The next few days of our journey in our white VW van "Snowflake" took us to a reunion with a former Bee colleague after almost 20 years, and a graduate school classmate we first met in Michigan 40 years ago.
Getting there was half the fun.
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| Just another beautiful stretch of coast |
The drive along the coast continued to stun and entertain us. Oregon is truly a wonderful place, exactly as I pictured it when I wrote a sixth-grade paper on "Oregon the Green State."
Near Winchester Bay we diverted briefly to see the Umpqua Lighthouse, tucked inside a state park and next door to the Coast Guard Station. Every one of these picturesque lighthouses has dramatic stories to tell of storms on the ocean, boats in danger and people lost or saved by the efforts of the keepers.
Being a lighthouse keeper was much like the military. Uniforms were required, and inspectors could show up at any time to make sure the cap was on the head properly and the requirements for precision were met.
But we just looked,and drove on. Past Florence, Yachata and Seal Rock. Tourists and retirees and people who avoid big cities live in these places today. Once in a while we would spot a lumber mill on a river, but the dominance of logging has given way to a new economy based on multiple endeavors, particularly tourism, and the company towns are disappearing.
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| Dave and Cheri Hill at home |
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| The "welcome mat" was out |
Our destination was the small town of Gleneden Beach, near Lincoln City, where a former newspaper colleague Dave Hill has retired with his wife Cheri and his carefully kept Porsche. Dave held various editor slots at The Modesto Bee, eventually became the editor of the Merced Sun-Star before retiring a couple of years ago.
Always lovers of the northern coasts, they found their dream retirement home on a ridge overlooking the ocean in a resort development called Salishan.
The Hills had just finished hosting a large family reunion, and we got to meet family members recently retired from the military, ready to head off on a one year adventure touring America in a motor home with their children. The first stop would be Alaska, a dream we share.
Their niece is skilled at doing facials and skin treatments so she provided one for all the women and girls, which provided a good evening of entertainment. The men declined.
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| A special treat: a facial |
The Hill's new home is pretty awesome. Perched on a hilltop near the ocean, surrounded by big trees, and part of the Salishan Resort complex that includes a golf course and clubhouse with a restaurant and bar and anything else you might want.
Dave took me downstairs in their home where they have a big room for entertainment, pulled out his guitar and started serenading me. It turns out he has taken guitar lessons in retirement, loves folk music, and was happy to share his new skills.
Showing us the area the second day they took us straight to a nearby town where the sidewalk edges the bay, which was active with whales. It was a first for us, standing within 50 yards of these wonderful animals, rolling and blowing while they found food among the kelp.
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| There's whales out there - somewhere |
After two great days and nights with the Hills we loaded up once more, and drove north heading for more friends. The destination was Seattle and I was worried about how lousy the traffic there would be.
Then we ran into Portland. We had managed to drive around the south side of town and avoid some traffic, but when we got on the freeway just into Washington state everything came to a stop. It turned out that the highway department was working on a bridge on the freeway, routing bumper-to-bumper traffic off the road onto a long slow detour. After almost two hours edging along, and just before reaching the detour, they reopened the road and we drove fairly easily through downtown Seattle during rush hour.
Our destination was the home of Warren and Marsha King, both former writers at the Seattle Times newspaper, now retired.
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| LaMonts and Kings in Seattle |
We first met when Warren and I were National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows at Michigan in 1977. It was a program actually initiated by the university and federal government to provide mid-career journalists with a chance to go back to school for a year. We were lucky enough to win the competition along with 12 other American fellows and two international fellows. (The program continues today with private foundation financing.)
Warren was for many years the senior medical writer for the newspaper, one of the first to cover the AIDS epidemic. Marsha developed one of the first assignments at any metro paper specializing in the interests and needs and lives of older Americans. Both did ground-breaking work that helped people, enhanced the reputation of their newspaper and were "award winning" as the papers like to say.
We became good friends in Michigan, sharing a lot of classes and seminars and spare time together. At the time Pat and I had our seven-year-old daughter Ruth and one-year-old adopted baby Zack, and they were investigating adoption. Like good reporters, they made an appointment, interviewed us throughly, took notes and then went home an adopted their beautiful oldest daughter.
Since those years we have visited each other, watched the children grow and the grandchildren arrive, sailed in the San Juan Islands and San Francisco Bay, and shared lots of good meals and stories. Warren tells tales from his brief Navy career, and Marsha is a compassionate person and story teller.
We shared a meal with their younger daughter ( recently returned from social work in Sudan) and her beautiful baby, went off to a motel to get a good nights sleep, and took off together for sightseeing the next morning.
We went to the locks that connect Puget Sound to Lake Washington, watched the parade of boats for a while, and then visited the salmon ladders nearby. From there you can see the salmon as they work their way through the man-made ladders to get to spawning ground upstream. It was sort of a chance to invade salmon privacy, up close and real.
We discussed returning the Pikes Place Market where we had been together in years past, but decided watching fish fly was not enough incentive to test the traffic.
A day of visiting and checking out their home area ended with dinner on the waterfront where we were joined by the younger daughter and her child. A perfect ending, sunset and all, to a happy visit.
As we were getting ready to leave they delivered a couple of bottles of wine as a parting gift. Wine and good friends get better with age.
Warren likes to point out that I am older than he is -- by three days. I cannot deny it. He's taller too.
Next on our journey: Heading east through Washington and Idaho into Montana.
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