Juddmansee.com

Don’t worry, we’re not stuck in Oregon. We made it to California and back home again safely. We just decided that wine tasting and our CA accommodations were too enjoyable to bother with photos and blogging, and then last week was a bit of a whirlwind back to reality.

After braving Hwy 1 and enjoying a great dinner at the brew-pub we continued to Calistoga. It turns out that mud baths are good therapy for poison oak, so we went ahead with our spa plans. Brian booked a couples mud bath and massage at Golden Haven. He warned me that we would emerge, glowing, a few hours later, and he was right! I think I nearly melted on the sidewalk in Calistoga. We enjoyed a mud bath, mineral water shower and hot tub, warm wrap, then an hour massage. Even though my masseuse clearly didn’t spend a lot of time on my blistered legs, it was gloriously relaxing and I felt like warm relaxed putty by the end of the session. Brian is brilliant. We continued into town to eat lunch, a fresh deli in the train station downtown, then on to Napa to check in at our Inn.

Did I mention that Brian is brilliant? We stayed in a garden suite in the Incantment room. Our hosts Jim and Jamie were awesome. A hummingbird visited us on our patio. We were invited to a wine tasting at the Inn on Wednesday afternoon, and given excellent recommendations for dinner at Zuzu for tapas. We had a nice conversation with the couple at our neighboring table who were also vacationing in Napa.

Thursday we had booked a private wine tour, and boy was it worth it. No worries about driving, take advantage of a local’s insights and connections to small family wineries, and enjoy beautiful scenery all day. Our driver was Gary from Beau Wine Tours. We started at Ceja family winery for an introduction to the Carneros area. It was a nearly private tasting, a beautiful venue, and a friendly host. I learned why roses are planted at the end of the rows, and saw the bocce courts where Gary often plays with the owners. We then traveled to the picturesque Domaine Carneros for champagne. In the future, I think it would be a nice place to spend a mid-afternoon for tasting and snacks, overlooking the vineyards, but this time it was a good chance to acclimate ourselves to the area. We continued on to Robinson Family Vineyards, which stole my heart. Anyone who starts making wine in garbage cans in their driveway with a bunch of friends resonates with me. The fact that this concrete contractor poured his own wine cellar was just gravy. The wine was interesting and the stories were incredible. I was inspired that he gave his daughters a stake in the winemaking business to help pay for their college educations. We got to ask lots of questions, we heard about the family wine collection, and we were sad to have to move on. Our next stop was Saddleback Cellars for lunch. A variety of events aligned to make this a sub-standard stop on our trip, but I will chalk it up to poor circumstances and give them another chance if I have the opportunity. (Note to self - few wines are made to drink with a ham sandwich. Next time go for a more wine-friendly menu selection.) Not to be deterred, we continued on to Jessup Cellars. This was easily the highlight of the day. We had a private tasting, enjoyed beautiful artwork, and the accompanying snacks highlighted the wine. We later heard that Bob (Clark) is *the* guy to see at Jessup, and we could not agree more. While the other associates were friendly and knowledgeable, Bob had a passion for wine and such an unpretentious manner, we felt that he could not possibly steer us wrong, and we enjoyed each story and impression he shared. I know we have special affinity for vertical tastings, but this tasting was everything we enjoy all put together, a wonderful way to end our tour.

After another delicious dinner in Napa, a tasty breakfast at the Inn and a short tour around town, it was time to head to San Francisco to see Marnie, Jed, Zoe and Josie. I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that Jed loves North Coast Brewing Company, which we found quite quickly in our drive through Fort Bragg. Great minds (who enjoy beer) think alike. We enjoyed chatting with Jed and Marnie, Josie was really cute (even though she didn’t feel well) and Zoe appeared in her birthday splendor in time to meet us before her big party. A huge thank you to the Davidows for letting us crash there on short notice.

