Go West Young Plastic Barista!
We visited the Bonneville dam and their sturgeon pond and saw this GIANT fish. Security around the dam was very tight and we were really glad to see that. The fish hatchery and the rearing ponds are beautiful, they look more like a garden full of flowers than a fish hatchery.
We found this great train museum in the middle of the gold and ghost town country. Not a soul around for miles. The whole place was empty on the weekday morning we explored it.
Tman and Barbie posing inside a covered wagon in eastern Oregon out in the desert past Whitney and the other ghost towns.
Okay, I've heard of grasshoppers and barhoppers, but this is a BARBHOPPER. One of a bazillion grasshoppers in eastern Oregon. It's amazing there is any wheat left there are so many of these around.
Barbie Goes on an Oregon Adventure
The great wide open outside Pendleton, Oregon.
Early August:We took off on a mini vacation combined with some biz and loaded up the car with the Tman, a ton of tunes, good snacks, Rocket and the camera and took off for Oregon. We were off to meet our friend Flamingo Pam and her son and kayak the Rogue River.
Here I am heading West on the Oregon trail in this darned huge covered wagon, feeling like a big wheel...
Good bye to France
Time to head back over the ocean and the continent to Washington State. As this was written after our return we can tell you that it took more than 21 hours and we saw five movies during that time, none worth remembering.
But what is worth remembering was this magnificent adventure. We went with open minds and a sense of curiousity and wonder. We expected to have a great time and we did. We also took the time to do a lot of reading ahead of time to try and understand the French culture--that really helped. When we head to Italy, we'll do the same thing because it really does help --"when in Rome (or Paris) do as the Romans (or Parisians) do." So, here are two final photographs of our wonderful trip because we are off to new adventures!
I love the market picture--it is so quintessentially French. Everybody has a rolling bag and everybody goes to the market in their neighborhood. One of my favorite sights the first day I was there was a little old man in a beret on a bicycle with a fresh baguette and a big bunch of flowers strapped on the back. It fulfilled all the tourist fantasies I ever had.
The other picture is Chateau Gaillard. The ruins of the fortress built by Richard Lion Heart overlook the town of Les Andelys on a bend of the Seine. Richard built the chateau to hold the Seine at this bend near Rouen to keep the French out of Paris. Although he was English Richard Coeur de Leon loved France so much he left his heart there when he died. His heart still rests in the great cathedral at Rouen. Monet painted the cathedral and here Joan of Arc was buried at the stake in the place du Vieux Marche.
Where ever I went or looked and whatever we did, the sense of living in history was pervasive. It is not dead gone history, it is vibrant and alive and all mixed in with the present. I think I left my heart behind too.
Look--it's a Barbie Barista sized car! These tiny Smart Cars are all over Paris. You can park them anywhere and they use about a teacup of gas a week. We didn't see many nice new cars. Most of the cars are dented and dinged and have crumpled spots on them. Gee, wonder why? No big SUVs or vans either. With gas at $5.65 a gallon the smaller the better. Motorscooters, mopeds and motorcycles everywhere.
This is the interior of the Gare du Lyon which is a marvel of art nouveau decor rolled into a busy train station with 21st transportation.
Outside the station you will see about a zillion motorbikes parked as their owners commute to jobs outside the city. They were packed in so close we couldn't figure out how they got them all untangled.
One of the most fabulous dining experiences ever was at the famous restaurant upstairs at one end of the station. Le Train Bleue (The blue train). The interioir is a marvel of opulent frescos and paintings, gilded carvings of voluptuous mermaids, cherubs and other assorted femmes (women). It celebrates everywhere the blue train went back in the day it hauled rich people to vacation with gorgeous vignettes of le bonne vie, the good life of the age. The food was sumptuous too. And the wait staff were old school, one person carried a silver crumb tray and a crumb brush and tidied the table after rolls were torn up and made a little mess. The service was almost military, stand up straight, one hand behind the back, etc. But gracious--Americans could take a lesson or two on supreme service from this wait staff. Of course, being the barista that I am, I am already their equal in service with a smile.
We found this great train museum in the middle of the gold and ghost town country. Not a soul around for miles. The whole place was empty on the weekday morning we explored it.
Tman and Barbie posing inside a covered wagon in eastern Oregon out in the desert past Whitney and the other ghost towns.
Okay, I've heard of grasshoppers and barhoppers, but this is a BARBHOPPER. One of a bazillion grasshoppers in eastern Oregon. It's amazing there is any wheat left there are so many of these around.
