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Blueberries, Smiling Pigs and the Oregon Coast.

| Lifestyle, US

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With the changes in our plans, we’d missed seeing our friends on the Oregon Coast.  While we were in Eugene, we worked on an organic farm east of Walterville. OR.  We commuted, a daily 65 mile round trip, but we’d committed to housesitting for our son and family in Eugene. 

At the McKenzie River Blueberry Farm, we harvested, sorted and packed blueberries, of which we ate our share in the process.  We also harvested and ate our fill of raspberries and strawberries, with an occasional snack on various other types of organic fruits and vegetables that happened to be involved with the work we were doing at the time.  The apple orchard had apples lying on the ground that needed to be gathered for feeding to the cows and pigs.  One of the pigs was so happy to get apples that, I swear, it smiled.  The apple orchard also had plum trees and the plums were delicious.  Most farms want WWOOFers to stay a week or more, but we’d made arrangements ahead and our basic commitment was three days.  If we all worked and fit well together, we could and would stay longer, like we did in Palermo at the kiwi farm.  So far, when it was time for us to leave, every farm has asked us if we could stay longer and has e-mailed us very complimentary recommendations.

On the last day at the McKenzie berry farm, we stopped on our way back to Eugene in Leaburg, OR and toured the River Run Gallery with its incredible art, sculptures and even a Cinderella carriage.  Lots of pictures are on our www.smalltownswest.com website.  A stop at the gallery is well worth the time. 

Our son and family were on their way back to Eugene and, since all was well on the home front, we headed for the Oregon Coast, via Veneta, Mapleton and Florence, where I used to have a satellite auto parts store.  My main store was in Eugene with four other smaller stores.

We’d planned to stop in Coos Bay on our way north and visit with my sister and brother-in-law who were RVing there but the fires in CA had changed all that.  So we stopped on our way to Bandon, but they’d left the afternoon of the day before and the park manager didn’t know where they’d gone to.  They probably got tired of waiting, but we couldn’t contact them since they don’t have e-mail or a cell phone and no one answered the phone at my brother-in-law’s brother’s home.  I figured that we must not be meant to visit them, and we were on our way south again.

All of our good friends, who’d lived in Reedsport, OR when we did, had moved to Bandon after we moved to Eastern Oregon.  That made it easy on us, since we only had to go to one town instead of two.  We stayed with our good friends Ted and Jo, went to dinner and walked on the beach with one of my old bicycle racing friends Bob, took lots of pictures and had a great time.  The breaks between stints on organic farms made both the visits and the working on the farms more enjoyable. 

The work on the farms can be both hard labor and tedious.  We both enjoy what we’re doing on the farms, but in between farms we’re ready for some sitting in one place, visiting, reestablishing contacts and appreciating good friends and family.  Sharing our adventures with others, what we’ve seen, done and learned, is part of our life experiences.  Every time we meet new people, or renew old acquaintances, we all have the opportunities to share and learn new things and accept new ideas.  It’s rewarding to discover that, even though we change as we travel the path of life, we can still enjoy our relatives and friends of many years as well as those we meet along the way.

Our Bandon visit was all we’d hoped it would be.  One of my hopes for the trip was to be able to smell the ocean and walk on the beach.  Sailing the coast in the northwest can be cold, wet and very uncomfortable at times, but I still love the sea and would love to sail more.  However, I don’t want to own a boat capable of offshore, blue water sailing again.

Walking the beach at Bandon provided some of the best opportunities of the trip for photos, and I was once again in a dilemma about what to keep and what to discard.  The 250 GB external hard drive and our 12v DC to 120v AC inverter are two things that will be included on any trips in the future.  That way I can store more pictures, plus charge camera and computer batteries while on the road.

From Bandon we headed back toward Eugene and then it was on to Carlton, OR, where we worked at an organic winery, another new and different WWOOF adventure.

   

           

Filed under: Lifestyle, US
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About Larry Miller

I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.

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