What adventure is complete without Mary Obelnicki? We met up with Mary on Saturday morning, checked out her apartment, played a cutthroat game of Burn Rate, and walked around her neighborhood in Oakland. We picked up lunch at Bake Sale Betty’s, a hopping spot with delicious Fried Chicken sandwiches (with cole slaw!) and yummy cookies. Although sitting at an ironing board table was tempting, we took our lunches back to Mary’s place and learned about broasting. Finally it was time to move on to our last vacation stop - how does two weeks go so fast? The Pitchers hosted us for our last day, in fine style. We enjoyed Wayne’s grilling and Santina’s pancakes, yum! Jonah is growing fast, but still managed to spend some quality time with Brian, mostly playing Sorry rather than playing dinosaur this time. They headed off for vacation to Nantucket, while we headed back to Newburyport to reflect on a wonderful vacation and get back to our normal activities.

When I left you Saturday morning we were sleeping in at Corinne and Mike’s place.

The first order of business for Saturday was a tasty breakfast of homemade waffles with fresh berries.

After that we took a little tour of the small town of Trout Lake and headed back to their property for a tour of their tree farm. The farm borders the White Salmon river, which many people use to kayak down. Here’s a view of one of the rapids on their property.

After a bit of rest and dinner we headed to the rodeo at The Dalles, OR. This was our first rodeo and quite a bit of fun, although I think the animals won. We saw some decent horse riding, but not so good calf and steer roping and terrible bull riding. The highlight of the evening may have been the mule race, though the fellow in the second picture took quite a spill after almost surviving an amazing 3rd buck of the bronco.

On Sunday we had another tasty brunch and headed to the local art festival before saying goodbye. From there we drove to Oregon City, OR where we met up with Su’s cousin Greg and his kids Cici and Henry. We had a nice evening of pizza, playing with the kids, and catching up on the past few years. Also we discovered that Su had a bad case of poison oak developing. (We’ll spare you the pictures of it, but it’s really quite gruesome.)

On Monday we departed Oregon City for the long drive to Crater Lake. Crater Lake is another experience much like Mt. St. Helens. Words and pictures can’t describe what this place looks like. I’ll post more pictures at a later time, but for now here is one of the lake viewed from the spot where we had a quick picnic lunch on the northwest rim.

We also took a quick hike up Garfield Peak for a panoramic overview of the lake and surrounding wilderness before heading down the road to Prospect, OR and the historic Prospect Hotel. We stayed in the motel portion of the property, which was passable for a motel so close to a national park. The inn itself looked quite quaint and I suspect the rooms were a bit nicer than the motel portion. The dinner we had at the dining room in the inn was one of the best we’ve had in a while. The special was local, organic lamb chops. Su commented to the server that we had seen sheep on the way up to Crater Lake and they looked tasty. I’m not sure the server recovered after Su made that comment…

Tuesday was a long travel day in the car down to Fort Bragg, CA. Along the way we stopped in Redwoods National Park. We snapped a picture of me in a tree on the Lady Bird Johnson trail and a picture of Su on the beach.

After finally leaving the park we drove 4 more hours down US 101 and CA Highway 1. The section of highway 1 from 101 to the ocean is some of the tightest, steepest, curviest driving that I’ve ever done. It was very pretty, if exhausting to drive. I’m not sure I need to drive that road again, but I’m glad we did it once. After a good burger for me and some tasty fish and chips for Su, we’re finally back at the hotel, caught up on blogging, and ready for a good nights sleep (Poison Oak aside) before tomorrow’s adventure.

Friday was largely a travel day from La Conner down to Trout Lake, WA via Mt. St. Helens. It’s hard to describe seeing Mt. St. Helens even after having been there. The enormity of the destruction is incredible. I remember when the mountain erupted in 1980 from stories on the news and have since seen enough shows on PBS, etc to know what happened, but all the pictures and stories couldn’t really convey the magnitude of the event. The two photos are from the Johnson Ridge observatory on the north side of the mountain. This is the direction of the main blast. The first photo is of the mountain itself and the surrounding blast area. The second photo is zoomed in on the cones in the crater which are still growing and rumbling. You can just barely see some of the steam with the naked eye/camera from the currently active area.

After leaving Mt. St. Helens we got back on I-5, drove to Portland, and headed east on I-84 which is a beautiful drive up the Columbia River Gorge. We crossed the river at Hood River where the Gorge Games are in progress. Mike and Corinne live on 60 acres of land that includes a tree farm. We had a tasty dinner, played some games, and got to do our laundry from this week which was very necessary.

