The Changes FIVE Years Can Bring

This post is a carry-over from my old blog. Those of you (the "reading several") who paid attention to that one know that every year at about this time, I do a comparison of the state of my life this year to the previous year. I started this in 2009, comparing to what was at that time a drastic change from 2008, and I've carried it over and added onto it every year since then. So without further ado... 2013 shall be added to the list in purple.

2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.
2012: We have moved twice in 2012. The first time was to Gresham (in April) for a new job, the second time was to Milwaukie (in October) for the same company.
2013: Still living in the same apartment in Milwaukie, and sort of enjoying the stability. Have an eye toward moving to a house sometime in the next year or two, but there's no rush.

2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly people who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).
2012: I am now a full time, salaried property manager. Which sort of explains how I have moved twice this year, no? And look up there and see how psychic I was in 2011! I knew something was coming, just didn't know what... lol. Anyway, not only do I get free rent on a 1,200 square foot apartment, but also I am salaried for more money than I've ever made before in my life. I've had years where my total yearly income was barely $8,000. This is not one of those years.
2013: Still with the same property management company, but in a different capacity. I've moved up!

2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.
2012: Haven't done any shopping yet. Could I shop somewhere else? Yes, probably. Will I shop somewhere else? Eh... maybe. But it's hard to beat Wal-Mart!
2013: Well, I did some of my Christmas shopping in Hawaii this year, but still a lot of it at Wal-Mart.


2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)
2012: Virtually no change from 2011 here. I do technically still qualify for the minimum amount of food stamps, but I often forget to use them. The only reason I'm still signed up is because I do it at the same time as the Chamaco's medical insurance (which I'm keeping, since I don't have health insurance myself to add him to). 
2013: Actually no change since 2012 here, except that I'll be getting insurance myself come January 1st.

2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.
2012: The boy will be 11 next week. And I can still pick him up, but only barely.
2013: He's 12. He's in middle school. Still trying to get my head around that. Sometimes he jumps on me and hangs, and I can stay upright but I'm not going much of anywhere.

2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
2012: All this moving and new job stuff has created the necessity for the Chamaco to stay home alone for up to eight hours a day if he's not in school. Somehow, against all odds, I have raised the sort of responsible, independent kid that can handle this just fine so long as he has a microwave and internet access.
2013: Same sort of situation here, except he can reach the stove knobs now. I'm still not letting him stove-cook without supervision, but I sense it's on the horizon.

2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that  always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.
2012: With the new job comes a new social circle. I must say I like working with a mixed group of men and women again... lol. The estrogen levels in my life were approaching critical.
2013: A few of my "new" coworkers (here at this job where I've been for a year and a half) have wormed their way into that circle I would call "friends". For my own sanity, I have taken to keeping Saturday for myself and having that be a day where I can just stay home if that's what I want to do, because it often is. I'm kinda busy these days.

2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!
2012: I am... not single. Haven't been since September-ish. (Don't ask me exactly when, because I don't know!) Here's the funny part: Internally, I have always said two things... that I wanted to date someone I didn't date in high school (because all previous boyfriends and my ex-husband I dated in high school), and that I wanted to date someone who was my best friend (obviously, this required finding a male best friend). To which, I presume, God said, "Okay then... how about your best friend from elementary school? That's not high school!" You will never convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humor (as well as a keen sense of irony), but I am still very grateful to have Andrew back in my life after 19 years of absence.
2013: Okay, here's the big one! Andrew and I became officially engaged on December 17th, 2013, and we're planning to get married on March 22, 2014! I am thisclose to having a "squee" moment, and if you know me, you know I do not squee easily. See the previous post for how it all went down if you're curious, but know this - somehow I went from 10 years of impoverished single-mommyhood to being the sort of person who gets flown to Hawaii and proposed to on a beach. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone!

Some Eventful Days in Hawai'i...

Yes, I'm going to insist upon proper spelling when I know it. I bought a book on the language while I was there. Come on... you knew I was going to. Except I don't know how to do the long vowels with the keyboard (the ones with the flat line on top of them), so I may have to omit those. You can use your imagination.

Anyway, here's a rundown of our whirlwind tour of Maui.

