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Caution! Bridge Freezes Before Roadway

We went for a morning walk along a section of the OC&E Trail that we hadn’t been on yet. I wanted to walk someplace different and we both wanted something paved, so as not to have to remove the very cement-like mud from our shoes that developes this time of year.

Plus there were a couple geocaches to find along this 2 mile section. We found the first, but didn’t find the second. Although the temperature was still in the upper 20s at 10:30 AM, the sunny sky and near zero wind made for a pleasant stroll.

The afternoon was spent watching NFL football. Every time there was a commercial for Black Friday or Cyber Monday I would wonder what they were talking about. Maybe because I found it hard to believe it was still Thanksgiving weekend having had our turkey & fixings meal a whole week ago. And between lunch and dinner today, not counting the white bean turkey chili we still have some of, all the leftovers are gone.

I printed out return address and address labels, then stuck them on the envelopes, for our old school Christmas cards. While Donna, bless her heart, hand wrote a short to medium personal note inside each and everyone of the 46 cards. They go out in the mail tomorrow, so if you don’t get yours in the next 4 or 5 days, you must been added to the naughty list this year.

Long Long Short Long

We live about a third of a mile uphill from some railroad tracks. They are not just any old railroad tracks either, if you are traveling by train from Seattle to Los Angeles you will pass thru our fair city of Klamath Falls. These tracks are kind of like I-5 in that they are the main north-south route along the west coast, so freight trains also pass through here every day. There are probably ten to twelve trains total using those tracks per each 24 hour period.

A direct line along that third of a mile crosses three regular surface city streets, a bike path and one 5 lane US highway before you get to the tracks. Not too far that direct line is a street called Portland that those tracks cross. This is the only street crossing on this side of town, the rest have bridges over the tracks. This street crossing doesn’t come into play on any of our trips, so we really don’t have to worry about waiting for any length of time at the crossing when any of the long freight trains pass thru town. What we do have to contend with is the train’s engineer signaling his approach to the crossing.

It wasn’t until we moved here that we knew that any train approaching a street crossing, whether it has automatic gates or just flashing lights, the train’s engineer has to sound the train’s horn in a series of blasts – two long, one short and a final long. Because we can actually see the train through the trees and gaps in between houses in the winter from our front porch, we have no trouble hearing these blasts of 96-110 db sound. When we first moved into our house those horn blasts could be startling because our living room faces front towards the track. After a few months though, we got used to them and we are to a point that we almost don’t hear them anymore. Almost.

I have noticed that different engineer’s each have a different way of sounding that signal, some have longer longs or a shorter short blast. Because we are a stop on the Amtrak route and have a very large rail yard south of town there are probably several of this engineers who live in town. I am convinced that the different variations in the horn blasts lengths is similar to the pilot whose landing pattern took him over his house and wagged his wings as a greeting to his family, these distinctive horn blasts let their family know they are coming home.

I Don’t Have A Cat

While wandering the interwebs this evening looking to find something to entertain me when I came across this photo as the header image for a Lifehacker article and for whatever reason it spoke to me.

It is sort of like the Mona Lisa as it mirrors the painting’s novel qualities, including the subject’s expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.

Enjoy!

Weekly Wrap

First up is a picture from last Sunday and if you follow me on Instagram you will have seen part of this before:

Monday we walked downtown and did some geocaching on the way. We DNF’d the first two. Number one is in a small park we walk right by every time we do walk downtown. Number two was a caboose at the county museum and not finding it was expected, we never seem to get these. We found the third and then promptly DNF’d number four. We did find the next four we hunted for, but three of them were virtual, so there wasn’t an actual container to look for.

Tuesday we walked downtown and had pizza for dinner at Rodeos Pizza and Saladeria. A medium The Boss pie, six slices consumed on site, two taken home for my lunch the following day. This is the first time we have eaten here for dinner and have decided that the lunch cook does it more to our liking. This one had a touch too much sauce and came out of the oven a minute or two early making the crust not as crisp.

