Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Oregon Cascades Travelog #20
Bend, OR - Fri, 4 Jul 2025, 10:45pm

We spent a lot of the day taking it easy in Bend today. Really too much of the day. I get it that sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate with outdoors adventure plans, or that we need to take an easy day when we're traveling, or both. The take-an-easy-day thing is a reality we've faced more frequently as we get older. I accept that. But as I gazed at the bright blue sky out the window of our hotel room— a blue sky that the weather forecast continued to insist did not exist, had not existing at all today, and would not exist until tomorrow— I grew frustrated that what started as "Sure, let's take it easy" had turned into frittering. Inertia. Languor.

Hawk was still feeling out of sorts. She made it clear that she was willing to hike but not in a headspace to plan things or make decisions. She knows I know what she likes and is willing and able to do, so she trusted me to do the planning. I reviewed the lists of hikes we'd collected for this trip, checking them against maps for what there was still time in the day to do. As the hour wound toward 3pm we'd already frittered away more than half the day. But surely there was something to do. Indeed, I came up with not one but two possible hiking itineraries. One was desert-y and the other waterfall-y. Knowing Hawk, I figured the one with the waterfalls would be better. And I felt more like seeing waterfalls, too.

We drove northeast from Bend over the crest of the Cascade Mountains to Willamette National Forest. First we visited Gooch Falls, then drove south to another trailhead for the two-fer of Sahalie Falls and Koosah Falls. Actually the latter was more like a three-fer or even four-fer, as the McKenzie River flowing over these big falls also cascaded over a few smaller falls in between them.

As with the past few days, I'm holding up on detailed blogs with photos to keep more on top of the chronology of the trip. I'll add links here when I'm ready to post those blogs.

You may notice that the driving route for this trip bears a lot of resemblance to our trip of two days ago, when we hiked Downing Creek Falls and Proxy Falls. Indeed we drove right past the turnoff for Downing Creek Falls on our way to Gooch Falls today, and the drive from there to Sahalie and Koosah overlapped part of our drive to Proxy Falls.

"Why didn't we combine these trips together better?" you might wonder. I wondered that, too. And I was frustrated about it. The simple answer is that we didn't plan well enough. We didn't adequately research the location of all the hikes on our various lists. On the other hand, even if we did research them better, there are the issues of time and energy. There aren't enough of either to do all the proximally located hikes in one day. So we made another trip back over the summit and hiked them today.

And you know what? These hikes were awesome. All my frustrations about doing the same drive again two days later melted away, completely disappeared, as I saw the surprisingly big Gooch Falls. And Sahalie and Koosah and all the little falls in between them made today an excellent day— even though we didn't leave the hotel until just after 3pm.

Of course, the morning wasn't wasted. Soaking in the hot tub was nice. And late this evening I went back out to the hot tub for another soak. Oh, and during this soak, at 10pm, there were fireworks— because it's July 4th! I relaxed in the hot water with hotel neighbors I'd just met, watching the fireworks show for 30 minutes.

Weekend goal: accomplished! ...No, it wasn't "clean the house" or "sweep and pull weeds on the patio", though I did wash a load of laundry each morning. My goal for this past weekend was to spend both afternoons at the pool. I already posted about "#PoolLife" for Saturday. Here's Sunday.



Years ago my father would critique my photos, "Son, the picture's empty. You need people in it." Well, aside from the fact that landscape photography is a thing— and it's always been my thing, whereas his was portrait photography—there are people in this photo. Two of my neighbors are sitting in the deep shade off the left, and those are my feet at the bottom center. My feet are in the frame on purpose because this is a photo I made while floating around on my back in the pool, barely a care in the world on a warm weekend afternoon.

I seized the opportunity when I saw the weather would cooperate with us this weekend to lounge around by the pool all afternoon each day. I cleared the schedule and said, "Let's plan to stay home and enjoy the pool." Still it took a smidge of effort each day to get out, versus lounging comfortably inside the house, but I'm glad I did it.

