Back in Pasadena.

Our journey south was a passage from green to brown, from cool to hot. We left Seal Rock with daytime highs in the low 50's; 48 hours later, we were into the high 80's outside of Stockton, back in the golden-brown dry weeds under blank washed-out blue skies. All very familiar.
Entering the L.A. basin late Saturday was a bit unnerving; after months of taking clear clean air for granted, we descended into our bowl of smoke and haze - a return to purgatory.
A couple of days ago I went over to the Rose Bowl area for a midday bike ride (nice to be wearing shorts again). As I arrived, there were 8 or 9 helicopters landing and taking off from a portion of the vast parking lots. An hour before, there had been many sirens ringing through town. My first assessment, glancing towards the mountains, was that a large grass fire was under way in the canyon near JPL. As I was getting my bike out of the car, I considered whether or not it was such a good idea to be doing heavy exercise in such polluted air.
Of course - you guessed it - there was no wildfire. The helicopters were just doing a disaster-preparation exercise. It was the normal L.A. sky.

We hit the road.

We had some very nice last days. The weather has been good, and we've been able to spend some afternoons at the ranch, hanging out and sometimes helping (to the best of our abilities) to some of the tasks at hand. We had some quality time with the animals, especially with Smartie, Jeep's foal, and the bottle-fed calves.
We got ourselves packed up and loaded into the Uhaul, and were on our way south, making it to Grant's Pass (about 100 miles to the California border).

Preparing for departure

A rainy weekend reminded us that we were still on the Oregon coast so we spent a lot of time puttering around the house and planning our return to California. Jim has a break from work this week so we've set a departure date for Thursday. Yesterday we decided to take the car in for an oil change and to have it checked out for our trip. True to our experience up here we were able to get it in on the same day. They changed our oil, looked it over, found nothing needing attention and gave us a complimentary car wash for less than $30.00. Gotta love it!

Ranch.

Went out to the ranch to visit. We passed out some carrots to the grown horses, hung out with Jeep and Smartie for a while, and were there when Paul and Quip brought the horses in for the night. The 2-year-olds got loose into a side pasture and had a romp before they were ready to come in. Nancy and I bottle-fed the orphan calves.

Columbia River Gorge

We took off on Friday for a long weekend away at the Columbia River Gorge (photos to be posted soon). This was a "must see" area on our list and we're glad we didn't miss it. The scenery is amazing. Lewis & Clark figure prominently in the area as do wind surfers and sail boarders. We stopped in Portland for the afternoon on the way home. Their Art Museum was a great pleasure for Nancy, less so for Jim (more good 20th c. art than the older stuff). Wandered back through the Willamette Valley in lovely sunshine. This state is quite spectacular when it's not raining.