Day One - 12/12/13
We hopped on a plane in Portland, Oregon at around 6:45 PM our time. We arrived at Kahului airport on Maui around 10:30 PM their time. Cue the Chamaco:

He discovered that there was a breeze in Hawaii shortly after discovering that it was still upwards of 70 degrees. This was the last time he wore the hoodie for the duration of our stay.

We secured our rental car (which thankfully Train had already pre-arranged) surprisingly quickly and began the drive to Ka'anapali, which was where our hotel was. We checked in at the hotel around midnight, were quite tired, and didn't really see much.

Day Two - 12/13/13
I will merely post a panorama picture of the sight that greeted me from our 12th floor hotel balcony after day dawned on Friday. It's worth 1000 words, I promise.

Please note the beach on the right hand side. It'll be important later, I promise. :)

Anyway, the first thing the boys wanted to do was go play in the ocean. I believe Train's exact words were "frolic in the waves", and I cannot help but giggle when he says such things. So we went down to the beach, smeared on some sunscreen, and let the frolicking commence.

On a side note, the color of the ocean at Ka'anapali is my new favorite color. This will also be important later.

One cannot frolic without eating forever, though, so that evening we went to Whaler's Village in Lahaina, which is a mall, for lack of a better term. Except it's all open air. Think of it as Clackamas Town Center (for those of you who live near me) except with no roof over the main part of it. If you want a roof, you gotta go in a store. Yes, there was a whale skeleton there.

We did get dinner there, but the Chamaco had already decided on what his favorite place was... the hotel balcony. We hung out there some too.

We went and walked around in downtown Lahaina, and I got this sunset picture, which was probably my favorite one that I took the whole trip.

The Chamaco, who was getting to miss 4 1/2 days of school out of this trip, had brought along some packets of work that I had requested from his teachers. So that night Train and I went out on a "grown-up date" and left the Chamaco in the hotel room to do homework, with permission to watch something on television after he was finished. We went down to the bar, got fruity beverages, and listened to some live music with hula dancing. When we got back, he was watching something about extreme weather on the Weather Channel. I love my nerds.

Day Three 12/14/13

Our mission for day three was to drive to the top of Haleakala. We set out reasonably early in the morning, but we decided not to attempt to get up there for sunrise. We arrived at the summit around noon, and it was still worth seeing even if it wasn't for the sunrise.

On the way back we made a stop-off at the Iao Valley, which looked a little something like this:

Then in the afternoon, of course, the Chamaco wanted to go back to the beach. Train and I were already sunburned by this point, but when in Hawai'i...

Day Four 12/15/13

We got up SUPER early on Sunday because we had arranged to take a boat out to Molokini to go snorkeling. I had introduced the Chamaco to snorkeling at the beach at Ka'anapali, so he was quite excited to go swim around a reef and look at some interesting fish. I didn't get any pictures of the fish because they were underwater, but I did get some nice above-the-water pics:

This last picture, by the way, has the Chamaco out in the middle of the frame snorkeling at our second destination, which was called Turtle Town. They told us ahead of time we had a fair chance of seeing/swimming with some sea turtles. Sure enough, I personally saw three. They were bigger than I expected. We were also told that, should we see a sea turtle, we had to maintain a distance of at least 10 feet since they are a federally protected species. The turtles are apparently not aware of this. I had one swim right at me, and I had to move quick to get out of its way. It's a rather intimidating thing to have swimming right at you, though we were told they are not aggressive. 

We also did some whale watching from the boat. As it turned out, it was the first official day of whale-watching season on Maui, and we were lucky enough to see a few whales spouting out in the water and we even saw one completely jump out of the water. It was a pretty cool boat trip, and also they fed us.

In the afternoon we went back to the beach at Ka'anapali. Because we like swimming, and we are apparently gluttons for punishment when it comes to sunburn. Then we went out to dinner and my dinner had a flower in it.

I wasted no time in adding that flower to the ragingly fake pink hibiscus I was already wearing in my hair by that point (all the girls were doing it... just about every girl had a fake flower, be it plumeria or hibiscus).

Fun fact: A lady in a shop in Lahaina thought my hibiscus was real. And she was a native. She couldn't believe that I had bought it at the ABC Store up the street until I took it out and showed her the barrette it was glued to.

