P30

There must be some old-timers here? There must by the guy with piles of inventory stacked in his yard for just-in-case and just-because. There must be that guy who remembers when, way back when he was a kid, before this stop light was put in, folks would just pull over, "there yes, just over there" onto the gravel and buy fruit from the Mexican woman. But now it's a Pub or a bike shop it's funky and fun and thank God it's not Starbucks. The feeling is so new. This is the heart of the matter. In search of the plain-old-used-to-be.

Where is the heart of the matter?

Basket weaver, arrowhead carver, salmon smoker, pellet hunter, big tree logger, paper maker, hop picker, blueberry fingers, apple farmer, pie baker, farrier.

Keyboard tapper, night club dancer, boots and feathers, fedora hats, micro-brew drinker, bicycle rider cycling through an ocean of 30.

(When I'm in the garden with soil under my nails I find the Old-timers there, I thank the Old-timers there.)

On the highway looking out the window I catch myself thinking again and again, imagine what it looked like before... even before that, you know, way back....

It's the part of me that's always homesick for "the homeland we've never seen".

Homesickness, maybe that's what really killed off the Old-timers? Another one down with a bad case of the "homesick-blues". More likely though I just need to look around, Old- timers are everywhere and always in the making.

101 to 5 to Eugene to Portland

By the time the car was all packed and the house was was all put away and spic and span for the subletters it was 4:45am. In other words, it was time for bed. We set the alarm (ambitious) for 6 and cursed it when it rang. We said fair well to our dear Hardcore Coffee and were on the road just in time for Santa Rosa's morning traffic. We decided to take the 101 rather than hwy 5 for the first leg of our journey- less traffic moving North in the morning and not much of a time difference after all. The windy road cuts through N. California's rolling hills and my red eyes were forced to stay open by the lupins and poppies shouting out "it's spring!"

Further north the majestic redwoods in the misty morning fog opened up into brackish lagoons where herds of Roosevelt elk first stopped my breath and second made me hungry for lunch. Ryan spotted a sign for smoked salmon from a mile away and our bear instincts took over. The Native American woman behind the counter preformed an ancient Salmon Sampling ritual we were honored to take part in. God-bless you Salmon! We were revived and back on the road our eyes feasting on the beautiful curves of the Smith river.

About an hour outside of Eugene Or. the exhausted part of my brain finally spoke up and gave the excited part of my brain a good talking to. We found the world famous Pizza Research Institute and then the eccono lodge and that's all I remember from that night.

In the morning we were sad to learn that Breightenbush Hot Springs was full for day-use but had a chance to check out Eugene's beautiful Saturday Morning Market and found some more goodies for the road.

We took our time getting up to Portland checking out smaller roads that wound their way through blueberry farms and fields of trellised hops. We stopped in a state park on the Willamette river and watched the ferry shuttle cars across. A couple of old men built a small fire on the river bank and were relaxing in their fold out chairs fishing the afternoon away. We ate our smoked salmon and hard-boiled eggs like teddy bears on a picnic. Ryan stacked rocks paying homage to the Willamette and we were on the road to Portland.

5 Days Till Take Off

I never thought the day would come when I would find myself Blogging. Who know? But thanks to the encouragement of dear friends and a little shift in attitude, here I go...

Terms and Conditions:
A: I don't plan to do this every day, just whenever I feel like it.
B: I will do my best to get Ryan on board.
C: I'm dyslexic and owe my life to spell check. That being said, you will surely find straggling errors throughout (as no one has yet invented a dyslexic-check). I hope you will find this an endearing quality.

For those of you who haven't gotten the full story behind our trip and think we're just slacking-off for 3 months here's the deal: We're thinking of it like a sandwich. The US is the bread- sprouted bread- full of questions about where we would like to live.

Dear Sebastopol,

We love you, we adore you. Please know it's not you it's us. We need to explore the world before we can truly commit. Please know we will always love you and cherish our time together. We trust that if it was meant to be we will return with a renewed commitment to building our life with you.

Yours sincerely, Liat & Ryan

Our plan is to leave on Fri the 23ed of April at 4:oo am. That's right, am. We hope to make it up to Breitenbush hot springs in the early afternoon, soak until our fingers and toes look like raisins and camp for the night. One of our informants adamantly explained that if we didn't go to Breitenbush we would be missing out on the experience of a lifetime and who could argue with that. We'll be heading up to Portland the next day and from there to Bellingham WA, and the surrounding area.

The meat of the sandwich is our time working and traveling abroad. We'll be in the UK, briefly in Amsterdam, Northern Italy and Israel. Then it's off the complete the sandwich with NY, New England, and lovely Wisconsin before returning to our dear Burnside Rd. While we're in the UK and Italy we'll be WWOOFing it- World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. We'll be staying with families and helping out with their projects in exchange for room, board, and the local experience generally cloaked from the average tourismo. So far we've connected with 7 farms who are anxiously awaiting our arrival.

The Farms we're looking at for the most part run small scale projects along side their food or herb production. Seeing small agriculturally based businesses is at the heart of the matter for us. We're curious about how to sculpt a life that combines all of our passions in a sustainable way and hope that meeting like minded folks will help us to focus our vision. Details to follow.

In between exploring the US and WWOOFing-it we'll be paying respects to our respective ancestral homelands visiting Scotland and Israel. The last time I was in Israel I was 16, and though I was in Scotland with my Grandmother for the 1997 Edinburgh Theater Festival, I can't say that I've ever made it to Douglas Castle. I guess you could call this the pilgrimage part of our journey- or the condiments, bringing it all together.

We are filled with gratitude to have this opportunity and thank you for joining us, albeit virtually, on this adventure. Having the support of our family and friends enables us to leap fearlessly (though for my part, not without a healthy dose of anxiety). We'll keep you posted.

Peace and Love, Liat