Twas very good and reminded me of one of our favorites from our travels in Laramie, WY. I know I have featured it before. It's name is Corona Village. Probably the best Mexican place I've eaten in. Well that memory took me to one that I thought was funny. In Corvallis, we had a favorite Chinese restaurant named China Blue ran by a family. His primary purpose was making his customers happy. He was all over us to be sure we got what we wanted. Did a lot of take out from there also. It had been several years since we were in Corvallis, and in 2017, we drove the route 3 times from Mahomet to Corvallis and back. This gave us plenty of chances to visit China Blue. It was still good. Same food, but something was different. We only saw one oriental person there. We found out later that she was the grand-daughter of the original owners. So what else was different? Everyone else working there were..... wait for it...…. Mexican. The original family had retired and sold out to Mexicans. Now that was a bit strange, but they had bought the recipes and the grand-daughter helped keep it authentic. Oh here's their site: China Blue Corvallis.
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| My lectures were given in Ocotillo Hall |
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| Georgia among the Cholla (teddy bear) cacti |
Me and a saguaro cactus
While I'm at it, might as well give you a travelogue for that year. We started the year going back to finish our first stint at Midwestern University in Glendale, AZ where we contracted to give the imaging course in the new veterinary school. Again many of my Facebook friends will have already experienced much of this with us. We had started it by doing 3 weeks from Thanksgiving to mid December in 2016, then ran home to celebrate Christmas, the back to start the year teaching 7 more weeks. Not a
bad place to spend the winter, but actually the locals complained that it was pretty nasty weather for them. We did enjoy the sunshine and the scenery was quite different for us. Most of the buildings on campus are named after local trees, cacti, etc. so we learned about the Ocotillo tree, the barrel cactus, and the cactus wren among others. |
| Desert Botanical Garden Luminaries |
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| Dave and Jane and I with Lights of the World Entrance |
OK, back to the trips to the NorthWest.
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| Eating at Black Butte Ranch, Sister's Oregon |
was a really pleasant surprise. Aside from getting reacquainted with Corvallis and the OSU (west) folks..... OOPS. Did you know that there are 3 OSU's with veterinary colleges in the USA? Oregon State, Oklahoma State, and Ohio State. And the school colors for both Oregon State and Oklahoma State are Orange and Black.... Sorry, saw a squirrel.... Anyway, aside from that, I think the highlight of this visit to Oregon was that we finally ate a meal at Black Butte Ranch which was delicious with fantasticscenery and a waiter who entertained us with his story about moving to Oregon with his 2 kids from Alaska to get them a good education. He then plans to return to Alaska cause he just loves it there. We were told by Dr. Jana Gordon of OSU that it was a great place and we finally made it.
While in Corvallis we walked in the park and finally took some pictures of the Ballerina Statue that we had admired many times. Also on the way to Sisters, we did stop by our beloved Sahalie Falls.
And now we have been to all the continental states except Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. I know I've told you this before. The cool thing is that in most of the states we have actually slept and ate and quite often worked with and visited local people so we really got a taste of the areas. Feel really blessed to see that good people are everywhere.
Georgia didn't make it, but one windy day, I ventured north a bit to visit the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm which was nothing short of spectacular. I got lots of pictures, but I think I'll let their pictures on the website do the job. Great to see, but lots of walking.
We did get to reconnect with the Pacific Ocean. It was a bit chilly, but some gorgeous flowers were out. It is also interesting that Here I am on the Pacific coast wearing a jacket that I bought in Hyannis, MASS. Hard to believe that I barely got out of Indiana until I was 19 years old.
On our way home, we finally got things worked out to visit Oregon's Painted Hills. Again we got some great pictures, but I decided to let their website show you the beauty. Well, I am including one picture.
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Thought you would enjoy my selfie prowess.
Yes that's my finger covering my face.
At least it's a good picture of Georgia.
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| Just a peek at the Oregon Painted Hills |
On our first visit to Laramie back in January of 2008, we got snowed in for 3 days. That seemed sensible being January and all. However, on our trip home this time (2017) it is May 18. Yup, they got us again. It's a good thing that we like Laramie.
However before we hit Laramie we did another bucket list item. Georgia had always wanted to go to
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| Downtown Park City |
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| Olympic training center |
So the second trip of 2017 is finished. I got to go to the annual Silver Lake High School Alumn
 i Banquet to reunite with many of my high school classmates. Not bad for a bunch of 75 year olds, huh? So sad that we lost Marilyn the next winter. She worked tirelessly to keep the class together. I'm sure others will pick up the baton, but can't replace Marilyn.
Had a great Father's Day picnic with the family at Lake of the Woods. Since we moved to Urbana from Mahomet, I wonder if we will still go to Lake of the Woods or do somewhere else.
Hurricaine Matthew had pretty much wrecked the Maverick where we typically went every other 26th week of the year. This year was Rod's family's turn. Since we couldn't go to Florida, Rod and family got a nice place on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri for several days. They asked us to join them and we had a great time with great scenery and boating. .
 With the arrival of August we headed back for Corvallis. This time we made it back to one of our favorites, Florence, Oregon. Since we had been there a new seafood place had developed in Oldtown which is a favorite place for us. It had been recommended by a friend and it lived up to the recommendation. It appears to be a chain, but a good chain. It's Mo's, and it's just down the street from Georgia's favorite clothing shop, Bonjour. The owners must be 7th day Adventists because we got fooled and found they were closed on Saturday, so all Georgia could do was peer in the window. The boardwalk was nice and filled with booths. The 5-Pine shirt I'm wearing will become significant in a bit. One of the great things about being semi-retired is flexibility. Yes, we went back on Sunday so Georgia could shop. Found some really great outfits.
Back at the Poultry Building in Corvallis, Dave had planted a rose bush that I hadn't noticed before.
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