unicornduke (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unicornduke) wrote2025-03-03 07:15 am
unicornduke) wrote2025-03-03 07:15 am
home and tired
that was a whirlwind week visiting Oregon.
I was up at 2am on tuesday, hitting the road by 3am to get to the airport. It wasn't far thankfully and I left all my winter gear in my truck and headed in. Since I was early for my flight, I got through security fast. I was wearing a mask and I opted out of the face scanning bullshit. The security people were fine with it, they just had me pull down my mask for the brief moment they needed to double check I was the person on my id card. I also had to tell them I wanted to opt out as soon as I handed them my card, so if you want to do it, do it immediately.
Security was fast although I had to take my hoodie off to run it through the scanner which was odd, but it meant I just went through the machine and didn't get patted down. All my stuff went through fine as well. I plopped myself down near the gate and knitted! C (my boss) and JP (her partner in life and farming) were also on the same flight and I got nervous when the plane started boarding and they weren't there. C texted my a few minutes later saying the person in front of JP had gotten hung up in security and he was stuck, so I got on the plane and they got on just as the plane was getting ready to leave, the last on.
I got the window seat which I like, lots of looking out the windows at the scenery. I read, knit, dozed off, ate some of my travel snacks. The plane went to Chicago Midway, which I think isn't the real Chicago airport but since we were just getting on another plane, that was fine by me. We had an hour and a half between our flights, so we grabbed food in the airport.
Next flight we got on, I opted to sit with C and JP and they like sitting near the front so they can get off quicker, so I wasn't in the window seat, so I ended up bored out of my mind about halfway through the flight. I only dozed briefly. We arrived in Portland on time and somehow after 8 hours, it was still morning. Time zones and flying is so weird. I did really really like the Portland airport. It was so quiet even with all the people. They have carpet and wood all over the place and it was really nice. Walked for genuinely a mile though. The southwest flight went into the furthest docking station in the long wing and then it was another half mile of walking to get to the rental place. If you have mobility issues that make long walks hard, get a wheelchair because it felt like we walked forever.
Then we got the rental car and went to Old Town Portland for lunch. C and JP dithered on food places far more than they should have and finally we sat down in a dumpling place where I made the mistake of actually asking about gluten free stuff. Basically nothing but broccoli chicken was the best option. Why put it on the menu to ask about gluten free options if you aren't going to offer any options? Bizarre. I had the broccoli chicken. ew broccoli but it wasn't the worst doused in whatever sauce they put on it, which was absolutely delicious. We wandered around a little after lunch, but that area of Portland was fairly depressing. There was a lot of homeless people, who clearly weren't getting help in any real way. And obviously destroying people's camps just makes the problem worse but maybe try things that actually help people? I don't know, it was just sad.
Then we headed down to Corvallis. We passed so many hazelnut groves. SO MANY. They were in flower, so not particularly beautiful, but it was really cool to see the scale of the fields compared to the northeast and to be appalled that so many of the hazelnut groves were bare ground under the trees, not even grass strips between rows. I guess flooding is just fine to them. The fields with grass strips definitely seemed to have less pooling of water from the big storms they had so. We found the airbnb C got and it was basically a MIL apartment attached to a house. It was pretty nice (despite my feelings about airbnbs, way better than a hotel and apparently cheaper). I had a work zoom to help with at 6:30 normal time, 3:30 west coast time, so I hopped on that while C and JP went and wandered around and apparently became enamored with safeway and picked up snacks. I have no idea. My current phone did switch time but my atom L didn't which was actually useful for tracking what time it was back home. I simply couldn't do it for some reason.
C and I went for an evening walk to the park to look at the river and to stay away until 7pm because we were all so tired. On that walk, I told her about my leaving soon and she basically said she knew something was up. We got back and she mentioned it to JP and he also said, oh we knew something was up.I am not subtle apparently. It was good though, we talked about what plans were and stuff like that and they were pretty enthused that I was doing it. Whew. Big relief for the rest of the week to have the most fraught conversation turn out so well. Then we crashed.
