Rachel's Big Crazy Family



It's o.k. I can call them that - she does. People come in and out of your life fairly frequently in the military  ministry. There are always those you know will be life-time friends. Rachel and I began emailing before we left Japan. Matt and Rachel had us over for dinner before we'd attended our first chapel service - they attend The Home Church in Lodi.  Rachel and I "clicked." I'm a homeschooling Mom of nine - she's a daughter in a homeschooling family of 9. I arrived here missing BreAnne and Krista and Rachel was an adopted daughter - just the right age.  Note - of course I still miss BreAnne and Krista, witness the 8 hour trips to OR.

Matt and Rachel have invited us- three years in a row- to come to their home for Labor Day. She said we'd get to meet her big, crazy family. I think there were 56 people there today.  We've met some of them before when we went to Matt's ordination.  Matt is from a family of seven children, Rachel is from a family of nine children.  It was a glimpse of the future for us to spend the day surrounded by these siblings and their children.....and it was enjoyable spending time with Rachel's parents and Matt's mother.

Go Joy!

 Stephanie and kids were in attendance as well. It was fun for our kids to have a chance to connect again.

Nolan and Elise

Stacia and Clara

 Bonus - Eliana time after the real grandmas were ready to pass her on. I held her a long time, long enough to miss lunch - but it didn't matter. I took a photo of her long, long eyelashes (which have developed in the two weeks since I've seen her), but Rachel said it's a photo only a grandma would love. I cropped it to just the eye - but even I admit that was a freaky photo.  I did take a couple of Michael holding her - he was patient enough to wait through grandmas and me. LOL

Michael & Eliana

 I loved this moment with Elise, Joy and Clara....watching Elsa on the iphone.  

 In the absence of a photo of me with Eliana (and really that's a CRIME! We already have one of her with Michael ::snort::), I submit this one - taken the moment after I said, "Michael, I found the tables!" Note the domino effect.

 

We picked up the remainder of our things at Matt and Rachel's. It's all going to fit - just one more good organizing session and one more trip to either Airmen's Attic or St. Vinnie's with food we can't haul. I really need to be thinking of what we need for 3 - 4 days....I had hoped to shop once a week, but I am not sure I have enough room for a week....we shall see.  

It was a fun day. Stacia ran into one of her friends at Target. This brought the realization  she isn't going to see her friends very much when we're "in the trailer." I pointed out that she will see them more than she would have if we'd pcs'd.  Not much comfort - but all I had at 10:00 p.m. Being a military child has hard moments. It just does.

The Valley of the Rogue State Park

The Valley of the Rogue State Park is right off of I-5 in Oregon between Medford and Grants Pass. It sits along the shores of the Rogue River - known for its white waters.   We were looking for a spot with open sites for this weekend and landed here. It's a big park and there were two sites left when we reserved - side by side actually.

A  loop provides 14 tent sites and 6 yurts. B/C loops supply 49 full-hook up sites. We stayed in B loop (which is integrated with C loop). Sites are packed in fairly tightly. The D and E loop mirror the B/C loop and offer 46 full-hookup sites and 2 yurts. B/C loops contain the campgrounds' laundry facility. D/E loop sports a pet friendly facility. We never made it over to check this out.

 

Note the pull through spots  form a "ring" around the inner circle of sites. In the future we will select a back in site on the outer rim of B or D loop. E and C loops are tight circles surrounded by the outer rings of B and D.

 

The outer edges of both B and D loops give easy access to the self-guided River's Edge Trail and to the river itself.  If you can snag a spot on the far, outer side of either loop your site will back onto the trail. In the future we will try for D18,16,15  or  B21, 19, 18, 16, 15.  The second page of this brochure has a good map of the campground.

 

F Loop presents 55 water/electric sites only. We've stayed there with some dear camping buddies about a zillion years ago. The spaces are wider and you aren't packed in as closely. However, they are close to I5 and so there is much more road noise.

Valley of the Rogue offers free showers, nice bathrooms, JR ranger program, interpretive lectures, river access, River's Edge Trail and a laundry room - at a state park! Laundry is $1.25 to wash and .25 to dry (though I have no idea how long the cycle runs).

This is a nice park in a beautiful area. We visited on Labor Day weekend. Every spot was filled. It was a bit crowded for our taste - even so the park was surprisingly quiet.

You can reserve a campsite here. There is an $8 reservation fee. Tent sites are $19.00, water/electric sites are $26 and full-hookups are $29 a night. Yurts are available for $40-50 a night.

 

Laundry is God's Provision

Today was a longish travel day. Longer than we want to travel in a day. We want to stop and explore. We left Valley of the Rogue around 0830 and drove through to Beale Fam Camp.

It was odd coming back. We really are ready to be moving into a new season and yet, here we are. Michael has an appointment this week and others sprinkled through October and November. We may envision ourselves roaming free, but reality is we're still tethered to the area.

Turns out the folks who were supposed to be moving out today decided to stay another day - so we are sitting in another spot for tonight and will move to our "spot for the week" tomorrow. The benefit of the situation is we got a free spot tonight. LOL

It was fun to run into friends at the commissary...

