Went through my morning routine, then joined Suzanne for breakfast. John was out on his routine morning walk. John is quite athletic and fit, and has done several marathons. I remember watching John on the Camino and being impressed by his pace and stamina. Suzanne is also very active and fit, and when I see the mountains and the hills they hike around here on a regular basis, it is impressive. I'm not sure I could begin to keep up with them. They exude such positive energy in everything I have seen them do. Great role models.
After breakfast, Suzanne took Randy and I for a tour of the inside of the house. The house is tastefully decorated to reflect reminders of their travels and places they have lived overseas through the years. There are also many photos of family, past and present. Suzanne recounted the history of how they came to find the house, and all the renovations they had made. Described the design planning process, and the fact that John has done a lot of the work on the house himself. As with the outside projects, the scope and quality of John's work was impressive. An example of John's cabinetry design is in the attached photo.
John and Randy loaded up the truck for the drive to Eugene. When originally planning the bike ride, we had had some difficulty figuring out how to get from Ashland to Eugene, and Suzanne offered to have them drive us to Eugene. In reality, she offered in order to keep us an additional night in Ashland. It is always nice to be wanted, and we readily agreed to stay another night in such a beautiful place with this engaging couple.
The trip to Eugene took about 3 hours. More fun conversation. Suzanne and I sat on little jump seats covered with pillows in the "back seat" of the cab. Upon arrival in Eugene, we found a cafe for lunch where we could sit outside and keep an eye on the bikes. I had that kind of feeling where you know something good is coming to an end, and you are sort of prolonging the moment.
Suzanne and John then dropped us off at the house where Randy's friend Nancy lives, and we said goodbye.
I had arranged to stay with my friends Maxine and Bob while in Eugene, and I waited at Nancy's house for Maxine to come and pick me up. I first met Maxine and Bob four years ago when I stayed with them while on the Transamerica bike ride. Maxine and my good friend Nathalie (co-founder of Truth Be Told) were childhood friends in Houston, and Nathalie asked them to put me up. I felt an immediate connection with Maxine and Bob, and the time we spent together was one of the most special experiences of the 2012 Transamerica ride for me. We had all sorts of interesting conversations, and shared a common point of view on most everything. And I felt as though I had found a sort of spiritual soul mate in Maxine.
Maxine, Bob and I spent the rest of Saturday catching up and engaging in more of those conversations I enjoyed so much on my last visit. More or less picked up where we had left off. I also reconnected with Hermes and Julian, and made new friends with Ralu (spelling?) and, most importantly, Bean the cat.
We went out for dinner at a restaurant called Cornucopia, where I had a delicious Asian Oriental Chicken Salad. Then we returned home and I fell into bed exhausted, but feeling extremely blessed and happy after a very full day.
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