I didn't just float around on my back sipping margaritas all afternoon. I mean, I only had one cocktail, and it wasn't a margarita. 🤣 Before floating around lazily I did aerobic exercises in the pool. I got my pulse rate up for 30 minutes or so then treating myself to lounging around. Oh, and I didn't drink alcohol in the pool. That was for after, while sitting on the deck. I'm responsible that way. 🤣

I mused yesterday that I was a slug on my day off. Well, today I had the day off, too. It wasn't a public holiday (yesterday was Juneteenth) so I took PTO. And today on my second day off I was slightly less of a slug.

Like yesterday I started the day by sleeping in. I didn't sleep in anywhere near as much, though. I was out of bed before 8. (It helped that I wasn't up half the night sleepless and with stomach problems.) I still frittered away the morning... though we got in a dip in the hot tub before I went out for lunch.

On the way home from lunch I ran one small errand then got back to frittering. Hawk suggested we go out for a hike instead of just frittering. I agreed. We changed into our hike-y clothes and drove out to the Sunnyvale Baylands.

It was a nothing-special hike, just a walk in a local park. Hawk is still getting over sickness so we didn't want to commit to anything big or strenuous. It was good to get out. The conditions weren't great, though. There was a strong wind on the bay, and the smells from the sewage treatment plants in the area were fierce. 💩😷 Also, the water was green. Bright green. When the bay looks like a bazillion people went 🤢🤮 it's kind of a turnoff. BTW, the green water isn't literally because 🤮; it's most likely because of a high concentration of algae or other microorganisms, and they can also contribute to the water smelling like 💩.

Despite the conditions we got a good hike in. I know because my feet were achy at dinnertime.

For dinner I had "freezer surprise". I'd dug through one of the shelves in the freezer earlier in the day and uncovered a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten I have. I defrosted and ate one of those finds, a package of precooked shrimp.

Tonight I'm frittering again. Hawk hopes she'll be up for a bigger hike tomorrow. Maybe we'll go back up into the mountains, like when we hiked at Russian Ridge two weeks ago. If not, maybe we'll get together with friends who are hosting a boardgames day.

It was a quiet weekend at home for us. No, not in the "Let's spend hours sitting by the pool on a warm day!" fun kind of way. Though I did get out for a soak in the hot tub Sunday morning. Our around-the-house weekend was a mostly in-the-house weekend as we are still dealing with being sick and didn't have much energy for getting out and about.

For me, I'm mostly over my cold. The worst days were Wednesday and Thursday last week, thanks in no small part to allergies combining with the cold. But a hacking cough has stuck with me since then. Oddly, OTC cough medicines (guaifenesin and dextromethorphan) don't help this cough but nasal decongestant pseudephedrine does. We're going to need to hunt for more of that since drugstores no longer stock it regularly thanks to the government cracking down on a real or perceived drug epidemic.

Hawk has the same bug I've had but is a few days behind where I am on the curve. That means while Wed-Thu were my worst days, hers were this weekend. Thus she didn't have energy or desire to go out anywhere, not even for a short hike like we'd hoped as of Friday.

I'm still sick with a cold. And I expect I will be for a few more days. But, dammit, I am sick of being too tired to relax this week. I will not let being literally sick and tired on the weekend stop me from enjoying myself! So I went out to the hot tub again this morning, like yesterday.



I even sat out in the sun again after enjoying a soak in the hot water.

Ironically I am a bit less tired while being sick than I was before I got sick. Maybe it's because I'm getting a bit more sleep now? At any rate, I am determined not to let this mild bout of sickness— and so far it is mild, thankfully— keep me from doing pleasurable things.

Italy Travelog #26
Chia, Sardinia - Friday, 30 May 2025, 5pm

Yesterday afternoon it was relaxing to spend time at the resort's hot tubs—or almost hot tubs, as I noted yesterday, so we decided to do it again this afternoon after a relaxing morning at the beach today. As we figured out yesterady which were worth using and which were not— two of them have pumps are connected backwards, Buttoh!— we spent our time today mostly in this hot tub that looks like a cross between a pool and a maze for kids in the newspaper's puzzles page.



