Girls Gotta Have Fun

Summer has come and gone for those of us  in the Pacific Northwest, or PNW as we texters like to say. Long gone are our 90 degree days, and on to our mid 60  misty days of fall. I love Fall. I’m not a summer girl. However, summer does bring on the bravery of adventure. Summer makes us feel invincible, young and alive!

I have turned 50.
 50.  The golden number where you realize everything has shifted, lower.  I have no finances to shift things “up”, so I must do my duty to move this body a little more toward the elusive “perky” stage. This is not going to happen I realize, but the fun is in the challenge not necessarily the ending, right?  This summer I tried to do some new things, active things.

 I went on a girls trip. 

We traveled around central Oregon to some out of the way places and stayed in a really cute house that I’m pretty sure was haunted. I didn't  mention it to the other girls.  I had been talking zombies all weekend due to the audio book I had been listening to during the week. It was probably best that I didn't bring up some of the oddities of the house. Like the old clothes hanging on the walls. As if a person should actually be in them, clear down to the perfect hat and handbag. Then there was the "Annual Book of Knowledge"..... from 1953. hmmm

 At one point I was feeling a bit snarky so when we were at a stop sign and Bubbles asked if there was any traffic coming, I said “no, just the zombies”. (I was chuckling.) She says”Zombies can’t run. Or grab doors. They are powerless without their heads”. Shoot. They didn’t include that part in the audio book.

We found some beautiful landscapes. The painted hills look just like their pictures by the way.

We even found a few shoes trees. 

Now, why  would people throw shoes up in trees? Well, as it happens, it is a rite of passage; signifying an ending or new beginning. Students throw shoes up in a tree when they graduate, or hikers who’ve reached the conclusion of a particularly challenging trek. I don’t know if this is a central Oregon thing or what, but where I live, we have things like cake in those situations. 

Bubbles wanted to see dinosaur bones. So we went to a place where they have fossils. (Fossil Oregon) We saw leaves, branches, rocks, no dinosaur bones. All was not lost, we did see the biggest dandelion ever.  At the end of this hike we came across a rattle snake warning sign. Yes, posted at the end, not the beginning. Probably for people like me, who wouldn't  have hiked in the first place if I had known there were snakes out there waiting for me. 

Our little town for the weekend had a ghost town set up going on. In it was a graveyard with cowboy boots by the headstone. Charming.  This quaint little town had some of the prettiest yards. We soon learned there was reason for it. Each month there was a contest to see who had the nicest yard. The winner received a pie. My kind of contest!

It also had the smallest library, ever. The size of a mail box. ( Uh huh. I’m not kidding.  They really believe in the honor system.) 

The most unique part of that town was the sign in sheet for the duck races on the 4^th of July at the local market.  I looked for a camera, really? But yes, there are duck races on the fourth of July and the list of entrants was actually quite long. Impressive. 

On our travels I noticed we kept coming across some of the most random signs ever. How does one prove this? Take pics! 

#1 (at a closed gas station)  what? Ew!

#2 (in an antique store on the toilet tank)  Ok, Bubbles…you go first.

#3.(at the painted hills)  Ummmm so where exactly are we supposed to walk…?

#4 (also at the painted hills, at the end of the trail…) all this gets is an eye roll. Really??

#5 (at the end of the fossil trails)   Are you KIDDING ME?!!

 In the gorge we saw windsurfers, tons of them.

In central Oregon we saw amazing landscapes and rock formations.

 On the way home we stopped at Stonehenge. which I think is really a mystical place but no one else does.  Got some great shots there. After Bubbles took a photo of me I said “I didn’t have Bingo wings did I?”  and she told me “You can’t have Bingo wings unless you do a Bingo.”.  oh.....Ok.

Stonehenge  sits up on Maryhill in Goldendale WA. was built in  1929 with the grandest view. It is so serene. Something about it makes you talk quieter be a little more respectful and have some unidentified emotions.

  It was a great weekend, with some really wonderful ladies. We laughed a lot, learned something new about each other, explored, did some singing, ate some great food, made friends with the locals, found out that Kia Soul is actually quite comfortable for a road trip, saw some enormous windmills, beautiful fields, quirky abandon shacks, too much to fit in one blog. 

So, we decided we must have another girls weekend. This time we will stay closer to home and explore what is right in our own backyard so to speak, maybe enjoy a few glasses of wine while we’re at it.

And for the intellect in you:

Did you know that the fear of windmills is called Anemophobia and/or Ancraophobia?

Yea.
Me either.


Izzy

Next blog : The Salsa Adventures….