Bus Tour

Susan I just got back yesterday from a trip, vacation trip, to Oregon. If you could describe that state in one word it would be "green". It's green, and it's beautiful. I could live in Portland, no doubt about it. We spent three days there and got a pretty good feel for the city. We also saw most of the other things to see when you're in Oregon: Crater Lake, Astoria in the Columbia River bar – there is a great maritime museum there too – the rocky coast where we did some whale watching, and a little further  down the road gigantic sand dunes that we rode all over in a buggy that held about 30 people. The wine is fine, but the most common wine you find is from California. Reason being it is cheaper, but not necessarily better. There are some awful fine brews in the state also. We saw lots and lots of beautiful forest, beautiful landscapes, beautiful mountains. Food was good, nothing outstanding to report there. Loved being with Susan and having her to myself for a whole week.

The only problem was we spent far too much time riding on a bus. Both Susan and I have resolved that this will be our last bus tour. The group we went with was called the Oklahoma Retired Persons Travel Club. Groan. Obviously, I couldn't discuss politics with anybody, although we did find one lady of progressive views "except on crime" whom we could talk to about something other than the scenery. A lot of these people made me feel downright spry and almost young, and I'm pushing 70. One lady had a stroke – or at least we think it was a stroke – on the tour. Another couple had to leave because her stepmother died. And there was more than one Okie on that trip who was pokey, real slow getting around. Oh, they were all nice enough, but they weren't my kind of people.

I correspond regularly with the three friends from graduate school, two of whom are excellent writers of trip reports. Such things are not my forte, so I'm sorry to have to leave you with this brief and unsatisfactory report for a weeklong vacation. I meant to post some pictures to the web later on, and I'll point you to them. In the meantime, I'm back. Minus the iPad and iPhone 5 charger cords I left in the hotel on the last night. (I actually got a call from the hotel though that they had found the phone cord. It's in the mail on the way back. No idea what happened to the other cord. Of course, I've replaced both already.)