After walking on the beach at Bandon, OR with friends and taking pictures of everything from tiny fish in tide pools to footprints in the sand at sunset, with Face Rock in the foreground, it was time to head toward I-5 and Eugene.
On our way we stopped in Coquille, OR to have a tire replaced. While we were waiting, we walked around the town and took pictures of some the building-sized murals that depict the town as it was around the turn of the twentieth century. The drive back to I-5 was pleasant, with lots of small towns along the way.
We stayed the night in Eugene at our son and daughter-in-law’s. The next morning, after getting up early to visit, we were on the road to Carlton, OR and an organic winery. With changes in our schedule happening almost daily, and sometimes by the minute, we didn’t know if we’d get back to Eugene and thought it would be good to visit while we had the chance.
On the way to Carlton, we made a side trip through Marcola and Sweet Home to sight see. After a nice leisurely drive, we stopped at a manufactured home factory in Millersburg, OR (nice name for a town) where our friends in Bandon had bought their home.
With visiting before we left Eugene, we’d gotten on the road later than planned. By the time we’d gotten the tour and the sales pitch at the factory, it was 5:00. Lots had changed since our last trip through that part of Oregon, and we had to stop more than once to ask directions. Most of those we talked to about directions had no more idea about the area than we did. Finally, we found a parking lot and Celinda went into an insurance office. They set us straight and we got to Carlton, which would be our place of residence for the next few days…maybe.
When we got to the farm house at the winery, there was a note on the door that said the owner wouldn’t be home until late, or possibly not until the next morning. The note also told us to make ourselves at home and that there was food in the refrigerator.
While we were making dinner, a girl named Katie who’d WWOOFed there before (World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms www.WWOOF.org) drove into the driveway and came in the house. She said she was working at a dairy down the road, liked being at the the winery better but needed to make some money. Katie took us on a tour, wrote a note to the owner and then drove off. We made dinner, put our sleeping bags down in the attic and debated whether we wanted to stay or go on down the road. The farmhouse was old and both of us had an allergic reaction to something in the house. There was also a lot of traffic on the road and neither of us slept very well.
In the morning I talked with Felix, the owner, and told him we’d have to see how things went during the day before we could make up our minds whether to stay or go because of the allergic reactions we were having. After a few hours outside working in the garden, we decided to pitch the tent, stay another day and see if the problem solved itself. If it did, we’d stay the full three days and then go back to Turner, OR to visit with Celinda’s cousin. We had planned to stop there on the way, but a death in the family changed those plans too.
The first day at the organic winery, we weeded, I dug potatoes, prepared two beds, planted beets in one and leek sets in the other. Celinda mulched the pathways with straw, tied up tomato plants and planted some of the leeks I didn’t have room for.
After working in the garden until 3:00, I took a shower and ate lunch while Celinda went for a walk. The first night had been quite a bit less than we’d hoped for, the day in the garden had turned out OK so we decided to wait and see how the night went. Changing plans had become a part of our lives and we had lots of options.
When we were on the tour with Katie the evening before, we’d seen a nice grassy spot by a pond that looked like a good place to pitch our tent. The problem was, Katie told us that she’d tented it while there and couldn’t sleep by the pond, as big bull frogs croaked all night and kept her awake.
Our options seemed to be, hit the road, sleep where we’d had the allergic reaction or listen to bull frogs all night. That changed after Celinda came back from her walk. Continued in part 2.
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