So Oregon

Sunday-Monday: Westward Ho

About halfway through the third flight of the day June fell asleep. It had been an exhausting day and it was early evening our time so I wasn’t surprised. She woke a few minutes later when the flight attendant came by with the snack cart. She declined the offer of a drink, but again, I thought nothing of it, figuring she was so sleepy that the appeal of snacks and drinks high in the sky had diminished. It wasn’t until she started crying that I put the pieces together. I had just outlined them for a neurologist at Children’s National Medical Center less than a week earlier—falling asleep in the late afternoon, losing her appetite, and unexplained crying. June was getting a migraine.

I took her to the bathroom because she thought she might vomit, but she didn’t and we made our way back to our seats. Another flight attendant offered painkillers, which June didn’t want because they weren’t chewable, and earplugs, which she accepted but did not use, and a bag of ice with a wet paper towel inside. I used it to mop her forehead and I held the airsick bag for her when she did vomit during our descent. It was the first time she’d used one and I have to say she nailed it. It was also the first time June had flown. My mother and stepfather moved to Oregon a year and a half ago and this was our first visit.

For the first two and a half flights June enjoyed flying. “We’re in the clouds! We’re in the clouds!” she exclaimed as we took off, and she enjoyed pointing out the tiny houses, and road and even a miniature football field. She also read and colored in a coloring book provided by the airline. I read The Miserable Mill (book 4 in the Series of Unfortunate Events) to her and she and Beth listened to an audiobook of a Nancy Drew mystery.

My mom and Jim met us at the Medford airport and then Mom had to turn around and go back home because they had forgotten the booster seat. Luckily, Ashland, where they live, is not far from Medford so we relaxed in the lounge, glad to be on the ground, until she returned.

Sara came over for dinner and we got to congratulate her in person on finally being matched with a Chinese toddler girl, after years of trying to adopt first domestically and then from Haiti. Some time next spring or summer she will travel to China and bring home her daughter, who will be two by then.

We ate a lentil-kale stew Mom had made and all fell to bed exhausted, except Noah, who wanted to stay up until his bedtime on West Coast time. We let him because we all had to make the switch sooner or later. The rest of us went to bed about halfway between our bedtimes on EDT and PDT. Sara thoughtfully brought us a bottle of melatonin, which she said might help us sleep longer in the morning.

I’d been fretting for a long time before the trip that June would wake up at three in the morning the first day in Oregon and I would have to keep her quiet for six hours until it was reasonable to expect on-West-Coast-time-and-retired adults to be awake. Well, she slept until almost 4:30, when I had to adjudicate a dispute about bathroom access between both my kids. I thought we’d all be up for the day but I said everyone had to go back to bed and try to sleep and Noah and I actually did sleep. June didn’t and at 5:25, while she was getting herself a bowl of cereal (she’d already had a plate of strawberries), she knocked over a jar in the fridge and Mom and I woke to a loud crash. We both got up to investigate and we had a little pre-dawn chat before Mom went back to bed.

I ate breakfast and read to June on the deck and then took her on a walk around Mom’s neighborhood, looking for a playground Mom had mentioned but we didn’t find it. We did find wild blackberries and Queen Anne’s lace growing by the side of the road and as June had things to pick, she was happy.

Beth and Noah were up by the time we returned so we all headed back out together on a longer walk in search of espresso and Wi-Fi. On the way we enjoyed the mountain view— a lush, green range on one side of the road and an arid one on the other. Apparently, Ashland is at the juncture of two ecosystems. After second breakfast at a café and some computer time for everyone, June and I hit the playground, which Beth had discovered on the way. There were two preschool girls and a mom there. June played with them and within minutes had them all filled in on the plane ride, her migraine and her Kung Fu lessons (the little girls had suggesting playing at martial arts). I simply cannot imagine having June’s social moxie. As we left one of the girls wanted to know if I was the grandmother June was visiting, a detail I include because Noah said I should, and which Beth attributes to the gray hair at my temples, though I want to state for the record she has at least as much gray hair as I do and probably more.

When we got back to the house Mom was up and we spent much of the day walking around Ashland with Sara. We visited Lithia Park and tasted the famed mineral water (salty and with more than a hint of baking soda). You should only try it if you are curious. We saw the duck ponds and walked along a wooded trail. There was a playground with a giant rope climbing structure and it was just what June needed—two playgrounds in one morning after a day cooped up on planes. We had lunch at a restaurant with a nice view of the creek and we visited the Oregon Shakespeare Festival gift shop because Mom volunteers there. She said she would buy June “anything [she] wanted.” This turned out to be a deep blue and green princess dress and a white garland-like headdress. Then she had to take June around the store and show her off to all her gift shop friends. Meanwhile, Noah got a rubber duck that looks like Shakespeare with a beak.

