Traveling and the Land of the Living Dead

Dear Friends,

I left Gold Beach last Thursday, February 28th, and traveled with my wife Alia down to Elk Grove, California (just south of Sacramento). Her 30 year old son Bryan has just returned from his tour of duty with the Army to Okinawa, Japan and we went to his Homecoming Party at his Dad’s place where he is staying at the moment. We returned Monday evening and I am now looking at the impressions the trip left me with.

We rarely leave our little town of Gold Beach (2300 inhabitants) here on the Southern Oregon Coast and when we do it is just a short trip to the next larger town of Brookings (6500 inhabitants) for some basic shopping. So this was a foray out into the ‘real world’, with Walmarts, Targets, huge Walgreens, Ray’s, Starbucks everywhere as well as the usual Denny’s etc, etc. which include tremendous parking lots, divided roads and all the rules you have to play by in order to function there – all of which doesn’t exist in Gold Beach.