Daily Didactic
Our day started with our second very comfortable awakening in Newberg. Sadly, Alan had to go to work and left sometime before dawn. Michelle, SuperMom, was teaching at vacation bible school and had a number of other people's children downstairs by the time we awoke. We gathered ourselves and, after a sad goodbye, got back on the road. Goodbyes between Theresa and Michelle are always sad occasions and it is clearly about time our Oregon friends did the right thing and moved to Alaska...

We headed back through McMinnville and south toward Independence. A cousin of Brian displays art in a gallery in Independence and Theresa was eager to take a look. Strangely, there appears to be some sort of understanding that artists, museums and galleries need not function on Mondays, and it turns out the gallery we were after was typical. We walked up and down the very short and quaint main street of Independence for a bit and then headed south for a backup event, taking the very old school Buena Vista Ferry across a very narrow section of the Willamette River. Turns out ferry operators don't like to come in on Mondays either, or for that matter Tuesdays, and we settled for wandering on the ferry without guidance.

We headed on to the goal of the day, Corvallis and a guy who does work on Monday's, our buddy Todd. Todd is a one of those really smart people, with the added bonus of being a really nice guy. Todd is always good for a OSU technology tour that leaves Brian befuddled. After a series of server rooms, labs, and network infrastructure that had Brian dizzy and envious, we headed into the woods for the nearby Mary's Peak. This little adventure had a great Oregon mountain road, an amazing view of the Willamette Valley, a little hiking, and some very fun four wheel drive fire roads. We eventually descended back into Corvallis and let the our local guide lead us to dinner at a great little Mexican restaurant, followed by a campus tour with a guy who seems to have all of the keys... After a healthy mix of technology and the great outdoors, we called it a very fun day.

Daily Pictures (Slide Show)

Another peaceful morning in Newberg		Buddies
Four years later, things are recovering nicely		The back road to Independence, there may not be any other kind
Historic downtown Independence, partially closed on Monday		Theresa is not comfortable with the message to other cows
Their definition of ''open'' is a little creative		A great little ferry ride, just not on Monday
Perhaps the most impressive welcome we have had yet		We don't exactly know what it means, but it sounds important
The artistic and earthy entrance to the School of Engineering. We think.		Todd and a rack of Sun hardware. Brian wants some.
A 700 tape backup jukebox. How cool is that?		Brian's new office
UNIX humor, how cool is that?		The view in a direction Brian can't remember, from Mary's Peak
The beautiful mountaintop road to Mary's Peak		Todd and Brian in a not even vaguely posed completely impromptu snapshot
The most seriously packaged hay bales of the trip		Theresa, during our evening inspection of the OSU Stadium

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