The Evening Shadow of the Cascades

Bend, Or is nestled along the banks of the Descutes River on the edge of the high desert and at the foot of the spine of the central Cascades. Julie and I have just settled on the apartment of our choice hear near the center of down town. Our landlords promise to be interesting friends who live in the main house on the property. Sculptures and gardens cover the grounds and the duck pond is just below the finished tree house. Our apartment is a second story unit above the wood shop and gear storage in the garage. Cozy with around 600 x'. Julie and I will be doing a lot of raw food and grilling as there is only a simple 2 burner electric range and convection microwave oven. We are excited to share a warm place with each other and be privileged to use the beautiful grounds that contain our soon to be home. Julie went to interview at a goat dairy today where she was offered the job of herd manager. She is think it over and give heavy consideration to the reality of horn debudding and attrition of kids. Lots of things she likes about it though, and I'll let her tell you all of that when she takes the job! I have my resumé in at the local ski hill for teaching kids to ski! All good fun and a great way to work seasonally. I hope to hear from them soon. We are still in the van and camping at night out on the National Forest land just out of town. We are looking for a second car. Well there you have it. It sounds like we are leaving the journey for a little while and taking up the domestic life again. In many ways we hope this is so and then of course we know that the road will call to us again (although maybe not in the same way.) We are thinking of playing house for 16 months or more while we get a little grounded and squirrel away a little traveling money. Hopefully we will be able to work more fully on the self discovery stuff too as a lot of the hardship of gypsy life will slacken in the face of suburbinaty. Like the portrayal of Julia Childs in Julie & Julia, we want to know "What should I do?" And staying in one place will show us which things come up as distractions in our adult lives and which choices we make from a deeper source. At least we hope we will make the distinction. Light and love zach