Phil, your photos are gorgeous. I sure hope you have some more to post this year. I'd love to see them! And Merle, no red or orange needed to dress up a landscape like yours! Those trees are like pure liquid gold. You are another who lives in one of the most beautiful places in this continent. Just lovely. Lois, what a great experience the Transsuperior sailboat race and that whole trip must have been. I would have loved doing that! I've been through your area in the fall and it is gorgeous too. I can't imagine living in a place that didn't have the autumn colors. Just think! There'd be nothing to look forward to just before winter!! I don't think I'd like that!

I think those dates sound about right Ann although I am surprised there was that much time between the two. It was so much fun compiling all the recipes from everyone. It truly was a group effort! Particularly enjoy the fact we included the actual words from each poster as they talked about their recipe....brings back so many memories. Special thanks must go to Lars for the Moe 's Diner Logo.

Just returned from our trip. We did go see Mt. St. Helen or rather the observatory across from it. It was cold and cloudy that day, they had had 8 ft of snow the week before. But the clouds parted while we were up there and although it wasn't sunny, it was breathtaking. We really enjoyed the day as we were with friends that we hadn't seen since 1986. We then went into Portland for dinner on the river. Spent the next day with our friends at the big falls on the Columbia River. Beautiful day! Then we drove over to Lincoln City, OR and stayed on the coast. We drove the next day down to Gold Beach and had dinner a wonderful meal at Spinners. It was about the only place in town to eat but what a surprise. The drive along the coast was awesome. Had the top down on the convertible when possible. Stopped at the Oregon dunes and did the tourist ride over them. What a blast. Amazing that you go from mountain cliffs to sand dunes all in an hour. The next day we drove down through the Redwood forest and did a short trail hike in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. We decided not to drive right along the Calf. coast since the drive the day before took much longer than planned. We also figured out that if you wanted to get off and get back on I-5, you couldn't. Once you were committed you had to go the whole way. The trip from Gold Beach to Santa Rosa was a very long drive. Certainly different topography. Traffic picked up the closer you got to Santa Rosa. The next day we drove from Santa Rosa to Yosemite via Oakland. OMG, the traffic was awful. And the road where you split to go towards Richmond wasn't clearly marked. Actually there were two signs, both said Richmond. We took the one to the right that did go over the Bay and through Oakland. I guess it was the right one I could never live in that type of traffic. On the way to Yoseite, the interstate was backed up going towards Oakland for about 50 miles. When we stopped at Tracey, the waitress said it was like that every work day as people commute from out that far to Oakland to work. Our route to Yosemite was very nerve racking. We had switchback curves and climbed the mountain range for about 60 miles. What MapQuest tells you will take (and the Yosemite book that I got as well)31/2 - 4 hours took us 6 hours. Once in the park though, it was well worth it. We did stay at the Ahwanahee. Yes, it is an old building so don't expect perfection. The room was clean, up to date in that it had a small fridge, ironing board, hair dryer, soft towels, TV and phone. The heater was loud and the water took a while to get hot but other than that, it was what we expected it would be. BTW, all the rooms do have baths now. The cost is high so you pay for the historic part. The food in the restaurant was okay but I have had better for less. We did take the Valley tour and it was great. The ranger was great and they gave us blankets to keep warm. Temps were in the 50's mostly with clear mornings and rain in the afternoons. They said it had been in the 90's the week of the 17th of May. The waterfalls were amazing - in full flow this time of year. The main reason we went now. We took the south route out of the park. Much easier on the nerves and DH who drove all the way. We made it back into Oakland in about 5 hours this time but the mileage is longer this way. So all in all, it was a good trip. Tiring in a good way. We did need an extra day to do the PCH part and maybe another day in Yosemite to do some of the outer sites. DH really didn't want to do the 4 hour or 8 hour tour after driving the day before. The roads weren't packed but I can imagine what they are during the summer. Glad we went now rather than later.

I celebrate Yule/Solstice rather than Christmas but my greenery is going up outside, just a few things on the porch, probably late next week. I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS refused to put anything up until at the very least the week after Thanksgiving weekend, even when I did celebrate Christmas - when I was growing up, December 15th-ish was the time for decorating, because we always had fresh, locally cut trees/wreaths and not having them up for weeks on end kept them much nicer, and we didn't get sick of seeing it all :-) before New Year's (New Year's Day was always for taking down the holiday decorations with football going in the background). I still need to go dig through the closets and see if I can find my collection of stars and suns to hang in the greenery. I don't want to do TOO much outside because half our Halloween decorations were stolen (snarl)! I like a very judicious amount of lights but we have no outside outlets in this house, and we don't have outlets in the right locations inside for windowsill "candles". (I don't want to spend the money on batteries for the battery-operated ones, not to mention throwing away all the dead ones.) Plus I just don't want to store all that stuff, this is a small house and storage space is at a premium. I haven't had a tree in more than a decade, just never had anywhere to put one and don't miss it all that much; no fireplace in this house for the Yule log :-( and no mistletoe or holly inside even though both are sacred plants because it's terribly poisonous for animals, especially the berries which tend to fall off the sprigs, and the dog will eat anything biological that lands on the floor. LOL But, my church-group-equivalent isn't celebrating Yule at our house this year as we have done in past years anyway (we have always had the largest house in the group, so we have pretty much always hosted the gatherings)... we are all trooping off to another friend's house, where they have a huge all-nighter party on Solstice Night. We thought about making the (rather painful) 3+ hour drive to see my mother for Christmas proper since she doesn't ram the religious stuff up our noses like DH's family does, but decided there were better uses for the $350+ we'd be spending (2 nights in a motel plus gas/tolls plus boarding the dog plus contributing to the additional grocery bill). She usually decorated like crazy but hasn't done as much the last couple of years because of toddler grandchildren and no space for her old trick of putting the tree in a playpen and anchoring it to the ceiling with heavy fishline!