In the late afternoon we went to Emigrant Lake, where we split into groups. June wanted to go to the water slide so Beth took her. Noah, Sara, and I swam in the lake and Mom stayed on shore with a book. The lake was only 35% full, due to a drought. Noah noticed the line of buoys that normally mark the swimming area, sitting up on the dried and cracked mud hundreds of yards from the current shoreline. He said we were rebels to cross the line. The lake, even in its reduced state, was pretty, ringed with mountains. Sara swam far out, but I stayed with Noah who enjoyed splashing and plucking small green gelatinous balls (algae perhaps?) from the water and throwing them.

Mom’s sister Peggy, her husband Darryl and their grandson Josiah, who’s just a month and a half younger than June, arrived from Boise in the early evening and our party was complete. We met for dinner at an Italian restaurant. June and Josiah, who are good buddies from the two years he and his mom lived in Brooklyn when we used to see them more frequently, sat together and made plans for later, which included playing Sleeping Queens, a card game Josiah learned from June at a previous family gathering, and he was eager to play again.

The new arrivals were staying at Sara’s house and June wanted to sleep over there, too, which meant Noah and I had some time to read Insurgent before bed. I managed to stay up until my bedtime and even a little past it that night.

Tuesday: Oregon Trail

In the early afternoon the ten of us piled into our vehicles to drive to the Oregon coast where we were spending a few days. June went with Peggy, Darryl, and Josiah and the two kids played Sleeping Queens with the cards spread out on a cooler in between them. We stopped a few times—for forgotten groceries at a health food store, for a late lunch at a picnic table near a river where Sara took a dip and finally at Jedediah Smith State Park in Northern California to see the redwoods and for Sara to try to swim in another river. On exiting the cars, we all scattered. The kids found a big fallen log with alarmingly large slugs on it (not quite as big as a banana slug but bigger than slugs have any right to be). While they were climbing on the log, Mom, Jim, and Sara headed toward the river. The left a helpful sign on the back of the car that said, “River” with an arrow pointing to the right. I went to find them in an attempt to make sure everyone knew where everyone else was. Sara was wading in the river but it was too shallow to swim. As we were all leaving the river, I heard Beth’s and June’s voices coming toward us and I veered in their direction. When I first caught sight of them, Beth was tumbling down a steep incline and then I heard June crying. I ran to them. Apparently they were going down the slope when Berth stopped to put her hand on a signpost to get her balance. But the sign was rotted at the base and it fell right on June. They were both scraped up—Beth worse—but June was more rattled, having taken a wooden post to the head.

After we’d cleaned them both up with Peggy’s first aid kit and checked June for signs of concussion, we drove the rest of the way to the rental house, had a quick dinner of white bean and artichoke sandwiches, and went to bed. Beth and the kids and I were in one room. June slept on the floor in a sleeping bag and Noah had a mat he placed in the closet. He liked being enclosed that way and ended up spending a lot of his free time in the closet, which led to the predictable jokes. (When I explained them to him, he joked that if he was gay, he thought I’d be “pretty understanding” about it, so I took the opportunity to say I would, but it would be fine with me if he was straight, too.)

The house was painted bright colors and was what Noah and I (independently of each other) called “very decorated.” There were a lot of wooden figures—on shelves and hanging from the walls—stars, animals, and mythical creatures. June liked the winged mermaid in our room best. I was taken with the snake in a sombrero.

I didn’t go down to the beach Tuesday evening, surprising those who know me best. It was dark and the trail to the beach was unfamiliar and involved crossing a highway, so I decided to wait.

Wednesday-Thursday: Down By the Turquoise Sea, Oh My, Under the Blue, Blue Sky

But the next morning I left the three kids playing Sleeping Queens and the adults chatting or making almond pancakes and I made my way down a steep, scrubby incline by the side of the highway and down to the beach. It wasn’t easy to get down it and I had to roll up my jeans and ford a marshy area before I was on sand. It wouldn’t have been a good idea after dark.

