of actual experience. It confirms absurd thought in its initial assertion that there is no truth, but merely truths.

From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder, everything has its truth. Consciousness illuminates it by paying attention to it.

Vegetarian advice for the Black Butte Ranch Lodge restaurant

[Update: I've gotten a quick, and much appreciated, email response from the President/CEO of Black Butte Ranch, Scott Huntsman. Great name for a guy who runs an outdoorsy outfit, by the way. I shared Scott's vegetarian-friendly message in the comments to the post. It's great to hear about plans to put some veggie options on the dinner menu. It'll be even greater to eat them.]

Long-time vegetarian that I am (forty of my sixty years), I clearly recognize the danger signs of ordering in a upper-scale restaurant that, for some inexplicable reason, has precisely zero dinner entrées that haven't walked or swum before appearing on a patron's plate.

This, sadly, describes the menu at central Oregon's Black Butte Ranch restaurant, a.k.a. The Lodge Restaurant.
Download Black Butte Lodge dinner menu

My wife and I eat there regularly, since we are part owners of a forest service cabin in nearby Camp Sherman and visit the area monthly when the weather is nice (meaning, we skip late fall and winter).

Most recently -- yesterday -- our waitress (should I say "server" to be politically correct? nah) got a deer in the headlights look when she walked over to our table and I told her, "We're vegetarian and your menu isn't. But don't worry, we'll work something out with the chef, like we always do."

In 2006 I blogged about the same lack of vegetarian respect in "Black Butte Ranch Restaurant: We love you, but..." The love and the but were summarized in my first two paragraphs:

Sometimes tough love is needed. Straight talk. Telling it like it is. Black Butte Ranch Restaurant, my friend, you’ve got to get your serving-time act together. Plus, what you serve has got to include a decent vegetarian entrée.

Two “got to’s.” Not much to ask. You can handle it. Then we’ll keep coming back. We love looking out your floor to ceiling windows at snow-capped mountains, a meadow, grazing horses, geese on the pond. The atmosphere can’t be beat.

All still true: the view is wonderful; the vegetarian fare is sorely lacking. Come on, I realize that the Black Butte Ranch destination resort wants to convey a Western cowboy vibe.

But these days even cowboys (some of them at least) want a different dinner choice than "Grilled Cowboy Ribeye," "Herb Crusted Loin of Elk," "Smoked Pork Tenderloin," "Roasted Rack of Lamb," "Prime Rib of Beef," and the other choices that we skimmed over quickly before realizing that the menu looked to be as vegetarian-dismal as it was last time we ate there.

In the good old Black Butte Ranch restaurant days, circa 2003, I extolled the virtues of the Garden Plate:

Fresh off my palate, I can accurately describe the marvelous Garden Plate: soft tofu with a crisply breaded covering, nicely fried; a grilled portabello mushroom; asparagus; sweet tomato relish; yellow squash; zucchini—all immersed in a subtle sauce, accompanied by a just-right dipping sauce. As full as I am, it makes my mouth water to remember our meal of an hour ago.

The Garden Plate chef must be long gone. Because when the words "We're vegetarians" were uttered now in The Lodge Restaurant, the waitress responded with a blank stare.

Now, we have eaten in some pretty nice restaurants, a few of which have lacked a vegetarian entrée. Almost invariably the server tells us, "No problem. I'll ask the chef to make you something special."

Which, he or she usually does. Creatively. Deliciously.

In the West, as of 2000, about 4% of people are strict vegetarians. Not a lot. But not nothing. Does a restaurant want to eliminate 4% of the population from its potential clientele?

(In Oregon I bet the percentage of vegetarians is higher; it surely is in southern California, where my daughter lives, and where we've never gone out to eat without encountering a wonderful healthy veggie dish on the menu.)

I find it difficult to believe that The Lodge Restaurant never gets a request for a vegetarian dinner entrée. The servers and kitchen should be prepared to reply with the "No problem" that we've gotten at other high quality restaurants.

However, after we told the waitress that we didn't want to go the pasta and vegetables route that left us underwhelmed before, she left us to puzzle out our own dinner order by teasing out options from the side dishes on the menu.

We ended up with some polenta, plain white rice, and grilled vegetables. Not bad, but definitely nowhere near great. I also got a baked potato and a salad. Whoopee.

On the positive side, we were charged $25 for our two "entrées" -- definitely the cheapest thing on the menu, if what we got had been on the menu.

I'll email a link to this blog post to the Black Butte Ranch manager, just as I've done with previous please, please, please entreaties to have at least one vegetarian option available at the restaurant.

I've never gotten a reply. Maybe this time will be different.

Mr. or Ms. Manager, as noted above our criticisms flow from love...of your entire destination resort, and of The Lodge Restaurant in particular.

We always enjoy visiting Black Butte Ranch. Along with other vegetarians, we'd just enjoy the resort more if you had a meatless entrée at the restaurant (how about bringing back the Garden Plate?).

After all, this is a destination resort.

It's seven miles to Camp Sherman, which has one restaurant (Kokanee Cafe) that also lacks a vegetarian dinner option. It's ten miles to Sisters, which has quite a few eating choices, but Black Butte Ranch is supposed to be a destination, not a place vegetarians have to flee from to eat dinner.

Have I convinced you to become more vegetarian friendly in The Lodge Restaurant, Mr. or Ms. Manager? I sure hope so.

Metolius River photos, iPhone style

Here's some photos that I took during a recent visit to our cabin on the beautiful Metolius River in Camp Sherman (central Oregon).

I usually use an Olympus Stylus, which can do all kinds of stuff: zoom, adjust for different photographic conditions, and whatnot.

All of these shots were taken with my iPhone's camera, which can do exactly one thing: take a photo.

When I first got my iPhone, I was frustrated with the lack of photo options. Now, I'm appreciating the Zen'ish simplicity of pulling it out, choosing the camera icon, pressing the "take photo" button, and seeing what happens.

What you get is what you get. No fretting about not choosing the right camera setting, because there aren't any to choose from.

If I want to "zoom," I walk closer. To get more stuff showing in the picture, I back up.

With these shots, mostly the iPhone underexposed. As taken, they were too dark. But my MacBook's iPhoto software did a pretty good job when I pushed the "enhance" button. Here's the results.

 One morning, taking the dog out, I strolled to the edge of the Metolius -- a short distance from the cabin. Fog was starting to dissipate, but still producing a peaceful mystic stillness.

Black Butte rising over the Metolius. Spring-fed headwaters of the river are just a short ways upstream.

I have to remember to look up once in a while when walking along the Metolius. The branches of the large Ponderosa pines look like they have a lot of stories to tell.

Here I am, arriving at the charming Camp Sherman store after a bike ride. The woman in teal offered to take a photo of both of us after Laurel snapped this shot. Don't think she realized how much she was in this photo. I put my bike in this position to avoid a bunch of people sitting by the store front door. As often happens, my plan went awry.

On a walk this afternoon, I tied the dog to a tree and calmly walked up to the fence surrounding the Johnson meadow, doing my best to look horse friendly. Must have worked. This guy came walking up after a minute or two, probably figuring I might have some food.

Laurel by a creek that flows through the Metolius Meadows development. We laid our bikes down and took a walk along a nature trail, coming to this pleasant cool spot on a hot summer day.

Every morning I ride my bike a mile to the Camp Sherman store to get a newspaper. Leaving the store parking area, the view is terrific.

I don't fish. But I love the fisherpeople perching spots that have been built along the river.

Some of the first upstream Metolius white water. The river gets larger and considerably more rapid'y downstream.

Love the bark of the large Ponderosas. When they're young, the bark is grayish. Older trees get colorful.

Hot dog. Cold river. Perfect match.

This is one of my favorite stretches of the river. I never get tired of seeing it. Either directly, or via a photo.

Returning to the cabin, which we co-own with three other couples, Serena always is excited to start stalking the chipmunks which live under a deck. Never catches any, but the chase is the thing. When we leave, we put nuts by their holes as a non-verbal, "Sorry for the stress our dog caused you. It's all clear now."

Our gripes about Maui

Sure, we've been on Maui for ten days, enjoying the great mid- 80's weather on Napili Bay while Portland, Oregon is 54 degrees and rainy today -- according to the Honolulu paper.

We check the mainland weather report daily, because our friends always lie about how nice it was back home while we were gone. "Oh, you missed some great weather. Sunny every day, didn't rain a bit."

Yeah, right, I think to myself, not wanting to let them know that I'm on to their Hawaii vacation envy.

But things are definitely not totally paradisaical here. We've accumulated some pretty serious gripes, which need to be aired before we leave.

Vegetarian eating. Yes, we realize fish live in the ocean, and people like to eat them while they're on Maui. Along with the usual meaty fare they're used to at home. Still, restaurateurs here need to throw us vegetarians a bone. Even better, tofu or tempe.

Laurel and I would have been happy to leave more dinner VISA charges in the pockets of Maui restaurant owners. However, there aren't very many that want vegetarian business. It's pathetic, the lack of non-fish and non-meat items on menus.

We ate twice at Mala Ocean Tavern.

Love the quartet of hummus, babaganoush, raita, and Greek feta (plus other stuff, including terrific grilled pita bread). Otherwise, it was Chinese and Thai take out for us, plus what we got at the natural food store in Kahalui after we got off the plane.

You can do better by us vegetarians, Maui. Hop to it, so we have more eating choices on our next visit.

T-shirt and trinket shops. Browsing up and down Lahaina's Front Street yesterday evening, we were struck by the sameness of so many of the shops. Most have the same t-shirts, the same cheap Hawaii trinkets, the same everything else.

It seems to us that some creative shops offering something different would be successful. Yet we noticed that the Gecko store in Lahaina is gone, as is the Endangered Species store at Whaler's Village.

These offered some different stuff. And they've gone out of business, apparently, while the same old, same old establishments carry on. Something is wrong here. Tourist tastes can't be that routine and predictable. Or, maybe they are.

Maui wowie. We've been to Maui many times. In the old days, every visit I'd hear a muttered "Want some buds?" or the like as my baby boomer, longish haired self trundled down a Lahaina sidewalk.

That always made me feel good -- part of the local drugscape, in a minimal fashion (very minimal, because I'd never respond). Recently, though, I've been ignored. Except for yesterday, when I heard a Maui wowie? as some local youths passed by.

Thanks, guys. But you need to do a more consistent job at making gray-haired flower children relive their 60's youth for a moment.

Screeching birds. Some people think that a Maui vacation is relaxing. Well, you should be in my bed (an appealing idea, depending on who you are) at 5:30 most mornings. That's when some annoying birds decide that it's vitally important to let every sleeping vacationer within earshot know that the sun is coming up.

I'd like to sleep another half hour or so. However, at 5:30 I'm too awake to go back to sleep, and too sleepy to get up. So I lie in bed for quite a while, mentally cursing the birds.

I don't understand how the Hawaii tourist industry allows those screeching S.O.B.s to stay on the islands. At the least, the birds need to be trained to stay quiet until at least 6:00 or 6:30.

Why the state legislature hasn't mandated that this be done is beyond me. And believe me, I've spent a lot of time the past ten days pondering this matter. Mostly shortly after 5:30 in the morning.

Ice cream on beach. Laurel has a special gripe of her own. When it's sunny, warm, and you've melted into your beach mat, the will power simply isn't there to get up and seek out ice cream.

We believe it can be purchased at a Napili Kai Resort snack bar that's a ways behind the beach. But Laurel never has had the energy to walk a couple of hundred feet when she's in her "melted mood" and find out.

So she sits on the sand and wishes that Maui had beach vendors, like those at a baseball game, but barefoot and dressed in tropical attire, who would appear whenever she wanted ice cream. And, naturally, give her some.

Well, those are the core gripes that we were able to come up with this afternoon while -- no big surprise!-- sitting on the beach.

To Maui's credit, it took us quite a while to come up with even a small number of gripes. Still, they're serious to us.

Sort of.

After ten days of staring at my knees, which have been staring at Molokai, nothing seems super-serious. Which is precisely why we enjoy coming to Maui so much, even given the gripes.

Meaningful Maui musings

I can't believe that I called a post from three years ago, "Meaningless Maui musings." I'm rectifying this error now with a change from "less" to "ful" in the title.

Because sitting on Napili Beach -- the lovely crescent in the middle of the photo -- for several hours each day offers plenty of time for deeply important ponderings about life.

Some of which, I'm pleased to see, are the same as my 2006 musings. I say "pleased" because doing the same things is a big part of what I love about returning to Napili Bay almost every year.

I call this an On Golden Pond sort of vacation. In that marvelous movie an aging couple spend each summer at their home on a lake called Golden Pond.

"Aging couple" isn't a phrase I like to use in reference to Laurel and me. But we're getting older, that's for sure. (Who isn't?) And our vacation preferences favor repetition rather than variety.

We know what we like. We have a great time on every visit to Maui. Why mess with success?

My daughter and her family came along for part of our 2009 vacation. Lazing on the warm, sun-soaked beach a few days ago, she said: "Dad, I've always made fun of you for returning to the same place every year. Now I see why. It's beautiful!"

I enjoy doing the same thing on Napili Bay and seeing how different it feels each time.

Life is continuously refreshing itself. It isn't possible to step in the same experience river twice. So I don't get bored engaging in my daily 30-minute sidestroke practice back and forth across the bay.

Quite the opposite.

Every day the wind is different, the waves are different, the clouds are different. Most importantly, I'm different -- my energy level, mood, thoughts inside my head, and such.

The way I see it, boredom only arises when we stop paying attention.

Life always is living, so long as we are. Feeling the energies of existence pulse inside and outside of me, like the waves that never stop washing onto Napili Beach -- sometimes gently, sometimes crashingly -- it's always absorbingly interesting.

Along with the recurring questions that Laurel and I discuss as we lie on our natural beach mats, observing our fellow vacationers as they pass by on the sand or play in the ocean.

Example: a ponder that we also pondered in 2006.

Generously-sized people in skimpy bathing suits glorifying the body God and McDonalds gave them, good or bad? Jury is still out on this question. More research to be conducted on the beach in a few minutes. Tentative answer: depends on number of rolls of body fat.

I need many more visits to Maui to come close to a definitive answer. The response that seems to be evolving for me is Go for it, girl! (teeny bikinis are much more evident on the beach than small Speedos -- which seem to be a European thing)

Why not? Flaunt it if you've got it.

And we sure have seen some older plus-plus-plus sized women doing just that. I admire them for saying to the world via their swimsuit choice, "This is me, and I'm just fine with it."

Which is what I like about beach behavior.

Grown-ups acting like kids. Kids acting like kids. Having fun. Not caring how you look to other people. Embracing your inner just do it.