Wednesday I prepped the master bath for painting by removing the shower curtain rod, towel racks and patched the holes with spackling. Then I masked off everything. It was also our biannual visit to the dentist for teeth cleaning.

Thursday was painting the master bath.

Friday was pulling down the tape in the bathroom and putting it up in the master bedroom.

Saturday was supposed to bring wet winter weather so we had planned not to even leave the house. The weather never materialized, but we still didn’t leave the house. I painted the bedroom, which took most of the day, and Donna spent just as much time in the family room downstairs sorting the jumbo cache of Morrison memories. She is trying to go through all this and separate the stuff that belongs to each of her three brothers, so as to pass it along to them.

Today I put up the old shower curtain rod, new towel racks and TP holder in the master bath. Put the master bedroom back the way it belongs, but we probably won’t sleep in it for a couple more days so as to let the paint smell totally dissipate.

Happy Thanksgiving

“What kind of Thanksgiving dinner is this? Where’s the turkey, Chuck? Don’t you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners? Where’s the mashed potatoes? Where’s the cranberry sauce? Where’s the pumpkin pie?” – Peppermint Patty

Because we are still firmly ensconced in the AirBnB we decided that instead of trying to find a really small turkey or do a turkey breast we picked up a couple of Cornish game hens. We used to do these as a regular meal a long time ago, but stopped for some reason, and remembered them fondly. We did a couple of baked potatoes along with corn for me and carrots for her.

Either our memories are faulty, possible, our tastes have changed, also possible, or they have started breeding these hens to be more like turkeys because the breasts seemed overly large in comparison to the rest of the bird and it tasted pretty bland. Turns out we really missed the mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and apple pie flavors. We may have to search out a local restaurant next week that is serving a Thanksgiving-like meal…

Hey, Where Ya Been?

I’ve been here, just one part busy, one part watching TV and one part not feeling like writing anything.

Turns out I wasn’t the savior the Red Sox needed. I watched half a game on ESPN then listened to the other half a game and they lost. I listened to a game and they won. I didn’t listen to two games and they won one and lost the other. Since the last time I posted they have played .500 ball, which if that trend continues probably won’t get them in the playoffs, but it may keep them from finishing last.

I have been re-watching some of my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks. Not because I’m anxiously awaiting the next Avengers movie, but more because everyone is talking about them. There are a ton of lists online how to watch all of them in order to prepare yourself to watch Avengers: Endgame. There are 21 movies released so far and I was surprised to realize that I had copies of more than half of them. Growing up I was a fan of both the Iron Man and Captain America comic books, so I have the movies with those guys in the titles. I was a casual Thor reader too, so I have those three flicks. The first Ant Man movies struck the right cord with me, so I got the second one too. Never knew of the Guardians of the Galaxy but the first movie was fun, so I picked up the second one as well. I haven’t re-watched it yet and I may not because if I recall correctly I didn’t like it as much as the first. But then again, I am a sucker for origin stories and so far I have liked the first movie of the hero’s series more than any of the followups.

Not just watching movies either. I went back and re-binge watched Season 1 of Killing Eve because Season 2 started last Sunday night and I wanted to remember what went on. I also re-binge watched Season 1 of Fleabag because Season 2 is coming to America soon.

Add on top of that, Donna and I spent nearly 32 hours over 4 days this past weekend sitting on the screened porch watching golf on TV. Neither one of us golfs and we don’t watch it any other time of the year, but, because we have actually trod the hallowed grounds of Augusta National, every year for the first week of April we become fans and watch The Masters. Thank heaven for masters.com where you can watch practically the whole tournament commercial free. You just need to select “featured groups” and they follow 2 groups over the whole 18 holes and when they finish you get 2 more groupings.

We also managed to sneak in a couple of short Moss Motoring Challenge trips locally. We snagged 5 on Saturday morning and 3 yesterday afternoon.