Mcminnville, OR

McMinnville is a regular stop on our alternate year visits to the Pacific NW because my niece, Carina, lives there.  It’s a cool little town (population 33K) in the heart of the wine country and they have an active Pickleball group.  In prior years we parked our RV in Carina’s driveway but this year, we opted for a private RV park because jockeying the larger rig in and out of her driveway would have been a major pain in the butt.

Olde Stone Village, the private RV park where we stayed, is one of the best.  It’s well designed and well managed, has very nice laundry and shower facilities, a pool, club room, sports court; we’ve paid a lot more and got a lot less.  Another plus: it’s right beside the Evergreen Aviation Museum complex, which has several new features.  We strolled around the complex one morning, took some pix, but didn’t enter any of the buildings.

This 747 is part of a water park.  Note the large water slide tubes at the rear. 

The plane was already atop the building 4 years ago but we didn’t know why.

A retired Air Force One plane fronts the new Space Museum, which houses several types of launch missiles, space capsules and the like.  There’s also a new theater building.

The military version (C-47) of the venerable DC 3, first built in 1936.  I rode in a DC 3 when I was in the Forest Service, maybe in Vietnam also, don’t recall, too many planes, too many years.  In Vietnam they were used as 'Spooky' gunships, which had 3 mini-guns, each capable of firing 6,000 rounds a minute.  They could convert thick jungle into mulch in seconds.   

Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose is in the original Museum building.

This view shows the plane from the rear. 

Games We Played II

Knives

Jackknives were popular back then and every farm kid - the boys anyway, probably not the girls - had one.  I didn’t use mine much except to play the game we called ‘knives’.  The object was to flip the blade in such a manner that it stuck into the ground.  There was a set series of moves that had to be followed, various ways of flipping the knife. One move was to hold the knife flat in the palm of your hand, blade pointing outward, and flip it over in the air; another was doing the same thing with the knife lying flat on the back of your hand.  Other moves included flipping it off the knee, and tossing it over your back.

The game was played while kneeling on the ground.  Each kid would go through the same series of moves, attempting to stick the knife blade into the ground.  If the blade failed to stick, you lost your turn and had to repeat that particular move when it became your turn again.  The first person to complete all the moves was the winner. 

A somewhat similar game, mumblety-peg, was popular in the 1800s and was mentioned by Mark Twain in one of his Tom Sawyer books.  The players would stand upright and throw the knife into the ground, trying to get as close as possible to a wooden peg.  There was also a game where the players tried to stick the knife in the ground as close as possible to the opponent’s shoe.  It wasn’t popular for very long: shoes were hand made and expensive; having a knife stuck in your foot had little appeal.

Tag Variations

Barrel of Monkeys: We’d position a dozen used tires on the ground about 4’ feet apart in a roughly circular arrangement.  You had to jump from tire to tire without touching the ground.

Swamp Tag: There was a large swampy area ¼ mile north of our barn where cattails and tall grasses grew in the spring, taller than we were at the time.  When the area dried out in late summer, we’d stomp around in the tall growth, making an intricate network of paths.  Then we’d tear around like crazy on the paths, playing tag or hide n’ seek.

Fox and Geese: This was a winter game similar to swamp tag.  We’d make a network of connecting paths in the snow; all players had to remain on the paths. The fox was ‘it’ and had to capture (tag) all the other players, the geese.

Games We Played

Trish’s daughter, Teresa, is a speech-language pathologist, specializing in pre-teens.  She’s worked at elementary school and university levels, and is now joining a start up group that will be developing speech therapy programs and software.  One of the subjects she plans to use in her work is children’s games, and how they’ve changed over time.  She asked me to write about the childhood games I played.

First, to set the stage: I grew up on a farm in northern central Minnesota, the last of 8 children, 5 boys and 3 girls.  We didn’t have much in the way of store-bought toys or games, so we had to be creative and use the materials at hand.  This is the first of 3-4 posts describing the games we played in the 40s and 50s.

Wheel and Push, aka Stick and Hoop, Hoop Rolling

The heavy duty wagons used on farms in the early 1900s – and for hundreds of years before then - had wooden wheels reinforced with 2 iron bands, one around the perimeter and a much smaller one around the hub.  When these wagons were retired, whether worn out or obsolete, they were often cannibalized, the stout lumber pressed into service elsewhere, leaving only the framework and wheels.  The wheels were ultimately burned or knocked apart, freeing up the 2 iron bands. 

The smaller iron hub bands, about 10” in diameter, became the ‘wheel’ in the ‘wheel and push’ game.  The ‘push’ consisted of 2 wooden slats, one 2’ long, the other 4-6” long.  The short piece was nailed to one end of the long piece to form a T.  This device was held in one hand, with the crossbar downward, to propel the wheel along the ground.  The objective was to keep the wheel rolling as long as possible, while trotting along behind it, using the push to nudge it along and steer it.  We’d make the game more interesting by arranging ramp jumps and obstacle courses, and trying to knock over other players’ wheels.