The beach was lovely—located at the north end of a long, shallow cove with those classic Pacific coast rocks rising from the water at either end. The sand was darker and more pebbly than East coast beaches but still mostly sand. There was a lot of driftwood, including whole logs and a lot of tubular kelp, some hard and dried into curly patterns, and some still flexible. There were eight vultures on the sand, walking around and occasionally stretching their wings. I was there over an hour and never saw another soul, though I could hear traffic not far behind me.

I returned to the house, and ate the leftover pancakes Sara made. Everyone wanted to go to the beach but the path I took proved too steep for some of the senior members of our party so we got into the car looking for a place with easier access, but not before Josiah had scrambled to the marshy pool of water and lost a flip flop.

At the beach the kids enjoyed playing with the dried kelp tubes. Noah immediately discovered a short, thick one that made a satisfying thump when he whacked it on the sand. June decided hers was a scepter and she was Queen June. Noah decided to overthrow Queen June and then she wanted him to tie her ankle to one of the longer, more flexible lengths of kelp that looked like a ball and chain. She had a suitably downcast prisoner look. Josiah built a pyramid of sticks and June, Josiah, and Darryl played in the surf but it was too cold for the rest of us to follow them.

Back at the house, June and Josiah started a treehouse they would work on the rest of the stay. The laid sticks and a flat rock in the crook of a tree branch and secured it all with yarn Peggy had on hand. The treehouse had its own constitution, a set of rules and punishments for breaking the rules. And they charged a dollar for admission.

Our afternoon adventure was a drive south along the coast, stopping at scenic viewpoints and beaches to see particularly impressive rock formations and in some cases to hike around them. We saw an arch, a natural bridge, rocky islands covered in conifers, and sea caves with water rushing in and out of them. And as June cheerfully noted after a particularly high, narrow trail, “we didn’t plunge into the icy water!” The water was turquoise in places and there was fog rolling in and out all day, usually just enough to be scenic without completely obscuring the view.

Mom and Jim showed us a beachside campground where they stayed in their trailer on a previous adventure and the kids enjoyed climbing the rocks that emerged from shallow water on one beach. The rocks were sharp with barnacles and mussels and one had succulent plants growing on one face.

We got home later than intended, which was worrying me because I tend to obsess about the kids’ bedtimes, but we found that in our absence, not only had Peggy chopped the vegetables for shish kabobs (which we knew she was going to do) but she’d made the rice, baked a peach-blackberry crisp with Josiah’s help, and even taken my laundry out of the drier and folded it. She is now my favorite aunt.

After dinner there was a talent show. June sang “Memory” from Cats to much acclaim and Josiah did magic tricks, quite skillfully I must say. (The next day he showed June how to do one of the card tricks.)

I stayed up too late trying to catch up on Facebook and then discovered while trying to undress that I was stuck in my jeans. I’d rolled them up to just under my knees in the morning on the beach, and then left them that way all day. Either my calves swell late in the day like some people’s feet, or I built up some muscle from all that hiking, or my jeans got wet and shrank a little. Whatever the reason, they would not unroll and they would not budge. It took Beth ten minutes of yanking on them and dragging them down millimeter by millimeter until I could get out of them. I should add lest there be any misunderstanding that these are not tight jeans. I don’t wear tight jeans. They are Mom jeans, from L.L. Bean, no less. Anyway, I wore different pants the next day.

I spent Thursday morning mostly at the house, socializing and reading to the kids. Josiah was really enjoying the Series of Unfortunate Events even though he came in at book 5, The Austere Academy. I did enjoy a brief jaunt down to the beach. It was a cool, sunny day and my stretch of beach was deserted though I could see people far to the south.

After lunch, nine of us drove to Arizona beach, so called because it’s sheltered by rock and somewhat warmer than nearby beaches. Beth had read there were good tidal pools there. We arrived an hour and fifteen minutes before low tide and we couldn’t find much interesting tidal pool life at first. But the kids didn’t care because there was a freshwater creek winding down the beach toward the sea and great quantities of sun-bleached driftwood in all sizes. Noah and Josiah swung heavy logs around and June and Josiah built things—they made dams and a castle guarded with a long wall of logs. They also attempted to build a raft—a long-standing goal of June’s. Meanwhile Beth and I were poking around the rocks near shore, looking for sea anemones and starfish. We edged around the corner of our cove, into the next one, picking our way through rocks and waves. At the far end of that cove, we hit pay dirt.