Like they say, life's a beach.

Suttle Lake walk irks dog, soothes humans

My wife and I enjoyed an October walk around central Oregon's Suttle Lake, reveling in the red-yellow vine maples, which, marvelously, had nothing to say about the financial meltdown that's been front page news.

Our dog, however, didn't look pleased when I asked her opinion about the "Dog Free Zone" sign prominently displayed at the Suttle Lake Resort.

You can see it for yourself in the You Tube video below, which I took with my new Flip Video Mino – a replacement for my Flip Video Ultra (trying to keep the economy moving).

Snap review: the Mino's stop/start record button is much more responsive; it's lighter, smaller, and cooler looking; the omni-directional microphone might be slightly better, but not terrific; overall, I like it better than the Ultra.

Regarding the Lodge at Suttle Lake's (a.k.a. Suttle Lake Resort) dogphobia, the number of signs disrespecting Canis familiaris is at odds with the "pet friendly" paw mark in the upper left corner of its home page.

They do claim to have pet friendly lodging, so you'd think dogs would be more welcome on the grounds. And a pet fee of $25 per animal seems a bit steep, notwithstanding the gift package offered for "your furry friend."

I just wonder, though, what a vacationing cat or ferret is going to think about opening its gift package and finding "2 doggie bowls, doggie bag, treats, and toys."

Vegan food and porn: Aunt Mary’s serves it up

Only in Oregon … Aunt Mary's is a terrific vegan/vegetarian restaurant where you can also shop for porn and browse a vibrator museum.

We hadn't been to the coast for quite a while, so when some healthy-eating Indiana relatives came to visit last week I fired up Google. It didn't take long for me to realize that there was only one place we should eat in Lincoln City.

Some Happy Cow reviews sealed the deal. Such as:

This place is best described as eclectic with no boundaries. Kind of a cross between Grandma's house, and the creepy guy next door. Nestled among the small shops in Lincoln City near the beach is a vegetarian restaurant that you won't forget.

We are both vegans, and for some reason, everyone in Lincoln City seems to crinkle their nose when they say "vegan", and not a single store carries vegan soy cheese. This place was a pleasant surprise, and we really enjoyed our visit. Now the disclaimer - be ready to keep an open mind and walk in with a sense of humor.

Although you may find an occasional adult toy displayed amongst the embroidery and nun dolls, the "vibrator museum" is just another joke to keep things light. As long as you avoid the back room labeled "filthy", and leave your kids outside as you get take-out, you'll have a great time. We ordered the Mexi Wrap and a Taco Salad, and it was the best meal we've had during our entire vacation. The host/waiter/chef was very nice and washed his hands twice that we counted. Very clean, gracious, and fun.

Well, a couple of corrections are in order. "Occasional" doesn't do justice to the wonderfully vast array of sex toys and adult gag gifts. And don't avoid the back room – dash to it!

That's where Aunt Mary keeps her best stuff.

A fine collection of hand-blown glass pipes with an appropriate "don't ask" (what they're for, I assume) sign on top of the display case. A large collection of porn videos, helpfully categorized by sexual predilection and what turns you on. Leather wear, with enough studs and chains to spice up either the bedroom or your Harley Davidson.

Then there's the food. Excellent, though the service can be a bit slow.

We were the only diners in the place, arriving right at the noon opening time, and we still spent an hour ordering, waiting, and eating. Not a problem, given how much there is to ogle in Aunt Mary's, but if you're in a rush head to McDonalds and skip the porn.

Inspecting the menu, I was tempted to order a Fuck Me, That's Good but decided to forego the grilled cheese sandwich with pineapple for a humus wrap (yes, vegan porn proprietors can spell; I've always thought "hummus" was right, but both are correct).

My wrap was grilled to perfection and filled with crisp vegetables. Someone else got a Fuck Me, That's Good and said that the name was right on.

Philosophically, I find a lot to like about Aunt Mary's. Yesterday I mused on my other blog about how craziness can be a dose of sanity.

The older I get, the more appealing a little craziness appears to me. I'm not talking about whacked out psychosis, but something milder – in the immoral, illogical, illicit, or ill-understandable sphere of strangeness.

Stuff that soothes a person's far out! soul, while making others question why he or she is marching out of the beat of the ordinary.

I wasn't consciously thinking of Aunt Mary's when I wrote those words, but I'm sure last Friday's visit to this unique Oregon coast establishment helped put me in that frame of mind.

Back in the '70s, I remember when rentable porn videos were clearly visible behind the counter of a highly respectable downtown Salem store (Future Shop) that featured VCRs and other new-at-that-time technology. Nobody thought anything of it.

American society is a lot more uptight now, and I don't think we're the better for the change.

Though Oregon is laudably looser and quirkier than most of the rest of the country (a vegan strip club opened this year in Portland), we still tend to segregate "kinkiness," which really is just another flavor of normal, as what happens on the other side of town.

It's nice to be able to drive down the main drag of Lincoln City, park, and get your fill of both healthy vegetarian food and other sorts of earthy delights.

An Oregon Coast Today article has more info about Aunt Mary's. Being someone who orders a nonfat vanilla latte and then dumps half and half into it, I resonated with Mary's eating attitude:

She's also been perfecting her recipes for vegan baked goods like cakes and muffins; these, she says, shouldn't be central to a weight-loss regimen.

"They're not healthy at all. They're not low cal. But they're very delicious. I always say that they're best served warm with butter. There's no fat in them. That's what makes the butter so good," she said.

Metolius River video – Wizard Falls hike

If you've never hiked along the Metolius River in central Oregon, you've missed out on a marvelous scenic experience.

My six minute You Tube'd movie of the walk we took upstream from the Wizard Falls fish hatchery will give you a feel for what this 2.5 mile section of the Metolius is like.

In short, beautiful. (This description of the hike starts from the campground, not the hatchery, but covers the same stretch of the river.)

I mangle the name of the hatchery at the start of the video. For some reason I kept throwing in "creek." After that, my narration rolls along pretty smoothly.

Be sure to watch to the end. You don't want to miss the shot of a peanut butter sandwich eating dog. (Hollywood animal actor agents: Serena and I are available, and we work for, well, peanuts.)

June blossoms on the Metolius

Here's photographic proof – why the Metolius River dazzles the eye (and soul) in what passes for spring in central Oregon. Namely, the middling part of June.

Just before Lake Creek the family dog explored a grassy island.

Away from the river, on top of a butte, old tree and new tree showed off against (almost) clear sky.

A bit farther along, some yin and yang: bright flowers and gray rocks.

Moving back to the Metolius, natural flower arrangements dot the river. It's constant spring-fed flow encourages growth that wouldn't be possible on up and down rivers. [Appreciate these shots: wading in the water I instantly recognized that it's damn cold – snow melt once removed.]

Ducks don't seem to mind the temperature. But this one was perched on a warm log.

There's lots of natural bridges, since logs are left where they lie in this wild and scenic river.

Metolius light and shadow.

I'd love to have this in my yard. Along with the river, of course.

I think "Metolius Zen" when I see these photos. But Zen is the reflection of nature; this is the original.

White water, yellow flower. Nice.

A few years ago a large tree fell and broke apart in the Metolius. I've been watching it evolve. Now it's become flowery modern art.

One of the more attractive log jams you'll find in a river.

More Zen. I love the water swirls.

Metolius yin and yang.

Probably my favorite photo. I have a little sand garden in my office that I rake, making patterns like this around the rocks.

Decay and growth. Some days I feel like the stump, other days like the flower.

Metolius River hike from Camp Sherman store

This is our sort of hiking adventure: one that begins and ends at a charming country store that serves expresso. Namely, the Camp Sherman store in central Oregon's beautiful Metolius River recreation area.

We've hiked most of the easily accessible stretches of the Metolius many times. They're all marvelous.

The two mile path downstream of the store (west side of the river) is enjoyable because it's level, passes by interesting cabins on forest service land, and is on a particularly attractive section of the Metolius (not that there's an unattractive section).

Plus, there's the latte thing. And public restrooms at miles 0, 1, 3, and 4 of the roundtrip four mile hike, a potential benefit if you energized yourself with a large quad expresso before you started off.

Here's a You Tube video of the hike we took a few days ago.

Maui tourists gone (mildly) wild

Proving that a man on a Maui vacation armed with a Flip Video and a You Tube account is an formidable cinemagraphic force, here are the final four videos in my 2008 Hawaiian Island oeuvre.

These follow my preceding works of tourist art: "Maui beach people: beautiful or not?", "Video tour of Kapalua zipline course" and "Having a whale of a good time on a Maui cruise."

Serious students of Flip Videography (assuming there are any) may notice an evolution in my style during our ten days on Maui. Myself, I can't. But often an artist can't recognize his own genius.

In "Maui's Lahaina Stables sunset ride" I explore the island's yin and yang: marvelous natural beauty coupled with increasingly annoying over-development. On my horse I walk (and jerkily trot) up to the lower reaches of a mystical West Maui mountain valley, pondering what Shangri La lies beyond our two-hour ride's reaches.

Shifting gears, a lot, to "Maui shopping in Wailea," I document my humble husbandly shopping demeanor: five steps behind Laurel, who rules the store browsing roost. My camera lingers on a shapely black-clad shopper (or more likely, store employee) who I would have followed more closely if not for a fear of "Security! I'm being stalked!"

"Snorkeling on Maui" actually is my wife's video creation. It features no narration, mostly because it isn't possible to talk with a snorkel in your mouth. This was filmed with the Flip Video underwater case. Laurel used no artificial fish food aids in filming her snorkeling on Napili and Kapalua Bays. Hence, the natural number of fish.

My final video, "Maui's Banyan Tree and Napili Bay," melds a stroll under a notable Lahaina attraction and a view of one of Maui's most beautiful beaches. The viewer is treated to a massive display of bird chirping at dusk and a cogent explanation of how we have managed to do a lot of Maui moving while vacationing on the same beach for 20 years.

Having a whale of a good time on a Maui cruise

What is it about whales? And screaming people. I had plenty of time to ponder this question on the sunset dinner cruise that left yesterday from Maui's Lahaina harbor.

As memorialized in my You Tube video, you can hear our fellow passengers (and me) getting super-excited when some whales appeared close to the Pacific Whale Foundation boat.

Elvis and the Beatles probably didn't get more "oohs" and "ahs" when they came on stage. Yes, there's something about whales.

My philosophical self likes this notion: whales are like God. Mysterious, powerful, unseen. Usually hidden beneath the surface, once in a while one reveals itself and Wow! – the crowd goes wild. Praise whale!

There was even some magical thinking going on with the captain, who you can hear me chatting with. I asked her how we could get some tricks out of the whales, since a whole lot of dramatic breaching wasn't going on.

She told me that in her sixteen years of experience, the best way to see whales is to turn your camera off.

Actually, I'd been wondering the same thing, having just filmed many minutes of open ocean, interspersed with a few whale sightings. (My video has been edited to show the best ones.) But I resisted the temptation to turn off my Flip Video.

And just a few seconds after the captain spoke, bingo, the whale breached big time. So much for magical thinking.

Aside from the whales, another exciting image on the video shows me sipping my very first Mai Tai. The expression on my face is partly staged, but mostly real – because it took me a while to realize that I was supposed to stir the drink up.

All the alcohol must have been sitting on the top, because at first it seemed like a killer Mai Tai (not that I'd know, really, since this was my first). Guess this is one of those things experienced drinkers learn on the job.

We also got a kick out of the wedding party, who you'll see sitting on the bow area in front of us. The bride wore a formal white dress on her Maui sunset dinner cruise. Cool. She certainly stood out among the shorts and t-shirt crowd.

This Pacific Whale Foundation cruise gets a thumbs up from us. It's vegetarian friendly, featuring pasta and a tofu stir fry for entrees, plus the usual veggie appetizers.

The music man was friendly and competent, though we could have done with fewer of his corny jokes during the whale sightings. Some silence might have been more appropriate when the divinities of the deep paid us a visit.

Video tour of Kapalua zipline course

Any mildly-extreme sport that starts and ends at an expresso bar is right up our alley. That's one reason we enjoyed yesterday's outing at the Kapalua Resort's zipline adventure on Maui so much.

But naturally zipping was the main attraction. We'd never zipped before. If you don't know what it is, my four minute video will show you.

It's a kick. You hang on harnesses attached to what we were assured is a super-strong cable. Then you let yourself go from a platform and zip – the longest of the four courses being over 2000 feet.

In the video I only show two of the ziplines, the short practice course and the longest ending course, which soars over a beautiful valley.

After three zips, I felt experienced enough to hold my Flip Video camera in one hand for almost all of the last course. But when you near the landing platform zippers are supposed to hold on to a bar with two hands; hence, the sudden shot of the sky. (I broke the rule at the very end.)

Kapalua has parallel lines, so two people zip at the same time. On the last course I was paired with Amy, who was zipping as part of her training to work at the Kapalua Adventure Center.

Not surprisingly, she zipped way faster than I did. About halfway down I thought about leaning back (less air resistance) to see if I could catch up, but then I realized that given how much we were paying per second of zipping, I should be going as slow as possible to stretch out the experience.

Not as slow as Laurel, though. She was zipping so sedately at the end of the last course she stopped 20 feet from the platform. A rope was thrown to her so she could be towed in.

We were fortunate to just be one of three tourists on our zipline adventure, the other three zippers being staff in training. Rob, from North Carolina via New Zealand, was the other tourista. He's thinking of moving to Ashland, Oregon – an excellent idea, we told him.

This is a fun 2 ½ to 3 hour escapade for those who are (1) moderately adventurous and (2) moderately physically fit. The zipline course requires pretty good balance – not when you're zipping, but while you're on a ladder getting unhooked from the equipment.

I suspect the first practice tower is designed to weed out the excessively infirm right at the start. You walk up a swaying hanging board/rope bridge, then have to navigate some steep stairs while hanging onto your zipline gear.

It's not a big deal for most people. But I wonder why Kapalua doesn't assess the fitness of potential zippers before they get fitted into a harness and take a twenty-minute ride up to the Mountain Outpost.

Maybe the staff figure that if you want to slide on a cable for thousands of feet over a deep Maui valley, you're fit enough to do it.

Messages to Maui’ans from an Oregon vacationer

Ah, the World Wide Web is wonderful. It lets me communicate, potentially at least, with some people on Maui that I have messages for.

--To the couple in the room next door: It was so nice to get to know you early this morning – through the loud cell phone conversations on your deck. I hope your mother is able to join you on Maui. Paying for her lodging if she springs for the airline ticket sounds fair. And good luck with finding a babysitter through the nanny hotline. Hopefully she'll keep your child quieter than you've been able to.