I think this pool is kind of is meant to be a maze. As you walk around the curve at the bottom of the photo, pairs of jets at different depths massage your calves, knees, thighs, and sides. I alternated between the deepest and shallowest jets, maneuvering around in front of them, to loosen my ankles and my back. My ankles are still sore from all that walking we did in Rome a few days ago!

After a good, long soak we're back at our room now, stretched out on the chaise lounges on our private patio. Dinner's not until 7pm, the earliest reservation available as that's when the restaurant opens, so we're pre-gaming with potato chips and beer here on the patio.



This photo's actually from yesterday with lunch at the pool, but it's the same beer. I mean, not the same bottle of beer 😂 but the same brand, Ichnusa. It's the local beer made in Sardinia. The one I bought yesterday at the pool-side cafe was, like, €10 or something ridiculous like that. At the beach-side cafe it was "only" €6. After coming back from the beach I bought a few bottles at the convenience store across the street for €2 apiece to enjoy here in our room. Other beers, all of which have to be imported by ship, are more expensive. Fortunately Ichnusa is a fairly standard European lager with a mild, but not too-mild flavor. It's good for drinking with made-for-Americans Italian food or enjoying by itself on a warm afternoon.

Italy Travelog #25
Chia, Sardinia - Friday, 30 May 2025, 1pm

Today is a departure day for many of my colleagues attending President's Club. Some left early today to catch morning flights at CAG airport; others are hanging around until leaving late this afternoon for evening flights. If we'd left today we'd have part of the morning crew, having to catch a 6:15am shuttle to drive almost an hour to CAG airport to catch a 9:15 flight to BCN, one of the few logical connections for heading back to the US. Instead we extended our stay an extra day; on our dime. We figured once we're hailing our asses out here, 6,000 miles from home, it's worth staying more than 2½ days. And we're making today another take-it-easy-around-the-resort day.

After breakfast and a morning oopsie today we relaxed in our room a bit before heading out to the beach. Sadly this resort hotel is not actually on the beach. As I showed in my first blog upon settling in to the hotel you can barely even see the beach from the hotel. And the beach you can (barely) see isn't even the hotel's beach. The hotel's beach is 4km away.



We packed a canvas bag with sunscreen, a few bottles of water, and a USB charger, and caught one of the hotel's golf cart shuttles over to the beach. It drops us off in front of the hotel's beach-side cafe, The Dunes, shown above. We are lunch here with colleagues when we arrived on Tuesday.



Walking past the cafe we reach the entry to the beach. It's over the dunes from the shuttle stop/parking/cafe area.

Once over the dunes there's a pair of little huts that hand out towels and sell a small selection of drinks. We took our towels, picked a pair of lounge chairs below an umbrella, and kicked off our sandals to head out to the water.



We walked on the wet sand, the edges of teh surf lapping against our toes, to the far end of the beach and back. The water here, the Mediterranean Sea, was cold. It's a beautiful blue but it's cold.



After our walkabout we settled back in our beach chairs. The cold water just wasn't worth spending time in. We nested here for at least an hour, until 12:30, when we decided to get some lunch. We repacked our bag, turned in our towels, and walked back over the dunes to the The Dunes (the cafe) for our meal. After this we'll ride a golf cart back to the hotel, rest in our room a bit, then head up to the spa for another bout with the not-quite-Roman baths.

Italy Travelog #21
Chia, Sardinia - Thursday, 29 May 2025, 2pm

We decided to enjoy a take-it-easy day at the resort today. That's a choice with consequence, though. What we've chosen to say No to is a catamaran and snorkeling trip! Alas, as much fun as being out on a boat on azure waters can be, and as much as I've wanted to snorkel since I was a boy, I've found out the hard way, by two failed attempts, that I'm not able to snorkel. Maybe I could with some careful instruction, maybe not. But I definitely can't with just, "Here's a mask and some fins, now jump in!" Plus, Hawk is reluctant even to try because swimming poses to much of a threat to her injured back. But hey, just because we're not going snorkeling doesn't mean we sit around our room swallowing our tears, there's a pool to enjoy!

