Ocean in View Post #980

This post is actually being written by RF, who is in Port Angeles visiting Miriam for several days. Life's vicissitudes are unfortunately leading not only to the waning of the blog but to the necessity for Miriam to leave this spectacularly lush and beautiful part of the world to return to one associated with beauty of a very different and far more austere kind for the remainder of her days.

I for one have enjoyed reading the posts from afar, and feel that the blog deserves some kind of ceremony in honor of its cessation. Finding out that this post is the 980th to be published makes me want to try to figure out some way to squeeze out another 20, so that it can celebrate post #1000, but I don't think that it's going to happen. Speaking on behalf of Miriam, I would like to thank everyone who has read or commented over the years. I also want to encourage anyone reading this to remember to keep your eyes open to the wonders of both the natural and human-constructed worlds, and to help others share in the sensations to be had.

If there is no post #981, take care. If there is a post #981, we'll see you then.

Monticello, UT ; Burley, ID ; The Dalles, OR

Including small scenic detours and a consistent never-before-manifested talent for taking the wrong exit and wandering around towns looking for the gas station or the motels or whatever, I have come 1427 miles since pulling away from Candelario Street late Wednesday morning. According to Google maps, only 305 miles left to go.

Phil Whalen grew up here in The Dalles. In the 30s. Before the dam I can see out the motel window. Mount Hood looms to the west. The folks in the motel office say it takes about 40 minutes to get to Mt. Hood from here. And that Google now has an R&D campus in town.

Now for some waterfall-hunting along the Historic Columbia River Highway further downriver, then streak for home; if an apartment I've never seen can be home. Yet.

Not An Earthly

I distinctly recall using the small cooler as a light-weight fill-up-the-box item. But which box. It's not on the list anywhere. Turns out there's room in the car for it. If I had any idea where I put it..

Duh.

Free-cycling one last round of stuff.

Packing Purgatory

Wandering in circles, close to the end and never finishing. Reading one book after another, a problem since the endless supply broke when I ditched the rest of my life as a Santa Fe librarian. Need a new plan. Let's pretend the movers come tomorrow, and that I'm already in a motel somewhere. Pack bathroom, pantry, kitchen, miscellany. Live on take-out. Either go up the Pecos River for an afternoon, or do the much-postponed next issue of the Santa Fe Poetry Broadside, or in fact do ANYTHING besides drifting from room to room mislaying things, listening to Pandora Radio and not taking care of business.