I also called my dad that day since it was his birthday and all. He asked if Train had gotten me my ring yet (see previous posts to know which ring I refer to). I laughed and said no, but I hadn't forgotten and if he didn't come up with one pretty soon I was going to start poking him.

Day Five 12/16/13

We set out determined to find new beaches and cool snorkeling. We found this sign at Honolua Bay:

Upon evaluation of the beach at Honolua, we decided to move on. While he has improved immensely, the Chamaco is still not the strongest of swimmers and it was a little rough and rocky for him. We went instead to D.T. Fleming Beach Park, which looks a little something like this:

Train, in one of the little nerdy breaks I love him for, told me that he was going to make a topographical map of Maui in the sand. (Refer to an earlier post about drawing states/countries in the sand on one of our first dates, though that was at the Columbia River and not on a tropical island.) He ended up doing the entire chain of Hawaiian islands, though not to scale.

 I'm pretty sure it was on this day that an interesting conversation happened in the car. We were driving back toward Ka'anapali after our adventuring, and the Chamaco was prattling on in the backseat as he is inclined to do while in a moving car. Then suddenly he said to Train, "I've never heard you say 'I love you' to my mom. Do you not love her?"

I have to say I liked Train's response. "Those are just words... they don't really mean anything anymore. People say 'I love you' to bacon and clothes and stupid stuff like that. But if you really love someone you show it through your actions. It's not just something you say."

This is another thing that's going to be significant in a few minutes. Keep reading.

Day Six 12/17/13
We had no real plans for our last full day in Hawai'i. The Chamaco wanted to try out one of the pools at the hotel, which I thought was kinda weird since the ocean was right there and the pool water was colder than the ocean water, but whatever.

The things we do for our children....

I soon got tired of sitting by the pool, though, and decided to insist that we drive and explore at least one more city. We chose Kihei, which ended up being full of coconuts.

This is my favorite "family picture" from the trip.

Despite much searching over the course of our stay on the island, we had not been able to locate a ring that even resembled my memory of the one Train had given me when we were kids. It was to the point where he was beginning to doubt that the rings I described even existed. Then we found a bunch of them in a bowl in Kihei. The sort of shell they are made out of apparently only grows to a certain size. Not a one of them even fit on my pinky finger. We decided they were probably meant for kids, which is what we had both been 20 years ago, and left without getting one.

Train was most insistent that we watch the sunset from the beach on our last night in Hawai'i. I asked if he had a particular beach in mind, and he said no, any beach was fine. We got back to the hotel around 4:30 and headed for Ka'anapali beach... the one clearly visible from the balcony of our hotel room. Told you it was important. Work with me here.

We played in the water for a while, and at one point Train called to my attention that there were flowers washing up on the beach. They were the same kind of flowers as had been in my dinner plate a few nights previous, though I still have no idea what kind they are. He gave me the ones he had collected and I made some crack about the mighty hunter bringing me flowers. We ran in and out of the waves collecting a few more of the flowers as they washed up, hypothesizing that someone's lei had broken in the water and the flowers were washing up on shore. I suppose I was vaguely conscious of the fact that the sun was setting, but I was more focused on collecting flowers. Train called for my attention (he was behind me), and when I turned around he dropped to one knee and held up a ring.

The ring, I should point out, was made of shell. Not the same kind he'd given me 20 years ago, but abalone instead. (Please hold for explanation of why there are 2 rings now.)

He said, and I may be paraphrasing slightly as I was a bit stunned, "Without you I was a miserable person. With you, I'm a tolerable person and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Meagan Rose Weich, will you marry me?"

I do remember that my response was "Any time," and I meant it. Today, tomorrow, next Tuesday... I'm down for whenever.

The Chamaco, who had come running over as soon as he saw what was happening, told Train it was the best proposal he'd ever heard and promptly asked if he got to call him his step-dad now. We laughed and said no, he'd have to wait a bit for that, at which point he lost interested and wandered back into the ocean.

