Sunday, October 23, 2011

Late Hours and No Sun in the Pacific Northwest

As most of you know, Jim and I are morning people.  In his “other life”, Jim delivered bread and never broke the habit of getting up early.  Even now he gets up between 4 and 6 a.m.  I get up about 6 - 7 a.m. 

Usually we are in bed about 9-10 p.m. after the evening news.  Well, that can’t happen out here in the Pacific Northwest.  Heck, prime time TV shows don’t even start till 8 p.m.!  So the news doesn’t come on till 11 p.m.  So that being the case, does that mean we sleep in? Oh, contra.  We still get up at our usual time…we just get less sleep.

I’m also a news junky, as some of you know, which I think is funny because I use to criticize my father for always having a news station on the television.  Now I’m just like him.  Some people put on music to break the silence - I put on CNN or MSNBC.  But even I get news overload when out here the news starts at 4 p.m. and goes on till 7.  That leads into the various “entertainment” shows like Inside Edition and ET, before the prime time shows begin. Unfortunately for us, most of our favorite television shows don’t come on till 10 p.m. and by then Jim and I dozing in our chairs in an attempt to stay up.

Besides sleep deprivation we are also “suffering” from SUN deprivation.  Now, remember, we lived in Alamosa, Colorado, whose nickname is “the land of the cool sunshine”, with some 350 days of sunshine each year….the “cool” part is because it can get pretty darn cold in the winter, like -30 to -40 degrees.  So we were use to lots of sunshine and probably took it for granted, assuming we’d see the sun every day.  Not so here.  We know here we are less likely to see the sun on any given day. We just weren’t prepared for the affects the lack of sun would have on us. We never realized we needed the sun so much.  The lack of the sun definitely makes us feel gloomy and depressed.  And it doesn’t help that it mists or rains every day here on the Oregon coast, which keeps us inside a lot.

So Jim and I have decided we are going to quickly see the few additional things we want to see in Oregon and then move on to California and hopefully on to more sunshine and happier moods.  The truck goes in tomorrow for new fuel injectors and hopefully ends our problem of not being able to restart the truck after it has been driven for a while. We’ll get the truck back on Tuesday or Wednesday and then we’ll move to Lincoln City and meet up with The Mossman’s and go on from there.

Remember, you are loved.

2 comments:

  1. Bobbie, the weather forecast for Sacramento is fabulous - sunny and in the mid-70's. It is a great time of year to visit, and the leaves will be changing along the river soon. Get down here!

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  2. It has been said that they build high bridges there to give people a place to jump from after several months of cloudy weather.

    The cloudy weather was one of the reasons i left the Northwest for the arid southwest. It always seems better to have dust in my eyes then mud on my shoes.
    But when it is clear the scenery is nothing but astounding. There are many shades of green and they all exist on the coast.
    Lincoln City is great and if there is a storm in the Pacific the waves are something to behold.
    I hope we can meet with you folks once in
    AZ. We stay south of PHX a few miles.

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