Wearing bathrobes and coats, with shoes strewn around the motorhome and paintings askew, we’ve slid into to a swampy state of chaos. We are hauled up for the night in Newport a lovely State Park campground called South Beach. With full hook up, its worth $22. Notably, it is not raining.  100-some days of sun in Oregon this year and a single week of rain has rendered everything slightly scummy and spongy in the motorhome. This afternoon in Corvallis, parked downtown we unfurled ourselves on a wide, leafy curb, The sun was shining as if onto a fuzzy flokati. Starting with the bikes, which we dropped by the curb after exploring the Willamette River (I was struck by its similarity to the Seine at Samois, where Molly lives. Dark green, spangled with mallards. feathers and leaves, but no barges. This fat green river seems to reach around the world, the same river which surfaces where I stop.) We began to release things--coats and shoes,  saggy camp chairs. Then Michael’s guitar case, which was was wet, but not as soaked as sash on my washboard. So we set all these things out to dry, and we had some sandwiches. And then we played some music. By this time, Jake was turned away from us as if to project himself out of the picture.  He had his nose in a book. Still, he cast sidelong glances at us. A fellow out raking leaves asked if we wanted to borrow the rake and move in for a while.

People are friendly in Corvallis, as warm as the fall colors. We found Rachel Livingston and family (of Homer’s Ring of Fire Meadery) happily ensconsed in a leafy neighborhood. Lawrence is brewmeister at Sky High Brewery downtown. Porter and Katie are thriving in their big high school where they are serious students and soccer stars. Rachel is discovering new walking trails daily, with dogs Iris and Kemosabe. We picked up Katie McNary from her dorm and we all went out for a dinner featuring fresh local fare at Laughing Planet.  It was a wonderful, warm evening for all of us, lapping up our Homer connectedness in nourishing mouthfuls.