Train then revealed to me that his master plan had been to bring me to Hawai'i for the express purpose of proposing to me at sunset on the last night. My mind was kind of blown. I have never, I repeat, NEVER had anyone do something for me on that scale. I'd never actually been on vacation before, much less to Hawai'i. The abalone ring, he said, was the shell ring he owed me and was "symbolic", and he had purchased it before he'd seen me looking at the blue opal ones in the shop windows in Lahaina. He said if I wanted one of those for the actual engagement ring, we could get one of those as well. We didn't have time to go into Lahaina, but maybe Whaler's Village had them. I said if Whaler's Village had one, that was fine, but I would be content with the abalone ring if they didn't.

So we went to Whaler's Village and Train charged around that place like a man on a mission, going into shop after shop and asking about blue opal rings, to be told over and over that they only had pendants and we should try another store (they all suggested the first store we'd tried). Just when we were about to give up, we found a small jewelry cart in the middle of the mall... not even a store. They had 3 blue opal rings. Only one of the three was the color/style I liked. And it happened to fit perfectly. He bought it on the spot.

I've been wearing both rings since then... the blue opal one on my left hand and the abalone one on my right. They are both symbols to me that I am marrying a man who will go to astounding lengths, lengths that seriously boggle my mind, to do nice things for me and see me happy. He has already mentioned a possible honeymoon in Cancun, which he knows is a place I've always wanted to go and haven't yet been to. But even when no grandiose gestures are involved, our relationship over the last year and a half has been built on the small, day-to-day gestures. Taking turns cooking and doing dishes. Back rubs. Helping the other person work through a difficult situation. Bringing each other the occasional little surprise. Laughing at the same fart jokes. (No, I didn't make that last one up.)

I mentioned before that when Train and I reconnected it felt like I'd gotten back the best friend I'd forgotten I lost. Even the Chamaco has commented that we are "such a perfect couple". I know no couple is perfect and that every couple has to work actively on their relationship, but I like to think that Train and I have a bit of a head start considering we first met when we were 8 years old and we were friends even then. We became friends a few months before my sister was even born, which means we've already had 23 years to reach the level we're at now.

Anyway, I had to share that story since I'm super excited that soon I'm going to be marrying my best friend. I don't know exactly when yet, but I'm hoping for soon. :-)

Day Seven 12/18/13
One last sunrise from the hotel room balcony.

And then a trip to Kahului to return our rental car and get on this plane.

I'm not gonna lie. I did not want to get on that plane. I was seriously tearing up every time I thought about getting on the plane, and I'm getting a little teary now as I write this. Our time in Hawai'i, our first family vacation, was kinda magical and I wasn't ready for it to be over. But I had some time to make peace with the idea while looking at stuff like this:

Someday I'm going to go back, and it'll be magic again.

A Very Strange Dream

Those of you that follow me on Facebook may have noticed I posted something yesterday morning about having had an unsettling dream. Nobody asked what it was, so I'm assuming that nobody cares, but I'm gonna write about it anyway since that's sort of how I process things. You can read it or not, your choice.

Some of you, especially those that have met me fairly recently, may not know this about me: I wanted to sing in a rock band at one point. I was auditioning and everything. And I had two little pins on the bag I took to work with me every day (teaching preschool at that point). Once said "All grown up and still waiting to be a rock star." The other said, "I'm just working here until I become a rock star." Two variations on the same theme. 

Also, some of you may not know that I have a girl-crush on Cristina Scabbia, the lead singer of Lacuna Coil. Because she's awesome, and she's over 40 and still looks that good, that's why.

Anyway, on to this dream I had. In this dream, I was in my old, old apartment... the one I had in Molalla before I took this job I currently have (property management). And what I was doing in that apartment was packing away everything I had that pertained at all to music or my rock band aspirations into boxes, leaving the apartment pretty much empty. And also Cristina Scabbia was there. And I gave her some piece of rock-ish looking jewelry of mine (I think it was a necklace) and told her that she should wear it for me next time she was on a magazine cover, and that I had been planning to wear it for a magazine cover but that probably wasn't going to happen now. 

No, the symbolism of this dream is not particularly deep. And I guess what disturbed me about it is that I haven't even really thought much about how completely different of a direction my life has gone in than what I always hoped it would. But I guess my subconscious has been doing some meditation on just that subject and felt the need to let my more conscious mind know what was going on.

