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Phoenix, Arizona

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Tahkenitch Landing Campground

Gardiner, OR

Last week I took a couple of days off from my duties at the Tahkenitch Landing Campground.  Wednesday, July 24^th, was my wife, Deborah’s, birthday.  She was 21, again.  I flew to Phoenix to help her celebrate the event.  I had not seen her since she flew back to Phoenix from Eugene at the beginning of May.  We speak/text/email/communicate often but this was special.  It looked as if this would be the only time we could be together until the end of September when I complete my duties for the Forest Service.  If you know Deborah from Facebook and haven’t wished her a Happy Birthday, then you blew it.  If you aren’t her friend on Facebook, then leave a Happy Birthday message/comment on the blog (belated).  She reads the blog, she’ll see them.

The party was great.  There were two of the four children (and spousal units) present and all four grandchildren present.  Deb’s brother was there.  A niece and her granddaughter were there. My niece was there. The party was noisy bedlam, just like it should be.  I got to go swimming with two of the grandkids.   

All three of these pictures are of my granddaughter mermaid, Harper.  She loves to jump in the pool and swim. 

And a good time was had by all.  I was back in Oregon late (late, late) Thursday night and back at the campground by about 2:00 a.m. Friday morning.  Whirlwind tour of four days….!

If flying wasn’t such a cattle car type of experience any more, I could love it.  I love to look out the windows at the scenery during the day and I enjoy watching the lights on the ground at night.  Did you know that the charts pilots use for flying depict each town, community or city as a shape (shaded with color).  When you look at the lights of the town/community/city from the air, the shape shown on the chart and what you see from the air are the same (or very, very close).  I always enjoyed that when I was flying at night.

As you drive south on U.S Hwy 101, approaching mile post 204, about 100 yards north of the mile post, is a roadside memorial.  It appears to have been there for some time.  There are two crosses and several bouquets of artificial flowers.  The crosses and the flowers are fading and weathered.  The name on both crosses is KARLA.  I have searched the internet extensively, using multiple variations of search terms to see if I could find out what happened here and when.  So far my efforts have been fruitless.  Each morning, when I take my walk along the highway, I walk south from the Tahkenitch Landing Campground to mile post 204.  I cross the road and turn north toward mile post 203.  I re-cross the road and walk south, back to the campground.  The distance is 2.01 miles and every morning that I take that walk, I pass the memorial for KARLA.

 

I wonder what happened.  I wonder when it happened.  The memorial does not look as if anyone has visited it in quite a while.  Who was KARLA?  Does anyone in any of the cars, trucks, campers or semi-trucks that pass, know of the memorial?  What was KARLA like?  Was she young or old?  Did she have a family?  Are any of her brothers/sisters/cousins still alive?  Was she local or passing through?  Was there anyone with her when the event occurred?  It's a mystery.

Just before I flew to Phoenix, the city experienced some monsoon storms on Friday, July 18th and quite a bit of rain on Sunday, July 20th.  The evidence of the power of the storms and the amount of water falling was all around the house.  Phoenix, for those of you unfamiliar with the monsoon style of rain normal for the late summer, has no storm sewer system in my neighborhood.  The closest storm sewer openings are usually on the major streets, not in the neighborhood streets.  Consequently the streets are often full of gravel and rocks which have been washed down from desert landscaped yards, the desert itself and alleys.

And these pictures were taken six days after the Friday storm.  Much of the debris had been moved by the traffic up and down the streets.  Of course, for someone who was born and raised in the midwest (Iowa), thunderstorms, with lots of wind and lightning, are just fabulous.

I'll be publishing twice this week because I missed an episode last week.  Look for another on Thursday or Friday.  Until then...