It is enough

Wednesday, August 11, 2010 by Jay T.

My wife’s mother died early this year.  She was a collector who lived just up the street  from us for almost twenty years.  The last seven months of our lives has been about stuff.  Lots of hers and some of ours.  We’ve carried truck loads of it to the recycle depot, the thrift store and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore–a shop for used building materials.  We’ve given away bunches to neighbors.  Corvallis Antiques sold lots of it before and during an estate sale.

Our floors are being refinished.  We painted the ceiling and walls first.  The living room, dining room and hallway were stripped of furniture, curtains, wall art and baseboards.  It not only stinks in that center part of the house, it echoes.  The floors are curing and giving off gas now.  We can walk through those rooms, but it gives me a headache to remain.  So I’m turned out of our house.

Time for an adventure.

For the first time since college sophomore year, I went camping on my bicycle without support.  I hauled all my own camping and cooking gear.  It worked.  I didn’t take much.  It was only an overnight turnaround to Armitage Park.  About 37 miles there.  I returned on a hilly route–to show myself I could do it, so the return was 60 miles or so.

Armitage Park still has the classic picnic grounds of my childhood–even if they’ve built a freeway bridge over the top of one end of it.  It now has a campground, which I knew about, but hadn’t seen.  It was filled with large recreational vehicles–some of them towed by semi-truck tractors.  Several pulled box trailers behind them, Read the rest of this entry »

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