2023 in Review

A brief announcement before you reed this letter:

I’ve been beating my head trying to figure out how to approach this years letter and in doing so, I may have gone a little overboard causing some temporary gray cell damage. You may have to reed this out loud in order two fully understand it.

Hello Deer Friends!

Wear has the thyme gone? Its bin a year since the last installment of the adventures of George, Heike and Fergie and I’m hear to say that 2023 has bin a really Goodyear. We had a wonderfully busy and fun year this past year and I’d like two tell ewe all about it.

Okay, lettuce begin.

January- We brought in the knew year with a nice little party on the first. Heike went all out and put together a delicious spread that included a pretty extensive selection of dehli meets, cheeses, deserts, and drinks. George did a fine job as usual of making sure the toilets were clean for the guests.

A few weaks later, we went snowshoeing up near Mt Hood. Its grate exercise and many calories were burnt on the 4.5 mile hike in the snow. Its amazing how one starts off with 15 layers of winter where only two end up with just a tee shirt by the end of the hike.

February- The weather turned unseasonably warm during the first part of the month and we took advantage of it by heading for the coast to stay at one of our favorite resorts along the coast. The Headlands Lodge offers really beautiful views of a haystack rock, panoramic views of the beech, and gorgeous rooms with nice anenomes. George caught some kind of flew bug and ended up hacking, coughing and sneezing most of the time. Still had a good thyme, though.

The whether turned cold and snowy a couple of weaks later, but that didn’t stop us from going back to the coast for a quick day trip. It had snown a few days earlier their and folks were all excited about it because it hardly ever snows on the beach. The drive up the mountain pass on the way to Cannon Beach was beautiful with snow falling along the hire elevations. We even got snow at home. It’s beautiful, but very disruptive.

March- The mountains got tons of snow in late February and so we took advantage of that and went snowshoeing again. This time we did a moonlight trek at the base of Mt. Hood. The drive home was horrendous as heavy snow fell and covered the mountain roads within minutes. It was really hard to sea because the snowflakes seamed as big as dinner plates, and they quickly covered the cars headlights making it even more difficult to sea. We made it home okay albeit a little frazzled by the experience of blindly driving down a winding mountain road in a blowing snow storm. Never tried it befour.

We took a day trip two Astoria about mid-month and had a wonderful time their as well. The Goonies was filmed their and you can drive by the famous house wear many scenes in the movie were filmed. Stopped for beers and burgers at the Fort George Brewery for lunch.

We also booked a cruise to the Fords of Norway that month. Exciting times ahead!

April- Not a hole hell of a lot happened in April. We were too excited about the crews to do anything so we stayed in bed most of the month. We did venture out and held our first party of the season. We had a little garden party and about 40 people showed up. The whether was beautiful and a very nice time was had by all.

May- The month was filled with lots of local travel. Are first trip was to have lunch at a grate Mexican restaurant called El Rio in the small central Oregon town of Madras about 124 miles southeast of Beaverton or 46 hrs away by foot according to Google maps. After a light meal of chorizo, queso, enchiladas, chile rellenos, tacos, frijoles, rice, chips, salsa, beers, and Margaritas, we headed for the air museum right down the street. We were lucky enough to watch a WWII B-17 land and taxi just a few feet from us. We talked to the pilot and crew and had a very enjoyable thyme their. After that, we headed to a really cool place called the Cove Palisades State Park- a huge lake encompassing the Deschutes and Crooked River canyons. It is absolutely spectacular with it’s steep canyon walls and beautiful vistas.

Went out to Walla Walla home of the Walla Walla sweet onion and great wineries and incredible food. It’s a farm town with a very sophisticated vibe. You see everything from pick-up trucks to Lamborghinis driving around. Its developed quite a wine culture with many tasting rooms that offer more than Pinot Noir. We ended up joining the Rotie wine club. They make wonderful Rhone-style wines. More on Rotie later.

We celebrated are 43rd wedding anniversary in Bend, OR this year. Bend is about 40 miles or so south of Madras. Its a cool town with high quality restaurants, breweries, distilleries, shops, parks and trails. We took advantage of the trail system and completed a 12 mile walk to the AA office and back to our hotel. It was hot and dusty along the way, and beers at the heir conditioned Deschutes brew pub were a nice reward.

We drove down two the nothing little town of La Pine about 30 miles south of Bend to stop at a gas station/ truck stop where they make the most amazing donuts every day. They were as grate as usual, but huge and rich.

We visited the High Desert museum then high-taled it to Fort Rock- a rock formation formed a few hundred thousand years ago when a volcano erupted under a lake forming a gigantic circular wall a few hundred feat tall. Some of it has collapsed allowing access to the inside. It’s huge and the hike around it is quick and easy.

June- June was a dud. Didn’t do nothin’. There was a very nice backyard model railroad tour, though.