--To everyone else staying in our section of the resort: Are we the only ones who can read the resort rules? Which mentions quiet time from 10:30 pm to 8:00 am. And no cell phone conversations outside rooms. I realize that it's tough to keep kids quiet in Hawaii (or anywhere), but letting them outside at 6:30 am seriously interferes with my Maui mellow, which is heavily dependent on much sleeping and napping.

--To Maui residents: If you keep allowing condos and high rises to be built, eventually you're going to have zero natural island and 100% artificial ugliness. Like almost everywhere, including Oregon, I'm sure your local elected officials love property taxes and over-building. They're not going to stop this Maui madness on their own. You've got to vote them out before it's too late. Really. I've been coming here for over twenty years, and you're losing the reasons both locals and vacationers like us love this island.

--To restaurant owners: Here's a tip for generating increased profits. Have at least one decent vegetarian entrée on your menu. Lots of people are trying to eat healthier now. Plus, there are many steadfast vegetarians. But you wouldn't know it from the meat and seafood fare (and nothing else) that we see on your dinner menu before we walk away and take our credit card elsewhere.

--To a couple of beach goers: Guy #1, cigarettes don't disappear when they're snuffed out in the sand. Filters don't disintegrate. Kids will find them when they play in what their parents thought was pristine beach sand, until little Johnny cries out with a butt in his mouth, "Mommy, look what I found!" Guy #2, you're too obvious. Drinking coke after coke, then walking into the ocean up to your waist for just a minute before getting back on your towel – that's a pee-giveway. Be more subtle. My wife got creeped out and had to walk way down the beach before getting in the water.

--To the turtle botherers: How would you like it if someone followed you home and waited outside until you left, and they could start stalking you again? Sea turtles were here first. Tourists came later. Know your place. Diving down and peering into a turtle's rock crevice refuge after it surfaces to breathe isn't cool. It's tourist-dorky. Watch them from a generous distance. If they want to come see you, they will. (Bet: they won't.)

--To the babes in bikinis: Thank you.

Maui beach people: beautiful or not?

Wanting to make our Maui vacation intellectually productive (to a minimal degree), this morning I dedicated myself to a study of people passing by us on Napili Beach.

I say at the beginning that I'm going to film ten consecutive beach walkers, but my study was so interesting, I kept on going.

Hypothesis: Maui beachgoers are beautiful people.
Reality: watch my You Tube video (embedded below).

Now, I hasten to add a politically correct statement: We are all beautiful people in our own way.

That said, some are more beautiful than others. A careful viewer of the video will note that only one subject is featured twice, coming and going. For obvious reasons.

Actually, it's my wife's fault that this happened. She said to me, "Be sure to get a video of her; she's one of the few really good-looking people on the beach."

I told Laurel, "I think I already have her." But, better safe than sorry. And I just loved her yellow visor (which I have to admit, for some reason I didn't notice the first two times around).

The last guy in the video seemed to be posing for the camera. What a jerk. He reminded me of someone I know really well.

Another You Tube video shows  Napili Bay on a high surf day that, sadly, is far removed from the current glassy conditions. My boogie board is gathering dust (and sand).

But my video camera isn't. Here's my research.

Smith Rock scenic September hike

Rock climbers, in my opinion, are certifiably crazy. Which is why I admire them so much. And a big part of what made today's hike around a 4-mile loop in central Oregon's Smith Rock State Park so enjoyable.

Here's three climbers on the aptly named Monkey Face formation, which looks most monkeyish from this perspective on the Mesa Verde Trail. One climber (with red pants) is standing in the mouth.

To get there we hiked a couple of mostly flat miles on the River Trail. A short ways from the parking lot you already feel like you're on a Western movie set (in fact, "Rooster Cogburn" was filmed here).

The trail follows the also aptly named Crooked River.

To take the loop you head off uphill on the Mesa Verde Trail. Before too long the scenery is worth the panting (and it was just in the mid-60s today; if it's much hotter be sure to take a lot more water than the one bottle I carried with me).

Mesa Verde merges with the even more aptly named Misery Ridge Trail. After some heart-pounding switchbacks we ended up on the other side of Monkey Face, where no monkey is visible.

(Note to Bill Sullivan, author of "100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades": We love your hiking books. But dude, if your Smith Rock loop is "moderate," I'd hate to see what an "extreme" hike is like. My wife and I are in good shape, but the Misery Ridge Trail deserves its name. Even on a cool day.)

This must be the "red pants" climber heading somewhere out of the mouth of Monkey Face.

Near the top of the Misery Ridge trail I turned around, sat down on a blessedly comfortable rock shaped a lot like a chair, and left my out-of-breath misery behind with this view.

Black Butte, coyly peeking through the Monkey Face formation.

Laurel and Serena, pooped out at the top of the Misery Ridge Trail.

We'd made it higher than the top of Monkey Face. That's Mt. Jefferson in the background (I'm pretty sure).

Heading down the other side of the ridge, more vistas.

I decided to try some freestyle climbing. Hey, there's nothing to it!

Especially when you're just five feet or so above the trail.

Alder Springs – hike to a Central Oregon oasis

First bit of Oregon hiking advice: buy the 2007 edition of William Sullivan's "100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades." We had the first edition. The $16.95 I forked over last Sunday for the third edition at the Paulina Springs Book Company was money well spent.

Because it has a dozen new hikes and other fresh features. Which gets me to my second bit of advice: turn to page 82 and follow the directions to the start of the Alder Springs trail.

If you don't yet have the book, here's Sullivan's instructions.

To find the trailhead from downtown Sisters, take Highway 20 east to the far edge of town and fork left towards Redmond on Highway 126 for 4.6 miles. Then turn left on Goodrich Road for 8.1 paved miles. Along the way the road zigzags and changes name, but keep going. When you reach a marker for milestone 7, turn left on gravel road 6360 and pass through a green gate. Follow this one-lane track 4.1 miles, turn right at an "Alder Springs" pointer, and take a rough gravel road 0.8 mile to a parking turnaround at road's end.

Here's the view from the parking area. That's our dog, Serena, not a skulking coyote.

The beginning of the 3.6 mile round trip to Alder Springs (it's 6.2 miles to the Deschutes and back, which we journeyed) tells you you're in the high desert.

Before too long there's a glimpse of Whychus Creek. Used to be called Squaw Creek until political correctness got the name changed in 2005.

Descending toward the creek I thought I could see an Indian on the skyline. Or maybe it was a flashback from all the Westerns I watched in my boyhood.

Alder Springs truly is an oasis. Temperature was just in the high 70s the day we hiked the trail. If it was 90, you'd really consider it an oasis.

Our dog surely did. Here she is in Whychus Creek.

There's a board that tells about the springs, which bubble up 40 miles from snowmelt.

I loved the contrast between the rocky desert look and the green oasis'y look.

If you wade across the shallow water, you can continue on downcreek 1.6 miles until it runs into the Deschutes River. This is on the way, looking back toward Alder Springs.

The trail is lush in places, even in late August.

More rock/green contrasts.

The end of the trail is a great Deschutes watching/resting spot.

A dog/human photo op.

Water was a bit too cold to jump in completely. But I baptized myself, wearing my newly purchased (in Sisters) "Desert Mystic" t-shirt, appropriately enough.

I caught a tender moment between Laurel and Serena.

And a posed photo. Where, Praise Dog!, Serena's ears are actually (and rarely) standing up. She looks like more than the 50% German Shepherd that she is.

I carted along my GPS receiver. Total trip: 6.16 miles. Moving time: 2 hrs 32 min. Moving average: 2.4 mph. Stopped time: 1 hr 00 min. Total ascent: 1112 feet (felt like more, when we were in the sun). Maximum elevation: 2615 feet.

We stopped a lot for various reasons.

A sign-in sheet at the trailhead had frequent mentions of "saw rattlesnake," "saw big rattlesnake," and such. Whenever Serena seemed overly interested in a pile of rocks quite a ways from the trail we paused and whistled for her. Wasn't interested in carrying a 70 pound dog with a snakebite back to the car.

I also stopped to take lots of photos. But one of the biggest contributions to our stopped time (aside from the Deschutes River resting) was Laurel's frequent scanning of mountainsides for cougars. She's absolutely determined to see one, though it's unlikely that we ever will.

And I'm not even sure that this was cougar country. Regardless, it was beautiful Central Oregon country.

The road to the trail head is passable with any sort of car. It's bumpy, but not at all outrageous. So try the Alder Creek hike if you're in the area. You'll like it.

Canyon Creek Meadows trail still beautiful after forest fire

After the B and B Complex fire ravaged the area, we avoided central Oregon's Canyon Creek Meadows trail. We figured it'd be too depressing to walk through burnt trees. Today we were proven wrong,

Even back in 2005, just two years after the summer of 2003 fire, William (Bill) Sullivan and other lovers of this area said that that it still had "corners of wonder."

Well, I'm about to show you that this is an understatement in 2007. There are whole boulevards of wonder – including the burned areas.

Directions to the trail head are online and in various hiking books, including Sullivan's guide to the Central Oregon Cascades. It starts from the Jack Lake parking area. The road to Jack Lake is passable with any sort of vehicle. Just be ready for some teeth-rattling washboarding.

Have $5 to plunk into a box if you don't have an annual National Forest Trail Pass. We were pleased to pay. The hike is priceless. And the outhouse at the parking lot was spanking clean. Odor-free even.

The Canyon Creek Meadows trail starts off from the right side of the parking lot. Right away you know you're entering a burned area.

We didn't see any wildlife during our almost six mile hike. No deer. Not even any birds. But I guess this curious chipmunk qualifies. Our dog loves to chase little critters. He seemed to be taunting her.

Regrowth is well under way without any help from humans. Which is how the aftermath of all wildfires should be handled, in our opinion. Nature knows what it's doing. Logging and seeding aren't necessary. (This is in the Jefferson Wilderness Area, so it wouldn't be permitted anyway).

Witness this area. A profusion of young trees.

Because the area is so heavily hiked, you're requested to use a clockwise one-way loop system. On the outbound loop there's a convenient dog rest area about half way along. Handy in the summer heat.

After some ups and downs we were rewarded with a gorgeous view of Three Fingered Jack. The mountain always makes me think "Mordor." Yet without the evil. A bit sinister looking, though.

Here I am in the lower meadow. Some late July snow is beside my left ear.

Here's Laurel and Serena, the chipmunk chasing dog, on a bridge in the lower meadow. Mordor, oops, Three Fingered Jack, looms behind them.

Wildflowers are still in full bloom well into the summer up this high (around 5,500 feet).

Oh, yeah. They're blooming.

We decided to continue on to the upper meadow. It's about .7 of a mile. Fairly steep in places.

But the view of Three Fingered Jack along the way is worth it.

Along with the view from the rim of the upper meadow once we staggered our way to a lunch-eating rock.

This was the closest we got to Three Fingered Jack. Beautiful.

Heading back down the trail we got a great overview of the B and B Complex burned acreage. Which was disturbingly large. The Canyon Creek Meadows area, fortunately, is an oasis of green.

On the return loop the trail follows Canyon Creek for quite a ways. It also passes over some small creeks, like this mossy gem.

Here's a bunch of logs that have fallen across Canyon Creek. Reminds me of playing with Tinker Toys.

There's beauty in the burned areas also. My Tai Chi instructor's wife is Japanese. Warren said that when her relatives came to visit and saw burned areas along Highway 20, they took lots of photos and said "How beautiful." Yes.

I kept seeing the play of yin and yang as I walked along. White and black. Life and death. Devastation and regrowth.

I don't know much about burls. But these sure are burly, whatever caused them.

One benefit of the fire, for hikers, is the much more open views you have along the trail. Mt. Jefferson would have been barely visible, if at all, before the fire. Now, it says "Hi" to passers by.

We got plenty dusty on the hike. Jack Lake was impossible to pass up at the end of the trail.

Bottom line: don't pass up a chance to hike the Canyon Creek Meadows trail. The burned areas make it more interesting, not less. Beauty still is evident every step of the way.

Today, Suttle Lake beauty trumps politics

Come November, vote Democratic. And if you’re in Oregon, vote “no” on every Oregon ballot measure.
[Update: Oops. When I impulsively wrote the above I'd forgotten about Measure 44, which expands the Oregon Prescription Drug Program. It deserves a "yes." Otherwise, I still advise "no" on the other measures. See my post, "I copy Laurel's ballot. Are we lawbreakers?"]

There. I’m done my minimal progressive duty and am done with politics for this blogging day. I’ll turn to photos of our recent walk around central Oregon’s Suttle Lake, a much more pleasant manifestation of physical reality.

The big fire a couple of years ago has left whitening snags around the shoreline. Black Butte peeks over the treetops.

From another angle, and zoomed in, Black Butte becomes more of a presence. The fire lookout on the top of the mountain is just barely visible.

Laurel has a talent for matching, wherever she goes. Here she’s blending in with the fall color of the vine maples and Suttle Lake’s blue. (Her not-so-fashionable “necklace” is a dog whistle).

Speaking of Serena, the wonder pet, this is a study of Suttle Lake sunlight and shade featuring her and Laurel.

More vine maples. They weren’t quite as vibrant this October as last, perhaps due to the dry summer and fall.

Ah, we’ve got such an environmentally conscious dog. With just a smidgen of coaxing (well, maybe a bit more than that) Laurel got Serena to retrieve a plastic bottle floating ten feet or so off shore. She tried her best, but the bottle must have gotten attached to some fishing line or something. Still, we’ll be nominating her for Green Anti-Litter Dog of the Year.

This is my favorite photo from our walk. Dog on a dock, contemplating…something. For sure, a different order of reality from Saxton vs. Kulongoski and Republicans vs. Democrats. Without getting too philosophical, I'll still call it a more real reality.

Black Butte Ranch Restaurant: We love you, but…

Sometimes tough love is needed. Straight talk. Telling it like it is. Black Butte Ranch Restaurant, my friend, you’ve got to get your serving-time act together. Plus, what you serve has got to include a decent vegetarian entrée.

Two “got to’s.” Not much to ask. You can handle it. Then we’ll keep coming back. We love looking out your floor to ceiling windows at snow-capped mountains, a meadow, grazing horses, geese on the pond. The atmosphere can’t be beat.

But no matter how beautiful the setting, diners get cranky when they wait half an hour to have their order taken, wait another half an hour to get two basic dinner salads, and then, a full hour and a half after sitting down at their table, are served an unappealing vegetarian dish that would have brought a smile to Bugs Bunny. But not to us.

