Trees

We went to see the trees today. It is a 1 hour drive to the turn off and then another 10 miles into the forest. Our forests are mostly Ponderosa Pine with some Tamarack (Western Larch) with White Fire in the higher elevations. We stopped at the first campground and had a picnic and just enjoyed the trees. You need to understand that where we live in Eastern Oregon, except for trees planted in town, there are NO trees. You can drive to the top of a hill south of town and see for at least 50 miles and not see 1 tree. We are in what is called The Great Basin High Desert, with an average rainfall of 12 inches, mostly in the form of snow.

After the picnic we drove up the road and, after driving for 3 hours, came to a ranching region called Drewsey after the hamlet of the same name. From there it was a quick 75 miles to home on one of the main highways that pass through our area. We put a little over 200 miles on the car during our Sunday drive. Check out some of the pictures we took.

Paul Fred Meyer -- RIP

Today was a bittersweet day. We held Paul's funeral today at Grace Lutheran Church. I officiated and Linda Meuller, Grace's Pastor, assisted. It was pretty well attended considering that the temperature was near 100 at the 2 PM starting time. Paul was ready to go, he has been lonely since his wife, Juanita, died two years ago. The end came mercifully soon, he had been hospitalized for 4 days and came home at 9:30 AM on Friday, July 10. He died 2 hours later. I went to see him as soon as they had him settled in his bed. He was semi-conscious when I went in but I held his hand and said, "Welcome Home," his eyes fluttered and he said "So long" and I talked a little more as he dropped into a deeper sleep. Connie called me into the house an hour later saying she thought her dad had died. I went in and his pulse was weak and thready and his respirations were fast and nearly non-existent. Connie and I both said that he could go and I left her to get my prayer book to give him Last Rites and when I returned he was gone.

I'm going to miss him, we've been buddies for 25 years. He was a great neighbor and an even better man. I think we gave him a good send off. So Long old buddy.

July 4th in Vale, Oregon

Our little town has always done a lot of things for the 4th of July. This year has been no different. They have the Rodeo every year of course, it's held in the evening when it's cooler. We had a run at the crack of dawn along with the Lion's Club breakfast, later at 1 PM we had the parade and Oregon Trail Days in the City Park.
You can keep quite busy if you try to do all the activities available. This year we have kept our activities pretty low key, we watched the parade from our carport and that was it. The weather this year has been very good, temps in the low 90's during the day and cooling off to the high 50's/low 60's. A little thunder last night but no rain and little wind.