March 29, 2026 - With Dennis and Bonnie

 

 Title: March  29, 2026 - With Dennis and Bonnie

 Description :   Animals : Flowers and Plants

Description:

Today is Palm Sunday and we will be going to church with Dennis and Bonnie. A long time ago, I went to the same church as them. I am looking forward to going again. They go to a Christian Missionary Alliance Church in Roseburg.

I got up at 6:30. The Barn, where we sleep, is a restful place. If you wait a bit longer than I did, you can watch the effect of the sun rising out of a large window-I think that same large window would drive Sherri nuts as she does not like light in her bedroom, particularly in the morning. Anyway, I showered and got myself ready for church. Sherri got up and was ready for Bonnie’s breakfast at 8:00. It was a light, but enjoyable breakfast of cinnamon rolls, sausage and fruit.

At 8:30, we left for church. During the Pandemic, Bonnie had sent a pretty wise letter to Sherri from her pastor on how the church would be dealing with the lock down. We got to meet him. He seems a pretty down to earth person. Also got to hear him preach. Only two main points, not the standard minimum requirement for preachers. Being Palm Sunday, there was the typical message about Jesus coming into Jerusalem. Whenever you hear a sermon, I try to figure out what applies to me. Nathan Goble made that pretty easy.

Walking a path

By 11:00, we were back at the house. We moseyed around a bit more-lots of talking and enjoying each other. Dennis needed to go back to church to deal with the offering for the morning. When he came back around 12:30, we had lunch: lamb gyro. Pretty good. Simple, nourishing and tasty.

Our families have been intertwined for over 50 years. We backpacked together and had kids around the same time. Moriah recently got married and we were hoping to see her and Alex. But as I told Dennis, if Moriah was available it would be a blessing on top of a blessing. Moriah and Alex did bless us with their presence. I got to have a bit more of a take on Alex than at their wedding. They look like they are a good fit. They have now been married for six months.

Alex has responsibilities with his church’s youth at 3:00, so he and Moriah leave. This leaves us the four of us to do what we seem to do a lot of on this trip: talk. Which we do for a while. It is suggested we walk Dennis and Bonnie’s property. We did this several years ago when they first got the property. Now to see the changes they have made

Dennis

First stop is a tree house which we all climb up into. It gives a good view of both their property and the valley beyond. I wonder, is this for the grandchildren or for Dennis? Down we go and start examining flowers, such as trillium and shooting stars. Dennis has cut paths around his property. We take on which ends in a bramble of blackberries. When we go the other way, we descend to the property bottom. Dennis talks about the boundaries and what they could do with the property, if they wanted to. You can tell that even though he is in his 70’s there is both pride and a vision. I am glad we can walk the property with him.

Dennis and Bonnie's Forest

By 6:00, we are back at the house and Bonnie has dinner ready within 15 minutes of us arriving. Interesting how a dinner can be simple, yet interesting visually and able to feed both the body and satisfy the taste buds.

By 7:45, we cleaned up from dinner and talked a bit. It is time for another round of Winspan. I thought last night I felt I competed reasonably. Tonight? I am last once again, but pretty pitifully. Bonnie won tonight with Dennis coming in second. We talked for another 45 minutes before retiring. After reading, I close my eyes by 11:30.

Animals

 
Flowers and Plants

March 28, 2026 - Go to Roseburg

 

Lawrence and Andrea

Title: March  28, 2026 - Go to Roseburg
Hike Info : Description :  Extra Photo's

Hike Info:

Type:Touring

 

Description:

By the time I got up on Saturday morning, both Andrea and Lawrence were already gone to Silver Falls State Park for their March Madness walk. That is 20 miles with an elevation gain of 2700’. Ah, to be young again and do that kind of challenge.

I got up at 7:00 and had my normal breakfast of granola. I putz around a bit until Sherri gets up at 8:30. I finished packing. There was a discussion of how long to pack for. For an explanation of what really seems like a silly statement: we have found that when we are going for a shorter stay, it is easier to carry in only the essentials and minimize that baggage. I put my medicines together and some underwear, socks and shirts. We had decided to only pack enough for the next two nights. If we stayed a night on the road back to Fresno, I would deal with that later. 

The original plan was to spend 1-3 nights getting back to Fresno. But rain is forecasted starting Monday and with Sherri being banged up, we will probably take one night to get back. First we will spend a couple of nights at Dennis and Bonnie's house. Dennis was my best man and roommate many years ago. If we got there early enough, they had talked about taking us on a hike to Toketee Falls, just east of Roseburg.

 

When we leave Salem at 11:00, that dims the possibility of going to the Falls. We had talked about doing the “No Kings March” in Eugene, but we also started late for that. Also we wanted to avoid the crowd there and not eat in Eugene. About the time we were thinking of stopping at a rest stop and having a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, we saw an inviting sign for Creswell Bakery.

We get to the bakery about 12:30. Even for a small town, there is a nice line-not terribly long, just that there was one is an indicator that we will be in for a treat. There is a turkey provolone sandwich special today. We decided to take that and split it. Pretty tasty. By the time we finish, it is a little after 1:00.

 

 

We stopped at a rest stop for a few minutes and then we are off again. We get to Bonnie and Dennis’ at 2:20. They are waiting for us. It is good to see them and talk with them. We talked for over an hour. Bonnie had mentioned to Sherri earlier that they could take us to Wildlife Safari which is about ten miles away. They have season tickets to it with enough for guests. Sherri wants to go and I mention this to Dennis. They made it possible.

