Here it is, our last day in this paradise. Tomorrow at noon the shuttle will extract us from this place and deposit us at the airport for our flight home. It’s always such a surprise how time speeds up as the end of something pleasant nears. It’s kind of like a tether ball that winds round and round the pole, faster and faster as the tether gets shorter. All the sudden, BOOM, it stops, and you bang your head against the pole because you forgot it was there.

Then it unwinds the other direction and, as the tether gets longer, we get lulled into a false sense of security. Then it speeds up, again, spinning faster and faster until you hit the other side of your head. It’s a never ending cycle of winding and unwinding, over and over … it is my understanding that sane people have really tall poles and exceptionally long tethers so the trip is more leisurely and less traumatic at the end.

With help, and the right kind of medicinal know how, we can control, to some extent, how high our pole goes, and how long the tether is. I was thinking of getting a T-shirt made with the words “How tall is your pole?”, or “How long is your tether?”, or “How long is your pole?”, or “How tall is your tether?” I haven’t talked with Diane about that, yet, but I already know that she doesn’t like that plan. So, I won’t do it. We could, however, vote on our favorites.

Most of the time I have a short tether on a short pole making life a little jittery and quite exciting. Caffeine intensifies the experience.

In truth, my vacation ended yesterday when I ran out of imported coffee creamer. This morning I concocted a concoction of lactose free milk mixed with both white and brown sugar. It’s kind of weird, but will have to do. At least it’s the right khaki color. That’s really the most important part, you know. Taste is secondary.

While at the deli yesterday afternoon, purchasing our yoghurt con frutas y cereales for this morning’s breakfast, another guest noticed my Oregon hat and asked if I wanted to know what the half time score was to the Oregon vs. Colorado game. I said sure, then he made me guess. I said 42-3, Oregon. It was really 42-12, Oregon. I thought that was a pretty good guess. The Ducks won 57-16, so their roll continues. I don’t know how the Beavers did, or even if they played. The Beavers, for those of you unfamiliar with college football in Oregon, is the Oregon State team. The Ducks belong to the University of Oregon. The guest who told me the score went to UCLA, but he considered me an ally since we’re both Pac-12 fans.

Diane’s got the makings of a cold this morning. She’s hacking and coughing, mostly because the contents of her head are draining into her lungs. That’s not a good thing to happen. What doesn’t help is when she reads a lot because she gets emotionally wrapped up in the characters, sharing their victories and defeats, crying and laughing as the plot unwinds. She shares these moments with me and makes it necessary that I put these books on my “To Read” list, even though they are Nora Roberts novels. That’s not a bad thing … I enjoy Nora once in a while because they are just fun to read. Right now I’m reading the “The Complete Sherlock Holmes” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Ryan. It’s 3768 pages long in portrait mode, and 6727 long in landscape mode. I’m 1191 pages into it in landscape mode, and 664 in portrait mode. It’s wearing me out. I just finished “The Hound of the Baskervilles”.

It’s much later, now, 1409 to be exact. We went out on the beach at 1030, and stayed there picking up shells, wandering around, and getting more than our share of sun to the point where it began to hurt. We (I) took a colander from the kitchen utensils so we (I) could sift the sand from the shells and beach glass. It worked pretty well and I’m sure management won’t mind that a little used thing like that was put to such good use.

When the heat really started getting to us, we made our way back to our assigned lounge chairs, on which we left out towels, then took a dip in the pool to cool off. It was awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that they use a saline solution in the pools instead of caustic chemicals like bromide or chlorine. Consequently, it’s got a little salty flavor to it which I believe is intentional to cover up the fact that most people pee in the pools, even the adult pool. Maybe more to the point, “Especially” the adult pool, because it’s got a swim up bar and I’ve watched a lot of people spend an entire afternoon sitting on one of those submerged bar stools, slugging down one kind of drink or another, and never leave their seat. You’ll never convince me that there’s no way all of those folks could sit there for that long and not have to pee. Couple that with the fact that the pool water is always a bit warmer near the bar, and I believe my case is made. People pee in pools, and it’s OK because down here it doesn’t alter the chemical flavor of the water. This brings up the question about how does, like, everyone in the world, know that urine is salty? The answer, of course, is that at some point in our lives we found it necessary to taste it.

At this very point in time, we’re sitting at a table in the deli, eating our ham and swiss sandwiches, that was heated up like a panini. Here’s a picture of Diane eating here. She doesn’t know I took the picture, so I’m going to be in trouble for sure. But, that’s nothing new.

This is our big meal of the day, and only the second real meal we’ve had down here. The other one was at the restaurant in town. We actually talked about taking the shuttle back down there for another meal, but vetoed it because of the hour we’d have to spend in the shuttle. So, we opted for the deli. The other choices were two restaurants at opposing ends of the compound, one near us and the other far, far away. Too far to walk in this heat. That, plus the deli has wi-fi, a necessary piece of technology that we find to be an important aspect of our lives.

We’ve heard from sources in Western Idaho that Maryssa has signed a letter of intent to play softball on scholarship at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, Oregon. We’re happy for her, and proud of her, whoever she is. We think it’s someone Steffani and Bob know. Maybe Jim and Donna, and probably Jeff, Heather, Jennifer, Daniel, Cedric, Lydia, Jeran, Gilligan, Baylee, Jack, and Wynette, too.

Here’s one you’ll like … on the way back from the beach, we passed one of the many waterfall fed coy pools around the property, but this one had a sign that read “Please do not feed the fish tank”. I found that amusing. Feed the fish tank. They should have other signs all over the place telling people to “Don’t feed the iguanas”. Those guys are all over the place. A small herd of them hang out on the balcony near our room which bothers Diane a bit. It’s got to be hard to be an iguana because they are some homely beasts. I demonstrated to Diane that, in spite of their appearance, they are timid and will not attack unless provoked. Thankfully, we were just outside our room and Diane had the foresight to bring bandages, so I didn’t lose too much blood. I suspect the maids will be a little miffed about the mess on the floor near the elevator, though.

Time to stop, and reflect. Tomorrow we check out and fly back home so I don’t suspect I will be adding to this until we get there. You’ll all just have to wait, on pins and needles, if you wish, to find out how this ends …