We all got up between 5 and 6am and turns out the airbnb people had stocked the fridge with stuff, so I got yogurt and granola for breakfast and was quite happy. We hit the road to the coast! We only had an afternoon meeting Wed, so the coast it was. We went straight west of Corvallis to Newport, which only took an hour and we went winding through the mountains which were beautiful but all tree farms, which blew my mind on how steep the mountains were! It was pretty when all the trees were in a younger group and the whole section was perfectly uniform shorter than the rest. Neat but weird!
We hit up multiple beaches once we were there, C had opinions on good beach walking and finally we ended up at Yaquina State Park, right between the bay and the water and it was a delight. We wandered out onto the jetty and got to watch some boat drama and seals. Absolutely gorgeous weather the whole week too.
After this, we went and got lunch at a brewery nearby, and they had deep fried cheese curds which were delicious and came with a sweet dipping sauce which was mindblowing. I got chili and it was slightly too spicy for me but I got through half of it. Then we went back to the airbnb. JP wasn't coming to our afternoon meeting, so C and I actually got the bikes that the airbnb offered and biked to the campus conference center. I hadn't ridden a bike in like ten years, so it was an adventure for me. Only a mile though and really really flat. Meeting was about the grant, so we all met and set up another meeting for the field trial team to meet again so we could finally get protocols hashed out. We also met the project manager for the grant, who is an annoying person. She is nice, but in a way that feels, I don't know, insecure or attention seeking? The vibes were weird. Also sometimes she inserted herself into the actual grant discussion when she didn't have the expertise on the thing she was talking about. She also is completely incapable of adding me to the email list, C had to keep forwarding things to me. Moot point now.
We went out to dinner that night at a place that had very good celiacs protocols, so the server actually warned me that the fries were beer battered. my standards are so low. I got tortilla chips instead with my burger. It was tasty and good to actually talk to people in person. I feel for the person from the next state over from us, this his first foray into vegetable seed production on behalf of his supervisor and it is a big jump. He's worked in grains and dry beans, but the nuance is hard. He's not far though, so my guess is he'll be coming to use equipment and such.
Next day we headed to the conference center. There was a bus tour and an intellectual property session, and when I had signed up, the bus tour had been sold out. But they added a second bus and the organizer at the meeting said I should hang out and they might be able to squeeze me and a couple other people in if there were no shows. And I got on the bus! Same bus as C and JP and absolutely we got so lucky and got the good bus driver. The other bus apparently got stuck at one of the farms in the mud an hour and a half from campus and our bus driver had to go get them and they got back at 8:30pm. yikes. But the farm tour was excellent, we went to OSU's organic plant breeding facility, the USDA GRIN clonal plant repository (they already cut 1/4 of their workforce with current pressure), a seed producing farm and a small seed company. Excellent day. I made small talk with my seat neighbor the whole time, which was fine but I was exhausted by the end of the day. We got food that night at the most hole in the wall mexican place that we possibly could have found. It was so delicious.
Next day was the first day of the conference. We biked in, our hands were so fricking cold so we didn't repeat that. Excellent sessions. Food was not labeled well in the lines. They would simply put the general menu on the end and you had to ask the servers about food for dietary restrictions and then go to that specific line after waiting in line for 10 minutes. I didn't know this and just left the line as soon as I looked at the menu at the end and it didn't say anything about any of that and went and got food elsewhere. Why wouldn't you say that! The field trial team met after lunch and I was informed of this then by C. Arg. Dinner was labeled with little tags, so I was able to eat cheesy noodles with ham and carrots. Apparently C and JP were unimpressed by the food. I was just happy it was mostly adequate although the breakfasts were absolutely crap for some reason.
Saturday, everyone was tired. We attended one session that was uhhh questionable in terms of plant breeding vs production and mostly gave up on that. I walked to the river for ice cream. Super J's. Absolutely amazing chocolate ice cream, highly recommend. I encountered the food robots in this walk, which are hilarious. They only work on campus, they go mostly walking pace with most slowing down a lot at turns and road crossings and they stop if a person is within five feet of them. I can't imagine they work well when campus is full (spring break was happening I think) so like, why bother.