I found the anemones first. They were small and brown and covering a rock that was under shallow water. When I poked them they grasped my finger gently. I wondered the kids would leave their building projects to see them and then Beth spotted a red starfish on a rock a little further out, and I went back to get them. It took a while to get back to the original beach and talk to my mom, Peggy, Darryl, Sara, and the kids so by the time Darryl and the kids and I made it back to where Beth was (Mom and Peggy elected not to come as it meant wading through swirling seawater and across slippery rocks) Beth had found scores of starfish and hundreds more anemones. The starfish were red and orange and black, clinging to the rocks and to each other. In addition to the little brown anemones, there were big green ones. The more you looked, the more you found.

“This is magical,” Sara said.

Later Noah told Beth, “You keep suggesting things to do that sound really boring but turn out to be great!” (Beth asserts the trick is to undersell the activity. She’d described the tidal pool trip to him thusly: “We are going to a beach to look at pools of water on rocks.”)

The kids drifted back to their creek before the adults were finished marveling at the sea life but we eventually followed. I took a brief swim in the ocean, probably ten minutes or less, and the water was so cold my legs were starting to go numb when I walked back onto the sand. After my swim I was standing by the creek, near the ocean, when I saw Noah’s crocs come floating down the creek. I snagged them, returned them to him, and asked if he’d known they were drifting out to sea. June nearly lost her crocs at this beach, too. It was a hard couple of days on kids’ shoes.

Friday: If You Said Jump in the River, I Would

The next day it was time to check out of our beach house and drive back to Ashland. Noah and I went down to the beach to say goodbye to the ocean while people were finishing their packing. As we sat on a log and stared at the ocean and the conifer-covered hills at the north end of the cove, he said, “This is so Oregon.”

On the way home we stopped at the Smith River for a picnic lunch and to swim in a swimming hole. This was Sara’s favorite part of the trip because as much as I am an ocean person, she is a river and lake person. The swimming hole was shallow in some places and deep in others so it was good for everyone who wanted to swim. The water was cool and green and very clear. (“Lucid” according to the park website, so of course we all worked the word “lucid” into conversation as often as possible because we are that kind of family.) There was a rock face on one side with a good ledge for diving, but only Sara dove from it. “I hope Mom’s not watching,” I commented to Beth as we watched her, and luckily, she wasn’t. I understand the maternal point of view on these matters better now then when I was childless.

Once we got to Ashland, we visited Sara’s house and her tile mosaic studio, which we had not had a chance to see yet. It’s a charming house and as Beth noted with an eye toward its future inhabitant, full of breakable objects. The kids liked seeing the studio where Sara breaks colored glass with a hammer and then glues the pieces into pictures. What kid wouldn’t like at least half of that equation?

We had pizza for dinner on the green in front of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival theaters and watched the Green Show, which is a free show put on six nights a week. That night it was the Rogue Artists Ensemble performing HYPERBOLE: Bard, which in their own words “recreates a collection of William Shakespeare’s most famous scenes through clowning, masks, puppets, and original music.” This was fun. Noah has studied some Shakespeare in school, which might have helped him appreciate it. June thought the funniest part was the slapstick bit when Romeo and Juliet kept dying and coming back to life, only to find each other dead and killing themselves over and over.

When the show was over, I turned to find Beth talking to our friend Sue, who lived with us in a group house when we attended grad school at the University of Iowa about twenty five years ago. (Her mother lives in D.C. so we see her every few years.) Soon her husband Scott, who also lived in the house, came over and we were all exclaiming over the coincidence of finding each other. They live in Washington state now and happened to be visiting Ashland. We invited them to come have gelato with us but they had theater tickets so it was a very brief reunion.

After gelato, we said our goodbyes to Sara and returned to Mom and Jim’s house. We had an early flight the next morning but June had napped in the car so I let her stay up past her bedtime so I could read a chapter of The Austere Academy to her and Josiah.

Saturday: Homeward Bound

We were up at 5:30 and out the door by 6:35. Mom drove us to the airport. We parted, after many hugs goodbye, and began our trek home. June got a nosebleed in the Medford airport and I thought our journey east might be as eventful as the one west, but it wasn’t. June was an old hand at flying by now and just wanted to watch movies on the laptop, so I let her go over her media limit by watching all of Harry Potter and part of Frozen, both of which she has seen many times. She didn’t even want to rent the movie players they provide on the plane to watch something new, like her brother who watched 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I think after a week of adventure, she was ready to return to the familiar. And while it was nice to sleep in my own bed Saturday night, over the past few days I have often found myself thinking of all the relatives we saw and the bodies of water in which we immersed ourselves and the trails we hiked and the beaches we wandered and I imagine us doing it again some time.