Update, 6pm Thursday: The whole snorkeling trip was a fail. Due to high winds and problems with the boat, nobody got to snorkel. Now I'm so glad we stayed home and enjoyed the resort!



Ha ha, the joke was on us. That pool is cold. Like, seriously, the only people going in the water are the couple from Minnesota and the couple from Germany. All the rest of us dipped a toe in and said OH HELL NO! 😱

But again, there are more options here than go back to our rooms and swallow tears. There are comfy lounge chairs with beautiful views across the pool and to the ocean beyond.




Some lounge chairs, like the pair we got (photo above) are even in the shade and pair to form a day-bed for two.

Plus, a few minutes later we got drink service, so imagine that picture above with us in it plus a piña colada and a margarita. (Yes, we're drinking like we're in Latin America while being in Italy, but frankly all the Italian drinks on the menu look disgusting.)

We chillaxed on the pool deck for almost 2 hours, until we decided it was time for lunch. We placed an order at the little cafe over to the side. The host came to fetch us when our food was ready.



Apparently they don't serve food at the lounge chairs. I guess that makes sense because otherwise people'd generally make a mess of them. So we sat up straight and enjoyed our lunch at a little pool-side cafe table. Hawk ordered a bowl of spaghetti while I played the Ugly American card and ordered the hamburger. BTW these were two of literally only four entree choices on the menu, so it's like we skipped over all the cibo tipico to pick these dishes. Plus, we've recently been unimpressed with the island's cibo tipico.

After lunch we stretched out in our shaded day-bed for a bit longer before heading back down to our room. Hawk has now gone upstairs to the spa for a deep tissue massage— a mea culpa comped for yesterday's fuckup with cibo tipico. I'll join her up there after her massage for us to use the hot tubs together.

I had given serious thought to a weekend vacation in Phoenix this weekend. The idea was Hawk would fly out to join me on Friday as I finished up my days of sales training. We'd stay at a hotel with a lazy river for a few days and also do some hiking while in town— maybe at Camelback Peak. Well, we decided not to a few weeks ahead because it seemed like the schedule was too crowded. And this weekend I'm glad we decided not to— though not because of schedule.

At first I was glad we decided not to go because the high temperatures in Phoenix this weekend are 100°. That's way too hot for going hiking, especially on a strenuous trail like Camelback. Though I guess we could have just stayed at the hotel all day and floated loops around the lazy river.

Today I've been glad we didn't make a mini-vacation out of it because I've been too tired to actually do anything. Today Hawk and I went out for lunch, and not long after getting back both of us were lying in bed, ready for naps. I did nap for about 2 hours. Now I'm up and I'm still too tired to do anything— including lounge outside by the pool on this warm day here (81°). I'd be disappointed about missing the opportunity but I'm too exhausted to care.

It's been an easy weekend around home for me. Key words "around home"— because that's where I've spent most of the weekend. Aside from lunch and a bit of shopping with Hawk on Saturday, and dinner with mutual friends on Sunday, I haven't left the house. ...Well, okay, I did also leave the house Saturday morning for a soak in the hot tub.



The day started out gloomy Saturday morning but then the clouds parted for a bit while we were in the hot tub. Then it got cloudy again. 😔

Cloudy or sunny, it still does feel like spring around here. The temperatures haven't been consistently warm. Except for a nice burst last weekend, it's actually been cool since I posted that "Feels like spring!" blog two weeks ago. This weekend was cool, too. But as you an see in the photo, the trees are filling in with leaves and flowers are blooming. I believe that's a red trumpet vine on the fence around the pool. It's not yet as full of blooms as I saw at its peak last spring but it's getting there.

Looking to the weather report for the next several I see it's expected to get warm and sunny mid-week followed by cooler and cloudy next weekend. 😡 Then warm again the following workweek. 🤬 Can I get more than one nice weekend a month?