I bailed on the last Saturday session and walked back to the river. C and JP had already gone to a brewery so I sat along the river and ate a second ice cream until they were done. Strawberry jam ice cream. Tasted exactly like jam and the texture was excellent although it wasn't as good as the chocolate, but that's because I like chocolate more. We went to a different Mexican place that night and I got tamales and it was delicious. We went to bed right after getting home.
Yesterday, we got up at 2am and hit the road for the airport. The ride back was much less interesting in the dark. Flights home were good except the very end where there was some high winds and the plane was bouncing around a lot, but it was fine. It was 22F with 5F wind chill and I was so glad I left hat, coat and gloves in my truck so I could put those on while I waited for my truck to warm up.
Overall, an excellent trip and Oregon is a beautiful and fun place to visit. We had five days of gorgeous weather, lots of walking and biking around town. A couple people asked me if I wanted to move there and lol absolutely not?!? there's no real winter, not okay and also we hit the nicest possible time to be there, I'm sure it's far more gloomy most of the time. I packed pretty well, wish I had brought one more hoodie since my one got really gross and the other was big fluffy, the hoodie I made so it usually doesn't get worn out of the house. So if I had swapped big fluffy for a different one, I would have been happy. I got a lot of knitting done on my sweater, the sleeves are now half done I'd say and it went through security fine, which my spindles might not have.
I'm taking today off work and I'm really tired. We were tired all week but mostly due to all the stuff we were doing rather than time zone adjustment. We'll see how much sleep I get in the next week or so, but I should be able to adjust. It was a nice break from reality and now that I'm home, things are going to move quickly.
I was up at 2am on tuesday, hitting the road by 3am to get to the airport. It wasn't far thankfully and I left all my winter gear in my truck and headed in. Since I was early for my flight, I got through security fast. I was wearing a mask and I opted out of the face scanning bullshit. The security people were fine with it, they just had me pull down my mask for the brief moment they needed to double check I was the person on my id card. I also had to tell them I wanted to opt out as soon as I handed them my card, so if you want to do it, do it immediately.
Security was fast although I had to take my hoodie off to run it through the scanner which was odd, but it meant I just went through the machine and didn't get patted down. All my stuff went through fine as well. I plopped myself down near the gate and knitted! C (my boss) and JP (her partner in life and farming) were also on the same flight and I got nervous when the plane started boarding and they weren't there. C texted my a few minutes later saying the person in front of JP had gotten hung up in security and he was stuck, so I got on the plane and they got on just as the plane was getting ready to leave, the last on.
I got the window seat which I like, lots of looking out the windows at the scenery. I read, knit, dozed off, ate some of my travel snacks. The plane went to Chicago Midway, which I think isn't the real Chicago airport but since we were just getting on another plane, that was fine by me. We had an hour and a half between our flights, so we grabbed food in the airport.
Next flight we got on, I opted to sit with C and JP and they like sitting near the front so they can get off quicker, so I wasn't in the window seat, so I ended up bored out of my mind about halfway through the flight. I only dozed briefly. We arrived in Portland on time and somehow after 8 hours, it was still morning. Time zones and flying is so weird. I did really really like the Portland airport. It was so quiet even with all the people. They have carpet and wood all over the place and it was really nice. Walked for genuinely a mile though. The southwest flight went into the furthest docking station in the long wing and then it was another half mile of walking to get to the rental place. If you have mobility issues that make long walks hard, get a wheelchair because it felt like we walked forever.
Then we got the rental car and went to Old Town Portland for lunch. C and JP dithered on food places far more than they should have and finally we sat down in a dumpling place where I made the mistake of actually asking about gluten free stuff. Basically nothing but broccoli chicken was the best option. Why put it on the menu to ask about gluten free options if you aren't going to offer any options? Bizarre. I had the broccoli chicken. ew broccoli but it wasn't the worst doused in whatever sauce they put on it, which was absolutely delicious. We wandered around a little after lunch, but that area of Portland was fairly depressing. There was a lot of homeless people, who clearly weren't getting help in any real way. And obviously destroying people's camps just makes the problem worse but maybe try things that actually help people? I don't know, it was just sad.