Yes, I did tell our waiter to go heavy on the vegetables and light on the pasta. However, it looked like the chef poured a pail of cut cooked carrots over some linguine, added a dash of broccoli and mushrooms, and called it an entrée.

If either Laurel or me was afraid of orange, we’d have run screaming for the exit when the plates were put down. It was an awesome sight. To rabbits.

Look: I’ve been a vegetarian for thirty-seven years. It’s common for me to walk into a classy restaurant like yours, open up the menu, and see there isn’t a single entrée that didn’t once walk, fly, or swim.

No problem. I just plead my case before the waiter. “Hey, we’re vegetarians. We don’t eat meat or fish. Could the chef make us something special? Doesn’t need to be fancy. Just put together some grilled vegetables, rice or pasta, maybe some other side dishes from your menu?”

This usually works like a charm. In fact, at the very Black Butte Restaurant where we dined last night, over the years my wife and I have enjoyed the creativity that’s emerged from the kitchen in response to our vegetarian pleadings.

But last night we got off to an inauspicious beginning when the waiter looked at us with a deer-in-the-headlights stare when I went into my “Hey, we’re vegetarians” rap. Right away he tried to buy us off with a veggie appetizer, but we pressed for a real entrée.

Should have stuck with the appetizer, in retrospect. After a few bites, Laurel’s reaction was “I could have made something better than this back at the cabin.” She was right. And while I’ve got tremendous respect for my wife’s cooking skills, she’d be the first to admit that they are nowhere near chef-quality. So you’ve got a problem here.

We asked for something vegetarian. I can understand that requesting a kosher, gluten-free, macrobiotic, low-carb dinner might throw the kitchen for a loop. But vegetarian? That should be easy.

You never know when you might get a Hollywood star dining at Black Butte. Get the chef to think ahead, figure out a tasty dish that can be assembled from the ingredients you always have on hand, pin the recipe on a kitchen bulletin board, and have at it when a restaurant customer says that he or she is a vegetarian.

Better yet, make it your policy to always have a vegetarian entrée on the dinner menu. You might be surprised to discover how many people order it. I praised your grilled tofu Garden Plate three years ago but you changed the menu soon after to be entirely meaty and fishy, like it is now.

Big mistake, which you need to rectify if you want to stay on the good side of the Vegetarian Gods.

And us. Who also have some advice about how to handle over-taxed restaurant situations, like you experienced last night. Waiters and busboys were rushing around like crazy. Yet food took a very long time to arrive. We saw other diners frowning as they wrote on the comment card that accompanied the check, just as we did.

Restaurants, like people, have bad nights. We understand that. Your parking lot was full when we drove up. It looked like a party or reception of some sort was going on in your banquet area. Maybe that over-burdened your kitchen. Maybe a cook was sick. Maybe you were short-staffed otherwise (our waiter looked like a busboy given a temporary promotion).

Regardless, be upfront about it. If someone had said to us, “I’m sorry about how long you’ve had to wait. We’re not living up to our service standard. The reason is _______. We want to give you each of you a complimentary glass of wine in appreciation of your patience,” that would have smothered a lot of the frustrated fumes that were rising from our hungry heads.

But we never got anything but a brisk “Sorry for the delay” as our salads were dropped on our table an hour after we sat down. Even worse, we weren’t asked if we wanted ground pepper! I, horror of horrors!, had to use the regular pepper shaker rather than enjoy the ritual of the three-foot-long grinder being wielded above my (tasty) Lodge Salad.

Leisurely meals at a fine restaurant like yours can be enjoyable. However, the diners need to feel like they’re largely in control of the pace of the meal. We did a lot of unwanted lingering last night, made more unwantable by the fact of it being my birthday dinner.

Hey, I had presents to unwrap back at the cabin, some of which I hadn’t bought for myself, so I was curious to find out what they were. We both had better things to do than stare blankly around the dining room in a low-blood-sugar stupor, vaguely pondering why the people who were the most overweight and looked like heart attacks waiting to happen were the ones who ordered a thick steak.

We still love you, Black Butte Restaurant. We just hope you’re open to becoming ever more deserving of our adoration. Learn how to minimize long waits. And have your chef come up with a good vegetarian entrée.

With just a few carrots. Please.

I go to Hollywood and eat lunch with Kirsten Dunst

Really. I did. For the whole meal we were just a few feet apart. I was sitting at the very M Café table shown in this photo. On the near end, next to the window. My new best friend, Kirsten, she of “Spider-Man” fame, was eating by herself at an outside table right behind the glass.

So our relationship has some room to grow. Like, we could be in the same room. And meet each other. But, hey, this was a good start.

Last weekend Laurel and I visited my daughter Celeste, her husband Patrick, and fabulously spoiled cats Cici and Smokey. After picking us up at the Burbank airport, Celeste showed us around their recently-purchased (and revamped) Hollywood home, looking slim and stylish as always.

My celebrity-seeing karma was even better this trip than last, when we ran into Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. As we walked into the 101 Coffee Shop yesterday to eat breakfast, Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy were on their way out.

And on Saturday night, at the opening of a photographer’s show at a Santa Monica art gallery, Laurel and I were introduced to Annabeth Gish of Showtime’s “Brotherhood.” This time I actually shook hands and chatted with a celebrity. (She and Celeste share a yoga class).

What’s great about the Hollywood area, though, is that so many people look like celebrities, even if they aren’t one. Take Patrick, for example. He should be in the movies. Definitely. He already dresses the part. (Love the t-shirt, baby).

The four of us went for a walk in the Hollywood Hills—a different (and less steep) path than last year’s out-of-breath trek. Celeste acquitted herself admirably. I had to prod her into acting more tired than she was as she and Patrick posed in front of the mostly hidden “Hollywood” sign.

Naturally the fit older folks cruised up the hill without any problem at all.

I got to make another pilgrimage to the Bodhi Tree bookstore, a must-see for anyone who wants to browse the best collection of spiritual, mystical, new age, and religious books I’ve ever come across. Fittingly, the next block down is lined with marvelous trees.

Our last stop before heading to the airport yesterday afternoon was the Paul Smith store on Melrose Avenue. Patrick is the manager. It’s tres hip. And colorful.

Flying into nearby Burbank as we did, I was worried that we’d miss the classic LA experience: a freeway traffic jam. Fortunately, the drive to Santa Monica was just slow enough to fulfill me, without being a full-blown nightmare.

Leaving aside the freeways, there’s a lot for organic Oregonians such as us to like about the Hollywood area. We ate great. The 101 Coffee Shop looks exactly like its name. But the food, while coffee shop priced, is way above typical. Health-minded vegetarians can thrive there.

As they can at the macrobiotic M Café. The menu is typical of what we found whenever we sat down to eat at one of the restaurants Celeste and Patrick took us to (they’re a true Hollywood couple; they mostly eat out rather than cook).

Salem, get with it. I don’t expect to sit down with Kirsten Dunst every time I eat lunch. But it sure would be nice to have food like this to choose from. (Yeah, I know, Eugeneians and Portlandians; I should move an hour north or south).

21. Madras Tempeh Wrap 10.25 masala-baked tempeh, brown basmati rice, toasted almonds, raisins, frizzled onions & crisp vegetables with curried soy yogurt dressing in a whole wheat lavosh

Simple pleasures on the Metolius

This is the title of an article in the August 2006 issue of Sunset magazine. Read it. If you’ve never been to central Oregon’s Metolius River, it’ll make you want to go. If you’re there already, like we are, it’ll help explain the smile on your face.

Not that smiles need explanation. And not that every moment on the Metolius is pleasurable.

Take, for example, simply standing in the 48 degree water. The air was 90 degrees when Laurel did that this afternoon, on a hike downriver from the Wizard Falls fish hatchery. Yet a few seconds after I took this photo, she wasn’t standing there anymore.

Serena enjoys the water a lot more. Might have something to do with being half-Lab. And being covered with fur.

You can fly fish from the banks. Most fisherpeople don’t. They wade right in. Not knowing much about fly fishing, I don’t know why. It’s sort of a mystery to me why people catch fish just to let them go. It’s not a mystery why they come to the Metolius.

A solitary discarded shoe. It could tell a story, I’m sure. But probably not a very interesting one.

Clear calm cold water. If I were a trout, I’d love this place. Which they do, I’m told.

On both sides of the river there’s a stretch of private property that the trail skirts, going up and away from the water. Some basic shelters face a meadow. Like the article says, simple pleasures.

On the “up and away” part of the hike we came to a tree threesome: one dead, two alive. I pictured one of the standing trees saying to the other, “Honey, for some reason I don’t feel as close to you anymore.”

I prefer to walk along the river. But there’s a forest charm to the detour around the private land.

The Metolius, meandering.

Here’s how a true Stoic stands in the Metolius. However, following in Laurel’s frigid footsteps, I have to admit that it wasn’t for long.

Metolius 4th of July

So here we are at our cabin on fireworks-free Metolius national forest land, carefully scheduling our visit so our loud-noise-phobic dog will escape the trauma of hearing booms and pops, and the early evening thunder has been enormous the past few days.

Serena has spent a lot of time trembling inside closets, defying her name.

There’s some profound philosophical message in this, but the 4th of July isn’t the time for deep thoughts. We spent most of the day walking around, enjoying the special character of this holiday on the Metolius River.

Some cabins are decorated patriotically.

There were low-key parties under the Ponderosas.

The parade down (and up) the river was something to quack about.

This float was pretty cool.

I saw an eagle and its young in these natural sculptures. Don't you?

This isn’t dog abuse. Laurel was trying to get Serena's ears raised, because she always pins them back when a photo is taken.

We sure didn’t have to deal with any crowds today.

Oh yeah, you can do some serious relaxing here.

You want purple and mountain majesties? The upper Metolius has it. USA! USA!

Spring on the Metolius

Yes, it’s one day away from being summer. But spring is in full bloom on the Metolius River in central Oregon, since warm weather arrives later in these parts. Here are some photos I took on a late afternoon walk along the Metolius’ upper stretches today.

For some reason I never get bored walking the dog while we’re in Camp Sherman.

Here’s a natural bridge over untroubled waters.

The wild roses look just like those at our Salem home, though in bloom much later.

Lounging on the Metolius, TV not needed.

Abstract wood sculpture. Artist: Nature.

Water pump and the only camper in the Riverside (walk-in) campground.

Wild flower.

Changing locale seven miles or so, and the day to yesterday, here’s me, Laurel, and our fellow Black Butte Ranch stables trail rider at Glaze Meadow with the Three Sisters watching over us. Laurel is a better rider than I am, but somehow my horse ended up in a better pose.

I’ve forgotten the other woman’s name. I remember she’s from Oakland, because that’s emblazoned on her t-shirt. She and I brought up the rear of our four horse posse (including the trail guide).

We had a great philosophical/metaphysical discussion for a good part of the two hour ride. This is the first time someone quoted Epictetus to me while on a horse. Well, also while not on a horse.

Congratulations to the Napili Bay sidestroke champion

Namely, me. One reason you don’t see a sidestroke trophy in this photo is that the fools in charge of swimming championships don’t consider the sidestroke to be a competitive stroke.

Another reason is that no one except me entered the sidestroke event that I’ve been taking part in the past nine days on Napili Bay here on Maui, perhaps because my mind is the only place it’s been publicized.

Regardless, I love the sidestroke. It’s a contact lens wearer’s dream because your face stays out of the water all of the time. And you can enjoy the scenery while you swim, rather than staring mostly at water.

Every day I swim thirty minutes back and forth across the bay. I’ve been doing this every time we’ve visited Maui, which is at least fifteen times. I don’t understand why the sidestroke hasn’t caught on more, given all the exposure it’s gotten from me.

I’m a picture of elegance, in my own mind at least. I always face toward the open sea, ready to deal with a tsunami or great white (more realistically, a snorkeler who isn’t looking where he’s going).

I’ve evolved a sidestroke medley routine: 20 sidestrokes, then 10 highly modified backstrokes (my hands don’t come out of the water and I use a frog kick). Repeated for the 30 minutes, through flat water and wavy water, calm winds and high winds. My sidestroke gets me anyway I want to go, so long as it is back and forth across Napili Bay.

So I can’t figure out why my beloved sidestroke gets pitifully little respect. This brief article is typical. It snidely says:

Why would anyone give serious attention to the sidestroke? It’s neither powerful nor particularly graceful (or fast). Sidestroke is not a competitive stroke so it's not useful for racing. Some may see it as a remnant of an earlier age of swimming, a kind of evolutionary anomaly, an archaic remain of swimming strokes long surpassed on the evolutionary chain.

Obviously the author hasn’t seen me swimming the sidestroke. I am a blend of grace, power, and speed. I’ve never seen a dolphin during my sidestroking, undoubtedly because they lurk just offshore gazing with awe upon a member of another species who rivals, if not surpasses, their swimming ability.

Today a girl wearing fins was swimming various strokes across Napili Bay at the same time I was. For a few minutes we were close enough together for me to gauge our relative speeds. During her butterfly strokes I’m pretty sure I was staying ahead of her. Only when she switched to a crawl did she start to slowly move past me. With fins, remember.

So I believe I’m justified in claiming the sidestroke championship of Napili Bay. I will call my title the Beckwith, in honor of Fred Beckwith, who in 1859 became the swimming champion of England using the overarm sidestroke.

Ah, those were the days.

Meaningless Maui musings

Hey, what do you expect from me after eight days on Maui? The big questions of life have been reduced to meaningless musings.

Can a woman match too perfectly? What you can’t see in this photo is the palm tree on Laurel’s cap that mirrors the palm tree on her t-shirt. And note how the innermost color of the shirt’s tree precisely echoes the color of her shorts. Muy matcho, senorita!

Isn’t “guys” a masculine term? Restaurant staff always say to us, “Hi, guys. How’re you doing? I’ll be your server today.” What if they said “Hi, gals” to Laurel and me? I’d be sort of offended. Why isn’t Laurel? Oh, almost forgot. Men rule the world. That’s why people are called “mankind.”

Along these lines, what non-genius thought up the “Old Guys Rule!” product line? Caps and t-shirts with this unappealing message are everywhere on Maui. I rush past the displays, looking the other way. Don’t want anyone to think that I consider myself such a beast. Haven’t seen a single person wearing this crap. Probably never will.

Generously-sized people in skimpy bathing suits glorifying the body God and McDonalds gave them, good or bad? Jury is still out on this question. More research to be conducted on the beach in a few minutes. Tentative answer: depends on number of rolls of body fat.