What is Wildlife Safari? It is a Jurassic Park type place, only thing instead of dinosaurs, it has all kinds of exotic animals: giraffes, antelope, elephants, rhinos and hippos, bears, lions, tigers and many other animals. You stay in your car and drive the premises on their roads. It is one way traffic. Today there is not much of a line in most places. The one place where the grizzlies are playing, people are trying to get good views of them and not moving. They are fun to watch. Another place is the tiger area.

When we get back, Bonnie gets dinner on the table and we have pot roast, carrots, potatoes and a salad. She has it all together within an half an hour of us returning. Wonder Woman she is. After dinner, Dennis serves us some soft-serve ice cream. Then there is more talking.

Dennis and Bonnie have a tradition to play a game each night. At 8:00, we started to play Wingspan. Sherri and I have played it before, but it has been awhile we have to get refreshed on the rules and strategy. This causes the game to be a bit slower than usual. We finish up about 10:45 and are back in the Barn to go to sleep by 11:00-a long day it is.

Extra Photo's

March 19, 2026 - Go to Eureka

Title: March  19, 2026 - Go to Eureka

Hike Info : Description 

Hike Info:

Type: Car

From  Google Maps:

• Mileage: 450 miles
• Drive Time: 7:55

Description:

I got up at 6:30 and got a few things ready. Sherri surprises me and gets up while I am finishing up breakfast. I then spend a few minutes moving stuff out to the garage for future loading. I have been slack in getting trust tax information to the CPA to do the taxes for the trust. So I went off to do that at 8:00. When I returned, I helped Steven level sand in our patio area so he could put in pavers while we are gone. Then I load up the car. While the car does not look packed, the back end is full. But then again, I am not really prepared and we are going out for two weeks.

I start off driving. There are no issues on this segment of our drive. What we know for these next two weeks is that we are going up to David’s today in Eureka and staying through Saturday. Then joining Lawrence and Andrea in Bandon until Tuesday. We will follow them back to Salem through the following Saturday, then go down to Roseburg to stay for a couple of days. After that, we do not know. We will return by April 4th.

We talk a few minutes about possibilities, then talk about a variety of things. We do not stop in Turlock at our normal rest stop. Our first stop is in Elk Grove at our regular lunch stop-Leatherby’s. I have a turkey-cheese sandwich while Sherri’s was Jessie’s chicken sandwich. We topped it off by having a mint hot fudge sundae. What a great way to raise my blood sugar levels.

We popped over to Elk Grove’s Costco and filled up. The gas price has definitely gone up: $5.25 per gallon. Sherri then drives at 1:25 while I rest. She goes through Sacramento and Woodland. When we get to Wiliams, Sherri sees a cloud and thinks it is smoke. When we turned onto Highway 20, we saw the source of the smoke: a field was being burned. By the time we hit CLear Lake, Sherri is ready to give up driving for today. We get to a park with a bathroom about 3:45. Sherri drove for over two hours, a lot more than she is used to.

I drove for a bit more than an hour to our next rest stop. There were a couple of interesting things about this segment. First, more interesting to me than probably anybody else. A few miles after I started driving, I noticed a motorcycle with a yellow headlight following me. When I came to a passing lane, I expected the motorcycle to pass me. He did not, but other cars did. This was on Highway 20 and then when we turned onto 101, he followed us, never passing and mostly keeping a set pace behind us. Not sure why he is not passing us. I think there might be one of three things: first, was he feeling comfortable going at our pace and felt safe. Two, I had done something which really ticked him off-I would not have been aware of it. Last, I had done some damage-also not sure what I did. He left before we got to a rest stop.

Once we got onto 101, I was traveling along quite nicely. Sherri had just awoke when I glanced over at the southbound lane. At first I thought it was a man walking, but then I realized he was rolling along, like being on roller blades. I pointed at him for Sherri to see. He thought I was waving at him, which is also nice. I wonder how far he has gone and where he is going?

Our next stop was around 5pm at the Empire Camp Rest Stop. I take this opportunity to stand for awhile. I also get out my personal pharmacy and take my evening pills. After about 15 minutes we are on our way. There is not much more activity as we travel up to David’s. We munch almonds and Catalina Crunch as our snack-meal. We get to David’s a lot earlier than what I thought we would, at 6:45.

Once we unpacked, we sat around and just talked for over an hour. I think we kept David up-I know I was ready to go to bed and sleep. I got to bed about 9:30 and was asleep by 10:00, not even bothering to read more than just a few pages.

Places: OR-Roseburg

 

 

 

 

Roseburg-482' (Roseburg East) (43.2165050, -123.3417381)
Legal: T__S, R__E, Sec__

Roseburg Creek-981' (Dodson Butte) (43.1109512, -123.1497842)
Legal: T__S, R__E, Sec__

Description : Trips : References : Pictures 


Description:

From  Wikipedia: the most populous city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Oregon.It is located in the Umpqua River Valley in southern Oregon. Founded in 1851, the population was 23,683 at the 2020 census, making it the principal city of the Roseburg, Oregon ... The community developed along both sides of the South Umpqua River and is traversed by Interstate 5. Traditionally a lumber industry town, Roseburg is the home of Roseburg Forest Products, which now spans across 5 different states and 2 countries. 

From GNIS: Roseburg was also known as Roseburgh according to McArthur, Lewis A. and Lewis L  Oregon Geographic Names . Also is the County Seat


Trips:

• September 21  and 22, 2021 - Overnighted in Roseburg 
• March 22, 2024 - Stopped and had lunch with Dennis and Bonnie
• September 27 and 28, 2025 - Moriah's wedding 
• March   28, 29 and 30, 2026 - Three day visit with Dennis and Bonnie

References:

• Wikipedia
• City of Roseburg
• Experience Roseburg 
• 
  

Pictures:

•