Up at 5:45 AM left at 6:15 to take Libbie to the airport for her 7:55 flight. I got back and continued working on the floor reaching the opposite wall and the attic door before quitting. The job went well. I picked up the carpet scraps in the attic entryway and removed the lower step which is insect eaten. I used a flashlight and did not see any termite tunnels so it may have been a carpenter bee or similar. I didn't see any other damage so I don't think we have a problem. I'm thinking I can use the one sheet of plywood I have left to make risers for the stairs. I'll have to buy stair treads from either Home Depot or Lowes. Since Home Depot sent me a 10% off coupon i'll try them first. For lunch today I heated the Hormel freebie i got from Kroger. It had some kind of meat product, mashed potatoes and gravy. It was adequate but not great. Dinner was Lloyds BBQ chopped pork stuffed into Pita pockets. I like the Lloyds in a tub since the sauce is very flavorful.
I did my normal Clarinet practice today then I tried to play along with the Bacarole by Offenbach on a German Clarinet site that i discovered. My Clarinet does not sound as good as the one in the recording. I think it's embrouchere.

I continued the flooring job today and got about half way cross the room before finishing for the day. Cooking Light sent an Enchilada casserole recipe which we made for dinner tonight. Basically they put some flour tortillas in a pie dish and layered it with ground beef in onion, garlic and taco seasoning. The whole thing is then covered with Monterrey Jack Cheese. I chose the mild Taco mix by McCormick instead of the Hot which had red peppers in it. I added red pepper flakes to my serving. It was good although I could tell Libbie was not keen on it.

I put down the underlayment pad in the office then started working around the door to undercut the door jamb and put the flooring in. Next was to actually start laying the courses of hardwood flooring. I got quite bit of it going today before tiring out. We heard from Joe today. He wants to come to TN and bring Paige with him then leave Paige while he works in TN.
Dinner was the other half of the rack of ribs from Saturday. We had it with Butternut Squash and Shiraz. This half of the rack was quite meaty.

After the Sunday Morning TV shows we got out the paint tools and painted the office. Once done I finished the accessories putting back the door handles, the AC duct louvers and a few outlet covers. The last item was to snake the ethernet wire under the floor to where it goes upstairs to the attic. The paint really looks nice, it was a good choice of color. I'll use the same curtains on the windows that previously were there. I studied some stocks on Scottrade and was concerned about the financial health of Frontier Cable. I own 10 bonds with 1,000 face value. Current quote is $790. I may bail out before their finances get worse. I can't see it getting better, so I'll cut my losses now. Meanwhile I spent a lot of time looking for the group shot I took at AVSA but could not find it. That directory seems to be missing. Libbie made her excellent pizza once again for dinner.

Justin had some cancellations today so he wanted to start my lesson at 10 instead of 9. It was fine with me. I tried changing embouchure to get my notes in tune with his tuning meter. I need a tuning meter to practice at home. On the way home I stopped at Lowes to get more spiral flooring nails. This was the Lowes out on 54. On the way from there I stopped in Costco and bought wine and blueberries then got a package of ribs which I ended up smoking in the smoker all afternoon. They came out quite good. I was happy. We had the ribs for dinner along with a butternut squash and a bottle of Rodney Strong Cabernet. Before dinner I put the rest of the nails in the last piece of plywood then changed the light switch and the outlet that was still one of the old ones. The room is now ready for painting.

I spent the morning removing the additional piece of particle board that was a little higher than the adjacent plywood. The plywood I bought yesterday had questionable layers so we hooked up the trailer and brought it back to Home Depot where it was exchanged without any problems. That was good because I did not have the register slip anymore. It turns out I didn't need it, the nice lady at the service desk called a guy over from the lumber department. I drove the trailer from the front door to the lumber door and unloaded the bad plywood and loaded up a better sheet. Libbie and i carried the sheet straight from the trailer to the office floor. I worked on getting it mounted although i had to shim up a corner by the room door. The sheet matches almost perfectly. I only nailed it around the edge because I ran out of nails. We had a dinner of egg salad sandwiches in Pita bread then went out to the studio for the Friday party. I finally mastered FoxTrot!!!! Thanks to Robert's lesson on Wednesday I learned the turning boxes and the zig zag twinkle. We went out to McGregor Tavern after the party. I really enjoyed being outdoors in the patio area. I sat with Terri, Kimber and Jennifer and Nancy and Art. We just met Kimber, a beautiful tall black haired woman who said she has been coming to the studio for a year. We ordered Red Oak beers along with a Quesadilla. The Quesadilla with salasa on it was outstanding. It came with cheese, chicken and jalapenos inside and sides of sour cream and salsa. Loved it. It was a fun night we haven't done in a while.

