Oregon Part 2: Madris

Chris is famous for visiting old friends when we go on trips. The rest of the family isn't always so keen on the idea but I can't think of a single time when we've actually regretted it afterward. 

Chris was born in the small town of McConnelsburg, PA where his dad taught at the Edenville school. During the course of his family living in PA, the Blaine Brechbill family took the Eichers under their wing and treated them like family. The connection is still there all these years later! When Chris called up Verna (Brechbill) Garber and wondered about visiting them on our trip, she welcomed us with open arms. 

Friday, June 25

Our drive over the mountains to Marvin's house was a beautiful one. After our stay at Elsie's house, with people that we knew, I think some of us were feeling a bit apprehensive. What would these people be like? Would the children get along? Why did we have to go to their church?? 

We certainly would not have needed to worry. 

Our hosts, minus their oldest son...

It didn't take us long to feel right at home with the Garbers. While Charles might not have been thrilled with the chicken enchiladas for supper (children are so good at embarrassing their mothers but it turned out to be a recurring joke of the weekend) he was quite thrilled with the stash of legos he got to play with. The other children soon had a game going after supper and that, coupled with discovering that the Garber children enjoyed playing music, left no question how the weekend would go!

Saturday morning, Marv treated us to airplane rides in his little, four seater plane. We needed to get up early to beat the heat but it was totally worth it to fly up over the Crooked River Gorge and Smith Rock and see the views from overhead! 

Some of them also got to watch sky divers while they waited for the second load to come back. In the process, Chris dropped his phone and completely ruined the screen. Hopefully we'll be able to get some pictures off of it after we get home -- his phone being the one with the best camera and all....

From there, we drove around to see the gorge and Smith Rock from a lower view point.

We stopped by the bakery owned by some of Marv and Verna's church friends and enjoyed delicious cinnamon rolls and other goodies. 

Marv took Chris and the boys to Walmart to get his phone replaced and the rest of us headed back to the house to relax -- some of us even snuck in a short nap. Some of the more ambitious people played games and ended up with the ping pong table outside.  We decided they were pretty hard up, with the temperature over 100°!

That evening, Marv's married daughter  and family came over for supper. We enjoyed trying to make friends with their solemn little one year old. I think we had him warmed up to us by the time the evening was over. The highlight of the evening was the music. We could hardly let them quit playing! 

Church on Sunday turned out to be nothing worth worrying about. The small group that Marv's meet with is not a scary one at all. We enjoyed joining in their morning service. 

After lunch, a couple of people braved the heat to go throw some discs with Isaac. In the evening, we enjoyed having the rest of the church people join us for an evening of food, fellowship and more music. The fun ended abruptly for some of us, when Isaac got hit with a terrible toothache. It reminded me of my tooth story and I could just about feel the pain and the worry of how this would all end up made me wish to be in the safe walls of our own home. 

As usual, the Lord knew more about the situation than I did. The Garbers knew their dentist well enough to call him up on a Sunday night. By the time we went to bed, not only had God answered our prayers and calmed the pain down, we also had a dentist appointment for 9 a.m. Monday morning! 

Instead of leaving early Monday morning, I started laundry early and we enjoyed a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Isaac and Chris headed off to the dentist and Chris soon texted to say Isaac is in the chair and they should be back by 10:00. The kind dentist did a local x-ray and a temporary filling for $87.40. God sure did have it covered!

So, we said our goodbyes to our new found friends and headed out toward Yellowstone. Once again, visiting old friends proved to be a good experience. 

Oregon Part 1: Halsey

Good morning, on this very warm Monday. (We seem to be taking the high temperatures with us everywhere that we go!) It's time to play catch up, and it's hard to know where to start! Since you last heard from us, we're sporting two new van tires, a filling in one tooth and an incapacitated cell phone. We've ridden in dune buggies and an airplane, seen lighthouses and sea lions and sky divers, and eaten all kinds of good food. Best of all, we've formed friendships and made memories that will last a lifetime. 

Also, to be straight up honest, there's been times the past week when I've been desperate for a couple of hours alone or a quiet corner to just hide. Last night I would have been perfectly fine with just loading up this morning and heading home. 

Let me backtrack and fill you in on a bit of our adventures....

* * * * *

Wednesday, June 23

Tuesday evening around 6, we arrived at Jason and Elsie Schrock's house. 