Since Buddha-nature made beards, why is there also snorkeling? The two are incompatible. Trust me, I know. I use goggles and a nose clip now instead of a mask. With my narrow face, water still leaks in. Here’s my inner snorkeling dialogue: “Where are the damn fish…shit, water in my goggles…hell, water in my snorkel…no fish anywhere…this sucks… should have stayed on my mat… shit, more water in…”

When Einstein said that time passes at varying rates for different observers, was he speaking of women and men shopping? I see an Aloha shirt. I look at the size: XL. I buy it. Total elapsed time: 90 seconds. Laurel shops for dichroic glass earrings. Time stands still. A few days ago I asked the saleslady if she had a cot and a blankie so I could take a nap while I was waiting for my wife to make up her mind. She didn’t. I slept standing up.

Why do visitors to Maui wear plain white t-shirts, just like they do at home? Guys, check out the bargain bins at the Front Street tourist emporiums. $4.99 for a colorful t-shirt. Sometimes $3.99. Spend a few bucks and brighten up the beach. Just remember to match.

What weird trick of the mind leads a 57 year old man to spend a full hour staring out to sea, trying to remember the name of the third Wonder Pet? I came up with Tuck and Ming-Ming just fine. Linny escaped me. Considered running up to one of the many preschoolers on the beach and asking, but I was determined to come up with the name myself. Finally did. Around dinnertime.

Another productive Maui day.

Strolling to the Ritz, Maui style

We just strolled to the Ritz. The Kapalua Ritz-Carlton on Maui. As you might expect, it’s, well, ritzy. Laurel heads up the Ritz-Carlton way on her usual morning walk. She had to miss today, so I went with her on an afternoon substitute outing.

We began at our Napili Bay condo. This is where I do my own exercising. Thirty minutes back and forth across the bay every day. Laurel’s a walker. When on Maui, I figure ocean swimming is the thing.

Laurel usually drives the short distance to Oneloa Bay. We did this afternoon also. Molokai is in the background.

It’s a surfer beach. Most of them were gone by the time we arrived. Got to follow a lithe bikini-clad female surfer up the path to the parking lot though. Good timing. Sorry, don’t have a photo.

Next stop, a hole on one of the Kapalua golf courses. Beautiful. Too bad I play such ugly golf. I’ve heard that the wind is so strong on the courses, sometimes the ball blows right back at you. Could be. Or maybe I was being kidded. Regardless, this is one windy side of the island.

Doesn’t stop people from staying at the Ritz-Carlton though. Maybe it’s the view that entices them.

We headed down the hotel’s pathway to the ocean. Per usual, Laurel was way ahead of me. Her “shopper’s walk” is much faster than mine. She’s put in a lot of training.

Maui guidebooks say that Fleming Beach Park is where you take your BBQ grill when you want it sandblasted. From previous visits I can believe it. Wasn’t horribly windy today, however. It’s a pretty nondescript beach. Decent boogie boarding but not that inviting.

The Ritz-Carlton main entrance is.

The grounds are full of flowers. Like this red don’t-know-the-name.

From the Ritz we headed up the hill to the Honolua Store. It’s got that old time Hawaii feel to it.

On the outside, at least. Inside, Laurel avidly browsed through a pile of t-shirts that, for the life of me, looked almost exactly like the one she had on. Female shopping has its own logic to it, I’ve learned.

These, Laurel tells me, are Norfolk pines. If they’re not, blame her. They’re the Napili trademark. I believe they were planted by sailors in the 1800s who needed straight wood for masts and such. Kind of incongruous for Hawaii, but reminded me of Oregon.

And that was our stroll. Got back to the car too late to finish up with a sunset photo. You can interpolate one from my previous post.

Lastly, if you’re the praying sort, pray for bigger waves on Napili Bay. My boogie board is gathering dust. Or rather, sand.

From maddening to Maui in eight hours

Aren’t vacations fun? You spend a week running around like crazy, getting ready to spend a week relaxing. Then when you get home, you spend another frantic week catching up on everything that didn’t get done while you were on vacation.

Sometimes vacations seem like a net relaxation loss to Laurel and me. But that doesn’t stop us from meandering off to Maui most every year. As we did yesterday.

After a semi-sleepless night spent worrying about what we’d forgotten to pack, we headed up to the Portland airport at the not so jolly time of 6:45 am. With terrific timing, this got us to I-205 just when everybody in the metro area was driving off to work. We got to follow them for quite a few dreadfully maddening snails-pace freeway miles.

How do you stand it, Portlanders? If you do this every day, why aren’t you as crazy as Los Angeles commuters? Judging by the behavior of our fellow I-205ers, you probably are. Nonetheless, we made it to the Hawaiian Airlines ticket counter with time to spare. Which I promptly spent at my traditional first vacation stop, the airport Powell’s Books.

Then, on to Maui. After waiting an eternity for a National Car Rental pickup, I found Laurel and our bags waiting at curbside. Already missing our dog, she was thrilled that a drug-sniffing Beagle had given our checked luggage some close attention as it came off the carousel. For some reason she said that the dog seemed most interested in my boogie board.

Sorry, my canine friend, you were about thirty-seven years too late.

After making our obligatory stop at the Kahului natural food store to stock up on organic vegetarian supplies for our Napili Shores condo and enrich the local economy with legal green stuff, for the second time in a day we got to spend a lot of time staring at the rear bumper of cars slowly creeping along the highway.

Except now the highway bordered the warm Pacific, rather than southeast Portland. Big difference. Still, when you’ve just sat on an airplane for almost six hours, it isn’t much fun to crawl bumper to bumper into Lahaina.

How do you stand it, West Maui locals? Don’t you sometimes feel like kicking every tourist off of your island so you could drive faster than 20 mph? I did yesterday, conveniently forgetting that I was one of the potential kickees.

Once we set foot on the beach, however, all of the day’s maddening moments were forgotten. Here'e Laurel enjoying the powerful amnesiac effects of yesterday’s Maui sunset.

Today’s wasn't too shabby either.

It isn’t 100% paradise here, though. This afternoon I went to Napili Beach by myself while Laurel was shopping. I settled down on my mat for some reading, swimming, and people watching.

The people watching, a.k.a. (for me) babe watching, isn’t so hot on Napili Bay this time of year. Mostly out of shape family types and older folks. So when I saw a youngish guy and his shapely thong-clad girlfriend walking toward my end of the beach I channeled all of my psychic energies into a silent plea of “Sit down…here.”

And they did! Just ten feet or so to my left. There is a God. Albeit one with a sense of humor. For the guy laid down to the right of the girl.

Which meant that between me and the girl’s eminently attractive bikini-clad breasts was the guy’s head. And when they rolled over, between me and the girl’s eminently attractive thong-clad butt was the guy’s own unappealing rear end.

Trouble in paradise. I had to keep subtly shifting around quite a bit to improve my babe-watching angles, burning up calories that I had planned to spend bobbing around on my boogie board.

Well, you probably aren’t feeling sorry for me. But you should. It’s tough beaching it on Maui. Tomorrow I’ll be back hard at work on my mat. Say a “more thongs” prayer for me.

April beauty on the Metolius

Here are some images taken during our long late April weekend in Camp Sherman.

Every morning I ride my bike a mile to the Camp Sherman store to buy the Bend Bulletin. It costs me thirty-five cents. The view of Mt. Jefferson over the Metolius is priceless.

I pass this horse corral on one of my late afternoon dog walk routes. Black Butte is framed in the distance. I think this is called Johnson Meadow. It borders the head of the Metolius River, which springs full gush from volcanic fissures.

The dog and I walk back to our cabin along the river. I don’t fish, but I love the rustic fishing platforms along the Metolius. Kind of makes you want to walk the plank, except once you do, you’re in the coldest damn water you’ve ever felt.

Several miles downriver there's a cluster of non-functioning water wheels. In the old days of Camp Sherman they made electricity, or so I believe. I talked once with the owner of a water wheel equipped cabin but have forgotten most of what he told me.

Some of the cabins on leased forest service land are wonderfully charming, like this one. Ours is of the blander variety. And we don’t have a view of the river. Like I said before, poor us.

Here’s our stick happy dog, Serena, and Laurel on our downriver walk today. Black Butte rises in the background.

A close up of Black Butte from the same location. There’s still a lot of snow on top. Laurel just read me a story about how before the road was built more than halfway to the summit, the people who manned the fire lookout on the top of Black Butte regularly would walk the ten miles round trip from the lookout to the Camp Sherman store (3,400 foot elevation gain), sometimes returning after midnight. One guy made the return trip in a shade over 48 minutes. Wow!

I never get tired of watching the sun dance on the Metolius near the Camp Sherman store. This is one of the most beautiful rivers in the United States. Heck, even more: the world.

Yesterday on a trip into Sisters, about ten miles away, I was struck by how much new construction is going on. Given the view from town, I can understand why. These are two of the Three Sisters rising over Sisters.

Head of Jack Creek survives fire

The Head of Jack Creek near Camp Sherman is one of the prettiest places in central Oregon. Heck, anywhere. So even though we’d heard that the spring-fed source of Jack Creek had survived the B & B Complex fire, it was worrisome to see so many burned trees as we walked up from a nearby campground.

But when we got to the charming bridge that leads to the Head area, everything looked great.

These berries looked good enough to eat. We resisted the temptation, not knowing what they were.

There’s fire damage around the Head of Jack Creek and a few downed trees disturb previously pristine waters.

The good news is that the Head of Jack Creek is essentially undamaged and continues to lift the spirit. I had thought about writing a political sort of post today, yet that notion evaporated after our walk this afternoon.

The Head of Jack Creek is one of those places that make you realize that notwithstanding hurricanes, wars, global warming, deficit spending, and all the other bad stuff that grabs our attention, there’s another level of reality where everything always has been, and always will be, just fine.

Every time I go there I start to think, “This is like a Japanese garden.” Then I remind myself, “No, a Japanese garden is like this.” Man can try to copy nature, but there’s nothing like the original.

Silver Falls State Park, rediscovered

Here we are, living in Salem, just 40 minutes or so away from Silver Falls State Park, and it took relatives visiting from Indiana to get our butts up there. Thanks, Jerry and Dee, who are shown here in front of the South Falls along with Laurel (who is Dee’s sister).

This photo fulfills a promise to Jerry, who is making a career move after a lengthy stint as Indiana State Parks director.

Jerry told me that he had Googled himself to find out what a prospective employer would learn about him, and my “Images of Indiana” post, which included a dramatic photo of Jerry being strangled by a kudzu vine, popped up. So I assured Jerry that I’d balance that image of him with another more professional-appearing photo.

It was interesting to walk the Silver Falls trails with Jerry and hear him comment on what he saw from a park director’s viewpoint.

Mostly he had lots of good to say about Silver Falls State Park. But Jerry said that he wouldn’t have put in the metal pipe guardrail that shows in the photo above (wood would look better, though isn’t as long-lasting or sturdy). And this sign next to a parking area struck him (and me) as overly controlling and busy.

But these little things mean nothing compared to the great natural beauty of the park and the generally excellent facilities. We hadn’t been there for so long, I’d forgotten what a enjoyable hike the shorter loop from South Falls to Winter Falls is (about five miles).

The South Falls weren’t falling a lot, given the time of year and Oregon’s semi-drought. The view from behind the falls was still beautiful though.

Here’s the Lower South Falls.

And the Lower North Falls.

As if all this wasn’t enough reason to visit Silver Falls State Park, the snack bar in the lodge serves a fine cup of hot chocolate. I’d also forgotten the joy of hot chocolate after a five mile hike--had quite a few memories refreshed yesterday.

Golf’s essential insanity

Outwardly golfers can appear completely normal, but the very fact that they golf testifies to their underlying bizarreness. As evidence I submit this photo of Ron Morey (along with his wife, Rita) looking pleasantly normal enough during a bike ride at Black Butte Ranch last Tuesday.

Indeed, Ron is a wonderful guy. Laurel and I enjoyed the four days we just spent with Ron and Rita at our cabin in Camp Sherman. But this doesn’t negate the fact that Ron is an avid golfer, which means, ipso facto, that his mind works in mysterious ways, fully fathomable only to another member of his cult.

For example, during a phone conversation while he was still in Seattle he said that I should go golfing with him at one of the Black Butte Ranch courses. Ron knew that I hadn’t played golf for over ten years, leaving aside the whiffle balls that he and I hit at my home here in Salem a while back.

Yet somehow he thinks that it’s a fine idea for me to jump right onto a pretty tough golf course. I need to say that “tough,” to me, is defined much more in psychological than physical terms. That is, a tough course is any course where a considerable number of people would see me flailing away at the ball.

I knew that (1) Black Butte Ranch is a popular summer destination spot, (2) Many homes at the resort are situated next to the golf courses and, even worse, have large picture windows, and (3) Bike trails run adjacent to, or even through, the courses, thereby adding to the potential population that would be viewing my humiliation.

Nonetheless, Ron told me, “You just need to go out and hit some balls at the driving range. Then you’ll be fine when we play.” After more than ten years of not playing golf? It’s insane to think that I’d be “fine” after hitting a few buckets of balls.

This psychiatric conclusion was confirmed after I did indeed hit a bucket of balls at the South Salem driving range. I couldn’t believe that Ron had convinced me to go there, but I myself am open to golfing fantasies, having played this crazy game quite a bit in my high school days and episodically thereafter.

So with a decided sense of unreality I found myself at the driving range last week, teeing up a ball with 5-iron in hand. I took a few ungainly practice swings. I had no expectation that I could hit the ball with any semblance of golfing prowess. I stepped up to the tee, made my first swing, and “whack!”…the ball sails straight and far a mile down the range.

Hmmmm. “Beginner’s luck,” I said to myself. I teed up another ball. Whack! Again, straight and far another mile.

“Man, I’m a natural! I haven’t hit a golf ball for a decade and look at me! This game is easy! What’s the big deal with golf?! Bring it on!” With those delusional thoughts, my descent into driving range hell began.

My initial what-the-heck looseness changed into an I-can-do-even-better tightness. The more I tried to replicate those first few natural swings, the more my balls either dribbled down the grass or soared like slicing/hooking unmajestic eagles.

Needless to say, I ended up telling Ron to put himself down as a Big Meadow course single, not a twosome. I’m up with Buddhism and am fine with the ego-loss thing, but I’d rather have it happen gradually rather than all at once during a brief 18 holes.

Well, it wouldn’t have been all that brief, actually. That’s another crazy thing about golf. Ron had a 9:00 am tee time. He finished about 3:00. It took him six hours to hit a stupid ball just 88 times. That’s standing still and swinging your arms every four minutes, not exactly pushing your body to the limit.