While Libbie painted the baseboards in the Office I went outside and mowed the entire back lawn, both the front part and the part by the creek until the mower gas ran out. I previously went to Home Depot and bought a gallon of gray paint for the Office and some pans for the kitchen range to replace the dirty ones. The pans didn't fit so we went after lunch to exchange them and also to pick up a sheet of Plywood to replace one more on the Office flooring. There is an uneven spot between the new plywood and the particle board so this sheet should be able to fix that. For dinner we had Salmon with butternut squash and a bottle of Red Blend wine. I found the Prosper wine in Kroger that Libbie had found last month in the Portland Safeway. The two remaining books from our order of Tulipmania books recommended by Road Scholar came today. They are used books, one of them is a former library book.

I put down the new sheets of plywood today and also replaced the baseboard I had previously removed. I also patched all the nail holes in the baseboard. Hopefully this completes the prep work before painting. In the afternoon we had a very good Foxtrot lesson with Robert. It was back to basics time. I was having trouble performing the turning box as well as the zig zag twinkles. Robert straightened us out on this It involved lots of focus on frame and leading with my belt buckle instead of pushing. Dinner tonight was the Taco Salad, a Cooking Light recipe that has beef with Salsa over lettuce topped with Cheddar Cheese and Tortilla chips.

I did the groceries today then later in the morning I set up the saw horses and began cutting the plywood to fit the floor where the particle board was removed. i did not finish this job. The plywood needs to be nailed down. Dinner tonight was egg salad in a pita bread sandwich. I bought eggs today on the Tuesday seniors day at Kroger which were the eggs for the salad

i ripped up the flooring plywood sheets where i want to level the floor in the Office. This was a hard job - Ii couldn't get the particle board up under the baseboard so i carefully removed the base and the finished removing the sheets. After lunch Libbie helped me take the trailer to home Depot and pick up new sheets of plywood. I have a concern that the new sheets are 1/32 less thick than the sheets they replace. Hopefully this is not much of a difference. The plywood was of pretty good quality. After reading the reviews online of plywood missing ply in the layers I was concerned that if a ply layer is missing then the floor would be squishy in that area. We examined the 4 ply sheets that the Apex Home Depot had on the stack and they looked great. We didn't see any missing layers in any of the sheets. The plywood rode home nicely on the trailer using the leveling boards I made a few years ago. The plywood lays horizontally using the leveling gizmos and doesn't appear to have any issues with lifting or shifting in the wind at 55 MPH. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on.

After the morning shows and clarinet practice I didn't do much else today. Libbie wanted to paint in the office so I cleaned up the one sheet of particle board that i removed yesterday and then worked on removing a second sheet. I decided to go right to the baseboard with the sheet removal instead of just doing a 32 inch strip one joist or 16 inches from the wall. I worked on freeing up the windows so that Libbie could paint them with the white trim paint. They were painted shut from the house painting a few years ago. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and viewing some of the live "models" on porn hub. that channel is amazing, so many pretty women vying for dollars from so many apparent viewers. I guess this has been going on forever. I would never pay for a video chat! Along the lines of videos and images, I'm really liking the Plex server for our media. For dinner Libbie made her pizza from scratch. She used fresh basil and leftover tomato slices. The Emmys were on tonight but 'i played on the computer.

Ii had a pretty good lesson with Justin this morning. I learned a new scale, F flat. He had an 8:30 before me and an 9:30 after me Nice to see that his schedule is filling out. When i got home Libbie was not here. She went to walk with Anita at 8:30 and still was out. I changed clothes and got to work on putting a second coat of paint on the ceiling. I had to do this early since we are leaving for a dance this afternoon. While i was still dirty i brought the Skill saw upstairs and cut out a section of the particle board where i need to raise the floor to compensate for the dip in the joist below. I still don't know if I want to do a single patch or more of the sheet going under the trim board. We left for the tea dance at 2:10. Google said it should take 40 minutes to get to Angier. We took a weird path over hill and dale in the country side to get there. We found the place OK in downtown Angier. Grace Ballroom is a pretty nice ballroom with hardwood floor in a beautiful facility. We had a 5 piece live band, snacks and finger sandwiches and tea. it was a perfect afternoon. When we came back I was really tired and lay down and fell asleep. When I woke i was pretty groggy. For dinner we ordered our Chinese dinner of eggrolls and 3 meat Szechuan which we had with Kirkwood Rutherford Meritage, a very nice blended wine from Costco. We did a trip to Brewsters after dinner for ice cream cones. My favorite High School girl was working the weekend. She previously worked the summer but went back to school but now works Saturdays.