We opted for dinner at West Side Pizza - where everyone blew spent some energy

 

Today, I discovered laundry can be great "me time" or "couple time" for a full timing family.  Laundry piles up just as fast in the Caboose as it did in the SB (sticks and brick house).  I love the way we have all naturally begun to find a routine and pitch in to get the job done...the kids are playing more games, we're having more time to talk and certainly more time to play together. It's all good...but yes, sometimes one just needs to have a private spot to either be alone or sit with a spouse- laundry is God's provision.

Who wouldn't want to do laundry with a sunset like this

Ti'lomikh Falls

Michael headed into Gold Hill when we left The Oregon Vortex. Along the way we saw a sign for Ti'lomikh Falls and he took it. GREAT CALL.

The Takelma (People of the River) had a village here and have celebrated the salmon ceremony for thousands of years. During the ceremony, an elder from the Takelma sat on a stone rock, called the "Story Chair," and netted the first salmon of the spring run. To allow the salmon to swim upstream and spawn, the first salmon was prepared and divided among the people as a sacrament. To ensure the salmon would return, his bones were carefully returned to the pool below the falls. Then the fishing season began. 

Beagle heaven - so much to sniff out

These 3 are troopers - adjust great to our new lifestyle

 We drove around to another view of the river and then to the other side of the falls. Back at the trailer we enjoyed dinner and games.  

The Oregon Vortex

Nolan and I picked up a brochure at a fuel stop on The Oregon Vortex. Michael said he'd heard about it before. To be honest, he was skeptical. It looked interesting to us....the campground was FULL of campers communing with nature by smoking and drinking outside their trailers. We, no longer being  campers,  can commune with nature when they all go home. We decided it would be a great day to explore the area, rather than the campground.  

Michael taped my ankle and told us to load into the car. I was able to ride with my foot elevated and with it taped it felt pretty good. We headed out to find things which would have little hiking.

 

We checked out the little town of Gold Hill, Oregon and ended up at The Oregon Vortex.  I did a bit of internet research and ran across the comment that the owners claim to be involved in the paranormal - that is not at all what we experienced or were told.  This area was known to the Native Americans of the area as the "forbidden ground."  Their horses would stop at the edge of the vortex and refuse to enter it. Animals still don't come into the area on their own. There are no birds, rabbits, raccoons...only snakes and insects - which I think has deep meaning.  In the 1850's a gold assay office in the center of the vortex consistently weighed the gold wrong. That assay office is now the "House of Mystery." You may be able to blow these info boards up if you are interested in more details.

 

There are a series of level  platforms around the area for various demonstrations. Most involve perspective change. People seem to be taller when they move to the magnetic south of the platform.

 

She certainly appeared taller when she moved north

All seem to lean towards due north when in the area. We experienced this. When we got to the center of the vortex, many got motion sick.

 

Inside the House of Mystery, you step UP to appear shorter and things rolls down and then return and roll uphill....Poor Nolan never got to catch the rolling bottle as it stopped short and started rolling uphill each time. They stress the HOUSE can be replicated but they only use the house so you can see the dramatic perspective change....all the effects are duplicated outside of the house. The height change effect has not been duplicated in any of the "copy cat" mystery houses around the world. ::grin::

 

It was fascinating. Some of the demonstrations were very interesting, while some seemed to be manipulated.  Like this one which was to demonstrate the blind  sense the difference as well....on the south side his shoulder was lower and supposedly on the north side it was  higher...I discovered this with my eyes closed. Michael rightfully points out that he does seem to be standing with a different shoulder deliberately raised higher each time....one of those demonstrations which seem to have been exaggerated.

 

There is no doubt the angle changes on this platform.... I was fairly excited to be nearly as tall as Nolan.

 

 

We still have one dedicated skeptic and the rest of us are in the "hmmm" category. Even our skeptic  admits  there were some interesting, unexplainable phenomenon. We all admit there were a couple of instances where we think we caught the guide manipulating the demonstration to exaggerate the effect.

We found this excursion to be interesting, quirky and fun - just our sort of outing. They gave a $1 military discount - never hurts to ask.

The Rest of the Day

It's always a blessing to sit and visit with my sister-in-law.  There wasn't any time this trip to connect, so we met at 0700 for tea/coffee and a visit.

Not a picture of our actual breakfast - a no make up day the day before

 I hit Target at 0800 - who knew it was STAR WARS DAY! ::snort:: I picked up some food items , more  Command Velcro and a roll of quarters.

Here are a few photos from our ill-fated walk...Before the fall...

 

And After the fall Nolan took the younger two and took photos while Michael tended to me at the trailer.

 

You are not looking at trees. This is the reflection in the McKenzie river.

 

Mom and Dad stopped by The Caboose. They were our first visitors since moving into The Caboose. (Well, our first visitors which we didn't put to work).

 

We checked out of Armitage right at noon and headed down the road to Valley of the Rogue Sate Park (review to follow).   We finished setting up right before a thunder storm - it blew through too quickly for my liking.

I sat on the couch, elevating and icing my ankle, and supervised the kids as made dinner.

My view from Armitage to Valley of the Rogue

Nolan and Michael got the new grill set up. They did great.

 

I cleaned up - you can almost reach everything by standing in the middle of the trailer - and Michael and the kids went out and explored the campground/river.

Rogue River

Rogue River behind the camp site

We topped the night off a round of Dixit and a Tim Hawkins comedy show.