ON OUR WAY TO ISRAEL

Finally on our way!

Israel. .. we are on our way

Our first leg is behind us. Flew unevenfully from Wenatchee to New York. We a really very excited to get there. We met one of our felow travelers  froWaterville at the Wenatchee airport.  

WILLAMETTE RIVER RIDE + MAINTENANCE

Expensive Crack

The last 24 hours have been devoted mostly to getting our windshield replaced.  We are in the "waiting for it to bond" stage.  That should be completed hopefully by noon.  Then after another stop to have the tires checked we will be on our way to Wenatchee.  We hope to get three or four hours in today to shorten the day to a reasonable drive tomorrow.







Yesterday we again had a nice urban trail ride around Eugene.  Our pattern on these trail rides has been to get lost repeatedly.  You would think the trail would be obvious and it seems to be with everyone but us??  They do have a great ride here all along the Willamette River which is flowing heavily with spring run off.
Actually doing a lot of backtracking adds to the trip and increases the exercise.  (Sometimes it gets a little frustrating.)  We rode downtown and found a nice restaurant with outdoor seating and sat in the warm sun which felt good.  Hard to remember now how warm it was back in Phoenix.

"Am I still going the WRONG WAY?"

RAINEY FALLS HIKE

The Rogue River

Yesterday we hiked to Rainey Falls.  A beautiful hike with lots of wildflowers along the Rogue River.  We had planned to take a jet boat ride but they didn't get enough people so we saw it from the dry safety of the shore.  The falls is really a deep rapids and we arrived in time to see several personal  river rafts go over the falls which was quite a sight.  I enclosed some pictures.  As were were returning home we passed  an sheriff car and ambulance going up the road.  We learned today that some young man was in the same spot on shore that we were and in the process of taking a picture fell in and was not seen again.  We were saddened to hear that.  In fact he was undoubtedly one of 4 or 5 guys that we passed leaving and they had just arrived.  The water is very treacherous and even one of the rafts had difficulty getting out of the swirling back flow.  

Note you can barely see the boat nearly submerged.  (look just above the rock on shore)

He comes through ok.

The trail was graced with many beautiful wild flowers and we met a little girl about 5 and she was so excited about them and said "I saw a whole field of flowers...  it was a 'party' of flowers".

Along the trail.

Today we had a short drive from Grants Pass to Eugene.  A lovely trip and the sun shone all day.  When we got settled we  went on a rural bike ride and in a remote field or meadow saw a group of about 20 or 30 people and they looked like flower children with flowers in their hair, long dresses, long hair, and strange outfits.  We stopped and saw they had a circle of large stones like a mini Stonehenge (we think they brought these in).  This was a gathering of "druids" or other pagan cult.  It was like something out of a movie.  The children were running around playing in the meadow.  We see some strange things sometimes.