To say they have a spectacular view is an understatement. This picture of Mt. Adams is taken from a chair in their lofted great room as I’m writing this post. The haze is actually a forest fire on the next mountain over, but I don’t think it spoiled the view too much.

Phew! So much has happened in the last few days and I’ve finally managed to have time to write about it. Also, we had enough free time to run to Office Max to get a USB flash card reader so we can download our photos to the laptop.

On Monday after the last blog posting we drove to North Cascades National Park for a very short afternoon/evening of poking around. We took a couple short hikes from the visitor’s center and took a few nice pictures along the way. This shot is a view of Picket Ridge.

After leaving Picket Ridge we headed up the Skagit River to the dam and saw a nice little flower garden and a pretty spectacular series of waterfalls.

We drove back to town and managed to grab dinner before the sidewalks rolled up at 9pm.

On Tuesday we had meetings in the morning and afternoon. After our last meeting we drove out to Fidalgo Island which is home to the town of Anacortes. Susan’s grandparents spoke fondly of their trip out west for their 50th wedding anniversary in 1987 and how beautiful the Anacortes area was. We drove out to Washington Park on the west side of the island with views of the San Juan Islands and the surrounding water. Next we drove up Mt. Erie which had great views of Mt. Baker and of Mt. Rainier far to the south. The first picture is Mt. Baker and the second is a view over the islands to the south. Though our eyes could just barely make out Mt. Rainier the camera did not pick it up.

On Wednesday we had meetings until 2pm and headed back to Anacortes to go on a whale watching tour. We had no idea what to expect from the trip and ended up having (according to the boat crew) a very lucky viewing experience. Just that morning they had to travel 2 hours to Canada to watch the whales for 1 hour before driving 2 hours back to port. On our trip we saw our first whale about 30 minutes out of port and watched for 3 hours. My camera can’t do justice to how neat it was to see the backs of orcas surfacing between 20 and 1000 yards from the boat with the occasional breeching and subsequent splash.

Orcas live in matriarchal groups of pods. The pods are designated by letters and the whales by a number. We saw mostly J Pod whales with an L pod whale thrown in. The first picture is of J-5 who is a 70 something year old female. She surfaced within 20 yards of the boat and I managed to snap a picture of her with Mt. Baker in the background. The second picture is of Mike (forget his number) who we saw most often. The third picture is of me just missing a full breech by a whale. The splash is still impressive. Though I couldn’t get a decent picture since they were mostly 200 yards away, we spent a lot of time watching Slick and her newborn (J-42) swimming and surfacing together to breathe before diving back under the water.

After the whales decided to head off in a different direction in search of salmon the boat did a little tour of other sites in the area. We saw harbor seals sunning on the rocks, bald eagles hunting for fish, and even a peregrine falcon circling his aerie. The boat also drove us to Deception Pass with its famous bridge before heading back to port.

Today is a much slower paced day as we’ve taken time to do some things around La Conner itself. We did some souvenir shopping, toured the quilt museum, and saw the resident turkeys in town. The turkeys apparently moved into town several years ago and decided to stay. The locals at first thought about having them removed (mmmmm with stuffing) but decided to adopt them instead. We found them in someone’s driveway right where the receptionist said they’d be.

The final shot is one for Susan’s family. The Skagit Valley is very fertile farmland with a great growing climate. There are so many tasty fresh greens, berries, and other local goodies that we’ve eaten very well (and healthy) while being here. Below you’ll see a picture of Susan with her favorite (haha) vegetable.

Tomorrow it’s on to Mt. St. Helens and to visit Corinne and Mike!

We’re going to try to update the blog as we go along so we’re not overwhelmed by one tremendously long post at the end of our trip. Right now it’s just after noon PDT on Monday and we’ve managed to free some time to write our first update. This is Brian writing, even though I’m logged in as Su from her computer.

