Week of July 23, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
No update.
Where has the time gone. It has been three weeks since I wrote anything for this journal and I did not realize that until I pulled up the last entry tonight before I started writing. I thought it had only been a couple of weeks. I will write some tonight to catch you up but most of the catching up will come as the days go by and I get back to writing on a more regular basis again. Thanks to all who wrote asking if I and my family were OK. We are.
The choir singing with the fireworks for the Fourth of July show went great. It was a big hit for all who were there and heard them. The fireworks themselves were grand and the choir singing with them made it even better. They only had one glitch; the CD accompaniment track started one song and went back to the beginning about thirty seconds into the song which caused a moment of confusion then order was restored and the show went on. I'm not sure what happened but suspect that the pastor running the CD player accidentally hit it. The weather was cool but no rain so there was a huge crowd.
Earlier in the day, we watched all the lumberjack competition which was Delanae's first time to see it. I have enjoyed it in years past and she caught some of the excitement of it also. It helped that it was dry and warm, making it easier to sit and enjoy the competition. There was a huge crowd for it, bigger than I had ever seen there before. The entire Fourth of July festival was a huge hit here in town with dry, warm weather every day. I think the concession stands raised a lot of money for their various sponsors including our church.
I had to go back to work on the fifth after being up late the night before. I was very busy both the remaining days of that week at work and got home late both nights, as I recall. This journal was last on my list to accomplish those remaining days of that week. I had planned to catch up over the weekend but did not. We used Saturday packing and getting ready for our camping trip, then left Sunday for Crater Lake.
Crater Lake turned out to be a very impressive national park. We arrived there after driving about six hours on Sunday and drove immediately to the rim of the crater to look down on the lake. Words will not do it justice, it has to be seen to be believed. It is the deepest lake in the country and is at 6200 feet with the surrounding rim as high as 8200 feet. It also has 2-3,000 feet of the volcano crest at the bottom of it. When the volcano erupted 5000 years ago it collapsed in on itself forming the crater which then has filled with water in the ensuing years. The water remains incredibly clear and the level approximately the same year after year.
Once we started driving around the rim to reach the campground, Delanae noticed that the road was on had sheer dropoffs probably several thousand feet down without a guard rail being present. She has pictures of these sheer cliffs which we drove along to get to the campground. The campground was nice and we got a good spot with plenty to pick from. They did not take reservations so it was first come, first serve. More about our days at Crater Lake tomorrow, hopefully.
My current frustration and a big reason for no update until now, at least this week, is that I am attempting to finally set up a home network to include Internet Connection Sharing. We purchased the necessary hardware and cables last weekend and I began by putting a Linksys Etherfast 10/100 PCI card in my computer after stringing the Cat 5e cable upstairs to Delanae's computer. She helped me find the right places to drill a hole through the floor to the room under the stairs, then into my office. That all went well but the driver for the card will not install properly. That means I will probably have to scrub down the hard disk and reinstall Windows 98SE as my repeated attempts to reinstall the driver have not met with success. Obviously, I cannot get the network running until I have the 10/100 card installed in my computer which has the modem we will use for dialing up to the Internet. Her computer came with the network card already installed and it works fine. I will get this done but it is going to take longer than I had planned.
I also installed another 128 MB of memory in Delanae's computer Saturday, before purchasing the networking hardware. Top quality memory from Crucial is as low as 20 cents a MB right now so I also ordered 512 MB for myself to use in the computer that I am planning to build. It is now sitting on a shelf awaiting the rest of the components which have not been purchased yet. So, this past weekend was spent with computers installing memory and trying to get a network set up. More tomorrow about our vacation.
Two days in a row, I can still do it. Post, that is. Thanks again for the messages welcoming me back to the land of posting. Now, for more of what kept me away.
