Flowers, spring for sure now.



 I was out walking the other day and came upon a few flowering trees. A chestnut tree on the street and several Rhododendrons, which are the size of a small tree. I had to stop and take a few pictures to document the flowers. This is what Portland Oregon is like in spring, lot of flowers though not as namy roses as you might think. Portland is called the Rose city, but Rhodies are the ones that are seen everywhere.

 

Olympics

I will have to add the second half of my Olympic experience. If you read the first set of posts, you will see that the Olympics, at least having to deal with all the work in the background can be very stressful. Today the Greeks are facing a lot of economic uncertainty, and some of that is from the Billion + Euros they spent on the games. Like most countries that put the games on, they soon realize that the Olympics is a business and the business makes the money, not the city or country. Athens is left with little to show for it, they have a few new(er) infrastructure elements, but in general what they built is not being used. Kind of a big waste. they hoped tourism would improve, but the world economy killed that.

The old flying site

Looking out from above the airport

It has been some time since I last flew, I mean the last time I few a plane. A sailplane to be precise. I few from Warner Springs for a few years, it has been a while but I enjoyed it when I did it regularly. The drive was about an hour and a half, the terrain rocky and dry, but it was always interesting to go out to that part of the county. Sailplanes are the ultimate RV, they have no utilitarian capability. They are like a motorcycle in the sky. Very maneuverable, not as fast as a power plane, but they need much more skill to stay aloft. A power plane, like a power boat is just like a car, anyone can drive one, doesn't take much skill. A sailplane or sail boat take skill to sail them well.

Looking down the runway on landing

To the beach!

I needed to get my feet wet. I decided to drive to the beach and spend a little time on the sand and feet in the water. It was a hard week and the weekend was going to be nice, so I grabbed a few things and headed out in the morning.

The drive is about an hour and a half to get where I wanted to go and the drive is an easy one. As always, Sunday has a lot of people on the beach and this being good weather, more were there. But there are long sections with few people and it was nice to see the water and feel the sand in the toes. As I walked the beach I picked up sand dollars, most were broken but they were interesting to look at. A few people on horse-back rode by and the sun was shining on the blue water.

I grabbed something to eat and relaxed while sitting in the sun. I headed up the beach a bit to another spot, found a place to sit and did a little drawing. I was getting a little sun burnt so I grabbed my stuff and headed for the car. I needed to do a few things that day so I headed back to town in the early afternoon, got to town with time to take care of a few things. Not a bad day, it made me feel good to see and smell the ocean, the sand and see the wonderful views of the coast.

Skiing again: But maybe the last of this season

Last weekend I decided to head up and do a little skiing. Since the drive is only about an hour, I hoped in the car with my gear and headed out. It was an easy drive, since not a lot of people were going to ski on a late April morning. Once at the lodge, I found the lot quite empty, which was good since I didn't have to walk far. I paid the parking and suited up, got he skies and headed to the slope. Hardly anyone was there, and I started down. But I stopped because I saw that the lift wasn't going. There are a few lifts and I wondered if I would go down and find that these lifts weren't running. It would be a huge climb...

I spotted one other lift and it was going so I continued. It was warm already and the snow was slushy. That meant SLOW SKIING!!! I was also over dressed as well, heavy jacket but I survived. There were so few people that the lift line was no line. Some runs had no one on them and I only had to deal with a few snow boarders in one spot. But the snow was melting and some wholes were starting, plus some parts of some runs were closed. After a few hours of constant skiing I was done. Rode up and headed for the car, a snack and back on the road home. With in an hour and a half I was in the shower and getting ready to spend the rest of the day out in the town.