But it was more than I was willing to do, so I was happy to hear Ron recount his golfing exploits. Most notably, a birdie on a 432 yard par 4 that resulted from a 195 yard 3-wood shot that landed two feet from the hole. (I heard about the shot so many times, I’ve committed the details to memory).

Ron felt bad that I hadn’t enjoyed a golfing experience, so he talked me into having one of my own. For some reason I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as he did. Guess I just felt teed off.

Our canine companion, Serena, had a good time making friends with his own “Big Dog” pal though.

And this morning I enjoyed getting back at Ron by razzing him for bundling up with a blanket and vest on August 18, for god’s sake, when it was already a balmy 64 degrees in Camp Sherman and heading for the 80’s. Ron obliged with his best dottering old man in the nursing home imitation.

Ron, amazingly generous guy that he is, gave me a golf ball emblazoned with the particulars of his consulting business, Profound Results. Now that I’ve advertised him on my blog, he probably will try to write off his entire trip to Oregon.

Hopefully the IRS doesn’t read weblogs. But after a previous visit to Black Butte Ranch, I learned that police do read weblogs.

Camp Sherman Independence Day parade

My vote for the nation’s most charming Independence Day parade goes to Camp Sherman’s 2005 bike trail event. This small central Oregon town is full of zany characters and beautiful scenery, both of which were on full display yesterday.

Laurel and I were riding our bicycles back to our cabin after attending the annual meeting of the Metolius River Forest Homeowners Association. Near the Lake Creek Lodge we encountered some paraders heading to the Community Hall that we had just left. They yelled, “Come join us!” We did, not wanting to pass up a parade.

When we got to the Hall this woman stressed that the parade was completely spontaneous, notwithstanding the evident care with which many of the participants had festooned themselves and their bicycles. She explained that plans for an official street parade had fallen through because of bureaucratic nit-picking, such as requiring a permit and what-not, so the Camp Shermanites decided to plan an unplanned parade on the bike trail.

Lo and behold, lots of people just happened to show up at the same time on July 2—red, white, and blued—kazoos in hand, ready to “sing” (using that term in its most generous sense) “You’re a Grand Old Flag” at the parade staging area. An award for creativity goes to this woman’s use of blue Superman trunks as part of her patriotic outfit.

This man is ready to roll: Stars and stripes headband, check. Kids corralled in wagon, check. Beer in hand, check.

His children looked to be the parade’s king and queen. I liked how even their snack bag matched the color theme.

With a certain lack of discipline befitting the spontaneous, unplanned nature of the parade (a feature of the event that the unorganized organizers kept speaking loudly about, apparently in case a county official was lurking in the woods), we headed out—the only stated rule being “Keep on the bike trail, not the road.”

Not surprisingly, the paraders vastly outnumbered the onlookers. Like, several dozen to two. But these walkers obviously appreciated the surprise of encountering an Independence Day parade on the Camp Sherman bike trail.

If any one needed proof that the parade was unplanned, they only needed to observe the smiling confusion that resulted from the parade leaders heading onto a narrow single-track trail that even Laurel and I, Camp Sherman part-timers that we are, knew couldn’t be traversed by wagon-hauling bicycles. Quickly recognizing this, the free-floating parade managed to turn around and get back on the wider main bike path.

Reaching the Camp Sherman store, Laurel watched the paraders disband. Not knowing about the parade beforehand (it was spontaneous, remember), we were woefully underdressed for the red, white, and blue occasion. Next year we’ll be prepared.

Though the parade was unplanned, somehow it managed to reach the store shortly before 5:00 pm, just when the Camp Sherman Independence Day barbeque and music festivities were scheduled to begin. Since the menu didn’t feature much in the way of vegetarian food, we rode back to our cabin, had some snacks, and then walked back to the store with the family pet about an hour and a half later.

Serena made some new friends. And, no, she isn’t snarling in this photo. Serene Serena doesn’t snarl. She smiles with her teeth.

Our Camp Sherman day ended with us listening to country music and watching some young dancers in the light.

May every day be a Camp Sherman day for you, wherever you live, filled with a sense of community, quirkiness, and conviviality.

Happy Fourth of July. Be Independent.

Trail rides turn tame

It’s Laurel’s birthday today. She’s not too old to go on a Black Butte Stables trail ride with her cowboy, and that’s all I’ll say about her age.

Except, Laurel looks a lot younger than her XX years. Also, those XX years haven’t brought her hugely proficient arithmetic skills, because up until a few weeks ago she thought that today she was going to be XX + 1. When I pointed out her math error, Laurel was greatly relieved. “All year I thought I was going to be XX + 1,” she said. “Wow! You’ve taken a year off of my life—but in a good way.”

I’m happy that I could give her the gift of a year-younger birthday. Otherwise, Laurel’s main material gift was something she picked out herself: the afore-blogged wolf painting. The trail ride counts as a day-before-birthday present, sort of. By “sort of,” I mean that the birthday cowgirl was in sort of a fussy mood when the photo above was taken.

Our trail guide, Rachel, a.k.a. “Iceman,” (we were told that the guides have given each other Top Gun-inspired nicknames) was nice enough to take the photo. And she kept up a smooth conversation with me and the two girls who rode the first two horses in our group. Laurel brought up the rear and was distantly involved in the conversing. But that wasn’t the reason she was fussy, notwithstanding the central Oregon dust kicked up by four preceding horses that left her in a cloud much of the way.

No, Laurel was fuming because of the increasingly tame “Hole in the Wall Gang” two-hour trail ride we had paid our $55 each for. We are longtime Black Butte Stables customers. We’ve gone out on this ride many times. So many times, that for a few years the Stables was letting us go out on our own without a guide. Ah, the good old days.

That was before Black Butte Stables was bought by an attorney. Now, there’s nothing inherently bad about attorneys. Nothing, that is, which couldn’t be fixed by erasing all memory of law school from their minds and taking away their licenses. For attorneys necessarily have legal minds. And legal minds worry about lawsuits. Combine this attribute with ownership of a stable and you have the recipe for a boring trail ride.

Many years ago we used to be able to gallop on this Hole in the Wall Gang ride. Some years ago we used to enjoy extended canters. A few years ago the policy changed to short canters. Then, extended trots. And now, short trots. Whoopee. What a wild gang the five of us were yesterday. Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk (add about a dozen more “walks” for the proper walk/trot balance). Brief trot. Walk, walk, walk, walk…Well, you get the picture.

When we got back to our cabin we legalistically parsed the current description of the Hole in the Wall Gang ride on the Black Butte Stables brochure. “An exciting and challenging ride.” Your honor, a false and misleading statement! The ride was neither exciting nor challenging. “Riders…must have intermediate to advanced horsemanship skills.” No, your honor. If you could sit on a rocking horse, you’re qualified to go on this ride.

Lest I sound unduly critical of Black Butte Stables, I need to stress that we like the staff there; we like their horses; and we especially like the scenic trails surrounding the Black Butte development. And we understand the need for caution in these litigious times. Reportedly the Stables’ liability policy has some sort of “trot-only” clause in it.

That said, after our canterless and barely-trotted ride Laurel and I talked about the sorry state of affairs this country has gotten itself into when a fear of lawsuits leads to pony rides being eliminated by Black Butte Stables. Pony rides! Laurel fondly remembers how much she loved pony rides when she was a little girl, and how they were the first step to her loving horse rides as a big girl.

When virtually all risk is taken out of riding, it really isn’t riding. Especially when those paying their $55 for a two-hour ride are experienced riders who could be safely galloping rather than briefly trotting. Life isn’t risk-free, nor should it be. When lawyers and insurance companies took the fun out of an “advanced” trail ride, that’s when Laurel and I became convinced the legal liability system needs major reform.

Before, liability reform was pretty much an abstraction for us. Walking our horses on a two-hour trail ride for about 119 minutes brought the issue close to hand (and hoof).

The way things are going, next year the Hole in the Wall Gang ride will be entirely walking. The year after that, each horse will be accompanied by two stable staffers with air mattresses in hand, ready to break a fall if a rider falls asleep from boredom.

We’re looking for other riding options in the Camp Sherman/Sisters area. If anyone would like to look into the possibility of sharing the cost of owning and boarding a couple of horses in this area, send me an email. We only want to ride a week or less a month in central Oregon. If we could share ownership of some horses boarded near BLM/National Forest land with one or more other families, we’d be happy riders.

Belly-dancing and fast food in Sisters

In the course of meandering along the Sisters Art Stroll this afternoon we encountered belly dancers entertaining passers-by—most of whom stopped passing, as did we, to watch this contrarian bit of cowboy town culture.

Sisters is special. It’s sort of central Oregon’s Cannon Beach—a town with character, wise business signage and design rules, and artistic flair—while Bend is growing uncomfortably akin to Lincoln City, a minimally planned sprawl of malls, dense slow-moving traffic, and garish fast-food restaurants.

Picking up a copy of Sister’s weekly newspaper, The Nugget, we saw that the city council voted 3-2 to reject a proposed ordinance that would have limited “formula food” to the four existing operations (McDonalds, Subway, Figaro’s Pizza, and Bad Ass Coffee Company).

That’s too bad. Apparently lots of local citizens wanted additional chain fast-food outlets to stay out of quaint, quirky Sisters, while lots of the business and real estate community wanted to allow them. As so often happens, quantity of dollars won out over quality of life. Pro-formula food councilors said they were afraid of being slapped with a Measure 37 claim, though I suspect this wasn’t their main motivation for voting “no.”

Growth always is good in some people’s minds, even if they live in Sisters because they like its old-fashioned small town atmosphere. They seem to think that the character of Sisters won’t change with rapid growth. But one of the proponents of the Formula Restaurants Ordinance, Elayne Clark, wrote a letter to the Nugget editor that warned of what happened to Van Nuys, California in just a few years: “A veritable sea of fast foods restaurants, all neon lighted. It was heartbreaking to me.”

I’d be heartbroken myself if Sisters turns into another copycat corporate America town. Today we bought some art at the Soda Creek Gallery, a charming family-run business where last month Laurel had spotted a painting of two wolves peering through birch trees. Since her birthday is coming up in a few days, I figured that this would be a nice present—especially since I wouldn’t have to go to any trouble to pick it out.

Our art tastes aren’t sophisticated. Hanging in the bedroom of our co-owned Camp Sherman cabin is the last piece of art that we bought in Sisters, this “Good Morning!” print. We like the animals stretching.

We had a tough time deciding whether we should buy a canvas or print replication of the wolf painting. The gallery owners patiently answered our questions and then, after I had made an executive, man of the house, its-your-birthday-so-don’t-worry-about-the-price decision to go with canvas, worked with us on choosing a frame and whatever it is you call the stuff that goes between the canvas and the frame (since we had never bought anything other than a print, we were in new territory with this art purchase).

Finally the framing choice was decided upon. I got out my VISA card to pay for the wolf canvas. My name and address was written down in a notebook. Nothing else. “My husband, who does the framing, will remember what sort of frame you want,” we were told by his wife. “I’ll make sure he does.” I trusted her.

Walking back to our car I realized that we didn’t have a receipt for our purchase other than the VISA slip. We didn’t have any record of what piece of art we had bought or what sort of frame was going to be put on it. “Do you think we should go back and get a receipt?” Laurel asked. “No, I said. “This is Sisters. Deals get done with a handshake here.”

It takes longer to shop in Sisters than other places. While we were talking to the gallery owners, friends of theirs kept walking in the door who needed to be greeted with a hug. They’d say, “Sorry for the interruption.” I’d think, “Don’t be sorry for feeling that making human contact is more important than making a quick business deal.”

Don’t change, Sisters. If formula fast-food and other corporate chains are going to keep coming to town, you need to change those businesses to match your small-town character; don’t let them change you.

Getting the newspaper in Camp Sherman

I’ve taken over getting the morning newspaper when we’re at our cabin in Camp Sherman. This used to be Laurel’s responsibility. She'd drive to the store before going for a walk with Serena, our dog.

But with my new Taoist sensibilities, I figure it’s more real for me to be riding my bike in the cool central Oregon air than sitting on my butt at the kitchen table, waiting for the newspaper to appear, drinking coffee and reading, in a Tao Te Ching book, about the benefits of living more naturally.

It’s a whole two miles to the Camp Sherman store and back. I don’t have to fight the traffic though.

And the roadside signs aren’t too bothersome.

Halfway down the road Mt. Jefferson pops into view. Jeff says to me, "Good morning, Brian. Wouldn't have seen you if you were sitting at the kitchen table."

Then I arrive at the Camp Sherman city center. Today this old car passed me on the road and got to the store just before me. It fit perfectly with the store’s (non-functional) gas pumps. Sorry for the generic term, “old car,” but that’s the best I can do.

While I was taking the photo I was impressed to hear a guy yelling at the driver, “Hey, isn’t that a ’28 or a ’29?” I think the owner replied, “No, it’s a ’30.” Given the evident level of macho car expertise in the Camp Sherman store parking lot, I was reluctant to ask the much more basic question: “Hey, what kind of car is that?”

I love the alphabetically-organized customer account pads behind the counter. They remind me of the Three Rivers Market, the one and only store in Three Rivers, California when my mother and I moved there in 1955. Just like Camp Sherman, if you were a resident you put your purchases on account and paid at the beginning of the month, or when you could.

There’s only a few hundred year-round residents in Camp Sherman. Reminiscing with the store clerk today, I told her that the town where I grew up was similar in that there were lots of tourists around in the summer, but just locals later on.

“If an unfamiliar person walked into the store during the winter,” I said, “the locals would talk about them after they left: ‘Do you know who that was?’”

The clerk told me, “We’re just the same here. Except we flat-out ask them, ‘Who are you?”

In a world where everything seems to be changing, it’s nice to know that small towns aren’t. Stay the same, Camp Sherman. I love you as you are.

Poor us

Yesterday Laurel and I felt sorry for ourselves. You probably won’t feel sorry for us. But then, you’re not us. If you were us, pretty obviously you’d feel like just us. And even though you’re you and we are ourselves, I bet you’ve engaged in some similar feeling-sorryness that appears ridiculous to anyone else but you.

Here’s the deal: wanting knows no bounds. I realize this philosophically. The Buddha clearly explained how desire leads to suffering, and I’ve read my share of Buddhist books. But it isn’t until I’m face to face with a concrete example of how my wanting expands to fit the space available to it (which seemingly is infinite) that I really grasp what a trap I’m in. Laurel too. All of us, except the few with Buddha nature.

This is the view from the deck of the Camp Sherman cabin that we just came back from. We share ownership of the cabin with three other families. It sits on leased national forest service land on the banks of the Metolius River.

