connections

Tell me if this isn't the life! Here I sit on the patio of our room at what turns out to be a world class lodge, overlooking the Rogue River about 7 miles from the mouth where it joins the Pacific Ocean... sipping on a cup of coffee... (I have sipped more coffee here in the Northwest than ever before.. You can't help it, theres an expresso vendor in every parking lot.)... I'm chronicling our experiences of the past couple of days. I skipped a couple of days as we were down mourning the untimely loss of TJ Hogan.

We did get things worked out, however to stay here in the Tu Tu Tun lodge (look it up) for 2 days which allowed Georgia to recover a bit from being road weary, and for me to visit with an old friend and collegue for the University of Illinois who now lives in .. are you ready??? Rogue River, Oregon... with his wife Kathy and 2 Malamutes. I had a great visit with them and Kathy sent me off with 2 pieces of delicious 3 berry pie that she had just baked... I knew it was delicious because I had a piece with them before leaving. Connection 1 & 2 (with Brendan McKiernan and Rogue River).


If you look at mapquest, you will see that there is a rather direct route from the nearest town (Gold Beach) to Rogue River via Grant's Pass through Agness. Brendan said, "don't go that way, go into California and back up the Redwood Highway." I checked it out and found that although this route was farther, it was only 1/2 hour longer. Oh, he said that was the road the Kim's took. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/06/missing.family/index.html Oh, connection... I found out this morning that they were on their way to Tu Tu Tun.

On my way up, I followed the beautiful Smith River, seen here. Now we are going to digress a bit. Remember back about my fear of being too excited about seeing whales??? Nuf sed. The weather has been too rough for boats to go out. I was standing beside people in the whale observation station over the past couple of days who say, "thar she blows" (not really, but a 2008 version of the same.) I saw nothing. I did find out that there are actually resident whales that live in Depoe Bay, but they were apparently not at home. Best time to see them is summer and fall when they feed in close... Probably check them out in the fall.

So back to the "wildlife hunt". So far we have seen deer (which we can see back home at Lake of the Woods Park) and lots of interesting birds, but no whales, bears, elk, etc. Until my trip back to the lodge last nite. There along 101 was a herd of elk grazing, just outside the seaside town of Smith River, CA (connection) which by the way is the self proclaimed Lily bulb capitol of the world. Then as I wound along the Rogue to the lodge, I spotted a flock of wild turkeys which seem to be rather plentiful here. Ah! My wildlife longing is satisfied. We ate dinner overlooking the bay as the clouds of the day were clearing.

Today the sun is shining, my bride is rested and we will head south into California to explore through redwoods and coastline. Our next "planned" stop is Mendocino, CA, although we probably won't make it on this day. Two more connections for this post. On the way up and back , I crossed several forks of the ILLINOIS river and went through the ILLINOIS valley. Apparently it is one of the wild rivers here. I'll have to check to see why it is named Illinois. And for the last connection, somehow Brendan, Kathy and I discussed Carle Clinic at Mahomet.. She used to work there and we had to go clear across the country to visit with them to find out that The GP that Georgia and I have been doctoring with since before we moved to Mahomet is Retiring ... April 21, 2008. Fortunately, Georgia has an appointment on April 14, but odds are, I will not get to see him again. Here we go again, trying to find a doctor with which we feel comfortable. Dr. Dunn was the best and we wish him the best, although he is disobeying a direct order from Georgia... that he couldn't retire as long as we needed him. As we leave, here is a little video of the cottage outside our door, centered on the property at Tu Tu Tun.