Oregon Caves
I’ve been trying to get around to posting this blog for six days now. We took lots of photos and had lots of fun on my only official full day off this month so far. Before you start weeping for me, let me add that Easter Sunday may also yield a second day off for me this month.
We started out of town Saturday afternoon and went down about 12 miles past Grants Pass along the Rogue River. We hadn’t really decided where we were going until I called my Dad, told him of our plans of picking a direction away from Roseburg, and just going until I felt like sleeping, and then…sleeping. He said if we decided on driving south that we could stop by Al Parra’s chateau and pick up some CDs containing the graphic design work Al has done for LaVelle Vineyards. He also said that he would pay for our hotel room if we decided to go south. I quickly remembered that the Oregon Caves National Monument was located down there somewhere. Vicky agreed that hotel room definately beats out sleeping in our truck. So, after a few phone calls to Dad and Al Parra and a few household chores, we packed up some cookies and fresh fruit and headed south.
To be clear about how cool our adventure became, you must first understand that Vicky and I have never met Al or any other member of the Parra family. Dad just told us that he had been trying to get a set of CDs from Al for several months. Al has done most of the graphic design work for LaVelle Vineyards since the late 90’s. Al recently decided to move out of the Eugene area and into the Hawaii area. They were in Hawaii for a while, and then decided to move back to Oregon. We quickly realized that they had a very nice spread living up outside Grants Pass and a couple of miles from Rogue River. I clearly remember Vicky saying that she didn’t want to go into Al’s house and meet him. I talked her into it and our karma took over for the rest of the evening.
We went first into Al’s study where he sat down at his G4 and began showing me the work as he put them onto CDs. Whilst there, Vicky stumbled upon one of Al’s latest toys. I believe it was a Nikon Cool Pix 8800. 8 megapixels takes a huge photograph of just about anything. I remember thinking at that point, I wonder what kind of bank Al robbed to get all this cool stuff. So, after the stint in his study, Al quickly motioned for us to come over to the main part of the house and meet the rest of his family.
We met Sherry, Al’s wife, another woman that lived there and rented a spare room from them, and two of his grand kids, Channel and Champagne or something. We also met two of their nearby neighbors and I can’t remember thier names either, but they were cordial and they were only there for the first 20 minutes. We hung out in the kitchen for a while and got to talking about all sorts of different things. Sherry started serving us fresh vegetables, crackers, chips and whatnot and Al got me going with a glass of what he called two buck chuck. There are many different inexpensive red and white wines coming out of california right now. This particular Merlot costed them $2 a bottle at Costco. They had to buy a case of it though so I was determined to do my part in helping them drink some of it. It was, in a word, okay. I finished a glass and then later had my first bottle of Negro Modelo. Modelo is a hispanic beer that you’ll find on most menus at Mexican restaurants up here. It was, in a word, better.
So then after an hour or so of talking, eating and drinking we migrated into the living room where I saw quite possibly the largest television that I’ve ever seen. There was a nice theatre surround system accompanying this TV. We began watching The Incredibles and kept talking and drinking and then, out of the corner of my ear I caught the faint whisper of hot tub come from somewhere in the room. Sherry and their two grand daughters were going to head out to their hot tub and I began inner-cursing myself that I hadn’t remembered to bring swim trunks. Luckily, Al had some extras for me to borrow and I was off and hot-tubbing! It was an excellent break for my lower back pain and I felt so much better after spending some good quality time with this spa from the gods!
So, after the hot tub we wenbt back inside and within fifteen minutes Sherry was inviting us to stay the night on a fouton that was out on their newly enclosed back porch. We were in a dream!
The next morning Sherry made everyone a sausage, egg and pancake breakfast because she had obviously been through some kind of angel training class. She was awesome. And Al was an excellent host. I haven’t had that much fun in a long time. So then we were off on our trek to the Oregon Caves National Monument.
The caves were very cool, and we got some excellent photos that I’ll share with you right below here. If you ever get the chance the Oregon Caves is a highly recommended area to see. We saw one little bat in the cave and he was cool. but the stalagmites and stalagtites were very cool! I doubt that my eyes will ever see anything like this again. Of course, that is one of the many beauties of Oregon!