In 1997 we were fortunate to learn about a ¼ share of the cabin being put up for sale. At the time a Coldwell Banker realtor in Sisters told us that in the seven years he had been with the firm only one forest service cabin had been listed publicly, and he had never seen a partial share made available. These Metolius River cabins generally are passed down from generation to generation in a family, treasured assets that they are.

Laurel and I love the cabin. We love Camp Sherman. We love the Metolius River. And yet, we feel sorry for ourselves because we don’t have a direct view of the river like lots of other cabins do.

Whenever we walk to the cabin at the very end of the Metolius River trail, nearest to the head of the Metolius (which issues full-blown from a large spring), we envy the view those owners have from their deck. “They’re so lucky to have a view of the river,” we say. “We just look at trees. Poor us.”

I know, I know. This sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But that’s how the human mind works: it always wants more, even when it has a lot.

Here’s a Calcutta street scene. I’m pretty sure most of the people who live in Calcutta wouldn't feel sorry for us if they knew that we have to look at just trees from inside the cabin rather than trees and the river. And yet, I’m willing to bet that if a Calcutta slum dweller were to be transplanted to our Camp Sherman cabin, within a few years he or she would be walking the river trail thinking just like us: “Oh, how nice it would be to have a better view.”

Well, I meditate every morning, as does Laurel. We await our enlightenments, the end of our never-ending wantings. For now, we make do with who we are.

I’ve taken to carrying a lounge chair the 100 feet or so from our cabin to the river, naturally feeling sorry for myself the whole way as I try to balance a chair and cushions in one hand, and a glass of juice, magazines, paperback book, and highlighter in the other. It’s a tough life.

I stagger with my load to the bank of the Metolius and settle in. Looking around, it’s a nice view. I can’t see it from our cabin—boo-hoo!—but they say that suffering is good for the soul.

I vow to endure, somehow, as I sip my cranberry juice and listen to the rushing water. Somewhere in Calcutta a street urchin is searching for food in a pile of trash. And I'm feeling sorry for myself.

Metolius River traffic and weather report

Reporting from the shores of the Metolius River in Camp Sherman, Oregon, just a few hundred yards from the head of the Metolius, and just a few hours late (hey, I’m on Camp Sherman time):

Nobody is on the trails.
Except two people and a dog.
One of whom (not the dog) says that walking traffic is flowing freely.
Just like the rain.
Cool 53 degrees rain.
And that’s your Metolius River traffic and weather report.
5:30 pm, May 1, 2005.

Final report from Maui

I’m almost packed for the flight home tomorrow. I have gone from clothing-deprived (see April 1 “How to get a man shopping” post) to Hawaiian Airlines bag overweight-likely. Laurel too. We’ve acquired a small, in retrospect, too small, extra bag to check into which we’ve crammed the heaviest items that otherwise would go in our suitcases.

The last time we flew home from Maui we not so brilliantly managed to pay overweight charges on both our suitcases, our excessively mellow minds not being able to fathom that if we simply took a few heavy things out of one suitcase and replaced them with a few light things from the other suitcase, we’d only have to pay a single $25 charge rather than two. Hopefully our planning is better this time.

I never expected to have to worry about taking too many clothes home when we left Salem. But my plan to spice up my shopping enthusiasm by purposely bringing just a few shirts, t-shirts, and shorts worked too well. This vacation has turned me into a semi-pro shopper, reserving the full “pro” designation for Laurel, naturally.

This afternoon I even found myself heading off down the road to Kahana on my own, eager to check out a few batik shirts that Laurel had espied earlier and thought I might like. Amazingly, she wanted to stay in our room, feed the birds, and watch the waves. I couldn’t believe that my shopping enthusiasm finally had out-stripped hers. Scary.

Even scarier, because the feeling was so unfamiliar, was how my mood changed soon after I entered Leslie’s Family Funwear. I felt energized, powerful, in charge of my life, joyful. In short, I had become a shopaholic. Temporarily, hopefully. Laurel often has described her own similar shopping feelings, but I never thought that my own endorphins ever would be stimulated into action by walking into a Leslie’s Family Funwear.

I still have some shopping skills to develop, though. T-shirt browsing is my weakest event, mostly due to my excessively compassionate Buddha-nature. I was having a great time looking for just one more extra-large Hawaiian-themed shirt to cram into my suitcase, unfolding with zeal the carefully folded shirts on display, doing my best to refold the rejects into a semblance of their previous pristinely neat appearance.

My best clearly wasn’t good enough, for after five or six T-shirt unfoldings and semi-refoldings I felt the eyes of the matronly Filipina proprietor looking critically upon my un-handiwork from the checkstand near the door. Indeed, I could tell myself that the extra-large row of T-shirts now appeared decidedly more in disarray.

She started to walk slowly in my direction. Shopping guilt overcame me. A shopping pro would have been able to control his emotions. Of course, a shopping pro would have known how to re-fold T-shirts back into their original shape. I wasn’t wildly attracted to any of the shirts I had looked at, but I grabbed one and walked briskly to the checkout counter with my other two batik shirts.

As I paid for my purchases I could see out of the corner of my eye the woman slowly, patiently, resignedly, refolding the T-shirts I had mangled. I felt deep compassion for her. I also thought to myself, “you’re a shopping wimp.” I need to get tougher if I aspire to making it to the pro shopping circuit. Also, I need folding lessons.

Some final photos:

Here’s Laurel outside the pacific’O restaurant where we enjoyed a “tower of tofu” meal last night. She looks matchingly wonderful, as usual.

And here’s our final Napili sunset. Rather cloudy, which has been the theme most of the past ten days here. But beautiful even with the trade wind induced showers.

Aloha.

More photos from Maui

Reporting from the shores of Napili Bay, I am pleased to announce that Laurel was whistled at during her morning walk around Kapalua and the Ritz Carlton. She humbly told me that she was whistled at from behind, but I assured her that, even at the age of 56, her front is well worth being whistled at also.

Here’s Laurel at dusk in front of the amazing waterfall at the Grand Wailea Hotel which, admittedly, would look a lot more amazing if the camera flash had reached it. We went to Kihei and Wailea yesterday and enjoyed walking around the grounds of the Grand Wailea, whose swimming pool is one of the wonders of the lodging world.

Tonight we return to our usual evening destination, Lahaina. There always are crowds waiting to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise, which features a vegi-burger. We’ll past it up though for our absolute favorite meal in Maui, the aptly named “The Vegetarian Dish” at the pacific’O restaurant in Lahaina: “Roast marinated steak of tofu with a crown of sautéed quinoa, red lentils, Maui onions and shitake mushrooms. Topped with mixed sprout salad and carrot ginger sauce.” Don’t pass it up, vegetarian Maui vacationers.

A few days ago we got to watch two simultaneous weddings at sunset on the left side of Napili Beach. The closer couple got a great deal from the man who married them. After conducting the ceremony he picked up a ukulele and sang a song while the newlyweds danced barefoot in the sand. Sweet. And simple. It was just the two of them, no guests.

I love to go out by the Napili Shores pool and watch the sunset along with fellow guests. The large waves breaking over the reef just offshore provide continuous entertainment while we wait for the main sunset attraction.

Today the waves and high tide were so large there was barely any dry sand on Napili Beach. I took this photo of Laurel on an earlier calmer day. Fortunately I parked my beach pack on a rock this morning while I enjoyed boogie boarding the high waves for almost two hours. Later, I optimistically thought that I could lie on my mat and my friends, the waves, wouldn’t touch me. When I had to run to save my board and fins from being washed out to sea, and wash off the sand that a giganto wave had just deposited on me and my mat, I thought otherwise.

Laurel usually obeys rules.

Maui brings out the rebel in her (but she doesn’t hang towels over the railing). The red-headed birds have her perfectly trained. All they have to do is chirp on the deck and Laurel races out to feed them. She misses her daily feeding of birds back in Salem, and also our dog, Serena, so I think these “pets” fulfill a couple of away-from-home longings.

Boogie boarding do’s and don’ts

For a haole (non-Hawaiian/Caucasian) visiting Maui, my boogie boarding style is not bad—particularly for a 56 year-old Oregon guy. So, before I wipe out and crush my skull on a reef rock, I want to share some of the boogie boarding wisdom I’ve accumulated over several decades of warm-water vacationing.

First and most important: look good before you set out for the beach. Who knows, the surf may be down and you’ll spend the whole day sitting on your beach mat. You want to look like a boogie boarder even if you’re not boogieing.

Here I’m modeling, from top to bottom, a Pacific Whale Foundation cap (to demonstrate my eco-ocean sensibilities), rimless Maui Jim sunglasses (spendy but tropical trendy), a Xcel nylon/spandex shirt (protects against the sun and boogie board burn), and Tommy Bahama swimming trunks (picked out for me yesterday by Laurel, my personal shopper extraordinaire).

Most of these are, of course, entirely personal fashion statement preferences. However, I heartily recommend a similar shirt for serious boogie boarders. If you’re wave playing for several hours, as I was today, the effectiveness of the sunscreen you put on will be sorely diminished, and sore likely will be just how your red back and shoulders will feel the next day.

Plus, paddling around on a boogie board and bouncing along on waves while you’re lying flat on your stomach can cause boogie board rash. I get this right under my rib cage if I’m not wearing a shirt. So seriously consider wearing a top of some sort (a T-shirt will do fine, but is clammier than a nylon/spandex shirt).

Second: use fins (and a boogie board, of course). If you’re really adept at reading waves, knowing exactly where you have to be to catch one, you might be able to successfully boogie board without fins. But most people, which definitely includes me, find it much easier to maneuver around with fins.

I use snorkeling fins with ankle fasteners. If you don’t attach snorkeling fins to your ankles, almost certainly they’re going to come off in heavy surf. It isn’t fun to search for a fin while waves are breaking over you and you’re yelling, “Has anyone seen my fin?” It’s well worth it to spend a few bucks on ankle fasteners for the fin peace of mind. Or, you can get official boogie boarding fins that strap tightly to your foot, but this is impractical for most tourists.

So, once you’re well dressed and properly equipped, you’re ready to boogie. I’m assuming that you want to go out to where the waves are breaking well off the beach. You can play with your boogie board, though, right on or close to the beach—as are these folks I took photos of today.

However, real boogie boarding takes place a ways offshore where the waves first break. Sit on the beach and watch the boarders who are already out there if you haven’t boogied a location before. If you’re wondering why nobody is catching some wonderful looking waves, there usually is a good reason. Like rocks. Sharp rocks. Reef rocks. Nasty rocks.

Water is the best thing about boogie boarding. Rocks are the worst thing. I know where most of the rocks are in Napili Bay. I’m always thinking about how to avoid them. Wind and waves have a sneaky way of moving you from a safe boarding spot to right in front of a reef. If you catch a wave, you might well go right over the rocks. Or, you might not. When I’m in doubt about whether I’m going to catch a rock after catching a wave, I let the wave go.

Different strokes for different boarders though. Some boogie boarders are major risk takers. Some like to play it absolutely safe. Do what feels right to you. This photo shows the usual boogie boarding order of things: a line up of boarders ranging from closer in to farther out from shore (note them avoiding the rocks on the left). Generally, you’ll get more waves if you’re a bit closer in, because there are more smaller waves than larger waves, and larger waves break further out.

Larger waves usually are more fun. They’re also scarier, if you’re new to boogie boarding. In my opinion, the main thing to remember about waves is that water rarely hurts you. It’s rocks that hurt you. So if you’re thrashed around by a wave like clothes in the spin cycle of a washing machine, no big deal. You’ll pop up just fine, no worse for wear. It’s being thrashed around underwater when rocks are also underwater that hurts like hell. Again, stay away from rocks.

Try to catch a wave just as it’s breaking. Follow the line of white foam. Become the foam. Merge with the breaking wave.

If a large wave has already broken and you’re in front of it, you have two choices: go with it or go under it. Going under it is an essential boogie boarding skill. Just dip your head, press down on the front of the board, shut your eyes (if you wear soft contacts, like me), and kick with your fins. After the wave goes by you’ll pop up about where you were instead of halfway to the beach, which likely would have happened if you went with the wave.

That isn’t good if your goal is to get out to where the waves are breaking. Getting back out after catching a wave is what I like least about boogie boarding. They should have a rope tow or something, especially for geezers over fifty. Tip: don’t ride a wave all the way in if you don’t feel like paddling all the way back out. Tilt your board sideways and jump out of the breaking wave after you’ve had enough fun with it. That shortens the paddle back.

Often it’s best to paddle back in a half circle. In the surf a straight line usually isn’t the shortest distance, timewise, back out to where the waves are breaking. Head off to the left or right from where you ended up and the waves probably won’t be breaking right over you all the way back out.

People use various approaches to boogie board paddling. Easiest is the “hold on with both hands to the front of the board and kick with your fins” option. But this is tiring on the legs. Others use the “paddle with both hands, either both at once or alternately” option. That works fine if the ocean is calm. I’ve evolved a “paddle with one hand while hanging on with the other hand, plus kick” approach. I keep falling off the board when I paddle with both hands, so this is a workable hands/feet combination for the less dexterous.

Etiquette wise, try not to run into other people. Sometimes it can’t be helped, however. Today I rode a wave in most of the way on the back of another guy. Once I landed on top of him, I couldn’t get off. He didn’t seem to mind, thankfully. The very next wave I caught, two girls ended up on my back. Instant boogie board karma, I figured.

When you run over someone it’s good form to wave back at them with a breezy “sorry but I couldn’t help it hope you’re OK" gesture. If they don’t respond, you might check to be sure that you haven’t knocked them unconscious. Fortunately, boogie boards are a lot softer than surfboards.

Rather paradoxically, locals get preference in staking out the “sweet spot” where the best waves are breaking. Yes, they get to boogie board all the time and we tourists don’t. But the native Hawaiians have been roundly screwed by the Americans who took their land, so I don’t mind taking back seat to a local when it comes to catching a wave. Plus, you can learn a lot by shadowing the local boogie boarding guys and gals. They usually have a much better sense for the ocean that we haoles do, so I try to follow their lead.

Most of the time. On Kauai once I learned that if a couple of local guys start yelling at each other, “Here comes a big one,” it’s time for the haoles to swim for shore. If the locals seem just mildly enthused about a wave, then I figure I can handle it. But if they’re wildly excited about some monster that is approaching, I’ll probably be terrified.

Of course, that was quite a few years ago, and I’ve become a better boogie boarder now. About all I fear now is sunburn. Wear a shirt and put on lots of SPF 30 sunscreen. Then go out and boogie.