While we were camping at Crater Lake, I was able to run. The campground was about 8 miles away from the lake and was at the same altitude as the lake, namely 6200 feet. This altitude meant I got short of breath very quickly so had to adjust my running to compensate by shortening the length of time I spent running but I did work up to running more each day. We spent two mornings there so I increased about five minutes each time. I was able to tolerate that well and the one full day we spent there we hiked about 700 feet down from the rim to the lakeshore to ride a tour boat around the lake. It was well worth doing but the hike out is daunting, especially at that altitude. It is the only trail down to the lake itself and is a real workout, even if you are in decent physical condition.
Our last night at Crater Lake we were treated to a lightning and wind show. No rain, and no thunder, just lightning and wind. The lightning was far enough in the distance not to feel really threatened and the wind was not strong enough to blow over anything in the camp but it was pretty awesome to wake up and see the flashes of lightning through the tent door.
Tuesday of that week we drove down from Crater Lake at 6200 feet to the redwood forests of northern California. This was an all day drive, at least the way we ended up going and we ended up at a campground along the Avenue of the Giants very close to dark. The first campground was full but they directed us to one about three miles away that had plenty of openings and was much better than the first one. We had a huge campsite nestled amongst the redwoods. Delanae was in heaven being able to camp among the big trees. The Avenue of the Giants is just south of Crescent City, California and is about thirty miles long and winds among the giant trees. We spent Wednesday just driving and stopping among the redwoods both along the Avenue and north back toward Crescent City.
Wednesday night we found another campground just outside of Crescent City and again camped among the redwoods. We did go into Crescent City for some clam chowder at a restaurant on the waterfront. While there, Delanae saw pelicans for the first time and took a lot of pictures of them which she will post one of these days on her website. Like me, since we have been back she has been too busy to post or put up her digital pictures but promises to get that done at some point.
Tomorrow night I will try and tell you about out trip back home from northern California. Today was eaten up by errands and meetings. Our dogs had their annual checkup today and the youngest dog really needs to be on a diet. Since the back yard is now fenced and he is free to roam in it we had hoped he would lose some weight. He did lose some weight while the pit bull puppy was here as she kept him exercising but now he just has the older dog who does not want to play. So, since he is not getting as much exercise we will have to put him on reduced calories and somehow keep him out of the older dog's food also.
Today was busy at the office as are all Thursdays for me. Things are better now that our new partner has joined us and is my office mate. She just finished her residency in both internal medicine and pediatrics and is now learning how to practice medicine after learning the science of medicine during her medical school and residency. Answering her questions takes me back to when I first started in practice after residency some 15 years ago now. Unfortunately, I did not have someone very willing to answer my questions in my first practice. She's doing great and will be a good addition to our group.
I have no one left in the hospital after having as many as four earlier in the week. I am on call this weekend so I will be busy in the hospital and clinic this weekend. Next week though I will not be in the office for three days so I will get some rest again. One of those days I have to drive to Bellevue again for a meeting about our electronic records system which means five or six hours roundtrip and a six hour meeting which will make for a very long day that will start very early in the morning. Delanae may go with me and look around the Seattle area while I am in the meeting.
Back to the last day of our trip now. We got up Thursday morning and said goodbye to the redwoods and started driving up the coast. We ended up driving the entire length of the Oregon Pacific Coast on Hwy 101 rather than driving on I-5. We stopped at various places along the way to look at the ocean, at seals, and at the wreck of a freighter. Lunch was eaten at a restaurant near the harbor at Coos Bay after a side trip to find the wreck of the freighter. Our day was made much longer by all the repairs being done along Hwy 101 necessitating many stops to wait for flaggers to allow us to drive around the construction being done.
We finally arrive in Longview 12 hours after beginning our journey home but we have seen all the coastline of Oregon and some of California (thirty miles or so). Our dogs and cats were very happy to see us again after being here without us for five days. Two days later the kids flew back into Portland and we had stories to tell them about our trip. We also brought back two small redwoods which we have planted and should do well in this environment since it is much like where they grow in northern California. These are coastal redwoods and like a lot of moisture and lower altitudes which describes our environment here very well.
Now that I have done three days or posting in a row there will likely be a lull for two or three days since I am on call starting tomorrow night. I will try and get back to posting more often next week but may put up something Saturday night. See you later.
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