Then we headed down to Corvallis. We passed so many hazelnut groves. SO MANY. They were in flower, so not particularly beautiful, but it was really cool to see the scale of the fields compared to the northeast and to be appalled that so many of the hazelnut groves were bare ground under the trees, not even grass strips between rows. I guess flooding is just fine to them. The fields with grass strips definitely seemed to have less pooling of water from the big storms they had so. We found the airbnb C got and it was basically a MIL apartment attached to a house. It was pretty nice (despite my feelings about airbnbs, way better than a hotel and apparently cheaper). I had a work zoom to help with at 6:30 normal time, 3:30 west coast time, so I hopped on that while C and JP went and wandered around and apparently became enamored with safeway and picked up snacks. I have no idea. My current phone did switch time but my atom L didn't which was actually useful for tracking what time it was back home. I simply couldn't do it for some reason.
C and I went for an evening walk to the park to look at the river and to stay away until 7pm because we were all so tired. On that walk, I told her about my leaving soon and she basically said she knew something was up. We got back and she mentioned it to JP and he also said, oh we knew something was up.I am not subtle apparently. It was good though, we talked about what plans were and stuff like that and they were pretty enthused that I was doing it. Whew. Big relief for the rest of the week to have the most fraught conversation turn out so well. Then we crashed.
We all got up between 5 and 6am and turns out the airbnb people had stocked the fridge with stuff, so I got yogurt and granola for breakfast and was quite happy. We hit the road to the coast! We only had an afternoon meeting Wed, so the coast it was. We went straight west of Corvallis to Newport, which only took an hour and we went winding through the mountains which were beautiful but all tree farms, which blew my mind on how steep the mountains were! It was pretty when all the trees were in a younger group and the whole section was perfectly uniform shorter than the rest. Neat but weird!
We hit up multiple beaches once we were there, C had opinions on good beach walking and finally we ended up at Yaquina State Park, right between the bay and the water and it was a delight. We wandered out onto the jetty and got to watch some boat drama and seals. Absolutely gorgeous weather the whole week too.
After this, we went and got lunch at a brewery nearby, and they had deep fried cheese curds which were delicious and came with a sweet dipping sauce which was mindblowing. I got chili and it was slightly too spicy for me but I got through half of it. Then we went back to the airbnb. JP wasn't coming to our afternoon meeting, so C and I actually got the bikes that the airbnb offered and biked to the campus conference center. I hadn't ridden a bike in like ten years, so it was an adventure for me. Only a mile though and really really flat. Meeting was about the grant, so we all met and set up another meeting for the field trial team to meet again so we could finally get protocols hashed out. We also met the project manager for the grant, who is an annoying person. She is nice, but in a way that feels, I don't know, insecure or attention seeking? The vibes were weird. Also sometimes she inserted herself into the actual grant discussion when she didn't have the expertise on the thing she was talking about. She also is completely incapable of adding me to the email list, C had to keep forwarding things to me. Moot point now.
We went out to dinner that night at a place that had very good celiacs protocols, so the server actually warned me that the fries were beer battered. my standards are so low. I got tortilla chips instead with my burger. It was tasty and good to actually talk to people in person. I feel for the person from the next state over from us, this his first foray into vegetable seed production on behalf of his supervisor and it is a big jump. He's worked in grains and dry beans, but the nuance is hard. He's not far though, so my guess is he'll be coming to use equipment and such.
Next day we headed to the conference center. There was a bus tour and an intellectual property session, and when I had signed up, the bus tour had been sold out. But they added a second bus and the organizer at the meeting said I should hang out and they might be able to squeeze me and a couple other people in if there were no shows. And I got on the bus! Same bus as C and JP and absolutely we got so lucky and got the good bus driver. The other bus apparently got stuck at one of the farms in the mud an hour and a half from campus and our bus driver had to go get them and they got back at 8:30pm. yikes. But the farm tour was excellent, we went to OSU's organic plant breeding facility, the USDA GRIN clonal plant repository (they already cut 1/4 of their workforce with current pressure), a seed producing farm and a small seed company. Excellent day. I made small talk with my seat neighbor the whole time, which was fine but I was exhausted by the end of the day. We got food that night at the most hole in the wall mexican place that we possibly could have found. It was so delicious.
