Oregon Greenery - Sun., Sept. 22

Yesterday I finally arrived in Portland at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), rented a car at the airport, arrived at Mom's house at 7:00 p.m., then we left to go to Oktoberfest at Oaks Park in Portland. Mom, my sister and I had a fun time eating wurst (sausage), red cabbage, dancing the polka and chicken dance, watching the Tirolean dancers and listening to oom-pa-pa music.

Hey, how come I'm the boy??

Tirolean dancers.

Tirolean dancers.

At 9:45 p.m. we headed back to Mom's house.

This morning, after reading the Sunday paper, Mom and I went to Sherwood and did a 5K (3.1 mi.) Volksmarch through countryside and neighborhoods. We had wind and some rain, but overall it was a pleasant walk. Even though it was 62 degrees, we were quite warm with our rain coats on.

The first signs of fall colors.

Sherwood, Oregon countryside

Pampas grass in bloom.

Quite the mailbox set up!

Zinnias in bloom now.

This afternoon, Frank and Gina (brother and sis-in-law) visited and brought a new card game for us to play. I can't remember the name of it (something) 10. We had a good time playing that, then we switched to playing pinochle.

A gorgeous rainbow was over the golf course. We could see it from her living room.

Brilliant rainbow - we could see all the colors vividly.

View from Mom's living room window.

Michael, my son, came over for dinner. Mom had cooked lamb shanks and yams in the slow cooker and Mike brought Hawaiian sweet bread rolls. Plus we had a marinated cucumber/tomato salad, steamed green beans (fresh-picked from Mom's garden) and cinnamon applesauce. For dessert, Mom served warm apple crisp with whipped cream. Such a good meal!

Mom, Michael, Frank, Gina sitting down to dinner.

After dinner, we all sat down to watch the movie "21" with Kevin Spacey. If you didn't get to see it at the theater a few years ago, it's about MIT students who learned how to count cards for the game of 21. They went to Las Vegas to make money at the casinos and lived the high life while they were there. Then they'd go back to MIT and continue their studies as if nothing happened.

Movie time - Frank, Gina, Mom, Michael

Tomorrow night, I'm meeting friends, Curt and Lexi, in Wilsonville to have dinner and get caught up on how they're doing.

Time to go read myself to sleep with a John Sandford novel, "Chosen Prey."

Night night.