We left from Boston on 9am on Saturday on JetBlue. Other than the short layover at JFK (ugh what a stinking pit of an airport) the flight out to Seattle was very pleasant. This is the first time I’ve flown JetBlue and I’ve heard good things about them, all of which are apparently true. We landed in Seattle about 3pm local time, got our rental car, and drive to our first stop visiting Isaac, Ashly, Hannah, and Eli Sheldon. We had a tasty dinner and sat and talked for several hours catching up on life. We finally crashed about 10:30 pm (1:30 Boston time). The next day we had breakfast, said goodbye to Ashly who had a training session planned for her upcoming triathlon, and headed to Rattlesnake Ridge with Isaac and the kids.

Rattlesnake Ridge is only 45 minutes from Seattle and is a nice 1 hour climb to a ridge overlooking Rattlesnake Lake, Mt. Si, and the mountains up toward Snoqualmie pass. The first photo shows Mt. Rainier from the I-90 bridge on the drive to the hike. I haven’t been to Seattle in approximately 10 years and I’d forgotten how absolutely huge Mt. Rainier is. The other photos show the ridge we hiked up, the Sheldons at the top, Rattlesnake Lake as viewed from the ridge, and Su and I with Mt. Si in the background.

After we got back to the city we said goodbye to the Sheldons and did the hour drive up to La Conner, Washington, where Su is attending her training sessions. We’re staying at the Channel Lodge which is a lovely little lodge right on the water with an awesome view of the Rainbow Bridge from our room.

After a nice dinner we went to bed early, woke up and ran, and attended our first session. Now it’s lunchtime and off to Mt. Baker later this afternoon.

Brian and I spent the week of June 27 - July 6 visiting our family in the midwest. To have had such a relaxing trip, it sure went fast! As has been our recent trend, we stopped partway through the drive each way, helping to maintain our sanity.

Saturday: We left Saturday evening, drove as far as Batavia, and stayed over night.

Sunday: We drove the rest of the way for Fort Wayne. We visited with my parents for a while, then took a walk to stretch our legs before retiring for what would be a great week of restful night’s sleep.

Monday: We went to visit my Grandmother in St. Mary’s, stopped at Tastee Twirl, went for a drive around town, had lunch with Mom at Pullman Bay (great fried chicken and peanut butter pie!), then watched a girls softball game. The “Little Thunder” (ages 5-8) won! It was such fun to see the girls play at that age.

Tuesday: Dad and Brian changed the locks, we built a picnic table, and cooked steak. I got in a little gardening too - we shelled peas and took green beans, beets and onions with us the next day.

Wednesday: Pack up the car with my scrapbooks and various “stuff” and head to Toledo. We had dinner with Grandma Hume and Uncle Greg, and finally I got to meet Aunt June. She tells great stories and I really like her perspective on things. We stayed up late talking and watching the thunderstorms.

Thursday: We visited Grandma Krueger. I was surprised and touched that she said “Su!” when she saw us coming down the hall. We were glad to hear that she had a really good week recently; Aunt Diane is so patient and caring to visit her every day. We went back to Aunt Diane and Uncle Mike’s for lunch, and Steve joined us. Barb made us tasty chicken cacciatore so we had a relatively quiet evening together.

Friday: It was time to head to the farm in Edon for the annual 4th of July shindig! My parents came out to visit too, and meet Grandma Hume’s family. Lynn and Larry are wonderful hosts. We stayed up late playing cards and chatting with aunts, uncles and cousins. I was amazed at the fireworks too - gotta love Indiana outlets.

Saturday: Where does a week go? We got up, played more cards, enjoyed holding Jack, then had to leave after lunch. This time we stopped in Weedsport on the way back. We saw lots of deer!

Sunday: We decided to take Route 2 instead of the Mass Pike from Albany. It was scenic, hilly, and a change of pace. We saw lots of woodchuck/groundhog creatures in the morning. We made it back and went for a run while we were inspired.

Then, back to the normal work week. The electrician came on Monday and the A/C got turned on Tuesday. Brian’s really been enjoying the air conditioning this week

The flowers enjoyed our vacation, which coincided with a warm week of sunny weather and showers most afternoons in Newburyport. Brian staked the tomatoes and mowed the lawn, and snitched a couple snap peas as a reward for his work this week. We enjoyed our first fresh salads of the year. In addition to the flowers, the green beans are also blooming. It’s a colorful yard!

The purple Salvia is blooming, as are the Autumn Sunset Mums (color, not season). The yellow coneflowers (black eyed Susan) are close.

