May 11-13, 2024 Eugene, Oregon

 High of 89 and sunny.

We went to the Veneta farmer's market to listen to Leslie and Theo. They sounded great. 

Happy hour before dinner at Leslie and Scotts on the porch of the Hip Hop house. Yummy dinner and good company.

The temperature went down to a high of 76 today. Very pleasant. We went for a walk with Scott, Leslie, Karen and Julia, plus 3 dogs at Dorris Ranch.. John on the trail with larkspur. Camus, geranium, iris, yellow sunflower, wild cucumber, dark and lighter larkspur, wild rose and a back lit nd cow parsnip.

On the trail with more larkspur. Karen, Julia, Scott, Leslie and John crossing a bridge with three dogs. 

Grass and ferns as tall as we were. 

Along the river. 

Larkspur, buckler's sorrel, Solomon seal, red clover, pacific water leaf, bleeding hearts and mallow. The McKenzie river.

Deep dark forest. We are now parked in front of the bay door. They worked on the  coach all day. 

I wrapped these two pieces of dichroic glass. 

May 6-10, 2024 Cape Blanco to Eugene, Oregon

 High of 52, cloudy, intermittent rain and windy.

The wind and rain let up mostly this afternoon so we took a long walk on the beach. It is approaching low tide so there was a wide beach. At high tide there is no beach. The beach was covered with a bunch of blue By the Wind Sailors (Vella Vella- Latin name). They are related to Portuguese men of war. They float around on the ocean and the only way they move around is by the wind. Certain times of they year the wind is right and they blow up on the beach. Close up of a vella vella and a bunny in the campground.

Beach looking north. Storm clouds reflected. 

Beach looking south. Puddles left on the beach when the tide went out. 

Vella vella's in yellow sea foam. I think it is yellow from all the pollen falling from the trees. More sea foam.

I added a row of beads around the outside of these pendants. I though they need a frame around them. The direction I had said to put the bead row on, but I thought it might look too garish, still deciding. The bus is having electrical problems. The house batteries are not charging as they should when we are plugged in. John is not sure if the batteries are bad (they went bad in about a day if so) or there is a problem with the charging system. The lights and water pump only run off the batteries.  Mostly everything else works on shore power. The heat pump runs on shore power, but it has a short in it and only works intermittently. The diesel furnace needs the battery to run the fan on it. John has a charger on the battery that is having very little effect. We are conserving on the use of bus lights. Fortunately on Friday we will be at Oregon Motor Coach for our annual maintenance work, so it will all be fixed soon. 

Change in plans. John called Oregon Motor coach and told them about our electrical problems and they said to come today instead and hopefully tomorrow they can fix it. We canceled our last few days of reservations on the coast ( boo) and headed to Eugene. Mossy green trees on the way to Eugene. The bus at Oregon Motor coach. They put John's same charger on the battery and it charged it up. They will trouble shoot it, hopefully tomorrow.  They doubled the size of the parking lot. John says there are 36 coaches in the lot and there is room for 10 more in the bays. 

I finished this basket on the drive here. It started out  dark an then color exploded into it. It is made from natural and dyed pine needles, polyester thread, glass and metal beads and an arrow head. The center is a piece of slate tile that I sandblasted and painted the raven on to. It is 11 x 2 1/2 inches.  We had our dinner on the deck at Oregon Motor Coach.

Sunset tonight. 

We visited our good friend Leslie and Scott. We are enjoying the new deck that Scott just finished. Rhododendrons and forget me nots in Scott and Leslie's front yard.

Mural on the side of Springfield Rec center while we were out walking the dog. I got some RV wear. These are leggings. 

High in the high  80's and intense sun. The front AC does not work. Boo. I made wire wrapped a couple more pieces of my fused, beveled and polished pieces of dichroic glass. I finished this basket today. It is made from natural and dyed pine needles, polyester thread, glass and clay beads. The center is a piece of selenite that I sandblasted and then painted the raven on. On the front is a small lizard. It is 6 x 7 x 2 inches.

May 3-5 2024 Cape Blanco, Oregon

 High of 51, heavy rain and wind.

We are now camped at Cape Blanco state park. It is raining very hard. We got wet setting camp up. I went to the beach overlook around sunset, in the rain. No sunset. No beach either, the tide was in. 

Rain in the campground. Countryside view in the rain. There is a reason it is sooo green here. 

We stopped at Bandon Brewing, John with his Facerock double IPA. I had a chocolate peanut butter porter.  Welcome to old town Bandon. 

We stopped at Misty Mountain to see if they had any cranberry wine, but no such luck, But John found a bear chair. In the season you can pick blue berries here, but not today. 

We stopped at Vines Art Glass so I could look at beautiful glass. Bryce Dimitruk does beautiful work. John thought he got kale, but it was actually mustard green, looks the same. Will see how it is in salad. The reason we went to Bandon was to go to Bandon Rain cidery. I had a glass of cranberry cider in Brookings. It was so good I wanted to buy some, but you can only get it at the cidery. So I picked some up. Bandon is know for it's cranberries, here is a cranberry bog along the road. And a rhododendron blooming in the campground. 

We had lull in the rain so I walked down to the beach. There was  really cold wind in my face and it started to rain again, so I went back. Butter cups and skunk cabbage blooms near the beach. 

The sun came out at dinner time, so we had dinner at the picnic table. I went to the beach overlook to see sunset. This was lovely, but the real showy clouds were on the other side of the cape by the lighthouse. . 

I made a few more wire wraps. I picked up a booklet on the tree of life wrap, and here it is with my dichroic glass. Pretty cool looking. High of 53,  very windy and partly rainy/sunny. Tjis evening for sunset we walked almost all the way to the lighthouse. It was too windy on the cape, so we came back. There were dark clouds to the west, but some of the higher clouds had a little color. John on the trail ahead.

Informational sign at the lighthouse. View to the north of the cape.

Wild iris and coastal angelica. View of looking farther north with angelica. 

I made a couple more wire wraps today with my beveled, polished dichroic glass pieces.