SR DEP Visit to Evergreen Aviation Museum

Abi will be meeting with her DEP (Delayed Entry Program) team once a month. She also has other requirements for phone contact and in-person contact with her recruiter on a regular basis.

Today the DEP meeting was at the Evergreen Aviation Museum. The recruiters had pizza lunch ready for the new recruits, as well as a guided tour of the museum by a volunteer staff. The new recruits were able to introduce themselves to each other. Abi found that she and another girl will be entering boot camp at about the same time, the rest of the recruits were boys.

Petty Officer Adams and Chief Meyers
Pizza lunch

The recruits, minus one that arrived later.

Abi, answering a question

Veteran volunteer, explaining his pins and emblems

Wisdom and experience shows in his face

A picture of a painting on display

The Spruce Goose, a few of the engines

Our guides

Machine gun

This kid is leaving to be a Navy Seal this next month

Navy Helecopter

The Spruce Goose from a distance, and still it all doesn't fit into the picture frame

Navy emblem on a display outside

The Space Museum building

It was the Navy that plucked Apollo from the ocean

We toured a mock up of a NASA launch station

Each time the new recruits have in-person contact with their recruiters, they have to fill out a form stating they are complying with the rules and that there eligibility status has not changed.

This kid, it was humorous, his pants were down, and undies and butt crack showing. I'm sure that's the last time that will happen!

Abi next to Space Exhibit of landing on the moon

The Oregon Statehood Sesquicentennial Stamp

Today is the first "date of issue" for the Oregon Stamp, celebrating Oregon's 150th birthday.

Oregon's birthday is on February 14, Valentine's Day. Although it's not Oregon's birthday, yet, it is the birthday of someone I love dearly.....

My husband, Matthew.

We both love Oregon very much and are blessed to have been raised in this beautiful state.

There was a very small celebration of the first date of issue for the Oregon US Postage Stamp in the small town of St. Paul. I stopped by their post office today to pick up a couple of the new Oregon Stamps, and was told the party for the stamp was across the street in the community hall.

While at the community hall, I was able to purchase stamped envelopes with a special first date of issue cancellation on them. I also met a grandson of the first postmaster of Oregon. That was pretty cool. His name was Harold. He was old enough to be my grandpa. Nice fella, he told me some of the Grande Ronde indian stories his grandfather used to tell him.

A gentleman from the Salem Statemen Journal newspaper interviewed me, perhaps because I was one of a few people in attendance, and he had already interviewed Harold. He asked me what I thought about the stamp design chosen. I told him that it was beautiful, but I would have liked to seen a design that would have incorporated more of what makes Oregon beautiful, like Crater Lake, Mt. Hood, Eastern Oregon, etc. I admitted I wasn't sure how they would be able to fit that all on the stamp, so I agreed with the beauty of the design that was chosen.

All-in-all, it was a worthwhile trip to be a small part of Oregon History, and to pick up a unique gift for Matt--A first date of issue cancellation on his 40th birthday!!! I tried to frame it nicely for him.

-Lori

Sign on front door of St. Paul Community Hall

Lori in front posing with picture of new stamp


Gentleman from Salem Stamp Club, volunteering to hand stamp each envelope with first date of issue from St. Paul Station

Hiking the Opal Creek Trail

Sunday we hiked at Opal Creek Wilderness area with our girls and our friends Lynn and Randy.

We estimate that we may have hiked about 7 miles.

Opal Creek is beautiful, clear, cool water. The coloring of the rock formations on the river bed as seen through the clear water appear to have an opal-like appearance. The Opal Creek area is a designated wilderness area, and is federally protected--no logging or fishing.However, the area was previously logged and has also has a mine from the depression era--the rusty remnants of that time remain for us to see.

The water was refreshing to our feet, but still very cold, and tolerable for only a few seconds at a time. Matt was the adventurous one--walking back and forth in the water from bank to bank. He had a high tolerance level.

Okay, maybe the coldness showed on his face a few times...

World's Smallest Park

Matt, Lori and Nicole saw the world's smallest park today--it's 24 inches in diameter.

Located in the middle of a busy street in Downtown Portland. It's called Mill Ends Park. If you look in the middle of the crosswalk just right of Matt's left elbow, you'll see a green bush that is planted in the middle of a concrete curb.