Variations of this game were played in ancient Greece, China and elsewhere, usually with larger hoops.  Native Americans and aboriginals on other continents played it also.  Hoops were made of wood, copper, bronze, you name it.  Push sticks were mostly wood but without the T-bar at the business end.

Francois

That’s Francis in French, pronounced france-WAH.  He’s from Quebec, came here to taste and select pinot noir wine for stores back home.  He flew into Portland from Montreal, bought a bike and camping gear and has been biking to various wineries.  There are plenty of area wineries to check out, maybe 30 or more within a few miles of Champoeg.  He’s going to attend the international pinot noir conference in McMinnville in a few days.

Francois returning from a hard day at the 'office'

We bumped into F at the park entrance building 4 days ago.  He was trying to get a hiker/biker campsite but couldn’t due to park restrictions.  Stays in those sites are limited to 3 days, then you must leave the park for 3 days before returning; he had already been here 3 days.  We think the rule exists to discourage homeless people from settling in for long periods.  So, we told F that he could pitch his tent at our campsite, no charge, and he gladly accepted.

L to R: Ron, Holly, Francois, moi, Trish.  

Ron and Holly, Trish's long-term friends, are camping nearby.

Francois joined us for dinner the last 3 nights, and generously shared his bottles of nice pinot noir with us each time.  He’s an interesting and enjoyable fellow, 32 years old, hopes to become one of the head wine buyers for his province some day.  This trip is a step toward that goal, building up his wine expertise and credentials; Willamette Valley pinot noir is popular everywhere it seems, and Quebec is no exception. 

It's 5 o'clock somewhere.  Ron and Holly on the far right, followed by Francois, Artie, Trish, Ranger, Emily (R/H's daughter) and John, Emily's husband.  John, Emily and their daughter Margaret drove out from Portland and joined us for dinner last night.

Champoeg SP, OR

Champoeg: yet another name that defies the rules of  phonetics.  It’s pronounced sham-POO-ee.  Allegedly, it’s a bastardized Kalipuya Indian word meaning a carrot-like, edible root – or the place where such roots are found.  The common name of the plant is yampah.  Tomorrow, I’m gonna grab my trusty trowel and go yampah hunting.  If you have a favorite yampah recipe, please forward it to me.

It’s a large park, about 20 miles southwest of Portland.  Besides the campgrounds, it has cabins, yurts, bike trails, a museum, historic buildings, boat dock and large open grassy areas.

Trish is quite the happy camper, now that we have enough storage space for her fabric boxes, iron, pint-size Janome sewing machine and assorted quilting tools.  She spends lots and lots of hours measuring and cutting and ironing fabric, making hundreds of little fabric squares that she will piece together when we return home.  She’s made numerous lovely quilts in recent years.

I watch her do her quilting thing and think, good grief, how can she stand it, doing the same thing over and over and over?  It would drive me bat-shit crazy in a matter of minutes!  Ranger and Artie don’t appear to find it very exciting, either.

Champoeg is where, in 1843, Oregon pioneers gathered and voted in favor of forming a provisional government and wrote a petition to the US government requesting recognition of same.  Champoeg was a relatively large settlement at the time and many thought it would eventually be the territorial/state capital.  The Willamette River threw a wet blanket on that: in December, 1861, the River rose 52’ and wiped out the entire town.  It was not rebuilt.

This is a typical yurt except for the handicapped ramp.  Inside, there’s basic furniture including bunk beds.  It has electricity but no plumbing.  Light is provided by the central, round skylight and ‘windows’ of clear vinyl.  In the above picture, the privacy flaps are down so you can’t see the windows.

Tualatin, OR

This private RV park gets a AA rating: Amazingly Adequate.  It’s conveniently located, the price is right, there’s grass and trees, and we can extend both the slide-out and the awning with room to spare.  Another plus, it has a laundry room close to our site.  On the downside, the water pressure is the worst and the wifi sucks.  It’s on the Tualatin River, which really doesn’t merit the term ‘river’ cuz there’s virtually no current.  Don’t bother adding it to your whitewater bucket list.

We arrived on 6/30 and will be here through 7/13.  Trish has been visiting family and friends, and I flew to MN for 3 days to attend the annual family reunion, over the July 4^th weekend.  The pix below were taken on the return flight. 

Western Montana from 32,000 feet

Mt Hood

Flying into PDX from the east on a sunny day is a visual feast.  To the right (north) you see the string of high Cascade Mountain peaks marching into the distance: Adams, St Helens, Rainier and Baker.  To the south you see Mt Hood and more snow-capped peaks beyond.  I know: the picture quality is lousy.  I handed my camera to the guy next to me in the window seat and asked to him to take the shot, didn't have time to brief him on the focus and zoom features.

We golfed yesterday, 9 holes, first time for Trish since her double knee replacement operation in late December.  The King City course where we played was in great shape, and a bargain at $14.

It’s been quite warm here, high 80s and low 90s, A/C running every day but turned off at night.  We like the heat but not the humidity, now that we’re confirmed desert rats.