I started painting the ceiling today but ran out of paint before finishing the job. I made a Home Depot trip and picked up another can. The job does not seem to be even so I'll probably go for a second coat tomorrow which will be a problem because we have an Esquires Tea Dance in the PM. Dinner tonight was egg salad in Pita pockets. At the last minute we decided against going to the studio for the Friday night dance. We heard attendance was way down. Not sure what is going on with the studio but it is really going down hill fast.

Thursday was a do nothing day. I was going to start painting but the only thing i did today was to do a little light sanding and move a few items out of the room in prep for paint. After lunch we went to Home Depot and bought our bulbs for the Fall. On the way home we stopped in Costco and bought blueberries, salmon and wine as well as pickles For dinner we had the Salmon along with a Squash from the produce stand and a Pinot, A to Z Winery of Oregon.

I did a little light plastering touch up in the office. We had a pretty good review lesson with robert today. We concentrated on foxtrot with a little bit of rhumba thrown in. We did groceries in Kroger today on the way home from dance. Dinner tonight was egg salad in a bowl.My new Samsung 9.7 inch tablet came today. This thing is amazing. The display is the heart of this thing - bright and clear. Plex photos are really showing up well.

I finaally got into the office with the shop vac and vacuumed all the plaster up. Dinner tonight was the Waldorf Chicken salad using some of the chicken from yesterday.

The hurricane was less intense than expected in Sarasota which was good news. Our camera still worked but the right-left control is not working. After the news I got to working on sanding the ceiling. This really tired me out and while sanding it was clear that this needs another coat of plaster in many spots, especially the corners. Once done I took a shower and rested, debating whether I should vacuum and plaster today or wait till tomorrow.
i took the shop vac into the woods and emptied it and banged the cartridge against the tree. It was full to the top and the filter was really junked up. Would love to pick up a new filter somewhere or maybe get a Home Depot Shop Vac. For dinner we made Barbara Shannon's Chinese chicken salad. The rice sticks got burned trying to flash fry them so I ran out to Kroger and picked up a can of Chow Mein noodles.

Got up at the usual East Coast time today even though it was the first time back home in this time zone. I tracked Irma quite a bit and then during breakfast the morning programs were devoted to Irma. Once the morning shows were done I drove to Home Depot and picked up a can of plaster as well as did a Kroger stop for fruit. Picked up bananas, pears and plums. Thy didn't have the containers of blueberries like in the past. The season is ending. Plastered all along the edge of the ceiling, will sand this tomorrow. Watched Irma on and off all day. It looks like good news for Sarasota, the storm may pass East with less intensity than originally predicted. Our power is still on and the Lanai Cam works. Did the unpacking today as well although I am a little weary. When i went by the High School today on the way to Home Depot i noticed the entire building is down. Libbie had a dough in the freezer which she used to make a delicious pizza for dinner with fresh basil from the garden. i wasn't tired at bed time so I stayed up till midnight reading. I also got all the pics off Libbie's cell phone and labeled the directories after using Jalbum to sort them by date into appropriate directories.

We had the hotel breakfast then drove to the airport and dropped off the car and checked into Southwest. We breezed through TSA then had a coffee at Stumptown Coffee Roasters listening to a musician playing a piano. It was quite pleasant even though we were in an airport. We walked the long corridor to our gate and there was another musician playing guitar and singing Jim Croce songs. PDX is quite an airport. We got on our Southwest flight and even though the flight was full we got an empty middle seat. The flight was bumpy for the first half but then smoothed out once we got out of the Rockies. We had a one hour layover in St Louis which was good because there was no services. We got the exit row on a brand new plane which was quite comfortable. The flight was very smooth most of the way which was good. After we got our bags I called an Uber. We got Matthew who was quite talkative and a pretty nice guy. Once we dropped off the bags we went to Kroger to get our milk and cereal for tomorrow and then to Chopotle to get dinner. We got Carne Asada in a Bowl with all the fixins. We only ate half at home and put the other half in the refrigerator. It was the only meal of the day besides breakfast.