Next day was the first day of the conference. We biked in, our hands were so fricking cold so we didn't repeat that. Excellent sessions. Food was not labeled well in the lines. They would simply put the general menu on the end and you had to ask the servers about food for dietary restrictions and then go to that specific line after waiting in line for 10 minutes. I didn't know this and just left the line as soon as I looked at the menu at the end and it didn't say anything about any of that and went and got food elsewhere. Why wouldn't you say that! The field trial team met after lunch and I was informed of this then by C. Arg. Dinner was labeled with little tags, so I was able to eat cheesy noodles with ham and carrots. Apparently C and JP were unimpressed by the food. I was just happy it was mostly adequate although the breakfasts were absolutely crap for some reason.
Saturday, everyone was tired. We attended one session that was uhhh questionable in terms of plant breeding vs production and mostly gave up on that. I walked to the river for ice cream. Super J's. Absolutely amazing chocolate ice cream, highly recommend. I encountered the food robots in this walk, which are hilarious. They only work on campus, they go mostly walking pace with most slowing down a lot at turns and road crossings and they stop if a person is within five feet of them. I can't imagine they work well when campus is full (spring break was happening I think) so like, why bother.
I bailed on the last Saturday session and walked back to the river. C and JP had already gone to a brewery so I sat along the river and ate a second ice cream until they were done. Strawberry jam ice cream. Tasted exactly like jam and the texture was excellent although it wasn't as good as the chocolate, but that's because I like chocolate more. We went to a different Mexican place that night and I got tamales and it was delicious. We went to bed right after getting home.
Yesterday, we got up at 2am and hit the road for the airport. The ride back was much less interesting in the dark. Flights home were good except the very end where there was some high winds and the plane was bouncing around a lot, but it was fine. It was 22F with 5F wind chill and I was so glad I left hat, coat and gloves in my truck so I could put those on while I waited for my truck to warm up.
Overall, an excellent trip and Oregon is a beautiful and fun place to visit. We had five days of gorgeous weather, lots of walking and biking around town. A couple people asked me if I wanted to move there and lol absolutely not?!? there's no real winter, not okay and also we hit the nicest possible time to be there, I'm sure it's far more gloomy most of the time. I packed pretty well, wish I had brought one more hoodie since my one got really gross and the other was big fluffy, the hoodie I made so it usually doesn't get worn out of the house. So if I had swapped big fluffy for a different one, I would have been happy. I got a lot of knitting done on my sweater, the sleeves are now half done I'd say and it went through security fine, which my spindles might not have.
I'm taking today off work and I'm really tired. We were tired all week but mostly due to all the stuff we were doing rather than time zone adjustment. We'll see how much sleep I get in the next week or so, but I should be able to adjust. It was a nice break from reality and now that I'm home, things are going to move quickly.
no subject
You have given me a very amusing mental image of someone in airport security trying to decide if they think hitting someone over the head with a drop spindle would be effective.
Here's hoping the tired goes away before the quickly hits.
no subject
Still tired but busy day today is over so hopefully sleep will be good the next few days.
no subject
Oregon isn't that gloomy, or wasn't the year I lived there; and the mountains do get winter weather.
That is the thing about places like California, it is so easy and quick to get to any number of completely different settings. From San Francisco, (average rainfall about 17 inches, no snow, almost no freezing ever. Lots of ocean access.) An hour's drive can put you in: Oak Savanah, North Coast Redwoods, South Coast farms that specialize in cabbage on soils that are completely different from North Coast soils. 2 hours can put you here at the Ranch, average rainfall 35 inches. 3.5 hours puts you at 7,000 feet in the Sierra Mountains. ~5 hours puts you in Death Valley. That same 5 hours could take you north through our Central Valley with its rice farms to the Oregon border and the high desert going to the east, or put you far into Nevada's deserts.
no subject
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I’m glad that C and JP were understanding of your plans to leave as well as your food needs. Congrats on having an AirBNB host who was on the ball with stocking the refrigerator. Bummer about the buffet lines, but yeah I’m not surprised.
no subject
It was good to travel with them, they're very chill people and we'll definitely stay in touch when I leave. Ugh buffet lines are the bane of my existence except when it's the indian restaurant buffet and then it is heaven