Our lovely hosts

Growing up, my family's next door  neighbors were Lowell and Elsie Mast. I have so many memories with their family -- playing with her children when I was young, Chris staying at their place when we were dating, Elsie babysitting our children when they were little... Lowell died in an accident in 2004 and in 2017, Elsie remarried and moved to Halsey, Oregon. It was so special to stay with them for a few days and did they ever give us a wonderful time!

Wednesday morning, after a yummy breakfast, Chris and Isaac went to check out a disc golf course while the rest of us stayed at Elsie's. Charles was in toy heaven!

I worked on washing up all of our laundry, and the girls enjoyed doing puzzles, browsing through books and just relaxing. It felt so good to be in a house and to stay at one place for a while. 

After lunch, we all headed out to tour Smith's Seed, Jason's seed packaging operation. Here, I would show you pictures, had the phone used to take them not later gotten dropped and incapacitated. I don't even know how to describe the many buildings with their big machines, sorting, cleaning, and packaging bags and bags of grass seed. 

They showed us a small research farm, a fascinating hay press and fields of hazelnut trees.

We learned that roasted hazelnuts make a delicious snack!

We even drove by the famous Dorcas Smucker's house and Sparrow Nest. 

Back at Jason's place, we helped cook up a delicious supper and then headed out again to see a lookout with an amazing view. 

Thursday, June 24

Thursday morning we were up early and ready for our next adventure. Jason's took us to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area and treated us to dune buggy rides! 

What a thrill! The sand dunes were amazing. I wished we could get out and just walk around a while. 

From there, they treated us to a seafood lunch at Mo's. Chris made a quick decision to get our back tires changed on the van and he and Jason dropped it off to be worked on while we ate. 

With our bellies full, we headed up the coast, checking out the views along the way.

They were hoping to show us a spot where the sea lions hang out but I guess they had taken the day off. Our walk took us by a cute candy shop where we tried out saltwater taffy and Chris bought a jaw dropping jawbreaker. 

We did get to see sea lions later at one of the overlooks. We also thought for a minute we had spotted a whale but, as the gentleman with his telescope set up informed us, it was only Oregon's famous "rock whale".

They were sure we needed a stop by Dutch Brothers for refreshment.

And a stop by the beach to wet our feet in the ocean. 

It was a full, fun day!

Friday morning Chris dropped Isaac off to play disc golf again and I washed up clothes. The three youngest could hardly get enough of their favorite activity -- driving the golf cart. 

We won't make a big deal out of the block wall they drove into... children always manage to keep us humble, don't they? Sigh. 

After lunch, we said our goodbyes, loaded up, and headed over the mountains to the next stop on our Oregon trail. We won't soon forget Jason and Elsie, their generous hospitality, and the good times we had together!

The Redwoods

Monday, June 21

When I was in first grade, each student was given a United States coloring book. I remember the pages for California, with the picture of a vehicle driving through a big, redwood tree. I remember thinking that driving through a tree would be about the coolest thing ever. Today, we stepped into the coloring book page... only it was way, way more amazing in real life!

I'm not a huge fan of the vast, open spaces of the west. Oh, it's amazing to drive through and see them -- the miles of empty, flat land where you can see forever; the rocks and mountains rising up in the distance; the high, barren hills with rows of towering white windmills, where the only colors to be seen are earth tones. But I always look around and wonder, "How could you live in a place with no trees?"

I think my favorite thing so far has been seeing the Redwoods. 

Our first stop was my little first grade dream come true. The lady at the booth warned us that we wouldn't fit through with our carrier on top, but that was ok. Just seeing it was good enough for us. 

The convertible made it through a little more easily than the van I caught on video that scratched its mirror!

Are you counting the family pictures? At home, getting one photo is a major undertaking; on vacation, it's become

 kind of a game. 

The next stop along our way was Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Avenue of the Giants auto tour had 8 stops along its route, but we only checked out the first one. Stepping into those woods was like taking the first spoonful of the most delicious dessert you can think of. I wanted to hang up a hammock and just lay there for hours, soaking up the beauty and silence. 

Just unbelievably beautiful. 

After we got to our motel, and ate a cobbled together supper, we all headed out to play some disc golf. The Redwood Curtain Disc Golf course is not one we will soon forget. Amazing. 

I kept saying "it's not even worth taking pictures" and then going ahead 

and taking one more...

Chris stuck his disc right in this tree!

* * * * * * *

Tuesday morning we headed for Oregon. It felt like we spent a lot of time stopped in road construction along  the way! We are spending the rest of this week visiting friends, so if you don't hear from us for a while, it's not because we've fallen off the face of the earth....