It's true that I do have a rather ludicrously boring "grown-up" job now. I don't even get to play with play-doh at work anymore. Or cornstarch and water. Nor do I get to put glitter and feathers on things.

Still not sure what I'm going to have to do about this, but clearly my subconscious is not thrilled about something.

No other point to this blog post, really. I'm still deep in thought about this. I'll update later, maybe, but if anyone has something useful to say about it they can leave it in the comments.

And this is Lacuna Coil, for the uneducated.

Road Trippin'

I may have mentioned this before, but one of my earliest indicators that Train (the boyfriend formerly known as "The Old Curmudgeon") and I would probably be okay in a relationship was that we spent four days in a car together fairly early in our association and still wanted to associate afterwards. Even after we were detained by the Canadian border patrol, which is a fun story in itself.

Since then, we've gone on a number of day trips together. Often we even take my kid. However, my birthday was this past Thursday (I'm 31 now! Le gasp!) and to mark the occasion we decided to take a little road trip to the middle of a hot desert... a place I really, really love. Train and the Chamaco, however, are both "meh" on the subject of hot deserts, and we elected to leave the Chamaco with my parents where we reasoned he would probably enjoy himself more. Especially considering that this was an overnight trip, and another person means more hotel expenses. We are ruthlessly practical like that.

So, we dropped the Chamaco off at my parents' house Friday night after my birthday party (anyone know any good crockpot recipes? I got a crockpot!) and early-ish Saturday morning we headed out in the direction of Bend, Oregon. For anyone not from Oregon who pictures Oregon as a lush, green place, I feel obliged to inform you that pretty much anything east of the Cascades is sand and sagebrush, and Bend is right in the middle of the High Desert. Our desert is not very creatively named.

Right after you come down out of the Cascades, the first thing you see looks a bit like this:

This is the first indicator that you are not in Kansas anymore, so to speak. The above picture was taken in the Warm Springs/Madras area alongside the highway. And I may as well mention now, I was experimenting with my iPhone's panorama picture feature a lot on this trip, with some pretty good results. 

We had lunch at a McDonalds in Redmond, and I'm so enamored of deserty places that I even took pictures in the McDonald's parking lot in Redmond. Yes, that's how sad I am. And I'm going to force that upon you now.

Yes, the lawn is green, but what's with the giant sand-hill in the background??

Anyway, somewhere around Terrebonne there exists a place called Smith Rock State Park, which is one of my new favorites. Also, apparently a few people die there every year because they do stupid stuff like free-climb the vertical rock faces and tightrope between outcroppings of rock with no harnesses. We witnessed the latter in action. I even got a picture, sort of:

 This is a view from below of the ropes these fools were walking across.

I actually did get a picture from across the canyon of one of these fools in the act, but he looks like a tiny white dot in the picture and it's not that impressive, so I'll spare you. Just trust me, these people have a deathwish. On the whole, though, I loved this place. Lots of interesting rocks (I have a weakness for interesting rocks), a park ranger with a snake, and some spiffy hiking trails. I plan to return when I'm in much better shape than I am now and attempt the trail that calls itself "Misery Road" and appears to go up to the top of the rock formation. And now, the obligatory panorama shot (and a couple of other cool ones):

After we were done there, Train decided wearing jeans hadn't been a good move and it was, in fact, entirely too hot for that. We made our way into Bend and found a Ross, where he found a pair of cheap basketball shorts, and I found some even cheaper man-shorts, which I'm wearing right now, actually. I've decided they're comfortable. I've been informed that they're "not sexy", but I don't care. 

We checked in at the hotel, which was horrible in the sense that it wasn't even slightly deserty. It was nice, though, in that it was air-conditioned and had this outside of it:

Yes, another panorama picture. This accounts for the curvature of the earth.

 There it is in normal view. Boring!

Once we were slightly cooled off and had off-loaded all unnecessary gear, we ventured out again, this time to Sparks Lake. We were inspired by the fact that the hotel room had pictures of Sparks Lake on the walls, quite obviously in a different season than the one in which we were visiting. Because here's what was on the wall:

And here's what it looks like in mid-September:

Still pretty, don't get me wrong, but not quite as postcard-perfect as advertised. However, I met a frog there:

 We also saw a lot of baby trout, and enjoyed several uninterrupted moments of quiet. 

