Om Sweet Om

It must seem like nothing ever happens around here since this page never gets updated, but that’s not the case. It’s true that we have been less active this year than in the past, but that’s because we like where we are and tend to spend more time around home. It also has to do with Park working more than usual.

We did drive down to southern California for Father’s Day weekend, spending a few days at Kim and Steve’s place in the southern Sierra where we surprised Park’s parents with our unexpected arrival. After the weekend we spent a couple more days with Parks’ parents at their house before heading back home up US 395 on the back side of the Sierras. We’ve also made a couple trips to the northern Willamette Valley to visit the wineries, staying with Nick and Tilke en route. The last trip included a couple of nights camping on Fall Creek in the Cascades near Eugene. We also been exploring the local area and discovering places to hike and swim.

Kim visited us earlier this summer and, with Tilke and Nick, we spent a couple of days exploring the area around Crater Lake. Our friends Sharon and Peter visited us over the Labor Day weekend and Park’s parents will be visiting in early October to enjoy the fall color.

We spent three busy weeks in Brunswick working on OM last spring (and are headed there again next month). She has been on the market for over a year now, but the market is pretty slow with fuel prices being so high. We still toy with the idea of shipping her to the west coast somewhere so that we can enjoy her more and eliminate the long trip to Jacksonville twice a year. It would also be nice to get away from the hurricanes. We had our second near miss this week with Hanna and the season is far from over.

Yes, I’m finally getting around to updating the site. The occasion is our recent return from France after a wonderful four week trip that took us from the Vendee on the Atlantic coast, through the Loire valley, on a seven day barge trip through Burgundy, down through the foothills of the Alps to the Mediterranean, back through Provence, across the Massif Central into the Dordogne, to Cognac and back to the Vendee. Exhausting to try as it is to read. All of this in a 23 foot ‘camping car’ that doesn’t fit well on the streets of those wonderful old towns. We have still not recovered. If you are interested, there are pictures to look at.

Life here in Ashland is slowly returning to normal. When we left it was the end of summer, but fall has definitely set in. It’s been raining for the past five days. Well needed, but we had enough gray sky in France.

We’re looking forward to our final play of the season (Tartuffe) for which we’ll be joined by Nick and Tilke. They will be joining us again for Thanksgiving, along with Park’s parents. We’re also looking forward to our first trip to the wineries of the northern Willamette Valley that weekend, right after the lighting of the town on Friday night. Sorry I didn’t grab a picture of the mountains with the dusting of snow we had a couple of days ago, but there’s plenty of time for that.

As you may have guessed from the picture, we’re not in Brunswick anymore. In fact, we’re not anywhere near it. We’ve settled in a small town called Ashland in southern Oregon. Generally the weather here is lovely, with mild winters punctuated by a little snow here and there, a wonderful spring, then long hot, dry summers followed by a delicious autumn. But this winter has been as interesting here as it has elsewhere. Last weekend we were enjoying the 60 degree weather; today we are cleaning up after over 6 inches of snow. This is the second major snow storm this winter, in a place that hardly ever gets enough snow to get excited about.

In addition to the picture here, there are a few more of the valley in the archives. Take a look if you have a few minutes. For those of you planning on visiting us in the next couple of weeks, we really hope that this all melts - at least here in the valley - before you get here.

We still have Om and are planning on getting back to here for a visit this spring. Her long term fate is still up in the air and we do not have any long range cruising planned at this point. The house has been a major project for the past few months and Park has been working non-stop, but things are starting to come together now. We’ll have some pictures posted real soon now, really.

We’ve been enjoying the wonderful weather here in southern Georgia. Everything is blooming and the weather is consistently warm and dry. Almost makes us forget what it will be like in a couple of months.

We have recovered from our 7000 mile road trip to the west coast this winter and Marina has a fresh coat of varnish on the railings. She’s starting on the doors and we should be looking pretty good by the time we leave the dock. I’ve been slaving away trying to build up the kitty so that we can take off for the summer.

We’ve been watching our friends leave over the past couple of weeks and it’s getting pretty quiet around the marina. Most are heading north but a few have taken off for the Bahamas or southern Florida for a couple of months. While we had planned on heading north before now Nick’s decision to get married has altered our plans a bit. We’re still looking forward to catching up with some of them later this year.

We’re flying out to Oregon April 25th for the festivities. The ceremony is on May 1 outside Cave Junction, OR at the Out ‘n About Treesort. We’re looking forward to spending a couple of nights in a treehouse as well as meeting Tilke’s family. We’ve been keeping an eye on the weather there as it has been a particularly wet and cool winter. It looks like it’s going to warm up a bit just in time for our arrival.

Once we return to Om I’ll will be finishing up some income-producing projects before starting in on a couple of minor boat improvements. We are hoping to set off northward before the middle of May. Our first stop will be in the Chesepeake for a little poking around, but the goal is still to head much further north for the summer. We still haven’t decided which way we’ll head once we get to NYC, but all the talk of a possible New England hurricane has us leaning towards the Hudson River and Great Lakes.

If you’ve peeked at the picture gallery recently you have noticed that it’s way out of date. I’m hoping to get some of our pictures from the Nova Scotia trip online in the next few days, but I need to get some real work done first.