Nearly every morning Bree cooks pasta to eat for lunch at school, but lately has begun to feel that maybe there are other things worth eating.
Jan flies to the East Coast to visit Liya at Yale in New Haven. She’s been at the school for about a month and a half, and has settled in nicely. She’s particularly enjoying her Physics and Math professors, and her Mandarin and African Dance classes are good as well.
Liya and Jan meet up for a very nice breakfast at Maison Mathis. Although it’s October, they sit outside — it’s very warm out. After breakfast, Liya takes Jan on a comprehensive tour of the Yale campus, starting with her residential college, Davenport College. Liya and some of her friends have spent a lot of time exploring the nooks and crannies of the extensive school campus, so there’s lots to see.
From the campus, they across New Haven to East Rock Park, a tall ridge at the edge of downtown. They scale the steep trail of giant steps to get to the top for a view looking back towards New Haven and Yale.
Liya is keen to show Jan the inside of some of the Yale libraries, but they’re only open to people with a Yale ID. Not to be deterred, she and a friend have cased the Bass Library and Sterling Memorial Library complex, and have identified an entrance which is more lightly guarded. She’s also planned some subterfuge to get Jan past the ID card scanner: Jan will go first holding Liya’s ID, scan that at the reader, then drop the card behind him as he enters. As Jan walks to a designated rendezvous point, Liya casually picks up the dropped card, scans it, then meets up at the rendezvous. Somewhat miraculously, this all goes according to plan, and Liya gives a tour of the rather beautiful Bass and Sterling libraries.
Liya and Jan do some errands outside of New Haven. In the evening, Liya sneaks Jan into through a side door of the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, then up a rarely-used stairwell. At one stair landing, she stops at a very narrow window that’s apparently always unlocked. Squeezing through the window gets one out on to a rooftop. From there, there are more places to check out, but that’s enough excitement for Jan, and he squeezes back through the window.
We had some family portraits taken this summer before Anya and Liya headed off to college.
After many years of long hair, Bree decides to cut it short. She makes an appointment at a salon in University Village to donate 12 inches of hair to a charity that makes wigs for children. After it’s cut, she’s happy with how light it feels and how it looks.
Bree tries eating pad thai noodles with a straw. Jan’s surprised that she can get any of the noodles up the straw at all. Bree says that it does take quite a bit of work. After a few minutes, she stops. “Okay, now I feel light-headed.”
Anya turns 20. Per her request, she receives some retro gifts: a Polaroid camera and a vinyl record player.
Jan and Lyn fly to Bend, OR, to visit Jan’s brother, Chris. Chris and Julie moved to Bend this summer after living in San Francisco for years. This trip is particularly exciting for Jan because it’s the first time he’s seen Chris in almost two years.
First stop is Chris and Julie’s new home in Bend’s River West neighborhood. It’s a short walk from there to get lunch at a somewhat upscale food truck courtyard.
After lunch, Chris drives Jan and Lyn out of the city to pretty Benham Falls in Deschutes National Forest. Jan’s jealous that Chris has so many miles of hiking and biking trails with a short distance of home.
Jan and Lyn rest up in their cozy AirBnB rental just a couple of blocks from Chris and Julie’s house, then join Chris again for Italian food at Bosa.
Chris cooks breakfast for Jan and Lyn at his house before the three head out for a short hike around Todd Lake. The lake is at the base of Mount Bachelor, and turns out to lie just beneath the present snowline. It’s quite cold, and when they’re walking around the far end of the lake, it begins to snow.
Back in Bend, they go for a walk in pretty Drake Park on the Deschutes River.
Julie joins the three for dinner at Sen, a trendy hot pot noodle restaurant.
Chris takes Jan and Lyn back to the city park on the Deschutes River so they can check out an interesting park feature: the city has created sculpted the river bottom to form perpetual “standing waves” in the river that surfers can ride. When they arrive, there are two surfers in wetsuits taking turns riding one of the standing waves. It looks fun but cold.
Afterwards, they visit the large REI store. It’s nice to see some of Chris’ outdoor and travel products on the store shelves.
In the afternoon, they drive out of the city again to see scenic Tumalo Falls. The falls are pretty, but are outshone by the striking fall colors of nearby aspens.
Jan and Chris’ sister Skye arrives in Bend around dinnertime with Jared and their sons, Leif (7) and Auden (4). Everyone meets up at Wild Rose for Thai food, then retires to Chris and Julie’s for a backyard fire and marshmallow roasting.
Everyone makes a short drive from Bend to the nearby Lava Lands Visitor Center in Newberry National Volcanic Monument. Leif and Auden are happy to ride with Chris and Jan in Chris’ car, which Jan dubs the Unclemobile. Chris leads the two boys in chanting, “Uncles are the best!”
This is the second time most of the group has been to Lava Lands, but the last time was in 2014, when Leif was just an infant in a stroller and Auden was yet to be born. Now Jan has to hustle to keep up with Leif and Auden as they run up the trail across the lava field. The group eventually reaches the viewpoint looking north towards Lava Butte, and west towards the Three Sisters (which are sadly not visible on this cloudy day).
After everyone has lunch at Jackson’s Corner. The place is normally busy with a line out the door, but when Chris calls to ask about getting a table for 8, the server says that there’s a “Christmas miracle”: a few open tables with no line.
Chris and Julie host everyone again after lunch, but eventually Skye and Jared need to get their family back on the road to Salem. Chris drives Jan and Lyn back up to Redmond, where they grab a quick bite before heading to the airport. Jan and Lyn are disappointed to see that their flight back to Seattle has been delayed due to weather, and are slightly unnerved by the pilots’ warnings about sustained turbulence on the ride back to Seattle. Happily, the bumpiness doesn’t last very long, and the rest of the flight is fine.
We open our garage door and surprise a family of mummies in our driveway. The Hauser family that lives next door are in mummy costumes — all six of the them, down to the youngest of 2 or so. They often like to take family photos using our yellow stucco driveway wall as a backdrop. We’re happy to accommodate them, but usually don’t see them actually taking photos. This time our sudden departure has startled them, and now the mummies all look sheepish. After backing out, we encourage them to go ahead and take a family photo.
Jan and Angela have a date night to watch the movie, “Dune”. It’s our first time in a movie theater since the pandemic began, and the movie is good enough to make the outing worthwhile.