After we made our way back into Bend, it was getting on toward 7 o'clock and we decided it was time for eating something. Fortunately there was an incredibly fancy restaurant in the hotel. Train knew about this in advance and had been going on for a couple of weeks about "2 pound prime-rib" or something like that. And I have to admit, it was one of the bigger hunks of dead meat I've ever seen served to a single person. I even tried a piece and it was pretty good for being cow. (I'm more of a chicken/fish/pork person myself, but certainly not a vegetarian by any means.) We actually got to eat outside, though, and the view was pretty nice:

I know it may not have been evident, but we actually hiked several miles in the scorching heat at Smith Rock, and a bit more at Sparks Lake, so by the time we were done eating way too much food it was decreed that early bedtimes were in order. We were asleep by 9:30. Man, we're old!

On Day 2 we set out early to beat the crowds to Lava Butte. We'd attempted to go the day before and gotten there around 4:30 only to discover that there were no more passes for that day. Passes to go up to the top of the butte are free, but in limited supply. We'd been told that the least busy time was in the morning, so we made sure to get there shortly after 10 and sure enough we got a pass on the first try. 

For those not in the know, volcanoes are another one of my Favorite Things (right up there on the list with hot deserts), and Central Oregon is absolutely riddled with them. Yes, they're all extinct now, but I came away convinced that most of Central Oregon is either desert or lava field. Here's why I think that:

Bam! Lava field. All that brown out there is dried up lava.

 Yep. It's a crater.

More on lava fields later. Our other goal for the day was to visit Lava River Cave, which once upon a time was a lava tube and pretty much ferried magma from point A to point B. Now it's a cave that looks like this from the outside: 

And once you've passed the point of no return, it looks like this: 

And then this:

Fortunately, they let you rent little propane lanterns for five bucks so you can find your way back through this thing. This is the first of 3 little "road signs" that you encounter as you head to the back of this cave that we estimated to be about a mile long:

See that little box over there on the right? That's how far in you are. Not very far, as the cave entrance is at the bottom right and the end of it is way up there toward the top left. I really wish I'd been able to get some better pictures of the interior of the cave because it was pretty neat (also only about 42 degrees and we had to wear hoodies), but the best I can give you is this: 

You can see legs! This was in one of the sections where you had to bend down to walk. In other places the ceiling was probably 80 feet high and 12 people could have walked comfortably side-by-side. This was my first real cave experience (first of probably many, since I like it so much), and I was impressed by the sheer size of this lava tube. The slight disappointment was what you got for getting to the end of the cave:

After that, we headed to an Arby's for refueling (neither of us had really eaten breakfast and we'd ended up hiking quite a ways, most of it underground). We had decided before embarking on this journey that we were going to take a "scenic route" home instead of just going back the way we'd come. The first part of this "scenic route" I was all for, because there were things like this:

 More lava fields!

 You remember what I said about Central Oregon being desert and lava fields, right?

When we reached the top of McKenzie Pass we found this little beauty:

 My car is the green one right next to the yellow one, by the way.

 They seriously just cobbled this thing together out of the lava rocks that were already there. I was impressed.

The outhouse at McKenzie Pass (I do not know why my font is suddenly blue and underlined, by the way) was also the site of the most optimistic restroom graffiti I have ever encountered:

Misspelling of "glimmer" aside, it was definitely moving. 

I was quite disappointed, however, that Train's idea of "scenic" is a lot different from mine. After this point, there was nothing to see but a bunch of leafy green trees, the likes of which you can see looking out just about any window on the west side of the Cascades. It also was suddenly cold and rainy once we'd crossed back over the Cascades, and by the time we made it back to my parents' house to pick up the Chamaco, it was quite soggy. 

Anyhow (back to black font, yay!), it was a very good trip overall. Our next family adventure, for anyone who hasn't heard yet, will be in mid-December when we go to Maui. Yes, the Chamaco gets to go. We'll be keeping travel and unnecessary expenses to a minimum until then, so this is probably the last time until December that you'll be subjected to my travelblogging and crappy photography. Rejoice or weep as you see fit. My comfy man-shorts and I bid you adieu until next time I think of something to maunder on about. :-)