The beebalm will also be blooming soon! It’s red and spikey.

The hanging basket of impatiens is blooming again, the tiger lilies are blooming, and you can see the nifty new stakes Brian found at the garden store. The idea is that the main tomato stalk is supported by the swirling metal spike. I think it looks artistic! Brian was short one cage/spike so the brighter stake is a broom handle Brian found to support the 11th tomato. You probably can’t see them in the photo, but a the original canna is growing, and he’s got a friend now - a second canna has sprouted behind the lilies. I am really pleased with the colorful flowers we have this summer!

It’s been quite the week with all of the contractor fun going on at the house (see our last two posts) plus trying to get ready for a vacation to see our families. During all this chaos, I got a chance to see my best friend from high school, Hans, who was in town for a training class. Being a baseball fanatic, we had to make a trip to Fenway. The weather was perfect for baseball. We saw Wakefield pitch 7 innings of shutout, 2 hit ball, saw a homerun over the monster, and got to see Papelbon mow down the last batter with the bases loaded to preserve the shutout. It doesn’t get much better than this.

The contractors arrived bright and early today for their second day of exploration - I mean installation. I got up even earlier so I could dig up bulbs in the side yard. I didn’t want them to get covered by the condenser when it gets installed. (And for those early birds out there, yes there were plenty of worms to be found digging in the mud at 6:30am)

We start today’s photo montage from the 1st floor bathroom. The cabinets were removed to make room for ductwork. You can see the fine wallpapering (ahem) behind the cabinets. Next, the contractors cut a hole in the ceiling. Brian took a photo from the hole, looking toward the back of the house down the rafters toward the big chimney. There is a considerable gap between the bathroom wall and the pantry, and also a gap between the ceiling of the bathroom and the floor of the linen closet on the 2nd floor.

You know what you can do with extra space in your walls or between floors? Here’s a clue. Yep, that’s just random debris. We got several more looks inside the walls. For example, here’s a shot of more junk but also showing the wall joint. Brian let his engineering instincts loose here, measuring the size of the beam, and also noting the first floor ceiling was originally between the 8 and 10 inch marks.

I am avoiding the temptation to drop something from the attic down behind the dryer. It’s a straight shot through the linen closet! I could even throw a tennis ball through the hole in our bedroom wall and you know where it would come out? Behind the dryer. I would love to turn our house into a giant Rube Goldberg machine at this point. Luckily the temptation will subside tomorrow when the rest of the vents and returns are completed.

Thank you Beej for keeping me posted on the construction activities during the day! It is fun to follow along viewing the pictures.

The contractors spent today working on our new HVAC system. They removed the old boiler and excess ductwork from the basement. Brian can stand up without bumping his head in several new areas of the basement. I’ve been told this is only temporary, as they contractors will be installing a more efficient branching scheme tomorrow. Note the dryer lint on the one duct; the dryer still vents to the basement and I don’t think there is much we can do about it until we move the washer and dryer.

The A/C unit was delivered. It is large. It’s 3×3 in footprint, as advertised, but it is also 4.5 feet tall. Luckily it still fits within our property line on the church side of the house (we measured).

For the most part today’s exploration of vent and return placement went well. I had no idea there was so much dead space in the house. That shot is behind the built-in china cabinet. Evidently there were a set of shelves (that picture is looking down at the shelves from a hole about ceiling level). Why someone would enclose the shelves and then put in new ones is a bit of a mystery. I chalk it up to the weird contractor who lived here a dozen years ago.

I did suspect that we lacked insulation. This photo - my favorite of the bunch - proves it. Brian took this shot reaching behind the cubby in the guest room (above the kitchen, behind our bedroom). This crawlspace goes behind the back chimney, across the width of the house. I was told that the guy who crawled in there was between Brian’s size and my size, but very skinny. I believe it!

The final interesting point of the day was the cat. He was very chill when I got home, which was a surprise given that strange men had been tromping around the house, drilling holes in walls and making lots of noise. Brian mentioned that the cat spent most of the day in the attic. The thing is, the ladder to the attic was removed. That means the cat jumped a good 5 feet up to the landing of the “good morning” steps in the attic. Good kitty!