It was foggy when we woke up this morning. I still can't believe how much room we have in our suite. It can be 2 separate rooms. We stayed around until 10:15 because we wanted to check in to Southwest. I got B40 on the PDX to STL flight and A39 on the STL to PDX. We had an easy drive to Portland. We went over to Salem then up I-5. It was a Friday afternoon and the highway was full. We chose to go up I-205 around Portland and to our Comfort suites at 1 PM. We inquired and as luck would have it we they gave us a room which we used to drop off our bags. We walked to McDonalds for lunch then hopped onto the MAX Red line and went out to the Rose Garden leaving our car at a park and ride one mile from the hotel. We met some character who seemed somewhat insecure and sat near us as we went to Washington Park. He had stories of his road trip across the country, none of which was believable. We enjoyed the Rose garden once again. So much had changed with the blooms. At one time Libbie thought we saw it at peak a few weeks ago. I doubt it. We did an hour of walking then decided to take Max back. It was slow going back since they reported a car on the tracks at 122nd st which slowed the system down. It was still OK. We met a cute Mexican girl who wanted some assistance with train routes. She didn't say where she was going but she stayed close to us. I thought she was pretty cute and hope she wasn't in trouble. When we got back we went out to dinner at Bistro 21 and also filled up the gas tank to return the car. Gas was 3.09 which was not great but we filled the tank as obligated. I had spare ribs for dinner with a very nice craft lager. Libbie had a cheese sandwich and cup of tomato basil soup. Wow, her bread was tasty. It was just the right amount of food for the both of us. At the hotel a large tour bus from MN had unloaded the passengers for the night at our hotel.

It's a foggy and rainy day. We walked into town after the hotel breakfast and mailed a couple of postcards. Next we stopped at the coffee roaster by the bridge and picked up some coffee and a donut which we had out on the back deck overlooking the Siulisi River. On the way out of town i stopped at the used book store and bought the Lewis and Clark book which was $12 and is a semi coffee table book. it got pretty foggy and misty as we stopped at the Heceta Lighthouse. The fog is pretty intense and it was hard to see the lighthouse. We took the guided tour and when we were done the fog lifted a little. I took some pics before we headed North again. The rain picked up again, this time we needed the low speed wipers instead of the mist wipers. We stopped at Waldport where I saw a buy Marijuana sign on a business which I took a picture of for Facebook. We had a nice lunch in a Mexican restaurant after walking the business district evaluating our choices. We each had a Margarita and I ordered a Taco Salad with shredded beef. It included guacamole, sour cream, refried beans, tomatoes and lettuce in a tostada shell. We continued our travels North and arrived at the Best Western only to discover i made a reservation at the non beach front facility. I rented a suite anyway for $250 and then attempted to cancel the other one which is supposed to be non cancellable. The nice lady on the phone when I called the hotel directly canceled my reservation which saved us another $150 that would have been wasted. The suite is beautiful with a full ocean view off the Lanai. We had wine and cheese then walked down the street to Kylleys Seafood which i didn't need because i was so full. I had fish and chips with a bowl of chowder. We ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir with the meal which was $36. Individual glasses were $12 each so this was the more economical choice. We walked back in the dark which was only about 0.1 miles. We have been monitoring the Northward progress of hurricane Irma as it marches up the coast. It is supposed to hit Florida as a cat 4. I hope the condo hangs tough. Before going to bed I installed a synch program and attempted to download the photos from Libbie's phone. I need to find a better alternative to get her photos.

We had a breakfast of peaches and toast before leaving around 9. We stopped for a fill-up at 3.09 in Bend then 10 miles down the road we stopped for Starbucks and bought a picnic lunch and water. An hour down the road the smoke got pretty thick and the road to Crater Lake was closed due to fire. We chose to abandon ship and took Hwy 158 to Florence. We had a picnic lunch stop on the Willamette River at Lowell Bridge which was a preserved historic covered bridge. We had a nice walk through the bridge and then headed towards Florence. We found we could modify our reservation from tomorrow night to tonight which saved us some money. The bad news was our reservation down in Prospect outside of Crater Lake is going to cost us $150.
We enjoyed the little walk down Bay St in Old Town Florence. We had wine and cheese on our balcony overlooking the water then walked down to the Bridgewater restaurant where we had dinner. We started with a Pinot Noir then I ordered Surf and Turf which was Flat Iron steak and mushrooms along with broiled shrimp.

