Awake

FreeRice: Addiction with a Conscience

Not sure if that's the best title for this post. But a little healthy vocab quiz addiction could mean rice for the hungry.

FreeRice.com declares:

For each word you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger

A nice idea.

Thanks for the tip, Alex!

Ashland Update

So Amber Himes Massage, LLC is up and, well, strolling through the Fall season here in lovely Ashland, Oregon. Here are a few highlights:

• I (Amber Himes) am now doing chair massage at the Ashland Family YMCA on Tuesday evenings from 5-7pm. It's been a very positive experience so far. (Last night was my 3rd week.) I've had 2-3 clients each week and have been meeting some very nice people as well.
• Chair massage has continued to be a popular choice for clients of Abbinito. It's been fun to see men and women of all ages experience massage—some for the first time. One person has no health insurance and has lived with an untreated injury for over a year. It seems that 15 minutes of chair massage is his health care plan for the time-being.
• I'm working on perfecting my salt glow technique and am looking forward to adding it to my menu of services at the salon.

Well that's all the news that's fit to type! Happy Wednesday from sunny Ashland!!

Salvaging Daylight in the Great Outdoors

While Candace is waxing poetic about her divine design for a 3rd floor master bathroom on the TiVo and Roomba is busy collecting dust bunnies from underneath my bed and the banana bread is baking in the oven, I thought I'd post a bit about my outdoorsy weekend.

The Medford Mail Tribune has a new section of the paper totally devoted to the great outdoors that comes out every Thursday. It's fabulous and this week's "hike of the week" was Boundary Springs, the dramatic source of the Upper Rogue River. I recruited my cousins Drew and Kelly for a hike for Sunday.

About Boundary Springs. Don't picture bubbling spring gently emerging from the ground; picture water bursting forth from the rocks. It was originally thought to be the Great Leak of Crater Lake, but it's not. The Rogue's it's own thing.

Unfortunately, I will have to settle for guidebook descriptions because we started too late in the afternoon due to some business my cousin Drew had to take care of and as we began to hike, we realized it would soon grow dark and that we wouldn't be able to make it out before it did. Drew and Kelly turned around before I did (I'm a bit stubborn) but I turned back about 15 minutes later and arrived back at the truck just as the sun disappeared into the horizon. Here's a picture of the sun sinking behind the trees in the forest about a 1/4 mile before I got back to the trailhead.

The trailhead to Boundary Springs is a Mt. Mazama (Crater Lake Rim) viewpoint and I did manage to get a picture of it just as the remaining rays of sun skimmed the tops of the trees. It was beautiful clear day but we should have allowed 3-4 hours to make it to the springs (in daylight). As this was the last weekend before it's likely to snow, I'll just have to look forward to a summer hike next June.

The weekend continued into the rest of the world's work week and today Drew, Kelly and I took the cruisers (and a mountain bike) out for a ride along Bear Creek from Talent toward Ashland for about an hour. It was another beautiful sunny afternoon and riding felt great. The weather has been really delightful down here.

Next weekend, I'll break out my newly acquired 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon and try out a 3 or so mile loop around Jacksonville (just 2 miles from where I live now with my grandpa), weather permitting. (Rain is forecast. Shocking, I know.)

Well the banana bread is out of the oven, Roomba has returned to Base, and another recorded episode of Devine Design has been watched and unceremoniously deleted. I guess it's time to sign-off.

Happy Monday from beautiful Southern Oregon.