Eclipse and Raptors

We took a Lyft to meet Marianne (Marianne is my friend Joyce's number 2 daughter), Sam, James, and Beth for breakfast at Denny's.  It was right next door to their motel.  

Sunrise. Maybe we will have a break in the clouds today.  

I should have taken a picture at breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed to Alton Baker Park via Lyft for the eclipse viewing.  We kept telling the kids that there were swings and playgrounds.

Birds waiting for the eclipse or as James said, "birds on the zipline!" 

James

  We found a good spot that was fairly open and then we waited.

We were lucky.  We did get glimpses!! It was fun.  I don't think that the kids were very impressed..  Because of the clouds we never needed the eclipse glasses.

But ... Where are the swings?!!! We finally found them. Clear at the other end of the park.  Nathan walked and I went in the car with Marianne and the gang.

Beth

Sam & Beth

But James liked his sticker book better.  

Marianne & Beth

We had heard about Eugene's Raptor Center so we decided to go there. Another Lyft ride.  

My favorite was the barn owl.  It was a nice place and they did a lot of talking about the birds and what they do.  It was interesting.  But I felt like the cages were too small so that the birds could not fly much.  Apparently, they do take the trained ones out to fly more independently.

Another Lyft ride to lunch.  We headed to the Lion and Owl.  It seemed appropriate but it was booked, so we walked to Pippi Anatolia which is a Greek-Indian restaurant.  I think that we all ended out ordering Greetk.

I had the shrimp pita,

While we were there my cousin, Elaine, came to visit. That was fun.  We had a nice time reconnecting. 

Elaine Bernat (my cousin on my dad's side)

 After lunch, Marianne and the gang headed home and we walked to the train station.  We walked through the Saturday Market on our way.  We enjoyed the art along the way.

Pre-halloween

Train station

The train headed back to Portland at 4:30 pm 

Crossing the Willamette coming into Portland.

George met us.  We stopped by Nathan's so that he could pick up a few things and then we headed home. 

To Eugene

The point of this trip is to see the annular eclipse.  Unfortunately all the weather reports say that it will be overcast tomorrow and we won't see anything.  We thought that it could be a fun trip anyway.  We picked up Nathan. a Bellagio's Pizza, and some wine and went to the Amtrak train station.  George stayed with us until it was time to board.  We had some of the pizza while we waited for the train.  It was scheduled to leave at 6:10 pm.  It left pretty much on time.

Getting on the train is SO different than getting on a plane.  They did check our tickets.

Once we got on our way we had the rest of the pizza with our wine.

It got dark fairly soon after we left PDX so no good photo ops.  We got to Eugene around 9 pm.  

Nathan is recovering from having a flu shot and Covid booster so he was ready to crash.  We took an Uber to the hotel. 

So, we made it safely to Eugene, only 1/2 hour late.  At least it wasn't raining.  Now if the weather would only cooperate tomorrow.  We hope to connect with Marianne, Sam and kids tomorrow and also with one of my cousins.

Mt Vernon and home

 I had to be at my volunteer job at 1 pm, so I wanted to be sure to make it home by then.  I thought that the Monday morning Seattle traffic would be terrible.  Google said that it would take us 4 hours. I said 6 hours.  Normally when we go to Debbie and Joe's it is at least 5 hours.  We left Debbie and Joe's at 7 am, to give us plenty of time.

morning view

Seattle

Kalama 

Google was pretty accurate.  It was 4 1/2 hours.  Google didn't know how many stops we would need to make.  Restroom and gas.  My car was getting about 52 miles to the gallon.  Not bad. 

We got home in time for us to unpack before I had to head out to work.  Because of the heat, I was not planning on walking to work.  It is supposed to get up to 106 degrees.  It is 94 degrees right now. Ugh!!

Kirkland to Mt Vernon

Madeline took Dorothy and Ed to the airport at 4 am so they could go back to Ohio and we took Nathan to the train station at 6:15 am so that he could get back to Portland.    

train station

We got back to the hotel and had breakfast.  It looked like they had a container of hot oatmeal.  I decided to try some.  I took a scooper full and then realized that it was gravy for the biscuits NOT oatmeal.  Oh well.  I felt bad about throwing it away but I really did not want a bowl full of gravy. 

Once we were packed up we headed on up to Debbie and Joe's.  We got there about 9 am.

We chatted a while and then did the neighborhood walk.  

Debbie and Joe's house with Phil the cat sitting under the tree.

Belle

Phil

The view

Then it was time for lunch.  Joe drove us in his corvair convertible 

There is a restaurant, Slough Food, that periodically has some catering company come in to make a big paella.  Today was the day.   When we got there they said that it would be about 45 minutes so we went to Terramar for a drink.  We got back in time to be seated. 

Chicken and veggies in one pan and seafood in the other

Then they combined the two with rice.  A very impressive process.

close up view

It was very good.  George gave me his chicken pieces and I gave him the mussels and most of the calamari.

Then we headed back to Debbie and Joe's.  

 

Mt Baker

We sat out on the back patio in the shade.  It was very pleasant.  We heard that it had gotten up to 100 degrees in Portland.  Ugh. We heard that Dorothy, Ed and Nathan all  arrived at their various locations safely, 

We had a 7 pm reservation at Bonefish Grill. 

Joe had a Smoked Old Fashion.  Fun. 

George's fish tacos

I had chicken, rice, and brussels sprouts.  It was yummy.