We had a breakfast of peaches and muffins then drove out to the John Day area of the Painted Hills where we first stopped and had a nice picnic lunch. i like the ham on flatbread with horseradish which was yummy. We also had grapes and Mandarin Oranges. We did a nice walk through the varied colors of the hills and admired the beauty that nature has provided. We walked through two different sets of the painted mounds then went to another painted mound area which contained fossils. We found a few fossils of leaves on the rocks before very tiredly and hot getting back into the car. We stopped at the little town of Prineville where we stopped for a self serve yogurt. I mixed milk chocolate and orange yogurt then topped it with honey roastd peanuts. This is a nice yogurt place. We sat on the sofa in the place and had our yogurt. On the way back in Bend Barb and Jack showed us their Senior Center where they play bridge then we went to the Sagebruush Art Society building which is a coop of sorts where membership pays for the facility. At 6 PM we went out to dinner to Pastini, an Italian restaurant on the Deschuttes River. We had a beautiful table on the croner surrounded by flowers and a view up and down the river. I also enjoyed the walkers going by in their summer clothes, to quote a Bruce Springstein Song. For dinner I had the Canneloni Fruiti Di Mare which was 2 Canneloni in tomato sauce stuffed with shrimps, scallops and fish. It was yummy. We had a bottle of 2015 Sharecropper Pinot Noir which was quite good. When we got back from dinner we spent some time looking at the pictures from yesterday which was the Lava Flow and the Obsidian glass flow. I also did some online research and canceled our second night at Crter Lake. in it's place I added a night in the coastal town of Florence. I found a river view room at the River View inn. I had to pay for the deluxe spa room because it was the only river view room left which costed us $50 more. We shaall see.

Peter fixed an interesting breakfast with potato, onion, garlic, tomato, squash and eggs. We started having the meal out on the deck but got chased indoors by the yellow jackets. After breakfast we said our goodbys and headed South to Bend. We tried to stop in a little town for coffee but there was none at a food truck or at the grocery in town. We got back on the rod and drove around Mt Hood. Too bad the air was very smokey. The view was incredible but shrouded in smoke. At one point my eyes were burning. We stopped just before Bend at a McDonalds where I had a Big Mac. It was the fastest McDonalds I have ever been in. They actually timed the employees in how fast they serve. We easily made our way to Jack's house although there was an accident that stopped traffic for a while. We only lost 7 minutes.
Jack and Barbara's home is lovely. Jack has extensively landscaped his grounds has a beautiful perennial garden surrounding his patio. We took a ride South of here to Newberry National Volcanic Monument and climbed the Obsidian pile to the top observing the lava flow. The Obsidian pile is interesting stuff embedded in the pumice rock and sometimes veins of pumice can be seen in the pure black Obsidian. We then went to a very pretty water falls before going to a lava field. The Lava Field had some pretty gnarled wood and wild flowers of rabbit foot plant. I was incredibly tired but hiked along. Dinner tonight was made by Barbara and was a chicken and almond mixture over a bed of lettuce with a sesame oil drizzled over it covered with fried noodles. It was accompanied by canteloupe slices. Barbara made a Key Lime Pie for dessert. How nice. I was incredibly tired and passed right out when my head hit the pillow.

We had a leisurely breakfast at Pete and Kate's. In the garden Libbie and Kate started cleaning up the flower garden, pulling weeds and finding things. In the meantime Peter came home with a 6 point socket set that worked on the shock absorber bolts without slipping. The 12 point set kept slipping on the bolt head. We finally got the bolts off allowing him to install the new shock absorber and put the tires back on the Subaru Brat. Next he is going to replace the front axle.
We went out to lunch at a Golf Club where the food was excellent and the bill not very high. I had a Tuna BLT which had a sushi grade Ahi Tuna and bacon, tomato, lettuce and a large bun. On the side was chips and salsa. It was great although I ended up not eating the bun top since it was a lot of bread.
We then went to the Orchard and Farm house that is owned by David. It's in rough shape and needs lots of work. Everywhere I look on the farm there is work that needs to be done. The kitchen is large but it's a disaster also. I would never sign up for that much work.
We picked a few boxes of peaches out in the orchard and found out they were for us. I thought we were helping to pick peaches for the Farmer's Market. From there we went back to Pete's to drop off the Peaches and the leftover lunch Libbie had boxed. We heard that Barbara, Kate, Andrew and the baby had arrived so we went back to the Farm House and greeted everyone. We then headed down to the Farmers Market where Alma was selling the peaches in their little tent. Kate, Andrew, Barbara and Dave all followed to the little town of Mosier where the Farm Market was and a restaurant called "Press and Cloth". We had interesting vegetarian pizza and beer. We paid the bill which was almost $200. We also met David's tenant pickers. A young couple just touring the country out to meet people. They live in an RV on David's property. I had the peach pizza and the eggplant pizza. Very interesting. Peter had to go into the hospital so Kate accompanied us back to her house giving us directions from the back seat on dark country roads.