How to get a man shopping

Ladies, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself, “How can I get my man to love shopping as much as I do?” Admit it: you enjoy being with him, but it’s a drag when you’re just getting warmed up after hitting a dozen stores and he’s starting to whine, “Honey, can we go home now, I’m all shopped out.”

I have an answer for you. At least, an answer for when the two of you go on vacation. After he has finished packing his suitcase, open it up and take most of his clothes out. That way, when you arrive at your destination he’ll be motivated to go shopping with you since he won’t have much to wear otherwise.

I can testify that this approach works. However, I did this to myself on our trip to Maui—taking just a few T-shirts, a few Hawaiian shirts, and a few pairs of shorts for a twelve-day vacation. Usually I pack a lot more, but I decided to test out a hypothesis this time: Would shopping with Laurel be more enjoyable if I really needed to buy clothes?

My experimental answer: Yes. Here I am this afternoon on the ocean side of Front Street in Lahaina, wearing a fresh-off-the-rack Hilo Hattie shirt and clutching several recently purchased T-shirts. Usually Laurel shops me until I beg for mercy (also for food and a place to sit). However, I’ve been keeping up with her much better this trip, which I ascribe to my significantly increased motivation to find clothes to wear.

Understand, I’m still a shopping amateur. Laurel is the pro. On our first full day in Maui she had gone to three stores before I had finished eating breakfast. Being a woman, Laurel is energized by shopping. Being a man, I usually am drained by shopping. As noted above, I can’t count the number of times I’ve said “Well, I guess we’ve done enough browsing for one day,” and Laurel has replied, “Are you kidding? I’m just getting going.”

So that’s why a woman needs to give her man some extra motivation by making sure that he only has a few clothes to wear on vacation. It also helps if the clothes don’t match, another extra motivating factor that, in our case, I added by accident. Usually I make at least a cursory effort to see whether the T-shirts I bring to Maui have at least a vague matching relationship with the shorts I bring. That didn’t happen this time.

When I unpacked, I found that, defying the odds of probability, I had managed to pack three T-shirts and three pairs of shorts, each of which was a different color, yet somehow each combination of “top” and “bottom” was remarkably incompatible. Laurel, of course, always matches perfectly, which is why it takes her four times as long to pack.

However, when she gets where she is going, she actually has clothes that she can wear in public that don’t make little children scream, “Mommy, why does that man look so weird? He doesn’t match!” (I may be slightly exaggerating here, but I can easily believe that Laurel was such a child).

I am in good shape now, though. Six new T-shirts, a pair of shorts, three Hawaiian shirts, one water-resistant jacket (I forgot that it can rain a lot in Hawaii), and two baseball caps now reside in our condo closet.

The shopping gods have been kind to me. I knew it was going to be a good shopping day when a rainbow appeared over Lahaina and the West Maui mountains as we were setting out late this afternoon. The “L” on the hillside stands for Laurel, of course, a token of appreciation from the Front Street merchants (or so I like to think).

Life and death on a Maui beach

I may have watched a man die today at Napili Bay. Even on vacation reality intrudes, especially for the man and his family. I hope he lived. I’ll know what I read The Maui News tomorrow. What I do know now is that it is possible to die on a beach, relaxing in Hawaii, with not a care in the world. Until…

A burly fellow vacationer is pressing on your chest, doing CPR, while another man is rhythmically blowing air into your mouth. Your face is ashen. Your body is motionless. Waves break over your feet. But you can’t feel the water.

I was sitting under our favorite beach tree on a grass mat, watching kids playing in the surf, hoping that the waves would reach body-board riding height, happy that it wasn’t raining, just cloudy and threatening. I was so into my practice of wu-wei, not-doing, that at first the sight of a bunch of adults clustered around a spot of beach about forty yards to my left didn’t register. My mind even thought, “Maybe they’re having fun burying someone in the sand.”

Sadly, the “burying” part was uncomfortably close to the truth. When I trained my binoculars on all the activity I could see CPR being performed. It was jarring to listen to children having fun in the surf while I watched the solemn efforts to save the man’s life.

Soon, a siren. Medics from the fire department rushed to the man’s side. One felt his neck for a pulse. Defibrillation equipment was hastily unpacked. Paddles were placed on his chest. A ventilator went over his mouth. An intravenous drip went into his right arm. Hopefully all this effort paid off. I never saw the man move, nor any signs of relief from the medics or bystanders.

He was a big man, chunky. I couldn’t help but observe that most of the men who had come to his aid were similarly overweight. One beachgoer who helped carry the stretcher across the sand to the ambulance was positively obese. His stomach fat flapped as he struggled forward, carrying the front of the stretcher. Will these men change their under-exercising, over-eating ways now that they’ve seen how a heart attack (which I assume is what happened) can strike anywhere, anytime?

Probably not. We all have our ways of denying death. Good ways. Effective ways. I do too. Until I see death close-up through a pair of Nikon binoculars, imagining myself lying in the sand, unconscious, having my chest compressed while my wife looks on with terrified eyes.

She seemed to be his wife, at least. And the younger woman, his daughter. While the medics were getting him ready to be transported two policemen got out report books and took statements from the women. The women obviously were torn, one part of them wanting to respond to the police questions, another part trying to remain aware of what was being done to save the husband’s/father’s life.

After he was taken up the slope of the beach to the ambulance, the women rushed around picking up the remnants of what had started out as a happy day on Maui. Towels, suntan lotion, drink containers—everything got hurriedly wrapped up in their beach mats. They half-ran after the police. Suddenly there was no trace of what had happened.

Just a empty patch of beach.

Laurel walked down from our condo soon after. She had missed everything. She told me all about her morning’s shopping experiences. I related my dying-man-on-the-beach story.

I soon forgot about him. I waited for big body-boardable waves that never came. I went for my daily 30-minute swim. We went back to our room and ate lunch. I read my Jack Reacher thriller, “Without Fail.” I took my afternoon Maui nap.

Everything is back to normal. Except, really, it isn’t. Ever. It can’t be when “normal” is just one heartbeat, a single breath, from simply being a meaningless word.

A dying man on the beach convinced me of that. As if I needed to be convinced.

Feeling half my age on Maui

We got to Maui yesterday. I’d only been here a few hours when I felt half my age. Actually, less than half. For I was “carded” while buying some groceries at the Napili Market. Ah, the joy! I immediately thought that I must be the most youthful-looking fifty-six year old on earth when a checker asked to see my driver’s license before he’d sell us the wine that Laurel had put in our basket.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Maui County has a law requiring proof of 21-ness before alcoholic drinks can be sold to anybody. This seems ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that whenever we walk down Lahaina’s Front Street, we usually get a few open requests from locals to sample what, in the old 60’s days, was called Maui Wowie. Apparently the sale of alcohol is more heavily regulated on Maui than the sale of marijuana. Clearly the checker also found the law senseless, since he gave us a rant about useless government regulation while he was bagging our groceries.

So that’s one new thing about Maui we’ve discovered on this, our 15th visit to the island. The weekly comics in both the Maui and Honolulu newspapers are in color now—that’s also new. And it’s also new that, on our first day here, the weather is windy and showery. Almost always we’ve been treated to nice weather until near the end of our stay, but Maui decided to throw us a change-up this year.

Oh well. The view is still beautiful from our Napili Shores condo. Note the intrepid Napili Bay beach-goers in the foreground. Quite a few vacationers aren’t deterred from enjoying the ocean by breezy trade winds and frequent showers. Especially kids, who I can hear screaming happily in the surf right now even as it’s sprinkling.

When you’re wet all over, does it matter if it’s raining? I lived out this adage on our own mostly-dry beach visit this afternoon when a passing shower spurred me to my daily Maui ritual of swimming back and forth across Napili Bay. Thirty minutes, non-stop. My style is of my own invention, designed to lessen the chance of a contact lens washing out: twenty side-strokes, then ten modified back-strokes; repeat for about two and a half crossings of the bay.

Like they say about fishing, for us a bad day on Maui is better than almost all good days anywhere else. I love going to sleep with the sound of waves. I love eating small sweet bananas that are so much tastier than the bland variety we get on the mainland. I love how everyone, locals and visitors alike, are almost universally relaxed, laid-back, hang-loosed.

This wasn’t the case with Laurel, though, as our Hawaiian Airlines flight from Portland was boarding. One of our “charming” married-for-15-years rituals (it’s more charming to me than to Laurel) is that whenever we fly, she says “Please, don’t wait to get on at the last minute like you always do,” and I say, “Don’t worry, I’ll be at the gate twenty minutes before takeoff, like I always am.”

I have carefully researched boarding rules. The general policy of airlines seems to be that the plane door is closed ten minutes before takeoff, and passengers are to be on board fifteen minutes before takeoff. So getting on the plane twenty minutes early is entirely in order, especially since my carry-on bag is able to fit under the seat in front of me. It doesn’t have to be squeezed, defying all the laws of compression physics, into an overhead compartment half the size of the bag—the annoying practice of so many other passengers.

Yesterday, after indulging in our habitual “She says, He says” argument, Laurel suggested that we ask the Hawaiian gate personnel their opinion. “Great,” I replied, confident that airline regulations were on my side. And indeed, the guy we queried said, “If you’re at the gate twenty minutes before departure, that should be fine.”

“Yes!” I cried, pointing two index fingers at Laurel and doing a little victory dance around her, while the Hawaiian Airlines person did his best to look down at some paperwork and avoid taking sides in what so obviously was a (minor) marital spat.

Looking back at the moment, though, in my excitement at winning our argument I didn’t pay enough attention to another comment the gate guy made: “The scheduled departure was 10:00 am, and the plane is now supposed to take off at 10:21.” In hindsight, I should have given the word “supposed” more weight.

So my personal pre-take off preparations, which included a leisurely perusal of the Oregonian sports page in the stall of an airport rest room, didn’t take sufficient account of the fact that when a scheduled departure is changed from 10:00 to 10:21, the airline does its best to leave as close to 10:00 as possible, notwithstanding the assurance made by the gate guy that I could show up at 10:00, no problem.

When I exited the restroom just down from the gate at 9:59, feeling right on schedule and pleasantly lighter compared to when I entered, the first thing I noticed—indeed, couldn’t help but notice, was that a blonde-haired woman, who bore a remarkable resemblance to Laurel, was waving her hands and screaming at someone, who seemingly was me, “Hurry up! They’re holding the plane for you!”

“Ah, another little joke by Laurel,” I thought, barely hastening my steps. “Run! Run! They’re going to leave without you!” Which, as it turned out, was disturbingly close to the truth. I was the last one on board, and we had to kick a woman out of one of our seats who had been told by a flight attendant, “Everyone should be on the plane by now; you can choose a different open seat now.”

Maybe this will teach me a lesson. Maybe. I still believe the constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment, such as forcing a man over 6’ 1” into a coach seat designed for female gymnasts. Five and a half hours flight time from Portland to Maui struck me as long enough punishment; I didn’t want to endure any extra minutes.

But what the heck. Marriage is all about compromises. Next flight I’ll be at the gate twenty minutes before the scheduled departure—the original scheduled departure. And Laurel will be ready to go when I say, “It’s time to leave for the movie or we’ll be late!”

Change, it can happen at any age. Especially the age when you're youthful enough to be carded at the grocery store. Which on Maui, is any age. I love Maui: the ever-young island.

I’m out-pararazzi’d

When I opened up the February 7 issue of Us weekly, I understood why People never took up my offer to sell the photo of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake hiking in Hollywood’s Runyon Canyon that I took January 23 (see “Wide-Eyed on Rodeo Drive”).

Apparently celebrity magazines prefer close-up shots like this:

To my slightly more distant treatment:

Probably long-lens equipped professional paparazzi realize the truth of this “Where celebs really hang out in LA” piece, which presciently says, “At nearby Runyon Canyon Dog Park, you might find William H. Macy taking his pooch for a little fresh air or Cameron Diaz jogging on the trails.”

Or, they should add, “Oregonians like Brian and Laurel Hines looking for celebrities jogging on the trails.”

Wide-eyed on Rodeo Drive

Really short shorts. A model you can stand on. Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. During our weekend trip to Hollywood and Beverly Hills we were wide-eyed at the never-in-Oregon sights we saw.

Here’s Laurel and my daughter, Celeste Vos, colorfully mixing with the Pacific Design Center. LA is bold and bright. It grew on us this trip, though we aren’t ready to trade in Oregon for southern California.

Speaking of bold, the Gucci store on Rodeo Drive featured these short shorts. Celeste’s husband, Patrick, manages the men’s department. [Note to Gucci security: he didn’t know I snapped the in-store photos] It was an erotic moment fondling the strategically-placed price tag. Which read, I believe, $375.

While I was fondling the shorts, Laurel was ogling Gucci male models strutting their runway stuff on a nearby monitor. I knew Laurel liked to watch TV, but I had never seen her so mesmerized. Must have been the clothes that were so fascinating (yeah, right).

The Prada store lobby featured models in underground grottos you could stand on, plus some headless naked mannequins. Inside, Celeste said the dressing rooms have cameras that show you a 360 degree view of yourself and your potential pricy Prada purchase. Way cool.

Here are some Rodeo Drive babes who were only too happy to pose for me.

Had to prove that we were really there.

I got to visit a place of pilgrimage for me, the renowned Bodhi Tree Bookstore. Since I’m a metaphysical bookaholic, I felt like a drunk set loose in the Jim Beam warehouse. Only bought two books though, a miracle.

Sunday morning Celeste took us for a hike at Runyon Canyon. We ran into Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. Not literally, but they were just a few feet away coming down as we were going up. I didn’t want to act like a doofus Oregon tourist, so waited until they were past to whip out my camera. The teeny tiny white dot way down the trail is Cameron. Or maybe Justin. People magazine, make me an offer on the photo (minimum bid, 25 cents).

Celeste printed out a trail map from Runyon-Canyon.com. Unfortunately, we didn’t read the part that said “Going anti-clockwise is a much more energetic climb up the steps and steep slopes between Inspiration Point and Clouds Rest.” Here’s Celeste trying to inspire some breath in this very location.

The 50-somethings left the 30-something panting by the side of the trail and zipped up to Cloud’s Rest. We were treated to a beautiful view of the Hollywood hills.

So many amazing southern California sights. But this tops them all: an eleven hundred square foot house on half a lot listed for $800,000. In Salem, you probably could get it for $150,000, maybe less. On Sunday we went to a couple of open houses with Celeste. She says, “Whenever I’m feeling too good and want to get depressed, I go look at houses for sale in the Hollywood area.”

Celeste and Patrick own a condo but want to move up to a home with character for $700,000 or less. If you’ve got one in West Hollywood, I have a buyer for you (as if you didn’t already have a crowd of would-be buyers on your doorstep).