We can't say that we were walking, and oh.. there it is. Instead it was one of those curiosity items found in our Oregon Curiosity book. We have the book, and Nicole also wanted one--so we got her one, too, as part of her birthday present this week. We figure we'll start dating the pages in our books as we visit the places mentioned.

Our day started at the Oregon Historical Museum, and we went to the Sand in the City event in Pioneer Square afterwards. We visited Saturday Market and did some window shopping in Pioneer Place before we headed over to the Lloyd Center, via Max light rail, where we had parked the car.

Rock collections...to the extreme!

Okay, I'm not sure when or where it started, but I believe I may have caught it from my mother--or possibly from the old Lucy movie titled the Long, Long Trailer (the scene in which Ricky was pulling a long travel trailer up a steep road with difficulty because it was hauling rocks Lucy had stashed in the trailer. If you watch that link the follow up to the scene is here). Not sure if collecting rocks is a trait, disease, or a normal human thing.

We have some rocks that have been collected over the years, and I have intentions (dreams) of us creating a beautiful serene water feature with frogs, and having a meandering rock pathway in our back yard.

We moved the rocks from our previous home and currently, the rocks are stacked carefully, awaiting the day they will be put into service.

We even have the rock that was in the middle of Hwy 22 and caused a flat tire during hunting season. It was Nicole and Abi's first lesson in changing a flat tire on the side of the road. As a souvenir, we threw the rock in the trunk.

Matt and I have also collected agates from the coast --those agates await a day to be polished in a rock tumbler.

Well, one of the ultimate rock collectors in Oregon actually put his rocks into service. We first learned about Howard Taylor from a book called Oregon Curiosities. Mr. Taylor was a surveyor. He collected rocks while he traveled all over Oregon. He ended up with tons and tons (800 tons is the estimate) of rocks, and in the 1960s he began building The Living Rock Museum at his home in Brownsville. The rocks are native to Oregon and include agates, thunder eggs, jasper, obsidian, petrified wood, and others.

The neat thing about this man is his dedication. He completed the museum in 1985 on his golden wedding anniversary. His museum includes other completed projects such as his carvings that are made from wood from every native tree in Oregon, his collection of Oregon native bird paintings, and a Oregon bird field guide book complete with data and hand painted pictures of each bird native to Oregon. If one is curious about the history of the logging industry in Oregon, a hand-made wood book detailing the history is also on display--so large it needs a custom turntable to "turn" the pages.

This piece of Oregon history and geology found in Brownsville is a real treasure. It is still privately owned by family members of Mr. Taylor, and tours are available. They provide you with flashlights to be able to see the detail of the rocks in the walls, ceiling and floors. Definitely a stop worth making if you find yourself on I-5 in the Corvallis/Eugene area.

As a child and a only a couple times since, we have also been to Petersens Rock Garden in Redmond, Oregon. It's quite fantastic and a much larger scale than The Living Rock Museum. But I find they both are equally awesome as a result of the dedication of the individuals who built them. We're overdue for a trip to Petersens!

Erratic Rock - Oregon History from the Ice Age

A quick trip to visit a very old rock outside of McMinnville, gave us a little more excitement than we thought we would get from seeing a rock.

Lori learned about this rock from her summer Oregon geography class this past week, so we thought we would try to find it and check it out. Apparently it used to weigh about 160 tons, but with vandalism and people taking away souvenirs over the years, it has decreased significantly in size, down to 90 tons. What is cool about this rock is that it is believed to have arrived at it's location by way of floating on an iceberg during the Missoula flood (originating from Montana area), and landing here in the Willamette valley.

We snapped a couple pictures, then Lori screamed when she saw the rather large snake in front of her in the grass. Matt checked it out a little closer, trying to get a picture and it hissed at him. The hiss was loud, especially considering the wind was blowing. With the new discovery, Matt set out to find another snake, figuring there must be more of them by the evident holes in the surrounding area. Yep, he found another one, along with several snake skins that were shed. A bit unnerving to stand in the middle of the grass with the wind blowing tall weeds at our calves, the feeling was unsettling. But Matt kept looking for more skins and snakes, and even pulled some skin from a hole! Yikes!!

Willamette Stone

We searched out a bit of Oregon geological history on Saturday evening...

The Willamette Stone