After 2 days of settling in we showed up for an introduction morning where we met 2 of our fellow workampers, Candy and Lee. There’s going to be about 20 of us here, quite some more than at Vallecito, and after some confusion at first we were both scheduled for being part of the ‘inside’ crew, which means we will be working in the office. This was not what I expected and I’m nothing short of terrified because amongst checking in the visitors this means manning the front desk which involves handling my worst enemy, ….the phone!
As much as I tried to get out of it the manager seems confident that I can do it and asks me to at least give it a try.
Off course he’ll turn out to be right because it fortunately doesn’t take me too long to ‘get over it’ and pretty soon I’m actually starting to enjoy this kind of ‘work’ (not after some panic attacks on the mornings before going to work though). I’m working on Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons. That’s it. Pretty good deal!
James has gotten a very different assignment than any of us; he’s to be responsible for all group reservations and arrivals and is also supposed to do the PR for attracting and getting groups to come to this place. As long as he makes 10 hours he can come and go as he pleases. The lucky bast…! It also means he is on call though if we have a group in so that’s less nice but all in all I think we did well. We will have lots of time, 5 days (!) to explore this part of the world!
Which we do off course! Beginning with the beach at Turtle Rock, guess how it got its name?
Sadie and I love our walks at the very wide beach:
On our first days off we do some exploring in the area immediately around us. This is at Port Orford Heads State Park
I’m very happy to discover the ‘Wild rivers Wool Factory’ in the tiny town of Langlois where they sell local (raw) wool and handspun yarn and, best of all give, classes for beginning and intermediate spinners!
James is happy with the lumber yard just down the street from us and the Ace Hardware store in town, the latter being only a couple of minutes away. It has been a long time since we had stores this close, imagine,…2 supermarkets within 5 minutes!At the end of the month we drove to Newberg to see James’ Dad and brother.
We did some site-seeing on our way up and visited the Yaquina Head Lighthouse north of Newberg and a nice covered bridge on the way to Roseburg.
We stayed with his brother Doug who has a nice house on the golf course only 5 minutes from the nursery home where his Dad is staying at the moment.
We stayed with his brother Doug who has a nice house on the golf course only 5 minutes from the nursery home where his Dad is staying at the moment.
A couple of weeks ago Dad was taken to the hospital because of bladder problems during which time it was determined that the prostate cancer he was treated for a couple of years ago was back with a vengeance and this time had metastasized to his spine and pelvis. It’s only a matter of time until the inevitable will happen and the doctor thinks he doesn’t have much left. He’s getting very weak and is often in a lot of pain.
Dad himself still hopes to regain some of his strength with physical therapy and be able to go back and live with Doug again as he has been doing for the last couple of years.It’s a sad and difficult time for all of us and especially hard on Doug who visits him every day and sees him decline in a painful and slow way.
We stayed for a couple of days and visited Dad a couple of times, played some golf and enjoyed some nice dinners together. James' cousin Sherry was visiting Doug, he hadn't seen her in over 20 years so they had fun remembering and catching up on each others lives.
We also learned that
