Post 4th of July Thoughts

 From the "Ain't This A Great Country?" Dept.:
                             Watch "America's Most TOXIC Site Could Be Worse Than CHERNOBYL" and keep smiling. 😖

The United States of America, at 250 Years, hopes for more...

Watch "America: Birth Of A Nation" and this, pretty much, sums it up.

Catching up on The Night Before the 4th.

 

Woo-hoo! My new accordion arrived on June 5th! Now I'm (not so quietly) trying to learn a few tunes.

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On the weekend of June 18-20 Mary's great-nieces (and 2 friends) came to visit and camp out...

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Mary and I made bagels, ummm.

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Last Saturday, nearly a week ago, I became new member of the Tillamook Rotary! Had fun manning the a ticket booth with them the previous night at the Tillamook Rodeo. What a great group of people. (And the event was held at the home of a local restaurant owner, and also a new Rotary member, Carlos - who cooked an amazing spread!) I'm liking this club that meets for lunch in Tillamook every Tuesday. And I'll never lose weight at this rate.

Well, very early tomorrow I'm going to find out how the magic has always happened every year of my life. I'll assisting Rotary with putting out the Tillamook flags. Have I commented on what a great group this is?

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Other great news: Healthcare for All Oregon (HCAO Tillamook Chapter) will have a booth at the Tillamook Fair, and it's been paid for! This is all possible because volunteers to work the booth have emerged from the healthcare industry in Tillamook! Yes, the Tillamook Vision Center has volunteered its staff to help operate the Healthcare for All Oregon fairbooth from Aug. 5th-8th. I hope several others in the area assist us as we bring the good news to the Tillamook County! 

Healthcare for All Oregon (HCAO): Tillamook County Chapter Progress

 On Tuesday, June 2nd, I presented, to the Tillamook Rotary Club, an introduction to the work HCAO has been doing for 26 years, and most importantly, to the health plan being designed by the Universal Health Plan Governance Board for submission to State Legislators this September.

A Thursday Personal Blog

 

Today I would like to post some personally meaningful items that should stand up well on their own:

Topic: Science (and the only truth that really matters!)
Watch "NASA Just Touched the Sun — Here’s What They Found" on YouTube

Topic: History - Stuff we Really Ought to Learn about
Watch "The 20,000 Deaths Behind the Moon Landing (Operation Paperclip)" on YouTube

Topic: History - Just fun stuff to learn about, and "who knows...?"
Watch "The Last Sewer Worker Who Walked the Buried Streets of Portland — What He Saw Past the Old Brick" on YouTube

Topic: Nostalgia 
Colbert and "The Late Show" have been cancelled, but this was left behind - Watch "The Worst Of The Late Show - FULL EXTENDED EPISODE" on YouTube

Topic: Personal Growth
Watch "The Day You Realize Nobody Is Coming — Carl Jung" on YouTube

Check out my new page for all things interesting that you might like to know called 
"Did you know?..."

Back home in the Lovely Coastal Range of Oregon

Arriving, yesterday, we were met by tall grass and the property desperately waiting for some attention.

So, Sunday morning I got the mower and went to work. The area looks so beautiful now, and I thought I'd share some photos of the beautiful place we are so fortunate to inhabit...

The blueberries are many and we're looking forward to enjoying them. The grapes are just shooting up.

Spring Birding & Boise Odyssey - continuing on to Boise

The drive to Boise was amazingly beautiful. A minor auto problem had us stop for diagnostics and we actually solved the problem after which we bought a new computer data reader. And when we arrived in Boise we checked in and quickly zipped off for dinner and the '60s musical at the Boise Little Theater, "She Loves You". Great performance! 

You must get to see this theatre, it's beautiful! Watch some of the performance here!

Saturday morning we went to the Boise Zoo.

Uhh...

... and Saturday night, the new Star wars movie at the Boise IMAX...

On Sunday we caught brunch at "Foodland Market (a Mediterranean market)" owned by a Turkish family and catering to a very Iraqi neighborhood. 

In the next block of this "Istanbul neighborhood of Boise", we  saw a production of "Murder on the Orient Express" at the Stagecoach Theater. 

One of our discoveries about Boise is that the Basque population do not hold sole claim to the city at all. In addition to South Asian people from Thailand etc., there is quite a large Eastern Mediterranean population from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria area here, also. -and a huge collection of Italian restaurants from one of which we are going to have pizza tonight!

And it's Red Bench Pizza!

Pizza so good we're coming back on "Lasagna Tuesday" night.

Well, Monday started and ended  amazingly. Breakfast at Blue Bench Brunchette (we're not early risers after late nights.)

And, after short naps, we stopped for what ended up being the most expensive (especially since quitting booze decades ago), fruit/veg drinks at Boise Juice Company ringing in at $10 for each 10(?) oz. drink. The liquids were to bring with to the Westside Drive In where the food was okay and the music was yet another droning "oldies" collection which seems ubiquitous in Boise and I had hoped would go away after repeated playing in the '50s, the '60s, and the '70s, - over 50 years ago. Younger folks, some of whom must be brilliant musicians, have certainly been ignored by boomers.

Thankfully,  we could not have been more enthralled, nicely welcomed, and thoroughly entertained than we were at the location of the beautiful Idaho Department of Parks & Recreation site of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.  

The evening's "Noche de Serenatas" included an opening special appearance of the Basque Choir, followed by the Boise Orchestra, flamenco dancers w/musicians,  traditional Spanish folk dancers, and a magnificent 11 piece Boise Mariachi band! 

 Also, the special soloists were a woman and man operatic singers who returned again to sing Mexican folksong late into the night!

The Basque Choir performed lovely and unique folksongs that even most of them can't understand!

Flamenco singers and dancers performed.

The soloists first performed Spanish classical arias - and then Mexican songs!

Mexican dancers.

And the Boise Mariachis!

The encores kept coming at the end. The last piece was "Amor eterno", Watch Rocío Dúrcal sing it here on YouTube: 

That was a late night! After midnight by the time we went to bed!

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Tuesday morning & afternoon we rested in late so Mary could care for the asthma that has been holding her back for days. Tonight we've planned lasagna at the Red Bench Pizza and a movie at Rick's Flicks. We'll packed in tonight for two nights in Burns, so tomorrow we leave Boise🧳.

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Friday after getting to Bend we had a wonderful dinner with Will, Mary's nephew, and his belle, "Sam". They treated us to an exciting and delicious Korean restaurant!

On Saturday, May 30, after visiting in Redmond with friends 

Peggy Glass and her lovely grand-daughter, Dahlia, we arrived home safely. It was a lovely day for driving.