The Cardwells of Eugene (9-25-05)

After my stop at Crater Lake, I drove up to Eugene, OR, to visit my good friend from college, Amy, and her family. She and her husband Mike had recently bought a house in the outskirts of Eugene, and are enjoying their escape from Minnesota with their two kids. Caulder (age 3) likes telling stories and showing off the chickens in the backyard. It took Emily (age 2) a little while to figure out the whole we've-got-the-same-name--that's-weird thing. Actually it took me a while, too, and I kept telling Amy that I didn't want juice in a sippy cup, realizing too late she wasn't talking to me.

Amy has been telling me about these Contra Dances that she goes to for years, and I finally got to go with her to one. It was a lot of fun, and finally answered my question of, "What is a contra dance?" Its better to experiene it, but in a nutshell: Contra Dancing is a form of American folk dance in which the dancers form a set of two parallel lines which run the length of the hall. Each dance consists of a sequence of moves that ends with couples having progressed one position up or down the set. As the sequence is repeated, a couple will eventually dance with every other couple in the set. Contra Dancing was all the rage in 1800. Here are a couple of neat pictures that I couldn't include here due to copywright restrictions. There was a live band at the dance, and most of the sweaty guys brought multiple fresh shirts, so that was good. By the end of it I was enjoying the spins rather than gimping through them, and had met some nice folks, and I plan to do it again sometime. Thanks, Amy.

The next day, we took the kids on what Mike thought would be an easy hike in a park down the street from their house. Pretty flat, maybe a mile. It started out well. Avioded the poison oak, saw some dogs, everyone got a walking stick or two. I don't really understand kids' fascination with walking sticks, though I do remember a strong desire to tote a stick along when I was a foot or two shorter. After a while we realized that the part of the trail that Mike hadn't actually walked was quite a bit longer and steeper than anticipated. The kids were troopers, scrambling up slopes on their hands and knees until we decided we should call it quits, and go back to the car. I went ahead to get to my car on the other end (we were doing a shuttle -- seemed like a good idea at the time). After a surprisingly long vertical scramble I emerged at the top of what turned out to be Spencer's Butte. From there the whole valley was visible quite a ways below. All the more striking because it was so unexpected.

When I got back to where they had parked, the kids were exhausted. Emily had run about a mile back to the car. Really. When we got back to the house she said, "I want a really big burrito," in a very cute little kid voice. My sentiments exactly. Except maybe that I wanted a beer instead of juice in a sippy cup to wash it down.

Although Amy was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle a few days with young children, but I found the kids to be highly tolerable. That doesn't sound like much of a compliment, but it is a lot more genuine than "adorable," which, at many times, they also were. No doubt due to fine parenting.