Road Trip 2018

The J2s are off for a road trip. As you may know, we don’t do road trips. We go to places and stay, sometimes for 2 months (Basin Montana 2007-08), sometimes for 12 weeks (Beatty, Nevada, 2009), and sometimes merely for a month or so (Summer Lake in southeast Oregon, The Petrified Forest in Arizona, Tucson AZ; Dayville in eastern Oregon; and elsewhere). June stoutly declared some time ago that she doesn’t do road trips. Jer wisely stayed silent. So, we are off for a road trip — modified, of course, by our stay of 4 nights in Ashland Oregon, a week in Wonder Valley, near Joshua Tree National Park, and a week in Tucson. Plus maybe a couple of nights here and there, like in Winslow AZ. But still, we are about to move along America’s highways, preferably the blue ones, on a Road  Trip.

 

And we are having our usual regrets about leaving Portland.  A year ago it seemed like a fine idea. In 2016-17, Portland had had one of its coldest nastiest winters in our memories; electricity out, iced into our house for a week at a time, too much snow to walk in . We fled in a snowstorm just about a year ago to spend a month in Tucson AZ.

This year, however, was a very different matter. Spring arrived in January. Bulbs sprung into action: all the plants wanted to bloom, the Lenten rose thought it was Easter. In January we bought and planted a couple of those waxy marvels (also called hellebore and Christmas rose) because the ones blooming were so gorgeous. Planting in January! We thought we had moved to Mexico.

Luckily (or ironically), just as we were mourning our foolishness in reserving cabins and rooms and theater tickets during this glorious spring, it started to snow. I mean, it snowed on Monday (we were to leave on Wednesday) and it snowed more on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it’s supposed to A) snow; B) freeze); and C) be 40 degrees.We can’t decide whether we are pleased to be leaving before the dreaded February and March ice sets in, or sorry that we’ll be missing the blooming bulbs, now covered with snow but sure to bloom in March.

But we have theater tickets and room reservations in Ashland Oregon and we need to have our fix of small town  Oakland Oregon, so off we will go tomorrow, even if we have to leave at 3 PM, during that instant of 40 degrees that will give us permission to leave town.