July- We’ve celebrated are birthdays for the last few years in really hot places so this year we thought weed go somewhere cool. Victoria, B.C. seemed like a good place. We left Fergie with the dog sitter and drove to Port Angeles on Olympic Peninsula where we took the fairy to Vancouver island. We stayed at a really nice hotel right across the street from the fairy terminal and enjoyed the sights, sounds, cents, tastes and cool marine breezes that the city had to offer. Victoria is one of our favorite cities. Sherringham distillery outside of Victoria makes one of the best gins on the planet. We bought a case of it. A fun thing to do is to either take a water taxi across the harbor just for the ride, or take a harbor tour from one the operators around the harbor.

The fairy company also offered tour packages and we took part in a winery one. I have to say that some of the local wines are funky, weird, awful and undrinkable. The tour was still a lot of fun and we did meat sum very nice folks.

August- Took a couple of short road trips to the coast and back down to southeastern Oregon. This time we went to the Painted Hills which is part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. It’s a great place for a hike and their are lots of photographic opportunities to be had. We didn’t hike much because it was after all, August and it was HOT!. Did get sum cool black and white photos, though.

September- Nothing much happened this month. We were busy getting ready for hour October crews to the Fords of Norway. We had hour Beer and Brats party and it was a huge success. Played golf a few times, but lessons do not seem to help.

October- The day came when we boarded the plain to Denmark on our way to take an exciting crews to the Fords of Norway! We flew on Icelandic Air to Reykjavik for a short layover then it was off to Copenhagen. The service in business class was attentive and the food wasn’t bad at all.

We’ve been watching a series on Netflix called Borgen. It’s the story of a fictitious Danish woman who becomes prime minister and the politics surrounding the office. It’s a fascinating show that’s well acted and fun to watch. Anyway, it got us interested in Denmark. We even visited the “Borgen” or castle- the building that houses the Danish parliament and it was very cool. We even saw the prime minister’s parking space. There was little to no visible security and people were free to come and go from the massive building as they pleased.

We absolutely fell in love with Copenhagen. What a cool, vibrant and exciting city. The weather wasn’t the greatest and living in Oregon trained us for it so it wasn’t a big deal. We spent to days their before the crews and walked most of the city. We walked about 12 miles the first day and about 9 the next. Eight lots of fish and drank some Aquavit. The Scandinavians love there Aquavit and not surprisingly, there gin.

The city has great shopping, beautiful cafes, pubs and restaurants, and wonderful old castles and other historic sights.

We were sad to leave Copenhagen,

We boarded the ship after a couple of days and set off on the crews. We were happy to meet up with hour old friends Ruth and Ed Lugo from Charleston, S.Carolina who joined us on the adventure to the fords and beyond. I have to say that the ship and its accommodations were luxurious. We had are own butler. A very shy individual named Tristan who tended two hour various unreasonable demands like brining us caviar whenever we asked for it and where ever we happened to be on the ship.

The food was good. It wasn’t anything super creative or impressive for that matter, but it was competently prepared and served elegantly. The included wines were also very good and we tried ones we hadn’t had befour. The additional-cost wines were exorbitantly priced anywhere between US $250 and $1500 so we stuck to the included ones. The ship had seven or more bars on board and cocktails were also very good, albeit once again nothing innovative or different. The nice thing was you could have a Margarita for breakfast if you wanted to. There was always a waiter ready to take your drink order.

There was the daily 4:45PM trivia contest every day and that was a lot of fun especially after 4 or 5 drinks. The Lugo/Johnson team averaged 15 out of 20 correct answers.

The tours were kinda lame for the most part. It was difficult to understand the tour guides at times and some did not match the brochure/website descriptions at all. We actually saw more by venturing out on our own and it soon became apparent that I really didn’t care that a church had been built in 1390 by Hagrid the Horrible after he stubbed his toe on a loose cobble on the way to a beheading. I was personally more interested in going into the Leica boutique and checking out there latest cameras and binoculars, or popping into the Bang and Olufson store and checking out there $100k speakers.

The highlight of course was seeing the northern lights. Now that was pretty cool and amazing. They weren’t as bright as we expected. They are very muted to the naked eye and are enhanced in photos by the sensors in digital cameras. You could see them shining very brightly though our iPhone’s cameras.

The fords are beautiful although we really didn’t see many of them becuase we entered them in the dark. The ones we did get a chance to see were absolutely spectacular.

One of the better tours took us on a train to the Swedish border with a fantastic bus ride back to the ship. We got some pretty spectacular views of one of the most beautiful fjords in Norway.

We missed one of the scheduled ports because of bad whether. At one point on the voyage, seas were, according to El Capitán, 30 feet. Needless to say a few of the passengers were a bit under the whether as a result. Fortunately, the ships activities did not include a vomiting contest.

The crews lasted to weaks and we ended back in Copenhagen for an extra day befour heading home. We were very happy that Ruth and Ed could join us on such a great trip.

We went back to Walla Walla a weak after we got back from Europa for a wine pick-up party at Rotie Vineyards. Spent a couple of nights there and enjoyed the wine, pizza, gourmet dinner and rain. Lots of rain.