Diane’s Retirement and onward to TaterTOT

 Wednesday we took another ride to Mission Coffee: a favorite Fremont destination. Not a huge number of miles, but it was fun to travel down memory lane and traverse the Alameda Creek Trail again.

Then Thursday we attended Diane’s retirement party. It was held in an outside patio of Chevy’s in Union City. It was lovely to see so many of Paula’s work colleagues and congratulate them on another year in education. The speakers, singers, and family of Diane’s all had lovely things to say naturally. What an amazing legacy Diane leaves in Fremont. Here’s a photo of Diane and her two children who flew in from Pittsburg and Denver to attend the festivities.

Friday morning we were up early to start our three day trek to TaterTOT in Kellogg, Idaho. Friday we traveled from Fremont to Weed, California where we stayed overnight at Trailer Lane Campground. Check out their view of Mount Shasta:

They also had a wonderful walking trail up to the top of their hill which afforded lovely views 360 degrees. However Paula & I decided it is much too dry here. Forest fire was on our mind. The campground owner chatted with us as we lounged in their Adirondack chairs around a fire pit. He said they’d owned it since Thanksgiving of last year, and were doing extensive renovations — septic included. (We shared our experiences at DBR on this topic.) He said he got so tired of speculators calling him asking if he wanted to sell that he set the price at $2.5 million and stopped talking with people until he had a letter of intent and proof of funding. That slowed them down, but hasn’t stopped the inquires. Should be interesting to see if he finishes his campground improvements before being bought out.

Today we traveled from Weed to Lexington, Oregon. While 389 miles doesn’t sound like a lot, it was! We traveled on all secondary roads with lots of twists, turns, mountains, and valleys. Took us 9 1/2 hours and there was rain on again and off all day long! But we arrived at the Tin Willows Sheep Dairy & Ranch, which is our Harvest Host for tonight. We got to see kittens, sheep, ducks, ducklings, chickens, guinea hens, and dogs, and we were able to walk around quite a bit. It was great to meet Sammy and Wayne who are working the farm. The farm’s owner, Terry, was taking her first summertime vacation away from the farm in years to attend a wedding.

Harvest Host sites allow members to stay overnight for free, with the understanding that the member purchase wares from the host site. We will enjoy the sheep’s milk yogurt sweetened with local honey tomorrow, and some lovely cheese that is made from the sheep milk in Centralia, Washington. And we purchased some lamb sausage that I can’t wait to try. Interesting thing about the milk for the cheese. They freeze it in large tubs to make a large brick, and then the bricks are sent to Centralia. Very cool! 🤪

Check out our photos of the farm:

Tomorrow we drive the last 300 miles into Kellogg for TaterTOT. Can’t wait to see everyone. We have friends we only see at TOT, so it’s great to be able to do this event again. Everything has been put on hold for two years as we’ve all been dealing with Covid. While Paula & I will still be careful, it’s nice to know that we’re all vaccinated and boosted. Fingers crossed that’s enough.